Candle-castle miniature in wax layers

A thick pillar candle sits at the center of a shallow tabletop stage and reads like a vertical landscape, a miniature castle carved into its concentric wax layers with turrets and windows carved from melted spirals. The intent is intimate wonder and quiet narrative exploration, the little figurine climbing the melted ridges like a determined mountaineer and pausing at tiny parapets for a breath. Surfaces are clean and unlettered, with micro-markings reduced to abstract veins in the wax that catch the glow. The air feels slow and warm with a faint haze of rising scent, gentle drift above the flame softening distant contours. Focus resolves crisply on the castle façade and the climber in the lower third, with a shallow depth that blurs the top and base into creamy color fields. Soft, warm candlelight sculpts forms with gentle wrap and subtle highlights, casting cool navy and mossed-blue shadows to the periphery for contrast. Frame this scene in a 16:9 horizontal crop, a medium tight composition from eye level that reads wide, keeping the candle tower centered but slightly offset to the left to leave negative space on the right. Include one tiny iron climbing piton and a folded scrap paper map at the base as story cues. Render as a tactile miniature study with painterly realism, visible brushlike texture and delicate surface grain.