Bella is trapped inside a prison shaped like herself. All of her senses have boiled away to just two sensations: dry, and pain. The first is the feeling of her tongue, her mouth, her eyes, her throat. And there are, there are, there are [i]words[/i] hanging just underneath the dry, but they're impossible to hold onto through the dry. The cracking. The feeling that something wrung her out while she was lying on this strange bed and drained her until she was empty. 

She is not aware of the glass in her hand, a bulky and unshapely bit of faux-crystal that would weigh too much if it weighed anything at all. It touches her lips and disappears into the dry with a series of gulps that ring like thunderclaps. Her ears press flat against her skull (and in so doing, she discovers that she has ears), but the sound is deep inside her. Inescapable. Needed, because it washes away some of the sensation of being cracked and yearning like some sort of servitor-shaped desert. 

The other feeling is pain. Bella blinks and her eyelids shudder with the effort. She turns her head and her neck cracks like it's trying to snap itself in half. She looks at the lights, dim as they are, and her eyes are forced shut as they scream in spark-filled agony. The rushing of her blood is a snake squeezing her skin and it hurts and her breath is an icy gale that stabs her lungs with needles and it hurts and her muscles won't stop twitching and it hurts and the glass is in her hands and it hurts and the water goes down her throat and it hurts, and it hurts it hurts it hurts!

Bella is dimly aware that she has curled up tight into the soaked sheets again. So... soft. And so drenched, more storm cloud than blanket. Uncomfortable. She tosses them aside again, and in the space of that motion she realizes the problem is herself. Her fur is damp and matted. Her skin glistens like diamonds. And Hera help her, she's [i]freezing[/i]. She shiver starts in her neck and spreads across her body in goosebump-ridden waves that spill the next glass of water on the bed, the floor, her lap, and everywhere it isn't wanted. She lifts her hand.

"I..."

But her order melts into a sigh; Mynx is already at her side with a warm towel and a fresh blanket, just as soft and quiet as she used to be with Redana. She closes her eyes as the feeling of skilled fingers press through warm fabric to pat and rub her dry. When she opens them again, she notices her clothes sitting neatly folded on a chair on the far side of the room. She forcefully swallows the purr threatening to boil up out of her, but when the towel is pulled away and replaced by the blanket, she throws herself backwards into the arms holding it. The surprised squeak that meets her ears draws a fresh flinch, but Mynx doesn't draw away. 

Bella is warm. Bella is held. She lets her eyes flutter half-closed, still watching the room but taking in nothing. And as they sit there in silence, over untold minutes where neither of them move except to breath or feel the beating of each others' hearts, she ceases to be a desert, ceases to be a prison, ceases to be a temple to pain, ceases even to be a Praetor, and for a moment becomes simply Bella again.

"...Miss her." she rasps.

"Hm?"

"Princess. I miss Redana. My Redana. I just want... why did it happen? Why doesn't she miss me too? Why doesn't she want me anymore?"

She tilts her head back to look at Mynx, and see what kind of face looks back at her.