01-05-2008, 04:19 AM
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For Shakadyn, in China Town. They say that you imitate the one you love, mirror their mannerisms in such accurate exaggerations that theyl earn to adore you as totally as the looking-glass. Luz Cresceno had never known the emotion on large scales. To her, the urge to suddenly wrap herself in her former inamorata’s idiosyncrasies pinched few nerves and knocked about no alarum bells, and plucked nothing more than heart-strings. So it was that she emerged from some building’s belly dressed in decidedly cabinboy attire. The opal necklace that adorned her more and more frequently was at it’s accustomed territory: the valley-place between breasts that had fascinated human men so, yet did nothing for your sidewalk-stranger werewolf male. A vest, in blue-green paisley, covered that particular anatomy-stretch admirably, but did nothing for anything further south. For trousers, a canvas-cloth pair of pants (smacking of high-seas pirate, complete with the slightly above-knee patch) had been fetched from the coffers of a costume store, where Luz had ample opportunity to marvel at less appealing wonders, like fairy wings and tinsel crowns. In order that that they not slide completely off her hips with her first step, she’d bound them with twine at lower hip, right and left knee, so that the pants puffed slightly. The result? Entirely unnecessary foolishness. Yet if her life had not been invested in folly and feckless activity, and so many other f-words, Luz Cresceno would not have found herself making footsteps in Chinatown. She’d managed to arrive at the precise time of day where evening collides with afternoon, making for spectacular red sky-play. Lately, she’d risen at other hours than dusk; it gave her unusual appreciation for what little sunset she could snatch from the cracks between gutted buildings. How different she felt, with fabric against her skin! She had never known she was nude before; somehow her selection of silk and canvas-cloth in lieu of figleaves made her feel strides better about being dressed at all. However, had she anticipated any great joy at mimicking another’s habit, Luz was gravely mistaken. She found her memories alive like birds, and like birds, they fluttered and made noise at the slightest things. The clothing also entirely confused her gender. Before, there had always been the slightest slant towards female, an unmistakable cut to breast and thigh. Now such areas had been doused in the mysteries only fabric affords. It pleased her, a very little, as she stood on the rim of the manmade koi-pond, where the gurgles of their stone brothers (plus one or two wind-chime sounds, their lack in volume more than compensated by their foreboding factor) made an excellent sound-track to night’s onset. There too, amid ichthyofauna, she found her reflection. She rarely caught it; her interest in it was transient and secondary. It tempted her to move her hands against her own cartography, as if to assure herself that this was no trickery, not divine-designed insult, not sorcery. After that, her interest waned. This particular second? No exception from that pattern, although she did assume a posture and hand-arrangement that mocked pensive thought. |