"What the... fuck?"

Bella's mouth hangs agape. Unsightly. Impolite. She has to close it. She must. Decorum demands at least this much. But surprise pulls her jaw apart for all she fights to wrench it closed. They knew this much? Their communion with the gods ran this deep? Then they had no use for her to begin with. Why ask? Why..?

Her body is so heavy. It drags her to the ground with the force and surety of a grav-rail assault. Her only act of rebellion is to fall on her side instead of her front. She curls into a ball, ready for death. The heat of her own organs broils her to be this compact; she snaps outward again almost immediately. Clutching, writhing, spine tensed so hard it curves backward, her claws dig into the dirt and she howls.

"S-shadow! Wa, water! Please, anything! It's so hot! Why?! To drag me this far just to! Aaaaah!"

She can feel her skin dry and blister already. Her lips crack painfully and her hands paw weakly at the ground beneath her. The sharpness of her claws is no longer enough to win against the soil with her fingers already this weak. All she can do is twist limply and let weight drop her on her back.

Bella gasps for air under the merciless light of the sun. She looks every way she can manage but nothing of the glittering edifice around her seems designed to block even the first wisp of light. What use have creatures such as these to cool off? What refreshment could they even offer her pitiful, inferior body? Apollo. Artemis. You. Hate her this much?

She cranes her neck from where she lies as her hair tangles and pulls underneath her to look up at the uncrowned king once more. The little puffs of air escaping from her heavy chest are pathetic. She cannot smell anything anymore. She can only taste dry. Can only feel heat. But she can see, and she can hear.

"It's not justice," she moans, "The gods already don't belong to me. I am not hiding Hermes. Nobody, nobody anywhere does. Ask the yellow robes. Ask the gods. They can't tell you. You really wanna know? Then look. Look at me. You'll see..."