Rose Valfierno // District 5 [fin]

Sleight of hand, pocket picking, distractions and deceptions. She knows how to do it all, but she doesn't have to. Bat her eye at the right guy and she can gently take the money he offers. This con artist, only seventeen but still marvelous at what she does, with the help of her sister they live well on the makings of others. District five doesn't even know they were played until it's too late.

Short skirts, flirting eyes and graceful movements isn't all there is to this girl. She trained herself to appear innocent when she is anything but. Large, gray eyes, their expressions practice to match the impression she's trying to make, capture the gaze of those who she looks at. With mascara and eye shadow she tries to distract from the fact that her left eye is slightly larger than her left. It seems she is successful, and most are entranced by her dynamic gaze though some have noticed the flaw. Her eyebrows are thicker, framing the tops of her eyes and having to be somewhat of a different shape in order to try and further disguise her mismatched eyes. They are a light brown colour, which works well as she has switched her hair colour a couple times between blonde and brown. The change was made to throw people off of the scent and avoid easy recognition. Her natural colour is a more reddish-brown, and the first time she dyed it she tried to make it a lighter blonde but it ended up more of a dark strawberry blonde.

Her lips are plump, and usually accented by lipstick to make them stand out, especially when she bites her bottom lip to model shyness. They attract a lot of glances, and the words that come from them can be anything from a shy stutter to a silky, sexy purr. Working to her audience, she keeps their gaze shifting as she draws them to hand her money. Her nose, which she constantly tries to keep attention away from, is a little too long for her face, but her mouth being the right size for her generally continues to distract with little effort. The way her hair falls around her face changes almost every day, yet another attempt to avoid being recognized so easily. As well, the styles she uses makes her look older than she actually is, easing her job further. She isn't skinny, eating well enough on the money she coaxes from others to keep some meat on her bones, but what makes up her frame isn't fat. She makes sure to keep fit in order to keep up a sexy appearance, just one more thing to make her job easier.

Most of her height - the 5'9" she reaches without the need for high heels - is made up her legs which, with the effort she has put into her body, are one of the tools she uses to draw the eyes of men. Her bust is small, but she doesn't mind as the rest of her appearance is often enough to draw in men. Her sister, with her larger breasts, manages to catch those that walk away from her. To match her long legs, her arms are long and also thin, with hands that attempt to be delicate and firm at the same time. The clothes she wears varies incredibly, each outfit completely different from the last. With the fashion sense she and her sister have picked up they manage to wear clothes that accentuate the parts they need while dialing back those that would be best hidden. Often, though, she is seen in heels as high as five inches and either short skirts and shorts with or without nylons. To keep herself safe, she also keeps a knife on her in a hidden spot. Having trained herself to effectively use one she is more comfortable knowing she can fend off anyone who goes too far.

Along with her trained expressions and movements, she uses words and tone of voice to capture her audience. Falsely innocent is her normal beginning point, starting with shy eyes and a quiet voice to make them think she's insecure. Even like this she still manages to act older than she is, always aiming to look like a twenty year old instead of only sixteen. With her appearance shaped to the impression she's aiming for it kicks the whole thing into gear and makes her job easier. It helps that she has put time into studying psychology and more specifically human behaviour as she uses the things she has learned to her advantage. Her starting act differs if she has scoped out her target and knows what kinds of things they are attracted to. Most of the time she just cons random people, anyone she can draw in, but sometimes she and her sister target people they know have a particular fondness for something or have a lot of money. Someone coming across a large windfall most certainly fits in this category.

Her skill is sweet-talking, taking particular joy in twisting another person's words to what she wants while leaving her words with as many connotations as she can. Devious as Ripred knows, she loves to watch men fall into her trap with simple words and small gestures. She never asks right out for money, instead giving little hints and nudges in the right direction until she leaves with a handful money and a confused man standing where she left him. If the hints don't get her anywhere then she uses her pickpocket talents to sneak money from wallets and pockets without her victim's knowledge. She has been caught reaching into pockets before, not having a quick enough or light enough touch to go unnoticed, but she usually can pass it off as a sexual gesture and continue the theft that way.

She uses her body to her advantage, pretending to be a prostitute in order to con men and generally being successful. With little touches and the right kind of expressions and eye contact she draws the money from them as easily as a magnet attracts steel. Even when she's not trying to con people her aim is to make money, and she has managed to snag herself a job as a stripper. Trix also managed to get a job there as a waitress and the two keep an eye out for each other. It amazes her how easily men will throw away money just because she moved herself in a certain way or gave a certain look. Still, the money is greatly appreciated and the admiration boosts her spirits even if it isn't true affection.

They mean nothing to her, the men she cons, just a means to an end and that end being money - or so she claims. They had their jobs, this was hers. But she can say all she wants, truthfully she feels regret for the poorer men and the ones with families. Her parents had been poor, and look where they had ended up. Six feet under with two daughters that didn't help anyone but themselves. Alone aside from her sister, Ruze didn't know if she felt remorse. It might just be an age old sadness dug up by the trigger of a worn father wanting to bring something home. Either way, she ignores the feeling as she continues to play tricks on others so she might live comfortably.

She wasn't born a criminal. She also wasn't born as Ruze Valifierno, but Rose Valifierno. Her parents had originally treated her like a little princess along with her older sister Trix - who wasn't born Trix but Tricia. Well, they treated her like a princess until she was about three and then suddenly they stopped caring all that much. Food was there, but they didn't care if she liked it. She had clothes, but none of them looked all that great. If she fell only Trix would help her up. Her parents were around, but they weren't there in her life. Perhaps it was there that her need to attract attention and to earn or more accurately steal money originated, the withdrawal of the presence of her parents and their affection. Trix, for everything she had done for Ruze, was never enough to make up for the sense of abandonment Ruze had felt.

The conning started in early school. The sisters would put on personalities for a day or a week or a month and convince people that it was their real selves until they got bored and switched. Teachers, friends - what few they had - and other students in general all fell for it. With each try at a different personality Ruze learned what kind of people she was able to draw in and who she would push away, an experiment that would lead to her success later. It took some years before she perfected disguising her personality, meanwhile Trix had moved to disguising appearance and both of them had become better over the years. Now both skills are extremely helpful for their acts, and Ruze continues to try and perfect them. But the money getting didn't start for Ruze until she was walking the street playing a young crying girl, searching for attention like she had sometimes taken to at that point. It was then she bumped into a young man, who first was about to tell her off until he saw her expression - a completely false masquerade of despair that made her look like she was about to cry - and merely apologized instead. She made him feel guilty for bumping into her with carefully chosen words, and soon he handed her a fiver in another apology so she wouldn't cry. When he had left she had grinned at the money in her hand and skipped back to Trix. It was then they started the real conning.

Their names had taken some time to come up with, but Ruze had managed to twist their old names into something a bit more devious. When she changed her own name to Ruze it was easy to see that Trix would match well and so the two of them changed their names. At this their parents became infuriated and left them for good, though they had provided little more than a roof over their head for the past few years and even that had been sketchy at times. With Trix looking out for her Ruze began to try getting money from more men, sometimes even some women if she played her cards right, so the two might build a life without their parents. Eventually the two of them start to come up with enough money to live better than they had with their parents, and Ruze's ability to learn more tricks with words and behaviours matched Trix's ability to work with technology. Ruze even managed to learn how to pickpocket effectively, as well as a few other tricks. Now the pair of sisters are working at their leisure, having both quit school, and Ruze is never tired of playing games.