"...Stop it, both of you."

Bella is leaning on a table just the way she remembers Nero doing it in meetings she happened to be tapped for drink service at. She'd always thought it made the Empress look powerful and in control despite her stature. With her bulk the image is not the same, but she does it anyway because the alternative is falling onto her knees. Weakness gnaws at her legs.

Just another way she's not cut out for this after all. The business of being a hero. Mosaic would not have hesitated; she'd be neck deep in saving this crapsack of a civilization before either of her idiot advisors could finish advocating for it.

Fresh snarls build up in her throat. A thousand and one insults thrash their way through her tail. She has to remind herself to breathe, to press her palms flat against the table and let the worst versions of this conversation dissipate across its surface. That's the real trick Her Majesty used, and why she was always so good at getting her point across most of the time. 

"Listen to me. We're not invincible. There's no magic empire dust we can sprinkle over the Silver Divers that'll turn them into a proper legion, and if there was that wouldn't be enough anyway. Did you already forget that your pack lost in a straight up fight against Beri, Ember? We have to pick and choose where and how we fight if we're gonna win. 'Look to us for an entertaining fight?' Fuck that. I don't want the Generous Knight to even know we [i]exist.[/i] The only reason I'm not going straight to her is that I know there's no way to get this requisition out of her without it turning into a whole fucking thing with the Biomancer which just... no."

Bella forces herself to stand. You're certainly in good company Dyssia because now that she's not leaning on anything the only way this catgirl can keep herself going is to stalk the entire room like she's hunting it. Her hands slash through the air constantly, and she glances around to every corner as if she expects predators to rush her from all of them. Her ears twitch irritably. The whole room smells like rust and chlorine to her. Her face scrunches as she continues:

"You don't want to hear this, but the Portuguese were fucked before we ever heard about them. Do you understand me? There is no helping them. Sorry their diseases give you bad tummyfeels but they're better off with those than as Servitors. You don't have any idea what 'lifting' them is actually condemning them to, so don't lie to yourself that it's some great altruism. We can't fit them all on this ship either, and if we could I wouldn't let you because unless you've forgotten your own insane plans you've got me here against my will so we can [i]hide from assassins in the middle of a fucking star[/i]."

Her claws are snapped to full extension. Her breathing is strained and irregular. It takes her a moment to notice either, and when she does she "recovers" with a too-formal straightening of her posture and an unnecessary slicking back of her own hair that makes her feel less in control of the situation than ever. A breath to steady herse-- nope. That's a sigh. 

"...The people of Bitemark are not here to be your freedom fighters. None of them signed up for it. They came with us to not die. And I'm not going to let them. As long as they are mine to protect I will not pick a fight I can't win unless there's no other choice. 

"We negotiate with the sheep. Minimum involvement, minimum investment. Get what we need and get the fuck out. That's all there is to it."

Her head turns and her shoulders curl forward in an unnecessarily aggressive posture. Bella's golden eye gleams like a beacon in the middle of the room, shimmering with an unreadable cocktail of emotions.