She does not watch the other hand. She does not see the knife. In the first moment she is sitting there with the ghost of a sneer still on her face. In the next the blade slides through her throat without resistance and she showers the stage in her blood. She does not offer the satisfaction of surprise; her head merely slumps against her shoulder as her body falls slack.

Bella pulls Dany close and turns to shield her from the sight and the splatter. She flinches when she feels flecks of hot blood splash across her back, but she is equal to the duty. Nothing comes from her lips but soft, soothing tones even as her entire body trembles. Meanwhile, Aurelia's daughter climbs over her body to cup her mother's face in her little hands. She fusses with her mother's hair, straightening the blue-black tainted golden locks that have fallen out of place.

"That was really stupid, you know." she titters while craning her head over her shoulder to look at Ember. 

And as her gaze turns, the throne snaps to life. Hands grab Ember around her throat. Around her arms. Two more crush her shoulder. Another pair seize her around the waist and squeeze until she makes a noise like a popping balloon. Two more snap her knees into pieces. She is held. Suspended. Crushed. Bones splinter, and she is not even granted the dignity of being able to scream about it. Neither is she permitted to die. She is pulled forward, to stare into the eyes of Bella Aurelia.

Who smiles. Black mist pours from between her teeth and wraps itself around her throat. Onward it billows, solidifying, stabilizing, though never becoming more than shadows and nightmares, until it is a cloak that tumbles dramatically down her back and pools on the floor to either side of her throne. It clasps into place around her wound, not healing it so much as erasing it. She stretches her neck once to the left, perhaps vaguely tentative. Once to the right, a triumph and a luxury. And once more before she settles, and pats Ember on the head with crushing condescension. 

"See, this is why nobody takes you imbeciles seriously. So much fire! One might have expected me to flinch in the face of so much passion! And then... what? What is [i]this?[/i] You all bark so poetically but you punctuate your yips with a knife, a child, and an old can? Well. At least now it should be clearer that my attempts at diplomacy have been a generosity on my part. One which I will not extend again."

She rises from her throne with liquid grace, pulling forth her sword and then tossing it over her shoulder. She makes no motion to attack, nor does she offer any indication she feels in danger. With her weight gone from it, the throne raises even more hands to crush and choke Ember. Bella Aurelia sniffs at the air and snaps her fingers.

"XIII. I release you. You may fulfill your purpose in this place."

The sword slices through the air with a clean keening. The stroke is so smooth that nobody who isn't looking for it can realize that it has not cut the air at all, but rather the arm of Aurelia's elder daughter. The young girl's face is slow to change from her smug smile to a look of disbelief. Then pain. And then utter terror. She screams and clutches at the stump at her elbow, screaming mom and mother and then mommy when each fails to get the help and sympathy she needs. Blood pools everywhere around her as her tears fall uselessly down into it.

Until she hears the howl. From high above her, XIII screams with equal parts fury and delight as she drops like a comet into the chaos. Her boots spatter crimson liquid everywhere. Her tongue slides out of her mouth to lap at it. One last time, the girl calls for her mother. And then Desire splits her ribs open. 

"It is important to me that you all understand I did not plan for things to go this way," Aurelia says without even glancing down, "It was meant to go a lot more smoothly than this."

Names burn brightly on XIII's armor. Without looking, you already know which ones are there. But it might surprise you to see that Bella Aurelia's name is also written in blood on the Diodekoi's frame, in the fresh sacrifice of a girl who never even got to have a name. It might surprise you more to see that this does not concern Aurelia in the slightest.

"I do not control the beast. It is very important that you understand this. I merely unleash her. Were she mine, I could not open the pathway for Artemis to join us down here in my world. Do you see now? It is the goddess I wish to slay. And when I have taken her crown and her hunt into myself, you will not say to me anymore that I am some dull echo of your past journeys. I will preserve your eyes and your mouths, so that you may witness. I wish to hear the song of your lamentation as you watch me cleave Olympus itself from our imperfect heavens. How is that for guest right, hmm~?"

"Oh, has [I]that[/I] been the plan all this time? You might have saved us all a lot of trouble by being honest, HA!"

Mosaic is a mess of a mess of a mess. Her hair is sliced in odd places and tangled in the rest, and her beautiful black suit is shredded to threads and something still resembling pants. There are no fewer than ten spears jammed into her back like the spines of some strange dragon, but even bloodied and dirtied and bruised as she is, she stands as tall as any of the shafts still quivering in her muscles.

She rushes forward, in that way that heroes do, just as XIII descends with a universe-shaking howl of fury. The pair of them clash like titans. Mosaic catches XIII's claws with her own hands and locks them, wrist to wrist and forearm to forearm. They posture and push against one another, caught in a wrestling match that only seems even until you look at how badly Mosaic's arms are shaking. But even so, to hold a thing like XIII to a standstill is a miracle.

And the young Bella looks at that miracle. She clutches a delicate princess with one arm, and a can of coffee with the other.

And she does not know what to do.