To be human
When Sersi returned to the kitchen, it was well past midnight. Outside, the deepest night was already stretching over Ajak's extensive property, over the pastures and meadows and it was again as if she had entered a completely different world.
Despite the late hour, Gilgamesh had insisted on cooking them a real feast and so she entered a deliciously fragrant kitchen where Kingo and Makkari were setting the table while Gilgamesh tinkered at the stove, presumably partly because he enjoyed it and it relaxed him after long days and missions.
And they could all use relaxation. The Deviants' devastation in the nearby town had already been broadcast on all the news channels by the time they got back to the farm, and they'd been glued to the screen of the small TV until Kingo had grabbed the remote control and conjured one of his movies, seemingly out of nowhere. This had provided a distraction for everyone except Ajak and Phastos who had been tending to Druig at that time.
When the Makkari saw her entering the room she cocked her head. Where are they? she signed.
A terribly bad conscience spread in Sersi's gut. She wasn't a good liar, she had never been one, Sprite got never tired of telling her that and Dane had seen through her more often than not as well. And Makkari in particular was definitely able to feel her racing pulse so she decided to stay as close to the truth as possible and gave her sister a smile that she hoped looked convincingly genuine.
"Ajak wants to finish some more tests. Where are the others?"
Makkari frowned but, to Sersi's great relief, Thena entered the kitchen at that moment.
"Sprite fled the terrible movie shortly after you did." she said and smiled at Kingo in amusement when he gasped in insult. "And Ikaris is somewhere upstairs liking his wounds."
She had expected that much. Ikaris rarely left the upper floor when he got into a fight with one of them. Sersi was sure it was his way to avoid another conflict while most of the others insisted he was sulking.
"And Phastos-"
"Is here." said a voice from the front door, a moment later it fell shut and said brother of her's appeared to help Gilgamesh out with the potatoes which Thena had been forbidden to touch for reasons yet unknown.
"The meal is almost ready." announced Gilgamesh. "Who goes looking for Sprite?"
"I'll get Ikaris." Sersi quickly offered. She had seen how Thena had inhaled and she urgently wanted to prevent another confrontation between the two fighters. One near-war situation a day was enough and none of Ajak's belongings had broken yet.
"Then I'll go look for the red haired dwarf. At least she did not insult my acting skills" Kingo said.
"Because she couldn't hear it and ignored the screen." Thena shot back unimpressed.
"No one in this house understands true art."
Kingo laughed, although Makkari slapped him lightly on the back of the head as he passed. He disappeared out of the kitchen after Sersi and went to search for their human team member.
Which turned out to be more of a challenge then he had counted for.
Sprite was small and tricky, but she didn't really had her illusion powers anymore and so, the more empty room he found in the house, the more convinced he became that she was avoiding them on purpose. It wasn't quite that unusual for her to disappear like that but since she had become a human it was very unusual that she would miss a meal, now having a body that really depended on it and everything.
He finally found her on the roof of Ajak's house, staring out at the vast landscape and the night ahead, after he had already searched through half the house and finally discovered an open window in the attic that he would have missed had he not almost hit his head on the narrow door frame.
The sun had long since vanished behind the horizon and the moon was slowly climbing to it's highest point in the sky.
Here, out on the land like this, away from towns and most of civilization, the stars shone as bright as none of them had seen it for a long long time.
Where humans lived there where fires and lights and buildings of some kind, now way more than a thousand years ago and yet, the lights they created had always hid a certain amount of the stars and the beauty of the night sky got easily swallowed by the electric glow of citys and metropolises that outshone even the glowing galaxies and suns out there in the sky.
In the past, they had often watched those stars from atop temples, pyramids or the Domo, wondering where exactly out there their home planet Olympia was since no one really seemed to remember it's exact coordinates. A thought that no longer existed.
Sprite had most likely chosen this place to hide herself. She had her legs drawn close to her body, her head resting on her arms which were wrapped around her knees. Her dark turquoise jacket and her short red hair moved slightly every now and then when they were caught by a gentle gust of wind.
"I figured you would be here. Gilgamesh made dinner." Kingo called out to her.
He squeezed himself through the narrow skylight that she must have climbed out of and that was definitely not meant for a person his size because he almost managed to get stuck around the shoulders. Still, he somehow managed to squeeze his upper body through the small opening.
"Sprite, a little help?"
When she didn't respond, he sighed and squeezed himself the last part up onto the roof. "Okay, thanks for nothing anyway. What are you thinking about so feverishly, huh?"
Sprite's fingernails dug deeper into the fabric of the sleeves of her jacket.
Oh, it must be something serious then, he thought but he was not prepared for what would come.
"I'm not an Eternal anymore." she answered without looking up from the great nothing she was starring into. "I don't have any powers anymore, I can't even help you anymore in any way. Not in dangerous situations especially."
Kingo frowned "Where is that coming from?"
She shrugged and he sat down next to her and followed her gaze into the distance. South Dakota's landscape was nothing special, at least not around Ajak's house, and yet there was something beautiful about the empty expanse that stretched out before them. Something even beside the beautiful view that the sky above them provided.
"Is this about today? About Druig?"
While the mind controller wasn't either of their favorite person Kingo couldn't help but feel bad for what had happened too. Had he not been so concentrated on shooting down more Deviants than Ikaris, he might would have noticed that one of the monsters had escaped and targeted their brother, but there was not really anything Sprite could have done about it and besides, Ajak had told them he would be okay.
Although Kingo had noticed that after talking to their healer, Sersi was acting a little strange. He was an actor and while he was very fond of sweet dear Sersi, she was incredibly bad at acting. Her smile for Makkari had not reached her eyes as it usually did. He had not said anything but it had given him a strange feeling that he had opted to ignore.
"So you regret accepting Sersi's offer?" he asked after a while of silence had passed between them.
"To become a human? No, not really. I still want to grow up." she sighed and drew her knees even closer to her small body. "I always just wanted to be on an equal footing with you guys. To know what it's like not to be seen as a child all the time. And I accepted that eventually I'll die as a human being. She warned me of that. I guess I just didn't realize at that time that I would become useless to our mission without my powers."
"Oh come on!" he protested, sensing that this was not the best time for a joke or a sarcastic jab in her direction. Something was nagging at her and he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't tell everyone about it.
After all the years they had spend together after Druig causing their group to break apart in Tenochtitlan, he had a feeling for reading her, he had been the only one to see her crush on Ikaris, after all.
"You're not useless! You're our Sprite. Clever, Tricky, Sarcastic. You challenge us and your stories remind us of who we are." he threws his arms in the air in a dramatic gesture. "Even without the illusions."
With that he managed to force a small smile from her, a tiny victory at least, but her eyes shimmered wet in a way that he wouldn't address and that she would only blame on the dry wind anyway.
"Someday your story will go on without me."
Kingo was silent for a long time after that.
The concept of death was one they were very familiar with but only through observation and to be honest, that comment had caught him off guard.
Up until Ajak's death, and then Gilgamesh's and Ikaris', dying had never been something that they could be touched by. Even less growing old and dying from age or a bad health or even an accident. The where Eternals, endless, immortal, with bodies build to survive and resist damage from great force. Not invincible but extremely resistant. Dying was not a part of their world. It was a strange thought for him and at the same time one he really didn't want to deal with, that she was no longer untouchable by it. She had always been there, right beside them just like she was right now.
To know that she wouldn't be one day anymore was a thing he had yet to come to terms with but didn't really want to just like he didn't want to question Sersi's and Ajak's strange behaviour.
"It's still our story, Sprite. And you'll be a part of it forever, no matter what." he said after a while, a lot more serious now.
He had been in a way better mood after his movie evening with Makkari.
"I despised Arishem for making me the way I was." she murmured, quite lost in her thoughts, "Unable to ever grow up, to fall in love, or be your equal. But I was an Eternal and now I'm just a human. I've become what we came to earth to protect." she sniffled lightly and the alarm bells in his head started to ring like sirens. "Kingo? Do you think I failed to protect them by becoming one of them?"
Kingo took a deep breath. He took his time answering, thinking about what to answer, knowing that she wanted an honest answer and not one that would spare her feelings. After all, it had been her job to watch over humanity without interfering with its development. Now, as a human herself, she could no longer do one thing and would certainly do the other whether she wanted to or not.
She wasn't quite an ordinary person, she would never be with everything she knew and had been. But she was now, nonetheless, human.
He sighed. "You can still do good, you know? In this town yesterday you helped us protect the people. Besides, our task was accomplished when you accepted Sersi's offer."
He caught Sprite's eye, knowing that she was watching him as he testified. She stubbornly averted her gaze back into the darkness as soon as their eyes met and Kingo grinned and did the same, leaning back on the cool roof tiles.
A tepid wind blew across the roof. By this time of day the normally warm weather had cooled down, but the air still didn't carry the freezing cold with it. It was a pleasant feeling.
"I don't think you failed them. Or us, for that matter, accidents happen, and you've always been loyal to what you believed in."
Something about that last sentence made her wince. Hardly visible, but he knew her well enough to notice it. He thought about what could have been wrong or what her problem was, but before he could decide whether it would be wise to ask or not, Sprite nodded.
"Thank you Kingo." she said, getting to her feet hastily when he opened his mouth to ask what had made her flinch.
Sprite must have noticed and chose not to respond willfully.
Instead, she avoided to continue their little heart to heart skillfully by disappearing back into the house with a jump through the skylight.
"Come on, before the others eat everything without us, Mr Moviestar!" she called.
Kingo groaned. Climbing out the window was one thing, but he already saw himself getting stuck trying to get back inside the same way. He should have brought a ladder. Or should have thought this through better.
At least then Sprite would have something to laugh about.