[i]She must have been a very bad girl. In fact, despite all her efforts to the contrary she must have gotten worse than ever, because this punishment was awful beyond anything she'd ever experienced before. Worse than the beatings. Worse than the cold nights without anything to eat. Worse even than that week the Master had taken all of her clothes and forced her to hunt the roaches and the rats that had been creeping into the dark corners of the kennels. 

The Box was the scariest punishment in the whole world.

She was already suspicious when they washed and brushed her and put her in the cute frilly dress like she was going to auction again even though she was a bad, worthless, useless bratty mistake. Her little heart pounded with terror the entire time they made her sit in front of the scary woman in the bright red dress, whose eyes were so sharp and nasty looking that they could make the sun stop wanting to shine, and whose lips were pressed so thin they seemed to disappear. She didn't have a mouth at all except when it suddenly sprang out of that awful face to cluck disapproval at the trembling voice trying to recite the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice whenever she would hesitate or leave out too many details. 

And it was even worse when they made her sing a lullaby! She'd never done that before! She'd never been taught any! They made her make her own little song, right there on the spot, and then... everyone's eyes looked so cold when she was finished. Her palms felt so sweaty, but she knew better than to wipe them on her dress, and even still, even though she tried to be a good girl and keep her head down and her tail still and her ears meekly flat the Master still picked her up by the collar and tossed her in the Box. 

It was dark inside the Box, and cramped. She couldn't turn around or stand up even if she wanted to. Just to fit she had to fold herself almost in half and curl her little legs in against her stomach. She couldn't tell how long she'd been inside, though it felt like forever, or whether the jostling she felt was from being carried or because she was secretly dangling over a pit of snakes. It felt the same to her. She tossed and turned too much and kept squeaking with fright, and every time she did it there would be a sharp hit from the side that bowled her over and hurt her ribs, and an angry shout from the woman with the scary face.

"Be silent, she's going to hear you!"

Who was going to hear her? How many new faces had the Master brought in for this punishment? Was it a test? Or was she finally really actually being thrown away like the garbage that she was? Some nights, she... some nights she told the gods she wanted that, just so that the rest of it would stop. And now that her prayers were being granted she found it was impossible not to cry. Bad girl! What a bad, bad girl! Such a horrible, useless, rotten little--

The Box opened up, and over the top peeked a mess of golden hair, so pretty it must have belonged to some god or another. All her fur bristled at once and her tail stood on end. She even showed her teeth and hissing, knowing how wrong and bad it was. She was scared. She was so, so scared.

"Wowies, she's sooooo pretty! And she's mine? Really for real? I get to keep her? Oh wow!"

Then the tiny little hands, smaller even than hers, shot into the Box and wrapped around her shoulders and tried to pull her up. What happened instead was that a ridiculous human girl with a dress worth more than a thousand servitors fell in on top of her and broke the side of the Box. When she dared to open one eye, she found that a pair of the warmest and most dazzling green eyes staring back at her, and a smile so full of glee it could have made a star blush. 

"Hi!" she chirped, "I'm Redana! We're gonna be best friends now, ok?"

The silly girl with her silly hands pulled the shivering kitten close and started patting her on the head. The smell was something... sweet, something she didn't have words for yet. But the true magic was the warmth. It was so soothing it took her barely any time at all to unclench all her little muscles and forget her plans to bite and claw and scratch her way to freedom and back to the Master. Without even meaning to, she started flicking her tail from side to side, which made the golden bell on the ribbon that had been tied to it chime merrily. The girl giggled.

"You're so pretty, did you know that? I think I'm gonna call you..." she trailed off with a look of intense concentration. The bell jingled in anticipation of her decree, "Ooh! I know! What about Bella? That's a good name for you, right?"[/i]

***

Bella blinks. Her hand is around the seneschal's throat, pinning them to one of the grandly decorated walls of the [i]Rex[/i]. Her fingers squeeze tighter until she can feel the rushing pulse of life dancing just underneath the tips of her claws. 

There it is again. That feeling. It's overwhelming her, taking her over, shining through her eyes and rushing inside of her brain to drown out all of her thoughts. There is the roar and the wave and nothing else inside of her. Her fingers clench tighter, cutting off the seneschal's wind. Soon she'll tear the throat out and nobody will be standing in her way. She licks her lip in anticipation.

She twists her arm and throws him to the floor, instead. She turns her head to one side and stares at her hand. It is clean. She closes it into a fist, and fights off the desire to shiver as the Princess' face swims to the front of her mind. She's so close. She's so close! She snarls.

"I don't care," she sneers, "About your stupid excuses. Find a way. Take. Me. To. My. Ship."