A/N: Filler. I missed writing this, and I have another chapter coming up that's way more proactive.
Was it a dream or a nightmare?
Ego had pushed her to walk over the rose-colored terrain on wobbling legs. The legs were the hardest part of her growing anatomy that she was forced to get used to. As a larva, she had had nothing more to do than sit in stasis and soak up nutrients and sunlight from one safe spot. Now, as soon as she observed the world outside of her cocoon, she was forced to interact with it.
It doesn't matter if it overwhelms her, for her purpose is no longer to ingest what is good for her. Ego is now the center of her world - her world is Ego.
He was muttering to himself while he encouraged her to walk, to run, to sprint over the land that he'd created.
"Your mother was fast." He was smiling, but in a mean way. "Almost couldn't catch her. Lucky for her, playing hard to get always works."
Mantis hops from one foot to the other. "Mother? I have a mother?"
He looked at her disdainfully. "Had, Mantis. You had a mother. She died before you hatched, and left us would be teaching you this if she were still around, not me."
"I had a mother." She pieces together. "Will I be a mother?"
His frown seemed to magnify. "You're not meant for that. No one will want you."
Mantis nodded, then burst into tears.
She was lying in the dirt desert, feeling hard, ivory fangs sinking into the flesh of her ankle. Death had always seemed distant before then. Inevitable and close, but not imaginable.
No one would come for her, not Ego or Peter or a faceless woman in green or brown eyes gleaming from the shadows of a cavernous space.
Mantis had looked at herself in the washroom mirror and flushed upon the reveal of Gamora's handiwork that night. It had taken some thinking, for Mantis had no true internal measure of what was aesthetically appealing on others. She knew she was ugly, but Mantis had considered at her reflection for a long moment and had almost convinced herself that… maybe she wasn't as hideous as Drax made her out to be.
Not that being ugly was a bad thing. No, she'd learned that it was quite a practical defense when it came to being deceived.
Even if, when she heard it, Mantis's mood fell just the slightest bit each time.
So, she tried very hard to keep the braid intact. And it quickly became an annoying practice. Something so simple like styling one's hair shouldn't have made her want to scream as much as she did.
Aside from the few comments Drax had made about how 'not allowing her face to be hidden by her hair was a terrible idea' and the unidentifiable look on Rocket's face before he scoffed - Mantis liked her new look. She liked it so much that she became determined to learn how to do it by herself until she was almost as good as Gamora.
And so that she wasn't left alone with her troublesome dreams in the day or night.
Xandar was closer than she'd first believed.
It couldn't have been more than 7 days since the cyber bite incident. Although she'd somewhat neglected the wound during the week, Mantis's injury was healing with time and distant care.
Mantis had taken in the sight of the approaching blue sphere of a planet with awe. She'd been dragged out of bed by (a still careful) Peter moments before, politely listening to him babble about how she had to see it. That was, despite her being almost unable to comprehend words in her sleep-addled state.
When she was actually presented with the visage of it nearing them, Mantis realized that words didn't quite do it justice. Even from so far away, Xandar was so clear and astonishingly blue. If there were any pollutants in the atmosphere to cycle around the planet, like so many others, Mantis couldn't see them.
It made her ponder how they could possibly do it. But she was the only one of course, having never been so far away from her father's corner of the galaxy like the guardians at her side.
Unbeknownst to her, Rocket did a double-take when she appeared. Briefly, his eyes darted toward her hair, messy but still braided from nights before. She hadn't had time to fix it, or even think about it then. Jet black and green tresses stuck up all around the crown of her head as she stood entranced.
"Mantis?" Peter jumped the last few steps from the Quadrant and landed with unusual grace.
"Welcome to Xandar."
The planet, so clean and pretty, was amassed with energetic beings, milling around and mingling with one another in a careless way that Mantis found fascinating. She saw couples striding across silver bridges and families emerging from hollowed out dwellings full of goods - 'shops'. Every place you looked, there was movement, chattering, and laughter and Mantis had stars in her eyes.
It was such a far cry from the planets that she and the guardians had traveled to since Ego. Mantis had seen almost nothing but people in peril, with no time to dilly-dally or have fun, and seeing it now was a refreshing change - i.e. they didn't need to make their own fun at the expense of their missions.
Children ran around giggling and openly begging for this and that. It caught her attention when a boy with sandy hair and delicate pink skin stopped in front of a window display. He would need to back away to get a semi-full view of the mock Nova ship due to being so short. He should have, instead of pressing his face against the projection that separated the store from the outside.
A woman with the same sandy hair quickly approached the little boy, and Mantis felt worry bite at her nerves. She didn't need to worry at all, however, as the moment the mother was near enough to her kid, she scooped up the pink boy and sat him on her shoulders to give him a better look.
"Hey!"
Mantis pivoted around around a bout of silence, and her gaze landed on Rocket 15-feet away. He glared at her while shouldering a random pedestrian. "Keep up, lady! We don't have time to drag you around all day!"
Anxiousness returned and Mantis was quick to step up to her teammate. She felt slightly sick as she upturned the mechanic's verbal sting, and tried not to hobble too much as she limped with her still-lame leg.
Gamora was the one that slowed to allow Mantis to fall into step with her. The assassin shook her head and clicked her tongue while they walked the strip.
"We'll stop by the mall again, after we're done." She said kindly. "You'll get to see it all, I promise."
A/N: Ah, the wonders of childhood trauma and fearing that children will experience the abuse that you experienced when you were a kid. I hate this, but the next part is going to be better I hope.