APPEARANCEHer fair, unblemished skin, well-nutritioned height (5'10") and perfect poise hint at the pampered, very comfortable life she has lived thus far. While not "on the job", V sticks to dark clothes and heavy makeup - a custom she hasn't changed in three years. All enquiries over this habit have received ambiguous answers in return, prompting those around her to speculate occult practices, a tragic past, or simply attention-whoring.
PERSONALITYFirst meetings yield the public facade that V puts on to the people she deals with daily - cold, with a hint of b***h. While not an overly-demanding diva, blatant incompetency in other people easily irritates her; the worse her mood, the sharper her tongue. Sarcastic streak aside, V enjoys a measure of infamy for her detached manner of dealing with others at work; to quote a well-known stylist: "She's polite enough, alright... but if you're expecting her to chat with you while you do up her hair, that's not gonna happen."
Deep down inside, Vena is a true romantic - a secret she guards jealously. A childhood spent in an ivory tower has made her naive regarding the ills of the world, and further sheltering with an easy life makes ignoring the less fortunate and societal problems even more convenient. Seldom feeling the need to take a step back and feel grateful for what she has, Vena is, deep down inside, discontent with her life. She thirsts for adventure, excitement, danger, drama - and she wants a happy ending and a prince charming to boot. That is the limited extent to which she considers her future; rendered beautifully in watercolour with a dash of glitter. After all (and this is the gambler's fallacy), if life has been peachy keen so far, it'll stay that way to the end, right?
As a result, she finds it difficult to cope when things don't go the way she thought they would. Setbacks send her into the kind of deep funk you'd expect from a teenager. She'll retreat into the corner, listening to dramatic teary music (think.... Evanescence), fancying herself the tortured soul... but of course there's that strict diet and workout regime and Little Miss Perfect exterior to keep to, so wallowing for extended periods of time or pulling a /wrist aren't exactly options. Instead, V takes to scribbling pathetic poetry in a black notebook, which she burns at the beginning of each new year in a personal ritual. Or auctions for charity, if she feels like doing something for the lesser beings.
Vena is most comfortable "in the city" i.e. the Southeast. She revels in the attention she gets when people recognise her, something that doesn't happen in other parts further north or south. She walks not because she has to but because this way, she is
seen. In this leisure time V is usually off to grace another arty performance with her VIP presence, all in an effort to make herself appear sophisto... but the only ones she really enjoys are the ones that tell a story, and even then, a couple has to pair off at the end.
In summ, Miss Cava does indeed possess the glacial beauty of an iceberg - but unlike the iceberg, she has little to offer beneath.
ABILITIESThe skills Vena possesses are almost all associated with outward beauty. If you're looking for someone to offer suggestions on decorating your house/cake/face, you've found the right person. V is good at crafting things once she has a design thought up, and will often keep at it until it's perfect. Her "book smart" is limited to literature, though her tastes lie in fluff... as for "street smart"... well, does knowing the entire Southeast area well enough to hand anyone directions count?
HOBBIESAttending plays, operas, musicals and other such nonsense
Crafting handmade jewelry, which she sends to fundraisers when she "feels like doing something for the lower class"
Feeding stray cats
Sticking pins in voodoo dolls of people she doesn't like
HISTORYV doesn't like revealing anything about her personal life from before she was 18. Somewhere in a dusty corner of her posh apartment lies a box containing old photos and letters - some whole, some unopened, some shredded but saved up. Both the whole and shredded ones are mostly official-sounding in nature: academic records, a birth certificate, testimonials from teachers, rejections from various intitutes of higher learning.
All the unopened letters are clearly handwritten: addresses on the envelopes are in florid, elegant, embellished script, or in a large, broken, child-like scrawl. They remain in the same condition they were received. The topmost letter, in the second script, contains a remarkably short message; if its recipient were to hold it up to the light, she would be able to view its contents in their entirety:
Dear Eve,
I understand perfectly now. Forgive me.In all the photos poses the same girl, aged toddler to tween. Sometimes she is with a woman who shares her dark hair and solemn grey eyes; sometimes she is playing with a kitten; and in one, she sits in the middle of what appears to be a family portrait, on the knee of a man whose face has been pasted over with a smiley sticker. In fact, there are
several family portraits, and in each one the man's face has been treated as such; then again, not all the portraits appear to contain the same man. A single photo stands out from the others: in this one, the girl is posing with another child her age, and they each hold up half of a heart pendant to form a whole. It is difficult to tell whether her companion is a boy or a girl.
One half of the pendant lies at the bottom of the box.
[[Spoilers!
Put simply:
10: Vena made a pact with her childhood sweetheart to grow old together. They were both from well to-do families. There was much rejoicing.
18: Said childhood sweetheart grows up, realises the girl he loved has grown into someone else entirely. There is a messy breakup. He takes up with someone of humble birth he met in school, who is a good deal more intelligent, kind, considerate, three-dimensional than V... and someone she's always looked down on. They are headed to the same college/university abroad together -- naturally, without Vena.
18: V moves in to Irnsquare, alone. She knows not what to do with her life, and while moping at an uptown cafe, is spotted by an agent. Thus her modelling career begins.
I suppose the three most important people to her would be her mother, the boy who left her, and the agent who spotted her (deliberately leaving "the agent" vague as a potential future character - they are still in contact and she is the closest to a "friend" Vena has).]]
SAMPLEAnother day on the job - a new look, a new set, a new series of costumes to play clotheshorse for. Today Vena was the maiden in the woods in various white dresses, with flowers woven through her hair and a horned equine companion to boot.
Everything was on hold. After just a few shots, the designer decided to "have a word" with the photographer: their silhouettes through the glass-window'd door made increasingly agitated gestures, and, while muffled, their conversation was obviously getting louder. V sighed and turned her face to the backdrop once more (the last pose had required her to gaze demurely over her shoulder, her arm reaching across the unicorn's neck to gently pat his cheek) and, with a shock, realised that everything was
moving, albeit soundlessly.
Hares, a deer couple and even a pheasant drew closer as the faun puffed away on his flute. A pair of butterflies chased each other across her vision; the leaves waved gently in the breeze, a breeze she could feel... or was that warm breath? Eyes wide, V quickly turned back to the unicorn again --
But the side door opened, and just the harried-looking photographer was back.
"So uh, we're going to ditch the unicorn to focus on you, and the hair needs to be redone... go to Leslie again, she's being debriefed now.
...
Is something wrong, V?"
Quite certain that the prop was a prop, Vena shifted her attention back to the real world.
"No. I understood - I'll be heading back to Leslie now."
But just before the exit, she looked back again, grey eyes thoughtful.
"
If we're not using the unicorn, I don't suppose I could have it...?"
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