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This was supposed to be a long-ass one-shot, but I'm not done with the rest of it, so I'm updating by parts.

Rating: T for swearing and hints of sexual activity.

A/N: So this was the writing exercise I took upon and then refused to beta it (or have it beta-d, because YOLO). It's all in Jack's 3rd person POV, no one has any powers. Mentions and appearances of other Dreamworks, Disney and Pixar characters. Heavily influenced by SaturnXK's one-shot Pretty Things (because 'writing exercise', see above, as if I'd upload any serious writing before deleting it). Also influenced by the Hindi film Fashion and my one tatty copy of Vogue India. Light swearing, lots of rambling, because Jack's really absent-minded haha.

Edit: Okay, so on an important request, I have modified some parts of this chapter, but they don't really affect the plot much, it's just a little dialogue. Like Elsa saying "I'm surrounded by flatterers and fools", because even though it sounds cool, her last name's already two ASOIAF references, her quoting GRRM is a bit much. :') (also, I noticed the edits have her going from frigid bitch (hehehe) to a sarcastic shit, but do bear with me _/\_ )

Part 1: On Colours, Ice, and Bony Shoulders

'Love of beauty is taste. Creation of beauty is art.'

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first time she slid into the chair, they were at Istanbul, and the theme was androgyny.

He wasn't even a real make-up artist; he was one's PA, and his boss had thought it prudent to put his art skills to test on real models with real faces.

He had only worked for two months before Istanbul, and only on the younger models, the ones in the lines, the ones who weren't supposed to catch anyone's eye. That job had been simple: make the pretty things plain, uniform, ordinary. Make them skinny, make them dull; make them drab washes of customary beige, pale pink and sandy brown.

In Istanbul he found himself thrust into the world of the big names, the supermodels and showstoppers.

And he had looked away for a second, only to turn back and find one of them in his chair.

Make these ones pretty. That was his boss's one order.

These ones were the pushers, the professionals, the showstoppers, the supermodels. These ones were the crème de la crème, the best of the coat-hangers, the bodies they designed for.

For, Jack had learnt quickly, they designed chiefly for concave stomachs and razor sharp clavicles, for small mouths and dry hair, for the stench of stomach acids and the scent of expensive volatile potions.

They designed for beauty that had faded under pressure, for allure mantled in three coats of sticky, oily paint.

Jack hated the world he had entered. He couldn't leave either; he had put far too much at stake.

Presently, with Elsa Arryn-Dalla in his chair, he wondered, briefly, if it had been worth it, just a little.

She was beautiful from where he stood, three feet away. Her hair was platinum blonde, so pale it was almost white (not as pale as his own, oh no), but the shade of young wheat in the shadows. The thick mane was held away from her face with a deep blue hair band, which brought out the deep sapphire blue of her eyes.

Only when he got closer did he see the greenish-blue circles around her eyes, the yellow tinge on the ridges of her cheeks, the cracks on her lips, the petulant pout of her mouth that seemed to pinch her face into something as ugly as the expensive clothing on her being.

"Excellent, a newbie," she muttered, sarcasm dripping like venom. Her voice was the husky (no, broken, her voice is broken) draft he would've expected from somebody's diabetic grandmother. "Do you even know what to do?"

"Of course, Ma'am." He tried to sound bright, cheerful. In this world of gel nails and broken extensions, he tried (so hard) to be just a little ray of sunshine.

He looked through the sheaf of sketches he had been handed, plucking out the pale one marked EAD.

A mask of pale foundation. Vigorous erasing of the dark circles. Quick cover-up of all things yellow. Sand. Burnt sienna. Bark. Plums. Cherries. Night.

He worked against a background score of curses and dark swears, of the rustling of tweed and cashmere, of the hiss of hairspray and the drone of dryers.

When she opened her mouth for the lip liner, he felt the reek of burning tobacco dancing with the sharp assault of peppermint hit his nostrils, alongside the undertone of vomit. He tried to divert his senses to the fragrance of the eye shadow powder, to the earthy tones of the concealer, the fruity scent of the layer of lip balm he had been forced to slather on. Instead, he hid her flaws under the cacophony of all of them; he breathed them all in till he forgot to register them.

When he was done, he moved back, dropping his angle brush unceremoniously into the holder. He looked at the cheeks he had plumped, the eyes he had minimized by mere illusion, the small red pout.

"Do I look manly enough?" Elsa asked him quite civilly, quite bored. He nodded dutifully.

"There's this one thing…" he muttered remembering. He brought out the small case, and Elsa Arryn-Dalla skillfully popped in the brown contact lenses.

She nodded once at the mirror before stalking off to the hairdressers. Jack heard her mutter, "Hypocrites, the whole lot of them."

Jack watched her walk from the middling seats reserved for the backstage staff. She walked the last walk, a graceful, slender woman dressed in dreadful brown and cream; her hair slicked back and pulled into a neat bun. The theme was androgyny, yet they had manipulated her into looking decidedly feminine.

Hypocrites, the whole lot of them.

She looked beautiful, perhaps, to the photographers, the magazine editors, the rich patrons and the world in general.

She looked beautiful because many, Jack amongst them, had moulded her into something to look upon. She looked beautiful because of the linen and wool and fleece, the shine in her hair, the shimmer around her eyes and under her cheekbones and the cerise of her mouth.

Jack felt like he had never created something so ugly.

The second time he painted her face, they were in Tokyo. This time the theme was brighter; more pink and sunshine yellow and grass green and sky blue.

He was finishing a final curl on Aurora's lashes when a deep voice (no longer broken, thank God) interrupted him.

"I don't have all day, you know."

He didn't even look up. Aurora opened her strawberry lips to voice a customary insult, washing him in the unmistakable tang of half-digested food (do me a favour and get a mint) and the caustic stench of alcohol. She didn't say anything, however, shutting her tiny mouth with a clack of small whitened teeth.

"I'm sure I don't have to wait very long for you, Aurora." Elsa sneered; her voice was ice and steel blades. "Is this your last show, sweetie?"

Aurora stiffened. Her PA, who was sitting at Jack's elbow, visibly shuddered.

The blonde stood up stiffly and strutted off, swaying slightly, her ankles held in place by the straps of her heels. Her PA hurried after her, voicing a concern, only to be rewarded with a hard shove on her sternum.

Elsa, now seated, snorted. "Respect your seniors, they said. Your seniors may be winos too thick to form a sentence, they never said."

He didn't have to look at the sketch this time.

Elsa didn't keep quiet this time.

"This show is fucking ridiculous," she muttered, only half angry, as Jack gently blended in the pale concealer. "It's September, and here I am dressed like a fucking daisy."

Jack looked at her eyes as he covered up her forehead and the bit between her dark eyebrows. Her eyes were the colour of sapphires, but with none of the fire, none of the sparkle, none of the life. Her irises were as good as two chips of food-dyed ice, the sort his little sister used to put in her lemonade to give it a hue similar to the deep lakes she had been fond of painting.

Her eyes were as lifeless, as dull, as uninteresting as those painted pools of water, as those whimsical frozen pieces of his childhood.

He melded her cheekbones into her face, removing the sharpness, bringing out the roundness of her chin.

She kept staring at her reflection in the mirror behind him, watching him turn her into a softer, sweeter person.

"You're good at this," she commented. "How long have you been working?"

"Two and a half months." He used the very tips of his fingers to dab a darker shade of beige into the hollows of her cheeks. "I'm not actually a make-up artist, Toothiana's only taught me a little so I could help out."

"Toothiana has an eye for talent, I see."

"Thank you, Miss Dalla."

She snatched his wrist out of the air before he could brush in the blush. "Either you call me Miss Arryn-Dalla or you call me Elsa." There was ice in her tone, but no steel. "I'm not just Elsa Dalla, understand?"

Jack nodded. He was used to models having sudden outbursts of passion.

Elsa's fingers were thinner than Popsicle sticks, but strong enough to bruise his pale skin.

She dropped his hand and gestured for him to resume changing her face into something that wasn't her own.

He worked silently. Beige. Black. Mascara. Curlers. Strawberry. Rose. Scarlet. Sunshine. Buttercup. Tangerine. Gold.

Her mouth still smelled the same: vomit, cigarettes, mint and scorn.

He didn't watch her walk that night. He stayed behind backstage to help manage the scraps of silk and feathered cloths and sequined bolts lying about, tossed away at the last minute. Toothiana tossed him a bottle of make-up remover and left him in charge of the returning models.

Jack hated the removing part.

He didn't hate it because the models threw tantrums about if he was using the right brand of remover (it's just alcohol and moisturizer, for fuck's sake), or if it was suited for their skin (sorry, lass, but when you break out, it'll still be my job to cover up), or if they disliked the smell.

He didn't mind (not all that much) when Rapunzel plucked the sodden wad of cottonwool out of his hand and tossed it at his face, or when Cindy screamed bloody murder because the solution stung her face. He wiped off the cottonwool with one sweep of his hand, and the ringing in his ears was only temporary.

No, he hated it because with each sweep of his fingers, he took off some pigment and cream, and off with them came some of the artificiality that bathed the men and women he worked on. The cotton pads would gather streaks of creamy brown and red gloss and yellow glitter, and the face and neck and shoulders would lose a cover or two, exposing humanity in a cruel combination of stinging and stickiness.

Sweep, and there was a laugh line. Sweep, and there was a tiny black mole. Sweep, and there were the scars from an early breakout of acne.

Sweep, and there was work undone; careful work that had ensured these people looked anything, anything, but humane.

These men and women were blank canvases and empty dressmaker's dollies, pretty things for designers to play with, for choreographers to walk down runways; they were the real-life Barbies and Kens, plastic with movable limbs, pretty things with ribbons in their hair and red on their lips, wrapped in satin and fleece.

But with each flaw they became pretty things with heartbeats and hopes and imaginations, and Jackson Frost did not think he could handle understanding that humanity, especially when his chief source of income was hiding it.

A/N: So here's the weird not-quite-any-genre first part. Ramble, ramble, ramble. This the product of late night Diet Coke and A-Team on repeat. Do review. :*

And yes, once all parts are uploaded, I'll be re-uploading as one long short story, because that was the plan.

Good-night, fellow Jelsa fans.