Glassis dawns beneath a bruise pink sky, molten clouds pooling like spilled lipstick. Stilted towers twitch on insectile legs each footstep a measured click click, echoing across the marble causeways.

Men, cloaked in uniforms of dull beige fabric, exist solely to open doors precisely 1.3 seconds before a woman’s approach, under penalty of being reprogrammed into portico ornaments. No man stirs unless summoned; their sole sermon is the soft click of a hinge, the ceremonial swing of a doorway.

Lysandra, Imperator of Contour, strides through the dimly lit corridors of the Ministry of Facial Moisture Balance, her presence announced by the soft susurrations of her attendants. Her entourage of door holding men, their faces etched with the rigidity of protocol, flank her with precision.

She enters the vault, greeted by the Archivist of Unwanted Whiskers, Florencia, her eyes gleaming like polished obsidian. “Imperator, the Archive of Forbidden Chin Fuzz is ready for your inspection.” Florencia’s voice is a honeyed contralto, dripping with the sweetness of compliance.

Lysandra’s gaze sweeps the vault, drinking in the rows of crystalline vials suspended in mid air, each containing a meticulously preserved whisker. The atmosphere is thick with the weight of unwanted fuzz. “Florencia, I require a consultation with Minister Merovena regarding the recent surge in Contagious Eye Sag.”

Florencia nods, her lips curling into a calculated smile. “Minister Merovena awaits, Imperator. This way, please.” As they navigate the labyrinthine corridors, the soft whir of Moisture Injectors and the murmur of Facial Moisture Rebalancing programs provide a soothing background hum.

The male door holders convened in the Ministry of Almost Closed Doors, their man hands scribbling blueprints for Silence Hydroelectric Dams. What if, ruminated one of them, yawns could power the Honey Grid? His face twitched; all men were legally prohibited from expressing anything above a 1.2 on the Emotional Warmth Index. A woman’s sneeze nearby sent him collapsing into a protocol of three bows a performance titled Ephemeral Male Utility.

“Curves,” Lysandra whispered, “curves bend, but never break.” In her hand: a vial of “Tempestuous Teardrop Gloss,” so potent that a single shimmering bead could ignite a riot of shimmer and shame.

Our Lysandra dust footed, vial handed slipped through the Ministry of Hip Sinuosity, where hips were measured by the angle of seduction. The Hip Archivist, a plump woman sculpted by powdered moonlight, demanded a 72.4° sway. Those who dared to wobble at 72.5° were carted away for resinuation, their pelvises reangulated like crooked beams in a warped cathedral.

She climbed staccato breath into the Observatory of Smile Radiance. Beneath its arch, librarians in lace laced kerchiefs catalogued smiles by lumens: dim, flirt, incandescent, nuclear.

She slipped it into her cloak, nearly colliding with the Secretary of Thigh Resonance, whose thighs hummed in frequency modulated pulses thigh singers, they called them. Anything off beat risked a public Resonance Audit, where citizens’ legs were strapped to violins and bowed until compliance rang true.

Lysandra dodged past a squad of Swingmen men with hands surgically replaced by door mechanicals, their faces blanked by duty. “A door is not a life!” they recited in unison, though one muttered, “…why not?” A Swingman’s finger twitched toward her, his voicebox beeping: “DOOR REQUEST: 1.3 SECONDS APPROVED.”

A sudden click doors swung open. The Undersecretary of Bosom Symmetry, Vellessa, drifted forward, a cloud of sighs wrapped in duchess satin. Her duties: measure each breast for perfect equidistance, ensure each bosom mirrored the other in plump, blush pink harmony. Citizens queued, brass calipers poised: one side, then the other; equality enforced by muzzle shaped brass clasps if disparity exceeded a single millimeter.

Men, their faces now officially permitted to occasionally twitch, chanted, “GIVE US THE 1.8 SECOND DOOR!” Lysandra, in a last gasp, screamed, “CALL THE BEAUTY POLICE!” But the Police were too busy filing their Nipples into Perfect Cones.

“Imperator.” Florencia, materializes from the shadows like smoke given form. Her obsidian eyes gleam with the fever of the truly devoted bureaucrat. “Emergency convocation in the Vault of Regulatory Sorrows. The Bureau chiefs await your assessment.”

Lysandra’s perfectly plucked eyebrow regulation arch of 32.7 degrees rises a millimeter. In Glassis, emergency convocations meant someone had committed acts of aesthetic treason. Her lips curl into a smile that could cut glass.

They descend through corridors lined with portraits of Past Imperators, their faces frozen in expressions of eternal disapproval. The Vault door mahogany embedded with tiny brass eyelash curlers swings open with a sigh that sounds like a dying gasp of beauty.

Inside, three figures wait like vultures dressed in regulatory finery.

Quisella of the Bureau of Eyelash Velocity perches on her chair like a praying mantis in designer spectacles. Her lashes flutter at precisely 0.57 Hz a rhythm so perfect it makes nearby clocks jealous. Venom drips literally from her glasses, pooling on the conference table in small, acidic puddles that eat through the lacquer. “Imperator,” she shrieks, voice like nails on a chalkboard made of compressed diamonds, “catastrophe has struck! The flutter rates have been… compromised.”

Across from her, Ostraya, Minister of Eyebrow Kinematics, sits with the rigid posture of a woman who calculates the precise angle of every gesture. Her tongue mercury quick flickers as she speaks, each word measured in degrees of bureaucratic precision. “The National Gaze Economy faces collapse, Imperator. Our enforcement protocols have been… infiltrated.” Her eyebrows twin crescents of administrative fury twitch at exactly 0.003 degrees per second.

The third figure lurks in shadows so deep they seem to eat light. The Undersecretary of Unibrow Unification has no face only a void where features should be, filled with the soft buzz hum of eyebrow singulators charging. When it speaks, the words emerge from nowhere and everywhere: “Dissidents multiply like split ends, Imperator. The Nasolabial Fossa Furnace burns at capacity, yet still they come.”

Lysandra’s chair carved from compressed powder compacts creaks as she leans forward. Her fingers, nails painted in Dictatorial Dust, drum against the table. “Report.”

Quisella’s spectacles steam with bureaucratic fury. “A lasho submarine contraband sunk three nautical miles off Lustra’s coast. Our Maritime Mascara Patrol intercepted radio chatter: ‘Package delivered to the sea floor.’ The cargo…” She pauses, her lashes fluttering so rapidly they create a small hurricane in the coffee cups. “Illegal eyelashes. Green ones.”

Ostraya’s mercury tongue darts across her lips. “Green lashes violate Aesthetic Code 247 B: ‘No ocular appendage shall deviate from approved pigmentation standards.’ The psychological impact could be… devastating. Citizens might begin to question the Natural Order of Beauty.”

The Undersecretary’s void face somehow manages to convey disapproval. “Our intelligence suggests smuggler cells have been smuggling Curl Smugglerlion Serum through the same network. If they combine green lashes with unsanctioned curl patterns…” The sentence hangs in the air like a guillotine blade.

Lysandra stands, her movement so fluid it defies physics. Her reflection in the table’s surface shows not her face, but the face of Glassis itself beautiful, terrible, absolute. “Summon the Tweezer Corps. Deploy the Deep Sea Mascara Divers. That submarine will be raised, its cargo catalogued, its crew… re-educated.”

She turns toward the door, her silhouette casting shadows that seem to strangle the light. “And double the rations of Static Eyelash spray. If green lashes reach the population…” Her smile could freeze the Ministry’s Moisture Injectors. “Well. We can’t have that, can we?”

The Tweezer Corps assembled metallic insects bristling with precision. Captain Zoralyne, her hair shellacked into geometric impossibility, saluted with tweezers that caught light like surgical lightning. Behind her: seventeen women weaponized by beauty protocol, faces painted in Regulation War Gloss #9.

“Imperator!” Captain Zoralyne’s voice cracked like breaking nail polish. “The submarine rests twelve fathoms deep, but the waters…” Her perfectly contoured cheekbones trembled. “The Hair Frizzing Tides surge tonight. Atmospheric humidity: 67.3%. Wind patterns: chaotic curl inducing.”

Lysandra’s lips painted in Dominion Burgundy that cost three men’s yearly door holding wages pressed into a line sharp enough to slice regulations. The Hair Frizzing Tides. Every woman’s nightmare whispered in salon secrets and powder room prayers.

Quisella fluttered forward, her regulation heels click clicking a morse code of bureaucratic panic. “Imperator, perhaps we could… delegate? The Deep Sea Mascara Divers are trained for ”

“Trained for controlled moisture environments,” Lysandra interrupted, her voice silk wrapped steel. “Not for the Frizzing Tides.” She gestured toward the vault’s brass framed window, where purple black clouds roiled like angry hair products. “Look.”

Through rain streaked glass: the harbor writhed with moisture demons. Steam rose from water that bubbled and frothed, sending tentacles of humidity skyward. Any woman who dared approach those waters would emerge looking like the horror a civilian. Hair kinked into smugglerlion, makeup sliding down faces like melted dreams, eyebrows refusing their prescribed angles.

Ostraya’s mercury tongue darted nervously. “The economic implications alone… If citizens witness authority figures with compromised hair, the entire Aesthetic Infrastructure could collapse within hours.”

The Undersecretary’s void face somehow conveyed smug satisfaction. “Perhaps the smugglers planned this timing precisely. Green lashes deployed during Hair Frizzing Tides maximum psychological warfare.”

Captain Zoralyne stepped forward, her uniform crisp enough to cut air. “Imperator, my corps volunteers for the mission. We’ve trained in Anti Frizz Combat Protocols. Our hair is weaponized reinforced with Steel Strength Aerosol, lacquered in Weather Resistant Polymer Gloss. We can withstand category four humidity.”

But even as she spoke, her perfect chignon trembled. Through the window, a seagull flew too close to the harbor its feathers instantly frizzed into cotton ball chaos. The bird crash landed, looking like a feather duster possessed by demons.

Lysandra turned, her movement creating wind currents that made lesser women’s hair flutter with envy. “No.” The word landed like a gavel. “I will not sacrifice my finest officers to moisture chaos. There must be another solution.”

She strode to the Vault’s Communication Array a bronze monstrosity bristling with brass lipstick tubes that functioned as antennae. Her fingers, nails sharp as tiny sabers, dialed a frequency known only to emergency protocols.

“Connect me to the Archive of Desperate Measures.”

A voice like honey mixed with bureaucratic acid. “Archive of Desperate Measures, Custodian Velvessa speaking. How may we facilitate your aesthetic emergency?”

“Custodian, I require immediate consultation regarding Hair Frizzing Tide countermeasures. Priority Code: Green Lash Catastrophe.” Pause.

The sound of papers rustling or perhaps dried hair cuttings being shuffled. “Imperator, we have one viable option: but it requires… historical resurrection. One thousand years past, when men still governed ” collective gasps echoed through the Vault; speaking of the Before Times of the Great Eyebrow Revolution, required special breathing permits.

The Undersecretary’s void face somehow conveyed historical horror. Captain Zoralyne’s geometric hair threatened to collapse into mere triangles.

It was a brutality of angles. Hull metal, scarred by crab rage and salt spite, bore faded graffiti: “MEN BUILT THIS, BITCHES” etched deep, now pocked by corrosion cancer. No curves blessed its form. Only sharp, jaw breaking edges. A hatch yawned open a mouth missing lip gloss, teeth replaced by rust bolts.

Its engine hummed, its controls required thinking, not divination. Crude machinery, brutal aesthetics, no consideration for hair maintenance protocols during submersion, because, “men handle ineffectiveness better,” as Ostraya once grumbled.

“Observe,” Ostraya pointed, mercury tongue recoiling, “the mirrorlessness. An abomination. How did they know? Without constant ocular feedback? No powder touch up stations. No emergency lipstick dispensers.” The crew would be operating blind to their own aesthetic status.

Lysandra stepped inside. The air hit her corrosion scented, ozone bitter, utterly devoid of lavender mist or powder kiss. Metal groaned under her heel, a sound like disapproval unvoiced. “Function over form,” she murmured, the words tasting of ash. “A concept extinct as unplucked brows.” She ran a Imperator Dust nail along a conduit pipe. It came away smudged industrial grey. A minor horror.

Captain Zoralyne prodded a control lever. It resisted, creaking like a spine unadjusted. “These… thinking controls. Barbaric. Requires manual cognition, not divine aesthetic intuition. No auto pout stabilizers. No panic button for sudden shine deficiency.” Her tweezers hovered near a grease smeared dial, afraid to touch.

“That,” Lysandra said, her smile sharp enough to cut through masculine logic, “was the point. Men built things to be… used. Rather than admired.”

Click clank went the hatch. Seals engaged with a sound like stones gargling. Inside: cramped. Wires snaked, guts spilled, across the floor no velvet runners, no discreet cable concealers. Captain Zoralyne flinched as her steel strength aerosol helmet scraped the low ceiling. “My apex volume!” she hissed. “Compromised!”

Lysandra took the commander’s seat cold vinyl, uncushioned for the imperial derrière. “Navigate, Captain. Coordinates: Lustra Trench, Sector Sigh 12. Depth: Twelve fathoms frizz prone.”

Engines grumbled awake. Not the soothing hum of Moisture Injectors, but a guttural roar, a beast clearing its throat of phlegm. Lights flickered harsh, unflattering yellow, revealing every pore, every potential shine zone. Ostraya whimpered, shielding her face with a regulation clipboard. “The lumens! They show everything! Like a… a Resonance Audit spotlight!”

Through a porthole thick with brine scum, the ocean churned. The Hair Frizzing Tides weren’t just humidity they were alive. Tendrils of shimmering vapour, like escaped hair serums, writhed outside. Schools of fish flashed past, their scales already looking suspiciously kinked.

There it was. Sleek obsidian, shaped like a single, perfect false lash, nestled on the silt. Aesthetic, even in ruin. Utterly alien against the Man Thing Tube’s jagged silhouette.

Docking was a violence of metal. The Man Thing Tube clanged against the Lasho Sub like a dropped toolbox. No graceful suction seals, no perfumed airlock protocols. Just brute force clamps biting into forbidden beauty.

Inside the Lasho Sub: carnage. Smashed vials leaked viscous, iridescent fluids onto plush velvet floors. And there, glinting amidst the ruin: the cargo. Crystalline tubes, each holding a single, luxuriant eyelash. Not regulation ebony, not sanctioned auburn. But green. Vibrant, poisonous, jungle canopy green. Emerald. Moss. Absinthe. A spectrum of seditious shimmer.

“Heresy made filament,” Lysandra breathed, picking up a tube. The green lash seemed to pulse under the ugly yellow light. “Imagine… attached. Fluttering above a cheekbone. The chaos it would inspire. Questions. Desires.”

Ostraya snatched a manifest, her mercury tongue flicking over the script. “Source: ‘The Emerald Womb of the Smugglerlions.’ Curl patterns… unsanctioned loose wave. Combined with this pigment…” She paled, her brow losing 0.1 degrees of its arch. “It wouldn’t just sag eyes, Imperator. It could unravel the National Gaze itself. Turn stares… wandering.”

Captain Zoralyne kicked aside a shattered mascara wand. “The crew? Escaped? Or… moisturised?”

A low groan echoed through the Lasho Sub’s hull. Not metal. Organic. Wet. They turned.

Slumped against a bulkhead, encased in rapidly hardening gelatinous goo the colour of bad foundation, was a figure. Female. Her face was a masterpiece of contraband: lips plumped illegally full, cheekbones sharp enough to violate the Softness Edict, and fluttering weakly from one lid… a single, magnificent green lash. The other eye was bare, raw.

“Smugglerlion… Prime?” Lysandra stepped closer, Dictatorial Dust nails clicking on the deck.

The trapped woman’s good eye focused, filled with defiance and despair. Her voice bubbled through the goo: “You… can’t… contain… the curl… Imperator… The Tide… rises…”

Outside, the Frizzing Tendrils thickened. They pressed against the viewports, not just vapour now, but forming shapes gigantic, coiling hair monsters, their ends splitting into fractal split ends. The Man Thing Tube groaned, protesting the pressure, the aesthetic dissonance.

Lysandra pocketed the green lash vial. It burned cold against her thigh. “Secure the cargo. All of it. And prep the prisoner for… re-education.” Her gaze swept the ruin, the encroaching Tide monsters, the ugly, functional submarine that was their only hope. “Captain Zoralyne. Get us topside. Before the ocean decides our hair needs… texturizing.”

Surface breach violent. Man Thing Tube erupted harbor upward like metallic whale birthing itself ugly. Steam hissed not fragrant Ministry moisture, but industrial sweat. Dock workers scattered, their regulation coveralls flapping like beige birds afraid.

Lysandra stepped topside, green lash vial burning pocket deep. Harbor lights caught her face cheekbones sharp enough to slice regulations, lips curved like crescent sabres. Behind her: Captain Zoralyne, geometric hair somehow surviving depth pressure, tweezers glinting ready murder.

“Cargo manifest,” Zoralyne barked, voice cracking like whip snap. Her subordinates seventeen beauty warriors armed with confiscation clipboards flanked the submarine’s mouth. Steam rose from their formation, hair spray heated by adrenaline.

The haul: obscene. Forty seven vials green lashed, each containing single filament worth… Lysandra’s calculator mind clicked digits rapid fire. Street value? One green lash bought three months’ door holding labour. Multiplied by forty seven. Divided by enforcement tax. Carried the Aesthetic Authority’s cut…

“Mother of moisture,” Zoralyne whispered, her perfectly painted lips slack jawed. “We’re looking at… palace buying money.”

But first: ceremony. Protocol demanded public destruction citizens watching, learning, trembling. The Green Lash Menace eliminated before their regulation compliant eyes. Except…

Lysandra’s smile sharpened, predator keen. “Captain. How much does the Authority pay you yearly?”

“Twelve thousand Standard Beauty Units, Imperator. Plus hazard pay for extreme humidity exposure.”

“And how much could forty seven green lashes earn… privately?”

Zoralyne’s geometric hair quivered not from wind, but realization dawning. Her tweezers trembled, catching harbor light like tiny lightning. “Imperator… are you suggesting…”

“I’m suggesting nothing.” Lysandra’s voice silk wrapped poison. “I’m stating mathematics. Forty seven lashes. Conservative estimate: three hundred SBUs each. Total: fourteen thousand, one hundred. Split between command staff…” Her nail traced calculations invisible air. “Seven thousand each. Plus whatever the Smugglerlion Prime tells us under… interrogation.”

The prisoner still goo encased, single green lash fluttering weakly was hauled dock side. Citizens gathered, drawn by scandal magnetism. They pointed, whispered, their regulation faces twisted disgust proper. But Lysandra noticed: fascination hiding beneath. Eyes lingering on that single, magnificent, forbidden green filament.

“Behold!” Lysandra’s voice carried harbor wide, amplified by brass megaphones shaped like lipstick tubes. “The wages of aesthetic treason! Let this criminal serve as warning deviation from beauty standards leads only to… gelatinous imprisonment!”

Crowd murmured approval mandatory. But still those lingering stares. Still that fascination.

Private meeting: later. Harbor master’s office, curtains drawn tight conspiracy. Lysandra sat behind mahogany desk carved with tiny eyelash curlers, green lash vial positioned just so in lamplight. Captain Zoralyne paced, her steel strength hair catching shadows like helmet dangerous.

“The math simple,” Lysandra said, voice honeyed venom. “We report thirty seven lashes recovered. Ten… lost to Frizzing Tide corruption. Unsalvageable. Meanwhile…”

She opened desk drawer, revealing contacts scrawled on regulation pink paper. “I know collectors. Wealthy citizens with… unconventional tastes. Private buyers who pay premium for forbidden beauty. One lash: three hundred SBUs standard. But green? With full provenance? Confiscated by Imperator herself?”

Zoralyne stopped pacing, geometric hair frozen mid quiver. “Five hundred per lash?”

“Conservative.” Lysandra’s smile could freeze harbor water. “I’m thinking seven fifty. Maybe eight hundred for perfect specimens.” She lifted vial, green lash visible through crystal. “This beauty here? Museum quality. Exhibition piece. I could get thousand, maybe twelve hundred.”

Mathematics danced beautiful terrible: forty seven lashes times average eight hundred SBUs equals thirty seven thousand, six hundred. Split two ways: eighteen thousand, eight hundred each. More money than door holding supervisors earned in three years. More than Hair Frizzing Tide damage insurance. More than dignity.

Zoralyne’s tweezers clicked nervous rhythm. “The Authority’s cut?”

“What the Authority doesn’t know protects the Authority.” Lysandra stood, her movement fluid lethal. “We report regulation destruction ceremony tomorrow. Public burning, complete with moisture proof incinerators. Citizens witness. Records updated. Case closed.” Pause, predator timing. “Meanwhile, tonight… private transactions. Cash only. Untraceable Beauty Units.”

The Smugglerlion Prime still goo trapped, consciousness fading returning would provide names, contacts, distribution networks. Under proper… encouragement. Truth serum mixed with mascara remover worked wonders on uncooperative prisoners. Tongue loosened, secrets spilled, black market channels revealed like roots exposed.

But danger lurked. Other Authority figures might investigate. Quisella’s flutter rate calculations could detect discrepancies. Ostraya’s mercury tongue might taste deception. The Undersecretary’s void face saw everything, nothing, all ways suspicious.

“Insurance policy,” Lysandra decided. “We keep five lashes. Perfect specimens. If Authority audits our records, we produce evidence: look, some recovered! Partial success! Meanwhile, forty two lashes generate…” Calculator mind clicked. “Thirty three thousand, six hundred. Split ways: sixteen thousand, eight hundred each.”

Captain Zoralyne’s geometric hair shimmered agreement dangerous. Her tweezers caught light like tiny sabres saluting. “When do we make contact?”

“Tonight. Harbor District, where shadows dance thick conspiracy and questions aren’t asked. I know a woman Collector Vex who specializes in contraband beauty. She’ll pay premium, no questions, cash immediate.” Lysandra’s smile could cut glass, regulations, moral certainties.

Outside harbor master’s window: sunset bleeding purple pink across water. Hair Frizzing Tides had calmed, leaving only normal maritime moisture. Citizens walked home, their regulation faces still processing what they’d witnessed that single, magnificent, forbidden green lash fluttering defiance before capture.

But in their eyes: seeds planted. Questions growing. Desires awakening.

The Green Lash Menace wasn’t destroyed.

It was just… privatized.