i.
When you have lived as long as the Eternals have on Earth, you cannot help but notice the differences in their nature to your own. Thena, the Goddess of War and Wisdom to many of the cultures of the ancient worlds she had lived in, was strong and calloused in ways where the humans could never be. They spent thousands of years fashioning metals into blades to resemble her own which she could slice through within seconds, their features tell their years in greying hair and ageing skin. They advance and evolve, while she is stuck in time never changing.
She wonders on one of their nights in Babylon, watching as Sersi dances with young girls and Gilgamesh stares intently on the father showing his son how to prepare one of the many meals to leave their kitchen, if there is a peace to the human’s short existence. The Eternals had been here for less than a turn of the century, and had already seen the death of thousands. Yet these people continued to learn, to grow and age without fear of the passage of time.
There is a beauty to it, she suspects, that with such a short amount of time in existence you must simply enjoy what you have.
She does not get the privilege of ageing, of knowing that death is expected to your kind. She has lived for thousands of years, looking for the next battle or city they will have to protect. Never finding much to live for the way the humans do. She simply exists, waiting for time between battles to pass and an end to their mission on Earth.
She is not jealous of the humans the way they are of her strength, or Phastos’ brilliant mind and Makkari’s speed. But she lingers on the thought of having something destined at the end of her path instead of an endless existence, and the tightening in her chest seems something like sorrow.
ii.
The wedding celebrations are beautiful, children dancing in a large circle as men and women clap them on. Food is finding itself being laid out amongst those seated in preparation for the evening. There is laughter wavering the air, and an overwhelming feeling of love throughout the room. It’s suffocating, and she excuses herself for a moment.
It is not that she isn’t happy for Ikaris and Sersi, because as much as she thinks Ikaris is arrogant in his own skill, he deserves to find happiness. Sersi tethers him, gives him something to fight for outside of his unyielding faith in Arishem.
She simply feels something heavy at the sight of their happiness that makes her wish for her own. The battlefield is where she belongs, but what does she have if there is no battles to fight? No people to protect? She is Thena, Goddess of War and the best fighter of Olympia. There are no stories of her happiness or love, and she can’t help but tense at the idea that she is simply destined to be a fighter.
“You know, you’re missing out on the feast,” Gilgamesh says from behind her, before sitting at her side and looking out on the greenery of the surrounding forest.
“And now you are,” she says looking over at him. He must catch a change in her eye-line, because he turns and smiles at her.
“Eh, I would rather starve tonight than let you wallow outside by yourself.” He says, bumping his knee into her own and looking back out towards the green terrain. He made a habit of it, tracking her down when her missing presence was not gone unnoticed during celebrations. She supposed it could be contributed to his caring and gentle nature, but a smaller part of her knows that despite loving each member of their family, he has always put her comfort and reassurance before the others.
“I do not wallow.” She lets the smile break her features and sees the smile blossom on Giglamesh’s face in response. A part of her heart swells at his chuckle as he gets up to stand, offering his hand out to her.
“Goddess of War and Wisdom,” he catches her eyes and his smile grows at his own teasing of her. “May I interest you in a meal and dance?”
She grasps his hand, allowing him to aid her into a standing position. “One dance.”
He beams at her, pulling her back into the celebrations and finding them seats amongst their teammates before venturing away to grab them food for the evening. When Kingo makes a comment about the next wedding in their makeshift family belonging to them to Sprite, she tries not to tense.
iii.
She finds it curious, the way Makkari seeks her out each time she wants to try a new hairstyle. Not that she doesn’t love the girl, because she adores her. She just assumes out of the female Eternals, she would be the least approachable.
Yet she finds herself more often than not watching Makkari’s rapid hand movements as she describes the style she had seen in town that she wished to replicate on herself. Makkari’s excitement is contagious and despite Thena denying it when Kingo questions her about it, she can’t help but enjoy the time she spends doing the girl’s hair.
Coming with 5,000 years of practice, her hands make quick work of the intricate braids Makkari had requested that morning. Tying off the end of the braid, she glances at the mirror and sees the woman playing with a bracelet shes never seen before.
Tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention, she signs in the mirror’s reflection so Makkari could see. ‘Is this what you were after?’
Makkari takes a moment, turning her head and examining the braid in the mirror. Nodding enthusiastically before passing Thena the next hair tie so she could continue the next braid, Makkari rapidly signs at her reflection. ‘It’s perfect!’
They continue in silence, Makkari intently watching Thena’s hands make light work of the braid. Every now and then, Thena’s eyes catch the bracelet again and the way Makkari runs her fingers along the gold band, and her curiosity gets the better of her. Unable to sign with her hands occupied, she looks in the mirror and puts an effort into exaggerating her words. “It’s a beautiful bracelet.”
‘One of the merchants gave it to me after finding out we saved his daughter from a Deviant’, she signs back to Thena’s reflection. There is a pang in her heart at the Merchant’s acknowledgment of their protection the same way it hurts when she sees the locals shower the others in gifts and steer away from her direction. It’s not that she craves the recognition the way Kingo does, or appreciates the interactions the way Sersi does. But it hurts, the sideways glances and quieted conversations when she nears the humans.
Her nature might seek out battle, but the seclusion that comes with her reputation to these people makes her long for the connections that the other Eternals find in these people. The people of Earth only approach when she’s accompanied by her teammates, never quite making eye contact with her and always watch the subtle movements she makes as though she’s a wild animal that was never able to be tamed.
Makkari clicks her finger, bringing Thena’s attention back to the braid that sat half complete in her hand and the movements of Makkari’s hands in front of her. ‘Where did you go just now?’
“I got lost in thought,” she mumbles and forces a smile on her face, something the woman in front of her frowns at before Thena’s hands begin to catch up on the braid in front of her. Desperate to avoid Makkari’s questioning, she asks: “Do you have something to wear for the dinner tonight?”
‘I have something that I would love your opinion on.’ Makkari smiles at her, and chases away Thena’s thoughts of the humans, instead continuing the braid and watching Makkari’s continued rambling.
iv.
The rain is unrelenting, flooding streets and leaving water scattered across the uneven pavement. Somehow the weather doesn’t diminish the spirit of the local children, instead encouraging them to chase one another through the stormy weather. There are two children in particular, a pair of twins that splash across a puddle in front of the entrance to the markets. Their laughter rings across the open area, the scene causing Thena’s lips to curl into a small smile.
“I don’t think anyone would dare to mention it if you wanted to join them.” Ajak appears next to her. Despite the comfort in her presence, Thena cannot help the tensing in her relaxed demeanour at being caught out in her curiousity at the children in the rain.
Thena’s gaze doesn’t leave the two children, the boy in hysterics as his sister stomps in the water and sends it in spirals around the two. They’re both absolutely drenched, something that the older people of this city frown upon, but the two are nothing but full of joy. Their happiness ripples a pang of longing deep within her chest, to look out in a thunderstorm and see herself in small children enjoying the rain.
“They’re happy.” Thena states, but it sounds more like a question to her own ears. “They haven’t seen the horrors of this world yet, the things they have to fight to survive.”
“They are children.” The other woman replies, pulling her gaze away from those playing in the rain and locking onto the blonde woman. “They enjoy the rain and are curious about the world.”
“Are they rare amongst Olympia?” Thena finds leaving her lips before she has a moment to register the words. It must take Ajak by as much surprise, given by the furrowing of her eyebrows. “Children I mean.”
“Many couples chose not to have children over the millennia,” Ajak takes time in her wording. It is as though one wrong word could shatter some imaginary glass between the two, a tension Thena feels so heavily each time she asks Ajak a question regarding their pasts. “Eternity is a long time for people like us, many don’t want to push that burden onto someone else. They are not necessarily rare, I suppose most chose not to pursue parenthood.”
“And if some of us were inclined to pursue it?” Thena asks, glancing over to the rest of her makeshift family seated at the long table. Thena wonders how many of them would clutch at the chance of parenthood if it was given to them, or how many of their loyalties would change had they found themselves with young to consider in Arishem’s decisions. She knows she would jump at the opportunity with both arms open if they had Gilgamesh’s smile and her eyes. That the mission would become secondary to her without hesitation.
“Then we consult Arishem and see where it would fit into the scheme of our time on Earth. For what it’s worth my Thena, I think you would make a wonderful mother, ” Ajak smiles at her, placing a warm hand on Thena’s shoulder and giving the spot a gentle squeeze. She must sense her gaze lingering on his form for too long, adding the small comment. “Just as he would make a wonderful father.”
She looks back out to the clearing as Ajak walks away to join their family only to be met with the two children running towards their parents in time for food to start flowing from the marketplace kitchens. Gilgamesh calls out to her, beckoning her to their table in time for their meal. She steals one more look at the twins, and makes her way to her seat next between him and Phastos.
One day, she thinks to herself as she watches Gilgamesh’s eyes crinkle and a smile bloom across his face Sprite recounts a mishap between Kingo and one of the women he thought was flirting with him. When there’s no more deviants to fight on this planet, she’ll ask him what he wants from their existence. Whether it includes her in it. Whether his eyes linger on the children in the rain and seen his own future in their playing.
One day.
v.
The worst part of her broken mind is not the episodes that tear her from reality. It’s the aftermath of her haunted visions that follow that split her open and take everything that she is from herself. She can barely tell the difference between reality and what the Mahd Wy’ry shows her for the first hours, and the soul crushing guilt of a vengeance she aimed at Gilgamesh is enough some nights for her to plead that he be done with her and take the fatal shot.
The stoic Thena, patron Goddess of Athens, reduced to nothing but a wayward weapon riddled with broken memories. She’s a broken shell of what she once was, and she mourns herself each time she leaves the clouded trance of watching Centuri-6 be destroyed again only to be met with Gilgamesh’s fortunate smile at the defeat of her episode. The memories are splintered, showing her thousands of lifetimes where they have been stuck in the same cycle on different planets, buying time for the Emergence. They are nothing more than agents in a larger scheme, simply Arishem’s puppets that have killed and killed in his name without batting an eye. She doesn’t recognise her family in her visions, where Ajak watches as Phastos engineers a wall out of thin air to border life forms away from rising gold hands cracking open the core of the planet. As Ikaris beams down thousands for resisting their control. Her beloved Gilgamesh patrolling an invisible border and beating back any who dared to cross. She sees herself unwillingly stuck in place, hands covered in red and her swords recently used.
She feels disgusted, that she so vividly sees her family in such morbid ways, that they could ever take such violent actions against those they protected against the Deviants. She cannot shake the blood off her hands, and Gilgamesh catches her reflection in the mirror as she scrubs them raw at the sink.
“Thena?” He calls out to her, and the feeling of being caught out in her own guilt causes the burning tension at the back of her eyes to break free of its restraints and trickle tears down her face. Watching her face crumble, he runs a hand along her back in a warning of entering her proximity. “My dear, it’s okay.”
Something in her breaks, forcing a choked sob to leave her throat and pushing herself into his embrace. He doesn’t hesitate, wrapping both of his arms around her and resting his lips on the crown of her head. They stay like this, entangled in the small bathroom until Thena’s sobs even out and she pulls back from him as if burnt. “I’m a burden.”
“You are anything but.” The bitter disappointment in her words is etched into his face in the shape of a frown and he approaches her again, placing one of his hands under her jaw and making sure she maintains eye contact. “You are my soul Thena, everything I am is you. So if you’re a burden, then so am I.”
Picking those words wisely to prevent her tyrant of self depreciation, she cranes her head further into his palm and clings to its small comfort and meeting his expecting eye-line. The words come out in a mumble she’s not sure he is going to understand. “It was Centuri-6 again.”
He nods in recognition, running his thumb along her cheekbone as she slowly stabilises her breathing. She’s tried her best over the past five hundred years of Mahd Wr’ry to give him a semblance of an idea of what she sees when she goes under. Painting snippets of the destruction, writing down as much as she can remember or simply trying to explain watching him obedient to the destruction of the planet. He tries to be understanding to her visions, but she knows that her splintered memories are all fiction to him.
“I’ll never know what you see in there Thena,” He brings his forehead to lean against hers and runs his hands gently across her shoulders. The physical contact is enough to regulate her breathing, and she finds a comfort on the gentle way his nose brushes her own each time he exhales. “But here? You haven’t hurt anyone for centuries. We haven’t hurt anyone for centuries. I won’t let what you see happen, not to us.”
She nods into his neck, wondering if there will ever be a time when she can slay the demons that plague her mind. Or if there will ever be a time where the cloud that floods her eyes and forces her to draw a sword will dissipate. If she could ever rest after 7,000 years of fighting.
+ i
She finds a peace in their quaint Australian cottage, surrounded by nothing but warmth and tranquility. It rattles her sometimes, that despite the shadow that looms over her head and bounds her in glassy eyes and violence, that she and Gilgamesh had made a life and home for themselves. Bookshelves lined with thousands of years of books, trinkets from their ventures across the Pacific that adorn their windowsills, the hooks of their pantry door decorated with Gilgamesh’s ‘very necessary’ aprons. They’ve spent five hundred years building this place, somewhere she could fall apart and be pieced back together.
He stands out in their kitchen, his broad frame blocking her view of the meal he had been spending the better half of the morning preparing. The air wafts with the smell of pastry and he hums away to a song that plays on the radio, swaying slightly to the song. She bites back the amused laugh, instead taking small steps towards him and wrapping her arms around his torso.
“Good morning my love,” She feels him smile, despite her forehead being pressed into his shoulder. She presses a kiss there, moving her chin to sit on his shoulder and look at his hands working the dough. “I needed to use the eggs. So pie for lunch.”
“Sounds delightful.” She presses her nose into his neck, running her hands up and down his sides. He squirms under her touch and she doesn’t hide the laugh this time. The mighty Gilgamesh, the legendary defeater of the Bull of Heaven, is as ticklish as they come and she finds a comfort in the similarities they share with the humans. “Do you have much left?”
“Just need to line the dish and bake.” He laughs, pulling away from her slightly to encourage her to stop her prodding at his sides. He turns in her embrace, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “The kettle is warm for your tea.”
She smiles, letting him go and venturing to the stove top to busy herself in making herself a cup of tea. She finishes her task in mere minutes, retreating to the dining table to watch her partner busy himself around the kitchen and adding the finishing touches to his pie.
She knows it has always surprised locals who eye the two of them in shopping isles that he is the one who adores cooking. She remembers watching the him collecting groceries only at the beginning of the week, the warrior of stature and strength reduced to nothing but a domestic man rambling about the consistency of flour as she listened mindlessly, pushing the trolley behind him and letting her gaze falling onto pre-made cake batters that she had once suggested they bought instead of putting so much effort into baking from scratch. A woman, older in her looks than Thena had smiled at them both and made comment on wishing her own husband cared so much about cooking as much as hers did. Thena however, had never been surprised by her Gilgamesh’s love for cooking. She knew he spent centuries watching human dishes evolve with a curious eye and itched to replicate them with his own hands (not that she would ever complain, as she was the one who would reap the benefits of his talents).
He places the pie in the oven, smiling to himself as a centuries old familiar smell begun to waft throughout the small kitchen. He must feel her eyes on his back, turning to face her and puffing his chest out. “You didn’t even notice my apron this morning.”
“In my defence, I did wake up to an empty bed only twenty minutes ago.” She smirks into her mug, recognising the apron as one of the first they had added to his extensive collection. “I did, in fact, technically kiss the cook.”
“Hilarious. Athens should have labelled you ‘Goddess of War, Wisdom and Comedy.’” He scoffs at her, untying the apron and hanging it next to his various others. His remark doesn’t stop his advance to her seat, leaning into her personal space. “Your words wound my poor heart.”
“Poor Gil,” she smiles at him again before leaning into him and quickly placing a peck on his lips. She loses herself in these small moments, where the Mahd Wy’ry cannot follow. The love and calm of their kitchen is something she could live in forever, where their biggest worry was using the eggs before their expiration and not the memories that plague her mind and weaponise her love towards the man in front of her. “There you go.”
“I am healed.” He laughs with her, kissing her again. “I love you, my Goddess.”
“And I you, mighty Gilgamesh.” She tells him back.
She does not take his love for granted, her place in his heart her most prized possession.