she remembers beauty — pulchritude like a stubborn stain, bleeding from cloth to skin to marrow. the years have siphoned it from her, a slow larceny of the crux of comeliness, leaving only a gossamer shell. half - mast gaze probes the slivers of woman mirrored by her glass, the stem luxuriating between her fingers, its bowl cradling a shallow pool of water. [ fragments of storm, really; elsa hasn’t been woman in a long while, not quite. ] there might still be beauty there, she thinks, beneath facsimiled flesh but above beating non - heart. the creature in her reflection stirs, echoes of half - light rising and falling with the gust of breath that escapes aged, wearied lungs.
what happens to anything beautiful? with languid flourish of a delicate wrist, the water in the glass becomes a maelstrom contained; not by any arcane feat, but by something entirely worldly. sidling onto scarlet mouth is a bramble - rose smile — an ancient overgrowth finally unearthed. ❛❛ anything beautiful cannot last. ❜❜ all stains are ephemeral, after all, subjugated by the numinous hands of time. vivid irises unfurl slowly, settling on the woman before her. [ the word woman tastes strangely amiss. ] ❛❛ what do you think happens? ❜❜
