At the sound of laughter, wide green eyes snapped hard and fast toward the god who'd trespassed. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again. The casual pile of limbs and skin unfolded into something neat and tidy; both stiletto heels clicked down on the floor and her back straightened.
"I don't remember the last time I heard you laugh," she said, when her surprise wore off enough to allow speech.
A fantasy imagined into being, he said. The words rang true in a way Styx didn't want to consider. Her Akheron would have torn down her home by now, had he been in this position -- and Styx could imagine her Akheron storming through the Greek pantheon, trying to kill them all. That's what her Akheron would have done. This one... Her head cocked to the side as she watched him.
"They said I..." Styx gestured with the hand that held her crumpled note, "I was wrong. They said I was..." Here she paused long enough to jerk the paper back out of the shape she'd made of it, and read off the vellum directly: "... 'so far removed from hope, and so consumed by...'" Her voice drifted off. She clenched her fist and made the note rumple again. Those dark, electric eyes had gone off someplace. She pulled her legs up under her and curled in on herself, there in the corner of her couch.
"What was she like, your wife?" she asked. "Was she happy? Did she love Phobos, too?"