Alexa stares at the diagram, and then back at the Hermetic. "… are we not just going to repair my old body?"

There aren't any eyes to be seen in the deep, hooded face, but somehow you can just tell they're rolling.    "You had so many spears and swords shoved through that body that properly filling the holes would make you more gold than stone. At this point, it's simpler, easier, and more effective to build you a new body from scratch than to try to polish out all the dents on the old one."

It makes sense. She should have expected it, maybe. But she'd survived everything else in that body. She'd been stabbed, shot, hacked at more times than she could count. Hell, there was a crater on Barassidar with her name on it.

Maybe that's the point, really. She shouldn't have expected it to last forever, but still, the thought of losing it sends a pang of grief through her.

"So, any changes you want to make before we start to carve?"

"Beg pardon?"

"You've got a chance to rebuild yourself. New body. New shape. New decisions. Never gonna get a better opportunity to remake yourself. So, any changes?"

Alexa stares at the paper and scrunches her lips in thought. "…Can I have a day to think about it?"

***

"And you're sure this is okay? I mean, you all told me how stingy the Hermetics typically are with these things, how much they demand for it normally. It feels like cheating to jump straight to getting everything I want."

There's a burst of sharp laughter in the mess. It seems like every Coherent and Alcedi has shoved themselves around the table, flocking around to see the paper in the center. 

Ramses taps the pencil against the paper. "I don't think anybody here would hold it against you, especially if they have to rebuild you from the ground up. So?"

Alexa purses her lips, and stares at the paper.

"It's funny, you know? I… I didn't really mind many things about my body. The only thing I didn't like, really, was that it always felt like it wasn't really [i]mine.[/i]"

She'd been built after a pattern, after a model. She was defined by being the Pallas Rex, by being the Athena who served the King. Before anything else, she was to evoke awe and be the symbol of Molech's power, that he could even bind the gods to his side.

"But 'Not Athena' isn't much to go on. Tall? Short? Broad?"

For a time, the only sound is the tapping of the pencil and the background of jostling for position.

"I think… No, I know, that I don't want to be a fighter. Or rather, I don't want fighting to be the thing I'm built for. I was built tall, and strong, with four arms for both offense and defense and to look like Athena.

"Strong. Strong is good. I like being strong enough to help my friends. I like giving good hugs, bone-squeezing hugs. I don't want to be a fighter, but I also don't want to be the burden who can't take care of herself.

"And tall is good. I like being tall. Maybe a little shorter? Tall enough to not have issues adjusting.  I'd like to keep the arms, if nothing else, and that means I have a limit on how short I can be and still be proportional."

She goes quiet again, considering, before blushing and admitting, "I'd like to occasionally be the little spoon."

More chuckles, and one enterprising "get it!" from the back.

"More than anything, though," she admits. "I want to leave the Pallas here. I'm not her, anymore. I've learned lessons she never could. Let the Pallas be buried here, along with everyone else on Sahar. I want to move forward as my own person, not as the daughter of Athena or Molech. So I think I'd like a new head. One that can taste and laugh and cry and be Alexa, all on her own."

***

It's suffocating to be in the stone again. To know that any second now, the chisel will fall, and bits of herself will flake off, until all that's left is her. 

But it's okay. Because the first thing carved is her mouth to cry out, and her eyes to cry, and her ears to hear her friends talking with her, and patting her, and assuring her that this is alright. And somehow, that makes it better.