She accepts it gracefully. "You probably don't need telling that you're good, but you are."

Triumphant rumble.

Cull Obsidian lifts Grim up and deposits her outside the pit, then leaps clear of it himself in a single bound.

She gives him a smile, and a nod. "Thank you. Would you mind taking me back to my room now? I can wait if you have other things you want to do first?"

Shakes head. Negatory rumble. Offers hand again.

Steps out into hallway. Barely fits in hallway. Leads way back to bedroom.

She takes the hand, comfortable in his presence in a way she is with so few people, lets him lead her. Feels no need to talk.

Convenient! Cull also feels no need to talk!

They reach the room that Grim's staying in. Cull could not fit through its doorway if he tried.

Cull patiently keeps watch until Grim is back where she's supposed to be, then returns to the gym.

She thanks him again and goes actually eat her dinner. Then she goes back to drawing, no longer people, but ships she's seen. And if she's noting weak points, that's because drawing is more than just a way to pass the time.

Days go by like this: Eat, Sleep, Interrogation, Training, Repeat.

One day, Cull doesn't arrive to take her to the gym. The elderly Chitauri envoy still arrives on time to feed her, but aside from that the residential wing's quiet.

The next day, Gamora calmly explains that she and her siblings were all otherwise occupied--laying siege to a pre-industrialized planet, a siege inflicting a few billion deaths in the course of less than twenty-four hours.

As she recounts the brief details of this one-sided conflict, the green-skinned warrior sounds... sad, distant, listless.

The day after that, she sees Proxima again.

"Father wants to see you. Come. Now."

She rises immediately to follow.

Proxima idles for just a moment, her gaze lingering on the room's contents: the posters, the dolls, its new occupant. She smothers a small mote of sentimentality beneath an ocean of disdain.

Then she turns sharply on her heel and leads the way back to the throne room.

Thanos sits atop the big, stone-wrought throne in the center of the Sanctuary II's underbelly.

The throne does not look particularly comfortable. Its back, which faces the two smaller creatures now entering the chamber, resembles a rough-hewn obelisk moreso than practical furniture.

If Thanos hears Proxima's approaching footsteps, he doesn't acknowledge it.

Grim's footsteps are light and close enough soundless as makes no difference. She's a little intimidated by the throne, but it doesn't really show.

"Father. I brought the prisoner, as instructed."

"Thank you, Proxima. You may go now."

Thanos peers around the side of the throne and beckons to Grim.

She responds immediately to the beckon, approaching, and tilting her head at him in question.

"You've been a model guest, little one."

Thanos leans back, rests his head against the stone and watches Grim approach the front of the dais through partially lowered eyelids. He looks tired, but content.

"My children have asked you a great many questions related to your past, and your answers have already proven valuable to some of our allies."

He beckons again, this time inviting Grim up onto the raised platform where his throne sits.

"But now? I've got a question for you about your future." He waits for her to clamber over the platform's edge before continuing. He wants to look her right in the face as she answers his next inquiry. It's quite blunt. Straight to the point: "What do you want?"

She steps up onto the dais and-

Pauses. Because she's never thought about it.

She glances away. "-to survive?" Which isn't, really, much of an answer at all.

Thanos chuckles softly, leans forward, and rests his elbows on his knees. "Yes. I'd surmised that much, little one."

He reaches for her now, cupping her cheek and pulling her gaze back to meet his. The entire motion takes place very slowly--perhaps he remembers how being touched unexpectedly made her flinch before? Perhaps he's just not in any sort of rush.

"It's okay. I know you're scared. Understandable, but..." He releases her cheek. "I'm not going to hurt you, no matter what you answer. I value truth more than deference."

She doesn't flinch this time, almost seems to lean into the touch, and lets him move her head.

She bites at her lip as he speaks and is silent for a long moment after he finishes speaking.

"I don't know," she admits. "I never thought- I did what was told. And that was- what I expected to do." (What was the use of thinking about something that would never happen?)

A momentary frown passes across Thanos' lips, but he purges it quickly. He doesn't want Grim to think he's upset with her, because he isn't. She has done nothing wrong here.

Thanos considers what Grim has just told him.

He's no stranger to the inner workings of child assassins. He's raised four of them himself, after all. And so when he first looked this girl in the face, as she lay bleeding on the floor of the Sanctuary II's command deck, he'd immediately likened her to the girls currently in his care. Up until today, his mental model for Grim had been "Like Gamora or Proxima, but a little more used to senseless cruelty"

Yet the differences clearly run deeper than that.

"Is that what you want, little one? To do as your told, and nothing else?"

"I don't-" she start, and then stops, pauses, actually thinks. "No. I don't think. I- I like knowing where lines are, and I like objectives. But- I- I don't know any further. I- I would need to- think about it."

"Of course. Take as long as you need."

"I- thank you. That. Might be a while."