Family Dinner (and other catastrophies)
Dinner, or rather the sumptuous breakfast, judging by the time of the day, was an odd gathering this time, even for their group.
Kingo and Sprite had been the last to join the dining table, even Sersi had managed to persuade Ikaris to come out of his room and eat with them before the Bollywood star had managed to talk the former illusionist into leaving her hiding place on the roof.
Although Gilgamesh and Kingo were engaged in animated conversation about the latter's best movies and Thena, who was, for some reason, cutting her meat as if she had to stab it again to make sure it was really edible, kept offering her comments on the film she had been watching earlier, all in all it seemed to be a little more silent than usual.
Ikaris had generally become quieter when they were all sitting together and Sersi next to him was constantly looking at her cell phone as if trying to distract herself from whatever was going on in the real world around her. It was so obvious that Phastos had already asked if there was something wrong with the device and had offered to take a look, but Sersi had just smiled as if she had been caught doing something forbidden and had refused his offer, claiming that her phone was perfectly fine and that she just had to check on something.
She had placed it next to her plate afterwards but after no more than two bites of her foot, the digital communication device was already back in her hand and had captivated her attention once more.
A joke, about how strong her love sickness must be because of the physical distance to Dane, from Kingo later and the matter was already forgotten again.
Her nervousness, however, did not go unnoticed by Makkari either but she hadn't said anything so far, teaming up with Phastos in the one moment and with Kingo a second later about who had managed to overdo their welcome at Asgard back then.
"No really!" Kingo just laughed. "I distinctly remember you running after the technicians of Asgard to elicit the secret of the Bifrost from them!"
Phastos rolled his eyes. "It's a fascinating technique. And it could have brought us great benefits in so many different ways."
"If they had told you!" Gilgamesh's booming, happy laughter filled the room. "Instead, at some point the guard of the passage itself threatened you to let it be."
"Heimdal" Phastos groaned at the memory. "Don't remind me."
Sprite listlessly picked at her food while listening with only one ear. Of all those present, she was the only one who actually needed regular food intake, but despite the delicious scent, she didn't really have an appetite.
And although Gilgamesh had outdone himself once more with the roast he'd served for dinner, she still felt a little queasy. Her conversation with Kingo on the roof hadn't helped her with her biggest dilemma at the moment, quite the contrary.
She had no doubt that Ajak had her reasons for acting like she did, but the last time those reasons had literally gotten her killed. Yet, there was something inside of her that contracted uncomfortably at the thought of acting against her former leader, who had taken in after Kingo had left her back then.
When Sersi brushed off Ikaris' attempt to talk to her in order to look at her cell phone for the third in a row time without really noticing it, Sprite couldn't hold back any longer.
"Seems to be something really important," she said.
Sersi looked at her in surprise. "Oh. Yeah, that's just-"
"Your boyfriend?" she asked innocently, knowing that everyone at the table knew full well that she was anything but. "Did you talk to Ajak about that for so long before? I was wondering."
Makkari looked up from her discussion with Thena about the more or less realistic portrayal of ancient Indian weapons in Kingo's film at that.
Sersi's heartbeat suddenly accelerated massively. Her heart had been beating pretty fast all evening, but the speedster had assumed it was some private matter she was discussing with her boyfriend on the cell phone. Now, however, the vibrations in her heart muscle had only gotten so much stronger after Sprite had mentioned Ajak, not because of the human man she was dating and Makkari frowned.
What about Ajak? she signed.
In the meantime, the other conversations at the table had slowly died down and all of a sudden, Sersi was the center of attention, which made her visibly nervous.
Her eyes darted back and forth across the table, her phone and whatever had been so important just a minute ago suddenly completely forgotten.
Thena sipped her tea. "Is everything ok?"
"Yes!" the transmuter said, a little too fast and a little too loud to be really convincing, quite the opposite of Thena's own calm voice.
Kingo, sitting across from her, frowned and raised an eyebrow, but Sersi shook her head.
"Yes, it's all good. Ajak just had a few questions."
About what?
She smiled and for some reason she couldn't quite explain herself it made Sprite sick. "I wanted to see where you are." she said casually, stabbing her fork into the potato mash she had created on her plate, and Sersi's smile disappeared. Her face fell as realization hit.
"I heard some things." Sprite continued unperturbed. "Things about Druig-"
"Sprite!" Sersi interrupted her but it was already too late for that.
The mention of that one name had been enough. Makkari jumped out of her chair as if bitten by some invisible beast and was out of the kitchen in a flicker of golden energy. None of the others even had to wonder what and where her destination was.
"Well." said Gilgamesh. "I guess nobody wants another helping then?"
It took Makkari no more than a split second to reach the inside of the Domo from the kitchen in Ajak's farmhouse.
For others it would have been just a blink of an eye, for her it could have gone faster, but maybe that was because she was buzzing with excitement.
She had waited for hours for Ajak to finish her checkups on Druig and for him to finally join her again, so, as soon as Sprite had mentioned him, she had taken it as her cue that she was finally done waiting. If he was to slow to join them at dinner then she would simply come to him.
She entered the spaceship's infirmary as soon as the massive automatic doors swung open but as soon as she did she was immediately overcome with a horrible feeling that made her freeze on the doorstep for a moment.
The walls of the spaceship had always blocked everything that invaded them from the outside and everything that was happening inside was hidden from the outside world as well, that was what made it a safe space for them, a sanctuary on this planet.
These walls had kept the Eternals safe from natural disasters, radiation, and whatever else the environment could throw at them, and, by doing so, had also always prevented Makkari from feeling any form of vibration through the walls. And so, of course, she had not previously been able to feel the heartbeats that belonged to the people in the room.
Ajak looked at her in surprise, obviously she hadn't expected her presence.
"Makkari" she said but the speedster didn't pay any attention to her.
In a golden flicker she shot past Ajak and stopped in front of the treatment platform where Druig still lay as if asleep.
Ajak said something but Makkari ignored her. She only had eyes for him.
The vibration of his heartbeat was noticeably weaker than it should have been and was way to easily drowned out by her own nervously pounding heart and Ajak's steady heartbeat.
He was still fast asleep and something told her that that was very, very wrong.
Makkari touched his face, his skin was still warm against her palms but it felt not as alive as it was supposed to, as it still had mere hours ago. Her hands wandered over his beautiful face, stroked his bangs away and pressed against his forehead. He looked so pale. Her Druig had always been pale, but now his skin was almost ashen. She would even go so far to call it greyish against the background of the pedestal had she been brave enough to even think such a though. The whole situation was maddening. It frightened her.
What worried her the most, though, was that his mind wasn't reaching out to hers like it usually did when they were in the same room or even more or less close to each other. Druig was always there, a gentle presence in her mind whose absence caused a deafening silence in her head, a feeling of loneliness even though he was here, right in front of her. That wasn't normal at all, anything but.
Her hands darted over his body in a sudden rush of dread, searching for an injury she might have overlooked before, anything that might explain his condition, but she found nothing.
She looked up at Ajak in panic, What happened to him?!
"Brilliant question" came a voice from the door and both women turned to it's source. Makkari's fingers never left Druig's face, her thumb stroking his cheek as if in comfort, only she couldn't tell if it was for him or for herself.
The others gradually entered the room, led by Kingo, who must have followed her first, and Sersi, who looked suspiciously guilty. She shared a look of silent exchange with Ajak that Kingo didn't miss.
"What's going on between the both of you?" he demanded.
"I would like to know that, too." said Phastos, who appeared behind him and little by little their entire family crowded into the room. "I figured something was wrong when you asked me for those scans, but I think it's time to enlighten us, don't you think?"
Ajak closed her eyes for a moment as if she had to collect herself. This was not going the way she had hoped, not at all.
"I didn't want you to find out like that." she finally said. She took the time to look at each of them directly and lingered particularly long with Sersi, who pressed her lips together and quickly turned her gaze to the ground instead of meeting Ajak's eyes.
"She didn't tell them."
Sprite, who had previously stayed behind the others and very much in the background, was suddenly the center of attention much like Sersi had been before at the dinning table. Her hands were stuffed into the pockets of her jeans. Her shoulders were tense, but her gaze was determined in a way that betrayed her true age. "It was me. I came to check on you and heard you guys before."
"That was not your place, Sprite."
"It's not your place to keep it from us." she shot back.
Eternal or human, she knew everyone present intimately and considered them family, and while Druig was anything but her favorite person, he was still her brother in a way.
That being said, they had all suffered bitterly from Ajak's secrets before, and while Sprite respected and loved her no less than Sersi or the others did, she couldn't watch them repeat the old patterns over and over again.
"Tell them." she demanded, despite Ajak's disapproving look.
"Tell us what, for Arishem's sake?" Gilgamesh asked.
Makkaris watched the discussion unfold from her place at Druig's side. Her hand rested right above his heart to feel his pulse as strong as possible but it was not enough for her and she was rapidly losing her patience.
What is wrong with him?! she demeaned once more, her movements frantic and her eyes wide with worry. Her brown eyes basically bore a whole into the back on Ajak's head.
"Tell them" the human girl said again, now in a much more demanding tone. "Tell them, or I will."