The bitter stench of cheap wine penetrates everything. The overwhelming scent of grapes and currants left to rot for two years in a moldy oak barrel swirls into the acrid tang of the mighty steel that made up the floor and the musty earthen musk of fur rugs mixes together into a truly horrific cocktail that threatens to follow Bella everywhere she goes tonight, into and perhaps even beyond the shower. There's more soaking into the floor here than there is in the bellies of the revelers, which is saying quite a lot. Bella wrinkles her nose and draws her feet up onto the support bar underneath her chair. It would be quite bad enough without the sickening notes of bile and vomit dotting her breaths here and there, but by far the worst offense was the cloud of human stench left behind by the bloated monstrosity that had been the dining companion to her right, before he lumbered off to another table in search of 'better' company. Even now it lingered, so potent it had its own taste. A salty, vinegary sweat fighting a permanent war with the unholy stench of shit and rotting bits of... she did not want to know, the kind of stench you can only find on those so bloated even their servants can no longer wash them properly. She raises her gaze up from the table to steal another glance at the view screen. Instantly her golden eyes narrow into slits as her vision fills with an altogether different horror: the corpse of the World Eater. Here and there twisted chunks of metal that must be several meters in length float by for long enough to obscure the view, but even then they are dwarfed by the impossible bulk of this titan of the void. The screen pans, or perhaps it doesn't move at all, and for a full thirty seconds there is nothing to see but the burned and pockmarked landscape of a single mighty fin. Now there are chunks of shell with cracks bigger than entire ships, now there is nothing but the rotting maw inside the great beak that seems even in its stillness like it might at any moment snap shut with enough raw might to tear down the walls of Tellus. It is impossible to guess what color it might have been in its prime. Everywhere around is the flash of roaring engines of a thousand thousand ships and the angry burst of flak cannons that light up the graveyard like some sort of haunted memorial. Everything is lit in a pale shade of blue. Droplets of blood the size of Bella, maybe even larger, float everywhere in the empty space between ships: the last great gift of the World Eater. Years of floating in Poseidon's starlight sea have frozen them into huge blobs of crystal. Sapphires of such grandeur and purity that a single gem would embarrass the riches of kings float here by the millions, unmolested since the fall of the great best. Fear of the Armada. Fear of the Gods. Fear of the leviathan. Fear. Bella's breath comes in sharp little sniffs. Her heart is pounding so hard she thinks it might be trying to escape through her chest and out her throat at the same time. The burning in her lungs is matched for agony only by the ravenous hunger gnawing at her stomach. The air in the room is as chilly as a winter's morning on Tellus; the soft white fur on her arms and legs is bristled so badly that it's destroyed her normal aura of elegance. She's a frightened kitten again, waiting her fate in the kennels. The chair is uncushioned. Her butt, her spine, and her legs all complain about it with different degrees of urgency, but she doesn't dare move except to shift her weight and wrap her tail tightly around her leg so that it can't give her away. Her tongue rakes across her sharpened teeth, and her mouth fills with the taste of blood. She doesn't so much as wince. This is not a place of honor. Dotted across the tables are the crowned visages and absurdly purpled, feathered heraldry of a dozen different kings. In a calmer moment, Bella could name them and each of their precious holdings without blinking. Just now her head is filled with an angry buzzing that drowns out everything but her survival instincts. Each of them sits at the front of their own table, drinks more heavily than the rest, laughs louder, and to a man have their backs turned on the view screen Bella can't tear her eyes from for longer than an instant. Puffed up pretenders. Not a one of them has so much as set foot on the backwater hovels they're supposed to be ruling over, but Odoacer holds them in esteem today because their crowns are what make it an Empire. A scrawny, terrified cat servitor with less than a hundredth of Bella's pedigree sets a plate in front of her artfully piled with cuts of venison settled amidst a fig sauce and a bed of vibrantly fresh greens and pine needles. The heat coming off the meat ripples the air above it into a tantalizing haze. The smell is so heavenly it threatens to set her to drooling. She restrains herself. She can tell before she tastes it that the recipe has been incorrectly prepared. After all, this is-- Her bells are chiming. Her ears stand on end and strain to catch all the noises she's not processing right now. Odoacer is making her speech, but the words are so much noise and hot air. Bella's arm trembles and chimes as she raises her glass in toast. She drains the foul goblet in a shot. She's six places from the left hand of the Grand Admiral's own seat. This is not a place of honor. She is seated with the malcontents and troublemakers, the Azura mercenaries in their bronze livery are the closest thing to desirable company she has. The rest are cut from the same cloth as her bloated flesh sack of a neighbor, or the thugs and self-styled hunters with delusions of grandeur. In short, those disgraceful wretches that need be kept close at hand. The servitor has cut her meat when she wasn't looking before melting into the shadows. No knives to be found anywhere at the table. This is not a place of honor. She is being watched. Bella forces herself to eat. The meat is gamey, poorly prepared. It misses the juniper like Caligula missed the moon. It has not been drained properly in the slightest, and she has to keep pausing to keep the juices from spilling messily down her chin. Her eyes flash from plate to plate. She is the only one. This is not a place of honor. Still, it takes most of her restraint not to wolf it down like the animal they no doubt think she is. She has not eaten all day. She chances another glance away from the view screen, resolutely not showing her the only thing she wants to see right now. Someone has refilled her goblet. She drains it again in a pair of noisy gulps, giving in to the haze and the sway so that her body will slow down before it combusts. The room is filled with chattering. Obnoxious prattling. Shouts, cheers, complaints, threats, praise, calls for more wine to spill across the floor. Bella's ears register only a single word. Redana. How dare they say the name so casually. Redana. How dare they think her a prize worth winning. Redana, Redana, Redana. What makes any of them think she can be trusted? Redana. Her bells are singing with their jingling little voices. Eyes are burning through her. Too many eyes. There's a terrible screeching sound; the whine of metal yielding before a mightier predator. Bella's claws dig satisfying grooves in the table on either side of her plate. She turns her head away from the attention, picks her utensils back up, and demurely resumes her meal.