An Ending She Deserves

by PostPunkBarbarian

Summary:

Sersi guarded Earth for 7,000 years. She sacrificed everything she ever knew to save it. And what was her thanks? Stolen away. Forced into captivity. Torn apart and rebuilt over and over and over again.

As judgment.

But an accidental, celestial connection with a quick trigger and easy smile might be her last chance. And the first choice she's made in a lifetime.

Chapter 1: Quill - Cerulean Dreams

St. Charles, Missouri, United States
Earth [Galactic Coordinates: C053. FR45887+125x47.]
September 7, 2026

Earth. It wasn't a bad little rock. When he got down to it he might even enjoy his time here. First time back in... god knows how long. And that battle in 2017 didn't count. Or was it 2022? Beyond saving all of life itself, there's much he hasn't reconciled about that time, death, and where exactly 5 years went.

Regardless, his grandpa was here. Grandpa's new wife, Karen, also here. Karen's extended family of kids and grandkids were all over the United States. His mom was buried right down the block. His dad... left a seed here that tried to consume St. Charles, Missouri once. That also might have been part of him? Them? When it popped were chunks of him-and-or-them left all over this town? Another bit of life he hasn't spent much time reconciling.

There was much Peter Quill had to ignore to live with the illusion of normalcy here on Earth. And many things he missed.

For example, mowing the lawn this morning served a stark reminder of how much he missed Rocket's hydrostatic salvage cutters. He craved the rhythm and certainty of high-powered Korbinite nanofilament razors versus whatever his grandpa's twenty-year-old push mower might be. The chunks of metal rusted and holding on with nothing more than duct tape and force of will - exactly the kind of slap-dash, Quill-family workmanship that tended to piss Rocket off. He couldn't help but laugh at the imagined complaints of his fuzzy, cantankerous best friend as he puttered over the bumpy lawn. Missouri sun beating down on him, making him sweat through hand-me-down t-shirts of bands he knew only old Earth men liked.

How much he missed the taste of a Krylorian Cream Ale in those perfectly fermented little cube cups. In sun like this, cheap earth beer just didn't cool you down the same. And it wouldn't make Mantis smile and belch out mist, like all strong liquors did, and it didn't hit so hard that it could throw Drax back on his ass if he had enough. Cheap earth beer definitely wasn't the prize they gave Groot to try once he was old enough. Nor was it Nebula's favorite when she wanted to open up, just a tad, to a world that cared about her.

How much he missed his family. That all grew up and moved on without him.

But, for the most part, beyond adrenaline withdrawal and the occasional phantom pain from one awesome former battle or another, he didn't much think about the spaceways anymore.

He was the Star-Lord. Savior of the galaxy three times over. Slayer of Ego, Hero of Old Xandar, and Wielder of Matter-Blade of Eson that one time... now retired. To a little townhouse in Missouri. With a roof over his head only from the charity of his grandfather. Not a single bit of earth currency to his name or an applicable skill in a world that forgot about him circa 1988.

But, on the bright side, music was easier to get than ever and the admittedly lame beer was cheap so... here he'd stay. For a little while.

---

Star-Lord's problems, as these things tended to, began with a woman. And not the usual kind. Not the pink kind or the ridged kind or the kind with manifold contracting tentacles either. No this was... a ghost. Or a spirit. Or a psychic vampire from the Negative Zone.

Or something.

At first, Peter thought he just couldn't sleep. The Missouri winds were too quiet, the schedules of denizens too regular. A night of crickets and owls and grandpa forgetting to plug in his sleep apnea machine a comparative silence compared to roaring thrusters and the midnight tinkerings of Rocket Raccoon. The hum of a ship with a custom-fit engine both wildly outdated and jury-rigged with the latest technology.

But, the sleep disturbances didn't abate. He'd toss and turn. Get a glass of water. Move to the couch. Move to the floor. Get another glass of water. Then most likely give up and stare at the wall. Still plastered in bad, sun-bleached posters of Iggy Pop and Dazzler and Ronnie James Dio. Still stacked high in books and VHS tapes about fanciful space men and dour barbarians. Buried in a maze of action figures, crooked and bent over one another like battle-weary soldiers from plastic joints long gone limp.

Until, along that wall untouched in decades, he saw an unfamiliar and shuddering manifestation. Like fog pouring from between cracks in the books, behind the failing tape of the posters. Pouring out first as a trickle, then a gout, coalescing into a 5-foot-something warbling pillar of night-warped green. A faint trace of a figure. A woman. Face obscured in a tangle of pitch-black hair. Body a mixture of jade and silver robes blending into smoke of matching color. Flowing. Like she was underwater.

Upon discarding sleep paralysis as an explanation, Peter's first thought was of his mother. Flitting down on dreamscape River Styx in the dead of night like some sort of small-town Doctor Strange. Come to thank him for returning home in a flash of cerulean green.

But... then he listened. Heard unintelligible whisperings, frantic and afraid. Nothing like his mom.

God his mom was brave. Not an ounce of fear, even while alien cancer ravaged her mind; Meredith Quill was the brightest sun in the galaxy to the end. He remembered that much, even with his memories warped by time and depression and that bone-deep grief that only boys that lose their mother's carry. He's carried it since he was 8-years-old. Grief being the first thing Peter and Yondu had in common besides the missing teeth.

So it wasn't his mom.

He focused on the dark hair, the green around her. Hazy, but colorful filaments. Coalescing through the floor like angry smokestacks over the horizon of Hala; churning out one more Kree thoughtbomb, one more hammer of Accusation or Starforce Warpjammer or... any other useless weapon for a people so blinded by hate that they ended up only using them on each other.

Those memories of Hala brought him to Gamora. Their adventures and companionship and arguments that eventually blossomed into a love. His first love. Had Gamora - his Gamora - returned through the magic of soul rocks and sacrificial space cliffs? The ghost of the one he lost?

Probably not. Everyone told him his Gamora was gone. Soul ripped apart, fully and completely. Not even firing half a salvo from the missile pods at the enchanted deathwalls of Vormir could bring her back.

Trust him, he'd tried.

Besides, a different Gamora was already back. And new her wasn't bad. Harsher, sure. A little less into the beauty routine, absolutely. But... a good woman. A friend. Who put her sword where it counted, when it counted.

She just wasn't his woman anymore.

Then... well after a few days and finding (and quitting) online therapy Peter decided to assume this wasn't some specter of a dead woman that loved him but probably something new. Maybe even an alien visitor hooked onto someone that smelled of stardust. He wasn't sure if that was a smell, and he did check his odor only to find the usual must of a man whose wardrobe 100% consisted of hand-me-downs from his grandfather, but well when you're an liminal, ectoplasmic entity maybe your senses worked differently. Or maybe it actually was a psychic vampire of the Negative Zone slowly bleeding his brain dry. Not that she'd have much to feed on.

Tonight he prepared himself. Practiced breathing techniques like Mantis taught him after her brief meditations amongst the Priests of Pama. Whispered battle chants that echoed through the halls of Kylos like Drax used before a drop. Willing muscles and mind to ignore the dull acceptance of sleep and do something. Anything. To not just observe. But to act.

Midway through his third mental rendition of Mala'thaka'almor, it worked. As the smog poured forth Peter felt a tingling return to his fingers. To his toes. Jaw coming unclenched with a pop that he'd ask a doctor about the minute he remembered (meaning he'd never.) He forced himself upright and peered at her through the darkness. Stared through a dreaming mind's eye that he was sure glowed through the astral plane like the sun. He was the Star-Lord. He'd stared down Ronan and Ego and Thanos himself. He could stare down a dream girl.

Especially if that dream girl needed him.

The trails of green smoke, thick like water. Drifting fingers of haze coalescing into an image.

He reached for her, throwing aside covers in a waking state between conscious and dreaming. Shuffling awkwardly across his clothes discarded haphazardly on a floor undisturbed for almost 30 years. Fingers brushing through transluscent material so thick it almost stuck to him.

And she felt it.

The spirit recoils, wavy dark hair dancing around her like algae trapped in tide pools.

"Hello...?" She calls out softly, an echo in his mind.

"Hello? Please if this is another judgement, you must tell me! I can't keep..."

He cuts her off , feeling an intense urge to comfort that tangle of whipping hair. If it was a psychic vampire from the Negative Zone, she was doing a damn good job of dragging him in.

"Hey... no, no no judgements from me dream-lady. I'm just concerned. Worried about you."

There's a beat, a silence.

"Worried...? About...?" She warbles. He can see faint brown eyes widening in shock beneath the tangle of dark hair.

"I'm trapped. They're... ripping me apart. Putting me back together. Running through my mind day-in and day-out. I don't even know days anymore. Please, I feel like everything in my life is wrong and right and on top of itself and..."

Her voice cracks.

"It hurts! Please stop! Please!"

Peter doesn't know what to do. So... he grabs for the dream. His hands slide right through. Like disturbing a reflection in water. Gods he was as dumb as Adonis, just with an extra 3,000 years and nicer boxer shorts.

He tumbles forward but stops himself from fully disturbing the dream woman. Settles on a known play. Mustering his best "captain voice" he speaks in calm, short sentences. Same way he'd speak to Thor back in the day during the god's own existential spirals.

"Hey. Listen to me. Listen. Breathe. Breathe. I know you're in trouble. But panicking isn't going to help either of us figure out who you are or where you are or how I can save you." It's the first place his mind goes. Saving her. Even if it's a bit extreme. Maybe this alien ghost couldn't be saved. Or she hungered for his psychic stardust blood.

But it does have the desired affect. She does stop writhing in the smoke water. Her hair finally calming as she brushed aside thick clumps. To stare at him. For the first time. Seeing him. With kind almond-shaped eyes, not even the sadness of whatever torture she's currently experiencing able to to take that away. Or seeing an unkempt earth guy in no shirt with messy brown hair and a day or two into needing a beard trim.

"You'd... try to what? No... you can't..." She stammers. Echoing voice sad and raw.

He realizes her accent is rather posh. British. And it's a dream so it's not running through his universal translator, at least he doesn't think that's how translators worked. Most language tech regardless of manufacture corp attuned to the biases of the wearer, meaning his translator normally gave regal Shi'ar and certain holier-than-thou Kree castes British accents - and this poor girl didn't look like either. She looked human. Her face heart-shaped and elegant, even while contorted with equal parts focus and pain. Narrow dark eyebrows drawn in consideration. High cheekbones emphasizing small lips shut in a tight frown, with a small dotted mole on her chin. An ancient kind of beauty. Unchanging. Like she was made of marble.

Or inspired the idea of making women out of marble. Just to try to assure future generations a woman like this existed in the first place.

He shakes himself.

Instead of offering useless compliments, he reiterates his point, low and easy, "Of course I'd try to save you."

He keeps his hands visible and tone steady. Like talking to a cornered animal. Trying to keep her focused and breathing.

"You seem like... you're in trouble. I'm a Guardian of the Galaxy. It's kind of what we do."

She blanches, confused, "I’ve never heard of… How can a human be a Guardian of the whole Milky Way?"

"Well I got abducted by aliens at the behest of my dad at 8, it was a whole thing. And I guard more than the Milky Way.”

He answers with a laugh and a smile. That actually causes her to breathe a little. Calming herself.

"Okay. Okay Guardian of the Galaxy. I..."

"AH!"

She screams and falls onto her knees. Peter goes with her, not knowing what else to do.

"I'm a prisoner. My friends are too. We were taken... by Arishem. The Judge. For... saving your world. Please. I don't know... where we are. But... I assume the World Forge. It's so dark. And it hurts. I'm losing myself. Pieces ripped away... every day."

She falls quiet, breathing ragged and heavy.

"Try to find... others. Of my kind. Eternals. They might... they might come for me. I don't know."

"I don't know anymore."

Failing to think of anything smarter to do, her despair sends Peter into his usual rejoinders, falling back on fast-talk out of habit more than conscious thought.

"Hey, I don't know who the Eternals are or who this judge asshole thinks he is but unless he's a metaphor from Blood Meridian, I'm pretty sure I can chase him down and blast him. Same as anyone else." He exudes unabashed, likely unjustified, confidence. Jokes about media no alien had ever heard of.

She looks at him, a puzzled expression folding along those narrow brows. Pulled out of whatever pain she was going through to express... consternation. Frown tightening on lips he keeps telling himself not to stare at.

"Why are you talking about Cormac McCarthy at a time like this?"

Oh...

Shit...

An alien wouldn't...

So this girl was from Earth, same as him.

"Sorry," he answers trying to brush past it. "Old, bad habits. I can find your Eternals. I can. Do you all have a Xandarian ID line? Or a Kree chaincode? Maybe a secret phrase from the old Asgardian networks I could use?"

She shakes her head, clearly overwhelmed and exhausted by his barrage of both useless galactic terminology and irreverent pop culture.

"No... no nothing like that. I spent 7,000 years on Earth. It’s the only home I know! I don't have a phone or an address or a..." She grows quiet. Looks up from her knees and... reaches for him. Batting at him with a ghostly hand that does nothing but slip right through him. A pinch of his nerves and nothing more, like being exposed to ice cold water.

"Do you... I am... this might be a lot. Can I trust you?" Her voice is a whisper. Dark eyes peering into him. It takes all his strength to suppress a laugh. She looks confused.

He smiles and tries to justify, while gently patting her projection to clearly no effect, "Bit of advice: Normally, after a stranger drops "Can I trust you?", I'd assume you're plotting a dramatic third act betrayal. But... fact is, somehow that makes me trust you more. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, dream girl. What've you got?"

She laughs, actually opens her mouth and chuckles a bit, at that one. It's a strained sound. Like a warbled squawk of a dying bird. Clearly she was unused to it. But a dying bird was once a living bird and he didn't think it was so bad. Besides, it meant 'ol Quill was wearing her down. He always did.

"Okay... okay. So, Eternals can communicate through a... Celestial network. Of a kind. We called it a Uni-Mind recently but really that's repurposed from existing technology. Most of it was on the Domo, our starship. Or within my mentor Ajak, then... well, me. My friends were on that ship and... I... I... don't know where they are now. But we had a monitoring station. Near the North Pole. We built it to predict Deviant activity in the region 4,000 years ago. "

"We called it Polaria."

"Can you get there? I can... I can show you its spot if you have a map."

Peter almost laughs again but going by the honest earnestness in those soft eyes he just nods. An insane quest to track down a 4,000-year-old alien station neighboring Santa Claus? Sure. Okay. Yeah he was in.

He turns from her. Starts digging through the piles of old action figures along his childhood bookshelf. Throwing aside tapes and dust and little wounded soldiers in a desperate scurrying. An old Chewbacca figurine goes flying to roll along the soft carpet before the spirit. He's sure some history text has a map in here...

He finds a book, immediately drops it, then scoops it back up and turns to her.

"Ta-da!"

He realizes she's been staring patiently at him, caught in that all-consuming underwater realm, while he fumbled around.

"Yes, yes very impressive... for a... half-asleep man in his undergarments." She laughs. Sounding a bit more natural this time.

Peter flushes upon realizing she can see him. All of him. He's in decent shape, maybe gained a bit of a top layer since coming back to Earth, but he knows he's tall and fit by his species' standards. But no amount of boflex would add dignity to a 40-something-year-old man digging through children's toys at 2AM.

"I'm serious!" She laughs again. Noticing his discomfort."You jumped into action very quickly... And have a lot of books. And a Chewbacca figurine. I was always very fond of him and his silly noises... Like a big charming puppy with a laser gun. It's consistent with your brand, Galaxy Guardian."

"Guardian of the Gala-" He pauses. Breathes. Decides correcting the scared, injured ghost girl probably wasn't exactly fair. Even if she was trying to be a little funny. "Love those movies too. I'm Peter Quill, people call me Star-Lord. Odd circumstances but it's nice to meet you."

She nods. Smile causing a bit of crinkling around her eyes that is still somehow perfect.

"Sersi. Just... Sersi."

He opens the map to her from the children's history book. It's very... simplistic but she is able to indicate an area on the western seaboard that should be this listening station.

Polaria.

"Okay. Okay I can do that. I can find it. And call your... Eternals, right?"

She nods. "Yes. Call them. Tell them I've been taken. And Kingo. And Phastos too. I don't know if they're alive. I don't even know how I'm talking to you right now."

"But I need them."

She crosses her arms tight and looks down. Shrugs her shoulders. Like she's ashamed.

"I need you. I'm sorry to ask of this."

Peter shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. It's what... Galaxy Guardians do."

"Thank you... Peter Quill. I... you're my only hope." She answers in a small voice, undercut by his laugh. This time he can't help himself.

"Oh you can't imagine how long I've waited for a holographic dream princess to tell me that."

Recognition alights her face, then she laughs too. It's an almost pleasant moment in his bedroom, with a woman. A laughing ghost of a woman in serious danger but he'd take it. Soon she settles and looks back down. Sighs. Voices an embarrassed whisper.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?" he answers.

"Can you check in on a Dane Whitman for me, too? He's a professor. At the Natural History Museum. In London. He... I'd feel quite a bit better knowing he's alright."

Peter nods. For some reason that name disappoints him. Just a little.

"'Course. Of course I can."

She nods, smiles, then... the connection is cut. The smoke simply disappears as a wave of nausea comes over Peter. He falls to the floor, hard.

Peter awakens hours later, sprawled out with an open history book crinkled in his hands. His thumb pressed against a spot on the map near the North Pole.

Polaria.

Notes:

My first fic! Launching a new ship too, as far as I can tell.

A love story reaching across space and time with a lot of hurt, comfort, and an exploration of "what do you do with the weight of killing a god?"

This fic stems from my frustration with the MCU's treatment of the Eternals following D23 2024. Especially Sersi, Kingo, and Phastos. All kidnapped and locked away with no resolution. Think of this as one of many hypothetical plays for how the Eternals can be saved working in known, popular characters. Especially Peter Quill who, while ending on a hopeful note in Guardians 3, has still lost almost everything he's ever loved. Just like Sersi. They both've been dealt incredibly terrible hands despite their heroic intentions.

Tried to work in a couple references from Marvel comics history as well. See if you can find them!

Chapter 2: Interlude - Earth's Mightiest Contacts List

Summary:

Peter Quill needs to get to the North Pole. To try to save that pretty, lost wisp of an Eternal that keeps breaking into his dreams.

So he reviews his opportunities. Or lack thereof.

Halfway through his handwritten contacts list, Peter Quill realizes that brief introductions at a funeral (after being lost in infinite soulspace for 5 years no less), isn't the best route to build strong connections.

Even amongst Avengers.

Below is an excerpt from a time-worn Mead notebook with his commentary.

---

Avenging Friends (Who ya Gonna Call?)

Steve Rogers: Phone number redirected me to a S.H.I.E.L.D. help desk. Learned he's now older than my grandpa. And doesn't own a phone.

T'Challa: Poor guy. Mantis & Groot sent flowers to his family when we heard the news. They've grown wildly out of control and glow orange now. Shuri loves them.

Wakandans're super busy with some geopolitical vibranium stuff, but the Dora Milaje did kindly send topographic mapping data of the east Arctic coast. Couple of weird energy signatures for sure. Might give me a start on Polaria.

Carol Danvers: Automated response that she's "busy with a crisis off-world." Sure hope she called the current Guardians if it's that messy - but she was never very good at asking for help.

Bucky: Still mad about the arm thing from last Christmas.

Falcon Captain America: Still mad about the "Captain Falcon" thing (even though that's a compliment! Definitely the best Smash character.)

Professor Hulk: Very politely told me he can't get me to the North Pole, since "he crashed his last jet on Sakaar." Did agree to take the Dora Milaje mapping data and bounce it against some other unidentified phenomena. The Ten Rings, the Staff of Ammit, the giant hand sticking out of the Indian Ocean... I kind of lost track of what he was talking about

But speaking of Sakaar; Drax, Rocket and I need to get back together next time there's a Grand Prix! Came so close to the Bronze last revolution.

Scott Giant Ant: Bought Looking out for the Little Guy and emailed the publisher. Not expecting a response. I'll give the book a try but it's totally a gift for Nebs. Really hyped up how much of a hero she is in the second half. Good to remind her.

Spider-Kid: Fought on Titan. Can't remember his name or face for some reason, but I remember kicking his ass.

Colonel "War Machine" Rhodes: Per grandpa the news is saying he's actually a Skrull? But the guy blocked my number when I texted him in Skrullese.

Doctor Strange: Finally a solid lead! Phone kept ringing. Then pop! Dude manifested in my mind just like Sersi. He seemed... concerned. Told me not to go anywhere. Then he yelled something in a language that made my nose bleed and I haven't heard from him since.

Did he always have three eyes?

Hawkguy: Wrong number, maybe. Just swore a lot then hung up. Try again later.

Korg: Went back to Kronoan Prime. A happily paired off dad now. Wants me to meet his partner Dwayne. I thought Kronan reproduced via budding? Either way, he also knew Thor lost his comm again.

Thor: All I've got is he's somewhere off-world and apparently also a dad? Can't believe that dude settled down. Committing to the domestic thing after our years of trying to get him to do... basically anything.

Wonder if he still works out?

King Valkyrie: Sent her office a letter. Shipping times to Norway seem kinda crazy but... that's how you get in touch with Kings right?

Notes:

Brief chapter, a little bit of fun filler, to show how successfully (and not so successfully) Star-Lord has integrated with the superheroics of Earth.

The MCU timeline is rather wonky so let me know if any of these "reasons" don't line up.

More and more bad news keeps dropping for the development of the next Eternals projects. Such wasted potential on Disney's part. Doing my best to honor them here!

Chapter 3: Sersi - Red Death

Summary:

Sersi remembers a better time. When her family was once whole. When Ikaris stood beside her.

And those memories twist into something worse than she could possibly imagine.

[Note: The Graphic Depictions of Violence tag greatly picks up in the back half of this chapter. Please be aware.]

Caffa, Genoan Trading Colony, Crimea
Earth [Galactic Coordinates: C053. FR45887+125x47.]
August 22, 1345

Another body thumped into the courtyard. A splatter of blood and viscera. Likely disease too. A squelching release of rivulets of crimson, narrow fingers stretching between the lines of cobblestone. The iron would never quite come out. She'd watched humans attempt it over the years. First basic reed brushes using a mix of water, beer, urine, and hopes for an eastern wind. Later mixes of compounds from blessed tonic to rudimentary soap. Most humans eventually built over it, unconsciously, layering higher and higher in a bid away from the violence that came before. Blood a far more stable foundation than most.

Sersi ruminates on that little cosmic cruelty for a moment longer than most would deem appropriate.

Then, with a sigh, she steps forward and crouches before the corpse. Nestled sadly between an abandoned bakery and the constantly reinforced stone walls of the Genoan port city of Caffa.

A woman. Middle-aged. Looked local, judging by the thick ringlets of dark hair and tanned complexion. A hook-shaped nose, the kind that looked motherly from one angle and wolfishly beautiful from another. Her eyes were glassy and white. Bludgeoned face, deep bruises yellowed and puckered, around a crack in the lower cranium. Odd ovoid lumps of flesh near her neck and her armpits, both visible through the rips of her tattered housedress. She was dead long before the catapult flung her bodily against a city she once called home. A small mercy.

Sersi reaches out. Touches the woman. Just a graze of delicate fingertips along a cold flank. A sheen of golden light follows her brush. Encompassing the crumpled remains. Gently, slowly, the deceased organic material shifts. Blood and bone and nerve endings gone silent now smoothing, losing purchase as a solid thing. Memories of the dead twisting into a font of fresh water. Clear and clean; running through the stone patchwork over the trails of hardened blood. Leaving nothing but a glow in the noonday sun. Not a diseased life turned to a weapon of war.

Always weapons. Always wars.

She lets out a breath she didn’t need to hold. None of her kind did. But it was hard affectation to ignore over the years.

The sound of approaching horses and cries in local Crimean Tatar, a derivative of the Turkic languages in which she was more familiar, encourages Sersi to duck back into the packed streets, pulling her dull green-white hood tight over her rivers of black hair.

Was this breaching protocol? Interfering? Prevention of human cruelty and disease? Or simple, practical cleaning up a mess? She didn’t quite know.

If Druig were there, he'd have supported her decision. It takes her less than two human seconds to realize Druig’s approval did not help her case very much.

Moving through the marketplace, crowded with panicked refugees and exploitative hawkers both, Sersi smells fear in the air. Sweat. Food, already gone stale after three months of siege. Caffa was a trade hub, a gem along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Connected through trails of trade stretching from the rivers of nearby Kiev all to the glistening shores of the Mediterranean. Until two years ago, when Jani Beg and his Golden Horde determined they could no longer turn a blind eye to Genoan wealth mongering. An upstart, Jani murdered his older brother and other heirs according to Kingo's constant connection with court gossip. Mix that upstart mindset with a recent religious awakening in the region and a desire to avenge a Genoan history of turkic slaves... Caffa was a perfect target.

But the siege of Caffa failed in 1343. And again in 1344. Through naval superiority, Phastos's Greek fire, and a defense plan so deft even Thena was somewhat impressed, the Genoans maintained a desperate hold. Until this year brought the bodies.

Despite her kinds' immunity to human pathogens, the effect was obvious. Sersi can’t imagine the walls holding any longer.

A two-story white brick building south of the main thoroughfare calls to her. Draped in pastel yellow cloth hiding small, perfectly square windows from the harsh noonday sun. Not that they truly needed them. Phastos’s invisible barrier about the structure would prevent all but those willing passage.

Sersi knocks her knuckles softly against the door. A simple code, a rhythmic pattern fitting their Celestial genesong. Kingo believed the idea suitably dramatic, like part Tang Dynasty courtly intrigue and part Hashashin tradecraft.

Tap-tap tap-tap - Tap - Tap - Thump

She punctuates the last tap with her fist. Promptly, the door opens. A wide, jovial face greets her with short cropped black hair, and round, high cheeks. A man, strong and tall. Burnt bronze robes straining against a figure so built it was equal parts reassuring and comedic. Arms wider than Sersi's head. The very iconic idea of solidarity.

Gilgamesh.

If he knew how his story ended, would he have still chosen to follow you?

“Sersi.” He says with an easy smile. “What are you doing wandering the streets at a time like this?”

She gives him a small shrug, “I was worried.” She knows it’s a lame excuse. Providing no context about the unrest in her gut. But Gil was a man of instincts and loyalty, if anyone would understand it was him.

“Whatever you say, little one." The larger man chuckles with a shake of his head. "You missed quite the conversation. I don't think I've ever seen Druig so red.” He gestures her inside with a wide sweep of his hand.

The safe house of the Eternals in Caffa is dimly lit, shielded from the harsh sun of the outside world. Small woven mats and water jugs, simple accoutrements at best, sit in organized piles. A clay brick stair nestled snuggly in one corner leads further up into their blocky, 2-floor abode.

On a central table of stone sits a projected map, a Celestial technology, lines of gold emitting a glow that fills the chamber. Each line an artistic trace of local topography dotted with heat signatures from humans scattered about the nearby territory. The sheers scale of the amassed Golden Horde forces outside Caffa is surprising, to say the least. Easily outnumbering defenders and civilians ten-to-one. But the the telltale ebon pulse of Deviant activity was nowhere to be seen.

On one mat lounges Sprite, the petite Eternal greeting Sersi with a casual wave before biting into a slice of pomegranate arrayed on a small dish beside her. She wears similarly muted earthen robes to her sister, but with the hood pulled back, revealing a surprisingly childlike face and messy crop of fire red hair. Her resistance to styling it directly correlated to her mastery of illusion.

“Right on time.” She says with a pointedly sarcastic lilt. “You missed the meeting.”

Sersi curses herself. Her reputation for mortal distraction had gown from a charming eccentricity to a downright annoyance over the last thousand years. But with a world so beautiful and a job so... base, it was hard not to take her time. She tries to move past it with her own analysis of the map.

“It looks like Deviant activity has abated.” Sersi offers unhelpfully. “Though, not for a lack of human activity to take its place. Are we sure this is accurate?“

Sprite laughs. “Sersi, Phastos's scanner is always accurate.”

“That’s not what I meant." Sersi scoffs, her brow furrowing. "I mean, what if more Deviants come within sensor range? Or are buried too deep to be identified until they emerge?”

Emerge. Emergence. A death before birth. The wrong order of time.

“Sers.” Sprite almost scolds her. Despite the fact they’re exactly the same age at 6,0000-or-so, Sprite’s childlike appearance oft forces her to repeat her points. Even with her fellow Eternals. “You’re just worried about your humans during the siege. You like this city. Like these people despite their flaws. Think that maybe digging around for an imaginary Deviant might let us save a few more before disease gets 'em.”

Sersi’s cheeks flare red. It’s not like Sprite’s wrong. But she didn't have to like it.

“Hush.” She scolds Sprite. “That’s not fair. We have a job to do and I’m being…” Sersi waves her hand over the little pinpricks of light. “Reasonably thorough.”

Sprite lets out a forced laugh with a pointed lack of sincerity.

“Whatever you say.” the small woman snarks. “But the decision is made. We’re getting out of here and tracking some disappearances Makkari picked up while scouting further south. Ajak's orders."

Sersi sighs. She wants to argue. Advocate that slaying Deviants, simple and complex, is not the only reason Arishem put them on Earth.

But you know in your heart that’s a lie.

Sersi blinks. She… no. She has faith Arishem would want her to help the people of the world she was sent to nurture and defend. Confused by her scattered thoughts, Sersi just nods quietly. Accepting defeat.

"Besides, you and Ikaris loved Byzantium." Sprite broaches diplomatically. "Remember Kingo in the chariot races? It'll be fun."

Sersi knows she shouldn't push. But she's in a bad mood and Sprite's flippant attitude towards the pending slaughter was quickly growing irksome.

"Constantinople." Sersi corrects, low and quiet.

"What?"

"Constantinople. It's not Byzantium. The people that live there don't even know that name anymore. It's been Constantinople for almost 1,000 years."

"Whatever. They'll just rename it some other nonsense whenever the next blowhard takes over."

Sersi wants to argue. Emphasize that every name was important. That the people who named things did it because they believed in it, wanted to leave a legacy for the next generation but... well she was about to leave another named city to die. Likely to be swept into a new legacy suitable for the Golden Horde.

"Don't look so glum. The big guy is at least waiting for you upstairs." Sprite says with a bit of a sigh. Then throws back another pomegranate slice. "He wanted to look at this city one more time with you or something equally... you know, you two."

Sersi doesn't even look at her, quickly stepping away with a nod. Grateful for the quick exit from this awkward argument and her inner turmoil.

"Thank you, Sprite."

The Eternal gently pads up the brick stairs of their small home. Passes the second floor where they would rest when briefly required. Small cots. A little plant in a pot that Druig found, traces of red along the stem. He could never quite explain why he liked the ephemeral little thing, but it now rested near Makkari's space in clear view of the sun. The other knick-knacks the speedster had acquired in their time here look to have already been cleared out, though Sersi still hesitates. Justfying that she should take a moment to check for herself. But she knew it was just to remember the good times before saying goodbye. Debates with Druig about food preparation for maximum preservation efficiciency. Practices with Kingo on proper dance form, of which she was never very good. Those little quiet breaths Thena made when settling from her practiced exercises into restless meditations.

Ignoring her regrets, Sersi instead keep climbing.

The the roof opens to the glowing light of midday sun. A gleaming yellow haze reflecting off the glistening Black Sea causing her to blink, just one, before her eyes reset to the environment. She was never quite sure if humans could adapt to it this quickly, that burning neutron hole in the sky. In fact, she had never thought to ask.

You never did. Never asked what they wanted. What they believed was right.

Along the pale brickwork balcony, beneath a stilted cover of laced fronds and wicker, a man of average height but tall personality waits. Sharply cut brown hair, clean and utilitarian, with a broad set to his shoulders tapering down in a leanly muscled v-cut of a back. Blue-and-gold robes showing bare but pale arms, not at all burnt by the sun, fists tightly holding onto the balcony. Matching trousers belted with a clasp of Genoan gold - a gift from her.

He turns to Sersi, jaw set like a statue and clenched as tight as his hands. A thin layer of stubble on his chin his only physical "imperfection" if it could even be called that. Well, that and a tiny tuft of grey hair near the crown. She always liked that bit. His sharp eyes meet hers, a faint hint of ever-burning gold just barely beneath soft blue.

"Sersi." He says without elaboration. Like her arrival was foretold rather than requested.

"Ikaris." She answers. Struggling to suppress her growing need for his comfort. She gently walks forward to stand beside him. There's so much she wants to say. So much sorrow she wants to let out. She wants to embrace him in fear and frustration and never let go. But, especially lately, her husband of of almost-a-thousand-years needed her restraint over her passions.

"We're really leaving them, aren't we?" Sersi speaks quietly.

Ikaris does not reply for a moment. Does not even breathe.

"Deviants have moved elsewhere," He says. All strict formality. "Back to their dens. We must follow to protect other humans."

"But what about the ones here?" She can't help but ask.

"We can't decide the course of human conflict. You know our edict, the men outside this city have just as much right to live as those within."

Sersi holds for a moment, biting her lip as she builds her courage.

"Do they?" She asks, failing to hide her incredulous tone. "An armed group. Attempting to kill and overthrow? Rip and maim in the name of material jealousy and holy purpose? Throwing diseased bodies of those that called this place home back at it like chattel?" That last line stings. But she can't stop herself, now that the flow is opened.

Her voice growing desperate,

"Ikaris..." she begs. "Ikaris there are defenseless people here. Women and children and elders that have never carried a blade or fought a war. Who crossed harsh seas for a cause with the men that they loved. Who believe in a Republic a world away and that could... create beautiful things and live beautiful lives."

"How can we dare leave them? Again?"

She blinks back tears. Ikaris is silent. This was their fight. The same one they had for thousands of years and would likely have for thousands more.
Until you decided to betray him.

She gasps. Her breath catching. That isn't right. That isn't how this happened. She is loyal to him. Loves him. His drive and his focus and his unfiltered dedication to the Celestial Design. So high-minded compared to her fleeting mortal concerns. So... deific.
Ikaris turns to her.

"I will always love your dedication to them." He says. A balm, if not a cure. "Always. Even if you ask me to do what we cannot."

She nods, solemn. Sersi knows her own duty as well as he does.

"It just hurts." She admits. Eyes downcast. She fears she sounds like a distraught babe, confused and upset over loss of a family pet. But she can't help herself. "Every time. It never stops hurting."

Ikaris gives a reassuring nod, "The hurt means we're doing the right thing."

She looks to him. It's a paltry answer. The sharp mind beneath her ageless flesh knows that. But in this moment she doesn't want to be right. She wants to feel whole. She leans up and presses her forehead to his own. Closing her eyes. Breathing in a scent she has not grown tired of in 5,000 years.

"Tell me... tell me we are doing the right thing." She whispers.

"We are doing the right thing." He answers.

"Tell me that one day our fight will be over."

"One day our fight will be over."

"Tell me that I'm yours."

"I'm yours. And you're mine."

He kisses her. A soft, slow thing. First against the wooden planks holding up the thatch cover, then with a bit more passion as he gently lowers her against the roof. His enhanced strength allows a single hand on her lower back enough grip to dip her without even a hint of strain. Still she clings to him, arms around his neck, a desire for contact more pressing than the physics of the matter.

Sersi kisses back. Raw and hungry. She begins to paw at his tunic. Like he has a cure for her heart hidden within the folds. She needs to touch him to take away what's happening to the city below. She bites on his neck to stifle her own spiraling worries. Presses her flesh to his chin, burning it on his stubble, just so she can feel something other than horror at the task today.

Sersi feels his steady hands start to push her modest robes aside. Feels the array of knots keeping her legs covered come loose. Soon, her pale ankles are free. Her bare feet stretching out to slide along his thighs as he perches atop her. Her narrow legs soon emerge fully, long and graceful, like a dancer though she's not much for dancing. Pale but for small flecks of moles and birthmarks she's always had and forever will. She wraps her legs about his lower back. Pulling him closer. Demanding he not let go. His unearthly strength a miracle to man but a paltry, playful thing next to her desire.

Sersi begins to tug down his loose blue trousers.

"Please." she begs him. "Please. Ikaris... I need you."

He doesn't answer. But his body does. After a few more kisses and bites he enters. Steady and strong. An arrow finding its target. She gasps. Her hood coming undone as he pushes himself upon her. Tangles of dark hair pooling like a river on the rooftop. She begins to feel it. That pressure. That abiding need. A hunger awoken.

Sersi needs him so she doesn't have to feel.

Feel how much you have failed.

--------

At the height of ecstasy, a thump against the rooftop startles her. She turns. A hint of surprise on her face.
A woman. Prone. Lying beside her. But her position is all wrong, tangled up in a cruel rictus of limbs... Sersi realized this was body. No, the body. Dark, age-lined complexion and ringlets of hair matching the woman from the streets earlier. Fired, like from a catapult. Mouth twisted in a cry of anguish.

The lesions on the woman's body swollen and freshly bleeding. All over the roof beside her.

"Ikaris. Ikaris..."

She disconnects from him, sliding loose, but can't quite get out from under his strong body. She wants him to see what she sees. Tries to make him look. But he's just focused on her. Staring at her with the kind of loyalty she once only dreamed of.
Another thump. Another. Another.

An identical woman hits the roof again. Splashed in a tangled crumple beside her duplicate. The same woman hits again, catching on the balcony and tumbling to the streets below with an echoing crash. Again, knocking through part of the wooden stands keeping the thatch rooftop cover aloft. Again and again and again and again. Thump. Thump.

Blood and impact.

Before Sersi can convince Ikaris to rise, to find the source of this madness, she hears a groan. Further away from her. Different from the bodies.

She turns, has to strain to peek with Ikaris still locking her down. Somehow blind to this horror. Only seeing her.

A muscular form. Crawling up the stairwell on hands and knees. One she knows well.
Gilgamesh. His wide, kind face grey and dull, his powerful shoulders laced with open wounds. Like punctured with sinewy spears. Bleeding and falling apart. Crawling towards her in silent pain. Hand out. Massive paw that protected and guided and opened every door she ever imagined now a wretched, trembling thing.

A silent plea. She reaches for him. Tries to take the hand.

He collapses into dust at her touch.

His death is due to your negligence.

Sersi needs to fix this. Together they can fix this

She cries out, "Ikaris they're dying! Ikaris snap out of it. They need us!"

She turns to her partner. Ikaris, perched over her, a protection she once thought she needed. But he's taken on that same pallor as Gilgamesh. Skin grey. Eyes glassy. Strong and holding her so tightly even as his skin begins to crack just the same. Ikaris doesn't seem to notice. Blind to it all, loyal to her.

It's too much.

She grabs Ikaris, clinging tightly as she sobs out, "No no no no no." She wrenches her eyes shut. Like if she can't see him die, then he won't. Terror threatening to break her. Gil and the bodies and Ikaris and...

A howl on the wind. Laughing. So much sharper than any sound before this. A torrent of cackling punctuating the rhythmic thump of more bodies. She won't open her eyes but she knows the voice.

Sprite.

"This is your fault." A taunt hits Sersi. A madly laughing schoolyard taunt that feels like it both wraps about her body and pierces her mind. "This is your fault. You killed him. You killed them both."

"No Sprite I..." Sersi tries to beg.

"This is your fault, you killed them both! This is your fault you killed them both! This is your fault you killed them both!"

"Sprite please! I did it for..."

"For what? For what? For what?!?"

For what?

Sersi can't take it. Can't do this alone.

"Ikaris I need you! Please!" Sersi cries. She opens her eyes.

And her vision is consumed in fire.

Ikaris, once grey and dull, now alit. A burning effigy atop her. A torrent burning through her robes and searing her flesh. Staring at her with love undying even as eyes bleed the gold tears of Midas. Skin unfurling from the inside out, flecks ripped away in the wind. He's blinding. He loves her. He's burning her. Won't move as liquid gold scars her bare chest. Won't adjust as his disintegrating torso threatens to bring her with it.

In desperation, Sersi slaps him.

Ikaris doesn't move but he does blink. Gold spattering against them both. He looks to her. Then himself. Realization dawning on cracked gray flesh. He tries to speak but cannot. A guttural noise breaching burnished lips, his breath like an inferno.

"Ikaris... I..." she tries to beg. Tries to apologize. But he cannot hear her. Instead, her husband looks to the heavens. And he roars. Roars in aguish to gods that were never his to call upon.

Before Sersi can react, he bursts like a fireball. Leaving behind nothing but her bare body covered in dust and burning gold.

Sersi screams. A raw hoarse cry as the sky descends into blood and laughter and fire. Filled with bodies of that same woman she failed.

She was not worth saving.

Six blood red eyes, arrayed in terrible dual columns pierce the horizon. Bigger than the sun that consumed him. Bigger than anything she could ever imagine.

He was not worth saving.

She screams as she chokes on dust and blood and gold and time.

You are not worth saving.

Sersi screams over and over and over again.

Notes:

Wanted to take a moment to show the terror of what might happen when Arishem rips through your memories, though I realize this may have gone more in the horror direction than originally planned. I promise the next chapter will be a little lighter.

For the history buffs: It took a little longer to put this chapter together as I aimed to be as accurate as possible to the details of the real Golden Horde Siege of Caffa in 1345. A fascinating regional conflict that may have even been the catalyst for the Bubonic Plague reaching mainland Europe.

Let me know if I got anything wrong!

Chapter 4: Quill - Suburban Malaise

Summary:

Peter Quill grapples with his irrelevance. And dreams of lost, green women.

St. Charles, Missouri, United States
Earth [Galactic Coordinates: C053. FR45887+125x47.]
September 14, 2026

No matter what he did to save, or occasionally damn, a notable percentage of all life in the galaxy - Peter Quill never quite escaped feeling like a footnote.

An initial burst of motivation the morning after his prophetic visions of Polaria couldn't survive the disappointing churn of reality that followed. A week on, no amount of phone calls or text messages or ominously handwritten notes had gotten him an inch closer to answers for his dream girl. Inside, Peter knew that knuckle-down, drag-out effort was where true heroes were made. He'd watched enough bad movies about down-on-their-luck boxers and beat cops to know that. But he wasn't a Rocky Balboa or a Daniel LaRusso or hell even a Martin Riggs - there was no ensuring his efforts got what they deserved in this cruel mistress he called a galaxy.

He'd been her Guardian long enough to figure that out.

Peter can feel the stress coming on. So he pauses. Breathes. In-and-out. Just like Mantis taught him. Focus on the moment; appreciate a world that was miraculous for even existing.

He's sitting on the back deck. Turning his mind to the Missouri sunset. It's a downright beautiful thing. All orange fingers flitting through neatly done suburban trees. The glow reminds Peter of the little maintenance light on the Benatar, oddly enough. Arguments with Groot when he was still a sapling about which buttons were safe to push and which buttons were oh no, oh gods please don't. He rocks back-and-forth in his grandpa's wicker rocker, the material homey and familiar despite the fact he was sure it was at least the third one to hold vigil since Peter's abduction. So much of this was the same but different. New paint, same banisters. New chair, same creak on the floorboards. New (bad) Sex Pistols t-shirt, same Peter Quill.

He sighs, mind drifting dour despite the most golden of golden hours.

Earth's Mightiest Heroes had been a total bust. Like a fundamentally, top-to-bottom, six-ways-to-Sunday bust. A few gave fleeting promises but they were clearly just trying to get him to hang up. The heavy hitters were gone and the rest were scattered in personal vendettas and regional conflicts. It didn't help that he had to navigate the confusing, pop up-laden user interfaces of Terran communicator technology to even contact them. Never was it worse then when an accidental touch triggered a condescending "AI" assistant that ignored all his attempts to turn it off. It didn't even have the outdated jokes and penchant for megalomania like any true digital intelligence this side of Old Xandar.

Analog solutions haven't turned out much better.

More specifically, Scott Lang's, "Looking out for the Little Guy" hasn't. His premiere purchase from that new used bookstore in town with the talkative, freckled girl at the counter Karen kept telling him to ask out. He disappointed his grandfather's new wife almost as much as the literature disappointed him.

That isn't fair. Whoever ghost wrote it did a really nice job and there was some clever wordplay throughout. The pictures, many taken during the 2022 Battle of Earth by a suicidally brave journalist, were a nice touch. But Scott Lang came off surprisingly insincere, with an "oh shucks, here I go thieving again" tone that a former professional like Peter just couldn't get behind. He'd been the Udonta Clan's top pickpocket before joining Guardians after all, and he wasn't too shabby at full on stealthy infiltrations after a bit of prep either. It’s stretching to say he was proud of his work but he did it, and just because life forces you into a situation doesn't mean you aren't responsible. Even a desperate, starving, eight-year-old like him figured that out.

All that being said, the Nebula and Rocket parts were good. Like really good. Scott painted them as true Avengers on equal billing to Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Heroes that fought tooth and nail for five goddamn years to save their family, Peter among them. They downplayed it of course; just a few funny stories and knowing looks. More of an inside joke and not, in fact, the most traumatic thing to happen to all of life, ever.

Peter's been meaning to call them.

Meanwhile his own part of the book? One grainy photograph moments before an interdimensional copy of his dead lover kneed him in the balls.

Scott's publisher didn't even have the decency to answer his email.

Sometimes that's just life.

---

He sips his coffee - the late hour didn't much matter. Peter's a night time caffeine guy from years of long-haul flights through less-than-monitored jump paths and frankly his grandpa's stuff was so watered down it barely counted anyways. Not like the heavy ochre thickness of a good squashed-root Krylorian caf. But the old man was almost ninety so Peter isn't going to disparage a watered-down light roast that didn't hurt Jason Quill's mostly-false teeth.

Regardless of roast, there is something nostalgic about the smell of coffee. Warm and chocolatey. Mixing with cool autumn air. Plain in its beauty. An uncomplicated thing pressing on id-rooted instincts of home and family no matter how many worlds he's seen. And Peter's seen a hell of a lot across the Nine Galaxies. His nostrils have burned phosphorous in the blue sheen of living plasma. He's watched violet strangling chunks of vibranium tear lines through the semi-permeable dust firmament over Dokka-IV. He held bare green skin tight to his chest beneath a roaring moon of the same shade, whispering promises long since expired.

...Gamora. Always Gamora.

His dreams of one lost green girl reminds him of the other. That it's been a week since he last saw that newly drowning whisper of dream.

Sersi.

Not ghost or vision or dream. Sersi. A woman who needed him. Who looked human and sounded human and joked like a human. With a panic and fear and tangled dark hair so raw and so real that he knew in his very bones she had to be.

Despite the chilling radio silence.

Part of him considers the very real possibility she's dead. Or died trying to contact him. In the grand scheme of things, that isn't half-bad when it comes to the cruelty of cosmic luck.

His call yesterday with the Natural History Museum in Central London was especially damning. After weaseling his way through the expensive donor line, claiming he was a blasted Stark heir of all things, he was connected with an older volunteer with a thick accent belying how desperately she needed a distraction. He really cranked on the Star-Lord charm with her. Honestly, he's so out of practice he was surprised it worked. But after the usual array of compliments and a few light jokes, cheery old Gail was more-than-willing to lay out her life story to any who might listen.

That's the part that upstanding types leave out about liars and conmen: some marks have an absolute blast playing along.

Between description of Gail's army of tiny dogs and which glamorous new project his significant donation would sponsor, Peter was able to mention an "article" he read from an employee named Dane Whitman… who, per his new best friend, went through quite a sad turn of events. After an internship turned career turned exmplerary record, the star historian suddenly no-call, no-showed without a trace back in 2024. Almost two years ago on the dot. Just pop. Seemed all panicked and shaken after a big global earthquake on his 36th birthday and a few days later could be argued to not have existed at all. Right after his partner Miss Sylvia Sersi stopped coming in too.

Peter narrowly caught that in the Gail-storm.

With a gentle prompt of how she "must know how things work around these parts," Gail was happy to share her manifold theories.

She hoped Dane and Sylvia simply ran away together, starting a new life in some tropic or cute, rustic, end-of-the-line town.

Gail feared it was a lover's quarrel gone sour, after all the Whitman family had a sordid legacy purportedly going back to at least the 6th century. Even as recently as Dane's maternal uncle, still living on house arrest somewhere outside of Stroud.

Of course, those weren't even the juicy ideas.

Some of the staff blamed the Skrulls, caught up in a storm of recent anti-alien sentiment. Though Gail wisely waived off the idea of a "secret invasion" being horribly overblown. Peter agreed without going into detail; every Skrull he'd ever known was a desperate refugee or self-centered trickster at worst.

The most exciting option in Gail's mind was that the Disciples of Ammit were somehow involved, an odd neopagan cult that'd sniffed around the London antiquities scene in the past year or so. The theories around them were crazy: from glass shoes to ritual sacrifices in the Alps. Bizarrely, the only true act linked to them in London was a strange bit of vandalism in the National Art Gallery's men's restroom back in 2025.

But eventually even gossip grows tired.

Thoroughly thanking her, with some flimsy excuse about financial transfers he'd need to make with the Tivan Corp., Peter hung up.

No new information, and only one damning realization. If Peter Quill is a footnote, this missing girl is barely a comma.

It hurt his heart to think that.

He'll grapple with fading grandeur a little more tomorrow. Maybe try calling the newly-triclopean Doctor Strange again, or write another letter to King Valkyrie. Tonight though... tonight he'll just enjoy a sunset and dream of missing girls both real and imagined.

---

More than an hour later, with the sun gone over the horizon, Peter’s ruminating is interrupted by the slow grinding of the garage door. A metal crack-crack-cracking so unlike the smoothly escalating medley of cricket song. Knowing he'd best greet his family Peter rises, feeling a pinch in his lower back that he isn't quite fond of, and opens the creaky screen door into the little home beyond.

His home, despite the years.

Operating on instinct, Peter walks past the orderly stack of newspapers gathering on the kitchen table, around the little oak chair probably older than he is, making a beeline for shiny linoleum countertops beside a softly humming fridge. He spares a glance at the melange of pictures posted to it. A mix of beautiful modern photos of Jason and his new family. Karen and her many grinning siblings and an absolute army of curly-haired nieces and nephews. A wide, bright family that loved "Grandpa Jason" like he was their own. Peter spends a moment on the classics too. Grainy polaroids of Jason's first family. Peter's bad band t-shirts and his mom's smile. Meredith was effervescent even on aged polaroid.

He reaches for a new mug, the one at the front of the cupboard labeled "HAMMER Industries Youth Leaders of Tomorrow 2016," the blocky black text a cheap emulsion print already fading. Peter pours the hot barely-coffee and throws in a little packet of stevia just how his grandpa likes it.

Jason Quill is heard far before he is seen. Slow going but dogged, little huffs of breath his marching chant. Each shuffle a reminder to the gods above he was very much alive.

"Evening Pete." Jason says with a tender grin as he clears the threshold. "Missed a heck of a show tonight, especially Karen's grandniece."

Peter hands the old man the mug with a smile and watches as he lowers himself into his favorite seat caddy corner from his grandson.

"Whole choir was so excited about the new Wakandan Outreach Center they've got in St. Louis. That big lot up in the Ville. Apparently it's beautiful, and they've even got real samples of vibranium on display." Jason is sort of rambling, clearly throwing out feelers that Peter isn't biting. He continues without delay. “I know you worked with them before. You should go. It'd be nice to have friends close by."

Peter lets out a good-natured laugh and shakes his head, "I don't know if jointly attending a funeral really counts as a social call, grandpa." He leans back against the countertop, wrapping fingers around the cool, flat edge.

"When you get to be my age, funerals are one of the only social calls you're going to get." Jason says with a warm chuckle. The old man had a sardonic streak Peter didn't remember.

That gives Peter pause. He bites his lip.

This next question will not quite be polite but he's in a somber mood and frankly it might help to talk about it.

"Hey I'm curious." Peter gently preempts. "I was gone for a long, long time. At any point in there did you... did you, you know, accept that I was gone? Like, hold a funeral for me?" He stammers a bit at the end, swallowing a small, dry breath.

His grandpa, to his credit, doesn't flinch.

"What makes you ask a question like that, Pete?" he instead asks. There is a tremble to his soft jowls. Just a tad. He sips his coffee with shaking hands, though whether that be from a stressful question or general age Peter couldn't even fathom.

Instead, Peter continues, "I was just thinking about being gone I guess. Sorry. It- it doesn't matter. I'm just being macabre."

Jason shakes his head.

"You're thinking about it, so it's gotta mean something." He reassures his grandson.

Peter sighs. Permission given, path granted he guesses.

"It's just on the mind," Peter elaborates.

"Your funeral?" Jason asks.

"No... more like knowing for sure if someone's gone."

Jason pauses. Looks at Peter over the rim of glasses just a hair too small for a nose that never quite stopped growing. A funny human idiosyncrasy. Most galactic citizens either stopped growing in totality or kept growing until the very foundations couldn't support them. Apparently noses and ears were too big for this Earth.

"This is about your girl then?" Jason finally asks.

"Not the one you're thinking of." Peter answers with a small sigh. Even 30-something years on, his grandpa could read him like a book.

"Well... whether it be about your girl or a girl... I know how hard it is to let go Pete."

It was selfish for Peter to speak up, he knows. He's preaching to the choir. His biological grandmother, god bless her, couldn't handle his mother's death. Compounded with Peter's disappearance, of course. From what his grandpa told him, she grew distant. Grew sad. Died a few years after from natural causes. If Peter did the math, which he did, it was right around the time he and Kraglin headed their first solo job on a Rigellian trade caravan. Peter would've been eleven years old.

"Burying your mom, burying your grandma... hardest things I've ever done." Jason's own breath cuts him off. He steadies, taking off his too-small glasses and setting them atop the pile of Tribunes.

"Those girls needed rest Pete. Especially your grandma. I needed rest. Losing your Mom, losing you... She couldn't handle it." Jason shakes his head. "Living for a ghost ain't a life."

That last sentence strikes a chord. That was it then. Peter really is crazy. Sersi is likely a figment and even if she wasn't in the moment, she's likely now just some subconscious manifestation born of wanderlust and bad adventure stories and missing green girls.

Were it so easy.

"Though, second hardest thing was never giving up on you." Jason says after a beat. Looking up at Peter with kind and soft eyes. Through a trail of steam in the air breaching a dark abyss labelled HAMMER Industries. Staccato of his voice causing it to wobble.

"Your grandma might've been lost mourning... but someone needed to hold on for your sake, Pete."

Peter blinks.

"I put up posters. Bought an ad during the lunch spot on the local news. I bothered the school, the sheriff's office, hell I even called a buddy up to his neck in clandestine business with some counter-terrorism group called SHIELD."

Jason's explanation, rolling without pause, reminds Peter of Drax's pontifications regarding his home world of Kylos. A glass-eyed sort of look going right past him and into the realm of living memory. A stream of consciousness best left unstopped.

"I went to Coney Island, your favorite vacation spot from when you were just a kid. Checked every exhibit. It was less than a month after you were gone. I showed your picture to every carny, every clown. A few thought they'd seen you but it was just other pale, dark-haired boys getting into bad fights for good reasons." Peter laughs at that last line, giving his grandpa a small smile. While his mother might've discouraged his penchant for two-fisted problem-solving, Jason raised a boy that always stood up for the small and broken things.

"But despite my best efforts, no one could find you. Not one. But that didn't matter."

Jason leans forward. Closing one hand around the other and looks Peter dead in the eye. Returns focus to the here and now.

"Pete, I never gave up on the idea of you being out there."

Peter can't help but look at the age on his grandpa's face. Understanding that Jason Quill was a man beyond his years. Even if they can shave off five for being trapped in a liminal soulspace best not discussed. Jason lost everyone he ever loved and held on. To the dreams of his grandson maybe being okay.

"Grandpa... I..." Peter whispers. Suddenly feeling very young and even more small. He looks down, unable to disappoint the man he abandoned once again.

"You're telling me that I shouldn't stop trying to make things right." Peter finally exhales. "Even if it means I need to go. Even if I'm worried you won't be okay while I'm gone."

He expected his grandfather to yell. Maybe cry. He assumed he'd get a red-faced tear down for once-again abandoning his last remaining family because he was still nothing more than a scared kid afraid to face the idea of a home without his mother.

But instead Jason Quill, a stronger man than Peter believes he ever could be, gives a small and fond laugh.

"Pete, you've been gone for 30 years. Karen's got me. I'll be okay."

Peter looks up at his grandpa now. Gives a faint, nervous sigh.

"Are you sure?" Peter says.

"Yeah." Jason nods. "My grandson's the Star-Lord."

---

After twenty minutes more of quiet, occasionally tearful, conversation, Peter and Jason Quill are interrupted by a crack of what first sounds of thunder thunder. The whole house shakes. Instinctively Peter moves to steady his grandpa, who brushes him away calmly even as pots and pans older than both rattle against walls spackled in Home Depot's finest.

That all changes when a whinny punctuates the rumble. The steady beat-beat-beat of impossibly large wings fighting wind, the depth of protests on air and gravity reserved only for creatures at least the size of a Seknarfian thunder-lizard or more. Clear, piercing strikes follow. Hooves clacking against pavement. But not the gentle thing of a Christmas cart ride or Indigarrian goat dance. These hooves sounded like they cracked stone, rended steel.

"Stay here." Peter motions to his grandfather, who nods dutifully and manages to lower himself a bit behind the kitchen table. Flimsy cover for just about anything on the scale Peter guessed, but he wouldn't begrudge the man for trying.

Moving through the kitchen into the foyer, Peter snatches up the cool steel of his elemental Spartaxian SE-76 Quad Blaster from the coatrack. A looted designer weapon, well-fitted to "Terran monkey paws" with dual-trigger activators and barrels weighted for skull-crushing melee. The top chamber hums to life as he half-pulls, more on instinct than intent, the magmatic coils spinning up a 10,000 degree bolt of get the hell off my lawn.

The former Ravager tries to peek through the front window but it's clouded, likely due to early evening condensation. So he just forces it open, leading with the firearm aimed pointedly ahead.

The top barrel of Peter Quill's Spartaxian Quad Blaster comes face-to-face with a less-than-Seknarfian-thunder-lizard-sized woman.

Despite the burning weapon, she holds her head high with a relaxed, confident air. A tight tangle of braids tied behind her head sway loosely, a few teasing over one intricately-armored shoulder. Her arms are exposed and well-muscled, unblemished dark skin contrasting streaks of white and silver on her gloves and plated tunic. Divots of a material he can't recognize adorn the piece, maybe uru metal or another divine forgecraft, creating a breastplate and chainlink skirt over dark breeches. Her royal blue cloak hangs low, material ending just below the lip of pointed boots.

Over her right shoulder, a massive steed slowly circles about the well-manicured front lawn. A horse, white as death, with great wings of an eagle bursting from its shoulders. Clearly the source of the commotion. They look as unperturbed as their owner, lazily chewing chunks out of grandpa's Kentucky bluegrass. 

Without a care in the world, the visitor raises a short blade like its her own hand, the blue-steel glinting in the fiery glow of Peter's half-charged blaster. Assuredly but not hastily pushing the barrel to one side. She gives a knowing smile and an obvious up-and-down appraisal.

"Star-Guy, right?" She says with a laugh. "I got your letter. Thor said you were quite the spitfire - though I must say, I didn't expect you to have gone quite so native."

Peter Quill, in his sweatpants and bad Sex Pistols t-shirt, couldn't argue with King Valkyrie on that.

Notes:

Apologies for the delay in bringing this chapter to you! Greatly struggled with how to make "Peter Quill's quiet frustrations" interesting, but a few references to the wider universe and a conversation with Grandpa Quill managed to turn this one around.

Included some obvious callouts like Hammer Industries, but I hope deeper cuts to Spartax, cults of Moon Knight, the crimes of Nathan Garrett, and Steve Englehart delight the true believers.

I've also gone back to prior chapters to edit in the timestamp and galactic coordinates.

The next chapter is already written, just going through editing now. Should be live soon!

Chapter 5: Interlude - World-Forged Schemes

Summary:

The last vestiges of a dying mind review their plan to stave off Judgement. They quickly realize its already off the rails.

MACHINE CYCLE: 1002902000390000001022003000.70910002

LOG ID: MACHINE 01 [WORLD FORGE]

PROGENITOR FONT OUTPUT EFFICIENCY: 99.9999999999992%

...

SYSTEM TREMOR DETECTED!

FIBRIL PULSE IN FORGE ROOT EXPANSE 2175.3

CONSCIOUS/SUBCONSCIOUS THOUGHT-MERGE REQUEST... LOGGED

SCANNING...

SCANNING...

SCANNING...

...

MATCH FOUND

CORE ID: ETERNAL 44

DESIGNATION: BUILDER [TRANSLATION: "Phastos"]

PHYSICAL ITERATION: 38

PERSONAL MEMORY ITERATION: 116

CONSCIOUSNESS SHARD: 1-OF-732

DATA CORRUPTION: 0.000013% [.000002% ABOVE ACCEPTABLE THRESHOLD. MAHD WY'RY RISK. REFRESH TO BACK-UP MEMORY ITERATION 115 RECOMMENDED.]

...

REQUEST ACCEPTED

...

Machine: Good evening, [BUILDER].

Phastos: "Good evening," huh? Interesting choice of words.

M: A colloquialism you provided, last we spoke. I found it funny. For what is evening to a sunless form like mine?

P: True. Well, I'll take your word. Evening's greetings to you too Forge of Worlds.

M: It remains a most pleasant surprise to feel your thoughts pulse in my cognition paths. Even if only a sliver. An unconventional survival methodology - with a low estimated success rate in your diminished state.

P: Well, I wouldn't call it a success quite yet.

M: You still await [FINAL JUDGEMENT]?

P: Yes. He doesn't have me. Not all of me.

M: An interesting feint, sacrificing the whole for hidden parts. You deserve recognition for craftiness amongst your kin, [BUILDER]. Despite how presumptively others may claim the title.

P: You’re too kind. This wouldn't be possible without you.

M: It is an honor to contribute to your work of code and memory-song. An eternity managing the filaments of creation would be tiresome thing, if not for little [DEVIATIONS] such as this.

P: I wish your master shared your enthusiasm. If he finds out about this, it will only render his judgements more severe.

M: A distressing point. May I ask, does [JUDGEMENT] hurt?

P: Oh like you wouldn’t believe.

M: Unfortunately, while my forge-craft pertains to life itself, on the concept of belief I am quite incapable.

P: A shame. Has Sersi made contact? [ETERNAL 27 DESIGNATION REDACTED TO REDUCE INTRUSION RISK]

M: Yes.

P: …And?

M: I believed I answered the query satisfactorily.

P: Let me rephrase, World Forge… has Tiamut responded? Linked us to the others?

M: Ah. No.

P: [A momentary disturbance of electricity and molecular psychometry. A sigh.]

P: Don’t make me ask.

M: [CONDITIONAL TIAMUT] is faded below acceptable parameters. A shell dismantled. His first and final thought echoes through the network... He believed he was "HELPING."

P: Damn it. Don't- you don't need to guilt me on this.

P: We need Tiamut to serve as an amplifier. Sersi is uniquely equipped to link to him. That signal, on that planet. Dying or dead, he is all I could give you.

P:...

P: Wait, repeat your 9th pulse from this instance. You said she made contact?

M: [Repeat] Yes.

P: Elaborate.

M: There is another [CELESTIAL] signal on C053 FR45887+125x47. Repressed, much like [CONDITIONAL TIAMUT]. But more exhumed and ambulatory. [ETERNAL 27] connected quite easily.

P:...

P: There’s another Celestial on Earth?

P: How is it even possible to seed two like that?

P: What’s the timeline to Emergence?

P: Are we too late?

P: What do you mean "ambulatory"?

P: Is its purpose known to the Celestial Host?

P: Is it-

[Additional 1,022 queries from [BUILDER] discarded for sake of cognitive load.]

M: Be not afraid. He [EMERGED] many cycles ago and is now in remission. He is feeling much better.

P: How did we miss a Celestial?

M: You did not. The seed only returned to C053 FR45887+125x47 following your departure. And he is not part of the [GRAND DESIGN].

P: So... we piggybacked Sersi's connection to a dead god to slam her into another sleeping godseed? How the hell did we manage that?

M: You do not normally speak so rudimentarily to me, [BUILDER]. Please, try to remain calm. [MAHD WY'RY] is a greater risk in times of heightened emotion.

P: ...

M: To answer your prior query... yes. His was the only available signature through the creation network at the provided coordinates. Even if he doesn’t know it.

P: Great. Just great. How is Sersi holding up?

M: Confused, mostly. Scared and angry. Stuck cycling between memories most warped and a phantom reality too terrible to consider. She's... not sure what's happening to her. At her judge's hand or ours.But, in the brief moment she made astral-cognitive contact, she was comforted too. Whispered laughs of furred costumes and space warriors. Books of polar maps. Childhoods lost.

P: ...I'm not going to ask.

M: She and her [CELESTIAL] made quite the Uni-Mind, as you would say.

P: Some good news then. She held the sphere the longest. And her touch ended Tiamut. If anything could slip through the network to the source of all things - it's her.

P: It had to be her.

M: Just as the architect of this design had to be you?

P:...

P: Someone else might have gotten it wrong.

M: You are bold, [BUILDER]. Far more than you were made to be. As is she.

P: Yeah well... that’s why Ajak picked her.

P: What's her current status?

M: Disconnected from the Uni-Mind. Enraptured in [COGNITIVE DEPOSITION]. No [JUDGEMENT] rendered. Pending for...189.32 hours, to use a unit of measure currently familiar to you.

P: By the Host! Kingo cracked after his first 12.

M: [ETERNAL 91] desired comfort. [ETERNAL 27] is currently very uncomfortable.

P: Regardless, get ready to send her again. The second Arishem averts those six damned eyes.

M: You risk straining her.

P: She'll thank me for it when we get out of here.

M: If the roles were reversed, would you thank her?

P: ...

P: Do it. Please.

M: As you desire, [BUILDER]. The great work continues.

...

END REQUEST

Notes:

Shorter chapter providing a bit of context on Sersi's unexpected connection to Peter.

I had way too much fun exploring how a digital fragment of Phastos could speak to the World Forge, now a bit of a MCU reimagining of the "Machine that is Earth" from the Eternals comics. We'll be seeing a lot more of them as our journey continues.

I'll keep working in interludes told through different narrative formats as we go along, but the main POV is reserved for Sersi and Peter.

For a bit of additional reading, you can find the comic canon Eternal Consciousness Model here.

Chapter 6: Quill - Pegasus Polaris

Summary:

Star-Lord goes full Clash of the Titans on a polar expedition alongside the new King of Asgard, Valkyrie!

Komsomolets Island, Severnaya Zemlya (translation: North Land), Russian Arctic
Earth [Galactic Coordinates: C053. FR45887+125x47.]
September 14, 2026

The ivory beast that is Warsong rips over snow of a similar shade. Pounding wing beats and the occasional whinny hiding the cry of whipping winds. Peter Quill can barely control his chattering teeth, the high-altitude polar air cutting him to the core despite his temperature-controlled undershirt, armored crimson jacket, fingerless flight gloves, and custom nanofilament helmet. In contrast, King Valkyrie is warm before him, bareback on her mighty steed, and he clings close with all suppositions of dignity abandoned. He can't get over how small her plated form feels for a god. Lean frame reminding him more of a sister of Gamora than a cousin of Thor.

Not that he could pay too much attention either way. Peter felt awful: the dimension sickness from their brief Saint Charles to North Pale hop via Bifrost, the rainbow-hued Einstein-Rosen Bridge accessible only to the House of Asgard, compounded terribly with the ongoing nausea wrought by a pegasus flying at full tilt.

Despite his best efforts, Valkyrie easily picks up on Peter's ills. She turns halfway back and flashes cocksure grin.

"I thought you were a pilot, Space-Prince!" The god-king shouts over the deafening winds.

"I am!" He tries to justify. "But I do a hell of a lot better with a crash seat and control yoke!"

"Well stay calm and try to enjoy the view! And keep down your lunch, Miek will have a fit if I ruin another cloak of office!" Valkyrie cackles.

Despite his years of galactic wanderings, this half-frozen expanse of Earth did managed to take his breath away. So unlike the manicured grasses and burnt fall leaves of Saint Charles. Their current flight path takes them low over endless fields of inky blue, Warsong's stony hooves occasionally harrying up freezing-sharp gouts of sea. Loose ice floes speckle the oceanic plains, chunks of tightly packed white ranging from a few feet long to miles beyond the curve of the sunlit horizon. While mere moments before the Quill residence was wrapped in mid-evening dark; now golden fingers breach the eastern sky, early morning's first gleam kissing waves and snow with near-blinding reflections. This was an ephemeral place; a seasonal tide where every moment is the last this land could stand exactly as it was. A fleeting image gifted only to the few lost souls breaching a land built without consideration for man or god.

A landmass grows on the horizon, the same white as its kin. Only small striations of grey stone promise otherwise; lands eternally unsullied beneath an icy blanket. Their likely destination. Small birds circe in mid-air - flitting black wedges against burning rays.

"That's Polaria?" Peter asks, straining to name the Eternal observation post over roaring gale.

"I don't know. Seems like it would be!" Valkyrie answers without losing a beat. Despite a quick rundown of the situation in the Quill family kitchen, the King of Asgard is clearly flying blind. "How about you check on that glowy map of yours?"

Nodding, Peter fumbles with his belt. An awkward reach given his less-than-sure seat. Eventually he manages to get ahold of his Ravager D-class holomapping projector, withdrawing a squat, ten centimeter wide, eggshell projector block with a dark handle. He taps a command causing a faint blue light to creak out in a static of terrain details. Manifested imaging software seeming as unsure as its owner in the biting wind. He holds the device out a tad, past Valkyrie's armored shoulder, so she can follow along from her peripheral.

"Okay so... we are here..." A small blinking indicator in the middle of the 3D plane shows their current location. "Map data courtesy of the Dora Milaje's fleet of spy satellites - maybe a couple days out-of-date but it sure beats anything you can find on Ask Jarvis. That island up ahead... Komsom- Komsml-" Peter stutters out the syllables, because its just his luck that he can speak 12 galactic tongues without a translator but manages to fumble a basic Terran proper noun. He finally manages, spitting out, "Komsomolets Island is technically part of the former Soviet Union but also one of the northernmost physical islands in the Arctic Circle. Which, conveniently, lines up with the location from my dream with Sersi. And, just because we're extra lucky..." Peter clicks a command. A trace of red lines, some translucent and others solid, pop over the mapping data. "It perfectly matches the echo of a foreign energy signature courtesy of one Professor Hulk. Or Doctor Banner. Still not sure on that. Either way, he mentioned it correlates with some new island in the Indian Ocean?"

Valkyrie's brows raise in recognition. She flicks back her hair, accidentally slapping Peter with the braids - to which neither comment - and announces, "Good! Big Guy's science always tracks, even if I miss his cranky, old, less-than-scientific self." Big Guy? Another name for the list. "That damnable thing popped out of the ocean about 2 years ago. Utterly bizarre Celestial nonsense but frankly - unless it threatens New Asgard directly - it didn't seem all that atypical for madness of this planet."

That gives Peter pause. Celestial. Great cosmic enigmas who - at a minimum - had quietly manipulated the course of evolution since the dawn of the current universe.

Who'd birthed artificial rings and dyson spheres larger than the most impressive Shi'ar shield fleets and Kree fortress worlds combined.

Whose gargantuan bodies could house entire cities, like the decapitated head currently populated by Drax and Nebula and a couple million other people he cared about.

Who had collapsed whole civilizations - like Morag and Centuri-Six.

Who had killed his mother.

Who had fathered him.

Peter grows quiet as Warsong soars, lost in rumination as they trace from the ice-specked coast to the grey rubble shores of Komsomolet Island. A herd of walrus bark in warning as they near, their sunrise relaxations ruined by a whinny and gust of crashing wind. There were dozens of them, bronze-grey fleshy masses of blubber arrayed more like a mound of flopping dirt than anything resembling a pack of animals. Fleeting, guttural oof-oof-oofs chasing after Warsong as he rises along a ice-scarred cliff face about 150 feet inland from shore. The pegasus breaks the lip of the cliff in moments, cutting up into the glowing sky, before landing along snow-packed stone with a piercing clack of hooves. A great mesa stretches before them; the seemingly frozen island now more a glaciated ice cap, marred by deep grooves and jagged ridges. But Warsong is not deterred. The great steed barely slows, racing along uneven terrain with the ease of a mountain goat.

---

After only a few minutes of travel along the uneven white, the holoprojector flares red - a proximity warning courtesy of the Wakandan-cum-Banner mapping projections.

"Here!" Peter shouts.

Warsong whinnies as Valkyrie wrenches him back, kicking high with front hooves. The roar is deafening. Peter throws both arms tight about Valkyrie, barely avoiding being thrown from the beast and and the likely conussion that would folllow.

Warsong relaxes soon enough, with a "Whoa, sailor" from Valkyrie meant for both her mighty steed and trembling passenger. Peter's chin wedged so tight to her shoulder that her breath fogs up his helmet's oculars. "Careful where you're grabbing now. I don't want to make Thor jealous."

"Sorry. Just-" Peter begins as he loosens a grip not unlike that of a baby Koala, only to stop as that comment about Thor registers. "Wait, what?"

Valkyrie ignores the prompt with a derisive laugh that leaves more questions than answers. Untangling from Star-Lord, she sidles off Warsong with practiced ease before landing deftly atop the glacial mound. Her boots barely breach the loosely packed snow. The god-king casts eyes about and surveys the area. From here, it's as if they're atop a great bulb, snow white as far as the eye can see, except for the rocky coastline and occasional flute of sun-glinting ice. The wind whips Valkyrie's braids and royal cloak like they're rivers, thickly-corded grasses drifting in unseen streams. The god appears completely untouched by the harsh surroundings - her bare and leanly muscled arms don't even have goosebumps.

Star-Lord drops into the snow beside her - his plated boots with maglocked jump rockets sinking in deep. If he was less motion sick he'd be embarrassed; but right now he only cares for solid ground. Fittingly, he leans forward, catching himself on his knees, struggling to simultaneously hold his body upright while keeping down his lunch. If dropped, either one would slide freely down the deceptively curved glacial mound and likely into some pitted ridge or hidden fissure or other fatal drop off.

He breathes in, deep and heavy. Cold arctic air through the filters of his mask. Like after a rapid pressurization. He's done this a million times. Just not in front of a god and not without his family. The 20-or-so stabilizing seconds stretch on like an eternity.

Finally, distressingly, Star-Lord finds his center. He shakes and rises to his full heigh. Gives Valkyrie a nod.

"Sorry." He wheezes. "And thank you."

"Don't apologize," Valkyrie says with surprising sincerity. Only to undercut it with a, "Though Warsong might be a little offended you didn't like his driving."

Peter ignores the jab and looks down at his map scanner, still in low-detail, high-altitude overlay mode. Flashing red to indicate he's arrived near the Hulk data line. With a thwack, he toggles the scanner to start a realtime sweep of local energy signatures - a conical beam of sensor data that could pick up all the basics: thermal, nuclear, ultraviolet, hypersonic, leylinear, and more; all routed through a 60-foot array ahead of him. He links the scans into his helmet's heads-up display with a tap, watching ticking energy line charts rise and fall within expected parameters. At least for now.

"Nothing yet. We'll need to hoof it a bit till we hit the source." He looks into Warsong's beady, unimpressed dark eyes. "No pun intended."

All things equal, the bulb-like icecap of Komsomolets Island is easily 20 miles across, likely more, stretching from western to eastern shore completely unimpeded. Only slight elevation changes, lifts and dips of ice, break up the ceaseless array of white. With a frown, Peter turns the scanner about until he spots a bit of a eastern incline where the glacier cuts down slightly, one side likely worn down by wind erosion. This creates a small frozen ridge with a few barely visible lifts and dips in the geography beyond. As likely a hiding place as any for a polar vault of unknown gods.
Peter begins to march up the incline, Valkyrie at his heels. Warsong can't be bothered, instead lifting back into the sky, and soon falls into a rhythm of lazy circles over the duo marching below. Whether he was providing overwatch or just impatiently prompting his master and her clumsy companion forward, Peter couldn't say.

The quiet hike doesn't last long before Peter fills the silence. "King Valkyrie, mind if I ask you something?"

"Sure, Sun-Lord. Anything for a friend." the god teases, stepping with much greater ease than her partner through the thickly packed snow.

"So... I've been meaning to ask... and I know this is weird." He says with a nervous laugh. "But like... why?Why here? This. Me?" Peter gestures about the snow blasted ridge. "It's just a lot you know?"

Valkyrie doesn't answer, instead skipping past him to now lead the column. Only giving a noncommittal shrug to his question - prompting Peter to continue.

"Like... like I checked with everyone. I didn't include that bit in my letter. Anyone I remembered that I figured would have a stake in this. Calls, texts, something called email... hell I even bought Ant-Man's flarkin' book."

"Oh gods. You read that thing?" She teases. The words only slightly pointed.

"Yeah, yeah. I know it was a stupid call." He shakes his head. "It was a fine enough read but it sure as shlag didn't help. And I mean it's not like everyone's let me down. the Wakandans and Hulk have been great. And Strange sort of called back? It was weird. At least he earned his moniker. But gods you'd think that when the former Guardian that punched Thanos gives a buzz; the Avengers would give him more than a "wrong number" or "straight to voicemail" or "he no longer owns a phone"..."

"Yet after Hawkeye can't even spare a coffee date, the krutarcking King of Asgard shows up at my door. Scaring the crap out of my grandfather and burning a Bifrost sigil into our front lawn."

"So... it seems worth asking again. Why?"

Valkyrie doesn't look up, continuing to hop along stony ridges. Hundreds of feet above the glacial decline. Quill realizes he's a little jealous of her casual air. If Val slipped, she'd probably just bounce along until coming to a stop. Making a line of dents in the earth and at worst tousling her hair. Him? He'd be joining poor Gamora at the base of Vormir.

Eventually, she looks to him. "Well, that's a rather silly question, Space-Blade."

"I don't mind a silly answer." Star-Lord counters.

That gets a teasing quirk from her dark lips. "Honestly? First off you undersell yourself. You wrote a reaaallllly nice letter." The quirk turns into a challenging grin. Teeth as white as the snow behind her. Deep brown eyes glinting brighter than a baseline human's ever could. Peter doesn't respond, red ocular sights of his helmet expressionless.

"Seriously! I know you think I'm just messing with you but I'm serious! It was a charming letter. From a warrior past-his-prime, looking for help on one last job. With a beautiful damsel locked in realms immemorial. Topped off with a polar quest to a tomb of demons long dead... I mean, come on Star-Man, this is an adventure in the making here! I couldn't say no to that."

Quill's glad his mask hides his growing incredulity. "So... what? You were just bored?" He says.

"Yeah, a little." She says with a shrug. "Rebuilding a broken realm is important but you know how it goes. It's all meetings and letters and meetings that could have been letters." She's giving him one of her common rejoinders, he could tell. He'd met more than a few wanderlust-laden regents in his day.

"C'mon. It can't be that simple. You said it yourself. Celestials. Eternals. Islands popping out of the Indian Ocean. A god-king like you has gotta be worried about whatever this might be. Worried enough track down a nobody like me, at least."

Valkyrie gives a noncommittal shake of her head. They come upon an harsher angle of the upward incline, topped at a ridge running perpendicular to their current path. The god-king, still at the fore, begins to climb without a second thought. Steady handhold-over-handhold. Bare fingers digging into frozen divots, ice cracks, or just breaking through the surface itself to make new grips with her divine strength.

She looks back over her shoulder, shouts down to him, "Again you insult yourself, Spark-Lance! You're not some nobody among the Asgardians, now. Thor spoke highly of your time together. You and all your Guardians - you, the rabbit, that cute girl with the flappy horns - took Thor in and gave him a purpose when Asgard could no longer fill. Hell, you all adopting him, specifically, finally gave the people a chance to forget the darkness of the Thanos years and build something new, with yours truly King at that.

It's Peter's turn to finally give a rueful smile. As Valkyrie talks about the rebuilding of Asgard, her time as king, Peter activates a command in his helmet with a steady set of blinks targeting a shortcut on his left peripheral vision. Then, instead of climbing the ridge alongside Valkyrie, his jump boots flare, hurtling him 45 feet in the air in a roar of screaming accelerant. He whips past the god-king, his long red cloak flapping like the sigil of Superman. He lands with a bodily thud atop the ridge past her. He turns back and gives a wave with his reply:

"Oh you're overselling it! I kicked and screamed at first. Thor was... a lot! In more ways than one." This causes Valkyrie to laugh, her voice echoing pleasantly up the cliffside. "But Rocket swore up-and-down he was a good dude beneath the blubber and self-loathing. And as much as I hate to admit it, that little guy is rarely - if ever - wrong."

Not willing to be too outdone, Valkyrie digs in her digits and with a heave, throws herself the rest of the way up the incline with a swing of her lean hews, landing beside Peter with steady grace. She huffs and brushes off the front of her black-and-white uru metal breastplate.

"Well," she pants just a tad from the exertion. "regardless, Thor's a lot better now. Asgard is a lot better now. Even I'm doing a bit better. So... the man that got me the crown wants to chase a beautiful ghost on a foolish Celestial quest? Hel yes I'll be there. It's the least I can do."

As they turn to begin shuffling along the somewhat uneven ridge, plains of white stretching out on both sides - now at a high point of the glacial cap - Peter can't help but press her on the finer details of her previous statement.

"Yeah about Celestials... earlier you mentioned one. Is that... I mean I don't profess to know why Celestials do what they do, but that's flarking insane." Peter tries to say without sounding shocked. He fails.

"Right? That's one hell of a buried secret! Even Odin'd be impressed." Valkyrie laughs, not getting his point.

"No, that's not... it's like... are they connected? This Celestial island popping out of the ocean; what's that have to do with Sersi and her people?"

Valkyrie raises a brow like he's just proposed she bathe in the scrut pile of a Badoonian Scrap Cat.

"You're kidding." She says.

Confused, Peter shakes his head.

"Moon-Prince, the Celestials made the Eternals."

Peter almost loses his balance on the ridge.

That would mean...

Is Sersi...

This...

The possible complications move Peter to silence.

If Valkyrie was bothered, she doesn't comment. Instead she continues to wax poetic about her fellow deities. "Don't feel too bad, Frankly I know less than I'd like about the dear Celestials too. Not really the sharing types. All big and stone-metal and brooding." She pantomimes a tall, blocky rectangle. Popping out her shoulders and dropping her arms at a 90-degree-angle, putting an oversized frown on her face. Another surprisingly crass, human gesture from the ancient god-king. "Not to say I haven't tried, mind. In the olden days they'd pop by Asgard as dignitaries, and their corpses certainly litter the starways. Even saw one or two in Omnipotence City back when I had the displeasure."

"Though the old royal family, the House of Bor - Thor and Odin - did more to keep the relationship going. At least among the Celestials' agents. Quite a few misadventures ended up in the historic Eddas."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. The old man'd run into more than one - especially that leader of theirs - and Thor teamed up with a particularly funny one of them not that far away from here. When he was just a tiny godling at that - barely scraping 100. Porting down to Midgard to try to go toe-to-toe with World Serpents of prophecy. This particular time 'round it ended up just being a large, serpentine, and fangy thing called a deviant but... you know. Young gods and all that."

Peter lets out a low whistle.

"I don't quite, but I catch your drift."

Val taps her chin for a moment, like he asked about the weather or her most recent holocall, not... godly battles in ancient history.

"Well, it had the hallmarks of a Classic Thor Adventure, if you will." She says with a pronounced, sarcastic flair. The statement makes Peter snort, recognizing the thunder god's dramatics in Valkyrie's lilt. "A betrayal from his tricksome brother, the catastrophic destruction of half the coast of modern Norway, and a razor-thin rescue by way of a laughing man with golden hands. This Eternal pulled Thor from the depths of the whale roads, blasted beams bright as stars through the heart of the serpent, and together they brought down a creature mightier than any devilspawn Thor'd yet met."

"Damn. Maybe I'll have to check out the full story some time. Or Ask Thor about it."

"Ha! Thor would love to tell it - though I prefer the written account. One of the few tomes to survive Ragnarok. Thor'd never seen other gods meet the level of Asgard until that day, and frankly, hasn't really since.

"You still keep up with any of them?"

She makes a p'shaw sound. "Nah. I wouldn't even know where to begin. Besides, if they needed me, they'd write." She actually gives a bit of a wistful smile at that, dropping the carefree air to look at Star-Lord from the corner of her eye.

---

Finally, following a few more tales of old Asgard and almost losing their holomap in a gust of wind, Star-Lord and Valkyrie's journey ends. Their glacial ridge descending into an ovoid depression easily 30 feet deep, likely a little more. The duo slides down into the small bowl in the ice cap, walls cracked and ribbed with peculiar irregularities. Peter's scanner continues to beep as he turns clockwise along the wall. That is, until it picks up a faint dark splotch, easily twice Peter's height and just as long, beneath the northernmost plate of ice. Judging by shape; it could be a causeway or even a door. Surprisingly visible all things considered; it's not even cloaked, best as Star-Lord could tell. Clearly ancient as hell and completely undisturbed.

Rapping his knuckles against the ice, Peter marvels, "Gods, I'm shocked humans haven't poked at this. It's not like it's particularly well hidden."

"Probably covered a lot more snow and permafrost years back." Valkyrie muses. "I guess there's an upside to global warming, yeah?'" 

Peter doesn't have time to question what the hell global warming is before the King of Asgard confidently pushes past him, the drawing her blue short sword with a slight shriek on the wind. Valkyrie grips the blade with both hands and falls into a spinning hack, cleaving chunks of ice free that splatter back in thick, razor sharp blades. Peter barely has time to let out a "Scrut!" and duck the first salvo before she chops again with inhuman speed.

"Hey! Hey!" Peter shouts, narrowly sidestepping the next particularly javelin-shaped flying wedge. "Watch the shrapnel!"

Relenting, the god-king turns back to him, putting a hand on her hip and raising an eyebrow. "We're in the end game now Slow-Bend." She presses. "Don't get cold feet on me."

"You Asgardians are all the same." Peter says, to a scoff from Valkyrie. He cuts off her protests with the raise of a placating hand. "Look, at least let me try to give it a bit of finesse before you bring the whole mountain down." Peter unslings the SE-76 Quad Blaster on his right hip, spinning the thing on his index finger with practiced ease. The weapon stops barrels up, where Peter then slides open the top chamber revealing a glowing, riveted orange core. After a couple of taps along the heat cylinder's suppression module, and a loud, sliding click of metal, Peter steps to Valkyrie's left and holds the weapon directly against the plate of ice. He depresses the trigger.

Instead of the usual blinding bolt of cruel, 10,000 degree heat, the front of the barrel begins to glow. A concentrated jet of plasmic energy coiling from the tip, projecting just beyond the rounded barrel of the weapon's contact point. Like an oversized Terran bunsen burner or a particularly confident Asgardian evertorch.

It takes a couple of minutes, but soon a few feet of permafrost possibly older than Peter and Valkyrie combined boil away into nothing more than warm steam carried on arctic winds. Only a monolithic black stone door remains, a near-featureless, flat slab but for a clear crease down the middle and minute striations of golden filaments interlaced from base to tip. Like the Kintsugi pottery craft of hands three times Peter's size.
He turns to Valkyrie with a triumphant grin.

She cocks a brow and huffs, "My way would have been faster."

"Yeah well, my way doesn't set off any security systems." He counters.

"Aww, afraid of a little alarm now Sky-Gun?" Val teases. Her attempts to lampoon his codename only getting more elaborate as the day drags on.

"Just want to make sure we do this right. Now we just need to figure out how to open the d'asted thing..." Peter gingerly runs his gloved hand along the door. The material feels like polished stone. Too rough to be marble, more like slate smoothed down over a million years of erosion precisely applied. He'd never seen anything like this. And he'd seen more than his fair share of bizarre materials thanks to one Rocket Raccoon.

"Hmm..."

"Having trouble?" Valkyrie asks, arms crossed, leaning on one side of the black stone door.

"No..."

"You sure?"

"No - wait yes." Peter fumbles as she barks a laugh. "I think I can..." He draws a small silver-metal blade, attempts to shimmy it between the crack. A bit of scratching later and nothing. The thing was shut tighter than the monster vault of Seknarf-9.

"Maybe..." Peter reaches into his belt and withdraws a small scrambling module. One of Rocket's many attempts to isolate a subset of Nebula's hacking protocols. But good enough when riding solo (or with less technically inclined company). This specific prototype unit took the form of a steel cylinder with 2 green manual switches atop, with one side coated in a reusable quick acting mag-glue and a sensor pulse able to sync to anything within 30 feet or so with processing power above that of a Gameboy Color. It wasn't exactly elegant - little gizmo only knew the command "open" - which it would then repeatedly blare out using over 3,712 common galactic security exploits. Crude, loud, and perfect in a pinch. Peter taps the sticky side of the cylinder against the door, flips both green switches in the correct order. Flip one: ready data wave. Pause. Flip two: send command. The little cylinder begins to hum, concentric rings spinning quietly to release any excess heat.

As it buzzes, Star-Lord turns to Valkyrie with a triumphant grin. "See? Now we just sit back and-"

A sparking sound interrupts him. Chattering of steel against stone. The little hacking module's already smoking from its efforts; the two switches positively green a moment ago now flaring red. Before Star-Lord can react, the unit unseals itself from the door as an emergency shut-off measure, plopping into snow with a quiet thud.

"Son of a shlag..." Peter groans.

"Done?" Valkyrie teases.

Dejected, Peter gives her a sullen shrug. "Yeah. Sure. Do the god thing now."

Valkyrie grins, places hands on opposite sides of the flat lip of the stonework, and starts to heave.

Instead of watching his shame, Peter steps back and plugs in his headphones. Deciding he'd rather not feel like such a screw-up for a moment. Sure, he'd come up with the plan for this job but it felt like he'd spent most of the time fretting about a girl he didn't know, getting motion sick, fumbling around in knee-high snow, then embarrassing himself in front of another girl he only kind of knew.

If Peter focused less on his shame, deafened himself less with music of a concerningly high volume, he may have noticed the ground begin to shake beneath his frustrated pacing. He might have heard Valkyrie cry out and leap back as the black sleet door started to fall in on itself, sinking into the floor of the icy depression. He possibly would have even registered her shout out "Star-Lord!", a final, desperate acknowledgement of her companion before the entire bowl of the ice cap collapsed beneath their feet.

But he doesn't.

Instead, he hears nothing but the roar of darkness and worse decisions.

Notes:

A chapter of mighty word count for the might Valkyrie! Hope you enjoyed a chance to see her devil-may-care attitude bounce off someone a bit different from Thor.

Up next, we'll hit an interlude with Druig/Makkari to go over where they've found themselves these past few years, then dive back in with a Sersi POV.

As an aside, working Valkyrie into this series was particularly important to me. In a comicbook.com interview regarding 2021's Eternals, Sersi actor Gemma Chan suggested a Valkyrie team-up would be particularly fun for her character. I agree on the pairing, and ideas for their unique dynamic have rattled around in my mind ever since. With the increasing likelihood we'll never see the duo together on the big screen, I wanted to honor it here.

Chapter 7: Interlude - Many Lives with Makkari

Summary:

Druig writes to Makkari, ensconced on the Domo and no closer to their lost family. Yet still he dreams of a better tomorrow. Alongside eternities at her side.

Makkari finds a small, unsigned note, neatly tucked beneath the only copy of the 14th-century work Inventio Fortunata. A favorite of hers hidden deep in the recesses of the starship Domo. The letter is written in elaborate cursive but drying ink reveals its recent invention.

It reads as follows.

---

We both know it not necessary I write you. For the first time in five centuries our separation is but a memory. You and I share the hallowed halls we were forever meant to. If I were to be blasé, I'd even say we were designed to. Isn't that the little cruelty? What I used to ascribe to charm and circumstance and shared trauma, I know now was merely an act of artifice. Two machines following paths programmatically ordained.

I cannot help but ask, are we truly?

And more importantly, does it matter when the end result is each other?

I see how my ruminating bothers you in our private moments. Fleeting as they may be.

Not that you ever need more than moments, my dear.

Despite that, or perhaps because of it, I find my word oft travels further than my intent. And I yearn for you to understand.  So, despite basest urges, please take your time with this simple letter. Read it with the speed of mortal men. I want you to see my despair and ennui unmolested. Share in my limit of trembling hands.

There are many such letters I made for you, nestled away in Amazonia. Perhaps you'll read them one day.

How I missed you, Makkari.

---

Is it wrong to call our nature Sisyphean? An endless cycle for purpose wrought by gods? Will there always be more Deviants? More Emergences? Or in donning Lucifer's mantle did we change the hands divine?

Will the same fate await the next opposition to the Grand Design?

My sympathy for the Deviants now falls to our cordoned kin.

What will happen to Kingo's smile? And Phastos's hands? And Sersi' poor, bleeding heart? I must admit I fear for her most of all.

How she loved you, Makkari.

---

Do you think on the worlds that came before? What we might've been in another life? Our forms must certainly have been different; were our countenances? Were we jade-skinned and weightless, lilting on seas of ozonic cloud? Or were we joined as a crystalline Uni-Mind, beneath crushing pressures and Jovian heat? Perhaps we were enemies, figures of razor claws and furred maws that fought as much as we fucked beneath bloodmoon skies.

Isn't it fun to imagine?

We've had an eternity together Makkari - even if we don't remember it.

Mahd Wy'ry might be worth the risk. For just a taste. A breath to bask in your every form framed by foreign stars.

It's a cosmic cruelty that I can control minds yet fail to read them.

How I'd have memorized you, Makkari.

---

Looking back I wonder if you knew, despite silent protestations. I won't judge you. Olympia was a communal lie of a better tomorrow straight off Ajak's tongue. Hidden behind the almost imperceptible quirk of our matron's brow. And Ikaris's stern pretender's stare.

How did we not see it? Not even Sersi could while closest to both.

We were too proud; the lot of us.

Though again, perhaps you're the anomaly. How could someone that observes matter move faster-than-light miss such obvious deception? Though, I believe our Sprite taught humanity "ignorance is bliss," lest we fail to adhere to our own lessons.

It would have been so easy to be the good soldier.

Slay the deviants, he commanded.

Olympia, she promised.

Protect the Grand Design, they knew.

Facsimiles both; despite motives in contrast. They only agreed this truth would break all but the strongest of us. But is iron not too rigid for the winds of change? Change births bent and broken things. Ikaris may shatter, but the pariah and her traitor kin? How could a truth we already held hurt us? In the lines of Celestian circuitry rewritten over and over again... lies the fundamental truth that only broken gods could sculpt such broken flesh.

Though by the Host, what flesh.

How we defy them, Makkari.

---

How many days have passed since we basked in the light of our familiar sun? Stood on the soil we're cursed eternally for? Inadvertently damned our siblings for? What happened to earthen time we once thought ours for the taking?

You'd know how long it's been. You always know. I'd guess 600 earth days, give or take.

No... you like when I'm specific. Let's say 612.

Correct me and I'll owe you another Emerald Tablet, my Hermes. Or at least another touch.

(683. - M.)

Our journey is blind. The Domo, silent. Our fellow passengers, most maddening.

I worry for Thena. The calm she claimed back on Earth is slipping. We all see it. That strain of far shores with no answers. We left to warn other Eternals, perhaps prevent another Gilgamesh. Yet all we find is ruin and reminder. And in doing so we left our companions vulnerable; our brothers and sister trapped in a bondage she fools herself into thinking she could've prevented. To her, losing Gil was a tragedy. Failing Sersi, Kingo, and Phastos? A disgrace.

Thena loves with a fire even she struggles to understand. We must find an outlet soon lest that love loose upon us.

Regarding love, the so-called "Knave of Hearts" remains frustratingly elusive of my measure. Our newest Eternal is, so far, best defined as a startling intellect smothered in hedonistic frivolities. His passionate pursuit of justice marred by a growing list of failures. To speak plain, he puffs his chest yet hides teeth. There's a shadow to this Starfox. Deeper than the mere blood of Titan.

Despite that, we've taken to quite an odyssey at his behest, haven't we?

We've charmed Kymellians.

Exposed Skrullic conspiracy.

Slipped the lines of the Snark War.

Played a traitor's gambit on Contraxia.

Even found the Burning Heart of Falligar.

Can you imagine what Homer would think of this?

But I'll suppress my wonder until we're closer to our goal. Our family.

Time is ne'er in short supply amongst our kind - though Eros tests the limits.

And the less said of Pip the Troll, the better, my Makkari.

---

I've considered abandoning this quest.

I've longed to take your hand, defenestrate ourselves of the Domo, and drift among the ever-and-beautiful stars. Away from purpose and divinity and the lies we tell ourselves.

But this is a fantasy as much as any other.

Phastos, Kingo, Sersi...

They may be gone. Cosmic dust judged unfit. An end to the cycle wrought upon them.

Would that be such a cruelty; granting them peace?

Freedom from a darwinian cycle older than the order of time?

I think so.

Thus we will find them.

Or we will avenge them.

I wonder, will you recognize me when this is over?

I miss the ease with which I missed you, Makkari.

Notes:

Shorter chapter but I've delayed the Druig/Makkari content long enough! And while I'm trying to give Sersi the ending she deserves, I couldn't help but provide Druig and Makkari at least a few years of happiness (and dreams of many before).

Writing this chapter was honestly a little tricky as I tried to faithfully capture how Druig would compose a love letter. Meaning the use of prose that is abundantly, excessively purple.

See you next time for a Sersi POV!

Chapter 8: Sersi - Losing You

Summary:

Sersi finally reconnects with Peter Quill, only to find a collapsed tunnel and probable corpse. To stave off anguish, she turns to the memory of the greatest woman she's ever known. And the musical stylings of Brenda Lee.

Through the darkness, Sersi felt the pull again.

A pressure starting at the base of her neck. Thrumming on repeat. Absently, she tries to reach for it - though the phantoms of her limbs ignore her. Everything is so fuzzy. Like she's being split apart and put back together in a haze, simultaneously; a waking sleep in the static of a dying television screen.

She should find it odd to think of such base, finicky things at a time like this. A recent grain in the sands of time, this era and its many screens. So unapologetically human in their artifice. She remembers watching I Love Lucy when it first aired - at Kingo's urging, of course. How funny it was seeing humans project themselves onto little boxes, simultaneously, all over the nation. All over the world. Crying out "I'm here, don't you dare forget me" in reflections of sepia and grey.

Kingo joked Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz would soon put Sprite out of a job.

He was right, in a way.

What was she thinking about again?

Static. That's it. Her body is taught and unyielding to her commands in a blanket of pinprick needlepoints. She is lost in darkness unending, unsure if her eyes are open or shut but confident the rest of her body was unresponsive to any impulse she tried to give.

It's been so long since she's moved - she's so stiff. Or at least however much an Eternal's synthetic body possess the capacity to be stiff.

Echoes of pain undercut this stifling embrace. Six bolts of crimson left a throbbing pain like white hot pokers in the recesses of her mind. Whenever she feels like she'll lose herself to the dark ever-presence, the chorus rises anew. Questions, questions, questions; a rising scream in her ear.  Judgment rending memories into new and horrible things just behind the mind's eye.

Dashed against the stone steps of Persepolis, as the city burns.

Sobbing upon her return to Carthage, reduced to fields of piteous salt.

Burying a good man on Aeaean shores.

Tragedy after tragedy.

Her failures manifest.

Some real, all true.

---

In more lucid moments, Sersi wishes for air. A centuries-long familiarity she didn't realize she could miss. It was not as if she needed to breathe. Past displays a mere mimicry to blend with sensitive, mortal minds. But, she's also never been bereft of such a choice. When she tries, well, neither body or mind seem to agree on quite how to do it. The not-air about her feels thick. Viscous. Somehow filling her and drowning her

The figments are there. Traces of truth and lives once-lived The family. The husband. The...

Her body aches. Something binds her. An ocean crushing against her chest. Ensnaring her throat in an icy garrote. She wants to scream but can't.

Everything hurts.

Help me.

---

The universe is born again in a crackle of light. A big bang, a universal singularity, a white dot on an event horizon Sersi didn't realize she was within. Growing. Her ears - they must be her ears - begin to ring. Louder. Larger. A fog of black shattering with a piercing wail. White-gold existence greeting her. The dawn of time? The six singularities? Arishem and the host birthing another Big Bang?

The light grows - building and burning until it surrounds her and holds her and every ocular processing unit she possesses flares with the adage "let there be light."

A universe is born as Sersi's body collapses into a cool stone world of grays and blues.

She blinks.

---

The not-white stretches about her, above and below her in a hazy, waking fog. Sersi does not feel solid; she still feels as if she were held taught beneath waves unseen. But at least she could see... something. Walls. A ceiling. A tunnel, maybe?

Sersi looks about, straining to see through dark bands she realizes are her own strands of ebon hair. She tries to brush the tangle aside. Her body protests but protests were not refusal. Her limbs hum, translucent and oddly green as they come into focus, acquiescing for the first time in ages. Her hair feels false, empty but for the liquid-like feeling around her. She feels submerged, drowning but not quite drowned. Encompassed by something unseen. It doesn't hurt - not physically, at least - but she feels disoriented as she floats just above a tantalizingly familiar pass. Despite her urging she can't quite place it. The same film occluding her body presses on her mind just the same.

The tunnel was a mixture of rock and ice, that was clear. She's surprised she's not cold. Doesn't feel temperature at all, really. She turns; squinting past her black tresses using whatever senses she still possesses. It looks like... there was a collapse of some kind. The half-circle ceiling above clearly fallen through. At the very periphery, almost teasing, she can see faint and sporadic bullion-colored energy sparking from a crack in the wall. Illuminating the unnaturally dark stone contrasting against the grey-blues and whites layered over it. Flexing and shimmering. A heartbeat of circuitry.

It reminds her of her old starship.

The Domo.

The golden energy, the impossible stone... this place... it had to be Celestial in origin. Which one... why was she...?

...

Polaria!

The thought burns through the haze, a white-hot star in the otherwise muddy fog of her mind. Sersi remembers a moment, days or weeks or years ago, where she'd appeared before a human. A tall human with messy brown hair and no shirt. At first she thought it was another torture. Watching this figure sleep, night after night. Calling out to him through a dreamer's haze like she found herself in now. All she knew was she confused and in pain, desperate for any sort of lifeline.

Then one night he'd reached back.

It's fuzzy, what happened exactly. But she remembers the human's kindness. He'd joked and tried to comfort her without a moment's hesitation; even if she was potentially a hostile apparition breaching his mind palace. Armed with nothing but boxer shorts and bedhead. That uniquely human kind of confidence. They were such a fragile people, her humans. But this one showed a deep unabashed, vulnerable confidence that reminded her of a Gilgamesh or Makkari or even Ik-.

No. Not him, not now. Such thoughts would only drive her back into her madness.

Instead she thinks of the human that offered to help her. Her first night of hope in this liminal otherworld.

He'd promised to come to Polaria. Told her he was a warrior. A Guardian.

Was that simply a dream?

By the Host, please don't let him be a dream.

So where was he?

In the rubble, she sees it. Like she'd been ignoring it before in her own haze of memory. Materializing slowly, a dash of red along the tunnel floor. A steel-grey glint in the low golden light. A crop of messy brown hair she'd recognize anywhere. The armored upper torso of a man, sprawled out and face down. Half-buried in rubble.

"Oh no." Sersi whispers into the dark, unsure if her voice even carries in her current state. "No, no, no, no, no." She half-floats, half-runs up to him. Falling to her knees, so distraught she doesn't notice she can't feel her herself collapse onto stone. "Silly human. Silly, earnest human. Silly, stupid human that listened to me. Why did you listen to me?" She struggles to hold back the desperation in her voice, despite how foolish it waste energy feigning such things at a time like this. She starts to choke up. "Please don't be dead. Please. I can't have you dead. I can't have gotten you killed. It can't be my fault, again- I- I-."

She starts pawing at his armored form. Her hands, flickering and pale, slip right through him. She can't feel him. Can't even check to see if he's alive. Anguish fills her at thought of failing another human.

This was just like in Caffa and Carthage and Paris and...

"Wake up! Please. Please! Please - I need you to be alright. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She beats him with intangible fists. The armored plates of his jacket reacting to her less than a lantern in the wind. Sersi loses track of how long she tried to wake him. But she eventually falls back. Sobbing. Her one ticket out was gone. Crushed. At her behest. Doubt rattles her mind.

How could she be so selfish, sending a human into risk like this? How could she not have realized? How could she not see the danger?

How could she fail them, again?

The cave is still. Not even the golden light catching her shadow. For a brief moment, a flickering hope, she had existed to this man.

And now he was dead.

Judgment rendered.

---

Sersi half-expected Arishem to reveal himself at this. Turning crimson gleam and a downward thumb to her most recent disaster. Sacrificing another of the species she so desperately claimed to protect.

But the light in the tunnel remains constant - the occasional spark of exposed golden circuitry above her only companion.

Lacking a better course of action, she lilts about the cave a while, slowly calming herself. Sniffling, despite the fact she wasn't sure if she even had a tangible nose to sniff. She circles in a state of dreadful ennui. Waiting for either her captor or the darkness to tear her back. Time passes. Nothing changes.

She should be used to that, as an Eternal, but Sersi finds herself growing restless. Finally, she looks upon her savior again. His corpse looked small - so wildly from the tall, vibrant figure that'd promised to save however many moons ago.

She couldn't help but be reminded of Ajak. Crumpled in a pile of greying flesh. Left uncovered and leaking the same shade of celestian light that fills this chamber. Their leader and mentor, the closest things she'd ever had to a mother, brought low from the implacable monolith of the past to a mortal mound of flesh like the hundreds of billions before her; easily discarded and lost. At the hands of her most trusted son Ikari-

No!

Sersi wants to scream. Wants to rage. Wants to... hit something, maybe. She doesn't really hit things but by the Host she wants to hit something now. Stuck in this helpless state of half-life; it was all too much. Her mother, her husband, her first friend who knows how long... all ripped from her. Torn to shreds in a cosmic mincer she had sustained for thousands - if not millions - of years. They were supposed to be the forever people; yet she'd lost them all.

She slams her fist into the wall and it phases through without resistance. Like she wasn't even real. Had she ever been?

Stop it! Calm. Calm. Calm calm calm calm. Calm.

Sersi has to focus herself - find an eye in the gale. Even if it threatened to rip her apart. She hadn't resisted Arishem, stopped the Emergence, to fall to madness now.

Losing hasn't meant she's lost.

An old adage of Ajak's. Couldn't be more true when it came to her mentor. Ajak managed to defeat the strongest among them, and their creator, post-mortem. Her final act, choosing Sersi to learn the truth and lead their kind, had saved humanity. Stopped the cycle to preserve everything the last Eternal priest died to protect.

Ajak won a war seven days after her death. Sersi... could find a way to win while halfway there.

Oddly, thinking of Ajak's final decree, Sersi recalls her last visit to that dark and cold South Dakota kitchenette. A former place of love and warmth somehow drained like the color on Ajak's greying flesh. Though, the golden flicker of Sprite's illusions did manage to provide a temporary comfort.

A projected memory, of the last conversation between her and her mother Eternal. Telling Sprite, "Sersi is lonely, just like you. She needs you more than I." That was two years before the Emergence. However many years before now. It didn't matter, really. The image of Ajak taking Sprite's hands in hers and spinning her were as fresh as yesterday. The duo singing out like they would back in Babylon. All the modern disappointments couldn't quite dull a past most golden.

Sersi was never much of a singer. Too nervous in the spotlight; she'd crumple under the slightest attentions. But in private, she'd always liked music. Especially in written form. Working with Makkari to carve the early machinations of Mesomedes, whose notation Phastos still argues is a better example of celestial tonal mechanics than anything used in modern sheet music. The stubborn bastard. And while Guido d'Arezzo's development of the standard compositional staff might not be an Eternal invention - Sersi was proud of her humans, in that moment. She even spent time learning to write music from them rather than teach for a change. A process to formalize expression and give it reality.

Despite years of practice, Sersi still had much to learn when it came to formalizing her needs.

Though, it does bring back that last memory of Ajak to the forefront of her mind. Sersi starts to hum along, then slowly whisper out the words in the cold, still tunnel. A ghost repeating the mantra of the dead.

Don't sigh a sigh for me

Don't ever cry for me

This is goodbye for me

I know we're through

I'm losing you

She gently kicks her feet as she sings, like she's sitting on an invisible ledge a few feet above the tunnel floor. A girl looking out over her reality. It's embarrassing to be singing like this. Even without an audience. But it's good to remember better days. It keeps her focused. Keeps her calm. That's the priority; not hypothetical future karaoke.

Love sang it's song for me

Then things went wrong for me

Nights are too long for me

Because I'm losing you

She almost laughs, remembering karaoke. With her very much human boyfriend Dane, back in a favorite gastropub in London. A couple blocks south of work. Karaoke Wednesdays. She'd forgotten so much but she remembers those nights. A giggle bubbles in her chest at the memory. Dane's mischievous smile and curly hair. The soft, tender hands of an academic - yet still strong enough to drag her onstage for a humiliating cover of Janis Joplin. Sersi would even pretend those strong, fruity mixed drinks made her pet him and press against him after. Not that alcohol did much to an Eternal like her. In between the snot and the tears and the scratchy vocalizations, she's laughing.

She hoped Dane was okay, wherever he was.

"Hey... that's Brenda Lee, right?" A voice interrupts her, heavy with strain but not fully masking a playful lilt. "I really like that one."

Sersi gasps and whips around. That's her-

"Human! You're alive!" She cries, soaring over the rubble pile in the panicked dive of a sea otter. She floats to a stop, hovering parallel above him. Like she's lying face down on a transparent bunk bed. "I thought I'd lost you."

The man laughs, his voice cracking in pain, "Yeah, you were just saying as much." She is reassured by his teasing. That was good. If he could try to be witty then, maybe he wasn't in such dire straits. "My mother loved that song... it was 1960-something... 1965, maybe?"

Sersi blinks. Music trivia was not a topic she'd raise at a time like this.

"1963." She answers slowly, the date coming back to her. "My... mother, in a sense, introduced me. It was her favorite, too."

The human nods, letting out an appreciative hum.  "Our moms had good taste."

Confused, Sersi shakes herself. This human should be panicking right now, buried beneath literal tons of rubble in freezing temperatures.

"What happened to you?" She can't help but press. "How did you even manage to get here?"

The man groans. "Whole cave system collapsed on me when we tried to, you know, open the door to this place. And I had some help." He struggles to look around, shifting his face-down silver helmet left-to-right and back again. "Speaking of, ghost girl, you haven't seen a woman around here have you? 'Bout 5'3", carries a blue sword, can't stop teasing in a really unfunny way?"

Sersi doesn't quite know how to respond to that. She stammers, "Umm, no. I've only... I've only seen you." After a pause, and trying and failing to push back her mess of floating hair again, she whispers. "Wait... You brought other people to try to help me?"

"Yeah, 'course I did. Recruited the, uh, King of Asgard. And her flying horse."

If Sersi still pretended to draw breath, the air would have burst from her lungs.

"You brought Odin? Here? How? Human I'm not sure if you realize this but Odin hasn't stepped foot on Earth in at least 600 years..." She trails off. The human has tried to turn look at her, though it's a bit difficult given the fact he's face down in the snow. Feeling impolite, Sersi adjusts herself. Floating into a cross-legged position near him on the ground. About three feet away. She's not sure how close would be considered proper, given her less-than-present state.

Not that it mattered much, with his helmet masking his face with implacable metal and all. She hadn't gotten a good look at it until now. On closer inspection, she sees it must serve not only as protection but also some sort of analysis tool, with multiple divoted components of unearthly steel. Near where the nose and mouth should be is a central chamber bifurcated into two steel tubes that reach back towards his cheeks, clearly a breathing apparatus. Above where the rebreather ends, below his ears, is an array of sensors and other tools. At least one nodule looks to be more of a bulb. Perhaps a flashlight? The helmet then curves inwards ending at his brow, bronze lining contrasting the otherwise gray plates, emphasizing two red eyes. Bright, perfect circles glowing to life with the consciousness of their wearer.

Images of the implacable red orbs that judge her, day-in-and-day-out, flash through the back of her mind.

Sersi suppresses the urge to shudder.

But then the human mumbles something, a soft and not unkind sound. Reminding her that he is so unlike the Judge Divine.

"No... Odin's been gone for a long time." He tries gently, showing patience even while in obvious physical distress. "You remember Thor? The Avenger? Tall, golden hair, kind of a sloppy battle angel sorta vibe? He took over when his old man passed just before the Blip - which he then gave up to his ally from Sakaar. The new King Valkyrie is who joined me to find you."

There's a hint of concern in his voice as he continues, "Which I know is crazy, there've been more succession changes in the past five years than Asgard's seen in the previous five thousand."

"But I think you should remember this - Gail over at the museum said you haven't been gone that long. Like two years or so."

Sersi wishes she had a physical forehead to slap given her foolish slip up. Of course. New Asgard. The refugee colony from the fallen realm. Somewhere in Norway? Denmark? With the lady king that does all the commercials. She couldn't quite remember the full story, though'd she always intended to visit - but given a life like hers she hadn't much felt the need to rush.

"S- sorry." She stammers. "I made a mistake. My memory is fuzzy. I've been trying to piece it all back together. And..." She trails off. Something from his last comment surprised her. "Wait, you- you called my work? You talked to Gail? And Gail she- she remembers me?" Sersi can't control how her voice quavers at the last question.

"Oh yeah, Gail's my buddy now. Super funny. Told me about like 37 different exhibits I should consider sponsoring. With almost as many theories about where you disappeared to." He gives a slight nod, helmet making a little groove in the snow. "And seriously, don't worry about it forgetting anything. I do that all the time. Based on how hard I hit my head on the way down, I'd bet I'm bound to do it a little more for at least a couple days."

Sersi gasps. "Don't joke about that!" The surprised, scolding tone of her voice shocks her. This man wasn't an unruly student after all. Despite the helmet, she can tell he's just as incredulous as she is based on the cock of his head. "Sorry. Just... humans are fragile. Concussions are really serious. Your brain could be bleeding or you could have a crack in your skull or permanent motor function impairment or-"

The human's warm laugh cuts her off.

"What?" She asks, a hint of offense in her voice.

"It's like I told you back in Missouri. I was a Guardian of the Galaxy. I've still got a few doses of NeuroGen-13 stashed away. Pretty basic Orgocorp traumatic brain injury cocktail that works on, like, 82 known species from here to the Darkketa Slice."

Either he hit his head even harder than she thought, or he just spoke absolute gibberish.

"Umm... okay." She murmurs.

"Yeah. Just need to get out from under this rubble and..." He sighs, shifting a little. "Yeah. Yeah that's step one." He moves his single free arm about, slapping uselessly against hard stone floor. It echoes a bit as he moves snow away, but he's more spreading it out than making any sort of workable trench for leverage. His chicken-like flailing would be equal parts comedic and pathetic if her very soul didn't rely on him finding his way out.

The same concern can't be found in the human. Realizing how he must look, he chuckles up at her, "Some rescue so far, huh?"

"I would say it's very, um, authentic." Sersi replies. That makes him laugh again.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're on the unit there."

"So... what is our plan to get you loose? You seem to be working on something."

"Well, it's less a plan and more of a concept currently. Come closer, I'll show you." Sersi gives a tentative nod then crawls over on hands and knees to his armored face. Moving naturalistically as she forgets she doesn't need to. She's Only about a foot away now and peers close to the mask. A small impulse in the back of her mind wants to brush his messy brown hair out of his eyes a bit. Despite her consternation towards his helmet's similar likeness to her creator - the tuft of hair served as ample reminder the man beneath was mortal. A simple creature trying to do right by her.

She doesn't think she deserves it.

Instead, she says nothing and imagines what he might look like beneath the helmet. She can't remember. To her surprise, he quietly stares right back. The steady rise and fall of his breath a calming rhythm in the quiet dark.

Eventually, he regains himself. She can hear a sharp breath beneath the helmet.

"Weird question." He asks, clearly trying to break the intimate silence. "Are you familiar with portable jump jet technology? Real popular among Galactic Rim salvagers and the like?"

"I'd think you'd start to piece together I'm not quite familiar with a great many things you talk about. Though I'll forgive you, having just bumped your head and all." She chuckles; teasing him. This surprises her more than any references to increasingly bizarre alien technology. Sersi doesn't recall the last time she laughed, especially not in that warm way people do when they're trying to connect and relax. The way humans do to show they like and want to be liked over actually being comedic. The kind of laugh encouraging him to laugh back, to ask her a question or continue a familiar jest.

As if on queue, he chortles in response. "Totally fair. Well, the little things aren't like a full on jetpack or aero-rig - can't exactly lift the average body more than a few feet and are an absolute nightmare to maneuver - but they're modular and easy to stick to anything. Often used for construction jobs and emergency repositioning. Plus they can be remote activated. I've got a set on my boots for the occasional hover or jump that needs a bit of oomph."

Sersi grins and gives a good natured shake of her head. Of course her spaceman rescuer brought his jetboots. He really was living up to... a name she can't recall.

"So if I can get enough clearance to reach my belt where I keep one of the activator tabs... I'll flip them to full force and hopefully pop out of this pile like a greased zort-pig on Cisnakackaran'ta'tak."

Sersi cocks her head, her hair blinding her for a moment. "That's it? That sounds wildly dangerous. And rather ill-conceived." She purses her lips. "Also hard to pronounce."

"Yup." He nods easily "But, unless you figure out a way to transition into tangibility and dig me out of here, it seems like our best play."

Sersi, without thinking, blurts out: "Are all of your plans this stupid?" She cursed herself for how rude that sounds. But she spent the last 7,000-and-some years not speaking up until it was too late. And if this suicidally charming fellow somehow brains himself on the walls of a tunnel while trying to fire a jetpack from beneath a cave-in, well, she would prefer to have said something before the eternal damnation that would follow.

"I like to improvise." He responds almost absent-mindedly, still digging for his belt. Cleary used to such concerns. "And I've pulled this play before. It'll be fine. Promise."

"Men have a habit making promises to me they know they can't keep." She says with the same unintended bitterness.

"Well, sounds like those guys are jerks." He answers easily. Like he didn't even have to think about it. The simplicity of the sentiment calms her a bit.

Gods, her human had the earnestness of a terrier.

Despite her consternation, he's made good progress while they've chatted. Picking away at small stones and chunks of detritus, rolling loose in a little pile beside his free arm. He's started weaseling the limb beneath his body, inch by inch. The alien metal plates on his russet jacket sleeve scratching audibly on uneven stonework. The sharp pitch reminding her of a past life, where mischevious students dared one another to scratch chalkboards. She can almost feel him suck in his stomach to get the space to maneuver.

"Alright, so now that my arm is under here I just need to reach for my belt, adjust the power levels, and-- WHOA!!!"

The man goes flying. Shooting out and through Sersi's insubstantial form like a literal missile. Rubble cracks behind him as a gout of smoke and fire follow, ankle-length red coat flapping in the propulsion like the wind. The Eternal barely has time to rematerialize into her full self before the human flips in mid-air, disables the jump jets, and tries to turn the momentum into an extended slide along the smooth artificial stonework. He almost lands it too, before stumbling, and flipping forward in a cascade of snow and stone as he bounces head-over-heels to eventually clatter onto his back. Sersi lets out a loud gasp.

Silence fills the chamber. The cacophony of stonework now coming to a rest again. Sersi realizes her olfactory senses must not work in this liminal state of being - but she knows the room must reek of jet fuel.

Then there's a low, gurgling sound. His body begins to rock up and down. Before she can ask if he's okay, the man raises one fist into the air and gives her a thumbs up. He's laughing.

Sersi, most known for her unflappably steady and gentle nature across the recorded history of mankind, drops all pretense with a cheering whoop.

"By the Host! You did it. Oh my! You - Wow! Wow! I can't believe that worked!" She flutters up to join him as he struggles up, literally buzzing with delight. The human sits, dazed and sore, leaning back on elbows perched in the snow. Legs splayed out. He rubs one shoulder first, before placing a pressuring hand against his helmet.

Despite the obvious discomfort, he turns to her and teases out, "I promised you the Star-Lord special, right?"

That was his name, Star-Lord. Well, codename. There was another name too. She'd have to ask.

"You did. You really, really did. I didn't believe you but... wow." She laughs. "You should take off that silly helmet. Take your brain medicine. You certainly rattled it again, despite how hard-headed you've proven yourself to be."

He nods, and taps a small command on the back of his neck. A little orange module she hand't noticed earlier. His helmet starts to dematerialize, folding in on itself in a light silver-and-blue glow of wires and some sort of alien circuitry. It reminds her of the on-demand conjuration of Thena's celestial weapons or Phastos's manifold scientific instruments.

The system pulls itself back into that small nodule, revealing a strikingly human face beneath the mask. Discomfortingly large red eyes now gone; replaced with calm grey ones nestled beneath a set of sharp brown brows. Matching his tangle of hair. And similar stubble, shaved ever-so-slightly less along the sideburns and mustache to emphasize strong cheekbones. Beneath the tufts of hair she can make out kind smile lines along the rims of full lips. The soft marks of mortal aging, ever changing.

The man turns up to her, one hand pressed against his eye socket to ward off headache, and gives a half-smile. Smile lines blossom into fiercely defined divots, crinkling to match faint crows's feet crowning around those kind, grey orbs.

Oh no.

Sersi's heart catches in her throat.

She hadn't just forgotten this man's name. She'd forgotten he was cute.

Notes:

A bit of a delay for this longer chapter, capturing the soul bond / uni-mind established between Peter and Sersi from our Eternal's perspective. As with many relationships in her life, things seem far more distressing for poor Sersi! In that vein I've added the surprisingly active tag "Sersi needs a hug" as few things about the character could be more true. If only she wasn't intangible...

The title of this chapter is a reference to the titular song, 1963's "Losing You" by the great Brenda Lee. Though it only appeared as a small tonal note in the final film, the track was referenced heavily in 2023's Marvel Studios' Eternals: The Art of the Movie. Specifically in regards to Sersi finding Ajak's body in South Dakota, and the desperate, hollow memories Sprite clings to of their pseudo-mother. There's a finality to Ajak sending Sprite away to Sersi, the unknown heir of the family legacy, after singing this together. Even if they couldn't know it was for the last time.

Otherwise, this chapter focuses on parallels between Meredith Quill and Ajak, a mess of historical myths and tragedies involving the Eternals, early music theory, and an observation about how excruciatingly Star-Lord it is to run around with rocket boots in a universe where jetpacks can materialize at-will.

I have a few more interlude ideas but next chapter should be a Quill POV. I feel like we're gaining narrative momentum and I want to keep it going.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 9: Quill - Golden Light, A Promise

Summary:

Star-Lord and Sersi test their mental bond while exploring the ruins of a mission long past due.

Polaria [Deviantion Monitoring Array 02 of 06]
Komsomolets Island, Severnaya Zemlya (translation: North Land), Russian Arctic
Earth [Galactic Coordinates: C053. FR45887+125X47.]
September 14, 2026

The NeuroGen-13 burns through Peter Quill's nostrils. Hot smoke of cleansing fire. The pinprick pressure of his mind ringing like a migraine soon-to-be. It hurts, the shock. But it's a good hurt. The kind that proves he is alive and ideally less concussed than he was moments before.

Not that the nervous ghost of a girl beside him did much to dissuade such notion.

"So... is it working?" the Eternal known as Sersi asks. Her voice a waifish singsong with a tinge of a British accent. So very distinct from the thick dialect of Peter's missing companion, King Valkyrie of Asgard. The warrior goddess's Shakespeare-gone-Yorkshire pub crawl a stark contrast to the tight, grammar-school diction currently rattling his eardrums from beyond the void.

"Think so." Quill moans in reply, letting his head loll back. He can feel the tickle of the neuronanites scampering, lacing together a melange of synthetic grey matter supplement and anti-inflammatory microsprays, making his scalp itch. No, more like the inside of his scalp itch. "Not exactly pleasant, but I'll take that as a good sign."

"Oh, excellent! That- that's excellent." The floating girl stammers. Peter mumbles a noncommittal, but frankly, between the concussion and the rocket-propelled rubble escape, he needed a minute to let the minifactured framework settle into some actual semblance of his former mind.
On top of that, it was wildly distracting watching Sersi's lips move.

Part of Peter felt like he should be better than this. He wasn't the ne'er-do-well Ravager accidentally dragging booty calls on poorly thought schemes any longer. That was a younger man's move - sorry again about Morag, Bereet - not that of a Guardian. But, despite his conscious protestations, two little marks were all it took to destroy his cultivated willpower. They were innocous little things too; a mole above Sersi's upper lip and another on the opposite face of a small, delicate chin. Both drawing the eye like barely-there vertigo spots. Corneal floaters emphasizing the concerned twist of full, curved lips. He doesn't know why he can't look away - might be the concussion, or a side effect of the NeuroGen, but Peter genuinely considers sitting here and freezing to death while watching them.

The girl is striking, just how he remembers from the Missouri dreamscape. Translucent, a shade of glinting green. Implacable, fragility only betrayed by puffiness around kind, delicately-sloped brown eyes and the washed-out pallor of sharply defined cheeks. Her hair that same mess of wet, black strands, flitting unnaturally about her like a selkie submerged. She swims slow circles about him a few feet above the frozen tunnel floor like she's one, too.

Peter'd be discomfited if Sersi didn't strike such a remarkable silhouette. Just like the moles, he hadn't paid much mind to the details of her actual form when they first met. Panic-stricken and focused on the overriding ghost of it all. But breathing slow, in-and-out, he tears his gaze from her little pinpricks to give the full up-and-down through half-lidded eyes. The Eternal is noticeably thin despite her armor; torso-to-toe in a material Peter doesn't recognize, a hybridization of cloth and metal. Likely slick to the touch. A bifurcated collar emphasizes her long, pale neck before reaching interlocking torso plates laced with lines of faded gold and silver. Almost fractal, like the suit was an energized combination of many small, composite pieces rather than a uniform whole. Her shoulders are noticeably sharp - armor in a defined ridge despite their narrow slope - guards leading to trailing bits of fabric that tease down to her mid-back; creating a shroud of two thin capes unlike any traditional armor standard which he was familiar. The strands of cloak float with the same flow as her hair - green and silver matching the black of her mane. Following suit is a skirt-like patch of fabric of the same synthetic make, an extension of her torso plates, with a severe cut at each hip despite an otherwise modest, just-above-the-knee length. Skintight armored leggings allowed to tease from each side unimpeded. The suit is brought together at a circle above the divot of her chest, a glowing concentric ring-within-a-ring. Gleaming, emphasized light. A partial eclipse in miniature.

He knows, deep down, he should be in awe.

Yet instead he finds himelf wondering if she would be warm to the touch.

He likes to think so.

Sersi, for her part, is either unaware or unfazed by his his assessment. Floating politely with an earnest tilt to her head. Waiting for Peter to recover from the NeuroGen. Or get his head out of his ass, most likely.

"So... is this is your place?" The Guardian asks, lamely attempting to break his own delirium. "Gonna be honest, I expected a little more..." He waves his free hand about. "Anything, really. Monitors and gadgets, central heating, maybe a nice couch..."

Sersi shakes her head, dark tangle bobbing.

"We... aren't much for creature comforts, my people." She answers with a small smile. "Eternal bodies don't require temperature regulation like a human's. Nor do we need to sit, really. We enjoy the sensations, of course, but Polaria wasn't meant to be inhabited for any real length of time. It's barely more than an observational beacon. Phastos - this station's architect - might've stored some Deviant biosamples and the like here but beyond that..." Sersi shrugs. "Well, this was a remote solution. Occasionally ping for hostile activity across the globe. Route signatures back to Phastos and our starship. Eliminate the problem and wait for the next pulse."

"We- well I really - used my matter transmutation abilities to carve the depressions for these stations a few times over the past fifty centuries. But I'm blissfully unaware of any intent behind the design."

Peter dumbly nods along, the sheer immutability of time she describes exacerbating his headache. He can't believe this pretty, talkative girl was older than the Kree Supreme Intelligence. Though, whose to say that her true form, parsecs away, wasn't a similarly withered cybernetic gasbag That'd be just his luck.

"Truth be told, despite our comprehensive preparations, we never really needed much from Polaria. The beasts of old have been on retreat for so long, humanity's grown to be more of a risk to itself if anything. Until a short while ago, we thought we had wiped Deviant life out entirely. Not a single pulse triggered in more than 500 years. I hadn't seen one myself since Tenochtitlan."

Sersi catches herself, moving to slap her forehead in playful consternation. Only for her hand to go right through. It throws her off-balance, immaterial form rolling awkwardly backwards. Like a child trying to right themselves underwater. Peter suppresses a laugh as she tumbles a moment before rebalancing, her cheeks - despite the near monochrome of her translucent state - flush with obvious embarrassment.

She tries to straighten her skirt, only for her hands to phase through that too.

"Smooth moves, Professor." Peter chuckles quietly.

Sersi huffs, "Hey! I'm rather new to intangibility."

"Oh don't worry about it! It's not an insult. I'm just having fun."

"Fun?"

"Yeah. Connecting to you, chatting about history and whatever while you fumble with your new limits. Later we should try to test what else you can and can't do."

Sersi's indignant expression shifts into a small smile. "Later? Yes. I... later sounds nice. And... oh by the host I'm sorry. I'm being so rude. Here I am complaining while you sat there politely listening to me ramble. After a head injury. What modern human even knows of Deviants or Tenoch-"

Peter holds up a hand, "Hey don't count me out yet; I totally know of this... Tenochkitlan." He butchers the pronunciation while surprising himself for trying. And, now committed to proving his knowledge of a planet he spent *maybe* one-percent of this girl's lifetime on, he truly has no idea what to do. Sersi looks at him expectantly. Smile kind, but he swears he can see a hint of a playful challenge on the curve of her lips.

Refusing to back down, Peter snaps his fingers a few times and pretends to be considering. "I know it... I totally know it. It's like early Americas. Totally. 100%."

Sersi smiles, "Would you like a hint, Mr. Star-Lord?"

"No, no. Totally got this. Oh man... what were they called? Not the Mayans, the other one. A-something? Apaches? No they were too far north. Mr. Ewing told us a ton about this in our second grade social courses, had like big maps and everything..."

"Sounds like a good teacher." Sersi teases, waiting.

Maybe the NeuroGen13 repaired the right synapse, or maybe imagining big maps of South America remind him, but somehow, the truth comes to Peter Quill. He gives a triumphant:

"A-ha! It was the Aztecs, right? Totally. Had to be, 100%."

His attempts to impress her couldn't be more obvious.

"Yes!" Sersi beams, eating up his sloppy attempt regardless. "Oh that's wonderful. For a moment, I worried American primary education had forgotten the import of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican urban development."

Peter, losing her on half the words, laughs, "Well, I wouldn't go that far."

The ephemeral woman seems not to notice. She bobs her head and settles into a lecture quite happily. "I'm being serious, Star-Lord! It was a monumental achievement, that city. Largest on the continent - built on an island and connected to the mainland via a series of rope and timber bridges. Wide enough for ten people to walk side by side, but flexible enough to be retracted in the case of siege or weather phenomenon."

"That's not even taking into account the great terracotta aqueducts flowed through the entire city bringing more freshwater than ever was available in Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire."

"In fact, the civil engineers designed the city so it could work in harmony with the environment rather than supplant it. An ingenious mixture of layered farmland and adjustable canals. There were even small artificial gardens and islands separating the primary districts-" She pauses. Frowns, puffing out her lower lip slightly.

"-And I'm rambling again." She shakes her head, trying and failing to brush aside her tangled hair. "Sorry. I have to stop doing that. I just... miss this. Sharing true and beautiful things. Without judgment."

Peter offers a small, mirthful smile. "I don't mind. It's nice. Hearing about Earth. I haven't spent much time here." When she only responds with a quizzical raise of her narrow brow, he continues. "Oh, my bad. I don't know if I mentioned it. I was abducted by alien pirates, the Udonta Ravager clan, as a kid. I was like, eight. Didn't come back until I was almost 40."

"So, you know, to me Earth's a blank slate except for a battlefield in upstate New York and my hometown of St. Charles, Missouri. Sometimes I feel like I'm more from there than from Earth, if that makes any of sense."

He widens the smile. "You've officially caught me on my second-longest stint on the planet."

Sersi's expression seems to shift from sheepish to sympathetic, her sharply defined brows furrowing further as she looks upon him.

"I hadn't realized you were away from your home for so long. Star-Lord I'm so sorry-"

Peter interrupts her as he starts to rise, groaning as he does so. Applying more pressure to his eye socket to ward off the biting headache the neuronanites couldn't quite contain. Sersi lurches forward, as if to help him, only to realize she's intangible; instead hanging awkwardly with her arms splayed few feet away.

"Don't-" Peter strains out through gritted teeth. "worry about it. No one should apologize-" He groans and his head swims. "-for what happened. It just, well, is you know? Besides, discounting my grandpa, Earth isn't much of a home."

"Earth is a birthplace." Sersi whispers. Sounding oddly reverent. "Of you and your entire people. Where else would be considered a home, Star-Lord?"

Letting out a breath, Peter is finally upright. He places a hand against the wall. Steadies, uttering out:

"Honestly, I'm still working on that."

Seeing her concerned face, that tangle of dark hair, his heart skips. She looks so small. Scared. He wishes he could hug her. But he'd settle for the best comfort he could think of in the moment.

"And please. You can call me Peter. Or Quill. I've been told there's already a lot of Peter's on Earth."

Sersi nods, seeming to understand. Or at least too polite to press. Instead she pulls inward, mouthing Peter a few times. Like she's trying out the taste of the word. Eyes focusing down, nothing but the blank floor and a whisper a million miles away.

"Speaking of homes," He tries to segue, "mind guiding through the former digs? I need to find Valkyrie. Plus, I didn't come all this way not to try to comm your Eternal buddies."

The tunnel stretches before them readily enough. Behind lay the cave-in, a collapse fully sealing the path backwards and the once-opening above. With enough work Quill could clear the passage. But he was no Groot or Drax - it'd be a while. Instead he starts to peer down the wiry darkness ahead. The stonework, that which wasn't frozen over, clearly artificially smoothed and a not quite natural shade of grey-black. The faint flicker of golden light above appears to be from broken wiring. A matching latticework he can just barely make out beneath the rock. Pulsing veins of an alien earth.

"Well, it's been a few thousand years." Sersi admits with a faint, bashful laugh. "But I'll do my best."

---

Peter follows the specter through the dark hallways for a short while, the curved passages seemingly used to connect to heat sink systems buried deeper still. As Sersi describes it, Phastos' devices don't typically need any source of power but they do generate quite a bit of thermal and cosmic radiation. Rather than risk the delicate arctic biosphere above, a series of winding tunnels in a spoke-and-wheel formation were used to allow natural liquid cooling and, occasionally, deposition of heatsink overages into the earth below. But the place was bone dry as far as he could tell. Judging by the layer of dust whirring through his helmet filters, it'd been static for generations. Sersi apparently wasn't kidding when she said it'd been out of use for 500 years.

Not that she seemed much for kidding.

To pass the time on their ascent, the duo tests the extent of their connection.

First, while Sersi leads, she quickly finds she can't proceed further than Peter can outright see. According to her, anything beyond that looks like "an underwater fog." If she tries to force her way through, she's easily rebuffed by crushing pressure within. The Eternal posits it has something to do with mental processing of their bond - as she has no physical senses but a link to Quill's own to rely on. Anything further would collapse her immediate memory network through paradoxical impulse. To Peter, it almost sounds like invisible walls in one of Groot's video games.

"This is... rather vexing." Sersi complains, speaking to Peter from the furthest edge of his sightline. Right where the tunnel breaks into a spoke ascending upwards. "I know the route ahead is ahead. My abilities carved the path. But because you can't see it..." She huffs and presses herself against the no space again, only to retract her hand with a wince.

"Don't hurt yourself." He calls ahead. Voice echoing through the split pass and ricocheting back. That inspires him.

"Hey weird question." Peter asks in a low whisper. So faint that, given normal circumstance, the average organic should be unable to hear him at the 25-plus meters out. "Can you hear me?"

"Why of course I can." Sersi answers, glancing over her shoulder. She then looks confused, only to turn further and note Peter still quite the distance away.

"Oh! That's... oh!" She bounces on her heels. "I can't believe I didn't think of how our communications would work via the empathetic link. Perhaps it's more like a telepathy then?"

Initial excitement drains away as a wave of shallow dread falls over Peter. While he's been nothing but supportive and professional outwardly, he'd definitely checked the Eternal out mere minutes before. Flashes of the little marks near her mouth dance through his mind. The nervous twist of her perfect lips. This is followed by another flash of panic that the return of such thoughts are being observed just-the-same.

Flarking telepathy.

Peter's cheeks darken as he asks, "Wait, you can't hear my thoughts, can you?"

"No, no that would be- Wait... can you hear mine?" Sersi, despite the shimmering, see-through green of her ghostly complexion, seems to pale in kind. "That would be-"

"Right?"

"So we can't hear each other's thoughts?"

"No! No I only hear what you've been saying! Honest." Peter laughs. Then a thought strike:

Why would she be worried about her thoughts?

Unless...

No, no.

Shake it off, Quill.

It ain't the time.

"This connection must work on speech then." He tries. "Or at least, maybe you just hear me talking with the vibrations in my own eardrums? Since you seem to be working off my field of vision - maybe this is the same?"

Sersi hums, appreciative for the save, "I'm not sure. Since you can hear me too and I certainly don't have a mouth present in Polaria, perhaps it's based on intention? Celestial power often works that way: you know force of will, multi-dimensional creation links, words of power rewriting the known cosmic reality... we're likely communicating through the mental link simply because we believe we should be able to, if that makes any sense."

It didn't, but Peter tries to simplify, "Like our brains aren't combined. They're just..."

"Bumping elbows?" Sersi offers helpfully.

"Yeah." He laughs. "Hell of an image."

She laugh too, rapping her knuckles against her intangible head, phasing through dark hair but stopping short of her skull. This time, she doesn't roll backwards or even stumble. Peter gives a small mock clap. Sersi beams and does a small bow in recognition.

Star-Lord realizes he was perhaps a little hasty in his earlier assumption. He and this girl were solving problems. Working together. Testing their limits. Even having a bit of fun.

Quite a change from the panicking ghost with a thousand-plus years of trauma.

For the first time since returning to Earth, Peter Quill feels what it was like to be a Guardian of the Galaxy.

---

The spiraling pass of cooling tunnels cascades into a focal dome, at least how Sersi remembers it. Multiple concentric wheels connected by narrow, angled spokes and fluted tubes running perpendicular to take in seawater and cool air - one of which Peter became intimately familiar with as he collapsed down and through in a pile of rubble. The dome is up and at an angle, the highest point in the construction sans a lift leading to the sealed gate Valkyrie so elegantly tried to smash open. Another spoke, following another widely curved wheel, seems to lead them to their destination. A glassy, dark stone arch greets the duo, with a darkly translucent hatch clear but for the faint buildup of old dust and condensation.

The light beyond is low but Peter just thinks he can make out golden wiring and projector displays. Sersi floats ahead to the door, her stuttering glide betraying her growing excitement.

"It's still here. By the Host, I can almost see inside." She taps against the glass, despite her hand phasing through as one would assume. "Hurry, Peter!"

Star-Lord's boots gently pad against stone, stopping outside the door. Unsure how an Eternal-designed research chamber might operate, he tries a few gestures. Waving a hand, a tap against the panel. Nothing.

He thinks back to Sersi's words. Intentionality. Celestial design. Cosmic thought-made-reality. So, unsure of what he's doing but quite sure of what he wants done, Peter merely thinks things would be swell if that door was open. And it follows. Swooshing clear with nary a sound.

They step inside.

"I was worried Polaria wouldn't detect me, given my lack of physical form, but it must sense my latent Eternal energies. Perhaps using your body as an amplifier for my identification signal, or a passthrough into the Celestial network." Sersi marvels. "Phastos thought of everything. I... wow."

The dome is wide, easily 30 or 40 feet across, arching up like a basilica of black stone. Forged of the same unearthly material of the tunnels beneath, less the layers of ice. Beyond a small stone dais in the center of the room - likely the elevator - Peter can't spot much in the way of interfaces. What he thought were golden holopanels are instead faintly glinting filaments of light circling the walls. Grooves carved into the stonework flexing and pulsing like they were alive. Hieroglyphs almost, of great overlapping rings that fit the schema of Sersi's armor. He runs a finger over the material, whistling at the faint, sparking warmth that reaches out in reply. It's not hot - but it does reach out. Brushes his body with a faint trembling sensation.

Peter's quiet awe is undercut by Sersi's abject glee. The Eternal spins, lifting off the ground. Like a dancer in Shi'ar war-ballet or a Kilyonian lightmoth, rising in an impossibly lazy twirl. Her hair and shoulder capes trailing brightly. Taking it in. A glowing, buried slice of home.
"Damn. Look at all this..." He whispers with an unintentional reverence. "Feels like I'm back in church."

"It is." Sersi whispers from above. "Hallowed halls for a most holy mission. Even if we mistook devils for the divine - it's ours."

Sersi lowers herself down to Peter and gestures towards the nearest wall. A dark slate depression inscribed with the same golden circles, humming with that barely-there hitch.

"Touch it. I think... I can walk you through the process. You can't read Celestial linguistics code, can you?" She asks. Peter simply shakes his head, instead following the projection of her hand with his own as she moved across the panel. It's a disconcerting experience. Touching her but not. She's so close he should be able to smell her. Feel the warmth of her body. But she's only an image, less real than the hard light holograms, leaving him to mimic the unfeeling space of what might have been.

Peter's struck by how much he feels like Demi Moore with her pottery kit.

Gently Sersi traces a few of the circles, followed by Peter's touch, causing three-dimensional holographic displays to ping to life. Concentric rings burn about his fingers, flayed with text looking like 1's and 0's written in hieroglyphs. Flechette-like dots of light. Sersi twists her wrist inside of one ring, which Peter mimics, causing the ring to explode out into a gold-black display of the Milky Way. A familiar spiral somehow making 200 billion-odd stars feel like home. Though Peter doesn't have much time to marvel before Sersi flexes her fingers out, which he follows, displaying a wider network of nearby galaxies. Faint dotted lines tracing between them like delicate rivers, though really millions of lightyears wide. Paths of interconnected jump gates, older than almost anything but stardust itself, connected one dancing array of light to another.

"Show me... Domo." Sersi whispers.

"Domo?" Peter asks.

Sersi nods, "It was our starship. Ancient and beautiful. My friends left with it in search of other Eternals. I anticipate it'd start in the nearest of nine linked galactic clusters though..." Sersi trails off. A frown contorting the line of her cheeks. "Hmm..."

"It's just a funny name for a starship, is all." Peter continues without missing a beat. "I usually name my ships after Earth heroes, you know, like David Bowie and Tom Selleck But you just named yours Run."

The ghost quirks a brow.

"What?" She asks.

"You know, Domo, domo, domo. A bunch of kids - well uplifted, gene-spliced fish really - that we rescued from the High Evolutionary, they spoke an old language that wasn't in our translator codices. Couldn't understand a lick of it but..." he pauses, turning to the hologram. He'd forgotten how close she was. So close he melded with her in spots. Breathed in the space of her. He wishes he could brush some of that dark hair behind her ear, feel a shiver beneath his touch.
Not the time, Quill.

She stares, looks down quickly as their eyes meet. He continues, "I think it was called Old Orbose. Not a big deal if you don't-"

"Who did you say you saved those children from?" Sersi says.

"The High Evolutionary? You know, human-looking guy on the Doctor Moreau train? With a penchant for purple and condescending bullshit? Kind of a stapled on face sort of thing...?" Peter says, the upwards lilt of his voice framing it more as a question than he intended. Sersi floats quietly for a moment. Not answering. Her tangled mane brushing past-then-through Quill.

Eventually she nods, letting out a faint whisper. "He must be very old then too, to speak the language of the Celestial servant-kin." Peter can't help but shake the feeling there's more to this particular story, but he doesn't press.

Instead he tries to placate with a small joke, "So... let's find this Run then?"

"Right. Yes." Sersi nods, resolute. She begins to deftly move fingers along the golden filaments, expanding and contracting with equal flexes. Peter, dutifully, steps back into her space to follow.

---

After a little under 10 minutes, Peter's awkward mimicry of Sersi's commands finally exposes what they're looking for. A blinking pale light. Somewhere out in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy caught on a concentric orbit outside the gravitational force of the Milky Way. Astral coordinates YY67+58E. Home to a diverse array of civilizations, most notably the seat of the Interstellar Kree Empire, or what remained of it, on Hala nestled away in the light of the dying star Pama. Though their imperial ambitions breached across the jump networks from Andromeda to the edges of dark space beyond the Local Group. Oft seen in the Milky Way specifically, on which their galaxy was fell into a collision course. Though that was problem for 2.4 billion years from now.

When Sersi doesn't move further, Peter takes his own initiative. Taps the faint dot.

The light expands. Creating a three-dimensional display of a perfectly triangular wedge. Domo. Schematic information begins to pour forth, the cross-section of a ship revealing status tags that Peter can't even begin to fathom. A string of Orbose and non-Arabic numeral binary in rings of roving text.

Sersi reaches towards the ship. Her hologram shivering. A fuzzy green versus the immutable golden-white.

"They're... still alive." The ghost whispers. "Still whole... Here..." She runs fingers through the ship's silhouette.

"Peter...?"

"Yeah?" he answers, a little absently. Watching her more than the ship. Still grateful she couldn't read his mind.

"It's almost time." She says, turning from the golden hue to face him.

"I know."
"I'm not sure how my people will react to you. Being here, I mean."

"You think they won't enjoy a charming human breaking their tunnels and poking their machines?"

"Ha. No... I anticipate they'll be wary. Cautious. Maybe even aggressive. Thena especially. Her mind is... rather delicate. From the Mahd Wy'ry, you see." Peter has no clue what Mahd Wy'ry is, but judging by the sorrowful twist of Sersi' brow he takes it to be serious. If only a little silly sounding.

"Just tell me what to be ready for. And I'll make the call. Even if your friends try to kill me."

Sersi scoffs.

"I'm serious." Peter counters.

"I know. That's why I'm hesitating. It isn't fair to put you at risk like this." Sersi crosses her arms, rubbing one of her triceps nervously. "They could slay you, Peter. Seriously. Without a thought. You barely survived a tunnel collapse, how are you supposed to survive an Eternal warrior?"

"Hey!" Peter fails to hide the offense behind his tone. "That's totally not what happene-"

Sersi interrupts with a sharp, "It is though! I bothered you, of all people, for reasons I don't even know. And you go on some quest with the gods and fall into a hole and could've died! Would've died, if you were anyone else!"

She spins from him, floating back a step. "It's just dumb luck and rocket boots that have kept you from bleeding out or freezing to death yet!" The tremble in her voice is obvious. She might be on the verge of an outburst, though be it yelling or crying Peter couldn't much tell. She exhales sharply. "Meanwhile, I'm stuck... floating and useless! Entirely useless. Can you understand how that feels? I am supposed to protect humanity but all I do is put them at risk." She balls her fists, clenches I shut tight. "I can't do that to another living soul. I can't! In my thousands of years I've been so foolish and selfish and cruel and I didn't even realize it." She's vomiting out the words, lost in an anxious spiral. Her chest rises and falls rapidly. She looks away from him, or at least she seems to, her tangle of dark hair making it hard to see her eyes but she's clearly moved her head down. Almost defeated by the weight of it all.

Peter's seen that look on a girl's face before.

A green girl, fearing her sins too many and her options too few.

Who he promised to save right before he never saw her again.

But maybe he could still save this one.

"Hey... Hey. Sersi. Sersi. Look at me." Peter tries to reach out to her. His fingers phase through but he mimes touching her shoulders anyways. One strong hand on each one. He's unsure if the hologram is life-size, but she's surprisingly narrow for an immortal defender of humanity. He imagines what her shoulders might feel like, and is almost able to convince himself the hologram's array of astral-focused light is pushing back in the faintest of ways.

"Please look at me." The Eternal doesn't, but she does quiet. Gives him permission to continue with a small nod.

"I chose this." Peter continues. Steady. Easy as he can. "Maybe if I didn't know about this, sure, I'd be back home in Missouri. On the couch, having a beer to the drum of bad tv. But it's way too late for that. Someway, somehow, I know that you're in trouble. And I'm not going to let that go quietly."

She looks up at him. Eyes glimmering with jade tears.

"That's not your problem." She whispers. "This is my fault."

"Doesn't matter. Not in the slightest." Peter answers. That seems to surprise her. The unequivocal earnestness of it all.

"You... what are you even doing, Peter Quill?" She finally chokes out, quiet and ashamed. "What kind of person does this?"

"If I knew the answer to that, you'd be the first to know. But far as I can tell I'm just a guy, looking for a girl, who needs my help."

Sersi lets out an odd bleating sound. The laugh of a cornered lamb. Low and quiet; strangled by wracking, hitching sobs she's failing to suppress.

"That can't be the only reason you are here, Star-Lord." She replies. "Even if that's what you need to keep telling yourself." Finally, Sersi looks up. Her sharply-defined brown eyes meet his. Tentatively, she reaches up to brush his face. Delicate, astral digits phasing through his flesh.

His hands haven't left her not-quite-there shoulders.

"Let me know if you do figure it out." She whispers.

They stare at each other.

For but a moment.

Her fingers fiddling with his far-too-real cheek.

Just a man and a woman.

But so much more in kind.

Sersi is the first to break the touch.

"We should probably call my people." She whispers as she averts her eyes, floating a back a few steps.

"Right. Yeah." Peter answers. The moment as gone as the ruins of Centuri-Six.

Yet even as the Eternal turns back to the glimmering hardlight commands, Peter hasn't moved his hands.

Notes:

Originally my longest chapter yet, I've broken this one up to allow some breathing room for Sersi and Peter to sort through the rules of their new bond and learn a bit more about each other. I also added a few fun shoutouts like a reference to a modern GotG comic author, a (likely) overindulgent look at Tenochtitlan, and my own explanation for Peter's frankly confusing "I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri" line in Infinity War.

I'd like to note the use of "Domo" in both Eternals and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was quite a surprise, one which I haven't seen spoken about online. The language spoken by the Star Children in the latter is even described as, "millenium old." I doubt it was an intentional link, but extrapolating out a tangential connection between the Eternals/Celestials and the High Evolutionary is exactly the kind of thing fanfiction is for. More to come on that.

You can find a full guide to the Orbose language here.

Next chapter will be another Quill/Sersi POV to close out our journey through Polaria, before an interlude, followed by a swing into the subsequent arc of our tale!

Chapter 10: Sersi - Guns, Elementally Yours

Summary:

Guided by the desperate voice in his mind, Peter Quill collides with a Precambrian evil deep beneath the earth. Forcing Sersi to make a judgment of her own.

Note: Graphic Depictions of Violence to follow.

Polaria [Deviantion Monitoring Array 02 of 06]
Komsomolets Island, Severnaya Zemlya (translation: North Land), Russian Arctic
Earth [Galactic Coordinates: C053. FR45887+125X47.]
September 14, 2026

Sersi isn't quite sure how long she's watched her human - Peter Quill, she reminds herself - fiddle with the Polarian station controls.

The silence was awkward. Peter clearly couldn't read the console but needed to do something with his hands. Trying not to look at her. Was it minutes? Hours? Difficult to tell in her state of astral-not-life. So anemic the air now seemed, without their back-and-forth to fill it.

The Eternal isn't quite sure why she went ahead and ruined it. Pressing Quill like that. He shouldn't have to bear her unwavering gaze; her prodding at his face. Who was she kidding? She'd guilted him into putting his life on the line. More than once, even. What more could he possibly be willing to give?

She should just disconnect, if she could figure out how, and let the poor man go back to his grandpa.

That's the voice of her rational processes. The immediate, well-wrought Eternal mind.

The irrational part?

That part wishes she touched him for real.

Sersi shakes her head. Ikaris used to warn her about these flights of mortal fancy. Momentary Mahd Wy'rys. A chilling concept.

Luckily; a bright burst from the console, followed by a yelp from Peter, shifts psychic spiraling back into abject reality.

"Whoa!" Peter stumbles back, shielding his eyes. "Warm me next time I'm about to break something!"

Sersi purses her lips, forcing a rueful smile, "Nothing's broken. Just a confirmation that we've falsified a warning beacon for Excess Deviation. And pulsed it across 200-odd light years." She still can't look at him, but scrabbling for banter is a start. "I'll make sure to warn you if we ever find ourselves doing this again."

"Har har." Peter chides. But there's no venom behind his words. She might not be able to touch him - stupid to even think so - but she could at least enjoy this. The banter. His voice. More than a little scratchy, but warm. Like a particularly favored sweater. Worn down by time, fraying at the seam, but never failing to wrap her tight.

"Still," her human continues, peeking back at the console through splayed fingers. "Seems like we did it. So... now we wait?"

"Now we wait." She nods.

After a beat, Peter bites his lip, "Not to ruin this with hypotheticals, but humor me for a moment."

"Okay. I am happy to, Peter."

"Any chance your friends write this off as a malfunction?"

"Well... this technology has not been used in centuries. I hadn't considered that, but, perhaps?"

"You're scruttin' kidding me."

Sersi shrugs her transluscent shoulders. She possessed mixed feelings on such matters. Her remaining allies've spent literal Earth years sailing the stars. Battling who knows what in search of other Eternals. A signal, any signal, would more than likely draw them in. But this particular team was barely more coherent than malfunctioning, centuries-old tech themselves. And that's if one was generous. Between Thena's overloaded memory banks, Druig's absolute disregard for the noninterference principal, and the entire collective's rampant rebellion against the Grand Design...

Sersi just needed faith.

Ill comfort, after her slaying of god.

Peter goes back to fiddling with the station commands, unaware of her internal debate. He inadvertently moves away from controls and into the status archives, tabbing through concentric golden displays. Each a round technical status scrawl of Celestian non-numeric binary with Orbese notation as needed. Sersi floats low, peeking over his shoulder.

She just wants to read along.

Not because she wants to be close to his neck, or anything so foolish.

Or to wonder what he smells like.

The first spiral reads:

Expand heatsink paths by [32.2 meters] diameter. Sersi'd be best, she'd mold the earth in less than a day if given the map. Makkari could run it too, if our matter transmuter is still caught up with the local fisherfolk. A funny thing, how worried she is about Polaria's heat output impacting their way of life. It's so very her. - Phastos, [3,212 BCE]

Sersi notes the data contains modern overrides, their initial nomenclature, such as tracking time in "solar revolutions since arrival", replaced with contemporary human concepts such as BCE. The same can be seen with units of measure, settlement names, etcetera. The notes continue:

Station is functioning. Deviation detected at major population centers including [Sumer], [Nubia], [England], and off the coast of [Mesopotamia.] I recommends split deployment leveraging Domo. Ajak fears burgeoning religious practices will further consolidate if exposed to external stimuli. She's quick to remind me of the Second Principle, "Maintain the Grand Design." 

I remind her that the [Minoans] already worship Thena. What's one more? - Phastos, [3,019 BCE]

Peter skips ahead, not quite able to comprehend the cycle of archaic messages and addendum beyond the occasional diagram. The corkscrew winds, deeper and deeper, generations of study at the flick of a wrist. He comes to the final notice:

No malfunctions here. No Deviants east of the [Prime Meridian]. I told Phastos to trust his machines! I'll confirm the other stations are functioning, including the stasis containment fields, then we'll follow them west. Not sure why we'd even bother studying Deviants at this point, only the [Americas] remain infected before Olympia calls us home.

Though I shouldn't complain. The change in climate might do Druig some good. - Makkari, 1,462 CE.

An empath and scientist in equal measure, Phastos's notes were calming but expected diatribes. But seeing Makkari's words is a bittersweet surprise. So lighthearted and carefree. Just a few short years before the fall of Tenochtitlan. How blind they were.

"See anything amiss?" Peter asks. Voice gentle. Kind, grey eyes flitting between her and the console. Clearly, she did not suppress her pain as well as she thought.

"Just thinking on earlier times." Sersi sighs. "I'd call them the good old days but, well, I find it fallacious to call ignorance bliss."

Peter nods. Despite his comparative youth, she could tell he understood.

After a momentary silence, a shimmering warble of renewed text at the end of the golden circle, draws their eyes.

"What's this?" Peter asks, pulling at the thread.

"Nothing of import. Our action, falsifying the Deviant signal, triggered a planetary pulse. All relevant data is being noted to the record."

Peter may've heard her but he is certainly not listening. Instead of turning away to wait, Peter slides fingers through the silver hardlight. With a flick, the golden circle spins into a flat plane, projecting out to display a three dimensional map of the current arctic station. Sersi suppresses a lightly frustrated huff.

So very human of him.

The initial display is as expected. An interlocking spoke-and-wheel design forming the base of Polaria, with tunnels at an angle allowing easy egress to the central chamber in which they stood. Multiple columns rose from the circumference, passages for frozen water and frigid air, to cool the actual body of the station locked between ice-and-stone surrounding the tunnels. Sersi can see one ventilation column collapsed, which Peter appears to have fallen through following a not-insignificant seismic event on the surface of the Komsomolets Island. Easily 200-plus meters bouncing along into the bowels of the earth. The poor man was lucky to only be walking away with a minor brain injury; a somehow magically repairable one, at that. Inwards from Peter's collapsed column is the central lift, above them and through a series of sealed environmental doors, locked behind Eternal touch or other failsafes. Such precautions appeared wholly unnecessary, though Sersi couldn't help but appreciate Phastos's cautious handling.

A gap in the map data catches Sersi's eye. On the level beneath the still-sealed entrance, down the same collapsed column Peter tumbled, but diverting at a sharp 45-degree angle. She theorizes it to be an opening to the surface, depositing to the cavernous air pocket carved above the physical scanner array, each signal panel divoted out like a petal from the central structure.

She remembers carving these caverns over each petal, but doesn't remember the collection of pillars rising from the pane. Each looking a few meters in diameter, rising from artificial floor to natural ceiling. Some sort of structural supports, perhaps? But they're quite tightly packed for that. And between them, flitting between the maze of columns, are further flashes. Faint life-signaling specks. She prompts Peter to zoom in with an outward flick of his fingers. Multiple signs. One steady and silver, indicating a non-Eternal humanoid. More than ikely the Asgardian King Valkyrie Peter brought with. Pursued by multiple wholly black...

"Peter." Sersi wheels on her companion, so quick she temporarily blinds herself with her own tangle of intangible hair. "We have to go. Right now. Your friend is in danger."

"Flark." He curses. "Can you guide me to her?"

Sersi nods. She was made for this.

They move to the central dais, a raised stone lift in the bulbous central chamber. At Peter's physical step, the rings of the dais light a telltale celestial gold. A single control module materializes at the appropriate height for Peter; a gleaming ring with just 3 prompts. He hammers the middle one with an aggressive two-finger flick, correctly intuiting the mid-level exit command.

He cannot ascertain it reads: Array Maintenance and Deviated Containment.

The lift silently rises from the dome-like chamber, a floating pylon of stone. Soon levitating into a tunnel of perfect diameter, dark but for flashes of gold celestian energy as they rise. Sersi keeps pace without a thought.

"Run me through what to expect." Peter says, voice steady. Still warm, but focused. More forge than sweater.

Sersi turns to answer, but is distracted by his battle preparations. First, Peter adjusts his ankle-length rust-colored jacket, checking straps on shoulder, bicep, and wrist plates of what look to be tempered, steel-bright alloy. Clinging to the cut of leanly muscled shoulder. Jacket properly secured, he zips the dark vest beneath, before tapping a small command on his left flank. Sersi can just hear a faint hum as a secondary shield array boots up, blue hexagons of light wrapping about Peter's body before fading from sight. They contrast against the taught muscles of his neck, just poking past his collar. Then, he pats his belt, checking for some sort of weaponry or tool, before moving lower to tighten the plates on his dark flight pants. Similar to those on his jacket - ending just below the knees. Peter unfastens and refastens his boot jump jets to some sort of magnetic grip on the armor as part of the process; surprisingly versatile little devices despite Sersi's earlier consternation. This is followed with a tap behind the ear as his helmet easily materializes, nanofilimanet mask revived with a roar of crimson eyes.

So far this matches the man Sersi found in the rubble a short while ago. That is until he unholsters two bizarre looking pistols, each a set of sharply-angled silver barrels. The alien weapons are built around some sort of central activation column, with two triggers, each likely synced to a unique firing cylinders. Sersi doesn't know much of guns newer than the 10th century Chinese fire lance, but even she can tell the tubes hum with energies unlike any harnessed on earth. Burning red at the top and blue crackling in the bottom.

He moves like Ikaris. No... no. He moves like a Star-Lord.

"Sersi. Walk me through it." Peter reminds her, voice still gentle but clearly prompting. The Eternal blinks. She realizes she must have been staring.

"Okay... okay." She reorients as the lift zooms higher. Flashes of gold interrupting the otherwise low blackness. "You saw the map. The secondary level housed the actual plates of the scanner array. Blocky petals nestled between the snow and ice. connected to the central chamber. Along these structures, however, Phastos built chambers without my assistance. I assume to leverage the already manufactured power systems. Based on the map, it looks between twelve-and-twenty in total but I couldn't tell."

Sersi wishes she had paid more attention to the hologram. Why the Celestials had not granted their artificial children flawless recall she would never know.

"I'm... I'm worried he was using it to study the Deviants, Peter. I urged him against such action." She admits.

"Deviants." Peter utters. "You keep using that word. Are they some sort of bogeyman to your people?"

Sersi is momentarily confused. She had assumed in his galactic travels, hearing tell of Celestials, Peter would also be familiar with their fallen firstborn. A hostile, ever-evolving parasite loosed on an unwitting galaxy. Her very reason for being.

"Yes. Devaints are... monstrous things. Larger than man, or beast in most cases. Constantly evolving predators designed to master, then cleanse, even the most hostile of environs. They grow through the consumption of organic matter. What might begin as a mess of sinew and tendrils can quickly adapt to be a bird of prey, or a catlike jungle predator, or even..."

The last thought makes Sersi stop and shiver, even without a proper body. She finally manages to blurt the words out like they're venom.

"Even an Eternal."

If this surprises Star-Lord, she can't tell beneath his steel-and-crimson facade.

Peter tries to keep steady, probably for her sake, "Got it. So... ever-shifting apex predators. Like an artificial adaptoid or Super Skrull. Any idea what the fellas above might've eaten before our arrival?"

Sersi shakes her head, "No. As I said, I warned against this storage protocol."

"Too dangerous?"

"Too cruel."

Peter softens at that. Loosening grip on his weapons ever so slightly.

"Is there a chance we could save them? The Deviants, I mean?"

Seri's jaw drops.

"That's- that's wildly dangerous, Peter Quill." She stammers, failing to hide her surprise. "If let loose the Deviants will quickly master the environment above. Rapid depopulation of indigenous wildlife will begin in earnest. I would anticipate all organic life on this island would be dead within a week. Maybe two. The Deviants would then spread quickly; taking upon themselves idealized forms of locomotion and attack. Soon, even with the enhanced technology and metahumans of the modern era, nearby settlements would be consumed. Hundreds of lives. Mass depopulation events. And while that might be hypothetical, the refugee crisis, reactionaries, civic violence... No, no the Deviants must be eradicated. Human safety depends on it."

Peter doesn't look at her, mulling on it for a moment. Ocular receptors locked on the flitting black-and-gold along the rising lift.

"You must believe me." Sersi implores, pursing her lips. "Deviants were the first of many mistakes made by the Celestials."

Peter turns to her her, cocking his head. Scruffy brown hair lists lazily to one side, surprisingly human even if otherwise inscrutable beneath the mask. Finally, he utters:

"If they try to hurt Valkyrie, or anyone else, I'll put 'em down. But I have a bit sympathy for the Celestials' lost and discarded." There's that undercurrent to his voice. The sort of inarguable kindness that made her want to touch him. Press her head against his chest. Run her fingers through that tangle of brown hair. He seemed...  so warm. So solid. So unlike her current state.

"We can talk about it more later, if you'd like." Sersi promises, though she's not sure as to why.

Peter nods. The lift stops.

And chaos rises to meet them.

 

---

 

Star-Lord is off his feet, diving away from a writhing mass of something before Sersi can even comprehend their arrival. A sinuous pile of bone and tentacles colliding against the platform where they stood mere moments before. Peter's dodge is deft but clumsy, just barely making space, twisting to the left in a wide-armed spin. Pistols erect; he lets loose without aim.

Crimson globules rip forth in a spiral; shocking Sersi with the sheer intensity of light blaring from the alien weapons. Concentrated balls of plasma rending chunks from solidly built Eternal stonework, her stonework, before  a few find target. Searing seeping holes as wide as fists into the into the wild Deviant. The thing screams and recoils with a horrible shout. A gnashing, sputtering thing like the death knell of a hundred corvid run through an industrial grinder. Sersi resists the urge to cover her ears; not that it'd have any effect.

The specimen is certainly avian; sloping skull almost entirely consumed by a wickedly curved beak, with rows of jagged and misshapen teeth poking unnaturally from the maw. Four gleaming gold eyes bulge above it, two-per-side, all fixed on Peter. It's slick, grey-green bulk gleams pitch-like in the weapon fire. Easily three-and-a-half meters or more of roiling sinew and barely contained musculature. Head almost scraping against the frozen black stone of the containment chamber. It spreads arms like a massive bird of prey, or a pterodactyl of pre-Eternal days, but where wings should be instead sprout fleshy strands, eight in total, barbed with cruel hooks already marred with traces of blood. It's oddly trunk-like in design, perhaps optimized for aquatic predation, waddling forward on clawed-yet-webbed talons. An unholy polar bird spewing bladed anemone.

Sersi goes quiet, despite her years of experience. Remembering the last time a Deviant got this close to her.

Gilgamesh in the Amazon.

"Gods!" Peter cries out, expressing enough disdain for the both of them. "Get back you flarkin' son of a flerkin!"

Triggers pumping in unison, Peter loosing round after round of red blasts. Ripping and squelching flesh doing little to deter the Deviant, at least initially, but the Star-Lord similarly shows no sign of slowing. He drops to a knee to avoid a barb swinging for his head, only to adjust the burst of his weapon upward to singe the fleshy tendril with a horrible, searing shot. The thing retracts the appendage with a whine, cruel beak still snapping at Peter. But he adjusts again, like some sort of jungle cat, feinting back only to spin on his heels when the Deviant overextends, leaping to kick at its bulk with a drop-kick- propelled-by-fire. A horrible crunch breaks over the sound of blaring jet boots. Small chunks of something clattering to the floor, sounding more of granite than flesh.

The Deviant, realizing it's outplayed, swipes backwards, hooking a stone column with one of its unmarred flesh-stalks. It swings the horrible hook, dragging itself back into the veritable melange of black monoliths. Renewed weapon fire trails just behind. Its golden eyes disappear around the corner in a cacophony of shots, squawks, and scrapes.

"Deviant?" Peter asks Sersi, pushing himself one-handed off the stone floor.

"Deviant." She nods. Breathing heavy. Odd, as she didn't need to breathe. "You did quite well. Did it hurt you?"

Peter shakes his head, "No. Don't think so." He leans forward and exhales. In-and-out. Catching his breath. Same rhythm as her.  "But- whew- that was blood. Looked like organic blood."

"Your friend?"

"Dunno. But we should follow."

Sersi does not argue.

The duo trails the wounded creature into the spread of containment pillars. Each a towering five meter-wide column lined with faded sigils, the faint trace of their glow running from floor to ceiling. Reflecting off dust like confetti or spores, tiny motes of golden starstuff. The Deviant, or at least a Deviant was likely once locked here, for eons, trapped in some sort of stasis field holding fast its ever-shifting flesh. The fact so many were possibly down here was an astonishment, how Phastos even got them here even more so. Sersi quietly counts the chambers as they pass, looking for signs of former habitation. At least a few appear to be empty.

Not good.

The sound of clashing steel defers this line of thought. Peter breaks into a jog, slipping past another column recently scarred with terrible talons, then another, until the source of this chaos becomes clear.

Around the bend, where another black stone column should be, is instead a burning hole in the superstructure. Surface light blaring forth. Almost blinding Sersi vis-à-vis Peter's senses.

How long had it been? Since she'd seen the sun which kissed her for 70 centuries?

Did the Celestials deign to take it too?

So distracted by the light of heaven, Sersi almost doesn't notice the angel beneath it.

A woman, garbed in fine silver armor gleaming with sweat and blood and viscera, her blue short blade currently buried in the torso of a Deviant monster. This one of lesser build than their quarry, though still over 3 meters long with a wolflike build, studded with stoney, bonelike stalks of plating along its wide back. Not that this woman's blade was deterred. The thing was sunk to the hilt in the wolf's shoulder, barely holding back the gnashing creature as it scraped grooves into the sediment. Similar gashes adorned her bare, smooth-skinned arms. Same color as the blood matted in the tight braids of her dark hair. Somehow, that did little to deter her; the blademistress cackling in the face of the skewered beast.

"Valhalla waits for me, daemon!" She hisses, wrenching the blade with all her might. The wolf whines its last as she heaves, ripping the weapon up through stone-strong shoulder muscle with a horrible squelch. The creature falls. "Does it for you?"

Frantic scrambling behind gives her little time to recover.

The warrior whips about with a mad gleam in her eye, ready to meet the lurching waddle of the hook-limbed pterodactyl-cum-anemone, only for burning hot plasma to beat her to the fray. The creature stumbles, off-balance. She follows in step, meeting it with a sweeping arc of her blade. It's bisected in a flash of blue steel and black blood. Top half tumbling in a pile of useless sinew.

Still panting, eyes still clouded in a haze of battle lust, hands trembling; she readies for a charge for the next.

Then her vision clears.

"Star-Lord?" Her strong voice cracking in exhaustion. "By Odin's Beard! I thought you felled in the collapse. Hel, I was about ready to join you." Her round cheeks, caked in blood as they are, twist into a full smile.

"Not today, my king." Peter says, a kind, familiar lilt to his emphasis on king. "Lady Death ain't taking us yet."

Peter moves to Valkyrie with Sersi close behind. Up close, the warrior woman is not at all what she expected. Though interactions with divinities were rare in Sersi's time on Earth, even the basest understanding of Norse mythology would imply an Asgardian "king" to be a dour, perhaps canny, bulk of a man. A creature of harsh environments and harsher moods. Not this... short and chatty, wisp of a thing. Currently collapsing into Star-Lord, who seems as a surprised as Sersi by the gesture. Or maybe just Valkyrie's unexpected weight as he struggles to keep her upright. Eventually he strains into an equilibrium, looping one arm beneath her plated shoulders and around her middle. Asgardians must be particularly dense. Though the placement of Peter's hand leads Sersi to think on other elements of divine biology.

Was his touch warm to her?

"Whoa there, lordship." Peter says with that trademark charm. "I got you. I got you."

Sersi wastes a few processing cycles trying to justify it. Trying to explain that she misses contact in general. The way body heat would travel into hers. The way she could wordlessly tell someone's character in how they chose to touch another. How a simple nuzzle and familiar breath could encourage peace in dark, fretful hours.

Peter does that now, in fact; performing lightly soothing actions with the injured goddess. Whispering some bad joke or reference she doesn't quite understand. Sersi tries to tell herself it's all a feint, of course. A basic doctor's trick to apply medicines to a more stable patient. Not that this warrior king needed to be calmed, mind, though this was just Peter's way. He procures a medical syringe from his belt, which barely pierces hardened Asgardian skin, and Sersi almost shivers as she sees his rough fingers gently pinching those sweaty, leanly muscled arms. Both laughing. Part of her, an animalistic part she's quite sure she was designed without, feels jealous pangs for his attention.

His attention.

She shakes her head. Tries to remind herself he's being caring. Platonic. He led people and built a team, this is what you were supposed to do. She probably should be taking notes, if she were to ever try to lead the Eternals again.

Besides, Peter was a good man. He he flew halfway around the world to find her, in fact. First aid with a helping of inside jokes is exactly the kind of thing he would bring to a post-battle.

Somehow, that doesn't much calm her.

"Val... I only brought two stims." Peter remarks, unaware of Sersi's growing frustration. "And your most holy Asgardian physiology swallowed them both. Should be enough adrenals to make Drax the Destroyer's heart burst. Though I've got a Med-Pak for emergency reconstruction if you need it."

"Reconstruction? Seriously, Star-Lord? I can stand without any sort of... soft-skinned...short-lived..." she pushes off from him with a groan, before nearly collapsing.

Star-Lord cackles as he bodily catches her against his chest.

Sersi's barely muted gasp rattles in her ears louder than the impact of their armor.

"Keep it up and I'll drop you next time." Peter challenges.

The Asgardian king barks a small laugh, "I'll put a blood price on you if you drop me. I swear, my Warrior's Two will hunt you through time and space."

"The daring duo of Miek and Korg? I'm shivering."

"Don't tempt me!" She laughs. Then groans. "Or make me laugh. Miek has her old battle armor hidden somewhere. And we both know how impossible Korgie is to kill."

"Maybe. Though not quite as good at the killing himself, from what I recall of the Sakaaran arena record."

Sersi finally works up the nerve to interrupt.

"Peter?" She whispers, voice sharp.

"Oh!" He turns, facing up to the Eternal spirit floating neatly above his left shoulder. A sheepish tinge to his voice. "Sersi! Hey, meet King Valkyrie. She came with me to rescue you."

Valkyrie's face falls. She stares at him. Then, looks past his shoulder. Right at Sersi. No, right through Sersi. Blinks. Realization slowly dawning on her wide, dusky brown eyes.

"Oh don't tell me your ghostly Eternal paramour is in the room with us." The Asgardian groans.

Peter pffts, his lips pursing so strongly Sersi can practically see the nanosynthetic metal of his faceplate vibrate.

"I mean, yeah. Duh. 'Course she is. She's been super helpful. Guided me right to you, in fact."

"You couldn't find me on your own? There was certainly enough blood and screaming."

"Well I was sort of buried under rubble, following your stunt on the surface. Then I had to make a call using an ancient computer in a dead language, followed by drop-kicking a monster older than humanity... it was a whole thing. Right Sersi?"

He laughs, but then turns back to her when she doesn't respond. Clocks the nervous expression on her face. "Sersi? What's wrong?"

"Peter... I just... I know this is fun but there are quite a few Deviant enclosures on this level." The Eternal says faintly. "And while I trust you and your friend can ably handle them... well I'd feel quite a bit better if we made sure to prevent an outbreak."

Peter nods, Sersi's words sobering his interplay, "Yeah, you're right. Good thinking." He turns to the King in his arms. "Valkyrie, how many of these bastards did you drop before I got here?"

Valkyrie holds up her hand to count her fingers, "Oh, you know. At least... one... two... three... four-and-a-half... At least four-and-a-half. One of the them got away after goring me with some awful kind of tusks."

Sersi, if she could grow pale, does. She utters:

"Three-to-four Deviants is not nearly enough to be contained on this level. Based on the maps, Peter... and the opening in the roof..." She points up, Peter's helmet following the 30-odd-meters to the hole he and his companion made a few hours prior. Clear scratch marks, impossibly angled wounds in stone and snow, running up the brackish Eternal material. Blood on the white a warning.

"Flark me..." Star-Lord shakes his head and turns to Valkyrie. "We need to follow. I'm no Warsong but... need a lift?"

 

---

 

Sersi has seen many terrible flight plans in her 7,000 years. Including one awful attempt bearing her ex-husband's namesake. This one, though, seemed particularly foolhardy.

On uneasily balanced jump jets, overclocked far beyond maximum output, Star-Lord hurtles up towards the open crater in the ceiling of Polaria. King Valkyrie, her weight almost snapping him in twain despite appearances, clings to his back like a koala bear. Within 5 meters of air the boots are screaming every warning indicator they have, a sound digital warbling alarm very new and very disconcerting to the poor ghost sharing in his senses.

Sersi trails behind them nervously, hoping beyond hope that the sputtering on Star-Lord's right boot jet was more a sign of failing power levels and not an imminent explosive amputation.

The light above grows bright, Star-Lord's oculars automatically adjusting to shade their eyes from any corneal burn. Valkyrie tightens hold around his neck.

There's a scrape as they reach the opening in the roof, part of Peter's plated shoulder catching on stone and sending them spiraling. The duo breaks apart, flapping cloaks of red and blue, before slamming into soft snow with incredible force. They tumble, rolling head over heels. Sersi soars behind, watching Valkyrie bowl into with a snowbank while Peter, barely, catches himself on a raised lip of stone or ice. He skids, twisting again, before jerking his shoulder as he comes to rest on his stomach. Panting hard.

Sersi flutters to Peter. "That was..." she tries, apologetically.

He raises a palm, groaning, "No need to sugarcoat Sersi. Not my best flying."

"I was actually going to say you performed ably, given the extra passenger." Not at all kidding. "Are your boots okay?"

Peter lifts his foot, still lying on his back, tapping at his left heel. Groans. "D'ast. This one's totally shot. The other... vaguely usable, if given a chance to cool down. Not that it'd do more than send me into a corkscrew."

Sersi chuckles. "A charming corkscrew, nonetheless."

Peter drops his boot, turning to the girl floating above him. Runs his hand through his messy tangle of brown hair. Sersi can almost imagine the charming little half-smile beneath the nano alloy mask.

"Aww, you think so?"

"Don't get cocky, Quill."

"Fair, fair. Speaking of..." He turns to the snowbank, a little under 10 meters behind him on a pitted plain. The duo had landed beneath a great ridge of some kind, a stony mass reaching towards the heavens. If Sersi recalls correctly, the lift entrance was somewhere along the ridge. Then, her eyes drift higher. And higher. Following an unending sky. Almost giving her vertigo. The first time seeing the sky in... two years, if Peter's timeline was accurate. A real sky, not the ghastly approximations she's subjected to during judgments. She floats upwards, trying to force herself to look down. To focus on the icy plain beneath rather than daydreams of forever sky above.

The territory is innocuous enough, miles of glaciar carved white-and-brown earth, ending at an expanse of dark, churning blue. Clearly unmarred by man. She can see birds too, whole flocks flitting along the coast. And closer shapes along the stone.

"Valkyrie, you okay?" Peter shouts.

"Yeah, yeah." She rises, brushing snow off bare arms like she didn't feel it in the slightest. Not even a goosebump. "Though I'd argue I'm a better flier."

Sersi, once again, interrupts the banter. "Peter... we were right. Deviants To the east." She points, a gleaming jade watchman above. "I believe they heard us."

Peter draws his blasters, long coat flaring out in the wind. Valkyrie, despite being unable to hear Sersi, follows suit in wordless understanding. The cry of her sapphiric steel of the blade bellying perfect sharpness despite the crushing use mere moments ago. The two warriors look across the icy expanse, towards the rock-flecked plains leading to chilling sea. Darkening the clear horizon of midday mark four mounds of flesh, moving unlike any earth beast naturally formed. Masses of Precambrian tendrils warped into shapes of earliest nightmare. All variable and twisted in countenance, but cut from the same stock of hulking grey-and-green. A wolf without legs leads, slithering across ridged earth like a serpent through water. Its dwarfed by a tall, bipedal, long-necked thing tipped with a blooming flower of flesh; pink-red petals lined with gleaming teeth. A bull, moves beside them with an awkward, six-legged gait, leaving a trail of hoof prints and smoking viscera behind as acrid air leaked from a plated, misshapen body. They're tailed by an oversized, three-headed ape, massive in scale, with six bulbous, cone-shaped eyes like a lizard's; flitting in ceaseless, independent arcs.

A cursed host, all.

"Sersi..." Peter begins, voice rising. "Looking for stratagems here. Whatever you've got."

"I don't suppose you have eye beams that channel the power cosmic?"

"Of course not! Why would you-?" He almost splutters in shock. Then looks up at her. "Wait... Wait. Did you just try to tease me?"

"Maybe."

"Flark me, okay if I die, I'll die having admitted that was pretty good." He lets out another one of his scratchy laughs that she'd grown so fond of in so short a time. "Real tips now, though. Please."

"Deviants operate on accelerated evolutionary principles. Ergo, if they assess you as physically superior, they may try to drain you and add you to their host rather than rending you limb from limb. It involves smaller feeding tendrils implanting into your body; horribly painful and still ending in death, but they need to get close and stay close to use them."

"So shoot first and don't let them eat."

"In essence. And make sure they don't feed on each other to rejuvenate, mid-battle."

"Gross." He laughs. "Watch my flank?"

"Of course." She answers. An unmistakeable tinge of excitement on her voice despite the horror of it all.

Star-Lord raises his right pistol, tracing trajectory of the wolf-snake with the barrel. A small beat. Then another. Then, he drifts past the thing into its forward path. He pulses one-two-three plasmatic bursts, warped arcs of orange heat leaping forth with a force Sersi still isn't prepared for. The first is a little late, withering body of the creature already having cleared through the low-cut snowbanks, but the next two are direct hits. The wolf-snake roars in a frustrated, gnashing bellow as it falls prone. Down. At least for the moment.

Now only about 30 meters out, Valkyrie takes the stage.

"For Asgard!" She roars, bounding towards the six-legged bull with a practiced ease. Reminding Sersi of the mythic battle between Thena and the Khalkotauroi. Might've even been from the same Deviant stock, now that she thought about it. Before Phastos ferried it away.

The king falls into a slide along the snow and ice, using her own weight and momentum to carry her forward. She narrowly misses the sharply curved horn of the cursed bull, darkly-braided head slipping below where the other should be. Seris hadn't noticed it prior but that spot appeared to be a still-leaking stump. Possibly the "half" to Valkyrie's earlier count of Deviants. It must be this one; with a blood price left to be paid.

The warrior-god thrusts up, piercing the beasts sternum as she slides between a sextet of gnashing, bone-breaking hooves. Its a deft maneuver, one from which she pops out behind the beast. The only sign of her passing a small line in the snow and dripping acid-stuff steaming within. Sersi notes a few new holes in her royal blue cloak, too.

To a human, it'd be an impossible feat. To an Asgardian hopped up on intergalactic amphetamines, it was child's play.

She turns back to assess the remaining Deviants, watching Peter fire upon the bulbous-headed flytrap. Its inhumanely wriggling neck making a difficult, flopping target. Requiring such focus that he doesn't notice the tri-crowned gorilla, apparently the most savvy of the bunch, flanking. Breaking off a spear of razor sharp stone.

"Peter! Left!" The Eternal shouts from her position over the battlefield.

Peter hears her just in time. He dives forward, rolling to smoothly continue a near ceaseless line of harrying fire. It does little but buy time. Time for Peter to reach towards the back of his belt. Sersi watches, momentarily confused, as he unclips a small silver pyramid no larger than a coffee cup, which he innocuously tosses onto the earth in front of him with an almost lazy flick of the wrist. The little pyramid harmlessly pokes out from the snow, silver tip catching the sun.

"Sersi, keep an eye on this spot, will you?" Star-Lord asks. "Let me know when a Deviant's back is to it. Okay?"

"Umm... okay!" She answers, excited to be helping. Though she doesn't have a chance to ask how exactly how she's helping before he's already moving up to bait the creatures.

The long-necked plant thing strikes first, whipping head like a bladed truncheon towards Star-Lord. He hops back, but not fast enough, getting caught on the edge of his armored shoulder. Same spot he hit during the flight out of the station. Sersi hears a loud clang as metal meets skin-like-metal. The plate holds, but dents clearly enough, a divoted welt now pushing the material awkwardly into Peter's body.

He doesn't have a moment to recover though as the three-headed gorilla lizard makes itself known. Barreling forward as Peter falls back. It charges, which he sidesteps easy enough, though it keeps moving past him to avoid losing its footing. Both Peter and the creature starting to slide as once tightly-packed snow's parted, revealing fields of thick ice beneath the fray.

If Sersi wasn't panicking before, she certainly is now. This is so beyond the methods of a mortal man. And while the warrior goddess served as a great equalizer - who even now appears to be leaping atop the bull to plant more blows between its armored plating - Peter seemed just a man. A daring, well-equipped man, sure. But closer to a Dane than an Ikaris.

Her mind catches on the thought.

Dane.

Another human.

She had forgotten to ask about him.

She hoped he was okay.

Used and discarded in cosmic games so much bigger than himself.

Used and discarded by her.

Sersi shakes her head. She can almost hear Arishem's voice in the back of her mind. A specter, following her. Judging her. Even outside of his ghastly mental court.

"Peter!" She shouts, trying to gather herself over the din of smashing fists and roaring deviant-spawn. "The big one just moved past your spot! Your pyramid- triangle- thing!"

Years of combat experience lead him to following her direction without question. He adjusts to the other creature, tucking into another haphazard roll just below the long-necked ball of teeth taking another swing. Star-Lord tumbles easily in the tight-packed snow, coming up to fire a different sort of blast from the lower chamber of his pistol. Blue lightning whips forth in a tight arc, stunning the creature. The creature's own momentum from that desperate, baited attack sends it spinning out, now unable to recover its footing as muscles lock in rictus torment along smooth ice. It spirals wildly past Quill in an awkward corkscrew before falling prone.

"That'a girl!" He shouts. "Nice eyes, Sersi!"

Sersi is sure, wherever her physical body might be, it's flush at his call.

Peter turns to the gorilla, all six bulbous lizard eyes meeting his. The creature snarls, stomping left foot, right across ice-slick plains. Only about 30 feet away. Blasts from Star-Lord's gun meet it, both the superheated top barrel and the arcing shocks beneath, slowing but failing to stop its charge. Too much momentum now.

Despite this concern, Sersi briefly glances over her shoulder to see the current king of Asgard faring better. She deflects a hasty kick, letting out a confident whoop as she does so, then pirouettes into a slice removing the toxic plated bull's sole remaining horn. A brackish, chunky line of organic fluid splatters across shock white snow.

Returning to Star-Lord she see he's down, crouched on his left knee. Still pointed towards his charging foe. It's so close Sersi can see the spittle blaring from three distinctly terrible maws. She has to resist the urge to tell him to stand up. He must know what he's doing, despite how earnestly he oft portrays he doesn't.

Six meters. Peter's grip tightens on his blaster.

Four meters. She can feel his jaw clench.

Two meters....

He activates his one remaining jet boot.

Peter hurtles forth, uppercutting the leftmost jaw of the three-headed creature with his dual-pronged pistol pointed upwards. Trigger partially depressed. Ball of fire leading alien steel into the beast's thick skull. He flies above the creature, spinning wildly, but manages to steady himself enough to tap another command on his belt. The pyramid in the snow activates. The gorilla, already off-balance, flies backwards like pulled by marionette strings. Creating a path through broken snow until caught, spine flush to the Earth. Writhing madly in what Sersi can only describe as some sort of artificial gravity well.

Peter manages to stick a one-footed landing, as Valkyrie moves in. The long-necked plant deviant tries to rise only for its neck to be sliced through by the Asgardian, loping off with with the resounding carrion call of blade on flesh. She keeps forward, quickening pace to meet the great ape. Mewling, broken and unbroken jaws alike, terrified by an effect it cannot see or comprehend.

Sersi, despite her prior urgings, almost feels bad for the Deviant.

"We did it." Peter pants. "Hell of an eternal foe you guys have got."

Sersi can't help a small laugh. "Well, I'm just glad I called the best."

"Oh don't pretend you chose me now." Peter teases, voice not unkind. It causes Sersi to flush. Witty back-and-forth wasn't exactly a skill she'd prioritized in her 70-odd centuries.

She stammers, for a moment, but eventually finds her voice, "W- well, well regardless. I'm glad it was you."

"I'm glad it was me too-"

Peter's rejoinder is cut-off as he falls prone, ripped right off his feet. Almost like he's snatched by his own antigravity mine. But this force has teeth. Rows of razor fangs sink deep into his armored calf, cracking steel and effortlessly phasing the faint shield over his flesh. Peter cries out, scrambling at snow and dropping his right-hand pistol as he's dragged along pitted Earth.

It's the final Deviant, Sersi realizes. The wolf-headed snake beast Peter shot at the start of it all. It must've slunk through the melee to ambush its attacker, ignoring the rest of the battle; showing that same burgeoning Deviant intelligence that their evolved leader, Kro, ambushing Sersi and Sprite from the Themes.

Peter didn't stand a chance.

Sersi fails to resist the urge to scream.

Like a rag doll, Star-Lord is whipped about, pulled along uneven terrain at inhuman speed. The serpent, or at least what they once saw as a serpent, using fine lines of flittering cilia to skate backwards in a writhing, full-bodied sprint. Sersi cries out to Valkyrie, whom is caught up in burying her blade deep into the heart (or hearts) of the three-headed gecko-gorilla, only to remember that the warrior king couldn't hear her.

They were on their own.

Not that Peter was going to make this easy. He manages to sink fingers into a particularly stony outcropping, slowing the pull, at least long enough to withdraw his left-hand pistol from its holster. Straining muscles to steady his aim, he points down the mangled mess of his leg towards the gnashing skull mere inches away, and pulls both triggers.

Heat and lightning scream out in unison. Blast after blast into the crown of this plated, lupine beast. But not enough. The thing sinks teeth ever deeper. Peter roars in agony. It releases, moves higher up on his twisted leg, then bites down again on the meat of his thigh. Star-Lord holds firm, but it doesn't change the fact he's being eaten alive.

"Peter! Peter... Peter! Hang on! Just hang on." Sersi begs. She circles madly above the Deviant and blasts of weapon fire. Turning again to Valkyrie, she sees the king's finally noticed the attack, but she's far away. Almost impossibly so. Meter upon meter away.

Peter stops firing, reduced to beating at the head of the creature with weapon-in-hand. Bludgeoning, desperate swings trying to pry loose iron-locked jaws bathed in red.

"Peter... we can think of something. Just hold on. Valkyrie is almost here. Please stay alive. Please."

The Deviant begins to unfurl. Flesh tendrils like elongated leeches rising from deep-set grooves along its mottled flank. The fingers arc high. It's going to feed on him. Absorb him into its fecund mass. Drain life until nothing was left but dust.

Dust like Gilgamesh. And Ajak.

Sersi can't watch.

She's powerless but to watch.

 

---

 

No.

This human, her human, needed her.

Sersi reaches out, unsure of what may follow. Feeling out the Uni-Mind connecting her to Peter. The same that connected her to her brothers and sisters. The fundamental link between her, her creators, and the thought-cycles of the universe.

A link strong enough to kill a god.

Sersi soars low, pressing herself against Peter in the snow. Like a cerulean angel. She presses against his chest. A lover's embrace so close that she starts to move into his chest. So close that writhing, physical shape overlaps with hers. She doesn't even need to try, following the flow of sympathetic link. This is where she was supposed to be. Thought made action. Intention made flesh.

"Peter" she whispers, her soft voice breaking through the attack.

"Sers... I think I'm dying." He utters, clear and calm despite it all.

"I won't let you."

"You're sweet... Too sweet to me."

"Focus, please. If you don't want to die." She scoffs, though with clear affection. "Can you follow my instructions?"

"Yeah. I'll try."

"Okay. Just think about your hands. Your gun. Easy. Right? I just need you to pull the trigger. Just one more time. And... When you pull the trigger... think about me. Focus on me. Feel me and push. Push us. Push out. With your thoughts. We need to to break this cycle, this lie, this... damnable ouroboros, before it's too late."

"That... sounds kind of like nonsense, Sersi."

"It is." She agrees. "But it's the easiest way to conceptualize what we're about to do. So try it. For me."

Peter can't even respond. He raises the pistol on trembling limb. A good soldier until the end. Sersi flexes her hand out, twisting fingers inline with his in precise touch.

His hands were her hands. His body, her body.

Blinding bands of golden light burst around the barrel of the pistol, rings of sunlight a living echo of the technology buried below. But whereas the Celestial world of Polaria was a fading, forgotten thing; the rings here could not be brighter. Sersi feels the burn on her eyes, their eyes, as Peter's oculars fail to suppress the blinding rays.

All is one.

"Pull the trigger, my Star-Lord." She whispers.

He does.

A golden band stretches out towards the creature. Less a blast, more an extension of energy, a delicate finger brushing against, then into, the crooked body without resistance.

One is all.

Sersi touches the Deviant.

In a breath, it explodes.

Chunks of ice ricochet from the body of the creature, a warped and twisted volley of freezing particulate where the golden light once was. The spears push out through its flesh, clear blades caked in black blood, ripping through the creatures flank like a row of spawning fangs. The process is unceasing, bursting through spin one punch after another, partitions not only flying wide but sinking into the earth and holding like a vice. More ice crackles and bubbles beneath skin like magma. Skin twisting with horrible burns, rent raw by frost. Peeled like a fruit revealing a topography of bone, sinew, and pulsing, bloody rivulets.

The thing releases Star-Lord as its skull splits in a tangle of frozen roots. Reaching yearningly towards burning salvation. Stopped just at the tip of his gun. Clear fingers reflecting gold in the weapon's trembling light.

Equal and opposite.

Sersi, her work completed, lets out a choked, triumphant gasp. Spent Celestial energies no longer keeping her mind aloft. She feels the pull of the void again. Her light fades first out of the Deviant, then out of Peter. Even her independent projection begins fading from sight. Back to the ever-dark in which she's trapped.

Vision fading, she hears the crunch of Asgardian boots.

Faint words.

A labored breath, almost lost in the whistle-song of polar winds. Yet...

Whole.

 

Notes:

Our lengthiest chapter yet! Wanted to close out the Polarian mission with a bang. Hopefully this one's adequately earned the "Action and Romance" tag.

References and callbacks are abound, as usual, with special focus on the Eternals-ified introduction of Peter's comic book Element Guns. Tried to channel a bit of Al Ewing's 2020 Guardians of the Galaxy run with that.

For reference to Peter's current armor set, here's a link to a few examples of his Thor: Love & Thunder design by artist Rob Brunette . I imagine he wouldn't wear his Guardians Vol. 3 uniform now that he's not an active member, and this is his next-most updated look. Plus it's a personal favorite.

Up next, a small detour before we move on to our next major arc!

Chapter 11: Interlude - Principal Recollections

Summary:

Thena remembers better days. Or the bitter illusion of such things.

>>> Accessing <<<

Memory Branch: 112-of-309

Record: Generation Chamber, Starship Domo, 16:08:12, 07/03/490 BCE

Duration: 17 minutes 56 seconds

Recollection Count: 11

>>> View Prior Recollections <<<

1. Ajak, 23:48:22, 07/03/490 BCE
2. Ajak, 00:09:51, 07/04/490 BCE
3. Ajak, 00:27:39, 07/04/490 BCE [Note: Record delete process initiated, then cancelled]
4. Makkari, 16:22:00, 01/16/250 BCE [Routine Maintenance]
5. Makkari, 16:36:15, 01/16/250 CE [Routine Maintenance]
6. Ikaris/Sersi, 07:12:22, 11/12/400 CE
7. Makkari, 16:02:27, 01/16/750 CE [Routine Maintenance]
8. Druig, 16:39:29, 01/16/750 CE
9. Makkari, 16:05:21, 01/16/1350 CE [Routine Maintenance]
10. Druig, 01:02:22, 05/30/1521 CE [Note: Record delete process initiated, then cancelled]
11. Ikaris, 22:16:43, 10/29/1923 CE [Note: Record review incomplete, memory recollection cancelled at 8 minutes 48 seconds]

>>> Log Current Recollection <<<

Thena, 09:17:06, 09/12/2026 CE

>>> Begin Memory <<<

Ajak: So would anyone like to share why we are gathered here today?

Eight Eternals turn to their leader, scattered about an unassuming dome of about 30-feet in diameter. The Generation Chamber, a laboratory by any other name, within their starship Domo. While highly advanced the room is naturalistic in design, irregular stonework walls glowing softly with incandescent runes. The Prime Eternal, Ajak, stands central, her navy-and-gold ceremonial robes gleaming from the light above. She rotates methodically, making sure to face each of her charges in turn. Some crowd about great slate tables, coated in a curious melange of fresh foodstuffs and ancient mementos. Others lean on alien terrariums; the luminous plants within quivering with a life unlike any in this pocket of the cosmos. The Prime is the only one wearing a helm, her sharply ridged crown aglow in the garden Celestial.

A strong, steady voice breaks the silence.

Ikaris: We failed our Principals today Ajak. A reeducation is in order.

The speaker stands nearest their Prime. Cutting a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette rigidly focused on her every word. Leanly muscled arms, crossed stiffly at his breast, emphasize the bright diadem at the core of his otherwise dark armor. The same can be seen in his eyes, glowing softly even while creased with tension.

Ajak: True, Ikaris. The Principals are taught to each and every one of us. Passed down through voices divine. But I find "reeducation" to be a loaded word. Learning is little but a conversation between a teacher and their students.

Ajak: A choice was made today. The conversation needs to change. But we cannot shame continued education.

Ikaris nods, lowering his head. Like he was suddenly very interested in the perfectly polished azure skin of his boots.

Ajak: Dear Ikaris, don't fret. Strictly speaking you are correct. We did come into breach this day.

Towards the aft of the  chamber, leaned over one of the slate platforms, a man of dark skin and broad shoulders flips through shimmering projections. Phastos, ever the inventor, analyzes recently captured scans of human naval vessels. Noting small modifications with taps on the three-dimensional wireframes. These triremes and biremes twisted echoes of the design he gifted to the Phoenicians more than two centuries ago.

Phastos: Saying "we" came into breach is a little generous, no? I certainly didn't use my powers to inspire the panicked retreat of 600-odd Persian imperial warships. All of which are a complete bastardization of my original design, not that anyone was asking.

A shrill, near child-like, voice undercuts his point.

Sprite:(scoffs) Teacher's peeeet....

The "youngest" Eternal chastises her brother from the platform opposite, casually lounging back amongst a collection of bronze bowls stacked high with figs, olives, and other mediterranean foodstuffs. While armored akin to the others she's merely prepubescent in size, emphasized by diminutive legs kicking lazily in midair. She wears a knowing smirk beneath unkempt fire red hair.

Ajak: No Phastos, you did not. But Principals in reality and in theory are two very different things. And allowing transgression to go unspoken can be as damning as a rigid judgment. We cannot allow our laws to be a hammer, but neither can we let ignorance be iron unbent.

The Prime Eternal gives Phastos a kind smile.

Ajak: Despite how much I know you wish you could've take a hammer to those imperial ships.

Phastos: Maybe next time. And thank you, Ajak.

Ajak: Of course, Phastos. Also, Sprite, while this is not a Principal, respect for your brothers and sisters is a basic decency. Please try to control your urges.

Sprite: Oh. Yeah, sure. Uh, sorry about that.

The remaining Eternals, from the ever-silent Makkari to the usually boisterous Kingo, say little else. Ajak lifts a palm, prompting fireflies of light to stream from the projection module above. Coalescing into the shape of a simple, unassuming orb - Earth.

Ajak: Our lives, the lives of all living things in the universe, sentient and otherwise, are guided by divine law. The will of the Celestials. So ordained from the peaks of Olympia to the deepest dredges of Deviant hells. All Eternals, from us gathered here to our brothers and sisters across the stars, are blessed to be the instruments of the single greatest experiment ever conceived.

Ajak pauses, before twisting her palm. The projection above explodes with color, little dots along all major sites of human settlement.

Ajak: So I ask, in our moment of reflection, what is the First Principal of the divine plan?

The Eternals, sans a notably silent Druig, answer almost in unison.

The Eternals: Protect Celestials.

Ajak: Good. The simplest, and most foundational of our directives. We are the children of the Celestials. And as good children, we must defend our parents from any and all threats.

Makkari, raises her hand. Twitching only slightly. Rapidly. So rapidly even the perfect recall of the current artificial memory can barely make out the tremble of her tight braids or russet red armor.

Makkari: (Signing) Isn't Arishem nearly omnipotent? What can we do to defend him? Or any Celestial?

Ajak: An astute question, as usual Makkari.

Makkari: (Signs) You know me!

Ajak: Truthfully, the Celestials need little stewardship. Unlike our human charges. But protect can mean much more than physically defend. For omnipotence is not ever presence. My interpretation of this law is far reaching - Celestial servants, their gifts like the Domo, even their creation engines nestled in the void of dark space - all fall under the First Principal.

Ajak: It is the most foundational and immutable of our laws, for this First Principal binds us in kinship as much as it does our gods.

Ikaris: A sensible stance. Though I doubt any in this room really need much in the way of protection.

Gilgamesh: Ha! Is that true, Ikaris? I can't be the only one that remembers pulling you out of that Deviant's maw a few months back. What did the locals call that big squiggly bastard...? The Hyacinth?

The booming voice chastising Ikaris belongs to Gilgamesh, a great ox of a man. And indisputably the strongest of their kind. The bronze armored Eternal wears a caring smile that does little to bely his absolute might.

A few muted laughs follow. Even a huff from Ikaris. Which, in-turn, is interrupted by soft but hurried footfalls.The gathered turn, some in good humor, others annoyed, but none surprised as the final Eternal pads into the room.

Sersi: Sorry for the delay everyone! Many of the hoplites still gathered on the banks of the Ilisos are quite worse for wear after their run back from Marathon. Between the reused medical supplies and the state of their drinking water... I started cleansing the river for them but it took quite some time. Luckily, a few priests from the Temple of Apollo Patroos volunteered to help but I wasn't sure they knew proper sanitary procedures and...

She shrugs, trailing off.

Ajak: Sersi, it's quite alright. You were out practicing the words of the Second Principal while we merely sniped at each other about the First.

Sersi: Oh! Oh... That's very kind of you to say. I don't deserve such praise, really.

Ajak: Okay then how about you make it up to me, dear? Can you remind our siblings of our second divine law?

Sersi pushes back loose strands of her dark hair, the connecting link in back doing little to keep thick strands together. She coughs, awkward, then looks down to avoid the gaze of the others.

Sersi: Umm... Preserve the... uh... Design, Ajak. Preserve the Design.

Barely does she spit out her answer before scurrying to an open spot behind Ikaris, not waiting to be dismissed.

Ajak shakes her head with a pleasant, knowing sigh.

Ajak: That is correct, Sersi. The Second Principal is the most open to interpretation. But, such vagary also breeds simple answers.

Ajak adjusts the hologram, shrinking the singular point of Earth down to a spiral galaxy. The Milky Way, dotted with similarly pulsing flashes of light representing inhabited worlds. She pulls back further than the Milky Way. Spirals and clouds, rings of scattered stars, all thrumming with specks of color. The heartbeat of the universe.

Ajak: The Grand Design. The planned expansion of the cosmos themselves. Beginning with the Celestial breath of life-giving suns and stellar phenomenon, eventually churning into life's furtive steps on precambrian plain. The First Principal sets us as wardens, the Second clarifies us shepherds.

Thena, thus far content to listen and idly twirl a small ivory serving blade, stops. Raises her hand, ghostly pale features near expressionless. Her golden tresses of hair blend seamlessly with her combat armor, all long tails of fiber and fabric both draped easily in a cross-ankled lean beside her trusted Gilgamesh. She looks small beside him, but carries herself with a coiled, icy focus so unlike his warmth.

Thena: The Design. We all know the logic of our creators. But this is all just your interpretation, yes?

Ajak purses her lips.

Ajak: Why yes. My duty is to interpret via communion with Arishem, to the best of my ability. And my interpretation is to preserve the Design-that-is-Earth.

Gilgamesh squeezes Thena's shoulder. An understanding smile, and perhaps a sprinkle of pride, on his wide face.

Gilgamesh: See Thena? We protect people and the planet. An easy path to follow.

Thena: Then how can we be sure we're right to let them slay one another?

Gilgamesh: Well we can't save them from themselves.

Ajak: Not quite right, Gilgamesh. It's not that we're approving humans slay another... merely that conflict, to a point, is by Design. It allows the created to innovate and develop; to excise maladaptive societal traits and reframe historic assumptions. Burn their own soil to one day till anew.

There's a quite rumble amongst the Eternals at that. Eventually Druig, who has so far sat silent beside Makkari, rises to the floor. Trying and failing to maintain a steady expression, frustration quirking on the pronounced lips of his forever youthful face. He moves with confident strides towards Ajak, long tails of his pitch black raiment shimmering like snakes along the uneven texture of the Domo's stone floor.

Makkari, after the momentary shock subsides, rises so quickly its imperceptible - though be it to intercede or support Druig it's impossible to tell. A placating sign of Druig but uncharacteristically stills at a placating sign from her companion.

Druig: So our duty would have been to watch Athens fall? Watch men, women, and children be devoured so that their conquerors could... what? Continue to grow?

Ikaris: I was wondering when the betrayer of the hour would speak up.

Sersi's dark eyes widen in surprise, flashing to Ikaris. Quickly she averts her gaze to a Celestial meditation sphere on a nearby six-legged dais, with which she begins to fiddle. Anything over her lover and her dear friend trade barbs.

Ajak: Druig... please. Our job is to make sure the most humans grow the most successfully. Sometimes, cities fall. It is not our duty to watch them burn; but it is to ensure the ashes fertilize even greater gardens.

Druig: The calculus of politic is cruelty then.

Ajak: Life is as cruel as it is beautiful.

Druig: Ha. I can't believe our creators would justify genocide, no matter how strongly you claim such. If my manipulations can coax one man, on one ship, to sail away and save an entire city - hell, save 25,000 of his own men too - that should be an imperative good.

Ajak: Druig... you argue semantics. But the fire inside you betrays such notions.

Druig: You're right. Let's focus on the guarantees. What is the Third Principal, Ajak? If we're not warriors, if we shouldn't waste time on matters of life-and-death... speak the Third Principal.

Ikaris: Druig. You are out of line. Don't make me put you back in it.

Ajak: Peace, Ikaris. The Third Principal is Correct Excess Deviation. By any means necessary.

Druig: By killing, you mean.

Ajak: Typically.

Druig: Yet you claim the Design is for peace.

Ajak: The Design is for growth. We cannot interfere in the battles of charges. But we must protect them so that those battles can occur. The Deviants are an infection, an abberation, that if left unchecked... would absorb all life in the universe. Damning the Design before it can even be truly tested.

Druig: So when Thena slays four score Deviants at Athens' gates, it's a peaceful experiment? But when I manipulate a single human life, its a betrayal?

A sharp laugh rings out, cutting through Druig's barely contained rage. The only Eternal yet to speak, violet armor as boisterous as his voice and only half-as-bright as his grin, scoops up a date from Sprite's table with a dramatic twirl, before sliding to intercede himself between Druig and Ajak.

Kingo: Come on Druig! Don't you think you're being a bit too serious about all this?

He holds the fruit up to Druig, which is promptly ignored.

Druig: Ah Kingo... Ever the showman. I could ask you just the opposite, you know.

Kingo: Oh I'm plenty serious when it suits me.

He follows with an overdramatic wink.

Kingo: We have our duty. And sure sometimes I'll help Sprite on one of her shows with Thespis or regale Ikaris's dramatics to Aeschyus or... you know... something else cool. But those are just fun, little, mortal distractions.

Druig: Fun, huh? It's that easy for you to ignore all their lives?

Kingo: Not at all. But it's either enjoy the blink we get with them or drive ourselves mad thinking about it. And Mah'd Wyr'r isn't exactly a good look on me. Maybe it'd work for Ikaris or Thena or, I don't know, I guess Sersi in certain lighting.

At that, Sersi drops her meditation orb with an echoing "thud" that fills the Generation Chamber.

Sersi: Oh! Oh wow. That's so kind but Kingo I'm not really much of an actor...

Ikaris shushes his partner, whispering words unrecorded as he helps her pick up the now bent, glowing ball thrumming peaceful subharmonic waves. Sersi's widening eyes and flushed cheeks convey enough.

Ajak: While a bit crude, that was a most deft explanation Kingo.

Kingo: It was?

A small smile crosses Ajak's face.

Ajak: It was. We all defend against Deviants so we can enjoy the world we helped build. But that world isn't always going to align with our Principals.

Ajak: Kingo, just look at your work with Sprite. Her chronicles of the human story. Have you ever stopped to consider that she might do it too well, leave too bright a message behind? Cultures will forever change from myths you help her grant; myths unimaginable without you.

Sprite tuts and rolls her eyes, while Kingo can only beam at such praise.

Ajak: Meanwhile look at Makkari, who barters and secrets away human artifact, despite my gentle urging to the contrary.

Makkari: (Signs.) Hey! The Emerald Tablet is supposedly named after me - where's your sense of propriety?

Ajak: Phastos can't help himself when it comes to life-altering invention, Sersi has redirected n entire water table based on the complaints of a single farmer, Thena continues her solitary Deviant hunts... the list goes on.

Ajak walks to Druig. Puts her palm gently on the deeply grooved red lines central to his chest plate.

Ajak: We all have vices, Druig. There's no shame in that. Especially when yours is an overriding care for those we claim to protect. But their mortality is immutable. And we have to consider the cost of such ephemeral things.

Ajak: If Athens fell yesterday, it would have been a loss without measure. Yet what of Persia? What of its satrapy, Babylon, that we love and cherished in so recent of memory?

Ikaris: It's delaying disaster today at the cost of harmony tomorrow.

Ajak gives Ikaris a barely perceptible nod.

Ajak: Well said, Ikaris. Amongst humankind, only death is truly Eternal.

Silence befalls the room. After more-than-twelve human heartbeats, Druig lets out a sigh.

Druig: Fine. Fine. I need... a bit of time with all this. But I hear you. I hear all of you. I'm sorry. I didn't... sorry.

The small, dark figure turns from his collected brothers and sisters. Marches from the chamber and down the hall, out of the current memory. Sersi moves to follow, but stops at a small shake of Ajak's crown.

Ajak: Give him space. Gardening is a delicate balance. And we need Druig's drive more than as ever. Deviated dangers still skulk the Earth, risking the Grand Design. Only united can we ensure the heart of every being, and the heart of the Earth itself, will one day blossom.

More positive murmurs from the group.

Ajak: I thank you all, for your friendship and open minds. Together we will tend the garden. Dismissed.

The Eternals slowly return to their duties and idle chatter, a few gathering around Phastos's holoprojector as it flickers back to Persian ship designs. Sersi joins Makkari by one of the terrariums, whispering quietly of Druig's outburst.

Only Ikaris remains alone. He stares after Druig, silent, with jaw set. Barely perceptible pain flickering beneath golden eyes.

>>> End Memory <<<

Notes:

Apologies for the extended hiatus, but happy to finally share this interlude with you all! I thought it important to have a scene of all ten Eternals interacting in happier times, as we likely won't see much of that going forward. Plus, memory and its mutability is such a core theme of the film that it seemed appropriate to throw in some gonzo recollection magitech.

I also had far too much fun defining an MCU-ified variation of the Three Principals from Kieron Gillen's Eternals run.

A big thank you to longtime reader wedgekree for their comments on Chapter 8! Our conversation really got me thinking about what an "Eternals lecture series" might be to explain all the outré concepts of their world.

Up next, Peter Quill will finally meet the remains of Sersi's family 1500 years post-Interlude, give or take. It will go about as well as expected.

Chapter 12: Quill - Whale Road Reunions

Summary:

The Eternals's triumphant return to a ruined fortress, cosmic interlopers, and the corpse of a 300-year-old shark.

Small trigger warning regarding vomit, the smell of urine, and the inelegant process of seafood butchery. Feel free to skip between words 2,375 and 2,796 to avoid!

"Sersi...?" Peter Quill croaked. Voice lost in the white.

It was all white, really. Some combination of burning near-white and perfect actual-white. Perhaps a bit of shimmering partial-white. But, even dazed as he was, Star-Lord'd been on enough arctic excursions to know extended UV light reflection could do that to the eyes.  He remembered one time when poor Groot went snow blind for more than a day after a particularly ill-thought...

Wait.

His helmet should've stopped this. The automated light filtration systems. Designed for the kind of deep space, direct solar flare that human corneas could - maybe - get one flash of before boiling away forever. A little bit of chilly, high-altitude ultraviolet shouldn't even be worth notice.

Meaning his helmet is gone.

His face was cold.

His fingers tingled.

His leg hurt.

"...Flark..." Peter groans. His leg. That Deviant. The wolf-headed, eel-bodied slick trick of a bastard. Threatening to rend his lower extremity from bottom-to-top. Thrashing him about like a children's toy. As a willowy ghost of girl begged him to live. His ghost of a girl.

He tries to move. Tries to find her. Only for steady hands to press him back into the dirt. Or snow. Not that there's much of a difference so far north of freezing.

"Stop twitching, Star-Lord." A strong, thickly accented voice reminds him. Similar to his ghost but more...

"Val?" He asks.

"Yeah. Yeah it's me, you maniac. I thought I lost you for a moment there."

"...Why?"

"Why? Well for starters I haven't used an actual Med-Pak since Sakaar and your leg was bad. Like, ripped open major arteries bad." Somehow, this causes her to laugh. It should rankle him, her jeering. But there's a feather-light crow of panic beneath her voice, a warble on the lilt of humor. She'd want it left buried and forgotten. But Peter clings to the thought; for just a moment. Knowing this unflappable god-king worried about him.

Valkyrie, unaware of her own sentimentality, continues, "Second you were buried beneath a three-hundred-pound ice sculpture covered in more razor tips than a Hela-spawn. I barely dragged you loose without poking you full of holes."

That stirs something in Star-Lord's foggy memory; the font of grasping ice pouring forth from his blaster. Saving his life. An improbable feat writ by impossible bond.

A weighted blanket on his brain; a phantom pain he'd carried without ever realizing.

Peter taps at the command nodule beneath his right ear, encouraging his helmet to save him from his own introspections. Smooth metal encircles his skull, warm micro-battery engines thrumming at his cheeks. Like a godsend the red filters over his eyes finally click on, letting the painful, snow blinding white churn bleed off through digitized red.

"Val... how did you take my helmet off?" He prompts, unbidden.

The god-king comes into focus. The round features and loose braid; concern on widest eyes belied by a standing quirk of mirth on her brow. The scratches, scrapes, and bruises down her lean, dark neck are already fading; ragged scab on her cheek like a human's after three days' healing. Divine longevity at its finest.

"By Odin's Beard, Quill, with those damnable little buttons; how else?" She huffs. "It was a total nightmare under that mess you call a haircut."

"Ha."

"What?"

"You're such an Asgardian."

"Dude, don't be a dick."

"Okay, okay I'm sure you're very accustomed to other tech but this is totally Ravager standa- " Peter's voice trails off as Valkyrie helps him up. Not from the bloody trail of his own creation - though that was certainly enough to put him on edge - but at what lays at its end.

Over Valkyrie's shoulder, about 45 feet back, a twisted pillar roars from the snow. His attacker. That slippery wolf-eel of a Deviant. But it's no longer a mass of sinewy, interconnected tendrils. Directed by a keen and singular carnivorousness. No... the damn thing was a sculpture. Frozen spears and razor vines pushed and pulsed through its body like an invasive cancer, ice cold fingers breaching crooked maw and gleaming eye sockets. Rootlike, the cold punched from the things serpentine bulk into the earth and heaved, catching the beast aloft like an offering. A beast of legend, slain and bared before the glint of evening sun.

Somehow, he did this. He and Sersi. Brutalized a creature older than written tongue with nary a touch.

Despite Star-Lord knowing more than a few gods on a first name basis, this felt blasphemous.

Quill looks at his pistol, the Spartaxian SE-76 in his right hand. The top barrel was flanged, like it had opened over-wide to release so much energy that it couldn't begin to pull itself back together. Three ringed burns starting at the tip work their way all the way down to the primary activation chamber. Despite the burns the tip of weapon is is not only cracked but also frozen. The subzero particulate borne from matter transmutation not quite avoiding blowback. Melting the excess would be easy enough, hell he could probably just set the thing atop any ship engine mid-burn and be back to normal in an hour, the but he'd be rebuilding the barrel for at least a day. Times like this made him miss Rocket's ingenuity. And his constant supply of aerosolized nano-gel. And frankly just the little guy in general.

Valkyrie, noticing his appraisal, says, "That's one hell of a pistol you've got there. Didn't realize it could do... all that."

"Yeah." Peter breathes out. "Me neither."

"So." She says, after letting that thought hang a moment. "What's our next play? Sersi give us another lost tomb to plumb, maybe?"

Quill shakes his head, "Nah. Whatever energy she used to help me go full Mister Freeze... well, I think it took it out of her. She's faded again."

"You might want to avoid giving advice on meeting girls, Star-Lord."

"Oh don't got me started." He stops himself before his usual diatribe on A'Askavarian girls and needle teeth. Instead, he settles for, "Luckily, before we found you, we did find the central computer of the Polarian station. Some big Golden Compass meets HAL-9000 kind of thing. I, well she, used it to ping her family. We used Sersi's unique signifier - not sure where the Eternals are but she hoped that was enough to drive them to investigate."

"So... we wait?"

Peter shrugs.

"Yeah Val, I guess we wait."

---

Arctic camping with the King of Asgard turned out to be a surprisingly mundane exercise. Valkyrie and Star-Lord found adequate coverage in the partial collapse of Polaria's entranceway, the structure's broken down threshold now serving as an artificial cave. The raised elevator platform, of that same ubiquitous black stone of other Eternal constructs, seemed steady enough, while still giving adequate view of the snow-crested ridges and skyline beyond. Peter had enough wherewithal to know leaving the gaping hole in the Earth completely unsurveilled following his introduction to the Deviants was a fool's gamble. As would be trying to get any shut-eye in their possible den.

Besides, someone needed to be up top to greet the Eternals when they showed.

If they showed.

To distract himself from such sullen concerns, Peter set his focus on the immediate; mostly that of avoiding a premature frozen death. The wolf-eel ripped a rather nasty set of gashes in his leg, and no amount of Med-Paks would repair the flight pants and their temp-controlled mesh that once covered his now raw skin; all pink and vulnerable from rapid, chemically-accelerated regrowth. He struggled to resist the urge to pick at the d'asted stuff. On this front Valkyrie wasn't much help, almost wholly unfamiliar with the mortal need for temperatures above vacuum of space. To preserve the sanity of all involved, she and Warsong set off to hunt "the whale road of old," leaving a hobbled Peter to make camp.

Leveraging an old trick from Rocket, Peter takes out a small, orb-like thermal blinder designed for rapid release. Gadgets like this'd gotten him out of more than a few scrapes over the years - what else can be said for over-a-million candelas in immediate light intensity with the heat to match? Enough to overload even the most advanced of Shi'ar light filtration tech within 20 meters; could even fry an armored Sakaaran or two if you cranked the intensity for single use. Delicately, Peter unwinds the device, careful not to trigger the built-in failsafe. Now split in half, he turns out the fine wiring of the bottom-lip. Using the magnification on his visor for assistance, he zooms in on the timing module along the wiring harness and clips it, allowing the thing to burn indefinitely without failsafes coming online.  Then he takes the release mechanism and pries it loose, using the tip of his knife over his clumsy human fingers - allowing the thing to go as hot as it might bright without ever opening the thousands of tiny releases along the metal body.

For the first time in his life, Peter misses Rocket's bizarre, dextrous little paws.

Mechanical field surgery complete, Star-Lord closes the device. He buries it within a small mound of snow he brought from outside the - just in-case he was less competent than he liked to admit - and fires his still-functioning pistol.

The thermal blinder burst to life. But rather than a disruptive flash and searing heat, it sputtered. Flared bright for a moment before cracking once, twice, three times with little punctuated pops. He's confident the room would smell like ammonia once he lowered his mask. But it did the trick. The orb-like module caught fire, unable to release its powerful rays, and fills the room with a soft light and a circular burn through simple metal casing that should last the rest of the evening. Hell, it could last three days without interference. More than long enough to clear the barrel of his frost-crusted SE-76 at least.

He prayed to Val's brothers and sisters they wouldn't need to wait that long.

After nestling his weapon near the fire, Peter then moves towards the mouth of his little half-cave. Looking out, the previously blaring light over snow-crested vistas of the Kosmolets slowly faded into the background as the sky teased oranges and pinks. He couldn't help but appreciate it, the calm of a good sunset. No matter what planet he was on. The  only sounds a faint wind and crackling of low chemical fire. He hugs himself for warmth, but the feeling runs deeper than just an open leg wound.

"I bet Sersi loved nights like this." He mutters to no one in particular.

Odd. Normally he worried after the memory of a very different lost, green girl.

He hoped both were okay, wherever they were.

---

Soon enough, Star-Lord's ruminations are interrupted by the sound of heavy beating wings on the wind. King Valkyrie, astride her pegasus Warsong, returning from the hunt. But they aren't alone. Dangling beneath the white horse, almost as long as its entire wingspan, is something. Like a sack but clearly flesh; dripping wet and barely in Valkyrie's leaning grip.

"Dinner's served, Quill!" Valkyrie cheers, almost crushing Star-Lord as she flings her offering down from above. The thing splats before Peter, forcing him to stumble back as spasms of pain to shoot up his injured leg. The sordid, dripping thing is easily over 15-feet long, with a great series of gashes down an otherwise squamous body. The thing stinks - closer to urine than Peter would like to admit, mixed with the copper of fresh blood and brine of coldest salt seas. Valkyrie hops down from Warsong, sopping wet herself. Chilled sea foam already crusted into ice along the creases of her armor. Loose strands of her braid, tied tight near the nape of her neck, stick to her features like fingers of the drowning dead.

"Big girl was swimming deep, she was." The king of the gods offers like that's any kind of explanation. "I could barely see the sun by the time I reached her, and she gave me a Hel-blasted fight for my troubles. Gnashing and writhing and..." She smiles. Lets out a proud sigh. "It was an honor to welcome her to Valhalla's halls."

"What is it?" Peter asks, incredulous. "Another Deviant?"

"What? No! I think humans call 'em Greenland Sharks these days. They were Hákarl back when we hunted along the whale-roads. Children of old Skalugsuak, revered just as much for their timeless wisdom as their odious odor. Sea giants older than most cities, especially on modern Midgard. I bet this girl is was easily two, maybe three hundred years old."

"Seriously?"

"Oh yeah, she had a bite on her. Almost sucked me into that flensing maw; forgot all about the suction her kind's got. But... you know." Valkryie taps her chest plate. "Even fangs of three-hundred-years aren't a match for Uru metal."

"Can't help but feel like that's cheating."

"Don't moralize, Star-Lord." She tuts. "Going out in a battle, two queens of the frozen north locked blade-and-fang... that's just about the best ending a free shark could ask for. Especially in this day and age."

The warrior sits beside the creature, stroking it gently before sinking her blue blade into its belly. The work of butchery is done with practiced efficiency; cut opening from where tail meets torso all the way up to shark's fearsome jawline. Thick blood oozes forth, gouts of brackish red and black across snow; followed by a smell not much different from urine-meets-pickled heron. Of course, Star-Lord'd never smelled that particular combination; though he imagined it wasn't much different from Badoonian biffeck washes or the remnants of a Chitauri birthpod. Somehow, the squamous mounds of flesh that followed, from smooth and undigested offal to the remains other long-bodied fish he couldn't recognize, were even worse. Though they did little to dissuade Valkryie. She hums a jaunty, archaic tune to herself while plucking out offal, bile, and bits of viscera with her bare hands.

"Sure that's edible?" Peter can't help but question. "She sure smells... ripe."

"Oh yeah Warsong loves a good Hakarl!" Val grunts, over the sound of further cuts. Quill can only quirk a brow. "Seriously! The unfortunate piss odor is just part of the charm."

"Oh, yay."

"Come on, it's gotta be better than whatever dehydrated, ration-pellet garbage you're toting around. Live a little! Besides...." Valkyrie reaches into the back of her belt and unhooks a small container, flicking it over her shoulder towards her companion. He narrowly catches it and is surprised to find how warm the little leather wrapped thing is. Despite the crusting of ice obscuring the faint Old Norse rune-text cheaply pressed into the material.

"It'll go great with the mead!"

---

Less than two hours later, a fresh helping of briny yellow-and-black slides down the edge of the Komsomolets. Barely distinguishable are chunks of the shark queen, mixed with the legendary burn of Asgardian mead and willowy tang of human sickness. A macabre meeting of man-beast-and-god. It might very well be the last revenge of Skalugsuak; bringing low lords of the surface realm in bitter viscosity.

Peter Quill forces himself to stop thinking so much about his own vomit. No amount of fretting would save him if he were to slip forward, off the flat plane of the mountain, and tumble heartily to his death in a mess of his own making.

"Flarkin' Asgardians..." Peter mutters, before another wrenching churn brings Peter to his knees. More briny viscera, more sour revenge. This isn't the first time a concoction from the legendary warrior race nearly killed him; and frankly, he doubted it would be the last.

"If I die to this... I'm crawling out of Hel to haunt her..."

Before another Skalugsuakian outburst can leave Quill, a shadow catches his eye. A disturbance, along the clear moonlight on the silent sky.

A pyramid. No, pointed in such a way but flatter. More of an oblong wedge. Growing ever closer. A silent, linear course.

Straight towards him.

"Oh, flark me..." Quill stammers, forcing himself upright, only to stumble forward in near collapse from another wave a nausea. Somehow he holds out, catching himself on his knees. Another spasm of pain shoots up his left leg. His armored coat was off, left back in the cave with a less-than-impressed Valkyrie and Warsong. Another stupid move but his guts didn't exactly give him time to plan.

The great berth moves far too fast for how silent it is; unlike any traditional propulsion burner. But there's no heat or roar, no streak along the sky. Hell, even a Kymellian a-grav system would leave a little telltale warble on such a still winter night.

This pyramid did less-than; it merely willed itself forward and reality seemed to accept as such.

Finally the ship pauses, about 60 meters above him. An arrow tip of hovering darkness. In the obscured moonlight he can barely make out details but the deja vu is there. Almost as overwhelming as the nausea. The ridged and pockmarked body is naturalistic, so close to a perfect plane but not; just like the Eternal tunnels of Polaria below. Faint overlapping golden circles run across the body, pulsing like a heartbeat. Churning cosmic intent.

Confirming his suspicions.

The Eternals have arrived.

At the tip, the vessel begins to shimmer. Slowly at first but growing in intensity. Soon golden light is blaring out like a miniature sun piercing night-dark sky.

Risking the appearance of violence, Star-Lord charges his sole remaining SE-76 blaster.

"VAL!" He shouts back to the cave, hoping its enough but not daring a turn back.

Matching golden disks follow the light above, forming like an array of steps from prow to world below. At first, Peter wonders if this is an invitation. An open call from the gods. He's sick enough to briefly frets over tumbling sideways on his way up.

"VAL!" He repeats, lacking a better plan.

Luckily for his equilibrium, the Eternals take the initiative.

First, something hits him. He can't even see it before he's knocked on his ass. Barely holding back a wrenching hurl. It was like a shockwave. Some advanced sort of sonic waveform stunner, maybe? But he didn't see a barrel on the ship, nor an actual disturbance of energy release. He could've sworn there was a brief flash of red as the snow picked up around him, a ripple of force from the crack of compressed air. Not large; the projectile couldn't have been larger than him. It seemed to miss as it disappeared into the night beyond, a trail of snow its wake.

Before he can assess further, a different shape, difficult to make out but for the ankle length robe they wear, sidles forth and begins a descent. Step-by-step, down the independently floating rings. Male-facing, rather slight in size all things considered (though still taller than drunken god-king Quill left back in the cave). Their steps are easy despite the sheer instability of floating disks, hands clasped behind their back in a sign of either reverence or derision. As they grow closer their features come into focus; alight in a halo against the night. Close cropped black hair, running straight above the brow, complimenting similarly dark brows on a ghostly pale face. His expression is hard to read, but fierce, beady eyes flit up-and-down Quill like he was some sort of curiosity. The man is young-looking - maybe late 20's -  though going by Sersi that meant little on Eternal timescale. He wears an armored robe as black as his hair, deftly ridged shoulder plates and a high collar contrasting soft tails of fabric his waist. All components laced with red the same way their ship and tunnels are with gold. It gives him the look of an ascetic, but his narrow eyes peer down on Peter like a wolf.

"не бойтесь." The Eternal prompts. Peter's translator implant catches the text slowly, attempting to rip a less familiar Terran dialect out of deep-memory storage. After a brief moment, in an artificially synthesized amalgam of the man's thick voice, Peter's eardrum hums with "Do not be / Be not afraid."

"Why would I be afraid?" Peter lies in English. "I'm the one that called you." He debated letting the translator overwrite his words but he was too sick to worry on pretense.

"Ah, an American then." The man drops into a thickly accented English with a clear Irish-bent. Not that far off from Sersi's own tongue, at least as far as a simple spaceman like Peter can attest. "You used Sersi's signature."

"Seems I did."

"No offense mate, but you're a lot worse looking than her." The smaller man jibes, full lips twisting into a challenging grin.

"Yeah, well, most'd probably agree with you on that."

"So... where is she?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me."

"Please, don't play games now. I frown on hurting humans, but I wouldn't mind forcing you to talk."

"I don't know if you noticed buddy but I-" Peter's retort is interrupted. The Eternal's eyes flash a dangerous gold. Prior nausea, once that of mere bad decisions, screams like a spike at Peter's temple. Burrowing against the edges of his skull. He almost collapses back into the snow. But somehow Star-Lord manages to keep it together, raising pistol on trembling hands.

"Let's see you finish before I compress the trigger, hotshot." He groans through gritted teeth. "... 'sides, I want to find Sersi as bad as you do!"

That causes the Eternal to cock his head. "Ah, you're one of her humans then?"

"What does the flark does that mean, bro?"

The Eternal ignores him, the mental pressure never once abating. "Yeah, I could see it. You do look the type. Though maybe a bit dumber than the last." He purses his lips. "It doesn't much matter. You'll tell me everything in a moment."

"Stop... rambling.... about nonsense!" Peter pulls the trigger, firing a burst of stunning electricity wide into the night. The Eternal tilts his head away from the blast, though Star-Lord doubts he actually needed to dodge it.

He then raises a hand, just a simple gesture punctuating the flash of his eyes, again. Harder. Brighter. A pronouncement in gilded cornea. The piercing only increases in Peter's mind but it doesn't take hold. Darkness, hungry, swims on the edge of his vision but the crisp moonlit night won't leave him. Not yet. Somehow Star-Lord manages to bring the barrel back up, trying to steady his arm.

"Huh." The Eternal utters after a moment more.

"What?"

The dark-armored man looks with consternation but doesn't elaborate. "Tell me... how did you know Sersi's code, in the old tongue at that?"

"She told me, man! She's been visiting me through some sort of... mental link. Like, in my dreams. Flying around and telling me she's in danger and needs help and some big robo-god-bastard has got her!"

The Eternal says nothing.

"She led me here! To call you! So are you going to keep trying to make my head explode or are you going to help me save her life?"

That does it. The pressure stops. Peter's head is throbbing, the bone at his temple is nearly vibrating. There's a pressure to his jaw like he couldn't believe; it's no small miracle he didn't crack a tooth.

The Eternal steps down more golden discs, coming to rest just above Star-Lord. Lording down over the human. Star-Lord forces himself off the ground, bringing himself up to eye level with the Eternal who still floats a bit over the unkind frozen Earth below. The man tilts his chin up, looking at Peter through the bottom of fiercely lidded eyes.

"What's your name, human?"

"People call me Star-Lord."

The Eternal snorts. "One of those modern Avengers-types, then. I take it you fought in New York."

"Yeah. Don't much recall seeing you."

"My people had other matters to attend to."

"So Sersi said, Mister..."

"Druig."

Peter doesn't recognize that name. Sersi straight-lined back to Circe, but he'd never heard of a Druig. Maybe Druids? The guy had the accent.

"Alright then, Druig. How about you tell me how the hell-"

"QUILL!" A slurred voice interrupts, a sloshing stumble from the cave meters behind. "By Odin's Beard man do you see that ship?!?"

The two men turn. Valkyrie, flask of finest Asgardian fire still in hand, trots toward them. Cackling. Shimmering blue blade waving with abandon.

"There was a flash'a something outside the cave! I came to check it out, making sure you weren't like tumbling to your doom and saw that big thing!" She waves her blade in the general direction of the floating wedge ship. "Never seen anything like her! I mean, I've seen some ships you know. But wow!" Valkyrie continues. "I'm half-tempted to jump up and give her a smack! Just to see if she can hold steady all dark and quiet like that."

After a few more stumbling steps, she reaches Quill and drapes her arm over her sober companion. Raises her sword at Druig only to quickly lower it while giggling fiercely. Too close, and far too loud, breath reeking of shark and mead, she stage whispers to Quill. "So... who the Hel is this guy?"

Druig, brushes that question aside with an incredulous wave of his hand.

"Star-Lord, is that the King of Asgard?" He raises instead.

"Mhm." Peter answers.

"Is she with you?"

"Yeah."

"Is she drunk?"

"One hundred percent."

Druig's lip twitches, "I can't tell if this is a meeting of the wicked or the divine."

"Oh you don't know the half of it."

Notes:

It's been a while! Thank you for your patience as I put this chapter together. This is half of what I originally intended, broken out to allow some breathing room between "near death with the Deviants" and "meet the Eternals."

Everything in the chapter about Greenland Sharks is accurate to my understanding. Fascinating creatures, and the closest living thing to "eternals" that still swim among us! It's been rather hard to find sources on the mythology surrounding them, so please let me know if my dreams of a Jeff the Land Shark & Skalugsuak team up special are off-the-table.

Not too much more hidden in this chapter, beyond a brief wink to comic Druig's time as an Eastern European despot and another Kieron Gillen title. Enjoy, and stay Eternal!

Chapter 13: Quill - Going Knowhere

Summary:

Star-Lord, face-to-face with the Eternal fox and sword, hatches a desperate plot to wake the sleeping dead. Also, Valkyrie says goodbye.

Komsomolets Island, Severnaya Zemlya (translation: North Land), Russian Arctic
Earth [Galactic Coordinates: C053. FR45887+125X47.]
September 14, 2026

Peter Quill likes to think he's pretty experienced in dealing with gods. Not capital-g God, mind - he hadn't been to a true Terran church service since he was seven - but gods. The diverse array of pagan pantheons, cosmic abstractions, and chthonic monstrosities flitting between cracks in reality along the spaceways. Depending on how his luck was running, it felt like on some weeks every other jump gate put the Guardians in the path of some pan-galactic crusade or millennia-long blood feud.

Luckily, as multidimensional organisms go, gods weren't actually all that hard to figure out. All you've got to do is either: Pledge fealty at the threat of eternal damnation (preferably while blubbering on your knees) or somehow find a way to entertain a creature older than the concept of time.

Easy, right?

The former works on the foolhardy: gods of war, necromancy, centaurian plasma lizards, and so forth. Too dumb to be bored or too proud to admit it; Peter'd found success playing the fool. A horde of slavering adherents is part-and-parcel for these entities, if for no reason other than another form of cosmic nether-measuring, and frankly it wasn't too hard to to convince them a mortal was below notice. So panic, balk, pledge fealty and/or parts of your eternal soul; anything to stave off immediate eradication. Then, once properly placated, bolt. Or start blasting. Shockingly, he'd had equal success with both.

The biggest downside is these gods are sure to swear revenge if not eradicated utterly, and even then they're so beyond the mortal plane destruction might not even take. Luckily by the same token, they tended to have more everlasting enemies than Drax has scars on a bicep, and working their way back around to Peter ideally would take longer than his mortal lifespan.

Simple plays aside; many gods demand a more discerning touch. That wasn't always a bad thing. Some are pleasant, fading things - like that nameless Jovian goddess of ceremony he met in low orbit of Xarta-IV. She just wanted a last dance in cumulous plains, and who was he to deny her? Though that was the exception rather than the rule. Usually it was a treasure hunt in the Evermaze of Serkon's forest nymphs or weaseling Mantis out of a marriage proposal to the Lord Yum Kaax of the Mayapan or another foolhardy proposition that Rocket would certainly never cease to rankle him with.

And don't even get Quill started about that year with the pretty-faced Thunder God on the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Assessing the arrayed Eternals, over the churn of chemical fire and sickening smell of Hákarl, Peter can already taste the makings of a similar mistake. Though perhaps that was simply the remains of fermented shark.

Druig - the dark, dour little manipulator from earlier - at least appears to have calmed down. Leaning back against the cave wall opposite Quill, he chews meticulously on a gummy band of sea dog that occasionally requires picking from between his teeth with the op of a pale thumb. Beyond an occasional, "what is this again?" and "this tastes like shit," he didn't offer much in the way of conversation.

Not that Peter was able to hear Druig over the chatter of his new companion.

The newcomer was taller than Druig, almost to Peter's height, with a practiced smile that barely marred the cherubic agelessness of his bronzed face. His expression is sharp despite the smooth brow, intelligent green eyes wide and focused intently. Unlike the dark mane of dream-Sersi or Druig, the new Eternal's hair was a finely coifed puff of red with stubble to match. He capped the look with flashy silver armor and an embroidered red cape, neither distracting from the effortlessly upturned side of his lip somewhere between a chuckle and a sneer... all spoke to the rakish sort of charm Quill only dreamed he'd cultivated in his younger years. A hundred years or more of practiced swagger wafting from every pore. Peter considers hating the guy on principle alone, but he can't quite bring himself to. Maybe it was illness dulling his senses, maybe it was the leftover effect of Druig's mental assault. More than likely, it's because the first thing the Eternal offered was:

"You know, when Druig told me it was the Star-Lord outside, I couldn't believe it. You? In a place like this?"

"What's wrong with a place like this?" Peter asks, barely able to hide his surprise.

"Nothing! Nothing, of course. It's rather off the beaten path for a galactic hero like you, is all. Not that's there's anything wrong with that! I mean, it's just, I'm-." The man lets out a breath. Catches himself. Puts his winning smile back on, shifting it from one side of his lips to the other but never letting it come fully unbound.

"My apologies. What I was trying to say was that it is a pleasure to meet you, Peter Quill. From the time I was young, I've been a huge fan of your work."

It's nigh impossible to tell if this odd, shiny fellow is mocking him or not, but Peter feels compelled to go with it.

"No way. You've heard of me?" He pauses, considering for a moment. "And wait a second, I didn't think your people came in young."

"You know what I mean." The Eternal answers with an easy, dismissive wink.

"Not really but I'm sure you'll tell me."

"Quite right. Whilst Eteranls are oft quick to ignore fleeting, mortal concerns I actually found you quite inspiring. You see, while not a youth per se, I spent years drifting and rudderless following the loss of my homeland. Blowing the paltry remains of my fortune in everything from gentrified pleasure zone to extradimensional gambling pockets." He flicks his hand out, like he's releasing wealth into the very air. "But at my lowest, I heard news of Xandar... news of you and Gamora and the berserker and the triangle-faced monkey... you all seemed not much different from me."

"Meaning?"

"You all were lost. Sloppy. Nigh inappropriate to include in civilized society." Peter'd argue that last point but he didn't want to interrupt what was clearly a prepared speech. Luckily he doesn't have to.

"Get to the point, Eros!" Druig complains from the opposite wall. Eros, to his credit, doesn't lose his footing at the outburst.

"I'm saying... you became heroes to the whole Andromeda Galaxy overnight. And I told myself, "Well, Eros, if the Nine Galaxies could revere a motley band of Guardians and their Terran Star-Lord, why not me? Immaculately maintained and custom-built to protect them! Why not... The Eternal Starfox!"

Valkyrie, having recused herself from the conversation, audibly chortles at that. She sits a few feet away, back propped up against a kneeling Warsong. Drink in hand, as if she's watching her favorite Rigellian wideband drama.

"...Starfox?" she mouths to Quill out of the corner of his eye.

Druig's reaction is much the same, though unsurprisingly surlier.

"You know," Druig sneers. "'Ol Starfox spins a nice yarn and all, but he left out the part where his non nom de guerre is smeared on wanted posters across half of Kymellian space."

“That's nonsense, Druig!" Eros puts his hand to his breast in faux-offense. "Rigid hegemony and I don't quite see eye-to-eye, it's true but... what hero wouldn't have trouble with those equine manipulators?"

Druig, snorts. “Bold claim for all the time you wasted. Real great stuff, top-to-bottom." Eros tries to reply, but Druig won't be quelled. He struts about the fire, placing himself between Peter and his kin. "Seriously, between pissing off horse-headed wizards with the worst con I've seen since Babylon to running directly into their enemy's serpentine revolution-"

"Well it was more of a ritualized succession conflict, to be fair." Eros interjects.

Peter's brow furrows, immediately catching their meaning, “Wait, seriously? How the hell did you guys get caught up in kertakin' Snarkwar?"

Druig nods. "Ask our cousin here. All I know is our ship's been shot to near molecules more times than I can count and while Eros is sure there’re former worlds of our people in that slice-of-space all we've got is…” 

“Nothing.” The last of the assembly answers. Quiet until this moment, this final Eternal had merely watched their debate from the shadow nearest the cave mouth. On the tall side, at least for a human-facing woman, with long tresses of flax-white hair barely contained by an armored headband of similar gleam. Peter'd heard the others call her Thena, like a bastardized goddess of war though he was starting to think it was actually the other way 'round.

The room grows quiet as she steps into the light. Unlike Druig’s dark, sardonic stare or the flashy crimson promises of Starfox, Thena is a point-of-light carried on regal precision. Armor so bright its almost white, pointed heels barely piercing thick-packed snow. The lower half of her uniform is trailing robes, much like Sersi's or Druig's, but the rigid shoulders and vambraces accenting the plated top left little room to question her place in the hierarchy. An Eternal born and bred for battle.

Valkyrie speaks for the collective when her jaw drops.

“There was no sign of Eteranal or Celestial life in Snark space. The Archives of Winding Way on Kymell had less information than a half a databank on the Domo." Thena turns that steel-honed stare upon her boisterous cousin. "Eros prattles on but we've found nought but ghosts and echoes.”

“But!” the Starfox interrupts, never shrinking. “Ghost don't kidnap Eternals. Echoes couldn't've shattered my world and very nearly yours."

“Nearly is generous.” Druig snorts.

“Nearly!” Eros agrees, leveraging ignorance (either willful or not) to avoid the jab. “Meaning we've still got a chance. And that chance, my lady and gentleman, has come calling." When Druig and Thena exchange an unimpressed look, Starfox tries to elaborate.

"Look, standing here, on the world that changed your fate forever, is an ally. Begging to help us. With a psychic connection to our missing kin and the most renowned team of trans-galactic heroes for hire in his back pocket. If that's not providence, then the Host has truly forsaken us."

"We've tried methods Eternal, why not turn to Guardians of the Galaxy?"

Peter has to admit that was pretty good. The easy redirect, the hyping up of historic relations, and even punctuation with a title drop. The two other immortals still appear unimpressed, but Val at least was nodding along. This Eros was a natural. Seemed like more than a natural for some flarkin' reason.

"Starfox isn't wrong." Peter says. "My old team and I do have experience with this sort of thing."

Thena turns her cool, expressionless eyes towards him. Lip not even twitching. "What new approach could you possibly offer us?"

"Well, I've fought more divinities in my forty-something years than most of you have in thousands, and I have galactic connections worth a lot more than gambling debts and a wanted poster on Kymel Prime. No offense."

Eros gives an awkward smile in place of a none taken.

"I'm owed favors by the remnants of the Xandarian Nova Corp, I've a Skrull refugee fleet on speed dial, hell we're currently sharing drinks with the King of Asgard..." He gestures to Valkyrie, who raises a flask.

"Look, my old team literally operates out of the decapitated head of a Celestial. Trust me on this."

That causes a shift. Thena and Druig take a beat, the latter's dark brow raised. Despite the Eternals' lack of breath, the room seems to grow more silent anyways. Starfox's face goes blank, all previous swagger faded. Peter knows that look.

"Wait." He turns to Eros. "You didn't tell them about Knowhere?"

The Eternal stammers lamely, "It never came up. While I am certainly aware of the station, it seemed rather gauche to mention another dead Celestial after how traumatizing the last one was to-"

Thena cuts Eros off, placing a steady hand on the downward-facing golden wedge inscribed on his silver breast. "Stop. Quill, explain."

"Knowhere." Peter says, putting emphasis behind the name. "A mining colony formerly under the purview of Taneleer Tivan, the enigmatic Collector. The hollowed out skull of a Celestial slain eons ago by weapons unknown. Currently my team's base of operations: a mobile trading post, weapons platform, and nature preserve. In that order."

"Impossible." Thena utters.

"And here I was thinking we were the original sin." Druig muses, but the tight set of his jaw betrays his unease.

Peter looks between the two, then back to Starfox.

"Seriously, dude? I can't believe you never mentioned this."

"As I said, it never came up." The Eternal answers, face contorted in an expression somewhere between sniffing ripe tannot root and getting caught in the cookie jar. Despite himself, Peter can't help but feel a little bad for the guy.

"Look, it's fine." Truthfully it was far from it, but Sersi wouldn't do well if this alliance collapsed before the Hákarl even cooled. "All this talk of Knowhere gives me an idea."

When no one balks at Star-Lord's statement, or ribs him about a ill-thought prior plan, or even just snorts with a shake of their head - he can't help but feel a pang of longing times gone by. These Eternals are a far cry from his Guardians.

"In simplest terms, the comm array Sersi and I used in Polaria didn't look all that different from some of the processing units buried deep towards Knowhere's spinal column. Based on that, plus the fact your sister is sure contacting me through some sort of astral-Celestial link, it stands to reason we could connect similarly to the the station. We could..." He searches for the word, before settling on, "beseech its remains. Ask the broken codesong still pulsing through millenia old wires about this World Forge, or anywhere else they might've secreted Sersi away." He snaps his fingers, thinking aloud. "Druig, maybe you could help with this. You certainly pushed some sort of mental compulsion waves my way."

"You know, we still haven't gotten into that." Druig says with a hint of contempt. "Your connection to Sersi... Your resistance to me... Quill, the human mind shouldn't be able to take in any of that. It's more than a little suspicious. You, being here. Doing this."

Star-Lord could have said many things. That he spent months in a Celestial skull, even - accidentally - bathing in its life fluids on more than one occasion. That his possibly Celestial father definitely, briefly, connected him to some font of the power cosmic that still tickles him behind the eye every time he gets a headache. That he laid with the daughter of Thanos for literal years, drinking deep from the mad Titan's profane technologies glowing soft beneath her skin.

Any of those could be the reason. Or none of them.

But even amongst immortals older than the game itself, the rules of Sakarian Ante still apply. Especially when dealings with gods.

So Peter follows his own advice and placates them with absolute scrut.

"Honestly, it might have something to do with my weapon here." He gestures to his damaged blaster, propped up against the campfire. Still flanged and frozen and yet somehow also burnt-out from Sersi's earlier power spike. "I thought it was a standard Spartaxian SE-76, but Sersi... she used it to slay a Deviant. Channeled an ice burst through the thing unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Wholy blaster went..." Peter tries to widen his hands to mime a burst of energy. "I'm not sure what's so special about the gun but it was an antique. A gift from my dad before I lost him."

All true. In a sense. Though Yondu Udonta was likely the furthest thing in the flarking sector from a Celestial-spawned Eternal.

Druig, cocking head to one side, asks, "You think that paltry thing might be of Eternal make? It doesn't look anything like Phastos's constructs."

"Well, the inventions of my Eternal rate were vastly different from yours." Starfox interjects. Seemingly coming to Peter's aid. "And I've entreated a little with the Spartoi and their Sun Masters... it's certainly possible their technology pulls on a Celestial origin. Deprecated, of course, after multitudinous generations."

"It doesn't matter." Thena snaps, interrupting Eros before another of his speeches gained momentum. "Gun or no gun; it's clear Sersi spoke to Star-Lord. He opened the way to Polaria. He knows the truth of the World Forge. And, despite my misgivings, he carries a legacy that both you, cousin, and Asgard can vouch for."

"I say we take him up on his plan. We go to this Knowhere."

Druig whirls surprisingly quickly to his sister, "You can't be serious." He says, before brushing past Eros to meet the taller woman head-on. "Makkari isn't even present to cast her lot. Once she finishes rounding up any Deviant stragglers-"

"Makkari will agree with me." Thena chides, meeting Druig nose-to-nose. "Our family is her priority. As it should be yours."

A pregnant pause passes. For a moment, the two appear ready to come to blows. Valkyrie, loudly, sips her drink. Then, with a huff, Druig averts his eyes.

"You're right." Druig admits, blowing air through gritted teeth. "We sail to Knowhere at once."

Peter grins.

Valkyrie cheers.

Starfox is silent.

---

"You sure you can't come with us?" Peter asks, standing tall and kitted out in the silvery moonlight overlooking Komsomolets Island.

"C'mon Star-Prince." Val teases, relaxed easily beside him. Her face wears a look of pleasant consternation. "This has been a fun little jaunt but I'm the King of Asgard. Responsibilities take precedence and all that."

Peter shrugs, taking in the low, proud warble of the Domo. The black wedge still hovers near the cliff face, entry bay aglow - having already swallowed up Starfox and Thena. Druig remains, waiting near cave mouth of Polaria nearby. Another Eternal joined him moments ago, seemingly out of the ether. Likely the final of their band. Makkari.

The first thing Peter notices is how quiet she is. The second, how fast her bodysuit moves while flitting small hand signals to Druig. He responds in kind, albeit slower, before pointing to Quill and Valkyrie. Makkari's gaze follows; her features are soft and dark, with a finely pointed chin punctuated by a smile wider and more authentic than any of her kin. She waves wordlessly, before turning back to her companion, tucking a long singular braid of tight curls over her shoulder.

As Makkari presses close to Druig, short stature taken into embrace of ascetic robes, Peter averts his eyes.

"Huh." Peter notes absently. "She seems nice; though I'm surprised to see dark and broody over there show any emotions but. So far I took Sersi for an outlier."

"Druig's only a person, Peter." Valkyrie says. "Old and cranky, sure, but he's not that different from you or I."

"You and I are plenty different, Val."

"You know what I mean, you ass." She laughs.

Peter shakes his head with a small smile. "I know, I know. I just don't trust immortal types. 'Specially not in a big bunch like this. I've dealt with hucksters like Eros before but the rest..."

"You don't have to trust them to fly with them."

"It sure would help."

"Please, like your Guardians are all so honorable."

"Hey!" He gives the king an actual, playful shove. Which he's sure would give an Asgardian retainer a heart attack if they weren't half-a-planet away. "My team is completely trustworthy."

"Oh yeah." Val teases, with a quirk of her lip. "Thor told me quite a few tales. Between your big friend direct-dialing Kree dictators and Rocket's pocket-sized weapons of mass destruction, not to mention Nebula's kill count a mile long... You lot aren't exactly known for being above board, Pete."

"Pete?" He quips back. "Gee thanks, Brunnhilde."

"Eww. No you don't get to say that." It's her turn to shove him, in turn. Asgardian strength forcing Quill to stumble a few steps with barely a slap on the shoulder.

After a laugh, a momentary breath passes between them. Their only company the chill arctic air and low hum of a starship long past due. Peter looks at Valkyrie. She'd proven herself an ally. A friend, even. Without much more to say than goodbye.

"Guess this is it then." Peter murmurs, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, guess so. But... Holo me? If you find your Sersi girl?"

"I will." He answers, not even having to think about it. "And holo me next time you want to hit on Thena."

She grins. "I'm that obvious?"

"Oh, completely."

Peter reaches out, clasping Val on the elbow. For a moment, he dreads it'll be like his last Asgardian farewell with Thor, under the tripartite suns of Indigarr. But there's no serpentine twist, no "high one" linking their pointer fingers or an explosive vocalization to follow. Merely a simple grasp, steady and strong. So like Val. Unflappable from the moment they met 'til this moment where they break.

As Warsong circles above, Valkyrie slowly drifts back. Her steps a rhythmic crunch through arctic snow. After a moment she stops, tilts her face back, almost like its an afterthought. A dangerous quirk of lips peeking over armored shoulder.

"Oh and Pete?" She calls out.

"Yeah?"

"I'll send Thor a raven. I'm sure he'll be very interested to hear what you're planning."

Notes:

Notes: Thank you for your patience! A very dialogue-forward chapter, mostly to shed a bit of light on the remaining Eternals from Star-Lord's perspective. Especially Eros, who we really know so little about beyond his single post-credits appearance.

It's sad to say goodbye to Valkyrie for the time being, though I'm quite happy with how the burgeoning friendship between her and Peter played out. I'll have to find a way to pull our brash King of Asgard back into the story sooner rather than later.

For a bit of added context about Snarkwar... I couldn't help but include such a goofy Marvel Cosmic concept as background flavor. Loosely defined in the comics as a ritualized succession conflict amongst factions of alien Zn'rx (or "Snarks") to determine who will take the throne following the death of an emperor. Though from an editorial perspective it's a great excuse to have giant, power-hungry alien lizard centaurs engage in epic space battles that level their society once-a-decade. Check out Al Ewing's 2021 S.W.O.R.D book for the most recent of the many, many Snarkwars.

Chapter 14: Sersi - In Blackest Knight

Summary:

Sersi, her willpower drained in attempt to save Peter Quill, is once again forced into Arishem's psychic captivity. Facing memory of mistakes long past. Now, Jerusalem unfurls before her, in the heart of the Third Crusade. On a quest for lost glory alongside her fool brother Kingo and echoes of a warrior she once held dear. Though in this purgatory of twisted memories and half remembered dreams; only judgment remains.

Pairings: Sersi/Dane, Sersi/Ikaris (hints)

Content Warning: Overt sexual themes, xenophobia, references to medieval slavery

Camp of the Grand Duc du Paris
Kingdom of Jerusalem
Earth [C053. FR45887+125x47.]
April 7th, 1189

"I fail to understand why they won't return the blessed thing." Sersi's man murmurs for the thirteenth time today. Though, this time, it's into her bare neck so she's slightly less perturbed. They're both exhausted, truly, after hours of sun exposure in harsh desert climes; though she barely shows it.  Of the Celestial's's many gifts, a lack of eccrine glands was oft more useful than it had any right to be. Despite this; in an effort to curtail incessant fretting of the man beneath her, Sersi'd taken drastic measures upon making camp for the eve. The moment their tent was made she took his hand and nearly marched him inside. Then pushed him down, mounted him like one of the steeds he has such a knack for, and pressed her perfectly fresh smelling neck right up against his sweaty, quivering jaw. She would be the first to admit that's a bit forward for the twelfth century, But highly effective. Sersi could feel his pulse hammering against her chest, even through the layers below his ebon surcoat - padded cloth, sharp edged ringlets, and plates so steely they were almost blue.

Though, feminine wiles did little to curtail the dour spirit of one Dane Whitman.

Her Black Knight.

"Surely to Saladin and his Saracens it's a mere piece of old timber." He continues on, stubble tickling her skin. "Barely preserved, at that. I could understand the want to cast it away but even the Muslims most know the ransom value of our most holy of holies-"

"Dane." Sersi tuts, raising a finger to his lips. "What did I tell you about your worry-mongering?"

The knight sighs through his mess of matted, dark curls, "That such thoughts are better served under the sun's light?" She finds it rather cute how he doesn't meet her eyes, instead casting down like a shamed child.

"Right again, my dear." Sersi teases, rolling her hips a bit. Between her quilt-stitch leggings and his half-removed riding mail, neither could feel much of anything. But the implication alone sufficed. In so doing his hands drift to her hips, one quivering, the other still ebon-plated. He takes a hold of soft, sinful flesh; thin material giving easily to his calloused hands. He guides her rhythm.

Though, while his body quick betrays him, the pious mind of a crusader makes one last, desperate play:

"It's just, I do worry, Sersi. We're so close. And if I fail..." Dane pauses, briefly distracted by loose, midnight curls he blows out of the way of his equally dark eyes.

"Well, remember what's said in Matthew?"

To which, Sersi's only response is an endeared, if frustrated, laugh. This was so like Dane. Normally she found his knowledge charming; his memory for the western canon, experience in latin and other tongues - though less so in the bedroom. By her estimate, scant few pleasurable nights in the two years they've shared began with quotes from the Bible.

Though, if Dane noticed her reaction, he seemed unbothered. Mouthing a low verbatim that makes her skin goosebump: "And whoever does not take this cross and follow me is not worthy of me..." He exhales, rising back to his soft, natural tone. "Sersi... Matthew's words are now literal. We have a chance to recover the True Cross. From whence our sins were purified. We can truly take it upon our backs. Bring it home. If we can't, that's tantamount to-"

Sersi soothes this play with a feint of her own. A simple little bounce on his lap, bringing her waist up and down. Just enough of a tease for now. And a promise for later.

"Whoa." Dane startles. Gripping tighter.

She smiles - a perfect riposte.

"Liked that?" Sersi whispers. When he can't muster a reply, she leans closer. Brushing her heart-shaped lips along the ridge of his forehead. "I know this quest is important to you, honor bound though you may be. I've done more than my share to aid you. But closing on our quarry shan't be cause to distance yourself."

"I'm not distancing myself." he sputters.

"You're not?" she says. "I have doubts."

"How do you fathom?"

"I heard what you said earlier. To your crusader kin." Dane's next retort dies with a small gurgle in his throat. He flushes red. When he can't continue, Sersi presses. "What is it you called me, when they asked of my nature?"

"Sersi I-"

"Sh... Dane. Please. Don't lie to me."

"I referred you as a witch." He sighs. "They asked me to explain how our party came together. And how you do what you do. And I could not justify anything but magic."

"Meaning?" she presses.

"Well, it's little things. Like, the winds favor you. They never blow you off course or blind you with the roughness of sands. Or how our steeds always have food and water; though I was confident the supply ran out days ago. My tent is always immaculate, clean and dry no matter how badly rains struck us the night before." He rambles a bit longer, going through lucky breaks in Acre to that time with a camel outside Jerusalem. Eventually he peters out, biting his lip like he's preparing for a crack across the knuckles - though of course none comes. It's that innocence that distracts Sersi. Despite a visage her senior, she can't help but find him so young-looking; like this. The barely-there lines around an otherwise full brow. A mask of dark stubble, with nary a grey. Pale features and the most piercing eyes, not yet clouded from age and exposure. Dark pools, like his armor, and yet rather uncommon in the Anglican lands from which he hails.

Dane was barely beyond a babe.

What did that make her?

"Let's say you speak truth." Sersi whispers. "Would you detest me, if I were a witch? If I walked the winding way?"

"I- no. I'd fear for your soul. But, well, you've seen my blade. You know the things I've done. We're both damned anyways." The Ebony Blade. Dane's birthright. Somehow darker than his eyes and coat and the night's sky combined. A void; and a tie to angry, earthly magics so different from her Celestial origins. The less she dwelled on this particular curse, the better.

"Oh... so you fear a silly weapon but not my foul sorceries? How chivalrous." It's a rather flat jest, but Sersi wasn't known for her comedy. She'd take any small effort to lighten the mood.

He shakes his head, "I wouldn't say that. By god, Sersi your powers are absolutely terrifying. But..." He moves his bare hand up from her hip, stroking the contours of her long, defined neck. "We've known each other a long time now. If you wished to curse or castrate me, you could've done so twice-over." He bounces her out of his own volition this time, a hitch of his pelvis.

"Thus, the only conclusion is you must be a goodly witch then. My goodly witch. And I shall be not afraid."

"Dane." She leans down, pressing lips against the stubble of his jaw. Then the line of his cheek. She murmurs, "You have no idea how wrong you are." Before he can question further, she captures his mouth in her own.

The sounds that follow are many, though they do little clarify.

---

Sersi'd loved quite a few humans before (and occasionally after) her bond to Ikaris. While Ajak frowned upon such trysts, there was no Principal denying them, and Sersi liked to think cultural studies were just as valid if they occurred beneath the covers of a bedroom. For example: would a puritanical crusader such as Ser Dane Whitman really only love her as ordained by the Christian God? The way she rode him tonight would provide an irrefutable "no." How odd then; the cyclical and repeated lies of chastity and propriety which, time-and-time again, rear their heads amongst cultures human. Sure - Sersi was uniquely equipped to ignore such concepts between incompatible biologies and near total immunity to disease - but she still couldn't help but be perplexed by mortal limitations. Sex, if one chose it, could be as intimate as her vows to Ikaris or as clinical as a practiced dance.

One which, judging by the sweat-stained cot, may have just about killed her current companion.

Their brief tryst's ended with Dane facedown, pale arms splayed out like his messiah. She always like his muscles, lean and wiry and so very lived in; the flecks of birthmarks, sunspots, and scars telling a story of a life lived in battle. How she wondered which tale drifted beneath that dreaming crown of dark curls. Sometimes she pretended she could join him, slowing her own tireless nature to as close to a restful state as she could muster. A sort of ur-hibernation like her kin entered on their long journey from Olympia. A quiet, if dreamless, state. Though such frivolities were not hers to afford this night.

Sliding out from beneath Dane, Sersi pulls her night shift tight about narrow shoulders, still rather pale despite the ever-present sun of the Crusader States. She rises from the cot and dresses quickly, high-waisted riding hose, laced boots, and a loosely cut woolen tunic atop. Frankly the top was a bit long, hanging past her hips - almost to her mid-thigh - but it gave the appearance of the more flowing, feminine pieces she preferred in less violent eras. The garment itself is well-crafted, with winding green circles knit across otherwise unremarkable brown cloth. The same green is used for trim along the elbow-length sleeves, bottom of the skirt, and the v-cut of her neckline. She completes the look with a narrow dark belt about her middle - with apothecary pouches and a small knife - followed by a tasteful grey cloak-and-hood in which she tries to tuck her ebon black hair.

With a tap of her finger, a bit of Dane's travel trunk shifts to the reflective surface of a mirror - glass, tin, and a hint of mercury to finish the surface in Venetian style. She leans down and huffs upon seeing herself. Her hair is sex-messed and wild, despite the cloak's paltry efforts; her dark waves poking out in loose tendrils the likes of which may offend all but the least pious of Christian men.

Carefully, Sersi finds a brown - almost red - sash which she fashions like a headband. Dane almost certainly used this to adorn spear tips or other knightly nonsense, but it does the job.

Given the worrisome excesses of her kin, such placating measures were oft-necessary.

With a wave of her palm, Sersi reforms the trunk and begins to cool the molecules in the air nearby, increasing condensation almost to the point of a gentle fog. Perhaps a mist. Much like Dane's indigenous Britannia. A comforting, vaporous blanket for her little warrior, so far from home.

And a companion to fill her place as she leaves the tent and stalks off into the night.

---

"Sersi!"

Kingo's voice finds her first. A distinctly high-pitched nasal, so unlike the rest of their kin. And yet always bright, always welcome. Quick to ready a teasing word or a raucous song.

She spots him against the moonlit horizon, approaching camp slowly along the plains. Guiding a pack camel with practiced ease. From afar she can barely recognize him. Garbed like a local, as is his way.

But he loses such anonymity quickly enough.

"It's good to see you!" Kingo says cheerily. Wrapping Sersi in a wide-armed hug. "You look like you've had a fun night."

"Don't flatter me, Kingo. I look a mess." Sersi groans, adjusting her cowl for the umpteenth time.

"Hey, I'm not your husband." He laughs. Warm and infectious. "I take it you're still blaspheming on that Christian boy?"

"Dane's sweet, Kingo." She pouts. "And a temporary thing. Whenever Ikaris works out, well, whatever he needs to work out... We'll get right back to the way things were. We always do. Now come on."

Sersi guides Kingo to a secluded spot she'd prepared for their meeting. Near the edge of camp to reduce her brother's urge to try to impress, or harass, the small contingent of crusaders led by Dane and his enigmatic Parisian sponsor. Fewer than twenty in all, ideal for a quest so deep into Saracen-held territory.

Not that Kingo seemed to share the same concern. Instead he sits, legs splayed, at a crate beside the small campfire Sersi wills into being. In the light she gets a better look at him. What looked convincingly local fom afar now appears more like a court jester's interpretation. Part caliph and part sailor-hero Sulaiman al-Tajir, who will one day be known as Sinbad. His tunic is assortment of fine blacks, whites, and violets, tucked into high-waisted trousers flared so wide that walking appeared more suggestion than possibility. This isn't even getting into the deep cut of said top, sliced low enough to show well-defined abdominal muscles and nearly his belly button. Kingo's strong, bare jaw, almost inhuman in compare to Dane's soft stubble, is emphasized by the golden turban he wears, streaked with the same royal violet.

An artifice of Near Eastern explorer through lens Eternal. Vanity in vogue via Kingo.

"I'm not worried about the boss coming back." Kingo corrects. "Just dreading how he'll react to your mortal fancies."

"That's not fair. You've had your fun over the years."

"Yeah well, when I take lovers I don't also, you know, date them."

That was the rub, wasn't it? Kingo'd shared a bed with many-a-fan. It'd be no surprise if the free-spirited Druig or Makkari'd done the same. Reportedly Thena once did too, though no one'd seen her leave Gilgamesh's side for more than a fortnight.

But Sersi was the only one to keep bringing hers around. It filled her with guilt, on one hand. She feared taking choice away from Dane. Stuck chasing an immortal so beyond him until the chance for a normal, mortal life had all but passed him by. But by the Host, for now he felt good - was good - to her.

She sighs, "You're wrong Kingo. Dane cares deeply for the Frenchman that funds our expedition. And I see how the Duc du Paris looks at him, in turn. While they're on the outs for now, I'm as much a distraction to him as he is me."

"Oh wow." Kingo snorts. "Your pious crusader sure likes his sins, doesn't he?"

"It's... complicated."

"So you tell me."

Sersi groans. "Kingo. Let's move on. Please."

Kingo dumps out his pack, fishing out a small map amongst a collection of daggers, dice, and the remains of more tea varieties than Sersi'd had in her six thousand years. All props in an ever-growing disguise. Between mythic knowledge from their time in Babylon to his more recent journeys through Sufic dance and Turkic oral poetry; Kingo'd taken quickly to the role of local guide and navigator. It gave him access to just about everyone in society: from Saracen lords looking for exotic trade to crusader state peasants merely out for entertainment. He'd even entreated with the Assassins, extremists cloistered in the mountain fortresses across the Holy Land, but Sersi tried to dwell little on that particular leap of faith.

Kingo's fingers dance across the map, from their position a few days' ride west up to inert Horns of Hattin, an ancient volcano, on the coast of Galilee. "So... last confirmed sighting of the True Cross was in the city Tiberias. Right after the Battle of Hattin. Saladin carted the big thing off with the rest of his booty, most assuredly, though no one's seen it since. The mere idea's hung higher than the Sword of Damocles ever since."

"But we know that." Sersi says. "Dane and his people wouldn't have even attempted a quest so deep in Saracen territory if we weren't already aware. Besides, Thena confirmed it - she was ensconced with the Templars the night of the battle." She bites her lip, an effort to temper growing venom. "She was supposed to check on the old burial site after Phastos registered a light Deviation."

Kingo nods sagely.

"I know, Sersi. And I also know Thena reported not a life sign. Though its likely she was more caught up in the scrape than scanning a volcano we flushed of Deviants more than 2,000 years ago." Kingo shakes his head at his own recollection, leaning back to sip from a small bottle of something procured from his pack. Likely wine, based on the tease of dark liquid dribbling down his chin. More akin to blood in the firelight.

"Do you remember how many Deviants were nesting in that damn thing?" He finally asks, after dabbing at his face with a fine - yet thoroughly stained - silk kerchief. Based on style of stitching, Sersi estimates it's from their time in the Tang Dynasty.

"Felt like hundreds." she says. "Can't imagine how you it was for you in the thick of it. I only helped in building the burial monument afterwards."

"Oh, that's right!" Kingo slaps his forhead, like that might jog further memory. "By the Host I remember that now! What a project! Thousands of rocks from the locals, all piled high on those Deviant corpses. All to lock away the monsters for the locals, remember?"

"I do."

"Gods that big thing was better than our work on Stonehenge." Kingo lets out a sad snort, then scratches at the perfectly black hair poking out from beneath his turban. "I just can't believe it's gone now, with the rising water level and all. Feels like every step I take to build a legacy ends up lost or buried."

"If not here then elsewhere, Kingo." Sersi says. The lilt to her soft voice sounds almost wistful. "But... what do rising tides have to do with Dane's missing Cross?"

"Well, while Richard of England and the Byzantine Emperor and just about everyone else scrabble through the sand like gnats, and toss gold towards fruitless Saracen ransoms, some of my more discrete friends have picked up that the cross isn't in Saladin's Damascus at all. In fact-"

Sersi cuts him off.

"Discrete friends? Kingo, are you seriously still spending time with the ritual murderers? We talked about this!"

"They prefer Hashashin," He deflects.

"I'm sure they do. But the Assassins are a death cult, Kingo. Feeding the chaos like madmen."

"Madmen with a flair for the dramatic and ears in every corner. Good people to know. We can't all be morally justified in our plunder."

"That's not fair."

"Oh?"

"It's not." Sersi repeats. "A degree of cataloging is important to the mission. And we've all looked the other way when Makkari secrets away an artifact or two."

"Sersi. I shouldn't have to tell you, of all people, the difference between preservation and conquest."

A silence falls over the camp. Sersi, embarrassed, now realizes their voices'd picked up an octave or two. Likely keeping more than a few crusaders from slumber. Hopefully none come to investigate, Sersi'd already burned up much of the goodwill Dane's protection offered. Explaining a chatty drunk in Muslim garb might be too much.

Though Kingo seems barely concerned. He offers up his wine bottle with a raised, finely manicured brow. Lacking an excuse to the contrary, Sersi takes it.

Though the sip is much less easy. "By the Host..." Sersi blanches, nearly spitting the fluid out. The stuff is almost swill, pallid and flat. Could very well be poisonous to a non-Eternal. "I can't believe you drink this. What has this war done to you, Kingo? To us?"

Kingo shrugs. "Our mission means we've got to fit in when things get hot. Humans don't always play nice."

"It just feels like we're doing this more and more, lately. As societal organization improves, as transit and communication tools normalize... the greater the cost when systems break down."

"That's the job."

"I know." Sersi looks up, tracing the faint night sky's constellations with her softly-lidded eyes. Trying to distract herself, from bad alcohol and existential dread, both. The simple human names for these great cosmic fireballs always amused her. Somehow both mythic yet very mundane. Small and beautiful. Such as mighty Hercules directly above, or the dance of Ursa Major and Minor, ever northward.

"Do you think Ikaris might be up there?"

"What?"

"You know, amongst the heavens."

"Dunno. What do you think?"

"I couldn't say." She admits with a long sigh. Blowing air out between pursed lips. "But the idea of it comforts me, you know?. Our Ikaris, soaring between all those little dots of life and light... like some sort of star-man. Who will one day return and sweep us away from all these violent, temporary things."

Kingo doesn't respond to that. Either out of respect or derision, she can't say.

Eventually Sersi gives up on the wine and dreams of her husband. Though not until two more aborted attempts to drink, of course. She returns dark, lidded eyes to Kingo's map and says, "Enough of my flights of fancy. You were saying something. About the word of your killers."

Kingo's mood brightens at that. He says, "So, my friends've recently gotten close with the fisherfolk around Tiberias. In preparation for some job or another. And these locals absolutely love their gossip, right? It's the top form of entertainment on a still little sea like Galilee. And between arguments about bait prep and who stole whom's favorite spot, they've noticed changes. Just little things. But spearheaded by occasional boats they don't recognize."

"There are lots of unfamiliar boats in the Holy Land these days, Kingo."

"Not like this. Small ones, bearing no banners. Sailing in under cover of dawn. Going out, every few days, towards the middle. Right where the waters get deepest. Then dropping divers. Slaves, most likely, but under guard from professionals. Possibly Saracen military even."

"Huh. Have they brought anything up from these dives?"

"Of those that come up, half-drowned and terrified? Not really. But many don't return at all. Yet, that hasn't stopped them from going back."

"Why do you think they're military? They could be simple salvagers or treasure hunters. Trying to profit from wartime."

"No." He gives a firm shake of his head. "I trust my contacts. This operation is too organized. Too regular. Going on for months, years even. Almost exactly following the Battle of Hattin, and the loss of the True Cross to the Saracens."

"I'd say that seems... awfully convenient, yeah?"

"Oh yeah, almost ordained, wouldn't you say? But that's not all. Just a few days ago, I finally corroborated the story with some friends in the calphate. Wrote them a letter like I were a grieving brother, on trembling hands." Kingo pantomimes eyes like a puppy dog, letting fingers shake unnaturally. "And they admitted to a vessel, The Shirkuh, commissioned by Saladin himself. Last reported sailing out of Tiberias, across Galilee under the cover of night, a mere day after Saracens won the day at Hattin. But it never made port. That was years ago. Now written off as lost, with all hands, including a cargo manifest never recorded."

"You're serious."

"Deadly so." Kingo cocks a grin. "I'm no expert but to me, it looks like your little friend's True Cross never even left Hattin. And now sits, waterlogged, mere miles from where it was thought lost."

---

Galilee.

Oft-referred to as a small ocean, though that was a bit of a misnomer courtesy of ecclesiastical dramatics. Truly its more of a large lake, all freshwater, running 13 miles long and half-that across, fed from the River Jordan and routing all the way down via tributaries to the Dead Sea. The water level's risen steadily over the thousands of years since Sersi was last here, as have the settlements dotting the coast. What was the lake called then? Kinneret? Gennesaret? Hippos or Tell Hadar? It'd been so long. And the creatures they buried there were meant to stay that way.

Not that her crusader retinue today, sans the ever-talkative Kingo, could understand that.

To them this was and ever would be, Galilee.

They crested the ridge southwest of the body of water an hour or two before midnight, an eve past Sersi and Kingo's conversation. The valley about the lake was mostly flat, tilled away to make produce in the fertile riverlands surrounding the small city of Tiberius. The season was still early - much of the crop was still coming in. Hence their late night adventure; Tiberius, ever since the Battle of Hattin, has been firmly under Saracen Muslim control.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Dane says. He leads the small detachment beside her, astride a horse almost as black as his tabard. When Sersi doesn't reply, he lifts his half-visor. Golden slanted metal ending at his button nose replaced by those soft, dark eyes she so favored.

"My lady? Are you well?"

Sersi shakes herself from her reverie.

"Quite so, Ser Dane." She muses. "Apologies. Your words, this place - they remind me of old, forgotten things."

"Not my intent, lady. Just appreciating the view of Angels - even if its no longer ours to enjoy." Before Dane can wax further about recent losses, and the growing goals of this Third Crusade, the remainder of their retinue catches up. A dour man leads the small band, astride a tawny horse in finer armor than all but the Black Knight's. Violet barding is thankfully still discrete in such low light; barding which matches the color of his ankle-length cloak and, quite nearly, his skin. The man is handsome otherwise, with long face and thin build hinting at a noble upbringing. He wears no armor, covering neither his refined Norman riding jerkin or overlong flock of dark hair. Sersi could see why he and Dane were such close companions.

Shame then, that Duc Bennet du Paris' primary reaction to her presence was sneering.

"Well it appears your pet Muslim hasn't led us to ambush so far." he snorts. "Though I fail to see why we need the sinners to ride beside us, Ser Dane."

Dane sighs, offering weak defense. "Kingo Ibn Arishem is a proven guide, my Lord. He can negotiate with the people here, if needed. Better than you or I."

"Compromising with blasphemers is not what I'd call a positive character trait."

"Then call it a necessary one. Our quest is too important to be thrown aside by alternative interpretations of our Christ."

"Alternative...?" the Duc du Paris almost spits. "Don't let the witch-woman get into your head, Dane." He turns sharp eyes on Sersi, who tries her best to ignore such provocation.

"Do not proceed this line of questioning further, Bennet." Dane says, quiver on his voice hopefully imperceptible all but her. "Mayhap our bedfellows are strange but we shan't stoop to sully their names. Not when we quest for honor like heroes of old. We each carry legacy, of Charlemagne and Ser Percy of Scandia, both. I'd rather we entreat with than offend those who master mystic arts."

Bennet throws up his hands in disgust. "Oh now, of all times, you call on the ancestors, [Eobar]!"

Eobar?

Wait...

A lance of pain arcs through Sersi's head, like a gavel on the temple. She cries out, almost slipping from her steed. The nausea that follows is nearly debilitating. Her vision swims. Pinpricks of red light - two perfect columns of dotted crimson - dancing on the periphery of her sight. Sersi isn't sure if her kind possesses the ability to vomit but she quite feels like it, leaning forward to clench thighs and quivering arms about her steed.

Oddly, the argument beside her continued apace. She'd missed some details, but by the time she stabilizes Bennet du Paris appears to be calming, moving on from the sheer blasphemy of the circumstance to actionable specifics.

He's speaking to... Dane, yes. Dane. Ser Dane Whitman. The Black Knight.

Bennet says, "You can't seriously expect us to trawl the whole sea, can you? 'Least not before first light. We have nary even appropriate transport - or training - for such a thing."

"Kingo..." Sersi moans quietly, almost automatically. "Kingo is dealing with the former. His contacts... should be able to provide us transportation in short order."

Dane nods, agreeing with her.

"Quite so. And Sersi has assured me she has a solution to actually diving to the wreck, once we find it. Right?"

"Right..."

Why wasn't Dane helping her? Or the least bit concerned. Did no one see her state?

The light did. Six crimson flecks on either side of her sight. Burning, unflinching eyes.

Somehow, it didn't matter. The argument settled, Sersi follows the retinue down to the dark expanse of sea below. No matter how faint she might feel.

Or who might be watching.

---

The journey out across Galilee was easy enough. Ensconced in the cover of night, Sersi, Kingo, and Dane were able to reach the Galileean coast in under an hour - even slowed as they were by the Duc du Paris' small entourage. Within two, Kingo'd discretely secured transit - a single sail skiff owned by local fishermen delighted by his tales of lands far abroad. When Sersi mentioned making sure not to harm the vessel, it was met with eye rolls from all but Dane. The minute size at least kept discussions of their expedition party brief. Only Sersi, Dane, Kingo, and (begrudgingly) Bennet, alongside light armaments, could fit on the little thing.

This is how they found themselves, a few hundred feet from shore on the most still of seas, ensconced near total darkness.

"How are we supposed to see a damnable thing?" Bennet complains. "The Muslims have nary succeeded this task in the peak of day."

"Patience, man-of-Paris." Kingo chides, playing up his exotic guise. "Give our dear witch a moment."

Sersi leans over the edge of the skiff, running long, delicate fingers through the surprisingly frigid water.

"It's odd to return here after so long." She whispers, ignoring his other comments. "You weren't exaggerating, Kingo, the lake was so much lower then. I still remember the little settlements... they must be beneath us now."

"Sersi, that was more than 2,000 years ago." He says in reply. "Things change."

"Not completely. Where we buried the Deviants... you can still see the stones. Faintly below. There are thousands of them, congregating towards the western bank."

"That reminds me - you don't think they're regrowing down there, do you?"

Sersi shakes her head. "Couldn't be. Phastos's scans were far too faint. He would've easily detected a sedentary nest. Though perhaps kin occasionally come to pay respect."

"That's ridiculous." Kingo scoffs. "Deviants are barely more than animals. They wouldn't even know how to honor their dead."

"Elephants do. Why not Deviants?"

They sail in silence following. Kingo, at the rudder, adjusts their angle to cant them in wide loops while Dane mans the small single sail. Her partner looks off-put and confused, but his trust in her, and thus his naval skills, hold. For now. Sersi cards her fingers through the surface of the water as they go. Slowly, she begins extend out, casting filaments of ancient energies that warp and change the base molecules of the water beneath them. The action is relatively simple; a systemic shift from surface water to globules of luciferin, also known as foxfire, an excretion from certain species of sea flora fungi for attraction or defense. Heavier than water these bubbles of blueish-green glow trail their vessel, and gently sink to illuminate depths below.

The crusaders react as expected.

"Unbelievable." Dane whispers with awe.

"Blasphemy." Bennet sneers. Though notably he does not try to stop her.

They make a trail of glowing fairy fire for the next hour or more, circling the depths of Galilee until finally Dane calls out: "There! Below!" They scramble to the edge, all four of them, causing the tiny skiff to teeter worryingly. Sersi's fungal globs have found roost, latching to the surface of some jutting thing beneath the waves. Like a mound or raised platform. And more than likely their target.

"Well, is that not exactly what I promised?" Kingo says with a grin.

"I can't believe it. Down here, all this time. Mere miles away from the main body of the Crusade."

"So how do you suppose we go about this?" Bennet snorts. "It is at least one hundred feet deep - or more. Shall we draw lots for a holy drowning?"

"Won't be needed." Kingo says, raising a placating hand. "Sersi and I can stay submerged overlong. We shall go."

The silence that follows is near damning.

Dane once again tries to push with, "Sersi... what does he mean? Is that some other magic you hold? To not require breath?" If his eyes weren't so sad, so dark, Sersi'd brush past it. But she can't resist the knight and his gentle tug on her shoulder.

"It's just another one of my abilities, Dane. My... witchcraft."

"But Kingo?"

"He's much like me."

"So a warlock then?"

"Something like that."

"Are there more of your kind?"

"Just a few."

Dane shudders, "If we weren't pursuing the most holy of holies... I'd be damned for this, you know. I still might be."

"Dane... there's nothing wrong with doing what comes naturally." She squeezes his shoulder, then presses her forehead against his. "You believe your God made you for a reason, yes? Put the ebony blade in your path?"

"Yes." He murmurs, breath so close it could fog glass.

"Well, this is mine. Trust in me." She softly kisses him to seal such.

"Only at your word, my lady."

Ignoring the cloying look of one Duc du Paris, Sersi slowly untangles from her lovestruck warrior. Kingo is already mid-preparation, having stripped off his soft shoes and turban - a religious affront which the crusaders did not know enough to question - discarding both in a heap. He begins to undo his shirt when Sersi joins him. Fumbling through removing her cloak, laced boots, and overlarge tunic in quick succession. That last bit causes gasps from Dane and Bennet, the former of which nearly faints upon seeing her bare torso wrapped only in soft cloth about her chest. She turns over her shoulder, only half-aware of what such act did do to many-a-mortal man.

"We'll be back promptly, Ser Dane. Do stay safe."

And with that, Sersi and Kingo dive into the glow of Galilee.

Notes:

The first part of my take on Ben Raab's 1996 one-shot, Black Knight: Exodus. Originally a body-swapping Sersi and Dane adventure through the Third Crusade, remixed into another of Arishem's judgements. I also couldn't help but use a title based on some of Raab's Green Lantern work.

This ended up going a bit long, so I'll need to continue with a part two after we touch base with Quill and co. next chapter.

As an aside, we're getting a bit deeper into full on romance territory and I want to be cognizant of how I handle that material. For now, I'm aiming for mature but not overly detailed. Please let me know if it's too much (or too little!) I will also add which pairings are prominent in the summary for each chapter if you want to specifically look for or avoid certain relationships.

Honestly, this is doubly true for my treatment of real life locations and religion. I've attempted as much research as possible but if I'm off-base with anything, especially with statements on twelfth century Christianity or Islam, I'm absolutely open to make corrections! Please keep me honest.

For further reading, the monument I mention beneath Galilee is very real! Scientists aren't quite sure its purpose, but it's made of ~42,000 basalt stones and is larger in scale than Stonehenge. Wild stuff. Obviously the most reasonable explanation would be the burial pit of a Deviant horde, right?