Bella can't help but sniff the air for signs of Mynx, but there's no new information for her to find. Between the sharpness of the wind and the mechanized stench of the planet itself, there's so much information in every breath that the shapeshifter probably doesn't even need to work to disguise her scent the way she has to on a ship. 

She clicks her tongue, and the frown is pushed off her face before it can fully take shape by the electric tingle still crawling up and down her spine. For once, the present calls more powerfully than the past. Her tail flicks with pleasure as she eyes the blue carpeted pathway, and when her nose draws in her next breath she takes nothing more from it than the oxygen. She rolls her shoulders all the way back and pushes her chest forward with unconcealed pride. 

This place does not recall Tellus. It could never hope to measure up to the true height of Imperial power. Just look at all the crumbling stonework, the halfassed attempts at rebuilding monuments so many times that now they looked childish instead of regal. Look at how poor the lighting is as the stairs lead down and the hallway stretches into the murk so deep that her eyes will have to strain to pierce it. This is rot and decay and folly, the swept-aside remains of the lesser empire of a lesser emperor. And yet. And yet.

And yet! Bella licks her lips hungrily. Her eyes flutter shut in a rare moment of contentment laced in with her anticipation. She offers the lead machine, broken little doll that it is, a nod of respect before she takes first confident steps forward. Every little motion of her body radiates power in this place, as if she could hear the music these insane, decrepit puppets were slaves to and had swallowed it like a leviathan. As if she had found the strings that pulled them to and fro and understood the beauty that came from choosing not to cut them loose. 

Her grin is sharper than a hoplite's spear. She raises one hand above her shoulder and snaps twice: marching orders for her soldiers. She'd made every right decision in the weeks leading up to this moment, and now the gods were rewarding her. Here was power. Here was her path. Here were her guardians, her respect, her honor. At the end of this dance would lie the secrets of Baradissar, and those secrets in turn would bring her home. The thought of Nero's smile waiting for her lifts her feet into the air. The thought of that smile, even more beautiful as it's mirrored on the face of Redana, pulls her legs forward. It pulls the soft hums of a marching song to her lips, a sweet and silly thing that always meant grand adventures in the grandest palace in the universe, to accompany her first elated steps down the path the machines had opened for her. 

The Regalia vibrates atop her head as it reflects her song back at her. Each footfall on the velvet road is soft and comfortable; she could walk this for a week and never once get tired of it.