16 | I hate that I'm still hoping
2023 - Iraq
Hestia had promised herself that she would talk to Druig on the jet, so she did. She asked him if she could speak to him for a moment, and he agreed, following her to a slightly more private part of the plane.
"What do you wanna talk about?" Druig asked with his hands in his pockets.
"I want you to let me talk for a moment. No interruptions, please." Hestia sat down on a couch, and he did the same.
"I have not forgiven you. Let's start of with that." She stared at him. "I hoped for years that you would return, I stayed up for days on end, without sleep, because I hoped you'd return in the night, and I wanted to be there when you did. Nothing. You never returned."
"Phastos had to force me to sleep once with an invention. I was awake for five days. That was right after you left. We were told we could leave, but I stayed. I waited on the exact stairs you and your little puppets pulled me away. Every time I felt myself dozing off, I would force myself to stay awake. I waited, so long, for you to return."
"I had to refrain myself from burning Phastos, right there, when he pulled me away from the stairs and forced the bracelet onto my arm. I fell asleep right after that. I slept for days on end. I was too tired. Hoping, all the hoping I did, tired me. It drained me."
"There were days when I had no energy left in me, so, I stayed in bed. I stayed. I stayed and I waited, hoping that you'd come back to our room. But you never did. Even a week ago, I hoped that you would try and visit me, or at the minimum, called me."
"I didn't have your number." Druig spoke, clearly forgetting the rule of no interruptions.
"Then you could have gone to anybody else!" Hestia cried out. "You know who did have my number? Gilgamesh, Sersi, Phastos, Ajak, Makkari, anybody! Heck, you could have even gone to Ikaris! If you had really wanted to, you would've asked them." Tears started to form in her eyes. The only thing he had said, was a pathetic excuse. Not even a 'sorry'.
"Even after everything you did to me, I still wear your necklace every single day, and I'm starting to rethink doing so."
"So, unless you have something to say that isn't a pathetic excuse, I'm leaving." Hestia gave him a few seconds to think, but when he said nothing, she stormed out of the room.
Phastos saw her and he raised his eyebrow. She knew he was asking her if she had talked to Druig, and she nodded. He gave her a thumbs up, and she mirrored him, before walking over to the bar and joining Ikaris. She was in desperate need of a drink.
-
The plane landed, Ikaris and Hestia getting out first. She had put on her sunglasses and strolled past Druig with her hands in her pockets, ignoring him completely. He had mind controlled the archaeologists working on the site and they drove off in their trucks.
Phastos had located the Domo, making it rise out from beneath the excavation site. It was a mighty sight, the ship rose, all the land above it crumbling and falling. Hestia felt the presence of the ship, that they had arrived on this planet on, make the Eternals tense up slightly. However, Hestia felt relaxed, seeing her home float above them.
The immortals had walked into the Domo, Kingo narrating everything that happened like usual. "A foreboding atmosphere fills the air. An eerie stillness chokes our lungs."
"What are you doing? You know you're creeping us out. You know that, right?" Phastos complained with a little waver in his voice. Out of nowhere, something popped, making him scream. "Oh! Oh, God! Stay calm, T, please." He looked over at Thena, who didn't seem phased in the slightest.
It appeared that Thena had stepped on a bag of crisps, and Hestia recognised it straight away. "Hey, I bought that one for Makkari!"
"As you can see, being an Eternal does not preclude you from having human emotions, such as cowardice." Kingo mocked Phastos. The group had made their way further into the Domo, finding Makkari sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, piles of books around her.
"What has she done? Is that... a sarcophagus in my lab?" Phastos asked in a high voice, and he sprinted over to the other side of the room.
"This is Makkari." Kingo narrated. "Or should I say Miss Havisham? None of us have seen her for centuries."
"That's not true! Makkari and I meet up every year!" Hestia argued, waving at the woman who she saw as a sister.
"Ready to go home?" Makkari signed with a happy smile on her face.
When nobody responded and merely stared at her with complicated looks, she knew something was up and she threw her head back as a way of complaining. They weren't going home, not soon at least.