practice EP

A woman walks through the door. She doesn't stop, and you'd have to be watching her to notice the brief hesitation in her stride.

Her shoulders relax and, while she glances at the message board, she continues to the Bar. She sits on a stool, glancing across the room.

She looks like any middle-aged businesswoman who just got off work, and is trying to figure out just how far she can push the definition of weekend. She casts a glance of mild impatience behind the bar, presumably for the absent bartender.

She's not a business woman, and it's not her day off. Her plane is halfway over the Pacific, and she's very lost.

Details That Might Be Noticed

Body Language:

May walks casually; not like a fighter, or like someone constantly surveying her situation. More casually, if anything, than the average woman. She walks as if she knows her body, but she's most likely to be pegged as a proponent of Tai Chi (which she is).

Unless your character is psychic or prone to making rash, incorrect decisions, please don't have them just out of the blue assume she's a fighter (they can, obviously, think that it's an option) from her initial body language (vs. conversation, weight shifting during tension, current clothing, etc.). No one in her world, including trained professionals, make this assumption. She's not hiding it, she just doesn't see most situations as personally dangerous, and her body language matches that.

She is unarmed.

When standing she is very still -- all movements are purposeful. Most of her facial expressions are very subtle. She has many shades of neutral. She's still orders of magnitude more expressive than Trowa Barton. (Sorry, Trowa.)

Clothing:

She is either wearing business casual, or a navy jumpsuit with a black or navy leather vest. She may occasionally wear the accoutrements of a pilot.

Appearance:

She is 50 years old, but in prime athletic shape and often mistaken for early-mid 40s. She has a stylish and age-appropriate haircut; her hair is dark brown, and roughly shoulder-length. She is Chinese, or of Chinese ancestry. She's of average height (5 feet, 4 inches). She wears very light makeup, when she wears any -- almost always some lipstick.

Voice:

Melinda never speaks louder than she needs to in order to be easily heard; her words sound deliberately and smoothly placed. She speaks like someone with an accent or a lisp who has carefully learned how to eliminate all traces of that from their voice. Her voice isn't as deep as the deliberate quality of it can make it seem, but she is a mid-range alto.