mercy ⋆ druig

Introduction.

❝ I have got to cry about this, I have got to shed tears about this. But not water, please God, may they be blood. I have to cry blood for his wounds. ❞

☀️✶☀️✶☀️✶☀️✶☀️

➯ THEY'D LIKENED HER TO the sun; a golden girl steeped in a halo of warmth—warm hands, warm smile, warm, warm, warm. Warm like a mother's arms, warm like the midday sand. That wasn't to say Khepri was the docile Eternal the stories made her out to be, stories artfully crafted by Sprite thousands of years ago in the early days of the Egyptian Empire. Glittering scenes woven across the night sky, tales of a woman whose arrival on Earth brought the first sunrise. A girl whose aura scared away the shadows of night and gifted them the long days needed to build their civilizations, plant their crops. But stories were nothing more than pretty lies and Khepri was far from the sun goddess Sprite painted her as. The truth was a crueler, bitter pill to swallow, because Khepri's warmth was more akin to that of a blazing fire—skin blistering from her touch; she was a vast desert with no shade, relentless and without mercy. Plated in armor of red and gold, glinting like a wildfire with every movement, with palms that channeled the power of a thousand Celestial's glowing white hot as she raked her fingers through the flesh of a Deviant, like a knife through butter. Khepri was more than the morning goddess archetype she'd been chained to for more than a millennium, she was a warrior, a protector of humanity. But with the death of the last Deviant, she can't help but feel a little lost. Who was she without a purpose? Too welcoming of the feeling of blood on her hands to be who the humans needed her to be; too filled with a fire rendered unnecessary in the eyes of her fellow Eternals. Desperate to be needed, Khepri flees back to the place where she was once revered the most: Egypt. She'd like to say she doesn't regret her choice to run, but Khepri has never been a very good liar, there was only one person she missed—the person who understood her best: Druig, stoic and reserved Druig. After all, he'd adored her for all these years. Khepri thinks about him sometimes (not that she lets the thoughts linger for too long) but still she can't bring herself to return to him—what interest would he have in a useless, forgotten goddess? It's only after an earthquake felt worldwide thrusts the Eternals back together that Khepri finds herself falling back into Druig's arms. Finally she's needed for something again, needed for the power that flows through her veins—but time has taken it's toll on Khepri, her mind fracturing and splintering between memories of planets she's never seen and a boy whose loved her over and over again.