#jmonwip

“He will speak with you privately,” the emissary said with a sneer as the doors wrenched themselves open. The Ebony Maw inclined his head without a word, and pressed on alone, left to his own devices in another bewilderingly large room, like a sacrifice in wait. Light on his feet as he was, his footsteps were nevertheless deafening as he advanced toward the empty throne, the seat of this great titan’s power. Slowly, he sank to his knees at the foot of the dais, an instinct in a place which felt so sacred. “Do you know where you are?” The voice came from somewhat behind the Ebony Maw, and while he didn’t need to be able to see to know that someone was there, it was rare for anyone to get that close before he sensed them. He did not dare to look. “To an extent,” he admitted. He can only feel pressure from the person behind him, an inevitable gravity. “And why have you come to me on your knees?” The Ebony Maw heard the heavy footsteps behind him approaching as Thanos–for surely this was he–circled him. The titan loomed, casting his long shadow over the Maw.“I have not heard of you,” he confessed, “but you have crept up on my home in a peerless warship, and while I cannot be certain… I feel as though you are someone I’ve been waiting for all my life to meet.” Face to face with Thanos, he could barely breathe, craning his neck to look up at him. “Has anyone else detected us?” Thanos asked, a ruthlessness in his eyes. Once again, the Maw could sense that he had hazarded his life, that perhaps this man, this force, would simply kill him. “I can make certain that no one else ever does,” he promised.

“Eb’ny? Are you awake?” It is rest hours on board the Sanctuary II, and the Maw has only just dared to close his eyes when a little voice intrudes into the quiet. “I can’t sleep.” Gamora is… very young. He hasn’t paid much mind to her precise age. Not quite old enough to fight in earnest, but taking well enough to her lessons. She’s fearless, Thanos’ little one, which is why she is here, and not lying in ashes with half of her people. Witless, the lot of them, blind to the glory of their sacrifice… But Gamora has been chosen for something far greater, and this makes her Ebony Maw’s problem just now. He cracks open one eye and beckons her in. He had never expected to become a child-minder, but Thanos’ will is one with his, and so when the great titan’s cosmic undertakings keep him away from Gamora, his herald plays the governess. The Ebony Maw’s own children are long dead, but their lessons remain. He tries not to think of them, the Chime, the Grace, as he studies the small green face peeping at him over the edge of his bed, dark eyes still so trusting. “What keeps you awake, child?” Gamora’s face scrunches at the question. “I’m thirsty,” she lies. The Maw has been a liar since before Thanos found him, and he sees through the child’s frail deception in half a heartbeat. And since he has instructions not to teach the girl to whisper like he can, he merely shrugs it off. “You know where to find water.” “I’m cold.” Another lie, because she does not realize he’s seen through the first. If she’d noticed, he might have asked to teach her better. “No need to bother me with that.” The Maw closes his eyes. “When there’s something you need, you take it. Is that not what Thanos has told you?”

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In the dead of night, the Ebony Maw took a smallcraft and flitted into the jet-black sky like a spark to head fate off before it arrived. Perhaps it was a foolish thing, a mad thing, to race up and out of the atmosphere, having said no farewells. A ship like the one that approached could atomize his tiny vessel in an instant. This fact saved his life, the Maw learned later, for who would fly towards such danger without weapons? Without a shield? He had hazarded his life, without even a moment’s hesitation. All told, the Ebony Maw would not have regretted going up in a grand conflagration of misplaced intuition. His ambitions had remained too long unrealized, entrusted with leaders unequal to the splendour he dreamt of. Their world was not enough, perhaps nothing was, but the vastness of the universe awaited, and the Maw felt in his bones that this was his chance shape it. And Thanos… Thanos was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

O bloodstained Baron de Rais, Wouldst see again that holy maid? Wouldst speak again her blesséd name? And whatever he is now, it answers. Every fragment of who he was, who he is in this abyss, who the world has imagined him to be now that he has left it, every shattered piece of him calls out in unison. Where must I go?

Gilles isn’t sure where he is. Asleep? No, something deeper than that. They’d hanged him in 1440. A beautiful morning in October. He’d been the first to die, although the rope had been just a little short. He remembers the horrible moment when the line went taut, and he began to strangle.