The montane bogs of Sel were the only place on the planet where this flower and its pollinator, the "plague doctor" moth (so named for its bulging eyes and shaggy gray proboscis), existed. And here I must apologize, for "moon poppy" is a very rudimentary translation. In the original Selenite, the name meant something more along the lines of "flower whose essential character is activated by the moon." And in fact, the moon poppy was not a true poppy, but rather a kind of heather, with delicate, bell-shaped flowers that seemed to vibrate in the moonlight.
The raw pollen from the moon poppy was fatal to all fauna except for the plague doctor moth. But after being shipped to Tux and undergoing a process whereby the grains of pollen were plucked from the nectar, the nectar could be distilled to produce an essential oil used as the dominant middle note in Silhouette, a luxury fragrance produced in Tux by Maison d'Être.
Moon poppy nectar could only be harvested twice a year, during spring and fall, and only during a full moon. To harvest the nectar, technicians in positive pressure suits mimicked the behavior of the pollinator, stimulating the petal and stamens of the flower with three soft metal filaments until, like a sigh, the anthers exhaled a burst of pollen encased in beads of nectar. The precious nectar was collected in glass flasks for transport to Tux. Technicians needed to be careful to seal the flasks as soon as the nectar was exhaled by the flower. If a fly so much as sneezed into the flask, all of the nectar would be rendered completely unusable.
Silhouette was a fragrance that could be classified as a "trashy floral." Do not let that nomenclature mislead you into thinking that Silhouette was a common fragrance, however; for Silhouette was anything but. From the moment of its birth in the mountains of Sel, until the last whispers of scent rose from the skin, dissolved into the breeze, and finally died, Silhouette exuded luxury, mystery, melancholy.
Let us begin our description with the bottle. It was made of frosted glass and shaped like a block of ice. Its sides tapered inward, arriving at slender neck, to which a pump atomizer was affixed. As soon as the pump was depressed, the liquid entered the tube and was drawn upward, before finally exiting the nozzle in the form of a fine aerosolized mist.
Clear, almost strident top notes of citrus and bergamot came out first, fading into middle notes of anise and moon poppy, before the anise notes descended and base notes of musk, amber, and sandalwood emerged. The sandalwood and moon poppy notes remained, resonating like the tones of a singing bowl, as the musk and amber notes fell away. Anyone who had experienced Silhouette, upon detecting again the merest shadow of it, would find every detail of their first encounter with the fragrance--the scratchy tunic, the light falling across the cafe tables, the woman with purple fingernails folding and unfolding an empty sugar packet, the man in a suit ordering a double espresso--coming back to them in a flood of memory.
Demand for Silhouette was so high that lines on release days stretched half a mile or longer. Vetiverians who could afford the fragrance could also afford to hire professional line sitters who would sit in lawn chairs for several days, sipping from thermoses of bitter coffee, while their employers went about their daily business, going out, returning home, returning to the office, the opera, the club.