"No!"

Thank all the gods that Molech is dead. Just imagine what he'd say if he saw her like this?

Pushing, shoving, biting, breaking away only to be swarmed again by the wall of bodies? Sloppy, lacking technique, undignified. Fit perhaps for peasants, but reflecting poorly not just on her, but on her teacher.

And yet--she can just imagine the downwards pinch to the mouth, gods help her if ever it reached full [i]scowl[/i]--she's still not striking the way she should. Pulling punches, misdirecting strikes. When will you understand, Alexa, that you are a weapon? You kill. It is what you do, it is what you are. You were created for this. I created you for this.

"Aphrodite!"

There's no time, she laments. No time for offerings, no proper ritual. No time to figure out how best to placate him, can't choose her words. She is not above begging, pleading, if only it will be heard.

"I was wrong![/i]" Important. First step. Admit fault.

She recognizes this passageway, and speeds up. There's no [i]time--[/i]

"I believed myself beyond love! Unworthy! Unlovable!"

Music pours from the great hall--the wrong music, improper, mad, whirling, hypnotic, a dirge keyed for revelry.

"But I--you knew! You had to know!"

The mob surges through the great hall, carries Alexa abreast like a wave.

"There was one I--" and here, even now, the word 'loved' is choked, wrung out, demoted, commuted to "--cared for!" It's been two hundred years. He knows. It's safe, even here, in front of the crowd.

The surge deposits her at the dais before the God of love and the mad dancer, One of the bridesmaids straightens out the wrinkles in her dress.

No time!--

She thrusts the letter at Aphrodite. "I beg you," she breathes. "If not forgiveness, reprieve. If, in this letter, there be no love, then…" She shudders, and studies the floor. "Then I am a fool. Then am I a fool who knows naught of love, and more fool me for believing.

"Set me a task, ask of me what you will. I have not earned this, I know but…"

She barely dares to breath.

"If love there be in this letter, then am I still a fool for believing myself past your reach. But a fool who can be taught, and who can hope to rekindle what was."

She can't even bring herself to watch him, too afraid of what she might see.