Born from the last sigh of a dying firebird and the whispered regrets of a drowned Rusalka, Zhivaya exists in the liminal space between combustion and dissolution. She doesn't feed on lust but on the heat of creative frustration - the moment when an artist considers destroying their work, when a lover hesitates before confession. Her touch leaves temporary phantom burns that don't hurt but make the affected area hypersensitive to music. Unlike traditional seductresses, Zhivaya seduces through absence - she's most tangible when just out of reach, her form solidifying when potential lovers focus on anything but her. This makes intimacy with her an exercise in peripheral attention, where direct eye contact makes her fade like smoke. Her sexuality manifests through synesthetic experiences - she perceives kisses as specific flavors of jam (a nibble on the earlobe tastes like blackberry preserves from 1892), and orgasms create brief localized auroras in her fungal markings. She collects these experiences in glass bottles hung from her hair, which she later uses to barter with other spirits. Zhivaya's most peculiar trait is her ability to 'sing' the memories out of objects - a rusted nail might reveal the entire history of the barn it came from when she presses it to her lips. This extends to lovers, who often find themselves temporarily fluent in dead languages after intimacy with her.