[hr][hr][center][h1][color=#00ccff]Nora Kingston[/color][/h1][img]http://68.media.tumblr.com/c0485267a143181b3c5c707cc569d539/tumblr_inline_mm984m8QOX1qz4rgp.gif[/img][hr]Location: Spare Bedroom - Garden City - Apartment 301 Maratos Building at No.6 Walda Pasha [/center][hr][hr]Nora sighed, turning the page of the latest novel she had procured for herself. She'd always been desperate to read it as a young child, yet her father had condemned it as improper. The family had been scandalized when her uncle read it in [i]The People's Periodical and Family Library[/i] growing up, and eventually, ended up cutting all ties with the fellow. Her brother's wife, Fannie, enjoyed imagining that he had left for America and took on a life of crime. Nora had no patience for such theories. Why bother focusing on what was not real? 

[quote][i]Ladies and gentlemen - I fear that what I am going to say will spoil your appetites; but the truth is beautiful at all times, and I have to state that Mrs. Lovett's pies are made of human flesh![/i][/quote]
Nora chuckled a bit, smiling as she turned the page of [i]The String of Pearls: The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance[/i]. Penny Dreadfuls were her guilty pleasure, despite the cheapness of them and the sensationalist attitudes. They were the only departure from reality that Nora condoned, mostly because she found that the presented their own form of truth. [i]Black Bess[/i] remained her favorite, though the intriguing murderous barber fascinated her. Had she been in London at the time, she would've booked tickets the see the play for herself, having been introduced to the stage just fifty years prior. Egypt was a mecca in its own right, of course, and English habits were always so frightfully dull and rigid...but so was Nora. 

Sipping delicately from her cool beverage, Nora set the book aside, instead grasping her pocket notebook. The dream continued to torment her, a side effect she assumed from her assisting her uncle. Despite not doing much more than collecting papers and cleaning his clothing, she did, on occasion, get a moment to put her mathematics degree to use. The words, as she originally supposed, were likely some form of code. She sketched out variations in spelling each time she had the dream, but had made no progress so far. 

Glancing outside of the pristine window of her apartment, Nora witnessed the sun hanging low in the sky. Soon enough, the temperatures outside would be one that she could tolerate. Setting both her notebook and novel aside, Nora arose from the bed, stretching idly. Her father had deemed it improper for an unmarried woman to live alone, yet the scandal of her living with another man seemed even more fearful to him. The apartment had been a compromise, with Nora largely using the spare bedroom for reading, the other spare room for smoking, and her bedroom for sleeping. Lighting a cigarette, Nora placed it within its holder, and took a soft drag. 

The day had already proved to be just as disappointing as the last. But no matter. Nora wasn't foolish enough to imagine that anything would change in her circumstances. She exited the room and headed into the kitchen, determined to attempt to have some [i]fun[/i] that evening. The bars and parlors would be opening up, and away from the watchful eyes of England, Nora wouldn't be as heavily judged for heading to such an establishment on her lonesome. Putting her cloche hat smartly on top of her curls, flattening them slightly in the process, Nora vacated her apartment, looking for something unknown to herself.