There are benefits to having a skeleton crew aboard a ship the size of a city. It means that when the metaphorical sergeant comes asking where to find that rat fink bastard who peed in his metaphorical coffee, there's nobody to sell you out. Nobody saying, "oh, she went that way," nobody pointing out the massive crater footsteps, nobody to point to the white gleam of marble in the distance. In a ship this size with a crew this small, it's possible for her to disappear.

Which is good, because disappearing is on Alexa's mind. 

What was she thinking? You never question the orders you're given. That's drilled into every footman's head in basic. You do it, even if it means that you or others die. You certainly never question them in public, in front of subordinates, or shout them down, or assist in their capture. You follow orders, to the letter, the instant they're given. You desert, you don't fight when you're told or--gods preserve you--you fight for the other side, and your death will be slow, agonizing, and public, so that nobody else gets it into their head that what you did was okay.

Start with the engine room, she decides. It's got to be a mess after having Ares run rampant through it, and whatever the Hermetician did to manage to fly the ship through a storm. Plenty of things to set right, which is just the thing. Plenty of heavy things to lift, ways to wear herself out, make her body so tired with the effort that her brain doesn't have enough time to think about it.

Alexa pauses halfway through taking her armor off. She shouldn't get it dirty, she knows. The creation of the Warsage must be perfect in every situation, in every presentation. Perfect means not covered in soot and grime and dust. Perfect means glorious, gleaming, possibly with a sheen of whichever fool dared oppose Molech. Perfect means she should lay it aside, neatly folded, perform her labors as needed, and then take them up again.

And yet, the thought of taking off even a shred of armor at this point is unthinkable. It's not selfish, she tells herself. She hasn't been repaired fully. She's created in the very image of Athena herself. Hiding any of that is itself shameful, but if it's going to be presented, it should be presented in the best way possible. 

Yeah, that's definitely it.

Why isn't Redana doing it? It's not like Alexa can actually hide, she knows. This wandering the ship, desperately hoping not to run across anyone, is pointless. (Which doesn't mean that she didn't also choose the engine room in the probably vain hope that it'd be noisy enough to conceal the noises of stone on metal.) Between the Auspex and the command seal, it should be a simple affair to summon her, order her to pulverize herself, and have done.

And yet, she's able to spend at least an hour simply working herself into a fervor of pounding metal, balancing the massive flow regulators, setting the room right, listening for orders from the bridge until even the sweeping and dusting is done.

Is that it? Is that what she's doing, is letting her stew? Redana knows what she's done, Alexa knows what she's done, they both know what has to happen, and part of the punishment is making her wait for the judgement? Molech's done that in the past, but Alexa genuinely didn't think Redana had that kind of nasty cleverness to her.

(She bites back the thought that Redana doesn't have cleverness to her, nasty or not.)

Although... The thought stews in her mind as she makes her way to the small temple on the starboard side of the ship. The worst has already happened, hasn't it? She's already dead. The Gods alone can save her at this point. Does it really matter whether she's unkind to Redana in her own thoughts? Redana's been plenty unkind to her outside her head, after all.

Gently, Alexa brushes the dust off the statues to the gods. Each alter requires its dedication, its procedures, its prayers and blessings and sanctifications.

But she's also been... Well, let's not beat about the bush. Yes, she kidnapped her. And yes, she's got the command seal. But she at least acts like Alexa's a person, which is more than can be said for her mother. And even with the thoughts running through her head, it never once occurred to her that Redana might strike out against Dolce or Vasilia to get back at her.

(And that lovely thought is almost enough to get her to skip a line in the ode to Poseidon, and forces a gulp and a quick recentering.)

She--she wouldn't do that, surely. Their crew is small enough. Striking against one is to ruin the other. They're safe. Yes. That's. That's good. That's very good. Her two friends aren't in any danger from Redana. 

Almost automatically, her hands right a fallen statuette of Hephaestus and perform the proper apologies.

Strange how much that's enough to calm her down, even in the face of certain demise.