Complications of Mortality | Druig x OC

XIII | Mitigate

"Put a fucking leash on him," she paused, each breath causing a piercing pain in her lungs. "It has no place on my arm."

Thena was studying her.

Her chin tilted slightly to the side as she watched the human's profile. Her cheeks had become more prominent, more slender as her skin stretched towards her jaw. Her lips were pink from pressing them together so harshly just a few minutes before. Her hair was long and healthy, despite the salty dryness around them in the air. Her shoulders pressed back, fixing her posture as a natural reflex to settling into place.

She looked strong on the outside, but there was pain in her eyes. The dark irises that usually gave way to her vision were replaced with gold, but it couldn't block out the fact that she was crying.

The hot, sticky tears streamed down her face, paving a way to her skin through the dirt and sand. Akiva didn't even realize that she was doing it, but it was illustrated on her features so clearly. Gold shifted around the churning water of the ocean, waiting for Sersi to find her place so that they could help her.

But as she looked, as she listened for Ikaris' movement to return, she barely caught a glimpse of the figure rising from the waves.

Makkari stepped up to stand next to the human, fingers and hands moving as she attempted to communicate. But Akiva didn't even move to look. Her eyes stuck to the water, crossing her arms over her chest as she held herself. Makkari's face was pointed up at Akiva's profile as well, letting her hands fall back to her sides in defeat when she realized that she wasn't paying her any attention.

What the fuck was wrong with them?

Akiva wasn't anything besides a simple observer to this mess. She was a bystander while they sorted out their family drama, her only connection to it all being the fact that she had taken up residence in their star-ship. But they had taken even that from her.

She didn't have anything. No mother, no father, no companions or friendships, no path of occupation, nor a home, no education, no social life. She had no one to take care of and no one to take care of her. Her fingers squeezed her biceps as she looked to the sand, tears dripping from the tip of her chin.

All she had was her humanity, and by the gods did she love it.

She was still good, despite how often the world had decided to fuck her over.

If she had a path in front of her at one point, it had been ripped away a long time ago. Akiva was never meant to make it out of Lyon. She was supposed to have tried to find the shelter that disguised itself as sleep on the streets. The cold concrete wouldn't just freeze her to death, it would take over her entirety. Her skin would go numb and painless all at once.

The first sort of agony that sprouted from it's place would be the chill that dug deep into her bones. It'd be inescapable, at by that point it would have been far too late to bring her back. She'd be unmovable and vulnerable to something as simple as weather conditions. And it would cost her her life.

But instead, her fate was changed. Like a variant in the timeline, she was thrown off course. Akiva went through a sequence of actions over a span of years that she couldn't count on her hands. It still didn't feel right, and she feared that it never would.

Because it wasn't her choice.

Akiva no longer held free will.

They had laid eyes on her and in an instant decided to pluck her from where she stood for their own personal agendas. Makkari was just lonely fifteen years ago. Phastos secretly wanted to regain his hope in humanity. Thena needed someone, something to care for, and Druig—