that evening

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For whatever reason that evening, Druig and Isis choose to sit on the front steps of their porch instead of in their rocking chairs. There's never a sore subject for when they talk – except for tonight. For the first time, she asks him a question that he doesn't care for.

"What's next for us?" she asks. She could be asking about the next day, the next week, the next year, or even the next millennium, but somehow he just knows that by "next" she means after the garden. He doesn't care too much for the answer.

"Why bother asking?" he says. "It's nice here."

"Hm," she mumbles. He picks at the paint on the wooden steps.

It takes a lot of effort for her to ask her next question. "Do you think we'll die here then?"

"What are you talking about?" he gives her an extremely puzzled look. "First of all, we're Eternals. Second of all, we'll be back in Olympia someday."

She immediately thinks it strange that he says the latter statement with such unabated conviction — she barely even thinks about Olympia anymore. (At this point, is it even a real place?) Still, she only mumbles another "hm" in response.

"You're acting strange, Isis. What's going on with you?" He doesn't look at her when he speaks.

She slowly rises from the place where they sit. She walks a few steps away, looks around at the treetops, and finally says, "Phastos came to visit us."

He immediately stands up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly that." She turns around and hands him the device that she was given. She also doesn't look at him when she speaks. "He came today but only to give me this."

"What is it?"

"It's a way to find them. Our family."

He doesn't know how to feel. Or, maybe that's the feeling: nothingness. Does he wish that he did feel something? He isn't sure.

In all their time together, Isis has felt many things towards Druig, but this is the first moment in which she feels disappointment — disappointment in his nothingness. Still, she doesn't try to take the device back from him. Maybe it's better that way, she thinks, to leave the cards in his hands. Maybe, it's just better to live without wondering.

Is it by cruel design or unfortunate coincidence that they only have one device to share between the two of them? That if she ever wishes to leave and find her family, that she would have to leave him with no way to find her? Because she has a feeling that he wouldn't go with her even if she begged him to.

"Interesting," he says, completely uninterested.

Normally, they have a lot more to say to each other. But that evening, they just leave it at that.

somewhere in time {Druig}Where stories live. Discover now