The village is quiet, and remains quiet as half its population disintegrates into silent puffs of dust in their beds. All along the scattering of crudely built huts that straggles away from the coast along the bank of a small smooth-flowing river, no one and nothing stirs—except, after a few seconds, a broad stream of spilled water that flows out under the door of one of the better-looking huts and drains away down the riverbank, glittering in the light of the lamppost.

A weariness hangs heavy upon Thanos' titanic frame.

He holds his right fist tight to his chest, applying pressure to the gaping wound there.

Given time, he'll mend. He always has. Even before he was a savior, even before he was a conqueror or a visionary, Thanos had always been a survivor.

He turns his back on the quiet village, takes a few unsteady steps out towards the coastline and sniffs the briny air. Beyond the churning waves, he can see a distant glow along the horizon.

In a slow, carefully measured motion Thanos kneels down in the wet sand and then settles into a sitting position.

When he's found a comfortable position, he fixes his gaze straight ahead. Out over the ocean.

"Sunrise." Thanos slows his breathing and quiets his mind. "This Universe owes me a Sunrise."

The glow brightens gradually. A golden sun rises over the waves.

As the first rays of the morning sun touch the roofs of the huts, villagers begin to emerge; either human, or indistinguishable from humans at a casual glance. They are confused and alarmed by their missing friends and relatives, but amid the gathering crowd under the lamppost, someone finds the time to look to the sea and notice the giant bleeding alien. A young woman with dark hair hurries down the beach toward him, calling out nervously, "Are you all right?"

Are you alright?

It's a fair question.

Did he accomplish his goal? Yes, to all indications he did.

What did it cost him? Everything.

He's been weighing them against each other in his head, over and over again since collapsing on this beach.

On the one hand: Gamora. His other children. His ships and armies.

On the other hand: the destiny of the universe.

Fair trade. How could it not be?

Thanos draws a long breach. Composes himself, hardens his features.

These people, they're scared. Understandably. How could they possibly comprehend what has just transpired?

If he falters he could panic them further, but if he keeps it together perhaps he can help set this tiny corner of this tiny planet a little better at ease.

Are you alright?

"I am well." He speaks the words with conviction. "As you too shall be."

Carefully, Thanos props himself up on his good arm and turns himself to face the young woman from the village. His muscles protest the renewed movement, but he doesn't let himself wince or convulse.

She's probably now staring at his gaping wounds.

"This is a day of great pains, little one. But the pain will pass, and a bounteous future awaits."

As he speaks, her face charts a course from concern to confusion, making a brief detour into alarm when he turns, and settles at last on a deepening suspicion. Nevertheless, the next thing she says is:

"If you need a healer, the nearest city is Southport, a ways up the coast. We'll be sending a boat as soon as my mother comes back. I'm not sure they'll have anyone willing to make the trip back here for you, but you could go along if you're up to traveling."

"Healing. Yes, I could use some."

Thanos rises ponderously to his full height, towering over the small humanoid he's speaking to and the townsfolk behind her. He regards his interlocutor thoughtfully. She doesn't look too frightened anymore, at least. That's good. Thanos has strong preferences about fear: everyone who stands as an obstacle to his will ought to be utterly terrified, everyone who doesn't ought not to be.

And this frail creature has made herself helpful.

"Thank you." Thanos nods when she mentions the boat. "I'll do that."

She nods acknowledgment, and turns back to rejoin her fellow villagers. They're organizing, somewhat shakily, to prepare the expedition she mentioned; several people move down the beach to ready a boat, and the young woman steps over the still-damp threshold of that one hut to retrieve a bundle of cloth, with which she goes to stand at the place where the river meets the sea, peering out across the waves.

A few minutes go by. Preparations continue. The young woman seems increasingly worried by the continued absence of whatever she's looking for.

Then an unusual peak begins to form on an incoming wave: at first just a shapeless column of water, it gains detail as it glides up the shore toward the young woman, until it's a perfect facsimile of a much older woman, made of seawater and standing unsupported on the sand. The young woman unfolds the bundle of cloth into a dress, which she helps arrange around the sea-crone's watery form; then the seawater ripples and solidifies into something outwardly indistinguishable from ordinary flesh.

"I was starting to think you'd disappeared too," the young woman tells her, pulling her into a quick hug. "Are you all right? What happened? Half the village vanished overnight, you included!"

The older woman shakes her head. "I don't know. I'll take you to Southport, but after that I'm heading straight on to Skygarden."

This news alarms her daughter even more than the gaping wound on Thanos's chest. "You think it's that serious?"

"It's hard to imagine what could be more serious." She glances at Thanos. "Who's the blue fellow?"

"I didn't ask his name. He said he was all right, and accepted a place on the boat to Southport when I offered."

"Mm," says the old woman, frowning slightly. Her daughter nods.

This crone. She vanished, but returned?

Hmm. It's possible. The cosmic realignment had not taken place under ideal circumstances, Thanos had acted more hastily than even he would have liked and it's possible he might've made some small mistake when he unleashed the infinity stones' ultimate power.

His actions should have laid low mortals and gods alike. A flip of a coin. Perfect balance.

But maybe the young one's mistaken, and the older one was not among the half culled. Perhaps it's all just a coincidence. Yes. That would be better. Thanos has strong preferences about fairness: if it turns out he misaligned the infinity stones somehow yesterday--and that as a result the culling has disproportionately snuffed out the weak while being shrugged off by the strong--then, well, that wouldn't sit right with him at all.

Yes. Surely just a coincidence.

The young one mentions her lack-of-knowing-his-name.

"Thanos," he says.

"And I am Viasarae," says the sea-woman. "Let's go to Southport."

Viasarae and her daughter and two other villagers get on the boat. It's a big enough boat that there is still plenty of room for Thanos; Viasarae beckons to him.

Thanos lumbers aboard, doing the best he can not to rock the vessel with his weight.

He doesn't say or do anything else for a while unless directly prompted.

He isn't sure what to do.

He's spent his whole life, since the destruction of his homeworld, planning for a single moment.

That moment occurred.

He saved the universe. He got his sunrise.

What next?

The boat slides out into the sea, and... moves unsupported along a smooth path carved through the waves as though by the hand of a god. The sail stays furled; at these speeds it would only slow them down.

Southport, when they reach it after ten minutes or so of high-speed magic boating, is buzzing like a dropped beehive. It might have been a pleasant preindustrial seaside town not long ago, but right now there are buildings on fire, people running around screaming, and a couple of slowly sinking shipwrecks clogging the harbour.

Viasarae contemplates this picture, sighs, glances at Thanos with a mild, fleeting look of disappointment or disapproval, and steps out of the boat onto the swell of a wave. The boat continues toward the dock without her; assorted debris sweeps itself out of the way. The three villagers tie the boat up at the dock while Viasarae takes a minute to clear the harbour and then rides a column of water out of the ocean and into the city, headed for the nearest fire. Townsfolk scatter out of her way.

Ah. It's a nostalgic sight, in some ways.

Before the stones were within his reach, Thanos brought salvation to a number of worlds in particular bad need of such--sites of squalor and starvation, now set right for hundreds of prosperous generations.

In some ways, it's more elegant this time.

No leviathans, no Chitauri, no scything beams of scorching energy.

Just brisk, transitory chaos. A chaos that he knows will, in time, give rise  to a better order than what came before.

Thanos disembarks from the boat, right forearm still clutched tight over his shattered ribcage.

The young one said her people had healing available. He doesn't know precisely what that means on this particular planet, but it's unlikely that even primitive medicine could make his condition worse right now.

The reality gem glows softly at his side, like a faint ember in a burnt-out log. With its powers still exhausted, after the great work he wrought with it and its sibling the day before, he'll need fend for himself here for at least a little while.

No trouble. Before he had his ships and armies and cosmic artifacts, Thanos got by just fine ranging through the cosmos under his own power.

This is just that all over again.

One foot in front of the other.

While her mother puts out fires with large-scale hydrokinesis, Viasarae's daughter helps to sort out the chaos at the docks. As soon as she's got things in a manageable state, she sends one of the locals to find a healer. "I don't think it's urgent but it certainly looks uncomfortable," she says, with a backward glance at Thanos. "Don't interrupt anything lifesaving, but bring someone if you can."

In the distance, Viasarae atop her column of water is dousing the last fire and retreating toward the harbour, where she dives underwater and vanishes from sight. The water-column collapses without her.

He likes this little one. Compassionate, but with a good sense of how to prioritize others' needs.

She's completely correct that his condition isn't urgent. He waits patiently at the edge of the docks, keeping out of the way of the frantic smaller creatures rushing back and forth from the waterside.

Thanos surveys the scene more closely, trying to pick out a spot where his prodigious strength could be put to good use.

Provided these 'healers' the young woman speaks of can patch him up adequately to do so, Thanos would like very much to make himself useful.

He's always enjoyed working with his hands.

There are a few non-urgent tasks in sight that could use the help of a giant - a street blocked by a toppled wagon, a section of dock closed off by fallen lumber - currently being deprioritized in favour of things the townsfolk can handle unassisted.

Another couple of minutes brings the local back with a middle-aged woman in dusty, battered clothes.

"Goodness," says this newcomer, craning her neck to look up at Thanos.

"I don't have an explanation either," says Viasarae's daughter. "We found him outside our village, watching the sunrise—can you—"

"Yes, of course," the middle-aged woman says. She squints at Thanos's wound, makes a mildly unsettled noise under her breath, and nods sharply as the torn flesh begins to knit itself neatly back together. "There, that'll get you sorted. On to the next emergency with me." And she turns and strides off back into the city.

"Thank you."

Thanos takes a moment to appraise the healer's handiwork. He's quite impressed--the mending goes more than just skin deep, the burning in his lungs has simmered down and his voice sounds like it ought to again.

"Come with me," he says to Viasarae's daughter as he sets out across the dock. "You seem to have a good sense of which things here need most urgent fixing. Point them out to me."

As he speaks, he clears away the fallen lumber: hefting it up with one arm and slinging it over his shoulder. Without looking back to see whether the young woman is following him, he pivots back and deposits the debris elsewhere--someplace ashore where it doesn't look like a pile of logs will get in the way.

He makes for the toppled wagon next, unless something else gets brought to his attention.

Viasarae's daughter snorts and shakes her head, but follows along. At the wagon, she points out a good place for him to move it to, then solicits a next task from a passerby, who directs them further into the city.

There they find a fire-ravaged inn, half the roof caved in and the remainder blackened by soot, the whole thing damp and smelling of seawater. A pair of locals with a somewhat dented wooden mail carriage and no visible means of propelling it are trying to drag some of the wreckage away; the carriage strains against its harness of scavenged rope, wheels creaking and slipping on the grimy cobbles, entirely failing to move the tangle of wood and metal they've tied to it. They welcome his help.

Thanos appraises for a couple of seconds before moving to intervene. With several of its central support beams burnt halfway through, the inn teeters and creaks under the strain of its own weight. If it gets tugged on the wrong way, or has its mass shifted around wrong, the whole thing could collapse.

The titan grins, and strides carefully into the rubble. If there's one sort of puzzle he's well suited for, it's this: keeping things balanced.

Trigonometric equations play out in his head as he ducks down to put his shoulder to the tangle of debris. He shoves it slowly back, at just the right angle, using the ropes from the carriage as a counterbalance to the force he applies.

The upper floors of the building protest loudly, but do not give way.

"Thank you," says one of the two men with the carriage.

"Is Father back yet?" the other one asks him. He shakes his head.

"Is this the sort of back where you've seen him since this morning—" says Viasarae's daughter, and they both nod emphatically. "Oh good. Do you know anyone with enough Land to shore this up?"

"That's what Father went looking for."

"If I see anyone I'll send them your way," she promises.

Thanos smiles reassuringly at the thankful carriage man, waits for him and the other frailer creatures to get back a safe distance, then backs away himself and lets the debris fully settle.

They say something about a father looking for land. The words don't particularly make sense given present context, but it could just be that his translation symbiote is having trouble with local idioms.

Probably not important.

He strides back out to the roadway and casts his gaze up and down it, scanning the area for further sites of interest.

The air twists itself into a knot, and the knot spreads out into a tall oval with rippling edges, and a man steps through the portal as it's already beginning to close. He's around Thor's height, though with a little less muscle. The sight of his arrival causes both of the local men present to scramble away in fear; one hisses, "Shit! It's the Emperor!"

"Hello," the Emperor says to Thanos. "I have been having a deeply obnoxious morning and I heard you might be able to tell me why."

"I am Thanos. I was cast into this land from somewhere far away."

The titan strides up to the emperor, planting his feet firmly a couple of feet away from where the portal appeared.

"Are you the ruler of this world?"

He looks up at the approaching giant.

"Yes," he says. "Emperor Solekaran. Not especially pleased to meet you. What do you know about all this nonsense?"