She's never had a moment like this before.

The Olympics were a hollow mockery of the sacred games where the only prize waiting at the end was the hope of a slightly nicer punishment. Her accomplishments in service to her princess were all invisible by design, by someone else's orders in any case, and rarely amounted to more than getting the laundry in before anybody knew she was gone. And what had she managed as a Praetor? Little and less, and all of it so stained by failure that she'd vomit if she thought too much about it. 

So, no. She's never had a moment like this before. One that's just for her with nobody else to pull her leash or take the credit. One that proved, that finally proved, that all the expectations heaped on top of her had been put there for a reason. A moment where she got to win, and there was nobody and nothing to take it right away from her. Whatever waited for her on the [i]Anemoi[/i], it couldn't change the fact that she'd made it here first. 

And she's got no idea what a moment like this calls for. She'd have thought she'd be exhausted: too shaky and sweaty to do more than stand there and gasp while she waited. Instead her body is filled with energy, and she tosses her head to the sky to howl victory without caring who hears her and how they feel about it. She feels the sweat pouring off her body, but she doesn't bother with wiping herself down. She's too busy jumping into the air and slashing the space in front of her with a joyous fist. Do you see her? She made it first! She! Made it first! She prowls about the landing zone, shaking off all the little flecks of exertion with every trembling turn. 

Her lungs fill with the efforts of the labor all around her. She tastes the chemical sweetness of high performance foods being crated up all around her as people prepare them to ship off world and greet weary sailors with their life saving power. She tastes sweat in a dozen different musks and flavors besides her own, all of it proud and sure of where it came from. The sourness of the work is tempered by the sweetness of what it's for, and she hungrily gulps down more and more of it just to taste the combination on her tongue. She prowls, until finally her lungs grow full, and less greedy. She tastes until the memory is part of her soul.

The song up here at the top of the world is the sonorous hum of XIII's purring as it rumbles underneath a series of crashes and shouts that mean the port workers are admiring her while they keep up their work. The heavy thuds of crates being stacked and unstacked, carried, sealed, unsealed, and fought over joins the pleasant chirps and squawks of the simpletons so surprised to see her suddenly standing there among them. There is the click, click, click of a fire being lit and the roar of it being stoked. She howls again, though quieter this time. Her accompanying motions are more strained, more flexes and poses out of a movie than true movement. 

The smell of rust and flame is everywhere, as is the hissing quasi-screaming pops that accompany all the bits of debris and poseidon's lesser plagues being charred off the sides of the mauled and dented armored plating that carries every ship through its suicide mission of travelling anywhere at all. Cooked, slimy, sickening flesh and chipping shell threatens to overwhelm all of the other delicious scents lifting XIII into the air, but for a moment even that smells like triumph. She is here. She lives. They do not. Her claws flex pleasantly before she wipes the sweat from her fuzzy ears and briefly slicks her hair back.

The urge to scream and stalk about fades as her minutes draw short. This is not her ship anymore, but it's hardly been a lifetime since it was. She'd die before she let herself greet it improperly. Her back straightens. Her feet plant themselves firmly. She folds her arms behind her back. The beads on her dress clatter and sway as the last traces of her exhausted breathing dwindle down to a steady, even rhythm. The smile on her face dies in an instant to make way for a stern expression as unreadable as her Auspex. Her tail flicks behind her in anticipation. 

This is her mark of being the best. This is what the triumph of her race has bought her. She lifts her hands to smooth and fuss her hair into place three more times, returning them to the same strict folded position behind her back each time. A final snort of air through her nostrils, and the loading ramp starts to open with a shuddering groan that says the [i]Anemoi[/i] wasn't much happier with its journey than her little skiff had been by the end. But even in pain, the dagger-ship is stately and quiet in a way that seems impressive even on this planet full of ghosts. And XIII is there to greet it, with no sign marking any bit of her that she hadn't been expecting it the entire time. 

Whatever greets her now will not find a Praetor with the authority to demand anything from them. But they'll find a girl with all the power and bearing of one, who won't betray a hint of surprise or anything less than perfect poise and command no matter what faces skulk down to meet hers.