the end of the world - eternals

1. welcome home.

london, england.

THE sun rises and pokes out over the tops of the buildings. the reflections on the windows blind sersi as she falls into step with sprite. they're heading off to god knows where, but that's not what matters right now. what matters is what happens tonight.

as of now, they split off, sprite walking into a small shop and sersi racing into the natural history museum, visibly late. she rushes into a room full of uniformed students. a handsome man stands at the front of the room.

"...and that means..." he sees her. "...and there she is."

he smiles, his pearly teeth making her absolutely melt on the inside. she keeps it together for the kids.

"i'm so sorry i'm late, but i'm here now." she drops her bag on the table and shoots him a smile.

"the faster this goes, the faster tonight comes..." dane smiles and says this a little too loud. the kids snicker and laugh.

"okay, okay." sersi laughs and pushes him a little. "kids, let's talk about apex predators. can anyone tell me what an apex predator is?"

and just like that, sersi took the room's attention back on her. she has that effect. it's quite amazing. dane's goofy smile would agree.

"... yes! now-"

and suddenly, the room began to shake. sersi gasped.

"earthquake." she muttered. "everyone, get down!"

with dane's help, they shepherd the under the desks. one girl is stuck, though. a heavy piece of metal art is too close to falling down on her head.

sersi raced over, shielding the girl's head with one of her hands while the other shield herself from the piece of art that is about to crush them-

and then it's gone.

disappeared into thin air.

all that's left are red flower petals, floating and settling down on the shaking floor.

dane narrowed his eyes.

"maybe i'm just seeing things." he exhaled.

——————————————————————

LATER that night, sersi, sprite, and dane sit around a table at a local bar. sersi hold up a pyramid of cupcakes with a candle on the top one.

"blow them out!" she laughs. he does too. sprite smiles, but it's a melancholy one.

see, sprite is stuck in her twelve year old form for eternity. there's nothing she can do about it. as much as she cares for dane, it's hard for her to see him age.

dane blows out the candles and shares a secret smile with sersi.

the night just goes on and on and on for what feels like forever. but it's amazing.

sersi feels human.

—————————————————————-

"do you all want to get some pizza?" dane calls back to the two girls behind him.

"no, thank you!" they respond.

awkwardly, he turns around and continues walking.

they're walking along the river, it's pretty. and it's late.

a bubble in the water distracts sersi momentarily, but she ignores it. then, almost out of nowhere, a hideous monster shoots out of the water.

it's-

"a deviant!" sprite screams. sersi runs ahead, grabs dane, who was in a daze, and pulls him back.

"you two, get out of here. now!" she instructs. sprite starts to protest, but sersi sternly shakes her head. the two run back, leaving sersi facing off the deviant.

before she can react, it jumps at her, and she rolls out of the way.

she jumps on a small railing and launches herself up on the elevated bridge above her. she lands, the deviant on her tail. it swipes at her.

"ah!" she yells as she narrowly crawls away. the deviant looks around, picks up a bus with inhumanly strength and launches it at her.

as it comes to her, she reaches out a hand. the bus hits her palm and dissolves into flower petals, just like in the museum.

"what the hell...?" sersi spun around to see dane, awestruck. sprite was trailing a few feet behind him.

"i tried to stop him." she shrugged. "he cares a lot about you. you keep him, i'll take ikaris."

dane narrowed his eyes. "ikaris as in ex-boyfriend-pilot ikaris?"

sprite snorts. "you told him that ikaris is a pilot?! i..." her laughter faded at her lips as she gazed behind sersi.

sersi turned around to see the deviant, visibly more angry than before, rushing at her. sersi prepared to fight when suddenly-

-in flew the pilot... but without a plane.

yeah. ikaris can fly. and shoot cosmic laser things out of his eyes. cue intimidated dane.

ikaris shot the deviant, and it reared backwards and took off towards the water. ikaris followed, hitting it over and over and over again until finally, it seemed to be dead.

he landed just a few feet away from sersi, who stared at him in awe.

"evening, ladies." he gestured to sprite and sersi, then stopped at dane.

"i'm dane." he stepped forward and held out his hand for ikaris to shake. the eternal pointedly ignored him and turned his attention to sersi.

"it's been a long time."

aaaaand that's it for chapter one!! i'm adding one new character that i'll introduce in a couple of chapters, but the rest of them are the same. i changed up the story a bit too. love y'all!!