Courting Death (Thanos x Hela)

Chapter One - Death and Madness

Chapter One

Death and Madness

I'm falling. That was all Hela could think, incapable of comprehending the scope of her failure. Her vestments were in tatters, just as they were as she finally crawled out of her prison. She felt as though she had gotten nowhere, that she was right back where she started. Asgard was destroyed, her power source lost, and she was left hurtling through space on the fractured tip of Surtur's mighty blade. Had she not conjured an army's worth of swords to shield herself, she would have been dead for sure. The idea chilled her to her bones, but she consoled herself in knowing that Surtur was himself destroyed in the destruction of the planet.

Hela continued her free fall through empty space, surrounded by the wreckage and rubble of her former home, which she thought she had grown to hate. No, she thought, I never hated home. I hate the man who exiled me from it. She sighed, in space no less, as remnants of Asgardian architecture drifted past her. She at last turned to view her surroundings properly, and found a decently sized rock still intact. She moved toward it, touching down, hardly being able to stand.

She felt alone, truly alone. Not for the first time, but she hated that the feeling returned to her. Hela sat down on the cold, rough rock. She thought of Fenris and nearly wept. She could feel the crushing weight and scope of space that should have already killed her. Even her, the once Goddess of Death. Hela could feel her power slowly draining as the golden city was scattered to the farthest reaches of the cosmos. Alone, she thought. But she was not.

---

"Sire, I have found something in the wreckage," Ebony Maw stated while bowing low as his master entered the bridge of the Sanctuary II. The footsteps of the Mad Titan thundered slowly as he approached the window. His armor rattled and clanked with each step, and the plates of the gilded gauntlet on his left hand clicked against each other as he closed his fist.

"Is it the Tesseract?" Thanos asked, his eyes affixed on space.

"It does not appear to be, but it is extremely powerful," Maw said.

Thanos considered his next move. His quest had begun. He did not have time nor attention to spare for anything other than the Infinity Stones. But he knew that the Maw knew this as well, and would not risk his own life to distract him if he did not think it worthwhile.

"Show me," Thanos said.

---

As Hela watched her home fall around her, she spotted something large moving toward her. A ship, she thought. I know that ship. Hela stood to her feet as Sanctuary II parted the detritus and debris to meet her. She thought the ship would pass beneath her rock, but it stopped only a few feet away from it so that she was down at the entirety of the ship. A porthole opened on the top of the ship, close to her, and Thanos, the Mad Titan, arose on a platform to be eye level with Hela. A purple glow emanated from a gemstone on his gauntlet, most likely to keep him from suffocating, Hela presumed.

Thanos stood tall, meeting her gaze. He removed his helmet as shattered fractals of the once great Bifrost Bridge drifted all around them, reflecting the light of the stars in a prismatic and celestial glow. The treasury of Asgard was spent in space; mangled and destroyed clumps of gold entwined themselves with the crystalline majesty, which provided a proper backdrop for a meeting between a Titan and a goddess.

"Hela, Firstborn Daughter of Odin, Goddess of Death" Thanos said with a respectfulness that could easily be mistaken for tenderness. He stared at her, beautiful and godlike, even in ruin.

"Thanos, the Mad Titan, so they call you," Hela replied with powerful stateliness. "I have heard many stories about you from my father's conquering days."