[b]Alexa![/b]

Redana laughs. It’s not an elegant laugh; it’s a snorting giggle with an edge of being completely overwhelmed. An “I am blitzed out” laugh. When she looks up at you, you get the sense that she is not looking at but through you.

“You... are a big virgin,” she says, eloquently. “Isn’t love a battlefield?” Redana, what? She pats your, um. Pectorals. “It’s raining cards,” she adds, going boneless and slithering her way out of your arms. She does a funny little hop-skip, still avoiding too much pressure on her leg as she nimbly gets out of reach. “And Bella had a shining spear, and Aphrodite shot me, and there was an eye of skulls. No. An skull of eyes. I think we’re being watched.”

And then she looks up at the stands. She looks, and looks, and looks.

“Yep!” She nods her head, satisfied. “There it is!” When she turns back to you, the sun peeks through the oppressive clouds for just a moment, just a moment, her hair flaring into a golden halo. “Let’s go say hello! Even if we have to fight, you’re here[1]!”

And she proceeds forward towards the stands, but at a much more catchable speed.

***

[1]: an ambiguous statement. Is she talking to you, Alexa, her bodyguard, in the flush and afterglow of a vision of Olympus above, beyond? Or is she speaking to your mother, whose face you share?