BASICS the air smells sweet, the air smells sick

MISC. he never smiles, his mouth merely twists

Job skills Job" skills

HISTORY the breath in my lungs feels clinging and thick

Nyx had a shockingly normal childhood. Her parents were married and happy, and they didn't even fight often. Nyx's older sister Audra wasn't cruel to her, nor were any of the neighborhood children. Nyx was just... always weird. She liked the idea of hurting people from a young age (she sometimes jokes that the Disney Villains were the reason, but she knows that she was drawn to them because of her own dark nature).

Nyx tried to be fairly normal herself, until she reached the age of around 14. That was when she heard about BDSM clubs, and she decided to find her way into one. She just wanted to watch. She was curious, was all. And her curiousity was only piqued when she finally was brought into one of the underground "parties" and she realized just how far some of the people went. She didn't care about the sex, or even the whips and things (though she was interested to see if it did anything for her to cause pain with some of the impliments hanging on the walls of the party), but what perked her up immediately was the "wet room". Not the peeing, because gross, but the blood? The blood was interesting.

No one would let her join in on the play for a couple more years, and even then she was only allowed to be a part of things as an assistant. She could hand over the blades, check on the submissive party, bring water to people, and participate as a part of the aftercare when it was okay with the submissive). Which was fine. Until it wasn't. She started to whine a little bit after the seventh or eighth party like that. That was when the Dom she'd been assisting (Antonin) told her he'd let her use the blades... but only if she went through being cut first. "You have to understand what you're putting them through, Nyxa. If you won't at least try it, I don't trust you to do it." She stormed out, angry that he wouldn't just let her do what she wanted to do.

Three weeks later, she was at another party, ignoring Antonin whenever she saw him, and she glared as he ignored her in return as he negotiated with a sub, who he then took into the wet room. She drank several glasses of wine over the next hour or so, then stomped into the wet room, her heels clacking loudly. She stood behind Antonin with her arms crossed until he said her name, reaching back, ready to be handed another blade. She handed it over, and fell back into her role as his assistant. When the scene was over, she handed out water and waited for the sub to leave and then she turned on Antonin. He reached out for her and tugged her into his arms, thanking her for her help. She tried to stay angry, but failed. "Tell me how it would work," she finally said, sighing into his collarbone.

She hated it. It wasn't something that put her into that floaty headspace the subs talked about. It did eventually give her adrenaline rushes (it was so GOOD for the pain to stop), but she didn't like that either. It left her shakey and unsettled, and when she stated that she was done, Antonin stopped the scene and bandaged her up, gave her water, and then sat down with her. When she was done being angry about it all, he handed her a blade and held out his own arm, guiding her how to cut properly. He wrinkled his nose with each cut, but he patiently continued the lesson until he felt she was doing it properly. Then he sent her home.

From the age of 17 until she was 20, she worked side-by-side with Antonin, as long as he was working in the wet room. They even got a reputation. And the itchy need to hurt people in Nyx settled to a low grumble so long as she had a controlled environment to do it.

The year she turned 20, Nyx's parents decided to move to the US. Though she was worried about how things might go there, she moved from Marseille to a city in Florida with her parents. They were living on an EB-5 Visa, and since she was under 21, she came in with them on a conditional visa. Once she was in the US, it seemed stupid to not follow through and try for citizenship. Green cards had to be kept for five years, and then all three of them applied, and received citizenship. That made it much easier to return to France when they liked, and Nyx used trips back to France to release some of the tension that she couldn't find an outlet for in the US. The scene was completely different than it was in France.

Nyx was 26 when she met up with the darker side of life in the US, and it took no time for her to realize these were her people. She didn't go back into the scene, but she did start spending time with "seedy" people. She was a part of her first killing within eight months, and that itch that was under her skin for her entire life stilled completely. It was... oddly thrilling. She studied different kinds of pills, poisons, and illicit drugs until she was practically an expert. She learned to shoot a gun. She started carrying knives. And she found herself more and more at peace with her life.

In the last 11 years (give or take) she has killed four people on her own. She has been a part of a four or five other deaths, in one way or another. She is perfectly okay with that. She is, after all, a danger kitten.