The Lady of the Night (Solo)

[Maya Frostfawn]

Timestamp: Summer 2, 523 AV Maya needed to head out into the city, and in the interest of not being shanked in the street, she needed to don a disguise. Luckily for her, she'd purchased a disguise kit to help with that and could easily slap something together before heading out and hopefully avoid being shanked in the streets. She gingerly opened her kit, which she had set down on her flat's table, before surveying its contents. She decided that she wanted to disguise herself as a lady of the night today. She didn't really have any clothes that would suit that sort of disguise, and wondered if it would be worth investing in them, unless a lady of the night had come to mean something clothed in dark attire. Namely black, she had a TON of black. Not so much anything else. But that was fine, black suited a lady of the night, or a nuit, and she was a nuit. To begin her disguise, she decided that she would begin by applying a foundation that would make her skin look far more alive and a lot less... dead and decaying. She reached for a small container of what she thought might be a foundation for someone with a peachy complexion, and quickly opened it up. Then, she stuck a few fingers inside, pressed them into the warm foundation until they were fairly well-covered, and raised her fingers to her cheeks, where she dabbed roughly half onto her right cheek, before dabbing the rest onto a mixture of her left cheek and forehead. When she was done dabbing the foundation onto her skin, she began rubbing it into her cheeks, winding the foundation in small circles before doing the same with her forehead, and then guiding the foundation toward her nose, her chin, the area around her nose until she created what she hoped was a smooth and even layer of foundation. When she was finished, tilted her head back, and wiped any foundation that lingered on her fingertips on her exposed neck. When she was done, she decided to give everything a moment to dry before adding the next layer to her disguise, which would not only add to its complexity, but deepen it and the disguise in turn. After a few moments had passed, Maya reached for both a container of brown powder, (partially emptied from previous use), and a container of a pale pink blush, which she intended to apply to her cheeks to make them appear more lively. She'd begin with the brown--placing it beneath the pink so the pink would really pop. Or so she hoped. She began by opening each container before reaching for a pair of makeup brushes. One she dabbed in the brown powder before wiping it on her cheeks, leaving a dusty trail behind, which clumped a bit in the foundation. When she was finished applying, she went back over the streak she had just made, rubbing it into her skin back and forth, before whirling the brush around to make a more circular patch of brown on her skin. When she was done, she repeated the process with the pink blush, to give her a more pleasant complexion. When she was done, she rose from her chair and decided to try seeing what she looked like in the grimy window of her run-down flat. It didn't really work--she couldn't really make out her features. So, she quickly returned to her chair to continue her work and hoped she wasn't making a fool of herself with her poor application of a disguise.

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya decided that she would continue to work on her face before moving onto other parts of her body. The next thing she'd want to do is make her eyelashes look longer. She didn't quite know what it was called, but she knew there was a thing for that and what it looked like... more or less. She reached for the contraption and pulled the two bits apart, revealing the bit with the brush covered in the powdery stuff you applied to your lashes in order to make them appear both fuller and longer. She closed her eyes momentarily before opening them again, as wide as she was able, and delicately pulling the brush along the length of her eyelashes. First--the right half of those on the right, then the left half, before repeating the process with the lashes of her left eye. She only did this with the top half of her lashes; she didn't feel like bothering with the lower lashes, which she'd always heard and felt were harder to apply makeup too for far less of a noticeable effect than the top lashes. When she was done applying the makeup to her lashes, she placed the brush delicately back its container and blinked several times to try and rid herself of any clumps that may have formed and to help her get used to the sudden weight that had appeared on her lashes. Nothing came off and she didn't feel like there were any clumps--she had been so careful in her application of her makeup, but that didn't necessarily mean that there weren't any. Darn, she really needed to get herself a mirror as soon as possible or she'd be in really bad shape when she attempted even more complex disguises than this. Because this was hard enough when you couldn't see what you were doing or check your work either. She really would have to remember... She glanced down at her supplies and realized... she had probably been stupid and applied some things to her body out of their natural order, but there was nothing she could really do about it now, unless she intended on starting over entirely and wasting the few supplies she already used. Which, judging by the weight of her pockets alone, wasn't exactly something she could afford right now. So she barreled onward and reached for some black-colored kohl, which she would use to accentuate her eyes and perhaps, darken her eyelids so that they would be more striking and draw any unwanted attention away from the bits of her body that she may have fudged up on and she didn't want people's gazes to linger too far upon. Because it would be really, really bad if anyone saw through her disguise... it could mean she got shanked in the streets, and she really wasn't looking for that experience today or any other for that matter. The kohl she had came in a sort of applicator that allowed you to "draw" directly on the skin. She realized it would be really hard to apply under her eyes without hurting herself when she lacked a mirror and decided that simply adding a little line, a sort of squiggle, beside her eye may create a similar desired effect, but to a far lesser degree. So, she pulled the skin to the right of her right eye, against her hairline, as delicately as she could to stretch it out and make it easier to draw. Then, she drew a shaky line extending from the center of the side of her eye, toward her hairline. It wasn't particularly long and it definitely wasn't straight; she could feel that and inwardly grimaced. Hopefully, if anyone looked upon her not so fair features, they'd simply think she wasn't particularly gifted in makeup application. Or was simply nervous for her first day on the job and had fudged things up a bit. Whatever the case, she dropped her hand, before raising it to the other side of her face to hold her skin tight as she applied another line. When she was done, she dropped her hand and let her skin fall back into place before giving herself a moment to rest. Now, the even harder part emerged. She closed her right eye and drew a line over her eyelid. Then what she hoped was another directly above that and another directly above that. Then she set the kohl down and smudged it into her eyelid, hoping that none of the darkness spilled over into the hollow of her eye. She didn't want to look like she SUCKED at applying makeup, only that perhaps, she wasn't perfect in the worst case scenario. And she wanted her eyes to seem dark, mysterious and alluring, not like she had just gotten punched in the face and was an easy target for the mean streets of Sunberth. A moment passed, a momentary break before she repeated the process with her other eye and hoped it didn't look too bad. She couldn't think it enough--she really needed to invest in a mirror, and soon. But money...

[Maya Frostfawn]

With what would have been a sigh had she still been truly living, the nuit decided to move onto her lips. She needed to brighten up her lips, all of the ladies of the night she had seen in the past had painted lips. So, she needed to have them too in order to complete her disguise. Her eyes roamed over the supplies on the table, as they had many times before. Finally, they settled upon some rouge, which she picked up gingerly with her right hand. She held its container between her fingers, studying its color a moment before opening the container. It looked to have a sort of creamy texture, and when she stuck the tip of her left index finger in it, she found that it sank easily beneath the surface and the rouge was warm. After covering the tip of her finger, she raised it to her lips as though preparing to shush someone. She held her finger there for a moment before gently swiping her finger around the edge of her lips, doing her best to follow its gentle curve and ignore how cold they felt beneath her touch as she applied the rouge. It only took a moment to apply the rouge to her bottom lip, which she imagined would be the easier of the two, since it was a little wider than her upper lip and didn't have that weird crimp in the middle. But there was nothing to do about that, it was simply a part of the human body, an aspect of its form, that she would have to contend with. At least it wouldn't be too bad, it wasn't like applying something blindly to her back or to her toes or something. Since her finger had run low on rouge, she dabbed the tip of her finger back into the container to gather a bit more before gently pressing the tip of her finger onto the little raised bit of her upper lip. Then she followed her lips to their right edge, before lifting her finger and returning it to the center of her upper lip, and then following their trail to the left edge, so each section would be covered with rouge. Then, she pressed her lips together, rubbing them around a little to rub the rouge into place. Then she smacked her lips, satisfied with her work even though she couldn't see it and couldn't verify that she did not in fact, look like a child's drawing. Since she had a little bit of rouge left on her finger, she decided to press her fingerprint into the cleft on her chin, to create a sort of striking mark to draw one's gaze away from any imperfections within her disguise. When she was done, she furiously wiped the remaining rouge away between her fingers, until it faded into her skin and was nearly unnoticeable. Next, she decided she should work on her wrists and perhaps, lightly on her hands since she didn't have any gloves to cover the deathly pallor of her skin. That was probably something she should invest in as well, in a few different colors, as they could make the disguise-building process far easier and would probably be less expensive in the long-run as long as she kept them up and didn't toss them in the dirt or something. Like feed them to a hungry dog... that liked fabric for some reason. So, she retrieved her container of foundation, opened the container up again, and stuck two of her fingers inside, covering them. She wiped half of the foundation onto the back of her left hand before rubbing it in furiously and repeating the process with her right hand; it was as though she were applying some moisturizing oil to her skin. The foundation left her skin with a peachy-yellow sort of complexion, that seemed to shimmer and perhaps, seemed a little sticky or something? She couldn't quite describe the appearance, but it looked more lively than her nuit skin, far less dry as well, but it was kind of... damp in appearance? Or something? You could tell that some makeup had been applied to it or that her skin's appearance as it stood now, was not in its natural state. Maybe like she had been sweating? Maya frowned as she studied it, maybe there was a way to soften it. Maybe if she added a powder? That may dry it out. But what if it dried the foundation out too much and she wound up looking weathered and old? That would be terrible in the case of a disguise such as this. And if she couldn't come up with a good color to mix with the foundation so that it maintained the appearance of a natural skin tone, (and hopefully one that matched the tone she had applied to her face earlier), then forget about it. Her cover would be blown. And that would be bad, because she could get shanked in the streets. And honestly, she wasn't really in the mood for that. Maya frowned again, deep in thought as she studied her skin. What to do? Perhaps it was best to simply leave it for now until she could buy new supplies and experiment for the future? She could pull her sleeves down for this trip into town to help obscure them. Or place her hands in their opposing sleeve as she walked, covering them in their entirety, but that might seem out of place this time of year. So simply pulling her sleeves down would have to do, she supposed. At least, the skin looked like a natural color now, if strangely splotchy, or whatever she had done.

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya added a little more foundation to her skin, applying it to her wrists. Then, she spread the foundation around her wrists and back up into her hands with the gentle ministrations of her fingers, which helped even out the color as she continued rubbing. She hoped that this added foundation would help mask her true nature if the unfortunate happened--say she stumbled and her sleeve slipped, exposing more skin than she wished to to the world. While natural enough for a lady of the night, who outside of their first night on the job, had probably grown accustomed to exposing a lot more skin than that, it would not do for her to expose that much skin, because it ran the risk of her cover being blown. For her true nature being revealed to the world, and for obvious reasons, she could not have that--as the nuit were seen as vile creatures who did not deserve the air they no longer needed to breathe. Who did not deserve to continue walking the world, and were often expunged the moment they were noticed by pretty much anyone with any fighting capacity. Or even... no fighting capacity. When she finished rubbing the foundation in, she wondered what else could give her away--her slow movements, the way she walked. Her smell, to certain creatures at least. And for a moment, she wondered if there was something with an even stronger smell she could use to mask her own. It didn't matter if it was pleasant or not. As her thoughts wandered, she considered that smoke might do the trick, or a strong perfume, or even dirt and mud. Only two of those seemed like viable options, considering how dangerous fire was, but she supposed there were other ways she could capture the scent of smoke that she could look into. Especially if it could aid in her disguises, it may be worth it. But that was another consideration for another day, because for now, she needed to finish the current disguise she was working on so she could go out into the world and survive Sunberth's mean city streets. She decided that she wanted to add more to her face--one of the little beauty marks that came with her disguise kit. This particular mark looked like a tiny freckle, or a large, hairless mole. She knew from the last time she had used the kit how to apply it now, and quickly pinched the mark she wanted to use off the table between two of her fingers. Then, she peeled off the little film on the back, revealing the adhesive underneath. Then, she, rather unceremoniously, applied the mark to her face. She missed her intended mark, and the beauty mark dribbled down the side of her face for a moment before she caught it and pressed it into place on the lower portion of her right cheek, completing her face, she thought, once and for all. This left only the finishing touches of her disguise--the way she wore her attire, and perhaps, some practice carrying herself in the fashion of a naughty woman, a lady of the night, so that it wouldn't be so awkward and foreign to her when she finally made her way onto the streets to presumably ply her trade or make her journey to a brothel where she could ply her trade. Since she didn't have any truly seductive clothing and truly, didn't have any need of them, she decided that she'd go out in her usual attire, but try and wear them in a way that hinted at what she was going for. Like she was a shy seductress, a shy lady of the night as opposed to... an undead being inhabiting another's body. To achieve the look she desired, she decided that she'd wear everything the way she normally wore it, with the exception of her hood, which she'd play around with until the shadows it cast made an alluring pattern on her face, and she'd pull her sleeves down farther than normal to help obscure any imperfections in her skin. The problem was, the moment she began walking, the hood would shift, so even if she got it just right without a mirror or reflective surface, it was doomed to fall into imperfection eventually. So, she decided she'd look into finding supplies that would secure her clothes in the future, for times such as this, and simply do her best this time around. This time around, she wanted to wear the hood so that its shadow fell over her face, obscuring at least part of its top half from view. This should be easy enough to achieve, she felt, as she lifted her hood over her head, and then pulled it so the fabric extended about an inch in front of her forehead. This should do, she thought before moving onto the final stage of her disguise--her walk. But just how did a lady of the night walk? Confidently? Coyly? With purpose? Shyly? Seductively? With her hips swaying back and forth with each of her steps? These were all things to consider, but she supposed she should try not to be too seductive. She didn't want anyone to jump her and find out the truth after all. It also didn't go with the more shy and mysterious, "early days of the lady of the night" airs she was trying to give off. So... something slower and more deliberate. Something shy. That would probably work out better with her true nature and capabilities anyway. But just how should she pull it off?

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya felt like the best way to settle on a walk for her disguise would be to walk as she would normally and then tweak it from there, so she rose from her chair and strode across the room. She felt her stride too slow and too measured, so she picked up the pace a bit, but she felt that made her look too hurried. Like she was afraid. And why would a lady of the night be in a rush to get to work? Well... she could be late, Maya supposed, but given Sunberth's nature, she didn't feel as though it was best to make it look like you were trying to get too hard to get to your destination as that could draw unwanted attention, which was bad for obvious reasons. So, she forced herself to find a pace between the one that felt too fast and her usual, and that seemed to satisfy her. But the way she took her steps seemed a bit too deliberate, so she continued to move back and forth across the room, doing her best to relax her steps so it didn't seem like she was trying to walk a certain way. She needed to make it seem natural, like this was something she did every day, every time she chose to move from one place to another. After a while, she felt as though she had gotten that down, but she wondered if she should adjust the way she moved as she walked so as to make it seem like she was a lady of the night... more feminine or something. As opposed to just another person walking down the street. Perhaps she was beginning to overthink this, but it felt important to her for some reason, all the same, so she took a moment to consider how she'd seen human women moving in the past, took a moment to consider how she had moved when she was still alive, before deciding that she needed to hold herself more confidently and perhaps, sway her hips a little but not so much that it seemed like she was a caricature. So, she took a deep breath, more for old habit's sake than anything else, after all, she needn't breathe these days. And then rolled her shoulders to loosen them up a little, before pushing them back so she was standing up straight, but didn't appear as rigid as a board as she moved across the room. She tried to lighten her step too, to glide as she moved, but she found this a bit difficult given the frailty of her nuit body. She held her head up high though, and kept on trying, moving back and forth across the room until she was comfortable with these two minor adjustments before incorporating another, and what she felt should be the final aspect of the walk she was trying to perfect for this particular disguise--the slight sway in her step, in her hip area. The bit that was supposed to make her appear alluring, but not overly seductive, and certainly not like someone who was just pretending to be something they were not. She picked up the pace a bit, as though impatient to master this, and forced herself to slow as she adjusted her walk to make her hips sway. Too much at first, she could practically feel them swinging as she moved, so she forced herself to settle that down a bit before continuing onward, lessening it a little over time. Bit by bit, over and over again, until she was satisfied with the walk she had created. She continued to practice for another few minutes to be sure she had gotten it down and could "hold it;" it wouldn't do to have her cover blown if there was a momentary lapse. Something small she may be able to explain away, but something large and uncharacteristic of the being she was trying to portray could prove deadly. So, she kept practicing until she grew bored and felt confident enough to make her way outside and into the streets of Sunberth. She gave herself a quick once-over to make sure nothing had come undone while she was practicing, and satisfied, made her way into the summer air. It was warm, and the outside world was far more lively than the one she had left inside her run-down flat. She could see people moving about her, going about their business, and quickly locked the door behind her, although a part of her knew it didn't matter--she was certain break-ins were common here and she didn't have anything worth stealing or that could give her away--everything she'd need was on her person, her embalming fluid tucked into her pocket for example. So if she was caught, it would be bad, but if someone broke into her home and nicked her few things, it wouldn't be the end of the world. As she pulled her key out of the lock and tucked it into her pocket, she glanced at the sky, didn't dare breathe as she took her first true step into Sunberth and the danger that lurked on each of its corners.

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya walked steadily toward her destination. She didn't want to move so swiftly that she seemed in a rush, because that may attract unwanted attention, as would moving too slowly, since it could be viewed as a sign of weakness. And weak was not something you wanted to be in a city such as Sunberth. So she wove steadily through the city's dusty paths, keeping her gait even and her arms resting calmly at her sides. From the corners of her eyes, she could see shadows gathering. Silvery strips of metal glinting ominously in the light. Weapons... just what she needed. But as she razed her gaze to meet their owners' eyes, she noticed that they had not set upon her, but each other. There were throngs gathering--patches of people on each side of the road, surrounding her. She must have wandered into some sort of turf war or something. There were gangs in Sunberth, right? For once, Maya was grateful she was no longer alive, no longer human, for she felt no fear although she probably should have, even if the gangs didn't seem interested in her. She didn't quicken her pace as she moved, simply kept going toward her goal--toward work, as the gangs edged closer, kept sizing each other up. Eventually, the first man ran, and the second followed. Along with a flying knife, that sailed by Maya's nose. As screams and war cries split the air, she started moving a little faster, and in what felt as though it would have been far too many human heartbeats, she cleared the danger zone and left the sound of clashing metal and cries of alarm behind. Although the city and its layout weren't particularly familiar to her yet, and she still lost her way from time to time, Maya managed to make her way to work without encountering any more danger and without too much delay or trouble. When she arrived at the Clinic, she found the doctor covered in the blood of his latest patient--a human male whose skin was so pale, and whose eyes had grown so heavy, that they were fluttering open and shut. Maya was surrpised he hadn't passed out already. Without a word, she sprang into action--dampening a dusty rag, which she used to wipe the blood away from the patient whenever the doctor's hands provided her with an opening. He didn't comment on what she was doing; he didn't speak to her at all. And she didn't speak to him either, sensing that it would be better if she simply remained silent. The work itself was rough--the doctor's hands moved quickly, and hers slowly, and there was blood all over the place. Just what was wrong with the man? What had gotten him into such a state? Or was it simply the doctor in another one of his famous moods? It would be impossible to tell until she had cleaned the patient off a little better. It took a few minutes, a few minutes that felt too long, but eventually, Maya managed to wipe the majority of the blood away from the patient. By the time she was finished, the rag she had used to clean the unnamed patient was saturated with blood, and was dripping a pale red fluid onto the floor. She absently stuck the rag on the counter before surveying the patient and truly noticing what the doctor had been up to both prior to her arrival and while she had been cleaning the man off. The patient's body was covered with lacerations, if Maya had to guess, they had been cast by some sort of blade. They were clean cuts, so... that probably meant that whoever had made them was gifted with a blade, lacked a blade with a serrated edge, or any number of things. But the doctor... was deepening some of them? And had already sewn some of the less serious looking ones up. Maya's brow furrowed. What would possess him to work on the man in that way? Finally, she spoke, "do you want me to help sew up the wounds on his upper body while you work on the lower body?" she asked. "That should keep us from getting into one another's way." The doctor grunted. "If you'd like."

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya nodded. "Very well. I'll get started." The doctor said nothing further as the nuit moved around him, gathering the supplies she would need in order to provide her assistance--a surgical needle, some thread. She didn't think she'd need anything else, and soon after gathering her supplies. Returned to the patient's side to begin her work. First, she lifted the surgical needle to her eye level before grabbing the thread, and realizing she'd need a scissor or something sharp to cut it, so she wouldn't be dragging the spool around behind her. Another moment, and she had put everything down, and then gone retrieved a scissor and cut off a large piece of thread to use in her work. When she was finished, she raised the needle to her eye level again, and fought to thread it for a few moments--sliding the thread past the needle's eye, what felt like endlessly, or jamming it into the side of the needle so the thread bent and spun around it over and over. Eventually, however, she managed to thread the needle and was ready to set to work. So, she inched closer to the patient's side and bent over them in a way that provided the most light for her to work under, and also, the most light for the doctor to work under. Another moment of surveying their patient's wounds and she had picked out the most troubling-looking laceration--it was both a tad deeper and longer than the others, and crept over the man's right shoulder. Another moment and Maya had pierced the needle through the man's pale skin at the edge of the wound, raising a bead of crimson blood. She began to pull the needle through, and kept pulling until she couldn't pull any longer... and the thread came out of the wound. Shameful; she had forgot to knot the thread so it wouldn't do that. Maya took a moment to do that, rolling the thread between her fingers as she had seen the doctor do before. She couldn't get it right away, but eventually, she managed a small knot that left each end of her thread a touch uneven. But there was nothing to do about that now. Again, she bent over her patient so she could return to her work, and quickly pulled the needle through the skin at the edge of the wound. This time, when she pulled the thread all the way through, it held, and didn't come back out. She smiled, and slowly, began to weave the thread through the patient's skin. Looping it around and around in a lopsided mess that left some stitches tighter and some looser and spaced farther apart. She had not done a good job, nor a clean one--a few beads of blood were trickling around her stitches' edges, blossoming on the man's skin. But she couldn't do anything to correct them now--the man was in danger of losing too much blood if they weren't sewn up at all, she felt, and it may cause more trauma to simply pull them out. She'd have to do better going forward, so she uneasily and hastily tied the area she had been working on up, cut away the excess thread, and threaded the needle again to continue working on another portion of the man's injured flesh. After surveying the man's body again, she discovered the next laceration she should work on sewing up. She bent to her work and began sewing it closed, trying to keep her stitches a little tighter and neater than previously. By the time she was roughly halfway through stitching up the wound, she noticed something however, and it was that the man's skin was paler and greyer than before. He was beginning to grow cold, although several beads of moisture clung to his skin, glistening in whatever light found its way into the room. It was sweat, causing Maya to surmise that he must have been in a great deal of pain prior to his having passed out--and he had passed out, she had checked. His eyes had closed and his head had lolled to the side. Wait... he hadn't passed out. Unless death was considered passing out. His chest was no longer rising and falling as he breathed, shallowly, for he was no longer breathing. And as she listened, she realized she could not hear his heart beating either. "Doctor, we've lost him," she whispered, as she hastily tied off the thread she had been working on, before cutting what remained. She set everything down on the table after that and simply stared at the body. And felt nothing.

[Maya Frostfawn]

Time for Rewards! Maya: Skills: +5 Disguise +3 Cosmetology +1 Logic +1 Impersonation +1 Observation +2 Medicine Lore: Disguise: Applying a Foundation Cosmetology: Rouge Brightens the Lips