A dozen hands hold Redana up, a microcosm of her entire life. The servitors didn't even let her boots touch the floor. That's what it means to be human, let alone the imperial princess. And she does not notice. She is not perfect, after all, and a deep part of her is [i]used[/i] to servitors acting as her stagehands, and besides-- she is very distracted with indignation.

"Why are you so [i]cruel?[/i]"

Her face is red as the Alced help her upright, smooth as gyroscopes. Click, click go her boots on the stone. But she's only got eyes for Hera, who has hundreds upon hundreds to shine back. Her voice wobbles dangerously. "I get that you don't like [i]me[/i]. I'll never stop trying to do something right by you, but we both know you're never going to be satisfied. I [i]get[/i] it. But--"

And that's when it finally hits her. She was so busy getting upset that it took the meaning of those words a minute to get an audience with her reason. Hera [i]isn't[/i] doing this. Oh. Oh dear. Her blush is hitting nuclear levels. "Oh," she says, and looks down at Hera's perfect boots. They're the best boots in the whole world. Supple calf leather, white as snow. "I'm sorry for speaking without thinking, stepmother," she says, and bows her head even though it makes her want to implode. "Thank you for telling me what's going on. I... thank you." Her ears are spent heat sinks. Her eyes throb. And Hera, beautiful Hera, coldly cruel Hera, jealous Hera of the peacocks, basks in her stepdaughter's thoughtless outburst and her shame before the Alced.

She has an idea, now. It's audacious. Ridiculous. Perfect. But she cannot turn around. Hera's very presence will not allow her to pretend that her stepmother isn't here. And Hera will only leave when she feels that she cannot shame Redana any further. And Redana was just so angry, and for a moment she thought her stepmother was the one doing this because she was [i]here[/i] and she was doing the [i]villainous speech[/i] and she was doing this [i]just[/i] to spite her stepdaughter, but she got it all backwards and wrong and any moment now Mom is going to step out and thank Hera for her cooperation and then begin asking Dany what she did wrong, pointing out her mistakes with the confidence of someone who saved the entire universe with just her foresight and cunning and charisma, and telling Dany that she's going to be taking four more credits of Theological Astrapolitics over the next semester, and once she's had the [i]right[/i] course work then she'll be able to figure it out on her own, because there's no way that the daughter of Nero Claudius and Zeus herself isn't a genius just like her mother. There's no way at all. She can't be anything else.

"I'm sorry," Redana says one more time, but does not specify whether it's for snapping at her oh-so-generous stepmother or for being born[1].

***

[1]: statistically speaking, if we take all the apologies that Redana has made to Hera over the course of her life and average them up, it's most likely to be the latter.