Post by Cyd Anae on Oct 7, 2010 1:10:41 GMT -6
"She bit me!" Shrieked the priestess, clutching her throat. "That little whore bit my fuckin' neck!" Struggling against the protective restraint of her peers the woman carried on as Cyd stole down the corridors of the canyon city, skidding around corners and barreling through doorways. Her feet slapped the ground, soles cutting against small stones and ground debris however she would not be stopped. This was freedom. The agony of her run, the burning of her chest and the throbbing of her ankles, the uneven, jarring impact of every foot fall, the coppery tang of another's blood on her tongue. These things were the signs of promise and hope, escape from the hell or Beverly Hills and their morbid fascinations.[/b] Nomadic
Muscles taut and aching she slowed, ducking behind the corner of an obscure corridor, hands braced against her knees as she regained a normal breathing pattern. She sucked a silent breath in through her nose, holding it for a short while as she attempted to pick out the clatter of hard-soled shoes against the stone-cut corridors, wincing as she picked one foot up, then the other rotating her ankle in gentle little circles. By the second time around easing the hurt off her left foot she tensed, sinking into the shadows of the wall, attempting to blend into the pitted, damp stone. Click. A poorly placed foot alerted her to the man's lackluster show of stealth. Now that she could hear him, she could hear everything. Her back knotted up, eyes searching the shadows for salvation. As the hunter rounded the corner he paused, looked left, looked right, then moved on. He continued to creep down the narrow hallway, showing a noticeable limp that accounted for the periodic drop of his heel.
It would take roughly ten minutes at his current pace to sidle down the hallway - the beekeeper's eyes trained hard on his gray old head as she bared her partially sharpened fangs in a pained grimace. Already her situation was bad, Anae noted, gazing up at her badly gashed upper arm with a quiet hiss of pain. "Shit." The old, gray head jerked up, turning towards the echoed source of the resentful voice, a loud bellow of triumph shattering the damp, dark quiet. Snarling she dropped down, falling badly only to drag herself up and once more take off, charging back into the winding maze. She would have to choose her expletives better next time, Cyd scolded as she slipped into a wide doorway, back pressing up against the wall, golden eyes watching for the Beverly clan-member to jog past. Her chest felt as if it might burst, her arm was limp and useless at her side and damn if she wasn't bleeding as if one little gouge would do her completely in. As the steps receded into the distance she resumed breathing, gasping desperately as she looked down at her badly wounded shoulder. Clamping her hand over the damage she grit her teeth, pressing the back of her head into the wall with a drawn out whine of pain.
Slowly she opened her eyes, glaring into relatively well lit chamber only to realize she was butted up against a scratched sheet of polished tin, a distinctive smear of blood and sweat imprinted from her body and damp clothing against the metal. The hammered, polished sheet, as well as her cousins lined up around the low-ceiling walls, helped to refract harsh sunlight filtered in from a moderately wide occulus cut into the center of the roof. The ceiling displayed red, brown and black paints as well as low relief carvings hammered into the rock - all worked together, depicting events or objects her stress and pain addled brain could not make out. All she wanted now was a needle, thread, maybe a bit of moonshine and strips of cloth to bandage her tend her shoulder by however as her eyes adjusted she felt a tickle of elation humming at her nape. Look at all the books! As soon as she recognized the distinctive rows of well worn bindings, her body became a fleeting focus.
Trailing after her, dripping from her fingertips and tracking under her broken soles a trail of blood, but before her the most incredible find of her twenty-five years. Pages would be missing, letters and ink would be worn away and the covers themselves might fall away under the slightest touch, but the rows upon rows, shelves upon shelves of literature before her made the agonizing ten feet or so worth the trek. Careful to rub her palm relatively clean across the thigh of her ruined, rough-cut jeans she reached out, caressing the shredded binding with a pleasant chill of awe. It was only as she heard the hollow slap of a book against a table that she broke her trance, glancing down at herself with a one-sided frown of disdain. Petting the book affectionately one last time she slunk off through the shelves, creeping towards the quiet shuffling of feet in thin-soled sandals. Peering around the edge of the bookcase furtively she studied the young "librarian" a moment, brow furrowing, a devious grin curling upon her lips. She had fallen in love.
In short order she had disarmed and gagged the young man, straddling his back as she tore strips of the rough woven hemp cloth from his robes, binding her shoulder and upper arm. Her hands slid down his ribs, to his hips just behind her thighs, groping at his belt as he puffed screaming into the wad of ruined cloth, struggling and attempting to sink his nails into her calves. Perhaps Beverly Clan didn't uphold values of survival, Cyd mused as she leaned back, reaching under him to inspect his waist further, searching for anything of use hidden under those robes other than the attractive scrap dagger that had been used to shed ribbons of the garment from around his shoulders. "C'mon, y' got booze or summat, I know you do, filth' straightedge."
When she left he would be naked, bound and shaken however relatively unharmed. Save for a smack to the back of the head and a harsh scolding she'd been a relatively nice escapee. The bookkeeper would later relate to his fellows on his dreary death march that the sacrifice he was to stand in for had stolen a handful of books, including a near ruined pocket edition of Psalms, a Time magazine bicentennial time line and George Orwell's Animal Farm. While nobody had cared to actually read these books (there was a distinct lack of literacy among the Beverly clan, at least not in the pre-fall sense) Beverly clan vowed to return the volumes to their shelves.
Within a week, the shelves would be little more than black ash. Beverly Hills clan, situated in what was Darwin Canyon, would be little more than a blackened memory of a hivecity government gone awry.
At a Glance
Faction: Enemies with Beverly Clan (strained peace), mistrusted by Anderson. Loner.
Strengths: Literate, physically powerful, strong-willed, aggressive, clever, takes what she so damn well pleases
Weaknesses: Stubborn, mistrustful of even the most friendly and harmless persons - continually alone, rude, impulsive, takes what she so damn well pleases, shy (difficult to believe, hm?), strong but silent type (will put up with abuse for a long time until it becomes too much - this can result in issues going too far)
Occupation: Ex-beekeeper and librarian, current book and tech hoarder, survivalist
Age: Twenty
Gender: Female
Species: Normal Human
Appearance: Built of long, lean muscles, mahogany colored skin, and a shade too many angles it's not difficult to compare Cyd to a jackal or a stray. Her ribs are faintly visible, her clothes are stained with blood, muck and sweat and her hair, cut in rough, ragged layers to mid-ribcage is dry and brittle, bleached out from exposure to sun and surf not too long ago. In fact she carries the very same look in her eyes, that of a mistrusting, wild animal carrying the golden-hazel tone not unlike that of a cat or wolf. It's not to say she looks beaten, quite the opposite. Cyd looks angry. Bitter. While there is usually an obvious measure of mirth on her features, it appears as if her standoffish nature is as much a defense as it is a warning to others that if you stick your hands into her cage you might come back with a stump. She is the embodiment of myth-related jackals and coyotes from before the fall, with a cat-like grin and a lazy, comfortable slouch that looks a bit too languid and stretched out for someone so short - she is but five foot five and seems to be almost serpentine.
It doesn't help much that she looks as much the part of a beast with her bodily modifications as she does her demeanor. Perhaps most striking is the sheer number of piercings that she wears. Piercings are as follows (and are, unless otherwise noted, metal): Left eyebrow, anti-eyebrow on the left, left nostril, three gauged lip piercings (left, right and one center, lower lip all fitted with pale bone spikes), bridge piercing and numerous ear piercings (most notably moderately gauged lobes). From the eyebrow to the anti then down to the nostril piercing is often a thin chain with a small coin (looks to be a dime or a penny) hammered flat attached just before the chain ends at the nose ring. A second chain fitted with small brass beads links from the left-most of the bridge piercing to the anti. The chains are removable and lightweight, often vanishing into pockets or pouches.
From there she proudly wears black ink designs, most notably the tattooing of her lower lip in solid black, the delicate scroll work and knots winding over her chin, partially over her throat, along her jaw, behind her ears some, up to the temple and just under the eyes with three heavily rimmed illustration of eyes spaced two along the jaw and one under the temple. Further ink work is visible along her hips, thighs and lower back, as well as her shoulders, shoulder blades backs of her wrists, hands, knuckles palms, and along the spine depicting a number of bees, spiders, eyes flowers as well as scroll and knot work interconnecting everything into a flowing web. The tattoos are evidently not only well made but placed along the body where the bones are closest to the skin and also show evidence of faint scarring suggesting that the needles were intentionally jabbed deeper or that the lines were gone over multiple times. A lack of fading between the designs suggest they were all done roughly the same time.
Perhaps one cannot rank the most obvious aspects of her being, but simply group them - all in all she is a particularly intimidating figure, even when controlling her wiry mane of sea-bleached hair. The style that she keeps her hair in is distinct with the left-side cropped close and militant behind the ears and to roughly the center of the back of her neck. It reveals a well recognized, alien symbol of the all important bee. The rest of her hair is long, unevenly layered and every now and again trimmed short. While a good portion of the hair is golden-orange the roots are a deep, shiny black suggesting that if her hair was a shade better kept that it wouldn't simply poof out in a thick cloud of damaged frizz. [/ul]
Class
Tech: 5
Mindedness: 4
[/ul]
OOC
Other Characters: NON.
How did you find us?: -devours the cbox-[/ul][/blockquote][/blockquote]
