#thenamesh

"Thena," Ajak chided her more directly. She bunched up closer to her, gathering her long, blonde hair behind her to run her fingers through it. "This wedding will be a joyous occasion."

"I have offered no complaint," Thena pointed out in her defense. She let Ajak braid her hair halfheartedly. "What Sersi desires, I will carry out."

"I know you have your reservations about it," Ajak continued. Was she even listening to her? "I would be lying if I said I didn't."

That made Thena turn. She raised her eyebrows, although Ajak just kept playing with her hair, and then fussing with her white saree.

"But you have to let your kids make their own mistakes," Ajak tittered. When she had gone from viewing them as her team to her children Thena was unsure. "Not that I think this is a mistake."

It certainly sounded like that argument could be made. But the Warrior Eternal waited; Ajak was not always this forthcoming. Rather, when she was, she wasn't always quite this honest.

"Maybe I don't like the idea that this is...somewhat early." Thena wondered how something unplanned could be early. Sometimes Ajak would say such things, though--things that made her sound more knowing than one could possibly be.

Thena thought of asking, but she would honestly rather listen to Ajak's free musing than offer her own thoughts.

"But this wedding is happening," Ajak resolved, perhaps for the both of them. She wound Thena's hair over her other shoulder, undoing the work she just completed. "And it is a good thing."

If Ajak said so. Thena set aside her flowers, at least.

"Have you spoken to Ikaris?"

The Warrior Eternal wasn't sure what she could possibly have to say to him. They didn't have much to say between them at the best of times, and he certainly would not appreciate being told he was unbecoming as a groom.

"I asked Gilgamesh if he had any advice for him."

"Gil?" Thena blurted right out before she could stop herself. She blinked at the other woman, who was doing a fine job of concealing her reaction (for once). "What would he have to say?"

Ajak shrugged, feigning some innocence. "I thought maybe he would have some advice. You know Ikaris--he's not the most tactful, and he can't voice a feeling to save his life."

Thena was still astounded by the thought of Ajak asking Gilgamesh to offer Ikaris some sort of wisdom. How would he advise him? Pulling his head out of his ass was the only thing Thena ever thought to say to him, and he never took it well when she tried.

"But Gil, well, you would know."

"I would?" Thena asked, again voicing her thoughts before they were even fully formed.

Ajak looked at her with her big, wide brown eyes. "Well yes! You know how sweet Gilgamesh is at heart--how attentive and patient he is. I thought maybe he could be a good example of the sort of devotion a marriage requires."

"Gilgamesh," Thena paused, not entirely sure where she was going with that. She had never considered what Gil really thought of the whole marriage business. She had offered her derision at the thought of any of them - eternal and ageless beings by human standards - subjecting themselves to menial vows and ceremonies.

She supposed she hadn't exactly waited for his input, or even asked it.

"He's kind, warm, and he understands what it takes to make a partnership work," Ajak continued on, as if they were - in any way - having the same conversation. "Ikaris needs that."

Well, yes, he did. But Thena shook her head faintly, determined to anchor the conversation in reality again. "Ajak, what did you say to him?"

She seemed surprised by the question. But something about her dumbfounded little pout made Thena squint. "I just said that it would be a kind thing to do to offer some words of wisdom. Brotherly advice--man to man, as humans might say."

But human men were not Eternals, Thena argued mentally. They could never understand what it meant for an Eternal to bind themselves to another. It was no mere lifetime but rather an untold number of them. It would be easier for a human to conceptualise an affair ongoing hundreds of years, Thena thought.

"He didn't seem all that keen on it."

Thena eyed Ajak again. "What does that mean?"

The petite woman put her palms to her knees and sighed (a little dramatically). "He didn't seem to think it was a good idea. I thought maybe it would be a nice way for them to bond, but Gil just said he didn't think Ikaris would get it."

Thena didn't think he would either.

"I said Ikaris deserved at least a little credit, no?" Ajak asked, and then posed the question directly to Thena. "He did go to the trouble of asking. And he knew Sersi would want to abide by the human traditions here."

Thena was also surprised by that. But it wasn't that she was surprised Ikaris had agreed to Sersi's desires. She was more surprised that he had indeed proposed the marriage--the human tradition itself.

"Gilgamesh had the same expression you do, now."

Thena wasn't exactly surprised by that. It wasn't that she and Gilgamesh were so similar. She was painfully aware she was probably more like Ikaris than she would ever desire to admit. But rather, she and Gil thought in similar patterns, maybe. They understood one another, and so their agreements were always smooth and easy between their two wavelengths.

Ajak feigned another sigh that even Kingo would find a little much, Thena mused. "Just too different, I suppose."

"Indeed," Thena input aloud for the first time in several minutes. Ajak brought up some interesting points, no matter how astonishing or expected.

"Different ways of loving."

"What?" Their Prime certainly could be confounding, the Warrior found. It wasn't that she and Ajak were radically different, in action or in thought. They didn't always agree or come from the same intention, but Thena had no qualms with their Prime as a person.

"How they love--how they express that love," Ajak motioned with her hands as she said it, as if gathering something ephemeral around her to then thrust it further out into the world. Thena watched the motion. "You know what I mean."

She kept insisting that, and Thena found herself disagreeing with it more and more. No, she didn't know how they loved, or expressed that love. She didn't know the first thing about it, and she didn't know why Ajak would think that she did.

Ajak finally looked at her again, but didn't give any indication that she could recognise Thena's befuddlement. "How does Gil greet you in the morning?"

What kind of question was that? Thena thought about it, and the daily motions of eternity blurred together in her memory. How did Gilgamesh greet her every single day? What about on abnormal days? If they were on or off watch, he would wait for her to strike up conversation if she so desired. If she made no attempt, he would simply soak up the silence with her. If they were merely crossing paths in the halls of the Domo or Babylon or anywhere else, he would likely offer a simple smile, perhaps a 'hey' or a wave. It was nothing extraordinary.

And if he were cooking a morning meal, then she would come to him. She would enter the kitchen, and he would allow her to, even though that was his territory. He would let her linger, observe, smell, sometimes even taste.

Gilgamesh wasn't an event within a day, he simply was part of the day itself. He was ingrained into her experience of every day to the point that experiences happened around him, if anything.

"What do you talk about?"

She wasn't much of a talker. But Gilgamesh always accepted that about her. Even as someone who enjoyed a rousing story or idle chat, he never dragged her into it unwillingly, or unwittingly. Although it didn't mean she needed something significant to speak with him. Often times she would trade words of minutiae with him. Sometimes he might ask her opinion of something that happened, or would come to happen. Sometimes she asked him. It wasn't anything so strenuous.

"How would you describe your partnership?"

She wasn't sure that was the word she would use. They were partners in battle, true. No other matched her as evenly, as perfectly, rounded her edges and filled in blank spaces (few as she had, being the Warrior Eternal of course). They didn't need training or words or bonding to establish it. They simply worked together. It was the most natural thing in the world when they were fighting together, back to back, shoulder to shoulder, her blades, his fists. Even when he was launching her in the air, it was seamless and always executed without a second thought.

She trusted him implicitly, and she wasn't sure she would say that about many of her other teammates.

Ajak relented in her rhetorical questions. "You see?--that was what I was hoping Gil could talk about with Ikaris, given this wedding."

No, that did not clarify anything, as far as Thena was concerned. Her partnership with Gilgamesh had nothing to do with the wedding looming over them all by the day. It was so different, in fact, that the Warrior almost felt a little miffed by the comparison. She and Gil were nothing like Ikaris and Sersi.

Their relationship was different, their dynamic was different. Ikaris and Sersi were something else entirely, and Thena didn't hold that against them. She didn't understand what made them what they were, by any means. But Sersi had somehow come to love whatever existed under Ikaris' cold shell and thick skull. Ikaris wasn't exactly charismatic but Sersi's infatuation had been plain to see.

Thena could remember seeing it in its early stages and lamenting the idea of one's core being shifted so sharply. The dulling of instincts, the loss of awareness of one's surroundings. It was a deadly weakness, as far as the Warrior saw it. She never faulted her sister for not being a Fighter, but marrying one would not help either of them, in her coldest opinion.

She was always aware of Gil. His whereabouts, how close or far he was. It didn't take any extra strain of her senses, it was like a constant in her mind. In the same way their Cosmic Energy could react to one of their own, she was always faintly aware of her partner, on some level. Even when she wasn't thinking about it. There were even times when she would wake in the night, and it would turn out - upon investigation - that he was getting up to go on watch, or getting back from it.

"I know, you don't see the need," Ajak voiced for her.

And while she usually didn't appreciate having words taken from her, she had to admit the Prime was correct in this instance.

"After all," Ajak waved her hand, "you and Gil don't need marriage."

Thena bristled. Again, the direct comparison between them, one pair marrying and one not. But it was comparing fruit and fish, in Thena's mind. They were far too different, far too polarizing. "Why would we?"

"That's my point," Ajak urged as if she had agreed with her outright. "You two work so well already. I just want this marriage to go smoothly for them."

Thena wasn't sure all the wishes of humanity would be enough for that. But she still didn't know why Ajak was insisting on comparing them as if they were both facing down the concept of marriage. "Do you think it won't?"

Ajak's facade dropped just for a fraction of a second. Something passed over her, making her seem less like an effervescent mother and more like the Prime Eternal Thena knew her to be. "I think they want it to."

That much was obvious. But Thena had to agree; people wanting something to be true and it being true were very different things. "Gilgamesh has expressed worry."

"Has he?" Ajak asked much more genuinely.

"He has noticed as I have how Sersi makes room for Ikaris," Thena offered in an attempt to gratify Ajak's candor. "She quiets opinions I can see her forming, holds back words she knows will conflict with his."

Ajak just watched her, but Thena knew there was an understanding there.

Thena also drew her knees up, while Ajak unfurled her own. "Gilgamesh feels strongly about this team. He desires so much to protect others, even Eternals, even from themselves."

"He certainly does."

Thena kept her eyes forward, determined not to pull at that thread, no matter how tempting. "I have given him my word that Sersi's happiness is above all else. I will voice no objections to the union."

"But will you be able to crack a smile at the wedding?"

Thena sighed, so heavily she would have no defense if Kingo were to tell her she was overdoing it. But her shoulders sagged faintly. "I did not know that would be a requirement."

Ajak just smiled at her, though, as if amused by her disagreeable nature. She went back to pulling at her clothes and toying with her hair. "Just...try."

Thena said nothing, but it seemed to satisfy the mother of the bride nonetheless. "Why are you so insistent?"

"I don't get to see this often. I want the day to go as well as it can."

They had seen plenty of human weddings in their time on Earth already. But Thena could understand Ajak's desire for the day to go well. Perhaps it would be a premonition of things to come. Or at the very least, it would be a memory cherished even if things went poorly.

"Hey."

Thena smiled reflexively, the way she might close her eyes against harsh light, or curl up against a cool breeze.

Gilgamesh hovered, "sorry to interrupt."

"Don't be," Ajak answered easily, standing and dusting off her rich blue skirts. She patted the Strongest on the shoulder as he leaned down. "I know I've been hogging her."

He just chuckled, although he was already in the spot she had occupied by the time she was three steps away.

Thena watched as Ajak strode back to where Sersi was fretting over either her hair or clothes or flowers or all three. Ajak's calming presence would soothe her sister more than her own, chillier one would.

"You're bored."

She turned away from the enigmatic woman leaving to her partner. "Are you not?"

Gil shrugged, although he made an accompanying expression that made her smile grow. "We really don't have much to do. And Ikaris doesn't exactly make for riveting conversation."

Thena tried not to find that amusing. She could imagine Gilgamesh wasting away with only the dryness of Ikaris, the sourness of Druig, and the general displeasure of Phastos. Kingo would be the only one attempting to take up the silence, and that could be its own challenge. "One could say I am the same."

"You're not."

Thena tilted her head, her hair falling away from where Ajak had twisted it. Gilgamesh spoke with such certainty about her, even when she didn't think of herself in such certain terms. He simply had decided she wasn't and would not be corrected.

He seemed to read the thoughts running through her head and tilted his head right back at her. "Quiet with you is relaxing, like taking in the world around us. Ikaris' quiet is heavier, like he's grinding up his thoughts so he doesn't have to talk about them."

The Warrior laughed at that. Gil had such a mind, imagining things her more staunch way of thinking simply didn't offer.

"So I came to find you."

In truth, she too had been missing his presence. She had become too aware of his distance while in the flowerbeds. Her mind kept wanting to hear the steadiness of his breathing, feel the warmth of him behind her shoulder, smell the lingering spices of his last home cooked meal.

She had yearned for his presence.

And it seemed he understood that too, his eyes taking in what they needed just from her smile. He sat up straighter again, leaning on his palm. "Wanna get outta here?"

She raised a brow at him. Her head twisted vaguely in the direction of her sisters, and their Prime. Her presence would be missed, if not now then eventually.

But Gilgamesh read that off her too, shrugging at the very idea. "They have plenty of help. If they really need us they'll come looking, right?"

She was quite tired of flower picking. In truth, she was tired of everything to do with this wedding, which seemed so close as to cause panic and yet interminably far away, as well.

Gilgamesh stood, brushing leaves away from his pants. He leaned down, extending his hand.

He didn't need words, and apparently she didn't either. Her hand slipped into his, and the crystal clear memory of their first day on this planet came to mind. He pulled her to her feet and she pulled her elbow to her side, bringing them closer.

He made room for her lovely white saree beside and behind her. "This is nice."

Thena looked down at the heavy silk, although her right arm was bare save a gold band around her arm. "Sersi and Ajak took a liking to it."

"Huh," Gilgamesh mused aloud beside her. He looked at his own green tunic, nothing fancy but not yet terribly worn either. "Maybe I should get some nice wedding clothes too. What do you think?"

She smiled. She thought he looked perfect just the way he was, because he looked like Gilgamesh. But she supposed Sersi and Kingo might have a different view of it. "Perhaps you should."

And the two understood from there. They would go find Gilgamesh some wedding attire, it would take up their time and also be in service of the wedding preparations.

It's a quiet day, the clouds drift over head- sparce and white.

Gil is baking, finding new hobbies in old things all the time.

The world is quiet here.

Thena has gone for a walk, she likes to do that and he likes hearing about what she's seen when she get's back.

It's like a ritual.

Everything here is like a ritual. The waking and sleeping, the weather and sun and the way nothing changes. They do the same things over and over and try to find something different every now and then.

For all of it, Gil could hate it a lot more.

He loves Thena and so all of this. . . it isn't bad. It isn't even barrable. It's just nice. It's pleasant and he looks forward to the small things.

Him, who's seen countless years and battles, who knows at least some of the secrets of the universe. . . he looks forward to the small things because she's in them.

Thena drinks beer made especially for her. . . without alcohol and if she ever knows or suspects she doesn't say.

He doesn't think she does know but just the same. . .

He looks forward to her walks and what she brings back, the lizards and animals she takes as pets, the odd piece of rock she finds. She isn't always really with him and so she see's the world in a strange way but it's still her seeing it. He knows it's still her even if it's distorted by Mahd We'ry.

His bread is baking well, not like the last few batches. He's gotten something right this time but it'll take a few more tries to know what and he has the time.

They have all the time in the world.

All the time and none of the world.

Sometimes he misses the world but it's worth it and he can't see himself doing anything else. Can't see a world without Thena in it.

He catches himself, staring off into the distance as if looking for her. He needs to be paying attention.

This is the last moment for the oven, his bread is almost done and Thena should be back soon so she'll be just in time to get a piece while it's hot.

He smiles at the thought but does focus on what he's doing.

The bread is done and he takes it out, pleased at the brown color and the heat coming from it. Pleased with the smell and the timing.

It's little things connected to little things that make it so wonderful.

Thena get's back right as it's cool enough to eat and smiles as if she knew.

He can never see that smile enough.

Eternity isn't enough.

"What have you made?" She asks. "It smells good. Like the flat bread in Sumer."

He nods. "I've used the recipe from memory and I think I finally got it right. Have a taste."

She smiles again, crisp and striking and comes, taking a bit as he tears it and hands it to her.

She puts it to her lips and eats, never losing her smile.

It's radiant.

It's so blinding.

He smiles and eats a piece himself, finally having gotten it right.

"It's good." She say's and this is what they have in their little world. Small things like good bread and blue skies.

It's enough.

The bread is good and they eat plenty, laughing and sitting back like there's some kind of hope for her. Like things aren't waiting in the wind for them both.

This is a good day. There are bad days too but today is a good day and that's what matters. That's what counts.

They're together as always and the bread is good.

Little moments matter the most under a blue sky.