"You might have learned from me," says her brother, Leto's child, even now twining flowers and herbs about his hands, and Athena's lips purse. Her knuckles tighten on her spear; the aegis hangs a little heavier on her chest; and she knows nothing might have warned her that love lingers, centuries after the fact, and the memory of Pallas' sea-blue eyes will ever lead her irrevocably towards despair.
Athena would have it no other way.