"It's because he's human, isn't it?"

Bella's voice is soft and melancholy, but tinged with frustration as she prowls back and forth along a small length of the wall. She strains her neck to look at the gate again. Shakes her head, no. Suicide. Even if she gets past unrecognized she'll be swept up in a wave of Ceronian vengeance. 

"That's why it gets to be him. Feh. What makes the Bitch of Ceron so special? Better give her the fancy executioner, the kind you get songs for!"

Not for the first time, she runs her fingers across the surface of the wall. It's a strange material, whatever it is. It feels slick, almost greasy on her fingers, but when she pulls her hand away her skin's as clean as the Empress herself could ask of her. She taps her talons against it experimentally. She hisses; this is im-- no! Not here! Not this close!

She pulls her hand back and smashes it against the walls of the village with a sharp and impossibly loud crack, her fingers splayed wide apart and curled to give her claws maximum purchase. Immediately, she regrets it. Her ears bend themselves silly straining for sounds of approaching enemies. Her head whips from side to side of its own volition, staring across the vast and horribly empty fields where anything at all could be waiting to get her. 

But for once, nothing is. She turns again to look at her hand, buried to her first knuckles in the polymer. Bella takes one last sidelong glance at King Jas'o and his new army of legendary super soldiers. Lucky fuck. All because he's human. Shining. Sacred. Like he'd be worth [i]any[/i] of this if there were a single qualified person around. 

"It's all for shit anyway, right?" 

She seethes, launching herself up several meters with a violent lunge that ends with a crushing blow to the wall with her opposite hand. Her eyes flick down toward the ground again, just before she kicks off the wall and lunges up again. Her boots scramble madly on the enigmatic coating, and it's impossible to find any real purchase, let alone make any sort of fast and graceful leap the way she was intending. She swings awkwardly from her hand as her fingers scream at her to let go and drop before they break. 

Her right hand smashes itself into the wall a little ways above her. She pulls her legs close together and wraps her tail around her hips to keep her balance as perfectly as possible. Fine then; upper body strength it is. Every lunge is vicious, a perfect kill strike. She pulls her entire weight up with nothing to support her but the power of her arms and shoulders. By the half way mark, she's trembling. 

"...I mean, once he's gone and sacked this place, he'll go right back to being a useless, scum sucking pawn with a shiny toy crown. Not even! When Odoacer finds out he doesn't have the princess, haha, she's going to kill him! I wish I could be there to watch. I wanna see the light in his eyes go out when she strings him up by his balls. Heh..."

She turns to look, but Hera has no more words for her. She never does, after she's left her balm. There is a smile on the goddess' face, and then she turns away to other matters is is gone completely. Bella smirks. She's not shaking anymore. She claws her way up to the top, whether it wants her to or not. Whether she's a favorite of any of the high and mighty war gods or just a pawn of a few others. Bella is determined. This is just another Game for her to conquer. She is inevitable. 

She is Queen of the Ceronian Wall. She pauses for only a moment to catch her breath. That moment is filled with a vision of the future. Her back is shivering with agony, but she makes no complaint of it. Her ship, the Empress' gift, is as dingy and uninviting as it's ever been, but in this moment she welcomes it. There is a bath with hot water, and Bella is washing her Princess' back to take her mind off of her terrible journeys. She is quiet and respectful, not even requesting an apology from Redana while she recounts her many ridiculous adventures out here in space. The Princess is stepping out. Bella averts her eyes and stares respectfully into the water, watching Redana's reflection wrap itself in a towel and saunter off to the one well-furnished chamber where she'll be sleeping for the trip home. Trembling, Bella slides into the water herself, still hot, Redana's water, sharing her warmth and soothing her wounds and...

She leaps from the wall and banishes the image with the dark swoop of flight. Some kind of garden she's never seen before breaks her fall; the tangle of destroyed vegetation wilts pathetically as she springs off of it. She doesn't spare any of it a second glance. She runs, form of a champion, only forward, forward, forward, and up the final here.

She is coming, Princess. She is here.