Ah, fuck. 

That's what you get for taking your eyes off the battlefield, Bella. What, was it not [i]exciting[/i] enough for you? It didn't involve you because you promised yourself you wouldn't rip anybody in half this time? Well good job you moron. Now you're dead. You know, [i]again[/i]. Your mother would be so proud.

She lifts the hood off of her face to expose her eyes and ears to the light once again. What was the point of concealing her nature from people who might have lifted themselves up enough to become her betters? Not to mention they were just as dead as she is; she might not have any idea what the fuck just happened but it didn't take a genius to understand what a sudden burst of light and heat followed by a total alteration of your surroundings actually worked out to. So off it goes. Her ears stretch luxuriously in the open air, and the crown of the Imperial Regalia glitters on her head in the reflected light of the Portuguese spires. 

She takes a breath, and it is full of life. Ironic, but there it is. The whole place tastes of desperation, but not misery. The vibrant pop of flowers, of heavy metals, and the heat of noses almost as inquisitive as hers are all around her. The fact that this place felt alive to her for the first time just wrapped the sensation tighter around her neck: that this place was a dead end. An impossibility under the true direction of the gods that strove with every waking moment to deny that fact.

"Administrator species?"

Bella blinks. Her tail twitches in obvious discomfort. Why do they know that term? Were Servitors just an inevitability? Which god had written that into law? Why did, what-- nnffff.

Before too much surprise and alarm can register on her face, she dips into a low and careful bow. Right hand pressed tight against her chest, left swept far out to her side with her claws held carefully toward the ground. She dips low enough that her luxurious blue-black hair brushes across the ground underneath her. Her tail lifts above her back and holds as still and as graceful as she kept it back when she was a kitten trying (and failing) to get adopted by some aristocrat family somewhere.

"I'm sorry," she says, still in the bow, "But I can't do that. My Empress forbids her citizens from travel. In her wisdom she... believes it's for the betterment of the galaxy as a whole. At least I-- that's how I see her. But I'm alone. They didn't send anyone else with me for my mission. I was told I... was enough."

Bella lifts herself back up again, as if on the power of those words. Her chest puffs out with old pride. Imperial pride. She casts her eyes once more over the people here in front of her, and the trappings of their perfected civilization behind them. She wanted to learn, and here was her chance. What did they look like? What did they smell like? What had food come to mean for them, and art? What made them bring weapons here, and what did they consider deadly enough to turn on her as she popped in out of nowhere? If the truth of the Portuguese had been the mud-soaked crapsack of vaguely industrialized misery, what kind of creature had been struggling to be born underneath it? 

"Be at ease. Before I left, Her Imperial Majesty Empress Nero IV Acontecimento Azurius conferred upon me the title of Praetor. My ears listen on her behalf, and my voice carries her authority to the far ends of space. Say whatever you'd like to say to me. In the end it'll be the same as saying it to the Throne."

A lifetime's worth of practice keeps her face inoffensively neutral while she is turned toward the delegation in front of her. But the tip of her finger twitches, and with it the corner of her mouth lifts an imperceptible fraction on the right side. Her maids' version of a smirk. If she'd already been killed, what harm was there in playing at her oldest dreams one last time?

Have you forgotten her, Your Highness? The Praetor you commissioned will keep your banner aloft, however long her arms can stand to hold it.