Which head does she talk to? Does it even matter, if they're all the same? Does it matter, then, if the same being speaks differently through different heads?

Slowly, Alexa lowers herself to sit on the stairs next to the dogs. To inspect them, to marvel at them, to line them up, profile for profile, against Rusty, and wonder. Same model, maybe? Similar series, certainly. Submodel, perhaps, or an earlier breed.

Without any of her own input, her hands dig in her bags, and come out with a wire brush and a small bottle of oil. She's always done her best thinking with her hands, and surely, one of these good dogs will want brushies.

"If you'd asked me that even a year ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to say yes," she admits. "Of course we know better now than you did then, of course we know what the gods want and how to appease them."

You, the one always sighing. You want brushies, don't you? Yeah, you do. Look at those mournful eyes. C'mere, let's get you cleaned up.

"But then I found out that the reason Hermes hasn't been seen for two hundred years is because I was guarding her daughter. And the Hermetics might have known, and still don't know what she wants?

"And let's not forget that Athena is, apparently, dead. And has been for centuries? And the only reason I found out was because the new war goddess showed up to kill her? And I don't even know her [i]name,[/i] let alone what she wants."

Best steer clear, all things considered. Make due offerings if needed, but never draw attention. Bad enough when Athena was her mom, last thing she wants is to make friends with the new one.

"And Beljani was running around with a sword that Bella pulled from… somewhere. Because somebody we don't know answered a prayer.

"So, maybe we're a bit smarter about it. Maybe we benefited from the mistakes your age made. But it's still surprising to be so old and find how little I might actually know."