POV: Aphrodite
Denial survives in silence.
The battle during the standstill phase is the specific kind of sustained engagement that produces casualties through attrition rather than through decisive moments — both sides holding positions, neither advancing significantly, the war running through the human cost of maintaining the hold rather than the dramatic cost of major movements.
The gods are avoiding me.
I notice this in the third hour of the standstill, the specific pattern of the Moon Goddess's deployed forces moving through the battlefield in the way that forces move when they have a priority target and a secondary approach vector. The divine constructs and the compelled wolves and the minor god manifestations are not aiming at the center of the resistance's position, which is where I am.
They're aiming at the edges.
