Nine - Space
Across the Galaxy - Space
2023
Envy had always felt left out.
No, not only that - she had always been left out.
She had never really fit in, not until recently, with her sisters. Her sisters. It made her chuckle to think about them that way, as she had not felt that way in the beginning. They were always opponents, opposition even in the same army. But all that had changed now. Sisters. She liked that. It was like she really, truly belonged to something.
But now, all that was long gone, and here she was, carrying out missions for a team of heroes on Terra. Now, she felt left out again. She didn't belong here.
In the beginning, early on, she tended to blame Gamora and Nebula when she felt left out - which was most often, if not always - but in reality, it wasn't entirely their fault. Not fully. She could blame them somewhat, but it wasn't all their doing - they had all only been warriors fighting to survive.
For lack of a better word, perhaps coincidentally, she felt envious. Envious Envy. But to be honest, in the beginning, Envy hadn't ever really made much of an effort herself.
She had liked her superior status among Thanos's children. She was a prized warrior, but no better than Gamora or even Nebula. And yet, she had always stood out, and Thanos had always favourited her.
But favourited her in a different way than Gamora. He would always refer to the Zen-Whoberi woman as 'my favourite daughter', so it wasn't like it was any secret to the rest of them, or to anyone else.
Thanos had always been good at pitting his children against each other, always fighting for his attention, always fighting to be the best in his eyes.
But while Gamora and Nebula had been with Thanos since they were children, Envy hadn't arrived until they were older. Thanos had taken a keen interest in her combat skills, adopting her as his personal guard. She was always by his side, like his prized weapon.
Gamora had always been the favourite daughter - that much had always been clear, and had been perfectly clear right from the start. Thanos saw potential in her early on. And Nebula had had the misfortune of never being seen as being good enough, and had suffered greatly for it. Envy was constantly pitted between them, caught in the middle of their fights, sometimes forced to break them up. She never liked taking sides. She cared about both sisters equally, despite what they may think. Nebula would always suspect people of playing favourites, but that wasn't difficult to understand due to her long standing situation.
She was a weapon. Perhaps this was why she never felt much connection to her 'sisters'. They were always separate from Thanos's other children as well, Ebony, Corvus, Cull, and Proxima. But she was different still.
Eventually, like her sisters, inspired by them, she broke away from her dark ties. They inspired her that there could be more to her life than just being an assassin, a weapon. Eventually, the warrior and conqueror of space turned protector of space and the universe, using the skills she had gained over the years as a combatant.
So when she learned that Thanos had murdered her sister in exchange for one of the Stones - the Soul Stone on Vormir, a soul for a soul - it felt as though a piece of her had been torn away. Only recently had the sisters really bonded, bonded over their mistreatment and having been raised to be nothing but assassins and warriors, only just recently had they become close, had really become sisters. For once, even Envy didn't feel all that left out, she felt accepted, one of the trio. All that progress, only for it to crumble. Only for one of them to be forcibly ripped away.
Still, although having grown closer, there was still something that set the sisters apart. Envy never liked it when Gamora and Nebula spoke of their mother, something they shared. True to her name, perhaps, it made her envious.
Her sisters knew something she didn't - she didn't know that Gamora had kept a very important secret and had taken it with her to the grave. As she had arrived following Lady Infinity's demise, she didn't know that she bared a striking resemblance to the late Stone Keeper, which intrigued everyone, especially Thanos. She felt betrayed, like they had kept something hidden from her for so long, like everyone knew something except for her. She felt like an outsider again because of it.
But, eventually, she would know, she would understand. Eventually, all would be revealed. To her, and to everyone else.
Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :)
