[war doesn't, he says, with an exhaustion that gamora knows all too well, because it's the kind that's now sitting in her. the kind, too, that could easily creep in under the horror that had ensued at what thor had told them regarding what had happened to his people, the kind that had told her they'd already lost well before they'd set foot on knowhere, even though she'd had to try something.

oracles. infinity stones. whatever name happens to be assigned, whatever powers anything might be capable of, it's all the same in the end, isn't it?

it's all the same — and it's endless. he doesn't need to spell that out for her at all.

still, the details of what he's telling her are about the most useful of anything she's heard since arriving here, so she shoves her own thoughts to the side to listen. to process and analyze.

and eventually:]

We could be fighting for countless of these things, and we wouldn't know it. [after her own sweep of the caverns, her eyes are back on him, in turn. her arms, now free, fold across her chest.] And we don't know what the winning side will really intend to do with the power they gain. Or has there been anything more solid than just a promise?

[everyone believes they're fighting for some better universe. thanos, as unhinged and completely misguided as he is, has believed it the entire time she's known him, wholeheartedly — enough to kill for it, without remorse. who's to say that zenith isn't the same? that meridian isn't the same?

it's one thing to say pretty words, to fill minds with pretty dreams. it's another to genuinely mean all of it, and for innocents to not become collateral along the way.]