Post by Judith Warren on Feb 22, 2016 8:31:07 GMT
Name: Judith Warren
Nickname(s): N/A
Character Sheet: Sheet
Species / Clan: Vampire / Toreador
Status: Outsider/ New to town
Age: 97
Age Appearance: 28ish
Gender: Female
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Height: 5' 6"
Weight: 145...ish.
Religious beliefs: Raised Lutheran Christian, now lives a more agnostic lifestyle hoping subconsciously that there's still a god somewhere who loves her.
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Appearance: Judith lived vicariously through every decade mortals remember with a " 's", picking up pieces here and there to add to her own personalized aesthetic. Using the term "eccentric" to describe some of her more colorfully thrown-together outfits would be a kindness.. As Judith's complete inability to distinguish between any color other then "grey", "black" and "slightly-more grey" leaves here almost woefully inept at correctly pairing some of her more whimsical and outlandish pieces with the modern clothing and styles shes adopted in the present. Since almost the entirety of her existence is spent in her own home, no one pays much mind to the curiously odd way she insists on dressing herself at times. Even during the rare occasion where she almost looks like she was dressed by a fully functioning adult, her unruly dirty-blonde hair is adorned with scarves and trinkets from a happier time long since passed. There's always something tucked away in the mane of kinky curls constantly rebelliously cascading around her face and shoulders; whether it be beads, feathers, paint-brushes, half-smoked cigarettes (saved for later because a muse struck mid-drag), sculpting tools, pencils used at one point or another as sculpting tools or a decoupage of every art project she has forgotten to finish so far. Judith exudes creativity... Even to the point of being considered anything from odd yet harmless to slightly off putting and manic depending on how hard that creativity has her in it's addicting grasp.
Personality: Judith has spent most of her embraced life following her artistic passions wherever they may lead.. As long as that path doesn't even begin to consider straying anywhere outside the physically set confines of the house she considers to be her "extremely penetrable and rather defenseless" stronghold. Before her Sire's sudden (and unexplained) abandonment his idea of teaching her Toreador laws boiled down to the most effortless and unhelpful version of "if you mess up, they will hunt and kill you." he could muster, leaving Judith stead-fast in all-consuming, abject fear of "them" and what they would do to her for breaking these unspoken rules. Forced seclusion became something of a personality trait to her soon afterwards, allowing time for work on her life's all consuming addiction in a more persistent and fanatical light while providing a flimsy barrier of comfort from "them" and their impossibly well-kept air of constant judgement of her mundane day to day activities. If you were to ask her if she was paranoid she would meet the inquisition with a look questioning your own sanity incredulously, all while nodding her head and responding with a resoundingly repressed "Yes. I am." The only solace she finds in the new century comes in the form of anything and everything created to represent the physical embodiment of artist-interpreted beauty.
If she could engulf every aspect of her being in pure, indescribable art she would transcend this existence somehow and find a way to become one of the many mediums or basic materials used to create the textbook definition of her perfect soulmate. She's extremely passionate; to the point that her heart aches for the pain of others. Beauty in all forms entraps her, creating a pit fall for bleeding hearts and desperate romantics that she falls into regularly with the ease and grace of a newly born giraffe. Judith is rather emotionally clumsy, flying off into left field and dissolving fully into whichever appropriate emotion at the drop of a hat simply because she feels the full gambit so deeply. Her deep-seated paranoia did nothing to harden her against a warm empathy that she carried with her after being embraced, regardless of how many times she's been hurt along the way. To her; art is emotion, and allowing past wrongs to numb her towards the acutely passionate kindness that she comes by so honestly would be a disservice to her pieces.
She sees color through emotion, associating each different shade of her gray scale world with a feeling or memory... Just so she can even remotely grasp the huge diversity between shade that sometimes blur together in her eyes. Expressing those emotions, and gaining experiences through emphatically feelings others by living vicariously through her personal library or the collection of cinema mediums she holds so dear brings the only type of vibrancy she can understand. She can only visually perceive shades of grey from a congenital birth defect, so Judith goes out of her way to internally and emotionally visualize feelings as her own colorful display of the hues and pigments she loves so dearly... And conversely, hates so bitterly.
Interests: Anything to do with arts and crafts . Judith is enthralled by the concept and process of creating things, even if only for the sake of getting her hands into some form of artistic medium. Clay sculpting holds a dear place in her heart, being something that can consistently change and morph into something more beautiful then the last as long as it's kept malleable. Painting, writing, drawing, carving and dance all come in at a close second, along with any other liberal art that strikes her fancy any given day. Her heart is taken by anything interesting.. Not exactly extravagant or out-landish, but just slightly odd to where it seems a bit misplaced no matter where it's put or who is holding it.
Apart from being god of her own artistic mediums, Judith has an ever-growing soft spot for paper back books and retro movies. Well written romantic novels turn her into a completely different person, usually to the point that people around her will start to ask themselves if she needs to be diagnosed bipolar because of the temper tantrums they often throw her into. Usually followed by an outburst of tears and then a new found initiative to start something she hasn't tried before, it's mostly an outward embodiment of the Toreador's flippantly short attention span. She feels written word very deeply, expresses her feelings exuberantly and to the fullest extent, and then she moves on to the next feeling... Expressing whichever emotion she rests in just as passionately.
Skills:
Judith has spent years of her solitude studying an extremely vast array of precious works of art. Due to her color-blindness, she has developed a knack for spotting inconsistencies in forgeries to the point where she has worked with police and galleries in determining the legitimacy of art pieces over the years. Besides her natural abilities, monetary success and the accolades of her peers in her preferred forms of self-expression, some of her sculpted pieces have no equal. There is an assumed level of competence that has come to be expected from the outcome of her various creative outlets, even if it's using a medium that she's inexperienced in.
History:
Judith was brought kicking and screaming into a still very new turn of the century in the same months filled with a collective and weary sigh gently escaping from each country individually and yet, simultaneously in the wake of a figurative can of crimson memories that painfully touched all corners of the map once spilled. She inhabited a normal childhood filled to the brim with the badly feigned aristocracy that comes from a social crossing of upper-middle and lower-upper class in a botched attempt to bridge the gap between people with some money but not much, and middle class workers with slightly more money and the ability to fake class and grandeur. This breeding and blending of classes exploded into the identical families that lined the street that perfectly mirrored the Warrens exactly, down to the financial turmoil in their sons futures with the "Great Depression" brewing angrily from afar.
Nothing about her life before being embraced could really be considered extraordinary, especially when viewed from her memories. They were nothing more or less then the loving parents she had grown fond of in a stuffy, proper sort of way; etched against the cloth background set of their respectively conforming house. Everything, from the unnaturally strong smelling kitchen cleaner her mother furtively insisted on using every single night at the exact same time, to the way her father's jacket would smell after a night with his friends and something her mother would always excuse as "just some flowery, new cigar" seemed to fade into a soft, grey haze as the years turned into decades between her and the now bland existence that was her human life so long ago. Even her best and most preciously cherished memories slowly washed away in the years of solitude and contemplation that stretched before her; every evening heralding in a new expanse of worrisome nothingness that encompassed the future in it's entirety. Most of her life, save for the works of breathtaking art created between her fingers to fiance her continuously solitary existence, can be condensed smoothly down into differently clear-colored boxes.
Those who would argue about the uniqueness of her abilities and the talents she expressed at such a young age always forget the bland flavor that quickly and firmly stuck resolute behind her tongue to slowly eat acidic bitterness in silent patterns sewing her mouth shut. It took years before anyone started to realize there was something slightly off about how she perceived the world; no physically visible signs of misshapen, disfigured or retarded gene's held any acreage across her beautifully unremarkable and notably average features. She was a handsome child, growing quickly into frilly dresses and away from crocheted bonnets in a flurry of ordained routine while all of her mothers friends talked endlessly about things they neither cared about nor actually understood. There was always something to be done with an ostentatious display of grandeur and overly frivolous trappings that concealed the utter lack of any actual progress or change being made. Seasons passed silently and she grew like every other cookie-cutter little girl populating the upper middle class around her, while the idea of her own perfection was recited and conditioned continuously as thick as the oils and pastes used to paint up her little face during the day and manage her hair at night.
Judith was stricken with acute color-blindness at birth; tenting all of her childhood memories into sepia toned old movies and black and white film. Early reveries swim with faces of relatives set in the same thematic filter that graced every wealthy household's living room television, as if her entire life was one of it's earliest and most surreal sitcoms. If someone asked her which memories she held on to from back then or which ones she would pick as favorites from almost a century of retro funk, organic hippies and so many different wars all with the same dreary hue; she would always choose a daydream of watching the television with her father, enjoying a simple and shared moment of color deficiency between the two of them. He would always make a point to watch their shows together no matter what else could be accomplished in the moments spent sitting in his chair with a glass of something that Judith had tasted once and disliked. In those short, commercial riddled bonding moments her father would tell her how much he enjoyed being able to see the world through her eyes... How he could only actually appreciate the beauty in each individual shade of grey while sitting, cross-legged with a glass of gin and a grin on his face as the two of them would have contests to see who could guess what color things actually were simply from the situational context clues in each monotone video reel.
Days passed into months and into years; slowly unfolding into the same beautiful days repeating over and over again. Age for Judith was only marked by the changes in the city around her as the buildings and homes put on the more respectful wear and tare of age. Without the ability to watch as new buildings sprouted up as if planted by farmers she would have let the years between childhood and adolescence fly by without a second glance. Under her protective layer of fake contentment, the world around her seemed mostly pointless and ordinary. Each day filled itself with the same monotony that seemed to make everyone else happy seemed like a heavy fog of suffocating reality. It wasn't that she was really unhappy with her life, but it always felt as if something important had eluded her whenever her thoughts wandered away from her immediate surroundings. Everything changed the moment her mother started buying packs of pencils and scratch paper for her to practice penmanship. Whenever she was left alone with them, perfectly scripted words quickly turned into sketches and pictures. The lines of the letters would unravel into the moments around her captured on the loose leaf pages and bound notebooks that quickly filled her bookcases and walls. She soon developed an unbridled passion for drawing, losing thousands of hours just to the way a pencil drew itself across paper or how charcoal felt when it stained her fingers with dalmatian spots. Every aspect of art had found a hold around her heart filling in the places other teenagers usually fill with friendships and relationships. Her seclusion became more and more pronounced as she dedicated every ounce of free time and effort into the artistic world that enamored her every waking moment, calling the attention of concerned teachers and family acquaintances as the years passed and it became less and less of "a phase" to grow out of. Even as she entered early adult-hood and the question of marriage started filling most of the conversations surrounding her, Judith remained obsessively focused on perfecting the sketches that were quickly morphing into paintings, sculptures and intricate drawings.
Her mother would fuss and complain, hoping that her rising hysteria at Judith's lack of concern towards the whispers and comments of their neighbors would sway a turn towards normality in her daughter. The Warren's name had slowly slipped into the gossip circles as the female population in town would laugh behind delicate hands at how "Odd the Warren girl was." or "She should be settling down and starting a family instead of continuing to be a burden on her family." as everyone around continued to ask why a nice girl with no ability to see or understand color had such an affinity for them. Thankfully, her father indulged her, enjoying the actual happiness she would present to them with every finished piece she unveiled. He had his favorites hung in every available place around his house and his office, slowly introducing her creativity in a way that demanded respect instead of the airy-dismissal that usually surrounded any mention of "a woman trying to be an artist". The winds of change had started to blow quietly on the fronts of equal rights for women but on the whole, people still generally held a negative opinion of anyone who didn't conform to the ideal of quietly-submissive housewife.
But even as the social outcry for Judith to conform continued to pass between red lips at cocktail parties her artwork had started to creep into the minds and mouths of slightly more progressive, and extremely more wealthy individuals. Word of mouth always spread quickly when it was in regards to her, although the tone of these conversations were refreshingly positive as the mention of her name started a cult following among the elite of every booming city surrounding. Her father started selling certain pieces out of his office to associates and partners, dipping his toe carefully into the rumors of popularity he had caught in pieces of conversation between business appointments and casual meetings with his peers. As soon as the first transaction concluded those rumors exploded, turning Judith's mother's brewing depression at the state of her daughters reputation into almost manic glee as she forced her daughter into every social spotlight powered by her ability to capture emotions and immaterial ideas on pieces of canvas. Each new image brought more and more publicity into her previously singular existence as she tried to balance the new found fame her mother so desperately enjoyed and the solitude her sanity had relied on. As her social circle grew she discovered a love of people that had laid dormant and patient until she could truly enjoy the beautifully tragic concept of empathy. Her understood idea of how the rest of humanity shattered as she grew to love the interactions between people almost as much as she adored her art, learning to correlate the colors that evaded her so completely and the extensive array of emotions displayed all around her blooming social life.
Judith had finally emerged, at least in the eyes of those who had pretended to worry about her whenever their incessant gossip was called into question. Suddenly, not a single person cared as she entered the late years of her twenties without any thoughts towards attempting to find someone who would compete for her affections. Her heart had been given completely to her obsessions but her explosive popularity seemed to cast a spell over the local social circles, spreading her name further and further as it silenced every negative thing ever said about her family. It was that continued spread from person to person describing her work and her person in rapt tones and impressed glances that ultimately changed everything and derailed the steam engine of her life permanently. So many ears hear so many things that are never specifically meant for them but the inconsequential way in which socialites flippant share unimportant or trivial information facilitates some unintentional outcomes. No one noticed the suave pair of beautifully masked eyes set intently on whichever mouth formed any phrases or pieces of information regarding Judith. They never thought twice about how real his intrigue seemed in the sea of feigned emotions that always surround conversations held between people with large mouths and stunted intellects.
They never noticed how quickly he slipped into her personal social circle, joining their ranks without any question as to who he actually was.
They never noticed how well he seduced her, drawing her attention even from the creativity she had held dear until him.
No one realized how one day she was among them and the next she only joined social events by requirement; her attention was only ever on drawing and painting her adoration and devotion into their interactions with each other.
She never realized how easily he had convinced her to leave everything she had ever known for a future filled with promises and predictions, so fantastic and idealistic in their own impossibility that she had spent decades following trying to understand why it seemed so plausible at the time.
She never said goodbye.
The police looked for a while; but somehow, her fame had no way of assisting any of the subsequent investigations into her disappearance that quietly fizzled out in the chaos of the years to come.
She would still say that she never had enough time, even now when her embrace grants an endless and infinite amount of time if she played the hand dealt to her correctly.. And yet, the memories of those few months they shared together are one of the only things she could ever describe as bitterness because of their inability to categorize themselves as happy or sad memories.
She hoped he never realized how deeply she had internalized his parting wisdom. "If you break the masquerade, they will kill you. So don't."
Judith never understood what he had been trying to convey with his coldly dismissing parting words. They had haunted her subconscious doggedly for over half a century as it quietly shaped how she viewed and interacted with the world around her. She spent her years gently separated from humanity almost entirely, only seeing the few people dedicated to running errands and purchasing anything she needed in her day to day seclusion. She had rationalized his words by shutting herself away with the love that had proven to be faithful and comforting before her whirlwind romantic abandonment. Art took on it's original role in her life, creating a safety net that cushioned the fragile glass sphere that enclosed the various apartments and hollow homes she inhabited over the years. Time began to blend together once again in a way that resembled her childhood starkly; seamless and uneventful as her embrace kept her consumed in her fear of those nameless people with their seemingly stoic and sadistically unwritten laws. Her name still attended expensive parties on the arm of adoration or reverence, sometimes wearing a formal pseudonym for the sake of her sanity whenever she started to feel as if too much unwanted attention began to bring an unhealthy amount of danger riding hand in hand with her fame. Her art kept her financially stable, while being the only thing she shared unbridled and completely to the social mine field she internally associated with humanity as a whole.
Her move to Nagasaki had been the first impulsive choice she had made in centuries, bringing with it a spark of actual contentment and happiness that had alluded her unknowingly for decades. It was a new start, a new apartment and even though she knew the excitement of change would eventually fade after twenty or thirty years, but she was going to enjoy it while the emotion lasted.
Her vision was still crippled to the grey scale she had grown so accustomed to, but the colorful hues she had imagined to coincide with happiness were warm and undeniably inviting... And those feelings always looked so beautiful.
Nickname(s): N/A
Character Sheet: Sheet
Species / Clan: Vampire / Toreador
Status: Outsider/ New to town
Age: 97
Age Appearance: 28ish
Gender: Female
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Height: 5' 6"
Weight: 145...ish.
Religious beliefs: Raised Lutheran Christian, now lives a more agnostic lifestyle hoping subconsciously that there's still a god somewhere who loves her.
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Appearance: Judith lived vicariously through every decade mortals remember with a " 's", picking up pieces here and there to add to her own personalized aesthetic. Using the term "eccentric" to describe some of her more colorfully thrown-together outfits would be a kindness.. As Judith's complete inability to distinguish between any color other then "grey", "black" and "slightly-more grey" leaves here almost woefully inept at correctly pairing some of her more whimsical and outlandish pieces with the modern clothing and styles shes adopted in the present. Since almost the entirety of her existence is spent in her own home, no one pays much mind to the curiously odd way she insists on dressing herself at times. Even during the rare occasion where she almost looks like she was dressed by a fully functioning adult, her unruly dirty-blonde hair is adorned with scarves and trinkets from a happier time long since passed. There's always something tucked away in the mane of kinky curls constantly rebelliously cascading around her face and shoulders; whether it be beads, feathers, paint-brushes, half-smoked cigarettes (saved for later because a muse struck mid-drag), sculpting tools, pencils used at one point or another as sculpting tools or a decoupage of every art project she has forgotten to finish so far. Judith exudes creativity... Even to the point of being considered anything from odd yet harmless to slightly off putting and manic depending on how hard that creativity has her in it's addicting grasp.
Personality: Judith has spent most of her embraced life following her artistic passions wherever they may lead.. As long as that path doesn't even begin to consider straying anywhere outside the physically set confines of the house she considers to be her "extremely penetrable and rather defenseless" stronghold. Before her Sire's sudden (and unexplained) abandonment his idea of teaching her Toreador laws boiled down to the most effortless and unhelpful version of "if you mess up, they will hunt and kill you." he could muster, leaving Judith stead-fast in all-consuming, abject fear of "them" and what they would do to her for breaking these unspoken rules. Forced seclusion became something of a personality trait to her soon afterwards, allowing time for work on her life's all consuming addiction in a more persistent and fanatical light while providing a flimsy barrier of comfort from "them" and their impossibly well-kept air of constant judgement of her mundane day to day activities. If you were to ask her if she was paranoid she would meet the inquisition with a look questioning your own sanity incredulously, all while nodding her head and responding with a resoundingly repressed "Yes. I am." The only solace she finds in the new century comes in the form of anything and everything created to represent the physical embodiment of artist-interpreted beauty.
If she could engulf every aspect of her being in pure, indescribable art she would transcend this existence somehow and find a way to become one of the many mediums or basic materials used to create the textbook definition of her perfect soulmate. She's extremely passionate; to the point that her heart aches for the pain of others. Beauty in all forms entraps her, creating a pit fall for bleeding hearts and desperate romantics that she falls into regularly with the ease and grace of a newly born giraffe. Judith is rather emotionally clumsy, flying off into left field and dissolving fully into whichever appropriate emotion at the drop of a hat simply because she feels the full gambit so deeply. Her deep-seated paranoia did nothing to harden her against a warm empathy that she carried with her after being embraced, regardless of how many times she's been hurt along the way. To her; art is emotion, and allowing past wrongs to numb her towards the acutely passionate kindness that she comes by so honestly would be a disservice to her pieces.
She sees color through emotion, associating each different shade of her gray scale world with a feeling or memory... Just so she can even remotely grasp the huge diversity between shade that sometimes blur together in her eyes. Expressing those emotions, and gaining experiences through emphatically feelings others by living vicariously through her personal library or the collection of cinema mediums she holds so dear brings the only type of vibrancy she can understand. She can only visually perceive shades of grey from a congenital birth defect, so Judith goes out of her way to internally and emotionally visualize feelings as her own colorful display of the hues and pigments she loves so dearly... And conversely, hates so bitterly.
Interests: Anything to do with arts and crafts . Judith is enthralled by the concept and process of creating things, even if only for the sake of getting her hands into some form of artistic medium. Clay sculpting holds a dear place in her heart, being something that can consistently change and morph into something more beautiful then the last as long as it's kept malleable. Painting, writing, drawing, carving and dance all come in at a close second, along with any other liberal art that strikes her fancy any given day. Her heart is taken by anything interesting.. Not exactly extravagant or out-landish, but just slightly odd to where it seems a bit misplaced no matter where it's put or who is holding it.
Apart from being god of her own artistic mediums, Judith has an ever-growing soft spot for paper back books and retro movies. Well written romantic novels turn her into a completely different person, usually to the point that people around her will start to ask themselves if she needs to be diagnosed bipolar because of the temper tantrums they often throw her into. Usually followed by an outburst of tears and then a new found initiative to start something she hasn't tried before, it's mostly an outward embodiment of the Toreador's flippantly short attention span. She feels written word very deeply, expresses her feelings exuberantly and to the fullest extent, and then she moves on to the next feeling... Expressing whichever emotion she rests in just as passionately.
Skills:
Judith has spent years of her solitude studying an extremely vast array of precious works of art. Due to her color-blindness, she has developed a knack for spotting inconsistencies in forgeries to the point where she has worked with police and galleries in determining the legitimacy of art pieces over the years. Besides her natural abilities, monetary success and the accolades of her peers in her preferred forms of self-expression, some of her sculpted pieces have no equal. There is an assumed level of competence that has come to be expected from the outcome of her various creative outlets, even if it's using a medium that she's inexperienced in.
- Pottery
- Sculpting
- Painting
- Drawing
- Calligraphy
- Forgery (Although she doesn't make this skill very public; it's more of a game for her to test her memory and recreation techniques.)
- Photography
- Play writing
- Black and White film
- Horticulture (More of a hobby then anything else)
History:
Judith was brought kicking and screaming into a still very new turn of the century in the same months filled with a collective and weary sigh gently escaping from each country individually and yet, simultaneously in the wake of a figurative can of crimson memories that painfully touched all corners of the map once spilled. She inhabited a normal childhood filled to the brim with the badly feigned aristocracy that comes from a social crossing of upper-middle and lower-upper class in a botched attempt to bridge the gap between people with some money but not much, and middle class workers with slightly more money and the ability to fake class and grandeur. This breeding and blending of classes exploded into the identical families that lined the street that perfectly mirrored the Warrens exactly, down to the financial turmoil in their sons futures with the "Great Depression" brewing angrily from afar.
Nothing about her life before being embraced could really be considered extraordinary, especially when viewed from her memories. They were nothing more or less then the loving parents she had grown fond of in a stuffy, proper sort of way; etched against the cloth background set of their respectively conforming house. Everything, from the unnaturally strong smelling kitchen cleaner her mother furtively insisted on using every single night at the exact same time, to the way her father's jacket would smell after a night with his friends and something her mother would always excuse as "just some flowery, new cigar" seemed to fade into a soft, grey haze as the years turned into decades between her and the now bland existence that was her human life so long ago. Even her best and most preciously cherished memories slowly washed away in the years of solitude and contemplation that stretched before her; every evening heralding in a new expanse of worrisome nothingness that encompassed the future in it's entirety. Most of her life, save for the works of breathtaking art created between her fingers to fiance her continuously solitary existence, can be condensed smoothly down into differently clear-colored boxes.
Those who would argue about the uniqueness of her abilities and the talents she expressed at such a young age always forget the bland flavor that quickly and firmly stuck resolute behind her tongue to slowly eat acidic bitterness in silent patterns sewing her mouth shut. It took years before anyone started to realize there was something slightly off about how she perceived the world; no physically visible signs of misshapen, disfigured or retarded gene's held any acreage across her beautifully unremarkable and notably average features. She was a handsome child, growing quickly into frilly dresses and away from crocheted bonnets in a flurry of ordained routine while all of her mothers friends talked endlessly about things they neither cared about nor actually understood. There was always something to be done with an ostentatious display of grandeur and overly frivolous trappings that concealed the utter lack of any actual progress or change being made. Seasons passed silently and she grew like every other cookie-cutter little girl populating the upper middle class around her, while the idea of her own perfection was recited and conditioned continuously as thick as the oils and pastes used to paint up her little face during the day and manage her hair at night.
Judith was stricken with acute color-blindness at birth; tenting all of her childhood memories into sepia toned old movies and black and white film. Early reveries swim with faces of relatives set in the same thematic filter that graced every wealthy household's living room television, as if her entire life was one of it's earliest and most surreal sitcoms. If someone asked her which memories she held on to from back then or which ones she would pick as favorites from almost a century of retro funk, organic hippies and so many different wars all with the same dreary hue; she would always choose a daydream of watching the television with her father, enjoying a simple and shared moment of color deficiency between the two of them. He would always make a point to watch their shows together no matter what else could be accomplished in the moments spent sitting in his chair with a glass of something that Judith had tasted once and disliked. In those short, commercial riddled bonding moments her father would tell her how much he enjoyed being able to see the world through her eyes... How he could only actually appreciate the beauty in each individual shade of grey while sitting, cross-legged with a glass of gin and a grin on his face as the two of them would have contests to see who could guess what color things actually were simply from the situational context clues in each monotone video reel.
Days passed into months and into years; slowly unfolding into the same beautiful days repeating over and over again. Age for Judith was only marked by the changes in the city around her as the buildings and homes put on the more respectful wear and tare of age. Without the ability to watch as new buildings sprouted up as if planted by farmers she would have let the years between childhood and adolescence fly by without a second glance. Under her protective layer of fake contentment, the world around her seemed mostly pointless and ordinary. Each day filled itself with the same monotony that seemed to make everyone else happy seemed like a heavy fog of suffocating reality. It wasn't that she was really unhappy with her life, but it always felt as if something important had eluded her whenever her thoughts wandered away from her immediate surroundings. Everything changed the moment her mother started buying packs of pencils and scratch paper for her to practice penmanship. Whenever she was left alone with them, perfectly scripted words quickly turned into sketches and pictures. The lines of the letters would unravel into the moments around her captured on the loose leaf pages and bound notebooks that quickly filled her bookcases and walls. She soon developed an unbridled passion for drawing, losing thousands of hours just to the way a pencil drew itself across paper or how charcoal felt when it stained her fingers with dalmatian spots. Every aspect of art had found a hold around her heart filling in the places other teenagers usually fill with friendships and relationships. Her seclusion became more and more pronounced as she dedicated every ounce of free time and effort into the artistic world that enamored her every waking moment, calling the attention of concerned teachers and family acquaintances as the years passed and it became less and less of "a phase" to grow out of. Even as she entered early adult-hood and the question of marriage started filling most of the conversations surrounding her, Judith remained obsessively focused on perfecting the sketches that were quickly morphing into paintings, sculptures and intricate drawings.
Her mother would fuss and complain, hoping that her rising hysteria at Judith's lack of concern towards the whispers and comments of their neighbors would sway a turn towards normality in her daughter. The Warren's name had slowly slipped into the gossip circles as the female population in town would laugh behind delicate hands at how "Odd the Warren girl was." or "She should be settling down and starting a family instead of continuing to be a burden on her family." as everyone around continued to ask why a nice girl with no ability to see or understand color had such an affinity for them. Thankfully, her father indulged her, enjoying the actual happiness she would present to them with every finished piece she unveiled. He had his favorites hung in every available place around his house and his office, slowly introducing her creativity in a way that demanded respect instead of the airy-dismissal that usually surrounded any mention of "a woman trying to be an artist". The winds of change had started to blow quietly on the fronts of equal rights for women but on the whole, people still generally held a negative opinion of anyone who didn't conform to the ideal of quietly-submissive housewife.
But even as the social outcry for Judith to conform continued to pass between red lips at cocktail parties her artwork had started to creep into the minds and mouths of slightly more progressive, and extremely more wealthy individuals. Word of mouth always spread quickly when it was in regards to her, although the tone of these conversations were refreshingly positive as the mention of her name started a cult following among the elite of every booming city surrounding. Her father started selling certain pieces out of his office to associates and partners, dipping his toe carefully into the rumors of popularity he had caught in pieces of conversation between business appointments and casual meetings with his peers. As soon as the first transaction concluded those rumors exploded, turning Judith's mother's brewing depression at the state of her daughters reputation into almost manic glee as she forced her daughter into every social spotlight powered by her ability to capture emotions and immaterial ideas on pieces of canvas. Each new image brought more and more publicity into her previously singular existence as she tried to balance the new found fame her mother so desperately enjoyed and the solitude her sanity had relied on. As her social circle grew she discovered a love of people that had laid dormant and patient until she could truly enjoy the beautifully tragic concept of empathy. Her understood idea of how the rest of humanity shattered as she grew to love the interactions between people almost as much as she adored her art, learning to correlate the colors that evaded her so completely and the extensive array of emotions displayed all around her blooming social life.
Judith had finally emerged, at least in the eyes of those who had pretended to worry about her whenever their incessant gossip was called into question. Suddenly, not a single person cared as she entered the late years of her twenties without any thoughts towards attempting to find someone who would compete for her affections. Her heart had been given completely to her obsessions but her explosive popularity seemed to cast a spell over the local social circles, spreading her name further and further as it silenced every negative thing ever said about her family. It was that continued spread from person to person describing her work and her person in rapt tones and impressed glances that ultimately changed everything and derailed the steam engine of her life permanently. So many ears hear so many things that are never specifically meant for them but the inconsequential way in which socialites flippant share unimportant or trivial information facilitates some unintentional outcomes. No one noticed the suave pair of beautifully masked eyes set intently on whichever mouth formed any phrases or pieces of information regarding Judith. They never thought twice about how real his intrigue seemed in the sea of feigned emotions that always surround conversations held between people with large mouths and stunted intellects.
They never noticed how quickly he slipped into her personal social circle, joining their ranks without any question as to who he actually was.
They never noticed how well he seduced her, drawing her attention even from the creativity she had held dear until him.
No one realized how one day she was among them and the next she only joined social events by requirement; her attention was only ever on drawing and painting her adoration and devotion into their interactions with each other.
She never realized how easily he had convinced her to leave everything she had ever known for a future filled with promises and predictions, so fantastic and idealistic in their own impossibility that she had spent decades following trying to understand why it seemed so plausible at the time.
She never said goodbye.
The police looked for a while; but somehow, her fame had no way of assisting any of the subsequent investigations into her disappearance that quietly fizzled out in the chaos of the years to come.
She would still say that she never had enough time, even now when her embrace grants an endless and infinite amount of time if she played the hand dealt to her correctly.. And yet, the memories of those few months they shared together are one of the only things she could ever describe as bitterness because of their inability to categorize themselves as happy or sad memories.
She hoped he never realized how deeply she had internalized his parting wisdom. "If you break the masquerade, they will kill you. So don't."
Judith never understood what he had been trying to convey with his coldly dismissing parting words. They had haunted her subconscious doggedly for over half a century as it quietly shaped how she viewed and interacted with the world around her. She spent her years gently separated from humanity almost entirely, only seeing the few people dedicated to running errands and purchasing anything she needed in her day to day seclusion. She had rationalized his words by shutting herself away with the love that had proven to be faithful and comforting before her whirlwind romantic abandonment. Art took on it's original role in her life, creating a safety net that cushioned the fragile glass sphere that enclosed the various apartments and hollow homes she inhabited over the years. Time began to blend together once again in a way that resembled her childhood starkly; seamless and uneventful as her embrace kept her consumed in her fear of those nameless people with their seemingly stoic and sadistically unwritten laws. Her name still attended expensive parties on the arm of adoration or reverence, sometimes wearing a formal pseudonym for the sake of her sanity whenever she started to feel as if too much unwanted attention began to bring an unhealthy amount of danger riding hand in hand with her fame. Her art kept her financially stable, while being the only thing she shared unbridled and completely to the social mine field she internally associated with humanity as a whole.
Her move to Nagasaki had been the first impulsive choice she had made in centuries, bringing with it a spark of actual contentment and happiness that had alluded her unknowingly for decades. It was a new start, a new apartment and even though she knew the excitement of change would eventually fade after twenty or thirty years, but she was going to enjoy it while the emotion lasted.
Her vision was still crippled to the grey scale she had grown so accustomed to, but the colorful hues she had imagined to coincide with happiness were warm and undeniably inviting... And those feelings always looked so beautiful.
