Moni: Acrobat
Stage Name: Lady Solar
Played by Bridgett Jeffries
Background: Moni is a charismatic but inexperienced performer, formerly a brothel worker. She holds much of her traumatic past buried, but her secrets guide a warped sense of balance and justice. She presents as agreeable and affectionate, but tends to behave recklessly under stress. Moni is Afro-Asian, fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese with an ever-changing line of symbols painted down her right side. Moni favors improvised weapons of the blade and garrote variety.
Junction, Texas
Episode 1: Moni was seeing a pair of brothers at a circus where they all performed. She took a medicine show advertisement from them which inspired her to flee to Junction. Along the way, she met businessman Milford Hardpenny who hired a stagecoach and joined her trip. The pair arrived to the Fair Shake Saloon where a hobo named Jesse helped tote their bags and delivered Moni’s announcement to Professor Bleeker. Moni hit it off with the saloon’s owner, Sally, and earned a job at the bar and free rent in the suite. Moni was swept away by the gunslinger Patience after watching their performance.
Episode 2: Back at the saloon, Moni flirted with Patience while working the bar and noticed her “meal ticket” Milford chatting with the lawyer Mr. Friend. Milford informed Moni that he would be meeting with Mr. Friend later about vague business prospects. That night, Moni was awakened by gunshots from another room at the saloon. While Milford cowered under the bed, Moni investigated the scene with Patience. They found a dead man shot by Jed, the de facto sheriff who was staying with Sally. This was a hobo named Ginger with sickly gray skin, signs of opium use, and a bottle of medicine show elixir in his jacket. Moni performed an acrobatic striptease for Patience and a crowd of mixed enthusiasms at the medicine show.
Episode 3: Professor Bleeker asked Moni and Patience to meet with the mystic Dot Liggett as a way to further evaluate Moni’s suitability for the traveling show. Inside they met Madam Liggett’s squawking mynah bird Waldo, and Moni had an intense reading that was accompanied by a lucid dream. In the vision, Moni recognized women from her past, Addison in particular. Moni then watched Patience emerge from a black lotus flower before shooting her to end the vision.
Episode 4: Moni and Patience met a group of performers at breakfast before learning from Jesse that there was a man in trouble at the train station. Upon arriving, Moni learned from Mr. Friend that Milford was stuck in the water stop doing a job Mr. Friend directed. She and the group managed to free Milford but his body was decimated beyond saving by a swarm of rats.
Episode 5: Moni confronted Mr. Friend about his negligence and promised to revisit this incident with him later.