It’s a lovely day by the ocean, with the sky sprawling above them. Strange is quiet for a long moment, contemplative as he takes in those words and everything that they imply.

“This is different,” he finally says, still thoughtful. “Your war, I mean. The one I was in lasted, oh, a day. I went to space and died and came back and fought again, but it was still mostly a two-battle affair. A big blowout with… hundreds, absolutely hundreds of soldiers and mages and gods coming to help. Not this— years-long desperate guerrilla thing.”

He doesn’t have experience with the latter. And it’s been easy to be frivolous as he always is — that innate instinct to undercut everything with humour, sarcasm — but then every so often he comes up short with a chilling reminder of how serious the situation is. How harried. How very long these people have been in these particular trenches, long before Stephen Strange arrived on the scene. He wants to joke, but this thoughtful turn to his mood has brought seriousness along with it, piercing his usual innocent curiosity.

“Alright. Since you seem to be extraordinarily well-informed here, tell me the truth. How is the war going? Is it in a holding pattern? Occasional victories? Mostly losses?”

What, in short and in god’s name, has he signed up for? Been conscripted for, after the universe dragged him here?