A film-noir starlet. A patient observer. Silent, black-and-white, inscrutable Theda. Everyone knows of her, but do any really know her? Her face is easily recognisable, especially to Topwarpers; she is the leading lady in the retrocinema revival, and the premiere hostess among enclaves of turn-of-the-century aesthetes.
Theda is modelled after any number of glamourous silent-film ingenues. She appears to observing eyes to be completely greyscale, and her monochromatism bleeds over to those who make physical contact with her. When she 'speaks', only her lips move. No sound is actually produced, and how listening ears 'hear' her is entirely up to the imagination of those interacting with her. Things instantiate themselves around her as needed -- her set dressers know exactly how to set the stage for each scene. She is kind, impish, impetuous and occasionally wicked, as capricious as any fae, and she is fond of tea.
She is slender, a being of pale alabaster skin and jet-black hair, ethereal in her greyscale beauty. Her face is heart-shaped, with high elfin cheekbones and canted dark eyes, her thin eyebrows and voluminous lashes lending an even more smoky cast to her countenance. Her hair is piled atop her head in an ornate arrangement of pin-curls and the high, rounded knot of a bun, revealing pointed ears. A strand or two falls across her smooth cheek to curl around her dark-lipsticked, harlequin-painted lips. A delicate, pointed chin completes her face, which leads down into a long, graceful throat, around which is wound a strand of pearls.
Her shoulders are bare, pale ivory, and her soft grey dress cuts low across her chest, baring her arching collarbones and slender arms. Should she turn, one might see that her dress is cut even lower in the back, the deep plunge of its backline ending in a stark 'v'-point below the small of her back. The practical reason behind this daring choice in fashion is more immediately obvious -- a pair of moth-like wings, mottled and banded in shades of grey and black, a bone-white deaths'-head emblazoned between her shoulderblades.
Her dress clings closely to a demure bosom and tightly drawn-in waist, her figure the coveted corset-wearer's hourglass. The soft grey fabric seems to cling to every curve as though it were part of her skin, shimmering delicately. It is not until low over her hips that the illusion is broken... her dress is a soft, wispy pelt of cloud-soft down, and at her hips the strands lengthen to form a 'skirt' of sorts, one that reaches to the ground beneath her and puddles into liquid ripples of 'silk', a long slit drawn up the side of one leg, revealing the smooth skin beneath and one delicate foot ensconced in its high-heeled black sandal, ribbon twining about her calf and knotted with a slender bow across the curve of muscle.
Slender hands are tipped in delicate, black-painted nails, each filed with careful deliberation to a sharp point, while her arms are sheathed in opera-length 'gloves' of hazy fur, which match her dress. If one were to gaze closely upon her, one might notice the soft film-grain dapples across her bare skin, or the white-on-white deaths'-heads that form an arch across her decolletage, mirroring the one so boldly emblazoned across her upper back. Delicate, featherlike antennae are almost invisible against the sweep and twist of her hair's up-do, though they do occasionally make their presence known through soft flutters and twists. A vague, implacable smile twists her meticulously-painted lips, full lashes framing her inscrutable, serene gaze.
Topwarp Fountain, take sixteen.
A single droplet of water, indistinguishable from all the rest, cascades down from the fountain. There is nothing particularly notable about it. It's round, and wet, and pristine, and clear, just like every other droplet. It splashes into oblivion against the lowermost surface of the fountain. Theda exhales, silver glitter swirling outward from her lips. She is smiling. Almost blissful.
"Oh, that Cornelius.. he is quite charming, yes. Such a gentleman, but.."