Bella's neck cranes to take in the full effect of the skyscraper in front of her. Every gash of gleaming paint, Every trill of proud music, every twist in the precise knot of cables connecting the power of the Star Kings to this bland and unfortunate thing that passes for a city. Her face twists into a scowl that deepens with every new detail she takes in. 

What pisses her off is that it's legitimately beautiful. Not a match for the great works of Tellus, but in terms of composition the backdrop was a work of artistic genius. The Portuguese understanding of materials was so underdeveloped that they didn't even have proper grays or beige tones. Walking around their civilization and eating their "food" gave off such an overwhelming sensation of fading that it was easy to lose oneself in it, until it... no.

It isn't that it felt more dead here than the palace of Hades. This is not a place of death. The problem was that too long here and Bella could easily imagine nothing ever feeling [i]real[/i] again. Even the Anemoi's murk was at least intense. Here there's plenty of light and warmth to spare, but everything still felt like it'd been left to soak for a year or six in dingy water. Against that kind of backdrop even a tiny splash of proper red or a single note of real music exploded to life in a way that would make a master with fifty times the ability cry with envy. 

That it sang with pride and the weight of history on top of that lifted this pilfered tower to a level Bella could not remember seeing in her lifetime. The idea of secret art and secret infrastructure placed out in the open for all to see, knowing that only a comparative handful could or ever would... it's romantic. Redana would have loved this. Not the perfect Princess that wound up here, but the silly girl who stayed up all night in the palace so she could pine after the stars her mother had cut off from the sky. She would be head over heels if she could see this for herself.

Bella's hands clench into fists that bite with claw against the palms of her hands. Yeah. She'd love it so much. If it wasn't a fucking indoctrination scheme. Clever, arrogant fucks. Plucking people from out of their drab little lives and giving them eyes for the first time. Revealing a layer that was "always" painted on top of their city, this first breath of real oxygen. Building lines of stratification, themselves above and these... Lifted below, climbed just high enough to detach themselves from the people they'd known their whole lives. A secret army like a secret clique that might form among a maid staff, nothing more than that but so high off their first taste of the universe that they'd suffer delusions of grandeur anyway. 

These fucking plunderers. They're no better than the Azura biomancer. At least she could lie to herself about her arrogance being painted with altruism. The Star Kings were building a weapon. Nothing more. Worse than that, the name of that weapon was a concept so horrible she hadn't even known to hate it until she felt the tension in her spine.

"Sub-Servitors..." she hisses.

Her body burns hot enough that her feet have started melting grooves into the fragile "pavement" in the streets. Her muscles tense, and her tail lashes with enough force that it might crack the foundations of several major buildings in the area, if only she managed to touch them. The urge to scream, to rush forward, to tear down this entire absurd installation herself with her bare hands is almost more than she can handle. But she bites it back down. A hard swallow and a deep breath after. She wrenches her head away before it can surge back up her heart and into the city.

Fucking sucks relying on others. She's never trusted them in her life. But there are questions that dragged her down here. Questions she can't answer if she gets herself stuck in a fight. 

"Ember," says Bella as she turns her back on the building, "Crush them. I don't care how you do it, but make it hurt. And tell the girls that Engine is our prize today. No matter how you settle this, we're not leaving here without it."