A hundred tiny treasures skitter about her feet. Bella wades further into the dark and the wet, never once stopping to look at them. She still remembers how it felt the last time someone came to her in grandeur, bearing gifts to win her favor. She remembers this same smell of fear, the only scent that anyone would debase themselves in before offering a creature like her tribute. The only motivation that could be trusted. She still remembers how that ended. And those were far prettier baubles, then. Much more queenly gifts. 

She steps around each one of them without breaking her stride. Her teeth grind more with each clacking pincer reaching up for her attention. 

But she stops, to read the letter. She pauses to read it again. She stands there with her tail slashing through the humid air, and takes the extra time to tear the note in half no fewer than four times. The pieces turn lumpen in the water, nothing more than ugly clumps of uglier promises. She walks past these, too. 

"...Tell me why."

Her eyes are gleaming in the dark. Her claws are glistening in the damp. But her head is tilted, in curiosity. 

"I have [i]never[/i] betrayed the Empire. Not for the Princess, and not for Mother." (the word spills like hot ashes from her mouth. she uses it anyway) "What the fuck makes you so special that you think I'd do it now? Tell me why. Why'd you offer? What's your game? Tell me. And if I don't like your answer, I'll pull your guts out and use them to mop this ship dry. Redana and her band of dipshits seem very lax on their cleaning standards. I am [b]not.[/b]"

She offers a mocking curtsey to the darkness. The wet. To the crabs in all their sizes, and the voice that thought speaking to her through them was wise. She grins with a feral longing to be unleashed.

"I was originally designed to be a maid, you know. You are nothing new."