This is not a place of honor. 

The theater, the hall of paintings, the grand carnival vault, these were all monuments to things and places and works of art that pleased the Lord of the Dead. He put them in glittering displays and shone light down on them so that they stole the gaze of all who found them. He arranged them to be the envy of every traveler's eye, without exception. Those treasures, this entire temple, they were the proof that Lord Hades was the God of Wealth. 

But this? This was the [i]Anemoi[/i]. The shadows that swallow the line where the Hunt ends and everything after begins. Artemis' trash heap, in other words. Maybe she'd tossed all of these defunct fashions down here when they'd fallen out of style, or maybe Her Ladyship had planted them here as traps to defend some other, more important treasure of Hades'. The only thing she really understood was that these statues and the clothes they wore were not honored. 

"It's so weird how nothing moves down here," says Bella, "After all their paintings, it makes no fucking sense. What kind've guardians could these have been if they don't [i]do[/i] anything? Maybe they're broken..."

But the murk of this place could do nothing to hide the ancient beauty from someone who had been forced to live and work in it. And death had not robbed any of these pieces from the beauty or the certainty that once upon a time they had been loved by the Mistress of the Hunt. The mundanity of the materials could not hide their master craftsmanship from clever fingers that needed to be able to identify things even in the pitchest black to be able to work. 

There are games to play in the dark. Moments to steal with Redana, touches that have nothing to do with fabric. But in between the kisses and the teasing claws and the bemused wonderings, Bella explores the dark. She explores lace. Leather. Cotton. Plastic. She explores the textures and the shapes, uncustomized and uncustomizable and therefore simply stitched together and left to hope that some day the proper body would come along and claim them. Some of these things stand out to her, while others feel strangled by the spiraling path of the Moon. 

Those treasures worthy of the sacrilege, she steals. With a soft grunt, she lifts the statue-guardians full off the floor and carries each one of them toward the window and toward starlight. She takes four in all, none of them arranged with any particular artistry, but each of them at least carried into a place with real light, for eyes to see who can brave the dark but not conquer it. 

One, a parody of an athletic figure garbed in soft, breathable materials that cling tightly to the body and cover very little of it. A shirt cropped just above the ribcage and shorts that barely covered the tops of the thighs with loose but flatteringly close black fabric, all of it lined with pink. Thick, short cut socks and a pair of heavy shoes with grooves worn into the bottom of them (for... grip?). It screams motion, and sweat. A monument to effort, then. A true Assassin's garb, once upon a time, possibly for a discipline that drifted too far away from the temple. It feels... special.

Another, a fluffy, long sleeved top with a knit pattern of waves and crosses running up and down each side of it that reminded her of that ridiculous sheep captain, as it it had simply been cut from his body and placed on this statue for somebody to work into a new shape. Tight black pants of some sort of toughened yarn or something. It looks warm, is all, which is a ridiculous thing for clothes to even try and be. Utterly unnecessary, when modern materials could modulate heat perfectly with just the barest swatch. The decadence of it amuses her. So it must be a treasure.

A third, a study in layers. A short, fluttering dress sewn overtop of a longer one, and a longer one still underneath that, and each of them made of such sheer material that it could neither protect modesty or guard against the elements. But as they stacked on top of each other, these greens and golds, they block off more and more light so that from the bust to the thighs it appears completely opaque and grows thinner and thinner until it reaches the bare feet of the statue. Atop its head, a wide brimmed hat with a wide train of the sheer material falling down the rim like a silken waterfall. The touch of it sent thrills down her fingers, and the look of it confuses even the Auspex. It's like a dress for a priestess, to contemplate the mysteries of the gods and sequester herself away in plain sight. 

Finally, a dress that could only be meant for royalty. Delicate woven lace patterns sewn through with pearls that wind into all manner of patterns like flecks of foam breaking on the rocks of the wearer's body. The sleeves are long enough to brush the ground, the skirts even longer than that. The entire thing trails behind the statue it's worn on for over a full meter, every last bit of it the most delicate, intricate weave. A thin, silvery crown of unknowable design and origin sits across the statue's forehead, further marking it as Human garb, royal garb. No less than a King would wear this, and likely someone far more important than that. For that alone, it...

"I know we can't take them. They wouldn't fit anyway, and it'll all crumble into a pile of crap before we get anywhere with it anyway. Still, I... I wish I could see you in each of them. Can you imagine being alive, together, back when all of this was normal? I bet it was..."

Bella trails off into nothing, looking away from the dresses to gaze out the window at the endless stars. From here, the creeping edges of the Rift are impossible to ignore. She shrugs.

"I don't know. I just thought they should go somewhere nicer than the fucking dump."