The bearer got his hands around some piece of metal and the empress cracked a small, amused smile.  Of course it was going to try to defend itself, they all did, but it never failed to amuse.  They always had some sort of misguided hope that they could hurt her.  Poor creatures, they didn't know any better.  Perhaps she could spare just a moment or two longer than absolutely needed.  She only came to the surface every one thousand years after all.  Another few moments wouldn't be catastrophic.  

She turned her head to the side slightly, hearing something new outside.  Something was wailing.  It wasn't organic, but she didn't know anything more about it.  She turned her attention back to the bearer almost immediately.  He was mortified.  Fear was radiating off him.  And he spoke.  Shouted desperately, more like.

The slight smile she'd had on her face a moment ago burst into a wolflike grin.  Was he so foolish to have no idea at all?  "Look at your arm, bearer.  Is that something all of your kind can do?"  The other creature behind her with one less appendage suggested otherwise.  

"Are you going to hit me?"  she asked him in a honeyed voice, almost casually, stepping forward.  "If you wish to hit me, do it.  Go ahead.  See where it gets you."  She turned her face to the side, brushing strands of white hair out of the way of her cheek.  "Hurt me, if you can," she purred, in a way that only a person absolutely sure they would not be hurt would say.

The sirens were getting closer.  Red and blue light was beginning to play on the fragments of glass on the floor.