Once upon a time there was a girl who loved the night, and the night loved her back. It watched from the shadows of closets, or fondly caressed legs fallen from the protection of bedsheets.
As she grew it followed her into the deepest depths of the earth, vigilant as the fever burned the weakness from her body.
It sat on her chest, and waited.
And when she finally left that place, it followed once more.
Hong Kong, 2040
Nhysa always considered it a perk of the job; at least when the mark was to her taste.
His hands chased warmth along her thighs, burning fire in the small of her back as they moved greedily up her spine. Sweet kisses chased her neck, breath hot against her jaw, the sheet of her dark hair inking down his shoulders. Shadows writhed like something alive in the room’s corners, filling her up with ecstasy brighter than the heat of his passion.
When afterwards he began to slow she chased him down to the pillows, brushing the midnight hair from his brow. Sweat slicked beneath her palm, his shallow breaths coming faster. No realisation dawned on his face; he was drifting far away, on tides she could not follow. Nhysa pressed a kiss on the top of his head as his eyelids fluttered. “Sleep, now.”
A sniper bullet could have done the job; quick, efficient, distant.
But this was the death she had chosen for him.
She stayed until his chest stilled. He wasn’t a bad man (adultery aside) but he’d picked the wrong side of the war to fight for. Still, though Nhysa might be a soldier she was not without compassion; she chose the most peaceful end she could offer. Even let him die with a modicum of happiness.
For the Custody.
“This is the one? You’re sure? She looks like a girl.”
Colour garlanded the city for Humorina, its people mosaiced in rainbow hues. The air was jovial, thick with silly pranks and laughter. Television cameras flashed on the crowds, Odessa’s main thoroughfare dotted with eccentric and sometimes exotic performers vying for ephemeral fame. The festivities were a goldmine, perhaps why DII’s Patron chose to smile and parade for the afternoon. Several agents dotted the crowd, none particularly worried; the threat was negligible. It proceeded without a hitch, the Patron herded into his private jet before dusk blooded the horizon. Though the streets still cavorted, and would do well into the moon’s glow.
Returning to tonight’s home, Nhysa did not hear the stranger before he was upon her, a wig of neon orange sprouting from his head, a stupid round red nose centering his face. Heat slammed into her stomach as she was about to shove him aside. Her gaze widened, instinct gripping a fist into his hair, slamming his head into the wall. As his smashed face rebounded her muscles flexed, yanking his throat against the razor of her shiv. Blood sprayed. She dropped the body.
Her hand braced against the wall, a snarl cutting up her face as she toed the fucker for clues. No one knew who she was; her trail was clean. Tattoos draped his arms; he looked like a thug, but no street shit could’ve crept beneath her guard. Her teeth sank into her lip, vision flashing white as she pressed her hand against the wound. It should have sunk her to her knees, but the warm thrill of pain only pumped her adrenaline harder.
Shadows fizzed angrily around her, her gaze catching on one unmoving at the mouth of the alley. The woman’s expression flattened as Nhysa’s black eyes pinned her. Her gaze took in her dead companion. And she ran.
Training fired Nhysa’s legs to a run even as her life spilled out. Her pulse thundered in her ears through the maze of alleyways, until the woman fled through a chain link gate and into a dilapidated brick shack. Darkness swallowed her whole, sucked her down into its spiralling depths. She did not pause, even when the path spidered. Nor even when dizziness washed her legs from her under her.
She tripped, hands grazing against the line of skulls embedding the wall, barely breaking her fall. Bloody lips grimaced a grin as she forced herself up, a growl of defeat hissing through her teeth. She slumped, legs splayed out, back against the bones, and fought to fumble free the emergency medkit; jammed a shot into her thigh and snarled as the cold flooded. Her hand released, a moment to breathe, and then her fingers explored the wound. Laughed to find a blessedly solid wall of muscle beneath the slit skin.
“Fucking scratch,” she told the shadows. A lie, but it made her feel better as she pressed the nanoaid in a sheet against the injury. An expensive mistake, to be sure, but she knew she was worth every damn cent to the CCD. Her eyes half lidded as the area began to numb, but her brows still pressed low at a familiar prickle of unease across her brow. Where her skin touched the limestone it was ashy cool, but she still beaded sweat like she sat in a fucking furnace.
Only time would tell if the poison would burn its way out.
Or not.
To the Custody she would be dead. To the world she had never existed in the first place.
No one would come looking for her.
She began to drift, half aware in the thick darkness of the shine of eyes. The shot made her drowsy as it tried to clear her system. Or maybe that was the blood loss. He stood silent, limned by the faint light in his hand. A heavy fur coat, years ancient, weighed his shoulders. Face pale as death.
“They owe me some vacation time,” she murmured to the shubin as the consciousness slipped out of her. He did not disagree.
The bone cracked. Sharp pain. The girl’s eyes stared up at the ceiling, unblinking. She did not flinch. She did not speak.
Fuck, even if she could gather the energy to stand, she did not know the way out.
Around her the inky shadows shifted alive, though it was not her doing. The dark watched her slow death curiously, eyes crawling all over her slick skin before it padded forward on four soft paws. A twitch of whiskers brushed Nhysa’s nose.
Then the swipe of its paws gashed her cheek.
Nhysa did not flinch, but she did glower. Let me die in peace, won’t you? But the Custody didn't breed its operators weak, and something of that throbbing pain incited her instincts. She pushed up on shaking arms, caught her feet beneath her and shoved with the sheer grit that saw her through every bloody hour of her training. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase in empty eye sockets as she dragged herself upright, her own gaze blind in the dark until a sudden fuzz of light drew her like moth to flame. The shubin’s dead face glowed expressionless. He crooked a finger, lamp swinging.
And led her up.
Nhysa’s body wasted during the months she recovered from both poison and wound. She refused to return to the motherland so diminished, though the fact she would return was never in question. Beyond the darkness of the catacombs the world had changed. Ascendancy revealed to the world what he was, and shone light on the threat noosing the necks of all those like him.
A little too late for Nhysa. A warning would have been appreciated.
But revenge was only periphery. Home called its sweet siren.
The shadows watched as the girl slipped free of her bonds and pressed a finger from her mangled hand to her lips. Night swallowed the cell.
And when she left, it followed still.
Description: When not playing a role, Nhysa is generally a quiet individual -- though by no means shy. She likes broken things, and has a penchant for finding the good in even the most repulsive individuals (though this apparent empathy doesn't seem to affect her doing her job). For those she feels kinship she is protective, almost motherly. But she is a dark soul, inured to violence and possessed of a decidedly odd moral compass. She is a Custody loyalist.
Her jobs vary between assassinations and protection. She excels at either and does not seem to have a preference.
A constellation of freckles marks her face and dusts her body, the most distinguishing of her features and thus usually covered. Naturally she is dark-eyed and haired, the tilt of her eyes suggesting a mixed parentage, though she knows nothing of her origins and considers DI home. It’s difficult to determine her age, but depending on dress and manner she appears somewhere between mid to late twenties. A particularly nasty scar slices up her belly, with various others less obvious about her body. She has various piercings, but no tattoos.
Reborn: Nyx is a primordial goddess, the personification of the night and all that its concealment embodies. The only goddess Zeus was afraid of. She lived in Tartarus amongst shadows and monsters, far below Hades.
Those looking to create mischief are appreciative of Nyx, as are thieves and fugitives, for under the cover of darkness is the best time for such treachery. Night is also the time for Deceit, Sleep, Doom, Madness, and Death – the children of Nyx. Lovers enjoy Nyx because night opens up the arms of her child Love. That’s why many budding romances chose to meet when the stars are out.
Abilities: Channeler; her block is such that she can only channel in darkness/at night. As Nyx reborn, she has an uncanny kinship with the supernatural. Benign creatures tend to look on her favourably and even aggressive ones might think twice before attacking her. A dola spirit, which Nhysa mostly interprets as living shadow but has occasionally taken the form of a cat, has followed her since she was a child. She has grown used to the visitation of other beings and usually pays them little mind.
RP History: