[b]Cair![/b]

Low and slow and filthy, like a tar fire on a mudslide. 
[i]
"I've held the needle that punched the stars
I've fought the Hero - and still got the scars
I was there when the Dragon bit the black
And tonight, girls, the Dragon's biting back!"[/i]

Cair slouches through the shadows like an industrial accident; like the Pinkertons covering up the industrial accident; like the first sludge-covered bicycle spat up by the Mississippi over the crest of the levee. The white frills of her black handmaiden's dress flare with shining magnesium brown into the shape of wireframe wings. 

You didn't get gigs like this if you didn't do 'em right.

[i]"It sure ain't blood that runs through her veins
And no collar's ever clean from lipstick stains
No heart's ever clean that's felt her falling leaves
And no back's ever clean from the footprints she leaves~"[/i]

It's all about the shoes. Every other piece of clothing is snipped and slashed and carved away, but the rhythm and flow of the words turned it from undressing Aria to revealing her. Every act of violence inflicted upon her clothing was just as much a part of her new outfit as the clothes had been. This was just what happened to clothes in the presence of the Rot Star; it took a certain gravitas to wear a dress made of destruction.

Sometimes fashion needed dress, belts, frills, skirts, garters, swords, umbrellas, and five hundred knives. But sometimes all you needed was a single pair of shoes.

[i]"Did you ever get tired of waiting your turn?
Did you eulogize the bridges you burned?
Nine million moves and all of them wrong
Take all the time you need, but don't take too long~"[/i]

[i]Shoes[/i]. There were many angles high heels could take - a lazy diagonal, a sharp downwards plunge, but these needed to look as uncomfortable and threatening as the Rot Star herself. So not only was there the sharp vertical line traditional to stilettos, there was a bounce at the bottom, raising up the toes. All the force was pushed onto a single, painful point on the sesamond bones. Only thin bands of black ribbon held them in place, revealing the feet and green painted toenails. Less like shoes and more like a harness for dragonriding; like the silken straps of a torture device; like the sash that'd hold a secret dagger against a maid's inner thigh.

[i]"You're a terror, you've gotta, army to lead
Rising from a tomb filled with mercury
It takes an empress to win the game of royalty
And a fallen star to force the blind to see~"[/i]

She strikes the matches off Aria's breasts; left and right, scales spitting sparks as the twigs immolated. One and two they dropped, left foot, right foot. They caught, and spat, and coughed, and blazed, running in columns of greasy fire up to her knees, sending columns of greasy smoke up to her neck. The fires did not settle but burned yellow-green, the smoke flicked and wrapped demurely, so thick and poisonous it'd make your hair the same oily yellow-grey as itself. The smoke coiled around thighs and hips, around breasts and shoulders, up into rearing serpentine shapes above. Aria was naked but for the smoke, but the smoke concealed everything. You could reach right through it but your finger would be chemically burned if you tried. It wrapped and coiled around the Rot Star's body, a dress dangling upside-down - at once more and less than any terrestrial dress.

[i]"The needle stabbed too deep when they tore her whole
She'll leave you scars, body and soul
No more blood running through your veins
Open your mouth and drink of her flames
Infinite moves but only one move remains
Fall on your face and scream out your praise
All the powers of cat, deer and girl
Useless against the end of the world
She'll leave a kiss,
One that won't wash away,
She'll take a bite,
One that won't go astray,
Feel your knees go weak
As your bones all decay
Lie down on your face
Her foot on your back
And stare up at your antlers
On Aria's mantleplace."[/i]