A bit of Moon Maiden.

He raised the paintbrush and drew definite strokes on his eyebrows, the reflection in the mirror doing the same. Stroke. Black arches, feminine and coquettish. Under the light of the lamp, he was transforming into a beautiful maiden. A moon maiden, illuminated by the false gas-lamp moon above his head. Then came the rouge brush and his cheeks become cherry-blossom pink, the color of a young innocent woman.

The bright red lip paint came last, lovingly applied on, reinforcing, enhancing. At last, the moon maiden was almost ready – she needed her white wings and her diadem. She donned them gracefully, looked at the mirror again and smiled. The stage would be her moon, her sky.

Henry picked the rest of his props up: a porcelain bowl filled with soap water and a wand. The moon maiden would create magic with it and charm the audience. With the audience’s applause, she would take flight.

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Okay, question time.

How many of you would like to read Phoenix With A Purpose, raw as it is?

Blurb:
Phoenix With A Purpose details the development of Princess Min Feng, heir apparent to the Phoenix Court, set in a future where the Phoenix Court, a matriarchal Imperial Family, rules over an Alliance of Planets. Min Feng is impulsive, her inner phoenix flame (an ability to turn her from human to phoenix) out of control because of puberty. She yearns for freedom and meets a Navajo boy from Mesa, a colony home-world for the Navajo/Dine people. When her mother, the Empress, decides to send her on an apprentice-ship on a starship captained by her grandaunt, Min Feng rebels and runs away from home, triggering a pattern of consequences for her, the boy and the family. Will she find her purpose in life? Or is she a phoenix without a purpose, susceptible to the whims of an uncontrollable phoenix fire and puberty?

EDIT:
I uploaded it on Scribd.