Bella clicks her tongue, but says nothing. Her ears give a little wiggle toward Mynx, but her eyes are drawn only to the map. Her fingers hover for a moment over the Fleet Security seal for a moment, which draws a scowl onto her and nearly sends her back into the comfort of the blankets and the embrace that means she has a friend. But she stays strong. She presses her thumb down on the frigid surface of the table, feeling the glass-slick smoothness give way to corrugated ridges as she caresses the second, unknown seal and her expression passes from fury to wonder. And, beneath that, hunger.

"It doesn't matter." she whispers. 

Her fingers slide across the map, careful to avoid digging her claws into the precious resources the Empress had seen fit to bless her with. She leans across the table until it's the whole of her world, pushing even Mynx outside of her universe so she can drink in every detail. Her eyes gleam in the dim light of the room as the dart up and down the map. The muscles in her back pull taut with the effort of holding her up, turning her from a creature of softness to a beast of iron. Her tail flicks back and forth with pleasure at the feeling.

"That's such a stupid question, Mynx. Do you think Ares would care if I said I favored him? Do you think he'd be swayed by my [i]plans?[/i] Would Athena give a single fuck if I laid out some grand formation in front of you right now? Of course she wouldn't! There's only one god who's ever listened to my prayers, and she has no place on a battlefield. Even if that wasn't true, we'll never hold Athena's favor for as long as Redana has that statue with her, and she'll accidentally please Ares while she runs around more than we could if we spent a month trying."

Bella smiles sardonically for a moment, just before she pounces across the table and pins Mynx to the ground. Her hands slide everywhere, grabbing and possessive, lingering especially under the chin just above the throat. Here it would be easy to pull the shapeshifter into the kind of kiss that would write songs by itself just to hear them sung. Here it would be easy to strangle the life from her and retire to sip wine above the corpse until someone came by to clean it up. Instead, she wraps herself possessively around her companion and squeezes her tight. Her breath is a wave of steam in Mynx's ear.

"What would the Princess do in this situation, hm?" she purrs, "Would she even have an answer? I'll get her alone, and we won't be in Ares or Athena's domain anymore. I don't need your little assassin friends for this. The owls are enough to hunt some mice. We'll trap the lot of them in a pretty, honorable little skirmish and then..."

Her hand brushes against Mynx's collarbone with a strength that almost manages to hide how badly she's shaking.

"I... [i]we'll[/i] make her remember. Won't we?"