Nameless

Nameless is a character in MORITURI TE SALUTANT.

Description:
Nameless has short, messy charcoal grey hair. Her skin is ashen white to the point where it is so pale it makes her look permanently ill. Bandages are wrapped around her face obscuring her left eye; they are slightly yellowing with age. Her visible eye is a pale greenish grey. She wears a loose full length robe resembling a toga. It is cheap, thin and very well worn. She is remarkably short (about four and a half feet tall) and flat-chested. Because of this it is easy to, at a cursory glance, mistake her for a child. Around her neck she wears a thick golden collar. The collar does not have any visible seams and is inscribed with occasionally altering symbols in pale green. Her limbs are long and spindly thin.

Nameless tends to distance herself from those who she interacts with. She is reasonably polite and well mannered in these interactions, but this is generally a front and she generally has good reason for behaving as she does. Nameless rarely, if ever gets excited about anything. She tends to assume the worst about people and is quite pessimistic. Some would say that she has little to no sense of self worth. She would beg to differ, she knows exactly what she is worth, she just does not value it personally.

Items/Abilities:
Nameless sells aspects of herself. These aspects can be physical things like her left eye, mental things like her empathy, or even abstract things like her name. This is not an ability that she herself possesses, but the function of the collar she wears. Its purpose is to facilitate and enforce any agreements she makes. The collar can only be removed by her, or in the circumstances that she has died. It cannot be removed by force. Even if it was removed she would not regain any aspect that she has lost. The collar retains a connection to her home world; more specifically to her account with Raxucorp. It cannot be used as a method of communication.

The collar ensures a fair trade, or at the very least a trade which both parties agree to. It cannot remove an aspect of her against her will or take another persons aspects/money without their agreement. During the bargain it ensures that the terms of both sides are enforced, transferring the desired aspect of Nameless to its new owner, and simultaneously collecting the agreed price for that aspect. If the buyer paid in cash, that money, no matter what currency, is instantly transferred into her Raxucorp account. If the buyer traded an aspect of themself Nameless can choose to keep that aspect as part of her self, or sell it directly on to Raxucorp. Dependant upon the aspect there is a chance that Raxucorp may choose to decline the sale and Nameless will be stuck with this aspect.

Nameless has sold her name, her complexion, her hair colour, the majority of her hair, her figure, her stature, her left eye, her empathy and her voice. She carries around a notebook and pen to communicate with. The manner in which the loss of her name is enforced precludes her from carrying on using her old name, or from choosing a new name. It does not prevent people from calling her whatever they wish, but it does prevent any name from becoming associated with her.

Biography:
It was her first time inside Raxucorp. Back then she was a different person, so to speak. Physically speaking she was unrecognisable, though emotionally she would alter very little over the following year and a half. Her hair was long and like gold, she was fair of skin and tall with a well rounded figure. She would resent being called beautiful, but perhaps she would concede she had been attractive, though there had always been a certain distance in her eyes, a hollowness that made it seem like part of her was already missing.

Without doubt this is the largest building she has ever been in. The lobby alone is massive and imposing, every surface is made from shining white marble. Everything from the enormous white pillars that flank her to the vaulted ceiling high above seem almost as if designed to make visitors to the company feel tiny; insignificant in comparison. There are a couple of people milling around here. They move with purpose, they are busy and well dressed. They barely acknowledge her existence. She does not fit in. She looks and feels completely out of place. The aesthetic of this building is so strange and different when compared to the industrial sprawl of the city at large that she almost feels like she has wandered into another world.

She makes her way up to the desk. Here she is greeted by a salesman, a friendly man with a smile and a warm handshake, who leads her off to a private office away from the busy ebb and flow of Raxucorp customers. He is wearing a golden collar with glittering red symbols dancing across it. Her attention is drawn to it as she follows him into the office. He notices her attention, but does not seem to mind. She figures he probably gets that a lot considering the line of work he is in. She notices that without thinking she has pressed her hand to her neck and corrects herself.

Their conversation is surprisingly brief. The salesman does not mess around with a sales pitch, perhaps he can see it in her eyes that she has already made her decision, or perhaps the fact that she has come this far has given that away. They talk terms and conditions, what her collar can and cannot do, the permanence of any transactions made with it. She accepts all of it without as much as a second thought. After the salesman takes her details to set up a Raxucorp account, the matter of payment is broached. She does not have much left in the world; hence why she is here. She offers her name eagerly. It is something she is happy to be rid of. It is part of an identity that she no longer wants a part of. Part of her had assumed she’d be able to pick a new name and use that instead. That would prove not to work.

Forms are produced. She signs her name for the very last time. And that simply the transaction is complete.

She loses her name and gains a collar.

She will make more than a couple of deals over the next year and a half, each one of them leaving her diminished, but none so much as this one. Maybe it was the loss of her name. Maybe it was that she had to pay in order to sell herself. They were both depressing, but perhaps the worst of it was that it was all her choice.