Early March 2018 New Albion Outskirts, The Streets

## Doris Ashview (ST Euryale)04/02/2018

...early March, 2018... The city on the edges of the Texas wilderness reminded her of Las Vegas: a fairytale city wrought of light and noise, beckoning the adventurous to try their luck in her streets. She heard it almost the same breath as she saw it, glittering against the darkness. She smoothed her green cocktail dress over her hips, threw back her shoulders, and crossed the boundary between the outlying scattering of homes and the heart of the city. Her heels tapped out a staccato against the still-flawless sidewalk. By instinct she threaded her way to the entertainment district, stopping occasionally to tip her head as if listening to something or someone only she could hear. Eventually, she found the right place. A pool of streetlight outside a theater, just outside the glare of the marquee. That was where she needed to announce herself. So, with the hauteur of an empress, she drew herself up in her impromptu spotlight and began to sing.(edited)

No amplification, no microphone, just the power of her presence and her gift. The notes soared above the cacophony of traffic and people, creating a pool of stillness that spread further and further as more people were enraptured by her performance. "Masquerade! Paper faces on parade…/Masquerade! Hide your face so the world will never find you. /Masquerade! Every face a different shade. /Masquerade! Look around, there's another mask behind you. /Masquerade! Burning glances, turning heads. /Masquerade! Stop and stare at the sea of smiles around you. /Masquerade! Grinning yellows, Spinning reds. /Masquerade! Take your fill, let the spectacle astound you." Perhaps a bit mocking, partially a challenge. Certainly a statement. The smoky alto shaded the lyrics with a plurality of meanings.

When she finished, she spread her stole on the pavement in front of her in the manner of buskers everywhere. Then, with half of a laugh in her voice and dry amusement in her tone at the assembly, she asked if there were any requests. As they were called out, she sang them; snatches of songs from every era and genre, from video games to bubblegum pop to funk and Motown and old school jazz. She stood there, an inhumanly pitch-perfect jukebox, sliding from song to song as effortlessly as a falcon soars. Money pattered down on the fox fur spread at her feet. She scanned the crowd, looking for the one person not transfixed, not playing the game. The man her flagrant abuse of power was meant to call to her. A Siren does not share the spotlight. If this bold Ventrue was as bold as they said, he would be unable to resist trying to take it from her. He would fail...but he could try.

## Doris Ashview (ST Euryale)04/02/2018

There was no man. No sign of him. Instead, there was a sea of adoring faces, stretched out endlessly in every direction. She would, for a single moment, find herself terribly alone. And then... A light. The entire side of a pillar of steel and glass illuminated in a single burst, silhouetting a figure. Though mortal eyes would only see the vaguest outline of a strict posture, a supernatural view could glint something more. His eyes. They were blue. Terribly, terribly blue. He motioned with two fingers, and the building fell to darkness again. Already she could see a closed door open. A sign illuminated itself. "BON VIVANT STUDIOS: WHERE DREAMS ARE REALITY" Really...what a flair for the dramatic. But, a summons was a summons, no matter how melodramatic. She shrugged imperceptibly and gathered a hint of the evening's shadows around her, a fragment of chill from the land beyond the glittering fairyland of glass and light. The crowd began to disperse as she came to the end of her last song. As the shadows pressed more thickly around the pool of light and the last echoes of her voice died away, they moved more quickly. Time to be somewhere else. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time. I am Doris Ashview and I should be performing nightly at a club near you within the week." Because she was a pragmatist, she gathered up her earnings. Because she was terribly, terribly vain, she shook out the stole before wrapping it around her shoulders. Then, with the same elegance of a vintage starlet or an exceptionally expensive whore, she clicked her way across the street towards the light and towards whatever the Song had in store for her.