"Take it off."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm blind, not deaf, and I can [i]hear[/i] the screams, take it--"

The blindfold whips off, blinding light sears into her eyes, and [i]"Put it back on"[/i] dies on her lips, unspoken

She's going to see this tonight, she knows. In the quiet hours, when the ship sleeps, with only the dull rumble of the engine for company, these faces will be branded across her mind as brightly as right now.

It's unholy. Obscene. She's seen battlefields strewn with the dead, counted corpses, relied on the fugue of post-battle exhaustion to keep her from recognizing which were hers. But they always--[i]always[/i]--got tended to. They burned, or were buried, or were committed to Poseidon, but always, Hades claimed them. 

A hundred thousand eyes pierce her. She does not know them, but everywhere, sightless eyes stare at her, accuse her. She did not do this, did not plant the seeds, she does not [i]know[/i] you, stop [i]looking at her--[/i]

She can feel the aide's nervous gaze, even without looking. Feel her watching her, getting quietly more tense, watching her freeze. Damn you! Damn you for listening to her!

And damn her own eyes, for serving her! Because she had the blindfold removed for a reason! Everywhere, screams, chaos! The red glow of Ares approaching! Disaster, and only--

A whiff of cigar smoke lingers in the air. Acrid. Piercing. Sinus-clearing in its intensity. She staggers, and stares again. 

Everywhere she looks, the unburied, the corrupted, the [i]defiled![/i] Stolen from life, stolen from death! Stolen from Hades and their quiet rest! The pitiful dead, victims as much as any of them! 

They stare at her, yes! Pleading! Begging! Give us rest! Lay us down, free us from these shells, say the rites of Hades!

She takes one step, then a second, and then she's running, bounding and galloping across the desert to lead her troops. Saving the tides is hopeless--useful only as a battering ram, and now facing a wall too big to clear, but there are lives to save. Eyes on the Kaeri--see how they move, where they'll strike. They're against the anvil, and only avoiding the hammer's blows will save them.

Dimly, she's aware that she's singing. An old tune, from a sergeant who was old even before she was shaped. A hymn, a dirge, that beats with each thunderous footfall, to the god of the Dead. 

Let her see this right, Hades. She does not know the dead, but this atrocity cannot stand. Only let them live, Hades, and all of these shall be given the peace they have not known for centuries.