The Girl Who Held the Universe in her Hands | marvel [1] ✔

EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT
' I BRING YOU A GIFT . '

Ash rubbed her eyes with gritted teeth as the ship floated through the barren place. Dark bags hung from under her eyes, and exhaustion demanded concentration to remain awake. The scar which framed her marbled iris was an angry red, the whites of the damaged eye bloodshot and slightly puffy. She knew she should have rested more. But then, she should have done a lot of things. Her gaze drifted to Thor and Jane as he draped a blanket over her sleeping form.

A sigh escaped her, hands moving to massage her head where the dull ache radiated.

"Where am I?" Ash's high, childish tone echoed throughout the dark room, her eyes wide and round with innocence.

Thanos moved into the room, dwarfing a chair as he lowered onto it. "You are safe, Little One."

Ash shifted, bringing her knees to her chest. "Do you know where my mother is?"

He watched her for a moment. "Your mother is dead."

"What is 'dead?'"

"You ask a lot of questions." When Ash didn't reply and continued to stare at him expectantly, Thanos sighed and leaned back on the chair. "It's like an eternal sleep. Death is a natural order of life."

"Will I be dead one day?"

Thanos hesitated. "Yes."

Ash looked away, but she didn't look scared. She pondered his words quietly before she looked back at him. "Will I ever see her again?"

"That depends on what you think happens after death. People have different ideas. Some think that the dead go on to live in another world proportional to the one they lead in life. Others think, no, you will never see them again." Thanos watched her as she mulled over his words, gaze latched onto a wall in thought. He could see the intelligence in her eyes, in her words. She picked up on the tone of the conversation quicker than any of his other children would have; she knew his words were pressing, and she treated it as such.

She was smart, but she was naïve. Thanos could work with that.

Ash inhaled sharply through her nose, lifting her head from her palms and letting her eyes adjust to the brightness.

Loki's stare flickered over to Jane. "What I could do with the power that flows through those veins." His voice broke the silence, but Ash expected it.

"Your brain would shrivel as it consumed you." She didn't look in his direction at first, but her eyes flickered to him after silence fell for a moment.

"She's holding up alright," Loki replied before his eyes moved to Thor, a look in them which told her he was looking for a rise. "For now."

"She's strong in ways you'd never even know." Thor shot back, voice showing his exhaustion.

"Say goodbye."

"Not this day."

"This day, the next, a hundred years, it's nothing." Loki watched his bother with a cruel thrill. "It's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready. The only woman whose love you've prized will be snatched from you."

Ash looked away.

Blood on her hands. Blood on the floor. His face. His eyes.

"And will that satisfy you?" Thor snapped, glare finally finding Loki's.

"Satisfaction is not in my nature."

"Surrender not in mine."

"Sometimes surrender is easier," Ash spoke quietly, gaze stuck on the wall of the boat in front of her. "Compared to a god, other beings are weak and fragile. Humans? They live and die for eighty years. Gods? Well, can a god truly die? Humans bleed and rot, and their minds fall in on themselves, and what can we do? Nothing. And while we do nothing, their hearts and minds die, and as every part of them dies... you die with them. Your humanity, your compassion, your patience. Everything dies, and- what do you become?"