[PT] handmade heaven

[Sabine]

If Sabine had known of the healing artistry within Moira's hands she might have faltered farther than she already had. If she had seen her talents written upon crisp paper she might have looked back up to the phoenix with eyes that knew only of her own inadequacy.  There was once a time when a small sparrow-boned girl had watched the swift knowing hands of her country's craftsmen, and wondered whether she too could create form out of something so crude. It had taken one sweltering summer afternoon, two overpriced chisels that had cost her every penny in her already malnourished purse, and (most crucially) three blunt wounds on her legs harvested by her incompetent efforts, for Sabi to realise that craftsmanship was not her forte. Nevertheless, the experience had not dampened her enthusiasm for unearthing ingenuity within herself. Weeks later the flower-child would find herself in a similar predicament: this time the victim was an innocent oil canvas. It's surface, once brimming with potential and yearning for the touch of artistic genius, lay bruised and violated by a hand that knew less of creative prowess than a beetle in a dung pile. This pattern of events fell into a steady rhythm involving: singing, archery, dancing, and even healing.  When at last her mother intervened, winter's first snow had fallen.  Just who are you trying to impress?  Now, those words did not seem like words at all but a mantra branded into her brain. It was the first time Sabine had ever considered the notion that her self-worth might rely on the conviction of others, that these others might be watching her failures with derision and ribbed disappointment between their teeth. Sabine never tried again. "Make a wish and I'll tell you a story, Sabine." It occurred to her, as she stood watching her companion with a gaze that was as curious as it was lost, that nobody had ever told her a story before. Her mother's bitterness had been too wide to fit into the elfin composition of a tale and her father's tongue was more a coat of armour than it would ever be a storyteller. By word of mouth she knew Isra, Acton's friend (and now queen), to be the great narrator of the sea and the open sky, but Sabine had always been looking too long at Acton when she could have been listening to Isra. So now, she closes her sapphire gaze and leans into the breeze until her body sways with the warm undulating air. And though she has not known Moira for longer than a fragmented moment, something in the darkness tells her (strong and true) that it would be okay. When she opens her eyes again, her wish is made; it lingers in the space above them until it is called on by a force they will never see. Sabine watches it pass on into a realm she has only dreamt of and feels the sundering of her ribcage as a piece of her heart breaks loose, following her wish on into another life. There is a sad smile on her lips and an eternal wound bleeding from her chest, but she turns back to Moira all the same, hoping that tomorrow will bring the happiness she has forever sought. A whisper breaches the air between them, holding onto something that didn't yet exist: "I would like that very much." @Moira