<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/gRz9qXb.png)</div><strong>Triss Kijo</strong><br/><em>The Flesh Alchemist (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=268101.msg13222817#msg13222817)</em><br/><hr/><br/>The sounds of the festivities came through as a muted din into the subterranean lab.  If Triss knew that there was something going on that she was supposed to attend it didn't seem particularly important to her at the moment.  Bloodied fingers continued to carefully work needles and pull string through the wet, and only room-temperature, flesh on the table before her.  The animals were long since dead, but it was an academic experiment, not a functional one.  The housecat's tail had been removed, and most of the flesh peeled away where it met the spine of the animal.  In its place she worked to suture a more common garden snake.  The snake was bisected along its length to give her access to the various muscles and nerves within.  Red, mono-colored eyes narrowed in focus as she worked, attempting to ignore the distractions from outside.<br/><br/>Of course her attention was soon distracted by a noise<em>inside</em>her lab:  "<em>Mizztrezz,</em>" came the tiny voice from somewhere beneath her black cloak, "<em>haz ye fergottin zhe zeremoanie?</em>"<br/><br/>At the question she frowned, eyes narrowing further out of annoyance rather than focus, she released the needle and thread and instead grabbed a surgical knife in one hand and a bottle of some green, viscous solution in the other.  "I have not, you insipid boil," she replied, "I just don't see the purpose to such...frippery, but I suppose I<em>did</em>say I would be there," she accepts with a faint sigh of resignation.  In a swift motion she stabs the knife into the carcass of the cat, pinning it forcefully to the wood table beneath it, followed by dousing it in the green ichor which hisses and crackles against the flesh faintly.<br/><br/>Her sinewy tail hooks around a loop to a leather apron she wears, untying it from her hips before she removes it and sets it aside.  She cleans her hands off in a barrel of reasonably fresh water, wiping away the stains of blood and what little gobbets of flesh remain.  The glamered armor shifts faintly as she murmurs a faint word, it resumes a more typical dress suitable for "formal" events, as far as she is concerned.  The chest piece tightens into a black-leather bodice, cut low and horizontal across her gray skin to hoist her cleavage into more prominent view--it's what people wanted to see anyway, wasn't it?  A series of buckles, silver, down the front to where it flares over her hips into an ankle-length dress with three distinct slits all the way from ankle to waist.  Two for her legs, and one in the rear for her tail.  For the time being she leaves the cloak behind, but maintains a small pouch at her hip to hold a variety of supplies as needed.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>A bare, ashen gray arm, pushes open the last doorway through the various passageways that only a handful of the Choir ever really traversed--and only the Choir itself knew of.  It came out into the back room of a general store not far from the festivities.  It was a front business, and she sold at least a handful of alchemical supplies through it from time to time.  Few took much, if any, notice of her leaving the store and it wasn't long after that she emerged into the various masses of people gathered for the "celebration".<br/><br/>Triss had to push her way through a crowd that had gathered around "The Lady".  The girl had a certain penchant for being adored, which annoyed Triss, though she admired her expertise with poisons.  Intellect was perhaps the only thing Triss truly respected or appreciated...that and brute savagery when it came to dealing with "enemies".<br/><br/>The Oni-Spawn eventually found herself at the table some of the others had congregated at--Sanosuke, Gilead, and Xinshi to name a few.  Their attention seemed elsewhere for the moment so she didn't bother them, instead deciding to take a bone of meat similarly portioned to the one Gilead had decided to feast on.  Slightly pointed teeth--at least enough to be obviously inhuman--tore into the flesh to pull away a hefty morsel in the most unladylike method possible.  Some of the juices dribbled down from her lips, over her chin, and along the pale-gray skin of her neck before coming to a stop.<br/><br/>"Mm," she intoned as she finished swallowing the initial snack, "almost rare enough," she complimented in a way that made it seem more that it "wasn't so bad" rather than "it's good".  "Maybe we can arrange some pig slop for you if you'd be more comfortable," she replied to Sanosuke's comment about the finery of the food and drink, casting a sharp-toothed grin towards him.