Sinner's G R I N [open]

[`archadia]

a l e x a n d r o s !

SHOW ME HOW TO LIE,
you're getting better all the time.
and turning all against the one
is an art that's hard to teach

It was a common sight. The last heir to the Illeck bloodline surrounded by a group of others so suffocating he could barely move. His demeanor turned no one away and, worse yet, drew them in like flies to honey. The nearly perpetual smile on his face was like a ward against bad omens. It was comforting and reassuring and addicting. Everything about him, from the perfect appearance to the way he held himself, was warm. The closest thing he had to a vindictive bone were the ones that held his pride and his morals. And like he fed from their satisfaction, those that surrounded him fed off his need to please. His tolerance and patience were unmatched. He was charming with a hint of devilishness. He was cheerful and optimistic. He was beautiful and wonderful. He was absolutely perfect and kind and thoughtful and intelligent and, oh it went on and on.

Beneath the sparkling smile, Alexandros Illeck seethed with annoyance.

The goodbyes were oh so heartbreaking. Surely we'll see you later, surely it can't be so bad you must leave us, surely you can put it aside to spend more time with me. The smile held through, accepting painted lips against his cheek, the heavy whisper in his ear, without complaint. Certainly not. Alexandros never complained. He managed to wiggle away, managed to force a rosy tint to his cheeks, managed to look pained but rushed. His obvious need to get away to perform whatever task it was made the others push him away with laughter at his peril. He gave them another smile and turned, moving with a step a bit to quick. Alexandros was around the corner and out of sight before the worried but optimistic look fell away. His features hardened, lips setting into a thin line. Had anyone been there to see, they would have wondered what creature had taken over his body. The drastic change in the blink of an eye: did another man share Alexandros's face?

There was only so much he could take. It was true, aye, he had chosen this life. He enjoyed in the majority of the time, having the entire population wrapped so easily around his finger. However, he did need a break from time to time, from the men and woman that thought the roles were reversed. He was not wrapped around their fingers, contrary to belief. Their limited intelligence, base desires, animalistic needs: he could feel his fucking IQ beginning to drop at times. "They lay long past ignorance," he hissed to himself, not realizing he'd spoken aloud. Stupidity was an epidemic. It was rare he found anyone unaffected by it, save himself of course. But conversation with himself did become quite a bore.

Alexandros cut through an empty ally, emerging in a less populated part of town. Perhaps not the best suited for a man of his birth, but it was less likely he would be attacked by a half-witted hound begging for scraps from the kind Alexandros's pretty hands. He had run thin on patience this day.

[• Jinx]

YOU POOR, SWEET, INNOCENT THING
dry your eyes and testify.

Managing to escape the lobby of her hotel with little to no damage had been a feat easily accomplished by Violette. She was a charmer, even if it wasn't all the way to her heart, and she smoothly talked her way out of the hotel before making her escape out the front doors and down the street. She loved this new land; it was so fresh and vibrant, and something that she felt she could experience over and over again before she got bored with it. Of course, after she was done here with the business part, she'd come back and visit it, if she got the chance or some other place didn't catch her eye. It would definitely be near the top of her list of places to go again.

Elegantly, smoothly, she made her way down the street, flaxen waves falling loosely past her shoulders. She wasn't sure what the custom on women was around here -she'd always had a sort of naivete to these things, that or simply a tolerance for it so she could ignore it- and so she went out as she preferred, dressed comfortably with limited restraints. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she darted blithely past a group of laughing men and made her way gracefully down an alleyway, listening to the echoes of her steps from the cobblestone street onto the wall. She smiled lightly, and then began to hum a soft tune of one of the songs she had written just a while ago, an almost jovial tune with a sort of edge to it.

Oh, how boring. There was no one in this town that had been interesting so far. Of course, she hadn't met any of the royalty or nobles or anything like that yet, so this place certainly still had a chance, if not for its natural charm. If the royalty and nobles were just as boring as the usual people here, she probably wouldn't ever come back here again. A stimulating conversation is what kept her going, and that was what kept her coming back. And while Violette clearly did not like to pick conversations with random people off the street, when she spotted the shock of red hair in an alley across the street from the alley she was in, she quickly darted across, and into the alley, and promptly tapped his shoulder, giving a short wave (and not curtsying).

"Pardon me," she began in a delicate, winsome tone, "but I was wondering if you might know where a lady could get a conversation that didn't make her mind rot." She tilted her head a slight degree and pushed more hair from her face, gently pursing her pretty lips into a fine, thin line. The one thing that she hated about being a diplomat was that you could tell she was foreign, because her words came out heavily accented from her homeland, and the words of the countrie's native tongue almost always came out in a strange, unique, lilting drawl.