Alexa presses the bundle of sheets against her face, and does her best not to cry.

Which makes no damn sense. There's nothing special about them. They aren't a treasured gift from a friend or the loot of a dangerous battle. There're bedsheets like them in every cabin in the [i]Plousios[/i], and gods know she's got more important things to cry about.

But they're [i]her[/i] bedsheets. Redana had given her the cabin and everything in it. Showed her how the sheets could be ordered to change color, pattern, even plushness.

"How would you like me to set it up?"

"You decide!"

Just like that? No, uh, no pattern in mind? No preference for, say, an emblem or a flag? 

Nothing?

Just. The idea that the sheets, the cabin, everything in it. All for her. For her to do with as she pleased. A private space. Somewhere she could decorate without anybody else's input.

The pile on the bed is almost accusatory in its size. You let yourself trust, Alexa. Now look at what you've done. Now you have all these memories, and every one of them needs a resolution before Molech uses them to learn who to hurt.

And yet, she wishes it were larger. That she hadn't been so hesitant to accumulate them. That she'd spent more time with others in the ship, picked up more memories.

Rusty's bed, at least, is easy. Molech knows about Rusty already, so there's no reason to hide it.

Unless… Maybe it's better Rusty spends time with the Coherents? Murvle certainly spends a lot of time petting her whenever he goes out at poker night, and it would at least put a layer of separation between them…

The recipe notebook is next. Easy enough--she already knows all the drinks recipes from long campaigns' worth of memorization, so in theory, those pages could go. But if she rips out those pages, it'll make the newer pages--battlecrab in sweet potato mash, a delicate tea recipe, and so on--stand out like a freshly-polished diamond in a pile of coal. 

Does Molech know about Ramses? Has he been paying that enough attention? She has to assume he doesn't know, has to treat it like a threat. She can't destroy half of it… 

The kitchens! Of course! That's how you hide something--put it where it won't be noticed. Who'd notice a little scrap notebook of recipes amongst dozens of others?

And… Well, if things go poorly, at least Vasilia will have a chance to try out some more of Colonel Shad's old mixups.

All too soon, the pile is sorted. A reddish lock of hair. A fragment of battlecrab shell. A sketchily put-together plaque. All tied to friends, all representative of possible victims. All selfishly put in a pile to save, or to hide, or to give away. None destroyed, or set alight, or put somewhere forever out of reach.

Soon, all that's left is the letter.

And… well, Molech's known about her for centuries. 

She never does end up changing the bedsheets back to default.