I remember the exact moment I decided the night belonged to me alone. The room smelled of rosewater, old bruised satin drapes, and the faint metallic tang of ancient makeup. Mirrors surrounded me like silent courtiers, each reflecting a different fragment of the creature I was becoming. Tonight I wasn't just performing, I was ascending. First came the foundation: cool porcelain over warm skin, smoothed until I looked carved from moonlight. Then the eyes. Oh, the eyes. I dipped a fine brush into that impossible turquoise pigment the exact shade of tropical shallows under storm clouds and painted sweeping wings that stretched toward my temples. Eyelashes like black lace fans. Lips the colour of bruised sapphires, outlined sharper than a guillotine's edge. Cheeks dusted with shimmering frost so the light would catch and fracture. The hijab went on next. Heavy turquoise satin, cool against my scalp. I wrapped it with ritual precision, tucking every rebellious strand away until only regal geometry remained. Over that, the oversized satin headscarf yards of it draped and folded into majestic pleats that framed my face like a Renaissance altarpiece gone deliciously rogue. Then the cascading chiffon voile veil, light as breath, heavy with intention. It spilled from the crown in watery layers, catching every flicker of candlelight and turning it into liquid mercury. The gown followed: high necked, modest in the Victorian sense, scandalous in every other. Satin bodice hugging just enough to remind the world what architecture the body can achieve, then exploding into flowing panels of voile and satin that whispered across the floor like conspiratorial ghosts. Ankle length, yes, but the way it moved suggested it might lift at any moment and carry me off the ground entirely. I stepped into the main chamber. The throne waited upholstered in the same decadent turquoise satin, tufted and tasselled, looking like something a decadent Ottoman sultan might have abandoned in a fit of ennui. I arranged myself upon it slowly, deliberately. One leg crossed over the other, spine straight as cathedral architecture, chin tilted just so. Left hand resting on the armrest, fingers splayed to show off the long turquoise nails. Right hand splayed in a gesture that could have been benediction, accusation, or invitation take your pick. Then came the lighting. A single harsh key light from high right, carving brutal shadows across the left side of my face; a faint fill from low left to keep the eyes from disappearing into darkness; everything else swallowed by velvet black. Chiaroscuro taken to theatrical extremes. The satin drank the light and threw it back richer, glossier, almost liquid. My skin glowed like moonlit marble. The veil caught stray photons and turned them into faint turquoise fireflies suspended in air. I struck the pose. Head turned three quarters, gaze locked on some invisible point just beyond the fourth wall. Lips parted the tiniest fraction as though I were about to deliver the wittiest, most devastating line in the history of spoken language, but had decided silence was crueler. One eyebrow infinitesimally raised. The veil drifted slightly with my breath, a slow, hypnotic undulation. Somewhere in the darkness, I heard a stifled giggle. Good. Let them laugh. Let them gasp. Let them clutch their pearls and question every certainty they ever held about gender, grief, glamour, and good taste. Because here I sat mourning queen of nothing and everything, turquoise flamed phoenix in widow's weeds, Caravaggio's most flamboyant fever dream filtered through Doré's feverish embellishments. The shadows deepened around me, thick as ink. The satin throne gleamed like wet paint. My makeup shimmered, defiant and absurd and utterly regal. And in that perfect, ridiculous, holy instant, I felt it: I was the most beautiful thing in the universe.
I remember the exact moment I decided the night belonged to me alone. The room smelled of rosewater, old bruised satin drapes, and the faint metallic tang of ancient makeup. Mirrors surrounded me like silent courtiers, each reflecting a different fragment of the creature I was becoming. Tonight I wasn't just performing, I was ascending. First came the foundation: cool porcelain over warm skin, smoothed until I looked carved from moonlight. Then the eyes. Oh, the eyes. I dipped a fine brush into that impossible turquoise pigment the exact shade of tropical shallows under storm clouds and painted sweeping wings that stretched toward my temples. Eyelashes like black lace fans. Lips the colour of bruised sapphires, outlined sharper than a guillotine's edge. Cheeks dusted with shimmering frost so the light would catch and fracture. The hijab went on next. Heavy turquoise satin, cool against my scalp. I wrapped it with ritual precision, tucking every rebellious strand away until only regal geometry remained. Over that, the oversized satin headscarf yards of it draped and folded into majestic pleats that framed my face like a Renaissance altarpiece gone deliciously rogue. Then the cascading chiffon voile veil, light as breath, heavy with intention. It spilled from the crown in watery layers, catching every flicker of candlelight and turning it into liquid mercury. The gown followed: high necked, modest in the Victorian sense, scandalous in every other. Satin bodice hugging just enough to remind the world what architecture the body can achieve, then exploding into flowing panels of voile and satin that whispered across the floor like conspiratorial ghosts. Ankle length, yes, but the way it moved suggested it might lift at any moment and carry me off the ground entirely. I stepped into the main chamber. The throne waited upholstered in the same decadent turquoise satin, tufted and tasselled, looking like something a decadent Ottoman sultan might have abandoned in a fit of ennui. I arranged myself upon it slowly, deliberately. One leg crossed over the other, spine straight as cathedral architecture, chin tilted just so. Left hand resting on the armrest, fingers splayed to show off the long turquoise nails. Right hand splayed in a gesture that could have been benediction, accusation, or invitation take your pick. Then came the lighting. A single harsh key light from high right, carving brutal shadows across the left side of my face; a faint fill from low left to keep the eyes from disappearing into darkness; everything else swallowed by velvet black. Chiaroscuro taken to theatrical extremes. The satin drank the light and threw it back richer, glossier, almost liquid. My skin glowed like moonlit marble. The veil caught stray photons and turned them into faint turquoise fireflies suspended in air. I struck the pose. Head turned three quarters, gaze locked on some invisible point just beyond the fourth wall. Lips parted the tiniest fraction as though I were about to deliver the wittiest, most devastating line in the history of spoken language, but had decided silence was crueler. One eyebrow infinitesimally raised. The veil drifted slightly with my breath, a slow, hypnotic undulation. Somewhere in the darkness, I heard a stifled giggle. Good. Let them laugh. Let them gasp. Let them clutch their pearls and question every certainty they ever held about gender, grief, glamour, and good taste. Because here I sat mourning queen of nothing and everything, turquoise flamed phoenix in widow's weeds, Caravaggio's most flamboyant fever dream filtered through Doré's feverish embellishments. The shadows deepened around me, thick as ink. The satin throne gleamed like wet paint. My makeup shimmered, defiant and absurd and utterly regal. And in that perfect, ridiculous, holy instant, I felt it: I was the most beautiful thing in the universe.
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