Skotos is a prop.

They must be. If they had interiority, then they would be overwhelmed with the revelation that Alexa has lost the favor of Athena, whose face she wears. If they were a person, if they had a relationship with Alexa, it would force them to reevaluate a past that has been severed from them like a lizard’s tail. How long, they would ask themselves. Then: why would Athena turn her face away from her champion?

It would force them to admit that they are not Alexa’s friend. Come to think of it, they aren’t anyone’s friend. Skotos is unmoored from the web of interconnections that makes up the universe, the thrumming strings of Aphrodite’s lute. A shadow is nothing more than a lacunae that passes briefly over the world.

Redana Claudius does not have friends, for she is too important; she has advisors, trusted companions, or loyal followers. Skotos does not have friends, for they are too unimportant; a rounding error, a loose cable, a rusting panel in a flooded corridor. They have no right to offer Alexa advice, to seek the attention of the philosophers, to be involved in a daring battle, a handicapped hero against two rogues juggling a useless cultist. They sink into themselves with a convulsive shudder, resigned to their role. Even in this sort of story, Skotos deserves to be nothing more than a prop. So they shall be. Or would be, perhaps, if not for—

Who here recognizes Skotos as a shade, a formless echo bereft of its proper place in the universe? How do they see this?