Bella's boot squeaks on the hard surface of the palace floor. Her ears strain and twitch toward every little sound that slips under the roaring of the engines settling outside in the storm that thunders as furiously as ever. She flinches; there are so many. Another step backwards, toward the door, toward freedom, toward her [i]life[/i], and the squeak is so loud that it's deafening. The ship is just a holo her messy princess left on before she passed out. The storm could fit inside a tea kettle. They don't measure up to the squeak squeak squeak of her boots, inching backwards. The wet and incomprehensible moans of her Mistress as she strains as heroically as she used to in wrestling practice against her bonds, like the only thought inside her head is to wriggle free enough to crack her face open on the floor. The grinding of Bella's teeth joins the horrible chorus trying to drag her to her knees right now. Her bells chime angrily as she pulls her arms even tighter around her princess. Do they mean nothing to you, Princess? There's a scraping grind of bronze settling into place that draws Bella's eyes away from her Mistress and across the room to Alexa. Her gaze slides down the length of that form, this love song to Athena, down her legs to lock on to where her feet are planted. Bella's face twitches. Surprise. Betrayal. And for a single moment, a hurt that she can't keep off of her features. Squeak, squeak, squeak go the boots. She backpedals faster. She'll be at the door before long, and... Bella drinks deeply of the storm-soaked air. Her ears flatten against her skull to drown out the noises, leaving her inside the world of scents instead. In and out, in and out. Her muscles relax as she picks up the whiff of the Princess' favorite perfume peaking out from beneath the tang of her sweat, fear pheremones, and the strange musk of sickness that's plaguing her poor broken body right now. She squeezes tight again, hard enough to steal breath this time. No. No! Leave that one behind. That is not for you, Bella. Find it again, the speck of warm cinnamon cloaked in roses and violets that swim in a sea of... Her nose wrinkles. She sniffs again. Again. Again! She spits violently. That disgusting reek of pure laser. Bella's ears perk up just in time to catch a single sound more terrible than any other in all the vast universe of sound trapped inside this room. "Redana." She trembles. Her lips curl upward, showing sharp, dazzling teeth. Her golden eyes are burning, open wide as they can go and filled with the bitterest of hatred. Hatred for her stupid scent that she wears like a barbarian clown. Hatred for her tacky captain's uniform that no sane person would do anything less than burn, and yet, and yet... that scoff. That stupid, sleepy drawl. Confidence stolen from some dark crevice where no one else would even think to sniff for it. The tail, swishing so lazily behind her. Her ears, her nose, her, her, [i]her[/i]..! "Redana..." Bella isn't stepping backwards anymore. Another twenty paces at the most and she'd be free. Her mouth opens, but the only sound that comes out is a low hiss. Her every motion is slow and deliberate. Even rippling with tension and aggression as she is, she stoops down to set Red-- her Mistress on the ground with a gentleness that's immediately swallowed up by the way she shoots back to full height, and the deliberate stride with which she steps over her body. Bella's tail is raised high behind her, fully bushing in a display of naked hatred more ancient even than the lost empires that sowed the seeds of her homeland. The fur on her arms and legs bristles right alongside it. Her left leg slides in front of her and strains more rigidly than steel with readiness and with need to explode forward and pounce in the only sort of motion that could satisfy her right now. Her arms hang in front of her as she curls and uncurls her fingers, stretching her deadly and still dull-red claws and the glistening talon-rings on her index and middle fingers. The shattered half of her collar's chain slumps around the front of her and clatters against the floor. Her back hunches forward until her fingers are low enough to dig grooves into the marble. Her every breath is a hiss. Every sound her throat makes is choked with flecks of spittle. Every muscle coils like springs and tenses with pure, animal lust for revenge. "...say her name..." the words sneak out in strained and barely audible chirps in between her growls. "Don't..." her chest heaves with the effort of pulling in enough air to calm herself, to bring everything back under control. It's too late. It's much too late for that. How dare she. How dare she do it so easily. How dare she, how dare she, [i]how dare she?[/i] "DON'T YOU EVER SAY HER NAME AGAIN! Stupid bitch, I'll tear it right off your lips!"