Of course she'd seen [i]Eurydice[/i]. Of course she knew the story. Of course she did. Hades doesn't give back what's his, isn't that the lesson? Coming back from the dead should be impossible. Or at the very least, dramatic. A journey across the entire galaxy to bring back the lost, an impossible task as the price. Destined for failure and tragedy, always. And if not, if not, if someone really was stupid enough to cross into the land of the dead and beg for a single soul back, and if they were earnest and gullible enough to abide by all the rules and somehow actually made it happen? It'd be the kind of sensation that would get written down in history books and performed for holos across a lifetime's worth of lifetimes.

She never would have guessed that miracles could be so boring. There had been darkness. Blackness, really. A void with no thoughts and no feelings, no light and no sound, nothing to touch and nobody to notice in the first place. To call it the sensation of floating would be wrong and stupid. There hadn't been anything at all; just a patch of total nothing slapped over what could have been a minute or a year without any extra effort. And then from that endless nothing, she realized that her legs hurt.

That's how Bella figured out she wasn't dead. Whether she was meant for eternal punishment or reward, it'd feel different than just her legs falling asleep. And if she's not dead, she might as well breathe. The air tastes of rust and dryness. Clean, but only in the unpleasant sterile sort of way that meant someone had been desperately trying to scrub this place not very long ago. Well then. If she knows where she is, might as well open her eyes.

The [i]Plousios[/i] is not the grand, crumbling temple of death Bella had imagined through her straining eyes the last time she was here. But there's no other place that this could be. It might've been a grand ship, once. Pride of an entire armada or... whatever else Humans might have once used star ships for, back in whichever fantasy time it must have originally been built in. The ceilings in this room are high enough to make a palace, and yet somehow claustrophobic. The colors are bright, compared to the [i]Anemoi[/i]. But unloved. Everything here looks either pitted or greasy: Zeus' rainbow by way of an oil spill. 

Bella huffs. She was meant to be a dead woman. Or if not dead, then a prisoner forever. But when she sits up, nothing catches on her wrists at all. No lashes or bindings or cuffs. Not even weights, except... no, there [i]is[/i] something pinning her legs in place. She looks down to see a tangle of messy golden hair flopped across the covers over her knees. And the Imperial Princess sleeping beneath it. 

Bella whips her head around first this way and then that, eyes darting around for signs of other people in the room. Some sort of trap. But there's nobody here except Dany, with her exhausted face made innocent again by the spell of sleep cast upon her, and the ridiculous squish of her cheek where she'd slipped on top of Bella's kneecap probably an hour or more before. Dumbass. 

But here. Here still. Holding onto her, carrying her up into the skies, kissing her for luck until all the monsters had disappeared, and now... Here. Bella's fingers press into each other for long minutes, worrying at her knuckles or brushing against her lips or doing anything at all other than sitting still, or touching the one thing on this whole stupid ship that they really want to. She watches the princess' rhythmic breathing with a hunger in her eyes that can't be hidden anymore. After so many years, maybe not ever again. But in any case right now, there's no one to hide it from. So she sits. And she watches. And Redana sleeps.

She doesn't realize she's doing it, at first. There's so much to focus on that her own hands don't really matter for shit, do they? After the endless boredom of the [i]Yakanov[/i] she's forgotten how to stop herself from filling quiet moments with little games, little chores, little projects. Just to do something. But the feeling of Redana's hair in her fingers is so soft that it pulls all of her attention to what she's doing, and once it's there how could she ever focus on anything else?

On Tellus, she wore special gloves to hide her mutilated fingers from the Princess. Over and over and over again, Dany had asked about them. And over and over and over again, Bella had answered that they were tools to help fight tangles. She wore a lot of tools over her fingers, come to think. Scrapers to smooth away oil from the skin before a wrestling match. Small blades for clipping split ends. Absorbent cloth to wipe away water and grime so that her princess would always look her best. It was stupid, every time. None of it was a match for the power of her hands.

Over, down, around, and through. The memory of a shared childhood guides Bella's fingers through one of the most complicated braids in her repertoire. The one she tied for Dany every time something bad or scary happened to the two of them. When Her Majesty had harsh words for her daughter, this was the braid she wove to make the Princess strong. When a test loomed over her, this was the look that would let her throw herself at the examination like a warrior. Hundreds of times, she's pulled these locks into this shape. She could do it with her eyes closed. Only she won't, because that would mean not seeing the girl who ran away. Maybe she'd mistake her for someone else, given the impossibility of it all. 

Her fingers run out of work to do. With it comes an unpleasant tightness in Bella's chest. Her stomach feels filled with lead. But the great loops of hair are tied into the fine, tight plaits of the prettiest fishtail braid Bella knows how to tie. Even with her dirty clothes and the smudges and burns all over her face, Redana looks regal again. Every bit the princess she's supposed to be. Bella's teeth clench. Her fists wind tight enough to rip out clumps of hair, if she hadn't caught herself in the nick of time. Every breath in this place tastes staler than the one before it.

It's the bed. She's been here too long, however much time it's actually been. That's what it is. But she waits, even still. She watches for Redana's eyes to open, thinks about what she might say. Maybe she could open with a smile. Her intestines writhe like serpents inside of her. Her body pulls taut and rigid from her neck down to her toes. Bella flicks her fingers through the empty air, watching what claws she still has slicing through the air.

Fucking dumbasses. She snarls and slips her legs out from under Redana. She watches the most beautiful face in the world slump against the dingy sheets. Like finding pirate treasure tucked inside a napkin. She rolls her eyes and lifts Dany off the chair she's been stubbornly plastered to, and lies her in the bed. Your turn to rest, idiot. 

Dany's lips open as she's moved. She mumbles something, and Bella freezes. For luck, she said. For luck. For a thousand different times she'd let a little debt build up, and now, and now, and now...

Breath swallowing breath. The heat of two pairs of lips, wet and begging for a tongue to brush them. The feeling of bodies that want only to press so tight together that they absorb each other. Two becoming one. Bella hesitates, a whisker away from the kiss she's dreamed of since the first time she saw those lips smiling at her. Her body turns to ice.

She turns, and runs instead. If only there was somewhere left to go.

*********

Bella's legs are soaked up to her shins. She's not even found the deepest part of the pool yet. Crabs snip at her priestess robes (the only outfit that belongs to her on the entire ship) as she passes by. Cold and clammy and uninviting. Everything is death and salt. Everything is misery and doubt and fear. Everything is tentacles, paranoia, and whispers.

For some reason it feels like home. 

"...All this time they've been running from me in [i]this?[/i] Fuck me, the Empress could cut me in half for failing her and it'd be less than I deserve. This. Seriously, this?! What the fuck have you been doing, Dany? Do you not have a single dipshit in your entire misfit brigade who knows how to clean up? Gods."

A wet tearing sound echoes through the sloshing water and empty halls. Bella lifts the battlecrab that had dared to claw the back of her skirt open up out of the water and squeezes until she feels the carapace start to splinter in her grip.

"Try it again! Just fucking try! Next one of you gargling little shits even thinks about it, I'm gonna turn this whole damn ship into a pot and boil the lot of you! Test me. Try it again. I [i]dare[/i] you."

Had it been any other opponent, the sharpness of her words could only do so much to cover the awkward way she pulls her legs together, or the bushing of her tail. Gods, what an awful place. Gods, but isn't it exactly what she deserves.

...[i]Gods[/i], why does it remind her so much of Tellus?