Nicki stood before the small bit of mirror that hung on her wall near her door that she would never forget what her foolishness had wrought her. It was written plain on her face for all to see and she reminded herself daily by looking at it, making herself remember everything. Penance for her stupidity. But for now she looked into the mirror with no self-recrimination but simple appraisal. She had been asked to attend this foolishness and attend she would. However, like with the card game she found peace in exerting some sort of control over her participation. She had been asked by the helmsman to attend with him in order to keep the eyes off of him. She could do that. 

She was marred, marked and flawed, there was no way around that. She would not hide it behind paint even if it were possible. It was earned and she would not shirk from it. She would walk into that party and hold her chin high and let them all see. She did not hide what she was. She wore pants, for certain, but she typically did not wear them to look like a man, she wore them because she needed to for her work. But more than that it equalized her some, put her on more even footing with her fellow crewmates and though they never looked at her without her gender being part of the equation she liked to think her common way of dressing, in a man’s garb, helped the equation add up. She was surely not alone in this, not on the Skate at least.

Though she wore pants now, there was nothing at all equalizing about them. The entire ensemble was patterned after fashionable men’s dress but there the similarities ended. Made with exscuisite care and a hand skilled enough to be peddling their wares in Paris she looked like an eccentric, wealthy French Aristocrat, only more so. Her expression as she peered at her reflection was haughty, proud and beyond reproach. She held herself like a queen and seemed to radiate the expectation that she would be treated like one. It was a look she had learned long ago and didn’t have much occasion to practice.

Her hair was a careful tumble of sun-kissed curls around her face, loose, soft and begging for fingers to slide in and muss up the artful perfection. A strand or two fell around her face, tickling her collarbone, skimming the velvet column of her neck, drawing the eye to her vulnerable flesh. The tendrils served to pull one’s gaze to the tender shift of skin and shadow on the hollows of her throat as she moved her head to look at the work of paint on her face. 

Her lashes were thickened and darkened with Kohl, a light touch that simply drew the eye to their wide perfection. She wore just a touch of color on her lips, enough to say that she knew her way around a brush, enough to say that she knew full well the power of her lush features. On her cheeks she wore no color that was not already burned into her flesh. 

She narrowed her eyes and considered all that she could see of her appearance. One corner of her full mouth curved up in a wry smile. She was pleased with the overall effect. She would go, but she would do this her way, as she did most things. Jax did not want to be sneered at, well with her on his arm, he would not be. She would draw all the sneers and all the eyes and so it would be possible for the Captain to hear what he needed to and for him to find Antonia without drawing attention to himself. 

Heeled, knee-high , tooled leather boots in burgundy flowed along the curve of her calves and added height to her already majestic carriage. The pants that were tucked into her boots were custom fit so well that her very well formed legs might as well have been bare. The curves of her hips, the round tautness of her bottom were all framed by the dusky rose fabric. The flat plane that was the front of her breeches confirmed all that the hips and bottom implied: she was aggressively, unapologetically female. 

She wore what would have been called a waistcoat on a man but on here it was simply a canvas upon which to spotlight her assets. Dark Rose fabric, nearly burgundy spilled forth a froth of ivory lace which framed décolletage fit for a goddess. Pale, mounds of soft flesh that drew the eyes like a softly glowing moon on a clear night and seemed just as unattainable. But like the moon they seemed just as likely to set men to madness for the wanting of them. Over the vest she wore a dusty rose brocade coat that was cut with the same expert line as her breeches. It framed her hips and the magnificent swell of her bosom, highlighting her femininity for all that her garments were male. 

It would do.

Without another look she walked to the door of her Cabin, her steps measured, even, despite the racing of her heart. That she felt inwardly nervous, uncertain, irritated her. She closed the door to her cabin and turned to find that the deck had fallen into an unnatural hush as all eyes found her. She surprised a vain grin though she was pleased at the overall effect. 

She looked to where the Helmsman was supposed to meet her and found the spot empty, her eyebrow rose and her mouth tightened. 

“Where is Monsieur Jax and the Captain?” she asked aloud, her voice cracking in the silence like a whip. The men knew the tone and not a one had the wherewithal to speak with the combination of her appearance and the palpable ire rolling off of her. But one of them pointed and she followed his finger to the carriage that rolled steadily away. 

“Couilles!” she shouted and strode toward the gang plank only partially mollified when she saw that another Carriage awaited her. If the Helmsman wanted to go to the Ball on the Captain’s arm as she’d first suggested, he could have spared her getting dressed up. But as she had bothered she simply muttered colorfully as she slipped into the carriage and let it convey her to the party, just a half a block behind the Captain and her escort. 

Her mood was no better when she arrived at the mansion but she held it in check as she slipped from the carriage with the aid of the driver. She looked over the building, noting it’s loveliness with a passing interest. The buildings in this land still felt so new, so sharp to her. She’d grown up in a house with more history than this whole land and it had shown it in the rounded edges the well settled air of it. She spotted the Helmsman right away and past him the retreating back of the Captain who had dressed the part of the rogue Captain in black and silver. How fitting. Even on the edges of the party she could feel the eyes on her and so she lifted her chin and let her ire take its place behind her regal, queenly countenance. 

She glided towards Jax, her eyes glittering with a light that was nearly as dangerous as the sway in her hips. A sway that was nearly as sweet as the honey in her voice. Her voice, which held an intoxicating blend of anger and honey, whispered like a confession of dark things desired across his cheek and ear as she spoke,

“Why didn’t you wait for me?”