moonspires

[moonspires]

for: everyone! location: the devil's cask

"A BLOCKADE!" isabeau cried with unbridled delight throwing her delicate arms wide enough to startle a passerby into the wooden slats on the wall. "how marvelous that such an event would befall us upon such a wretched hour, how odyssian!" her green skirts had fluttered about the chair she'd draped herself across little pouch of coins jingling with her every aggrandized movement. "how shall you pass the time? perhaps i might tell you my own plans. i wouldn't dare to offend such fine gentlefolk with the details but perhaps if there are less than gentlefolk here i shall. my pièce de théâtre is almost finished you see. i have been toiling endlessly over it and i feel that it has almost reached a wonderfully tragic conclusion." isabeau leaned in conspiratorially as if she were divulging a precious secret. "shakespeare said to move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away." she leaned back entirely pleased with herself. "perhaps then we are within an act of fate that still has yet to deign its choices upon is." starry-eyed and sipping from her mug with delicacy unfamiliar to her peers she paused and looked over at her companion. "my humblest apologies. you never gave me your answer."

[moonspires]

ISABEAU DUVANT, MIRROR OF THE WIDOW'S WAKE.

STATISTICS

name: isabeau duvant age: thirty-five gender: cis female, she & her sexuality: bisexual hometown: paris, france languages: french, english, spanish, italian, german occupation: stage actress & soprano (formerly), mirror aboard the widow's wake. inspirations: irene adler (sherlock), nina zenik (six of crows), lestat de lioncourt (interview with a vampire), satine (moulin rouge),

BIOGRAPHY

our story begins in 1693, in the murky candlelit back room of a brothel nestled in the corner of marseille’s wealthiest neighborhood. lined with velvet and teeming with secrets this room had seen many miracles come and go but none so lasting as the birth of isabeau duvant. her mother had long since abandoned the girl she’d been born as, a name as inconsequential as the life she’d held before arriving on france’s bustling shores - and so they became duvant she insisted, a name nobody could rob them of. isabeau was raised among the gold-crusted hairbrushes and perfumed airs of marseille’s most exclusive brothel. the madam was strict, exacting, but she insisted that isabeau be educated in all the manners and academia of girls from far above her station. her mother, fearing the worst of her young daughter’s fate made a choice. when isabeau was seven she wrote to the marquis étienne de sauveterre, once a dear lover who had offered her a favor in exchange for a night of honesty away from the brothel. piled with all the finery of her life and the promise that she would write to isabeau at her new home in paris her mother sent her off with only a glint of sadness on her face. isabeau was terrified, dropped at the grand steps of the marquis’s estate to rap her tiny hand against that door - and true to his word the marquis took her in. he never claimed isabeau as a ward but he kept her fed, clothed, and educated enough to stir up contention in paris’s high society. at one of his salon’s the girl mimicked the performance of the leading actress with such precision that the entire room was enraptured by this mark of talent. the next week the marquis installed her as a student and performed of the le palais de rêves, the palace of dreams. it was the most promising crucible for a girl of her potential to rise in. at ten she became a beloved child star, performing scenes far before her time and singing arias that experienced performers found difficult. by seventeen she was a fixture of salons and the stage, performing nightly to packed adoring crowds. by twenty she had lovers in every arrondissement, sponsors from dukes, and an invitation to perform at versailles for the dauphin and his new bride. though she would later claim the experience was exceptionally dull. she had everything she’d longed for, accolades, the love of the public, more riches than she could have dreamed. but the question of her unanswered letters to her mother lingered heavy. as the years passed her fame wilted as it does for all young, beautiful, and talented girls. newer, younger actresses with better connnections began to populate the stage she had once commanded. rumors swirled of a difficult temperament, her obscene extravagance, her fading voice. the final nail in the coffin came when she accepted a marriage proposal from bastien vaucresson, the romantic son of the duke of burgundy. he was a poet, a maven, one of the most desired men of the paris’s upper echelons. isabeau, always an idealist at heart was swept up in his promises. for years she’d invented her own legend - one day she was the orphaned daughter of a pirate king, the next a girl spirited away from the convent when the power of her voice reached through the stone walls that split the rolling hills, always carefully curated and thoroughly entertaining it had remained a charm. but her true origins had always been obscured by these gauzy, ephemeral tales of genesis. the duke - resentful of his son’s choice in bride - exposed her in society. he branded her a social climber and seductress and bastien was spirited away abroad in the night with not so much as a letter left behind, she never saw him again.

isabeau was now thirty, marriage-less, prospectless, and watching her most beloved career dwindle before her appears. she disappeared in the dead of night with a false name and a sack of jewels and finery to sell tossed over her shoulder. she found the crew of the widow’s wake five years ago in tortuga after spending weeks hustling in gambling halls and taverns snatching purses with a well placed word or act. she approached them first as a young man her hair tucked into a hat voice low and gruff, then as a spanish barmaid making their drinks with a suspicious confidence, then a grieving widow a black veil splashed over her eyes as she sent the tavern into chaos with her wailing. “you give me a room,” she said to them after the fighting was done, “and i shall give you any face, voice, or story you desire.” and so isabeau duvant, woman of many names and faces by then, etoile of paris’s stage became a pirate. what had once elevated her became the weapon she expertly wielded, her performances. now at thirty-five she’s a star in shadow upon the ship. she carries a lace trimmed handgun, an emerald handled dagger, and extols to those captives tied upon the ships mast the importance of shakespeare’s work. her stage has expanded far beyond the eye could see.

PERSONALITY

upon first meeting isabeau is flamboyant, theatrical, and larger than life. she naturally draws the intention of a room with a flourish of her hand or the boisterous sound of her voice. all the world's a stage and isabeau is the star. she can shift the emotional tone of conversation on a dime, speak with poetic adoration of nearly any subject, and laugh so loud it seems to shatter the silence. she's flirtatious, irreverent, a pool of glittering charisma always aware of her affect on others and how to wield it. but the past she's run an ocean away from seems to follow her endlessly. wounds have been carved in her that she rarely acknowledges blanketing them with mystery and joie de vivre. she's obsessed with the perception others have of her careful to control how she's seen even if it means nobody truly knows her. her trust issues underlay every relationship in her life and any sign of rejection can send her spiraling to leave before she's left. in private moments she's introspective and melancholic, performing to no audience. she knows what people want to see and gives it to them. but she's selfish and unrooted to any particular place. she'll disappear for days at a time without warning only to reappear as if nothing happened. she'll withhold information if she thinks it will alter the perception of any of her persona. she clings to attention naturally. her loyalty is conditional on been seen and appreciated. the widow's wake is simply her current stage and everyone else her background players.

HEADCANONS

sleeps with a dagger under her pillow and never an unlocked door.

ties specific perfumes to the different identities and personas she invents.

writes letters to her mother she never intends to send.

often performs for herself alone on deck, singing an aria or reciting a monologue she loves.

cannot enter a room quietly. she must always make a grand entrance.

keeps a private trunk full of costumes, wigs, clothes to ensure that her characters are flawless.

is writing a play about her own life titled, "the tempest's daughter" it is heavily fictionalized.

[moonspires]

#MOONSPIRES is a dependent mumu for avastrp written by rainie

isabeau duvant / thirty-five, she & her, mirror on the widow's wake.