This is truly excellent wine. Even as warm as it is, every tiny sip cascades like a river of flavors across her tongue and disappears down her throat as gentle as a spring rain. It is rich, intoxicating, and decadent in a way servitor wine could never be by way of its very design: the taste of grape is heady and strong, but underneath it instead of the watery oiliness she's used to there's a bouquet of new flavors dancing through her mouth. 

There are notes of smoke and an earthy kind of bite that takes her some moments to place before she realizes with a widening of her eyes that the drink had been stored and aged in a [i]wooden[/i] cask. She lacks the vocabulary to even guess what sort, but she's certain, yes she is. And underneath even this wonderful prize is a thin line of persimmon and even cinnamon. It's a rich treasury of seemingly infinite delights that forces her to take the delicate and refined sips of an Empress lest the sensation of the wine itself leave her drunk, a far cry from the way her own stock so warmly encourages guzzling and (merriment thereafter).

Bella swirls the glass in between her fingers with a curious smirk etched across her face. She's never had cause to savor drink before. Never had a reason to use her fingers like this. There is power in this motion, she feels it purring in her chest. And yet for all of the wonder of the drink being so thoughtlessly poured for her benefit, she can tell at a sniff that the extreme age of the stuff has diminished it greatly. There's a mustiness to the smell and a thinness to the flavor that only becomes more noticeable the longer her tongue has to adjust to it, and every now and then a note so sour it threatens to drag her breakfast back up her throat. 

She drinks on. Her wine, her precious gift and refuge, is the power and ingenuity of an entire Empire, or more accurately an Empress bent toward the sole design of lifting the crowded masses closer to the light. The stuff in her hand is the work of another Empire toward brandishing a light so high above the crowd and so bright that even daring to reach for it would blind all but the gods themselves and send the thief tumbling, broken, to the depths of Tartarus to suffer for their hubris. This is a drink for kings, and even then it's a pale imitation of Her Imperial Highness' own stock, which was so strong that when she was a kitten just the smell of important people drinking it from across the room was enough to make Bella's toes curl. Once, she'd had to carry a pair of glasses for the Empress and the Princess, and the fumes had been so overwhelming she'd had to excuse herself from the ball immediately thereafter so she could find a closet to faint in.

If she dared to lap at that ambrosia, she would surely be tortured for all eternity. Cut apart and sewn together again in a cycle with no end. But this in her hand was the shadow of that folly. This, surely, was allowed to a Praetor. She sips the wine again and holds it in her mouth just long enough to feel the dryness start to settle in, then swallows thoughtfully. She chuckles.

"What an idiot. Look at her, do you see? She hasn't been letting them take care of her properly. They probably don't know how, those dipshits. Ha, just look at her dance!"

Bella's eyes gleam with delight. She grins toothily as her legs cross together, and lowers her glass to rest near the Imperial Box as she lifts her other hand up to rest her cheek on its curled wrist. Her tail swishes with the primal delight of a predator spotting the flash of a wing inside a bush.

"I don't care what happens to Alexa, but the Princess is my concern. Nobody lays a hand on her but me, you got that? But this is fine. Continue dancing or... whatever. This is fine, let them come to us. I've waited this long, I don't mind waiting just a little bit longer."

She squeezes the stem of her wine glass. Where her claws find the surface, it starts to crack.