It's probably something to do with an underlying sense of inadequacy. The understanding that a single well-placed scratch could ruin her place with Anamelech, that intelligence and hard work are all that bind her to Sphinx. That her whole family are traitors, and being the exception is no badge of honour. Ashtar will either be a thriving example of Oukoku-Kai, or another death on the path to Ragnarok.
   She's a young woman overworked by her own ambition, trotting through the territory until the soreness in her limbs is all but numb, until she trips over misplaced toes, until she tumbles face-first into the dirt. Ashtar gasps, gulps, and continues on.
   She walks until she can't feel her burning lungs and pounding head. Until she forgets all their names. Until the horizon blurs and sinks; until she falls to the ground and sleeps the only way she can since Lotus was lost. Until she faints like a corseted Victorian, shocked by a tragedy like this.
   Ashtaroth is alone, unconscious in the dirt, for anyone to find.

   Last time she was caught "sleeping on the job" as Ashtar would characterise it, was Raphael. Her only brother had come to find her facedown in the sand, had put his meager weight on her ribcage, and shushed her panic as she awoke. "Go back to sleep, Ash," he had said, trying desperately to keep balance despite his shattered spine, "I can make the pain go away."
   She regains some sentience with a paw at her face, and instinctively bites it. Milk teeth have been replaced with canines meant to tear, and she had crippled Raphael before that. Well. More than he had been.
   Ashtaroth wrenches away, blood on her teeth, yet to be determined if it's Felony's or her own, snarling and bristled as she fights to her feet. Such a brutish display for a porcelain doll. Someone should stop her before she breaks another of Mama's toys.