<div style="text-align: center">《 Alvaro 》<br/>
<i>Location: the <s>dungeons!</s> basement<br/>
Addressing: Sou</i>​</div><br/>The woman on the floor seemed to be of little thought to Alvaro as he moved past her devastated, crumpled form on the floor and through the door. Beyond it were his office of sorts and a workshop, a workshop tailored to his kind of work. He tossed the keys onto a desk with a loud clank and began to whistle again. From her vantage point on the floor, she could see his boots moving about the room, around a table. She could hear the clamor of chain being moved along metal railing and the screech of metal table legs on the concrete. Then there was the opening and closing of drawers and items hitting the top of the metal table. The whistling turned into humming as his steps returned to the desk and were joined by mariachi music.<br/><br/>"I like music when I work," he chuckled amiably. "Particularly if I'm going to be working for a long time."<br/>He looked around the room, satisfied. Perhaps, at one time in his career, a long time ago, he did things for the psychological effect on his mark; but as he had grown more into his role it had become unnecessary. Being himself had proved to be intimidating enough for most people.<br/><br/>"Perfect!" he said, then clapped his hands loudly. "Let's get started!"<br/>He strode with purpose to where the woman still lay and hauled her up by the arm. The threat of dislocating a shoulder alone was enough to get her compliance. It was the body's natural inclination to avoid injury. That was something he'd learned early on. It was a shaky transition to get her from where she'd been to the tabletop and he did so with all the grace of tossing a duffle bag.<br/><br/>The table was cold and the light above it a dingy sort of yellow. Not the ideal setting for a real artist, but he wasn't really much of a real artist and it was good enough for him.<br/><br/>"You know, I had no idea this morning that I was going to be doing this today," he spoke casually as he moved and positioned her on the table, trying several positions before settling on one. "no time to prepare, so you'll just have to live with what you get. I'm sure you don't mind, right?" He leaned down to smile at her as he patted her shoulder firmly. "Of course, you don't."<br/><br/><br/>He moved away, stripping his shirt off and replacing it with an apron. "Yes, it's going to hurt. I know you didn't ask, but I can feel you thinking it. I can feel a lot, you know? I can feel people's fear. Some people say it's a scent, but for me, it's more like a feeling, an intuition," Alvaro continued to have the one-sided conversation as he closed a locked the door. "You'll piss yourself, that's normal. You'll cry for a while, but don't worry, it won't be long before you're just exhausted and you lay there, like a pile of warm garbage. Some people last for hours until that happens, but you look like you haven't seen a day of real strife in your life, so I give you an hour, maybe two, tops," he chuckled. "But you'll be happy when we're done. You'll have a forever reminder of where you came from and where you can go," he said with a flourish of his hand toward the heavens. "You'll be a transformed woman!"<br/><div class="bbImageWrapper js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="https://blackdahliaroleplaying.com/attachments/0-alvaro-4-jpg.121612/" title="0 Alvaro 4.JPG">
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</div><br/><br/>He returned to the table and pulled the knife from its sheath on his belt to cut the shirt away from her body. He left it lying under her as he rolled her to her side and yanked her leggings down to expose her hip. He gave it a smack, appreciating the smooth clean canvas. When she was in a position he set about assembling his tools. "I wish I had more time, we could do this in a really old school kind of way like the tribes used to do...bone needle, little tap hammer. It'd be great. Really authentic. But there's a time crunch. I have to have you done by nightfall, so..." He held up a jimmied contraption consisting of a pen tube and some kind of motor fixed to a regular D battery. "...this will have to do."<br/><br/>He set to work then, quieting down as he first took a blue pen to mark some guidelines. A few on her left hip. Several long strokes along her side, then he rolled her back a little to finish out along her collarbone and neck. "Perfect. We're ready to go. Any last words? Just kidding, only Senor Hale gets the last words."<br/><br/>With that, he began what would become hours of work never minding her pain or great discomfort. He'd been right, it wasn't long until she began to fade in and out. "Did you know that the skin is the largest organ of the human body?" He commented at one point. "I mean, I'm no doctor, but I can definitely say that I know a lot about the human body and just how much it can withstand. I know you feel like you're dying, or going to die, but that's the beauty of it and you can trust me because I know when a body is about to die, and yours is just lying to you right now. It sucks being lied to, doesn't it? Tsk. Tsk. Good thing you'll always have a reminder about that."<br/><br/>She was well passed out by the time he finished and he stepped back to look at his work. I wasn't half bad given the fact he really wasn't much of a tattoo artist. He did have his upbringing as a child to fall back on though and he was really satisfied with how the traditional Tarascan patterns wove as nicely along body contours as they did on a textile loom. He nodded with crossed arms and then cleaned up the ink, blood, and plasma that had dripped and seeped obscuring the piece. The wet rag washed it all away revealing the dragon body along her side with its coiling serpent tail starting at her hip and ending with seven serpent heads that wrapped around her shoulder, chest, and up the side of her neck and face. Atop the serpent was a naked woman, garish and hideous. The Whore of Babylon. Even with the angular lines of the ancient Mexican art style, it seemed to flow and lash out with interwoven harshly etched words from the book of Revelations.<br/><br/><i>And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns...having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication...And upon her forehead was a name written, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.</i><br/><br/>On the right side of her chest was the hand of God, surrounded with rays of glory and lightning bolts adorned with beautifully scripted words from the book of first Corinthians.<br/><br/><i>Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. </i><br/><br/>His work was done. He took a few pictures and radioed Hale's men to collect her things and bring a truck around back to the service entrance. While they did that, he cleaned and wrapped the work, dressed her in the tatters of her shirt, and bagged her head with a pillowcase. He dismissed the guards as soon as they showed up. They would be none the wiser for what had transpired. He left the resort through the back way, far out of sight from everyone. A few miles out, he pulled her from the truck and patted her cheek hard to rouse her from her stupor. He tossed her bags and rations out including enough antiseptic cream to keep infection at bay. With that, he was done and he drove away to leave her to fend for herself while he reported back to Senor Hale.