"Thank you." She'd never said those words so often as she had in this last terrible handful of weeks. Thank you to Alan for his presence at Telos' birth even though she did not deserve it, thank you to her sisters, to Athena, to Kratos, to Ares most of all. Thank you, knowing that she'd be cast to ruin without all of them.
"I'm Melpomene," she said as she stepped over the threshold, stepping closer and looking closer at the same time, wondering at the uncertainty - no, the disquiet - that was loud in Qebhet's hesitation. Wondered at the cause of the dents her teeth made in her lip. "But maybe you know that already?"