Deal
"You're getting predictable, Makkari. Stop going for the back." Thena spoke casually, but Makkari could see the excitement growing in her eyes. She had almost gotten her that time – zipping sideways around her blade and straight for the throat.
More than any other members of the team, Makkari and Thena loved to spar. Gilgamesh, Kingo, and Ikaris' powers lent themselves to brute force instead of grace or technical skill. Not to say they didn't have those things, but they needed them in case something went wrong. They weren't the point of the exercise – the point of a fight for those three was to end it as quickly as possible. Practice could often be a joyless, tedious routine.
Thena, however? Thena was a born warrior. She fought for the joy of the contest, throwing herself into even a practice match with the ardor and skill of a war goddess – no wonder every civilization called her one. Makkari, as well, was always eager for the challenge this posed. Her body was so often burning with unused energy, and sparring with Thena was more exhausting than a run around the entire planet they had found themselves on.
Thena transfigured her sword into a two-sided axe before flipping it around in her hands like a child who had found an interesting stick. She met Makkari’s eyes from across the courtyard and smiled, and an image popped into Makkari’s head of a painting from a temple in Uruk. She hadn’t seen it in decades, but it had depicted Ishtar, the warrior goddess, with braided hair and a savage laugh as she disemboweled some unfortunate Babylonian soldier.
Makkari shook her head to clear the image and laughed. “You really think you’re going to intimidate me that easily after three millennia?”
Thena raised a flawless eyebrow. “Then stop taunting me and let it commence.”
Thena bolted forward, and Makkari shot back, surprised. Even for Thena, it was rare to run head-on at someone faster than sound. She recovered quickly, however, and flew around the room a few times to gather speed before heading straight towards Thena’s wide swing. She could tell Thena was expecting her to slip around her (fair, considering Makkari’s usual style) but instead, she went into a full dive under the blade, swinging her arm up to slam into Thena’s shoulder.
”Fucking hell! I think you dislocated it!” Thena was laughing as she yelled – she had hit the floor like a rock and skidded nearly ten feet from the blow. She dropped the axe, and it dissipated into whatever cosmic energy it was made of.
Makkari was laughing too – she felt like she was finally figuring out how to wield her speed to its best advantage. It was a difficult weapon to control, and it had taken her a long time to start winning these bouts. Now she was the equal of anyone on the team in a fight – excluding Thena, of course. She signed back, rolling her eyes; “If you wanted sympathy, you shouldn’t have cut off my fucking leg last year.”
“Are you ever going to forget about that? You were healed in fifteen minutes.” It was definitely dislocated – Thena had sat up against a pillar to inspect her arm, and there was a bone jutting out under the skin in precisely the wrong place.
“You’re so right – only fifteen minutes in which I didn’t have a LEG.” Makkari’s hands moved fluidly, but she jerked them on the last word for emphasis. “Do you want to pop it or will I?”
Druig spoke from the corner where he’d been watching, shadow-like. “I’ll do it, Makkari has a habit of pulling shoulders all the way out of sockets.” Makkari jumped; she was so wrapped up in the match she’d forgotten he was there. She tried not to laugh at the memory as he walked towards them. “That was one time, I swear to god.”
He eyed her mischievously, and signed while responding. “One time is enough, beautiful Makkari.”
She rolled her eyes again. “You have a talent for complimenting me and insulting me at the same time, you know that?”
“I’m practicing so Ikaris stops noticing when I mock him,” he responded, half grinning.
Thena grimaced as Druig got her arm into position. “What is the fun if he doesn’t notice?”
“Not fighting with Sersi about” – Druig yanked Thena’s arm mid sentence – “it, that’s the fun.”
Thena grunted, but nothing more. Anyone’s pain tolerance would be off the charts after two and a half thousand years, and Thena was not merely anyone. Makkari wasn’t convinced she felt pain – once, when she was drunk, Makkari and Phastos had seen her deal with an assassination attempt by pulling the knife out from between her ribs and stabbing the man through the throat with it.
“Do you want to go again?” Makkari’s offer was half-hearted. They had only been going for an hour or two, but she had sat down cross-legged as Druig fixed Thena’s arm, and the exhaustion of a morning spent fighting Deviants started to catch up when she stopped moving.
Thena, as usual, was more perceptive than Makkari gave her credit for. “No, you look exhausted. Druig, do you wish to participate? We could always trade the two of you out.”
Druig glanced at the rapidly setting sun. “Don’t we have that thing?”
“What thing?”
He sighed. “You know, the thing. Alcohol. Dancing. The festival in honor of the new gods of Babylon.”
Thena and Makkari groaned in unison. They had only moved to this city a few months ago, and already there was a whole new mythology springing up around their abilities, no doubt partially due to Sprite. Humans were very prone to worshipping that which they did not understand. Worship, unfortunately, almost always meant social events. Anything was an excuse to throw a party to this race – it seemed half the calendar year was some kind of gathering, always with massive amounts of food, music, and sweat. There never seemed to be a room big enough for the amount of people that wanted to gawk at them.
It was lovely for Sprite or Sersi, or even Makkari in the right mood, but Thena and Druig hated people they didn’t know, and Makkari was not in the right mood. She was exhausted, and the constant vibration of a giant crowd could get incredibly overstimulating without the energy to pay attention to it.
“Can’t we just... Not go?” She looked rather hopefully at Druig. Usually skipping wouldn’t be a problem, but Ajak put a lot of emphasis on gaining the trust of the locals when they were in a new location. If Druig took the lead, however, the other two would have someone to pin the inevitable lecture on.
“That’s not fair,” he signed back. “Why do you expect me to have all the willpower?”
Makkari bit her lip to keep from laughing. “I don’t, that’s why I’m asking you.”
Thena was standing up and stretching her arm out behind her back as she spoke. “Come on Makkari, bat your eyelashes at him or something. Gilgamesh is obsessed with outdrinking me, and I need to sleep – I have things to do tomorrow morning.”
“Do you sleep? I thought you just stare at the moon like a wolf. And why would batting my eyelashes at him help?”
Thena stared at her. “Are we seriously having this conversation right now?”
Thankfully, Sersi had just entered the courtyard, giving Makkari an easy out. Always attuned to the fashion of the locals, she looked stunning in a sort of dyed, form fitting cotton dress. At some point in the day, she had cut her hair to her shoulders as well.
“What conversation?” Sersi signed as she spoke, and Makkari noticed that her nails were now a pale pink.
“Nothing,” Druig said quickly, drawing a chuckle from Thena. “Why are you here?”
“Why is she here?” Thena was clearly going to be hell at this festival – she was already rather more sharp-edged than usual. She must have been more tired than she was letting on. “What, she can’t come out into the courtyard to talk to her family?”
Makkari cut in, too tired for an argument. “Not dressed like that she can’t. Why are you outside? You’re wearing white, and this is dirt, not pavement.”
“I came out to get you. You promised to let me dress you up tonight.” Sersi was smiling, the malevolent little witch.
“I did?”
“You did.”
“You can do my hair – I’m not wearing a dress.”
Makkari had been through half the city looking for artifacts when she arrived at the festival. By the time she showed up, Sprite was already finishing up her tale about Gilgamesh grieving a homoerotic friendship, and Thena was on probably her seventh beer – being tired irritated her. It was too human of an ailment, Makkari guessed. She was too terrifying for anyone to try cutting her off.
Shooting through the building, she found Druig in one of the back corners, eating some kind of dessert. He always seemed to find food faster than anyone else in their crew.
“Beautiful Makkari – you’re late.”
He was making fun of her, but it was fair game. How she managed to run faster than the speed of sound and still be late was one of Arisham’s greatest mysteries. She set down her chest. “I needed artifacts to trade for the tablet.”
She was grabbing one of the artifacts when she realized the traders were lying to her – she wasn’t entirely sure how they could worship her as a goddess and still assume she was an idiot. Druig was translating before she even realized they wouldn’t understand her – he was like an extra limb, sometimes. She never needed to ask him for things like that – he payed attention to the extent where she wondered if he read her mind. She hadn’t worked up the courage to ask him about it – he was probably just being considerate, making sure to notice if she started signing. Thena’s voice popped into her head; “bat your eyelashes at him or something... Are we seriously having this conversation right now?”
She was distracted from terrifying the merchants in front of her by the fight behind. The men paused, golden eyed, and hit themselves before roaring and bear hugging. Makkari hit him lightly on the arm.
“When humans have conflict, Ajak tells us not to interfere.”
He was laughing, and she was trying not to smile again. Kingo once told her he found Druig gloomy. She never understood it – if he was dark, it was only in the way that a summer night is dark. Rich, warm, relaxed. The stars sparkling behind the charcoal curtain. He was mischievous, and clever, and if he was too caught up in his own head so was she; she was just better at running away from it. He found humor in everything, and even the fact he was laughing at Makkari right now didn’t make it any easier not to join in.
He spoke, interrupting her soliloquy on his virtues. Did I really just think all that?
“Ajak also says that stealing is very, very bad.” His eyes were pinning her to the spot, and she could almost hear the unasked question. ‘And what are you going to do about it?’
She had begun to realize recently that the two of them were out of step with the other Eternals. She was too fast for them; too impatient, too blunt, too hard to get to know. Druig was even more obviously off-rhythm. He was more independent than the rest of them; not afraid to ask questions or challenge their assumptions. She could tell they struggled to relax with him one-on-one; he was too perceptive, and everyone has things they prefer unnoticed. He knew this as well as she did, and he was asking her to recognize it. To admit that they had an understanding.
He inspected the statue he was holding; giving her space. She stole it back from him.
“If you don’t tell, I won’t tell.”
His eyes searched her face, and his response was so soft she barely felt it. “Deal.”
She lifted her chin, and he mimicked her, smiling like they had shared a secret.
Makkari suddenly realized she didn’t know where this conversation was going. She almost ran, but she was pretty sure that would be considered cowardly - she landed on changing the subject. “Dance with me?”
It took her a moment to realize that probably wasn’t the right question to diffuse the sudden tension in her stomach.
“If you want me to,” he responded.
She grabbed his arm before she could lose her nerve, pulling him towards the vibrations in the next room. She could still feel his eyes on her, and she wasn’t sure why his attention suddenly mattered.
He was a better dancer than Makkari had expected, but the song fit him; slow, stirring, at first, and then fast without becoming raucous or hurried. His hands were on her lower waist, and she was trying not to bite her lip, and she couldn’t tell if they were spinning or she was just that unfocused. She could only concentrate on him; his eyes, his lips, how warm his hands felt, how he smelled like almonds and the forest at night – and she refused to concentrate on any of those things.
The song was over before she realized it, and she stepped back as soon as he let her go. She steeled herself; she had known this man for two thousand years. She would not run out of this room like a nervous teenager. She met his eyes, and smiled. “You dance well.”
He was smiling too, and she wasn’t sure if he was laughing at her again or just happy.
“Thank you – I don’t get a lot of opportunity to practice.”
“Oh, we’ll have to try it more often.” She hesitated before continuing; “Tomorrow. I’m exhausted.”
She was allowed a little bit of cowardice.
Druig nodded at her, never one to push. He reached for her hand, but pulled back, deciding against it. He met her eyes again.
“Goodnight then, my beautiful, beautiful Makkari.”
Bastard. He was trying to make her blush now.
Makkari barely nodded at him before dashing out of the room – one benefit of her speed was avoiding awkward exits. She shot out the door of the building and leaned up against the wall, breathless. One detriment of her speed – she couldn’t pretend it was from running.