It's hard to get rid of stress when you don't have a body, do you know that?

[i]Shrrrk. Hssss[/i].

In times of old--say, five minutes ago--it would have been so easy. Physical activity, that's the ticket! Take a jog around the ship. Feel the ground strip away before you. Pound the ground, step after step, devouring the earth until stress and stressors are far away. Or maybe something in the kitchen! Try a new recipe, something out there, where there's no space in the brain for anything but figuring out how to do this. Put the stress in a limb--let it bounce, tap, twitch, anything to get the energy of the body. Movement, motion, distractions. None of which are options now.

[i]Shrrrk. Hssss[/i].

What did she used to do, back when any kind of motion would get her punished? Find a corner of her head, right? Get lost in a fantasy, leave the mouth and brain on autopilot, trust that Molech wouldn't want to hear from her anyway, so who cared if she spent the next few hours daydreaming? 

Hah. If she were in a situation where she could daydream, she wouldn't have to stare at Hades digging, and feel vaguely guilty about wanting him to dig faster.

[i]Shrrrk. Hssss[/i].

Which makes [i]no godsdamn sense.[/i] He has been nothing but kind and helpful.

None of which means she wants to try stress relief technique number 3: talking about it. 

Because she's painfully aware that it's his daughter on the line. He's being incredibly polite about not mentioning how she didn't run to save [i]Isty[/i] as soon as she was able. Hasn't brought up the way that Alexa has been so inside her own head that she's been…

Well, kind of a shit girlfriend. And maybe, probably, not even that soon.

But she'll be damned if she lets Isty die, no matter what. So as soon as the lid is pried off the coffin, she's leaning forward as far as her limited neck will allow, leaning forward until she pitches down the hillock of earth and into the coffin. 

"Beljani. Been a--stop screaming, it's just me--been a while. I need a huge favor from you. You hate Sagakhan. We do too. Help save my girlfriend now, please. I don't have a whole lot to offer right now, but if we survive this, I'll be in your debt."