In haute cuisine, there’s a tradition of gilding—covering food in delicate sheets of gold. It’s dazzling, decadent, and entirely flavorless. The gold adds no richness, no substance, no life. It exists only to suggest importance—a performance of luxury meant to distract from the truth beneath. Because once you scrape away the shine, you’re left with what was always there—something ordinary. Or worse, something spoiled.

That’s you, Narcissa. The gilded rot of Arcadia. You’ve coated yourself in brilliance—fashion, rebellion, reinvention—each layer another sheet of gold meant to disguise what you’d rather no one see. You’ve built your empire on spectacle, on the belief that beauty can overwrite decay. But beneath all that shimmer, there’s no evolution. Just the same corruption, dressed up to photograph better.

You learned early that in your world, appearance is survival. So you weaponized it. You turned presentation into protection, presentation into power. You understood that people don’t really want the truth. They want the version of it that flatters them. And so you gave them that. A rebellion they could wear. A cause that never cuts too deep. You turned defiance into decor. Every garment you design, every word you say, every stance you pose—it’s all brushed in gold, so that no one notices the rot spreading underneath.

You consider yourself a visionary. But vision requires seeing what is, not what you wish others to believe. You’ve mistaken reflection for reality. Every time the world adored you, you added another layer of gilding, convincing yourself it was transformation. But it was preservation—preserving the lie that you’re anything more than your presentation. That your fight has a pulse. That your purpose has weight.

I’ve seen it before, Narcissa. The ones who believe that if they can control perception, they can control truth. But gold cannot preserve what’s dying. It can only hide it long enough to sell. And when the shine begins to crack, when the air finally reaches what’s beneath, the smell will betray you. Because rot always speaks louder than ornament.

So when we meet, I won’t need to strike you down. I’ll just peel away the layers. The gilding will fall, and what’s left won’t glitter. It will stain. The audience will see what’s real for the first time: that your rebellion was only ever a mirror, that your beauty was your armor, and that everything you’ve built depends on never being touched by truth.

You’ve spent your life convincing the world that gold means value, Narcissa. But gold doesn’t preserve. It conceals. And when I scrape you clean, they’ll see the truth of what you are: a masterpiece of decay, dressed to be admired, never to be consumed.

Because beneath the gold, the rot always wins. And when your shine fades, when the illusion cracks, and the scent of what’s real fills the air, Arcadia will learn what you’ve spent your entire life hiding.

That beauty can dazzle, Narcissa. But it cannot disguise death.