Let's turn the tables!
Sersi and Dane have the eternal/human relationship. What if Thena and Gilgamesh have this relationship? They've been married for a long time and live their lives together. But through an incident, Gilgamesh learns of Thena's true identity as an Eternal.
"So," Gil started as he took a seat next to her, among the other civilians who were caught up in the 'alien incident' and being treated by the first responders.
Thena inhaled and immediately sighed, budging over with her shock blanket over her shoulders. He took a seat beside her. She pulled the blanket tighter around her, "so."
He was used to having to guide the conversation between the two of them. Even if he'd gotten some pretty new information in the last hour. "So...you're not a wizard?"
Thena let out a faint kind of laugh, although her throat was tight. "I'm afraid not."
Gil nodded, looking down at his feet. He turned to her, looking at her hands tucked away inside the blanket. "Can you show me again?"
Thena pulled out her hand, and even regardless of the general masses mulling around, she furrowed her brows. But all that happened was a faint golden spark, fizzling as soon as it appeared. "I shouldn't have been able to do it at all."
Gil waited, as he always did, patiently biding his time as she sorted her words out the way she wanted. He was owed the explanation, of course, after witnessing her pull up her shield into her hand after hundreds of years of her powers being dormant.
"We're called Eternals, from the planet Olympia," she began. "We came here 7000 years ago on the Domo, our starship, to protect humans from the Deviants."
"Deviants," he nodded, looking around. The carcass of the beast in question was already being covered up and transported by the authorities. "That's what that thing is?"
Thena also looked over to the beast's body. "We thought they were extinct. I killed my last one over four hundred years ago, before my family parted ways."
Gil looked at her.
She fidgeted with the blanket again, "my, um, siblings."
"Okay," he said aloud more than in response to anything. It was his way of trying to talk through what he was feeling. It sounded just the same as when she would tell him she threw out his terrible smelling sourdough starter. Or when she had asked about getting a pet but only if it was reptilian. "So, you and your siblings fought these things...hundreds of years ago."
She nodded.
"So," he blinked, making a face. He was uncomfortable. "Why did you stay on earth?"
Thena looked down at her lap--at her useless, powerless hands. "We weren't called home, so we remained on the planet. But with the Deviants defeated, there was no reason to stay together for some of us."
"Some of you?" Gil asked with a frown. He had at least some of the story. He knew that she had favourites among her siblings, to say the least.
"There was something else." That was quite an understatement, even for her. She held out her hand again, still unable to get more than a few sparks. "There is a sickness you can develop as an Eternal. It's called Mahd Wy'ry."
Gil's face showed a mix of things, but she knew he wasn't entirely happy when he said, "does it give you migraines?"
Thena winced, but she knew that he wasn't saying it to worsen what was happening, or hurt her in any way. He had a right to feel deceived. Their entire marriage probably seemed deceptive given what he was learning.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, slipping his hand into the blanket to close against hers, even pressing her little fizzles of Cosmic Energy between their palms. "I'm just trying to understand all this."
She couldn't blame him, really. She squeezed his hand, their fingers woven together, as they often were. "Mahd Wy'ry degrades the powers over time. It slowly affects the ability to call upon the Cosmic Energy an Eternal possesses until they are all but estranged from it."
Gil squeezed her hand again. "You had a shield in your hand. It was gold and it looked like it was both clear and-"
Thena shook her head. "Gil, I haven't been able to do that in centuries. I don't know how I did it then."
Gilgamesh sighed, though. He pulled her hand towards him, out from the blanket until he could kiss her wedding ring. "You saved my life, hon."
That was how. Thena looked at the man - the human man - she loved, feeling as if her heart could weep. This sweet, gentle human man who had given her his whole heart was still here with her. Upon hearing she was ageless, that she was an alien and that she had powers lying dormant within her.
Thena leaned up and in, tipping her head up for a kiss. Once, years ago, this movement was completely foreign to her. But now, she was practised in it. And her husband granted her request, pressing his lips to hers.
"Hey," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers and holding her cheek. The simple word brought tears to her eyes. "Look, this is a lot to absorb. But...you're still Thena, right?"
She nodded, too teary to speak quite yet.
"Okay then," he resolved with another kiss. He pulled back enough to look at her. "So, what else do I need to know?"
Thena sighed again. Oh, her sweet, sweet Gilgamesh. Always so ready to face whatever came his way. Even the positively poisonous dinner she cooked for him on their second wedding anniversary in an honest attempt to be romantic.
"Sersi really is a humanitarian, and she helped me adjust to living as a human for the first few decades when I was on my own. And she did go north to make it work with Ikaris, but instead of being stationed in Alaska, he just...flew off, one day. None of us knew why."
Gil made a face but kept silent. He knew how they felt about Ikaris.
"Druig was most worried about my illness," she smiled at the thought of her brother. "He offered to stay with me, make sure I was safe. But in the end he agreed that I should find a way to live my own life."
Gil nodded and kissed her hand again. He was a big believer in living life the way one wanted without regrets.
"After I managed to go a few years without questions about my 'oddness' or my skin routine, I figured it was safe to venture further. I travelled some, taught languages to cover for my knowledge of things," she smiled. She always did value those years. And she could see why Sersi fell so in love with the planet at first sight.
"How did you end up here?"
"I travelled with Kingo some. I liked the heat of the eastern continents and eventually I determined Australia was a good fit for me," she concluded, looking around them. There was damage, certainly, but Sydney as a whole would recover.
Gil squeezed her hand again, "will they come? If these things were supposed to be dead, I mean."
Thena nodded. She could imagine her siblings with the same issues, at least some of them. There was no telling what it meant for them if Deviants were indeed roaming the earth again. And for them to find her here, even without her powers, they could surely find Druig in his remote commune or Sprite buried in her illusions.
"Well," Gil cleared his throat and shifted his posture. He gave her his most encouraging smile, like when he was trying to tell her that just stirring what he had on the stove would not make it explode. "Think they'll like me?"
Thena pulled him in to kiss her again. In all honesty, she didn't know what they would think of her human husband. Even the siblings with whom she was closest wouldn't call her one to share details of herself. But she held his cheek as she told him, "I love you, so they will have to as well."
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i am so unwell over this scene you have no idea
the fact that we can tell EXACTLY what eric is thinking, how he goes from realizing ariel is a mermaid to recognizing that there's a bigger thing to focus on and he'll process the reveal later, when the woman he loves isn't in danger.
how he immediately looks down at ariel and sees her expression, he sees how terrified she is, because for the past three days he's done nothing BUT learn how to read her expressions, so he knows her fears without her having to say anything, and his only thought goes to "keep her safe, keep her here, keep her close"
and can we please talk about the physical affection between these two???? how ariel's hand goes from laying on eric's chest to holding onto his shoulder, how eric goes from just kind of holding ariel up to pulling her as close as he possibly can, curling himself around her and surrounding her in his arms, fully prepared to take the brunt of ursula's power if it comes down to it. because she's his world, and he refuses to lose her again.
and eric's GLARE??? HELLO???? the man just realized that the silent girl he's fallen in love with and the girl who saved his life is the same person and he just wanted to kiss her and celebrate that but now he is PISSED and he just wants to live happily ever after so he can and will do everything he can to get that ending for him and ariel.
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