[color=B2A5D5][h3]Isai[/h3][/color] [sub][@spicykvnt][/sub][hr]
A woman, perhaps once beautiful and graceful in dress and tongue, now defiled and in dire straits in her need for a bath and a tailor, descended upon the gentleman and his assistant like a vulture. And like a vulture, she had a hungry glint in her eye and dressed in dark, almost greasy plumage, with nails like talons. Her mouth, with each utterance, was like a beak pecking and prodding, as if testing for still and ripened flesh so as to pull his liver out from his side. Her language was like a sordid distortion and corruption of the courtly cant communicated in higher class circles. Her face, in isolation, a vintage ceramic stained by patina in need of polish or like a wine on the cusp of vinegar, and so then her dress may perhaps not be like a vulture’s at all, but like aedra fallen from grace. Part of him saw the wild of wyresses in her, but nay, it was something darker… not even in the daedric sense, but the dark of nature: like starving wolves in the dead of night, plagued by infection, thorns, and venom. Well, Isai resolved to prove that he was no carrion! If this fallen angel saw fit to test her mettle in descending upon him, he hoped she’d find no easy meal. However, lest she see him a threat, he wanted to allow her to believe her illusions still stood.

Isai looked over at her, his eyes darting between the youth-hag and Verena. He didn’t face her, but rather addressed her from the side, and quickly, before Verena had a chance to respond. [color=B2A5D5]“Hm? Esquire of Cheydinhal actually, my lady, though I appreciate your estimation of my station. [i]Isai Tegulatoris Sutris-Armaseptus da Leyawiin, Esquire.[/i] Alas, the gods permit me only to be but of the landed gentry before the peerage, and my tongue to turn naught but opinion, [i]pleasure,[/i] and tied cherry stems.”[/color]

Ending his introduction so matter-of-factly, he bowed as much as the physical space would allow him to and extended his hand with as much distance and with as much respect for her space as he could. He added, [color=B2A5D5]“Though speaking of pleasure, it is mine to make your acquaintance, dear lady…?”[/color]

His words lingered in the air as she awaited her name. He couldn’t lie to himself, he was kind of scared of her. But he thought he put up a good enough front, and if nothing else he knew how to make people good about themselves in his presence, like everyone else around them is momentarily forgotten. That aside, she seemed enough of a caricature — more a character to him than a real person — that made her interesting enough to serve as a literary subject in one of his manuscripts. So, getting the full scoop of what she was about might be worth losing a finger over as long as one of the restorationists in here felt like mending another one.