[b]Dolce![/b]

Alexa wishes she still had arms. They were tremendously useful, you know. Could do all kinds of great things with them. For instance, right now, they'd let her reach out and hold Dolce close. Let him sit in her arms, let her be an anchor of stability. She could sit there, hold him tight, block out every outside worry, let her squeeze him until he can't feel anything but how precious he is, instead of just sitting here like a lump.

Still, she does her best to scooch closer, as if just by being there, she could banish the demons.

"Do you know, I did the same thing? Any time I hurt someone, I did my best to learn about them. To fix them in my memory. If I could just remember them hard enough, if I knew them well enough, it would be like they… like they hadn't died."

She hadn't been fast enough. How many people had she never been able to learn about, afterwards? How long was her list?

How long was Nero's?

"The fact that you're trying to remember them says a lot about you, Dolce. You care, You care so much. But--

"Look at me, Dolce. Please, this is important.

"You aren't responsible for remembering them all, Dolce. You just had the grief of a god--the pain of watching a galaxy slaughtered--shoved through your heart like a flaming lance. Sitting and stewing in that agony isn't helpful or healthy. You won't bring them back, and you'll burn yourself out trying. Not being able to remember them all doesn't make you a horrible person. It makes you a person, mortal, normal. It makes you a better person than I am.

"And more than that, it makes you one of maybe five people in the galaxy I trust without reservation."

She stares at the piece of paper with its one name and sighs. There's a lot of tension in that one question mark.

"I wish I had an easy answer for what to do with Bella, Dolce. She's hurt all of us, but you and Vasilia most of all. If it were [i]my[/i] wife that came back from a party beaten half to death, I'd have no qualms dumping her on the nearest planet for good but…"

She sighs again.

"Back on Tellus… I was… I lived too much inside my head to really become anybody's best friend. Too withdrawn, too worried I'd hurt or get hurt, to allow myself to get attached. But Mynx and Redana and Bella… It would mean a lot to them, I think, if there were a way for all of them to come out of this in one piece."

She stares at the ground before admitting, "It'd mean a lot to me, too."

Alexa's silent for a minute before huffing to herself. Look at her. Trying to help and just giving him more things to think about.

"I trust you, Dolce. I can't tell you how to solve this problem, but… you'll find the answer, I know it."

[b]Vasilia![/b]

Alexa doesn't laugh, but one corner of her mouth quirks up. "No, no it's not. If he were here, he'd probably start with ordering me to kill enough of the Alcedi that the rest fall in line out of fear, and then close enough of the loopholes in his commands that I couldn't 'rescue' him ever again."

And those really are the stakes, aren't they? Saying it's life or death makes it seem so dramatic, but…

She stares at the blur of color out the window. 

A lifetime of servitude, or a lifetime of exploration and self determination.

"I've… It feels weird to realize that if this works, I can actually [i]have[/i] a future. I have surpassed what my father intended for me and… now I'm off the rails, in uncharted territory."

And here, she does laugh, and leans companionably against Vasilia. 

"Good feeling but… still weird."

[b]Redana![/b]

Alexa grins as she watches Ti'jm.

The young artist hasn't stopped dancing ever since she got back with Redana's response, and keeps borrowing the letter to show it off to one friend or another. Beautiful! Beautiful, the princess said! She's [i]jealous,[/i] the princess said! Oh, she's gonna start working on another one right away and [i]really[/i] knock her socks off!

And Redana'd even had time to find a blindfold. Probably best not to test the commands in so lethal a way, but…. She misses her too. 

Ordering to ignore orders. What a simple idea. Why didn't she think of that? It's such a silly concept, and she's been so worried about killing Redana, that she hadn't even let it cross her mind. No wonder Molech had wanted her to kill Redana and steal the seal--it'd remove one weakness in her programming.

Maybe it'd be worth it after all fo risk it.