Beckyann sat in her quarters, a fresh sheet of parchment laid out on the table before her and quill in her hand. She dipped the point into an inkwell on the desk and paused, the quill hovering over the page.
"What to call this.." she mused aloud. Names were important, especially for books or manuals. If they were good enough, they got copied by scribes or even put into one of those gnomish machines that printed books and then others would read them. Of course, Beckyann didn't expect too many people to be interested in the topic, just the few that had asked about it.
It had been earlier in the day, when she'd returned to Acherus to file some paperwork for the General's requisitions for the Stormwind headquarters that the request had been given to her. She'd been in Stormwind all day, walking amongst the populace and placing orders or obtaining receipts so that General Glou didn't get upset about any missed details. It also gave her a good opportunity to make herself intimately familiar with the ongoing projects and memorandums that were being issued from the Stormwind office; it was an opportunity that she wouldn't pass up.
Since she'd been amongst the living, she had donned one of her nicer dresses and applied her makeup, as she always did when entering Stormwind. She didn't want the breathers to harass her while she was working, and it made business transactions go more smoothly if the person on the other side of the counter wasn't quaking in fear or staring hatefully at you. With her tasks complete, Beckyann had opened a death gate (discreetly) and returned to Acherus, still wearing her black dress with silver thread-work. As she'd been heading towards her quarters, a group of death knights approached. Three in number, two of them were Kaldorei and one was actually a Sin'dorei.
Much to Beckyann's surprise, the elves had begun asking her questions about her attire, her make-up, her perfume, and even the magic that she'd developed to regenerate her flesh at night. The conversation had gone on at length, and each of the elves had wanted to copy some aspect of what Beckyann was doing. She suspected that each of them had different motives for their request. One of the Kaldorei certainly had wanted to slip back into Darnassus to visit living members of her family. The other seemed like she was out for revenge and simply wanted to surprise her enemy by appearing to be other than what she was. The Sin'dorei, from what little Beckyann could understand of her, apparently wanted to conduct espionage of some sort within her own home city.
Regardless of their reasons, each of them had apparently noticed Beckyann's careful attention to her appearance and believed that the human could give them the results they desired. It had been somewhat flattering to think that the three believed her to be an expert in such disguises, and she had happily agreed to write a small manual with instructions on how to accomplish the goal, complete with the magic spells needed for nightly regenerations of the external flesh.
"But what to call the thing?" Beckyann mused again, smiling at her writer's block. If she was stuck on a title, this was going to take way longer than she'd anticipated.
As her quickly drying quill hung over the page, Beckyann's thoughts wandered to WHY she was good at disguising herself in such a fashion. When one looked at her life experiences quickly, one would see no immediate reason why such a woman would develop a devious mind set on deceiving people she met. So what had brought her to this point?A wry smile played across Beckyann's black lips as she thought about it. If one delved deeper, there was more than enough evidence as to why she was good at this; she'd been wearing a mask her entire life, hadn't she?
She'd pretended in her childhood to be satisfied with the meager possessions and wealth that her parents had, never saying a word about it even though she longed to free herself from poverty and have the nice things that others had. After her parents had passed, she'd been the dutiful apprentice in Dalaran, learning the arts of magic and upholding the edicts and teachings of the Kirin Tor, even though she didn't care a wit about such things and merely wanted the education in magic that would allow her to seek a higher station for herself. When she worked for House Woodbury, she'd been the ever-attentive servant, a teacher for their children and a valuable asset to them even though beneath her mask of servility her hunger for power of her own lingered like venom within her. And now, under General Glou she was the dutiful, loyal soldier, eager to ensure that his operation ran as smoothly as possible, even though she believed that he was endangering her own agenda by reducing the value that the 1113th could bring to the Alliance and therefore putting all of them at risk for additional discrimination and hate.
She was a dead woman who looked as if she were alive. A soldier that plotted against her superiors. A magic user who was trained to use her powers for good, but commanded all of the forces of darkness. Every single thing she did was a mask, a veneer that could be peeled away to reveal....what?
She bit her lip, thinking about it. What was beneath it? Was there ever a time when there was no mask? Perhaps when she had loved Frederick. Maybe when she had believed in something outside of herself. Now though? Now there was nothing but the drive to ensure she existed and prospered. What came beyond that was meaningful only in how it affected her.
Even as she thought these things, nagging doubts nibbled at the edge of her mind. She shook her head to clear the thoughts away, focusing on the task at hand. "It matters little what is beneath it all, as no one will ever discover it," she mused again. "Now let me put my skills to good use."
Her eyes sparkled for a moment as the perfect title came to her. With a smile on her lips once more the quill dipped down, scrawling the first line on the page.
Drop Dead Gorgeous: A primer for looking like the living
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