Bella's stride is strong and steady, despite the darkness. Not gentle in the way an injured person in her arms might hope for, but quick and smooth enough to keep from jostling too much. She doesn't bother looking down; her eyes are needed elsewhere. In the blackness of the night, her Auspex burns like a deep red lantern. The night hides many things, but darkness is only an ally for denizens of the [i]Anemoi[/i]. 

"You talk like someone out of a romance holo. If you tried this shit on the Princess I bet she'd be tripping on her own feet trying to work your pants down right now. She's a sucker for this. Or she... look, never mind. Just drop it, would you?"

She snorts with irritation, but pulls Skotia a little tighter against her as she walks. Every few steps, she can't help but turn her head up and around to look at the rooms and hallways around her and see what her gleaming eye wants to show her. Her footsteps fall harder and heavier with each new glance. 

She is home. Impossible, but it's true. These are the halls of the Imperial Palace. She knows that bust exactly, there's one just like... that [i]is[/i] the one that leads to the Grand Museum, and Her Majesty's [i]Domus Aurea[/i] a little ways beyond that. Redana's sprained her ankle again in training, and Bella needs to carry her swiftly but carefully to an infirmary while she insists she's fine, put her down, Bella, it's ok really, her nanites already healed it see?

But she doesn't put her princess down. She makes an excuse about protocol and behavior unbecoming of a maid, and she squeezes her Dany closer. Just not quite close enough that she might feel and notice how wildly her heart is hammering inside her traitorous Servitor chest. She has to force her arms not to tremble, and her palms not to sweat. But she does it. These halls, this moment, this one stupid excuse is all she has left for reasons to be this close. She must be safe. Proper. But the heart wants what it wants, doesn't it? She risks it, and pulls her precious princess fully into the softness of her breasts. It makes her best friend stop begging to be let go for a moment, at any rate.

...Nothing in Tellus would ever be so empty. The guards and servants alone would pack these halls to bursting even in the middle of the night. Finding privacy for even one moment of quiet angst was equal to Orpheus travelling to the underworld. Unless you knew a princess, and had things to clean inside her private chambers. And even then, the privileges afforded an Imperial Pet could never buy her so much... [i]space.[/i] Her footsteps echo uncomfortably loud in the cavernous emptiness of these twisted nightmare halls.

She is home. And farther from it than she's ever been. There's a stranger in her arms, because he's too hurt to walk straight (the stupid fuck), and that's the closest thing she'll ever know to intimacy ever again. The Azura halls echo Tellus in a way that makes her wish the nepenthe tucked into her garter was for her. Bella's tail curls miserably around her leg. 

"...Listen," she says, and her voice is tighter than it was before, "I like you. But your human. Royalty from... who the fuck knows, by the smell of you. You have a life to go and live after tonight. And you should live it. I'd stay away from the Armada if I were you, but just. Go where you'll be happy. That's a command from your Praetor. There's more than one thing on this planet that's out to kill me now, and it's more than you're up for to throw yourself at all of them."

Her steps aren't steady anymore, but they come much faster. Only decorum keeps her from breaking into a run. Bella is still a Praetor. Her duties demand a certain amount of poise from her, even in a moment like this.

"True love is a lie, Pretty Boy. I tried to love someone once, with all my stupid heart. She took that love and set it on fire, every day. Just for fun. And when that got boring she ran away to punish me for my audacity. I don't give a shit about love. I don't care about a single fucking thing except for finding Beautiful before her Rampancy takes her. I'm gonna save her. And then I'll die. You can't stop it. So don't throw away the one good thing I get to do with my life."