This is a place of contradictions.

The docking bay is a messy crisscross of starlight-bright lighting and deep shadows crawling out of passages leading deeper into the leviathan sized bulk of their great ships. You could fit much of the Imperial Palace in this room alone. And yet. The light bounces off of the gathered tribute here in a way that feels clumsy and cluttered, that takes these infinite-seeming treasures and crams them with spotlight levels of lack of grace into piles until their luster is all drained out of them. 

The clutter is so intense that the bay gives the impression of being smaller than the Princess' old bedroom, even with the [i]Anemoi[/i] looming behind her as just one of many ships swallowed inside this beast's grand belly. Where the darkness should cast gloom and mystery, it feels cheap and poorly optimized, instead. Compared to the impossible murk of Bella's own ship the Hermetics would need to work a lot harder than this if they wanted to frighten her. Or hide anything from her. Instead it's just like they couldn't settle on an interior decorator and hired five of them at the same time. Empress Nero would be appalled. 

The smell of this place is... confusing. Back home, labs (were everywhere, first of all) gave off a sense of absolute sterility. They smelled of nothing so strongly that it burned her nose. Or if not that, the scent was burns and metal shavings and the oddly alluring aroma of varying kinds of oils and fuels. Whichever way they tended, they committed, and their domain was absolute within the walls that Nero had set for them. 

Bella had expected more of the same here, but every sniff only further confused her. This place wasn't clean. And this place wasn't put to work. There were wafts of personal perfumes that lingered from where this or that Coherent stayed to chat with someone however long ago, and the always unpleasant smell of uncontained dust drifting across... everything, really. To her left were traces of mud, sweat, and brine that several, or more likely several hundred people dragged across the floor on their way back from whatever it was they were doing on the planet below, and none of them or even anybody who noticed afterwards could apparently be bothered to clean it up properly. A Servitor who left the palace in this bad a shape would be whipped to death, and they'd be absolutely right to do it. She's smelled gymnasiums that were cleaner than this. 

And yet, the marks of cleaners were everywhere, as well. It wasn't as if they didn't know how any of this worked. The god-engine sitting almost too far back to see was so immaculate that even Bella doubted she could manage better. Some hallways felt fresher, while others seemed ready to corrode under their obvious lack of care and standards. Everywhere she looked, it was a mess. But more than that, it was a mess of a mess. 

She grinds her teeth as her Auspex flicks this way and that to inspect the treasures laid out just to please her. And here a fierce sense of pride wells up inside her throat almost like a back-kick of wine might after a bad bender. Hot and yearning, almost as good as it felt bad, with a lingering sort of shiver following after that said that this was enough, this was more than enough, this was too much by half and that she needed more anyway. Her tongue feels ash dry in the dusty hangar. Would it have killed them to lead their little show with some [i]actual[/i] wine?

"As you are, of course, aware, it has been a period of 57 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, and 11 hours since Her Imperial Highness last sent someone of your position and, ah, stature to treat with us so deep into the Frontier. We are as honored as you might imagine to be able to reset that particular counter."

Bella arches an eyebrow slightly. No, she did not know that thank you [i]very[/i] much. There's a thinness to this Pilate's voice and a deeply unpleasant hissing behind every word she says. It's tinny and artificial, but worse than that there's a harsh clicking that accompanies every hard syllable and sticks inside her ears. It rings, and it builds, and it rings. It's worse than a headache. Her ears flutter with pain, as if trying to shake the voice out of them.

"...six point eight tonnes of hydronix, the uses of which are manifold. We hope that these quantities prove sufficient for you to advance your own projects while you carry out the Empire's good work. Now, as to the silks, which I can imagine excite you given your, ah, proclivities..."

She's still going. Bella has stood here wordlessly this entire time, and yet no amount of blatant disinterest seems enough to cut this short. Always these games with people like this. Information masquerading as secrets, and secrets pretending to lie in the open until you bend to pick them up. She's exhausted already. She stretches her hand to one side, and a moment later a tall-ish Lanternite done up in the ceremonial stylings of her people has set a glass in Bella's hand with a wordless bow. A second later, another shorter girl pours the wine. The vintage of Baradissar. Bella nods, and the pair retreats noiselessly to the shadows of the [i]Anemoi[/i] without a word having passed between any of them.

"...a praetor from the Servitor races! Empress Nero has long favored the children of Ceron, but even they aren't known to be given Her own authority to be carried around like this. Forgive me for my boldness, but I would be very glad to hear your stories of how you overcame your handicaps to rise to such an exalted--"

Her golden eye contracts into an angry slit. Her tail flicks with displeasure. These are the measures of her politeness before she surges forward like a storm and lifts the Pilate off the ground with one arm. Her fist clenches a ball of intricately patterned robe and pulls it tight around whatever sort of freak show is hiding underneath it. Bella's arm sings with strength. She is a golden wave of raw power that surges across the docking bay and slams the Hermitician against a particularly large crate, knocking several bars of latinum skittering across the floor. In the mismatched lights of the room, her Auspex gleams like a tiny, evil moon. Her claws shift upward off the robes, seeking what passes here for a throat to press themselves against. 

"Shut. Up."

She squeezes. Suddenly all the words are gone, like magic. The clicking is gone, faded to a distant echo in her ears. She squeezes harder, and even the hissing starts to stutter. It's like crushing a grape, right down to the juices that start to trickle down her fingers. Bella makes a disgusted noise and tosses the Pilate to the ground to shudder and gasp for new air. She turns away, and swirls her wine.

"The next one of you fuckers to open your mouth had better have something useful to say," she hisses, "or I swear in front of the gods I will crack this ship in half!"

She drains her glass in a single swig. It's gone before she can even taste it.

[Speak Harshly: 3+2+2=[b]7[/b]. My question is actually straight from the book: "What are you hiding?"]