She stands in front of the garden with a rigidity in her posture she hasn't shown since the moment Empress Nero pointed her to the [i]Anemoi[/i] and exiled her away from everything warm and loving in the universe in the first place. Her ears strain on top of her head, but they do not twitch or bend to chase after faint noises. The only purpose to it is to show off their perfect shape and structure. Her face struggles imperceptibly to maintain a mask of calm, polite interest, with her lips turned up just barely at the corners to prove her mastery of lipstick and the perfect angles of her cheeks. She does not move at all, not for all the treasures of the Endless Azure Skies.

Her hands are folded placidly in front of her just above her hips, with her elbows bent at an angle exactly like the manuals prescribed for optimal loveliness. It pushes and emphasizes her chest enough to notice the shape of her breasts without crassly calling attention to it, while at the same time her fingers curl around each other to cover her talons and claws just enough to show their uselessness without letting an observer forget that they're there. Her tail rests at the exact center of her back, drifting down her legs without so much as a swish until it curls at the tip to show how well trained her muscles are. Her legs are together, to prove her manners. Her toes are pointed out, to prove she's not uselessly meek. And the whole of her body is aligned along a single straight line, as if she were pressed against an invisible wall. 

She turns her head just enough to turn her good eye on Beljani. She sniffs, and her lungs fill with the calming, muted scent of the air that only circulates aboard this ship. This single ship, and no other place. She does not let herself be surprised at how much that smell feels like home. She clears her throat with a single, clipped 'hem'. 

There's an answer to that stupid question, of course. Why the Master of Assassins might like a girl like XIII. It's so obvious it doesn't even bare speaking out loud: someone must. Someone has to like her, not because she is likeable but because she is here, watching a perfect garden growing in the middle of [s]her[/s] the perfect ship. If nobody liked her, then how could she be here? Why isn't she dead? And if somebody has to like her, why wouldn't it be Her? Why wouldn't it be the very first person to look at her and see? The kind, wise eyes that looked at her and saw potential where everyone else saw only a broken kitten hadn't lost their vision. It was as obvious as breathing, and only an idiot would bother asking [i]why.[/i]

...It's difficult not to wish things hadn't turned out differently. If She had been in charge from the beginning, XIII would not have needed to break herself. She wouldn't have had so many hard choices to make about how to use the other assassins, or hold them all in check out of some misguided effort to spare Mynx's feelings. As if she had any to spare in the first place. She... XIII would not have had to do everything alone. She wouldn't have needed to turn the hierarchy of her ship upside down just to hold it together. She wouldn't have had to face Redana until everything was perfect. The Master would have seen to it all. Her plans were always perfect, it was said. And nothing about Her ever seemed to contradict that, not in ten thousand sneaky glances stolen across the years. The journey would be ending now, nowhere near this strangely beautiful nightmare painting of an empire where nothing made sense. 

Her stomach churns uneasily. She hides her reaction with a slight squeeze of her hands. So careful not to let her claws touch anything. Her neck shifts just so, and the girl who had once been a Praetor returns her attention straight forward where it had always belonged. 

"What does it matter?" she says with a carefully detached melody, "I am enough. Besides, that kind of decision isn't up to me anymore."

She closes her eyes, just for one moment. Her hands clench tight enough to crack her fingers.