Insubstantial
Makkari’s eyes were bleary as she darted behind the city gates. She put her hands on her knees, breath coming in short gasps; the deviants had woken them up before dawn, and it had been six hours without any signs of letting up. The adrenaline had long since worn off.
They had been protecting Babylon for years now, but instead of fewer deviants, there seemed to be more every day. They weren’t cowards; she had to give them that. They wanted her team dead, and even as they were slaughtered in droves they didn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation about it. Recently they had started to congregate before they attacked; flinging themselves at the Eternals at all hours of the day or night, relying on sheer numbers to overwhelm them. It was a hell of an advantage – they didn’t even care about their own safety, and the Eternals had to protect tens of thousands of humans.
She rubbed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. Her heart was pounding so hard she could almost feel its vibrations on her skin. She needed to eat – she had to consume thousands more calories than the rest of them to keep up her speed, or her body would start to devour itself in lieu of food. It wouldn’t kill her, but it might make her pass out on the battlefield, and that would kill her.
It was dangerous, fighting in this state, but she only had a moment to pause – Kingo was out there practically alone. Gilgamesh, Ikaris, Sprite, and Ajak had been called away to the Indus Valley, where a new civilization was beginning to bloom, and the rest of them with any fighting ability were holding down the gates on the other sides of the city. For some godforsaken reason the humans had decided it was a good idea to build eight separate entrances.
Gathering herself, she shot back out through the Ishtar gate, trying to ignore how much slower than usual she was. Surveying the field, she pulled herself into her speed, and time crawled to a standstill around her. Kingo was okay, he only had two on him, but several had gone straight past him and to the walls. The breaches they had made would start to crumble the longer their assault continued, and most of them could climb like the devil, even if she didn’t see any wings.
The world sped up again, and Makkari’s head pounded with her feet as she ran along the foot of the wall. She darted to the top, grabbing an archer as the wall below them shook and taking him to the ground. Within a few seconds, she had repeated the action with several more of the fresh-faced, terrified soldiers. They were children, probably not more than twenty. They certainly weren’t hardened enough to face down the muscled, ferocious abominations that were attacking today – she doubted if any of them would have gotten a shot off.
Liabilities to safety, Makkari focused on the attack. She shot back up the wall, driving into one of the deviants that had reached the top; the force of her body drove them both into the ground, and they skidded twenty more feet. The vibration from the deviant’s agonized scream was far, far too close – it seemed to resonate straight through her skin and into her bones. She vibrated her hand and drove it straight into the thing's neck. It choked and gurgled as it died, and she could feel the soft inside of a bloody throat fluttering under her hand as its last shriek tried to escape.
Makkari raced straight back to the foot of the wall, where two more had taken the place of the dead one. She ran directly between them and paused, before dashing out of the way as one of them bit the air where she’d been standing. She grabbed a spear someone had dropped while fleeing and buried it in the deviant’s eye.
Turning around, Makkari headed for the other deviant. She was about halfway there when she suddenly froze, instincts screaming at her. She had the strangest sense that she wasn’t seeing someth -Makkari dove for the ground, adrenaline rushing in her veins. Unfortunately, she was a second too late; long teeth clamped into her shoulder and jerked upward – there was the flying bastard.
It lifted her thirty feet in the air, only dropping her when Kingo’s blast hit it. Makkari fell like a rag doll; she could feel herself screaming in agony, and she hit the ground directly on her knees. She had felt pain before, but this was indescribable. Like a thousand knives burying themselves into her knees and thighs from the inside, and then twisting in deeper as she slumped onto her forehead. She forgot her shoulder was even wounded. She couldn’t feel any vibrations to tell what was happening around her, but only because the thunder already engulfing her skin drowned out anything useful. Her heart was banging in her chest like it was trying to break out of her very body.
She collapsed further onto her side, and when Thena ran from behind her to annihilate the deviants, it took her several minutes to process that she was seeing help – it just looked like more of the lights and colors already dancing in her vision. After what seemed like hours, she felt hands on her skin, turning her gently onto her back to check her pulse.
She gasped in pain, and her eyes filled with tears – the movement immediately stopped. She could see Druig’s lips moving, but her brain was sluggish, and she had no idea what he was saying. Her name, maybe? She tried to pick her head up to see him better, but it immediately lolled back, and he slid his arm under her neck. She started violently shaking her head as she realized he was about to move her, but to no avail. His arm slid under her knees, and as the knives twisted again, her vision went completely black.
Druig startled awake, sweating even in the freezing winter night. The image of Makkari’s limp, bloody form was haunting him – it had taken hours for Ajak to get back to Babylon, and they had been forced to trust her survival to human healers until then. None of the Eternals knew a thing about first aid; why would they? It had never been necessary before.
Everything was all right now; it had been two days, and Makkari was as healthy as ever, thanks to Ajak. There was no excuse for Druig to be waking up with nightmares. He had seen hundreds of humans die, and it wasn’t even the first close call they’d had with another Eternal. Seeing Sprite mauled by a deviant should have been much more disturbing, considering her appearance. Somehow, it didn’t even come close.
Druig sat up and set his feet on the floor, rubbing his face with his hands. He couldn’t erase the image from his dreams – Makkari, bleeding as she had been a few days ago, but rigid and cold, eyes glassy instead of fighting to stay focused.
He was about to get up and go for a walk when he heard a gentle knock on his door. “Come in,” he called softly. He was less surprised than he should’ve been when he saw her. Her hair was down for once, laying across her shoulders in braids, and she was twiddling with her fingers - full of nervous energy even the latest hours of the night.
“I don’t mean to intrude; I’ll leave if you want, but I was reading and I felt you wake up. Is everything okay?” Her hands weren’t as fluid as usual, moving too fast at first, and then pausing as she decided what to say.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Just a nightmare.” He was trying to stop himself and let this awkward interaction just end already, but he was up and halfway across the room before he realized it. He paused in front of her – he had never wanted to touch someone so much in his life. His hands were fidgeting now; he just wanted to hold her hand, hug her, anything to convince himself she wasn’t the cold, lifeless shell of his dream.
He forced himself to stop; she had just come to check on him, he had no right to do any of that. Certainly not at three in the morning in his bedroom.
“Wait, what were you reading? I thought this place didn’t have written fiction yet.”
She looked a little confused at his change of topic, but responded. “Sort of. Somebody transcribed Sprite’s Gilgamesh story – I was bored.” She hesitated, but continued when Druig didn’t cut in: “It’s hard to not read it at like three thousand words a minute. I’m trying to make it last, but it feels like I’m rereading every sentence ten times trying to slow down.”
Druig shook his head. “I was going to suggest reading out loud, and then I realized that I’m a fucking idiot.”
Makkari’s laugh echoed through the stone hallway. “Are you going back to bed? You could always come join me, and then I wouldn’t have to distract myself with a story I’ve heard six hundred times.”
“Absolutely.”
They were lying around on the common room floor; Makkari had stolen food from the palace. Druig was convinced she had the best abilities out of any of them – it had taken her less than five minutes to break into the best-guarded place in the entire city for a snack.
Finally, over an hour later, she asked the inevitable question. “So, what was that nightmare about?”
He tried to dodge it. It wasn’t the kind of topic that lent itself to a relaxed atmosphere. “Nothing. Really, I can’t remember it.”
It was silent, and she stared at him for a moment. “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious!”
“You really think I can’t tell when you’re lying? You paused for like five minutes before you said that. Besides, people forget dreams, not nightmares.”
He looked away from her eyes, almost scared she would read his feelings there. “It was... It was stupid, Makkari. It was just a dream.”
“I can’t tell if you’re embarrassed or genuinely scared, and I’m kind of worried about it. ” She paused again. “ I’m not trying to be pushy; we can talk about something else.”
This was stupid. Makkari knew he cared about her; this didn’t have to be weird. Druig sighed, hands moving quickly as he started to speak. “I – I had this dream, last night, and tonight again. Of when I found you in front of the gate. But in the dream, you aren’t breathing when I get there.”
She froze, and let out a slow breath. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. When I heard you," he hesitated; "screaming, there was a minute where I thought it was too late.”
“Wait, how did you hear me? I was so far away.”
Druig tapped the side of his head in explanation.
Her eyes widened. “I thought you didn’t hear our minds!”
“I can’t, usually, at least not without a lot of effort. You were sort of broadcasting.”
Makkari paused, considering what he’d told her. “That’s cool. I didn’t realize I could do that.”
Druig smiled despite himself. Leave it to her to find something to be happy about in this conversation. “Neither did I, actually. None of the others have done it before.”
She returned to seriousness, cocking her head slightly and looking at him with an unreadable expression. “I didn’t realize it scared you like that.”
He shook his head, words coming hesitantly. “I don’t know, Makkari. You’re just so alive. Always moving. Seeing you still like that...” He trailed off, shaking his head. “And I guess I didn’t realize how much I was already worried about it. You get hurt so often, trying to be fast enough to save everyone.” Druig laughed without humor. “You fight like a deviant – just throwing yourself into danger. It’s terrifying.”
She didn't really have a response to that; there was complete silence for a few minutes. Makkari laid back, staring at the ceiling, her fingers tapping some rhythm he’d never heard on the carpet. Druig was just sitting, staring alternately at her and at the floor.
He’d sounded like an idiot, obviously, stumbling over his words. He knew better than to take her silence as a bad thing, though – they were similar in that way, needing time to think. She was always so tense, so ready to shoot off somewhere and save somebody’s life, that it actually made him feel trusted. She didn’t relax around a lot of people.
Eventually, she sat up, stretching her arms above her head. “I’m tired. ”
Druig glanced out the window, getting up. “Of course you’re tired. Look at it, the sun’s rising.”
She smiled, and he pulled her to her feet. “Good night, I guess.” He sounded awkward, even to himself.
Makkari grabbed his arm. He turned around, and when she hugged him, he froze for longer than he’d care to admit before wrapping his arms around her waist. She buried her face in his shoulder, and he felt a consciousness softly press against his own.
“Thank you, Druig. I didn’t mean to scare you, but I’m glad... I guess I’m just glad I get to know you.”
Druig pulled her closer, and felt her arms tighten around his neck in return. He had been too scared to hug her first, but now he felt incapable of releasing her – having her in his arms was impossibly reassuring. She was really safe; warm, alive, heart beating. Trusting him with her very mind like it was the easiest thing in the world.
He leaned his head gently into her neck, and they stayed like that a moment longer before he reluctantly let her go. Her eyes froze him in place; soft and dark and just a touch nervous. So close he could count the golden flecks in them. She let out a slow, shaky breath, and the corner of her mouth tilted up into a mischievous smile. “I’ll try not to throw myself into mortal peril at the next opportunity,” she signed.
He laughed at that, glancing away before meeting her eyes again. “Thanks. Appreciate the consideration.”
“Good night then, Druig. Or good morning, I guess.” She stepped back, biting her lip, and darted away like the wind before he could respond.
He headed back to his room, and stared at the wall for a moment as he sat down. He couldn’t believe that had happened - and that in itself was strange. It was just a hug, and Makkari wasn’t exactly touch-shy. But she always seemed like an extraordinary force of nature to him; the sun or the wind. Druig wasn’t entirely sure how to go throughout his life knowing that she was mortal, and not just because she could die; because she was warm and solid, and because she fit into his arms like she was designed for them. It was easier to think of her as something supernatural, or insubstantial, something he couldn’t expect would want to be close to him. Perhaps he was more human than he had realized.