This is an image post. Inspiration for this sketch came from this image.

People mostly see what they expect to see. Not always, not every time — everybody wants to be the smart one, the one who notices things, the one who isn’t taken in, so everybody is always hoping to spot a con — but for the most part, yeah, it’s not too difficult. It’s a way of walking, a way of holding yourself: angles of shoulders, hips, hands. Whether you look them in the eye or not. How deep your voice is; more than that, how you use it. What you wear. Marion’s always amazed at how important clothes are.

Marion puts on the padded undershirt, stained with rust; the heavy steel shirt, so almost-familiar; the wide leather belt. The gloves. The hair’s not a problem. You can cut your hair any way you want, and it doesn’t make much of a difference, especially if you keep the helmet on, which Marion does, most of the time. She keeps her hair long because it’s extra padding, and because it hides her antennae better.

On the field they only know her by her colors. “Bradamante!” they roar, and it doesn’t mean much. She strips down again in the forest after the tournament, down to her skin, and all her fair sisters come out and cloak her in a more brilliant armor. She feeds them sugar, starch, fat and news.