She's been thinking about this, you know. Surprise is worth a lot in these missions. Surprise is the difference between touching down with a thousand servitors to save the day or meeting a waiting army.

Or, as the ship rattles around her and the augurs calls ring in her ears, becoming so much space dust among the orbital mines. Thank you, Brightberry, you're a lifesaver and you're getting so many cuddles once this is done.

She should be scared, shouldn't she? This should be terrifying. She should be panicking, and making mad promises, and whatever it takes to keep her crew--[i]her[/i] crew! [i]her[/i] legion!--safe and alive.  She shouldn't feel like she's coming alive again, exhilarated, vibrant, coursing with energy not entirely her own.

So when she steps up to the alter and promises she's never going to go home, it feels natural. Peaceful, even. 

Oh, there are other promises. She will build a temple to Dionysus on the next ship to take her off planet. That's a given. There are few enough to Dionysus, few enough worshippers, furtive and hidden, and she will make sure there are more for her passing.

But it's the offer to never go home that feels more important to her personally. She… She's never going to see the friends of home again. She will give up an entire planet--not as a sacrifice, not to be destroyed for anyone else, but for her in particular. She will continue on a peregrination across the cosmos, helping as she can, teaching and being taught as needed, and influencing people towards Dionysus, speaking for him, housing him as needed.

It's insanity. What's the journey for, if you can never come home?

It's overpaying, it has to be. Shrine and journey and home, in one swoop? For buying even just enough alarm time to get them in?

But it means the journey continues. For all of them.

Worth it.