The make-up artist tutt-ed over the dark circles under blue eyes and the bruise that stretched the length of his forearm. Trey stifled a surge of annoyance and placidly sat as creams covered the evidence of late night adventures in insanity. Nights he cared for a little as his stylists, though for vastly different reasons. To them, it merely meant more work, but for him, it was a purposeful derailment of his life.
It had been a year already and energy gathering duties were still a dangerous chore for someone who still had to physically put his hands on someone to steal their life force. Senshi and knights were far too eager to drop in on him, and never before he'd started or after he stopped. Always right in the middle, when his focus was dangerously divided. When he was struggling both to subdue a reluctant donor AND keep hold of the energy sphere he'd managed to pull. The sunset knight was most recent, but there had been others and Trey was starting to wonder how anyone got anything done like that. He didn't have the time to be prowling about the streets like a vagrant, skulking in alleys and parks waiting for someone unlucky and unwary enough to accost. He needed a better strategy. There had to be a better way to go about this, when every recruit the Negaverse took had the same quota he did. They managed, somehow, there had to be a trick to it.
Behind him, another stylist drew a brush through his silky hair and applied a heat wand to it, coaxing long, generous curls from the length of it. Once those were done, it was a series of pinning and draping to get the mass of it up off his neck. The result was an imaginative, whimsical thing that, with the make up, pushing him into some lovely androgynous area of cat-eyes and high cheekbones. Blue eyes stared into themselves in the mirror, blank and unreadable, as he intended. They were alien, in a way, but a way that he was used to by now. That wasn't really himself in the mirror, but that was the point.
There had to be a more efficient and less dangerous way to gather energy. It had to allow for the odd get-up he wore when he was powered up and that was part of the problem... there weren't a lot of places or events where a dark sorcerer didn't draw a lot of attention. A medieval faire maybe? Too bad there weren't any going on just yet, not with winter in full force. Themed parties were enticing to guests, but not sustainable at the pace required by his quota... unless he managed enough to cover himself for a few months. Unlikely, since he'd have to gather all of that in the short time a party would run.
Hands laced him into the severe corset his mother had had made for him, the dark sapphire blue of it setting off his coloring. It set off the gold silk that clung to him elsewhere, further confusing whatever gender he might have claimed for himself. He wasn't supposed to look entirely human, and done up the way he was, it seemed to be a success. There was an ethereal quality to it, something otherworldly... The fabric she'd found on a trip to Bangkok had an odd glisten to it that confused the eye, even as a hint of transparency showed off the smooth lines of his body. Ridiculously tall stilettos finished the look, pushing his height and complimenting the odd quality of this outfit.
He wasn't entirely sure where the inspiration for this had come from, but he rarely knew anyway. Joellen was a creature unto herself and he was merely the canvas she loved best. One design might enhance the lean length of him, or the breadth of his shoulders. Another might push him feminine, drawing attention to his hips and legs, the sweep of his neck and curve of his back. Always, though, she liked some kind of heel. Anything to add to his height till, he felt like he towered over the make-up artists and photographers.
Lights flashes, obscuring the crowd that lay around and below him as he walked, long strides eating up the walkway. He glistened and glimmered, flashing his own sparks of light from the jewelry at his throat and wrists. His face was impassive, almost imperial as he stopped at the end, gazing down at his devoted worshipers like some god descended. They loved him, that face-less, formless mass. They called and cheered for him, but he rebuffed them as he spun on his heel and left them wanting, grasping at the edges of his dias. The drop of curtain cut off the light and he was Trey again, drowning in silk and barely able to breath past the cinch of boning. His face felt heavy and his hair dug into his scalp and at that moment, he wished fervently he was far away from here, riding his horse down a sunny lane maybe.
He gathered that warmth into his chest and held it close as sycophants rushed about him, stripping away the silk and replacing it with leather. Trey was impassive to it, as mold-able as he had been trained to be from years of playing the living doll. He was a dark prince this time when he hit the lights again, his eyes as cold as the diamonds that sparkled at his cuffs and throat, dusting down the front of his jacket and pants.
That sunny place remained in his chest though. Small, warm, protected. It was what got him through it, kept him going when he felt his body tremble with tiredness and his mind fog. When blisters formed on his heels and he'd lost count of the number of times a careless hand had stabbed him with a straight pin in an attempt to make something fit that much more closely.
A pleasant dream, to hold back the emptiness.
Word Count: 1011
