Valeria should be easy to overlook; tiny and petite, barely reaching five feet tall when in heels and with her hair up. No-one who looks at her though is able to ignore the vision of beauty to which they have been exposed. Every polished detail of her visage seems to attract the eye, slender but undeniably feminine curves drawing ones gaze upward to darkly gleaming, carmine hair. Those graced by fortune to draw her attentions are often lost in the emerald and grey pool of her eyes, or in the delicate curve of her wine-dark lips, both stark in contrast to the porcelain clarity of her pale skin.

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A painting of such beauty would captivate the most boorish of onlookers, but even a masterpiece can be ruined with shoddy framing. Clearly this lesson has not been missed as richly embroidered silks and jewelry fit for the Imperial Palace subtly enhance Valeria’s presentation when in the company of the nobility. Unadorned but no less expensive clothing carrying the impression of nobility when she is among the common folk, and tailored linens when she is on the road working.

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Most would garner from all of this that Valeria was barely out of her teens, a seductress roaming the salons of the South hunting her prey, but this is inaccurate. Her beauty has been refined by time, the polished and comfortably elegant poise of a woman well into her fourth decade rather than the glittering sparkle of one just beginning her second. A cultured delicate voice completes the image, softly soprano and capable of drawing joy from even the most miserable when it is lifted in song or laughter.

Always at least at [Appearance 5]
*Art courtesy of the wonderful Lee Dassin