“You don’t have to worry, champion,” Skotos murmurs, their voice like the morning mists. “Beware humility; it is a vice. You do not need to hold back for their sake, noble one. If you fear reprisal, this one will swear to your provocation. If you fear endangering one in your care, this one will vanish and not be seen by them again. Show them your might, blessed of Athena.” Still, the cultist nods their saffron-shrouded head. An order is an order.

And perhaps, just maybe, they might still want to see Alexa toss around some rogues and scoundrels with those perfect, chiseled arms. To fight with fist and improvised weapon against enemies bearing weapons more threat and accessory than danger. These are the Endless Azure Skies, after all; getting in fights along the grand streets, scuffling with villains, and discovering the thread that leads one to an exciting story is the sort of thing that happens [i]all the time[/i] here.

And Skotos is not allowed to take part. It is not Skotos’s place to wrestle again, to sharply rap knuckles against the street so that weapons go clattering uselessly to the ground, to pull carpets from clotheslines and toss them over an assailant’s head, to sweep ankles and crack jaws and dangle thugs over a drop until they admit what foul business they were sent on by some scheming vizier or wicked noblewoman. Therefore, Skotos’s only hope of being, in some small part, witness to that story? It is the hope that brave, strong, patient, fearsome, kind Alexa will protect them and be the heroine of that story instead.

Not that Skotos’s hopes are of any value. Not that they deserve to be any part of that thriller. Not that they may expect Alexa to do so for them. Not that they may even use the seal on one gloved hand without Redana’s permission. They are a servant, and Alexa’s will is to be their will. As she says, so shall they do, and their wishes are completely immaterial. This is what it means to be penitent.