That nervous laughter again, and the smile held onto her face for a second or two longer than it had previously, before falling off into the void. "Yeah," she whispered. "Yeah I'm a lot of fun."
The worst part was, she had been fun, once. Sneaking out of the house before the kitchen fires were lit to go swimming in the dawn, racing the village boys down the street to see who was faster or sometimes just racing the wind, inventing silly songs with her brothers - and sometimes cruel songs, too, which made them all laugh the harder, in the way that cruelty was hilarious when you were young. She'd laughed easily and she'd danced freely and she'd loved her life with a passion.
And then the civil war came, and brother on brother, and the rest was history. (She hadn't thought about it since running into Ares again, till now, but how much of a hand had Ares had in her life, even back then?)
She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could will the whole world away.