@ebcnyblade
What a mess they had found themselves in. For thousands of years, Sersi had been bolstered by a false of sense of security. Her confidence had been born from the fact that it seemed like the Celestial's had given their children a look behind the curtain of existence. The Eternals knew more than the humans they protected. The Eternals — it turned out — may have known nothing at all.
There was a Sersi who witnessed the loss of her fellow Eternals but still became something great. She used her powers to transfigure not only something alive but a Celestial who was trying to emerge. It was a feat she hadn't thought herself capable of but had somehow accomplished nonetheless. That Sersi was learning, growing, evolving.
This was not that Sersi.
The raven haired woman who was letting herself into the flat on the Upper East Side had never dare to defy the Celestial's. Everything she learned had been second hand from multiversal refugees who came from a reality where the truth had already been uncovered. The Sersi who peeled off her coat and hung it on the hall tree was a variant, a version of Sersi who had yet to uncover her potential. She had it inside her, but circumstances had yet to force it to the surface.
Despite her age, there was a hesitance in her motions. It made them sharp and jerky as she gestured around the space. Her primary residence as of late had been London, but she kept the New York City apartment for emergencies. It looked unlived in because it was. Artifacts she had collected over the years lined some of the shelves, but Sersi was still trying to make the space her own.
For one of the first times, she was not alone. The role of hostess felt foreign in the unfamiliar space. Still, she tried to smile. "You're welcome to hang up your coat, if you'd like. I can make tea." Even though she had only met him that night, Sersi knew how he took it. Dane Whitman was both a stranger and familiar all at once. He was a lovely professor and historian affiliated with the Natural History Museum in London. He was her boyfriend, actually, even though there was so much about her that he couldn't know. He was also 3,461.34 miles away at that exact moment and none the wiser to the fact that his variant had just followed Sersi home.
The alt-reality Eternals had done their best to explain what had happened in their home reality, but it was almost too much for Sersi to wrap her head around. From what they had said, her own variant had been kidnapped by the Celestials. Dane had been there, apparently, and witnessed the entire affair. It couldn't have been easy for him to then stand by a Sersi who looked like his but was not. She was keenly aware of this fact, just like how she was aware of the ways in which his similarities to her Dane would trick her mind into thinking they knew one another.
Eager to distract herself, Sersi began to rummage around for a kettle. "We can talk, of course. That's why you came. I'm afraid I'm still playing catchup on far too many things, however." The fact that Ikaris had the potential to be homicidal — and had been keeping a truth from her for the duration of their marriage — also hung on her mind, but she had yet to phone him. "This is — well, I suppose it's bound to be uncomfortable at first, isn't it?"