As the doorway—well, curtain, but still—to the [i]tiny[/i] dressing room was thrown open, Quinn cringed backwards and visibly blanched. As she recovered and gave an apologetic look to Madam Dague, a sick feeling began to build in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eye, took a long, deep breath. A second. A third. Then she slid under the curtain and let it fall shut behind her. 

For just a moment, standing there, she felt a fierce urge to grip at her upper arms to ground herself. But with a herculean effort and the sharp awareness that she wasn't going to be able to avoid this kind of thing as much in Casoban, she loosened her hands—which she realized were clenched stark white against the black fabric of the dress—and carefully hung it up on one of the hooks. A minute or so passed as Quinn jimmied her feet out of her shoes and shucked her clothing off, tossing them haphazardly against the wall, until she finally grabbed the dress off the hook, pulled down the hidden zipper, and stepped in.

Outside of the dressing room, noises of muted frustration could be heard as Quinn fiddled, back to the mirror, trying to find the zipper behind her to pull it up. No more than a minute, again, and there was a huff of satisfaction, and the sound of a zipper fastening.

Then there was silence outside, as Quinn stared at herself in the mirror.

She flicked her braid this way and that until she finally felt happy with how it settled, then stared again.

She was...

Quinn had never ascribed the word to herself before, as far as she could remember. But, at least to her untrained eye, she was...[i]something[/i] like beautiful.

She hoped.

Well, there was someone qualified to tell just outside, right? So, screwing up her courage and doing her best to swallow the lump in her throat, she reached a shaking hand out, pulled the curtain aside—congratulating herself as she did—and gingerly stepped out.

"[color=ffe63d]How...how do I look?[/color]"