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desperanceI don't do this, as a rule.
Indeed, that's a rule: I Don't Do This.
But a week or two back,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samarcand and I fell into a discussion that ended up with swapses; he would save some cabin-boys from drowning, if I made my drag-queen legitimately glam.
So, to prove my bona fides (and make sure those poor boys get to scramble to safety), behind the cut, heeeeeere's Sybil...!
What do I do, to describe her? I could run amok with words, a berserker in language, bleeding and battering myself all unheeded; I could run out of words entirely and build her out of absences, those things my words can't say; I could run away and leave her there, leave you with nothing, no grip on what she was.
She was, of course, the man we'd met in the bathroom. That was understood. I hope, that was understood...?
She'd been tall before; she was maybe seven foot tall in her platinum beehive wig with her heels underneath her. She walked as though she'd been built to be that high. She had that native sway to her, that cruel balance that just throws taunts at gravity. You could call it grace, perhaps, but I think that overlooks its edge, makes it seem more generous than it is. I speak as someone natively short, of course, and you can murmur all you like about envy - but I'm in Salomon's here, and truth rises.
She wore a brilliant tiara in that shimmering hair, and nothing beneath it disappointed. Her dress was like threaded water, a million translucent beads that played with light to show you nothing but themselves; however it had been made - not cut, not woven, I didn't know the word, or else I didn't know the craft - it had been made so artfully that it could slash down to her waist and seem to leave her with a cleavage. To her right it swept the floor, despite her glittering hi-rise stilettos; to her left it opened at her hip and fell away to show all the long smooth magnificence of that leg.
She wore a tattoo on the ankle. I only saw it for a moment as she stepped up onto the stage, but I was fairly sure; not a butterfly, no. That was a moth.
On stage, for a moment there, the lights found nothing but her face. It should have been a mask, the make-up disguising the man, but it never was. That was hers, and perhaps the truest face here, not a secret to be hid. Not like the rest of us.
Indeed, that's a rule: I Don't Do This.
But a week or two back,
samarcand and I fell into a discussion that ended up with swapses; he would save some cabin-boys from drowning, if I made my drag-queen legitimately glam.So, to prove my bona fides (and make sure those poor boys get to scramble to safety), behind the cut, heeeeeere's Sybil...!
What do I do, to describe her? I could run amok with words, a berserker in language, bleeding and battering myself all unheeded; I could run out of words entirely and build her out of absences, those things my words can't say; I could run away and leave her there, leave you with nothing, no grip on what she was.
She was, of course, the man we'd met in the bathroom. That was understood. I hope, that was understood...?
She'd been tall before; she was maybe seven foot tall in her platinum beehive wig with her heels underneath her. She walked as though she'd been built to be that high. She had that native sway to her, that cruel balance that just throws taunts at gravity. You could call it grace, perhaps, but I think that overlooks its edge, makes it seem more generous than it is. I speak as someone natively short, of course, and you can murmur all you like about envy - but I'm in Salomon's here, and truth rises.
She wore a brilliant tiara in that shimmering hair, and nothing beneath it disappointed. Her dress was like threaded water, a million translucent beads that played with light to show you nothing but themselves; however it had been made - not cut, not woven, I didn't know the word, or else I didn't know the craft - it had been made so artfully that it could slash down to her waist and seem to leave her with a cleavage. To her right it swept the floor, despite her glittering hi-rise stilettos; to her left it opened at her hip and fell away to show all the long smooth magnificence of that leg.
She wore a tattoo on the ankle. I only saw it for a moment as she stepped up onto the stage, but I was fairly sure; not a butterfly, no. That was a moth.
On stage, for a moment there, the lights found nothing but her face. It should have been a mask, the make-up disguising the man, but it never was. That was hers, and perhaps the truest face here, not a secret to be hid. Not like the rest of us.