Some Fall By Virtue

Chapter Twenty-Two: or these scars that show

The promise followed her through her waking hours. "I will never cast you aside so while we both still live." They carried a weight, those words, and Sakura wasn't quite sure what to do with them. That little flicker of hope for love still burnt, and those sorts of words were like fuel on the fire. She hated them. Hating a paragon of light and virtue, the voice murmured, how very fitting for a creature of shadow and death.

Sakura closed her eyes, flopping down on her bed then as she waited for Noeneth to come and check on the state of her chest. She had been there already for what felt like years – though just over a month was probably the closer estimate, and she had spent a decent time of that resting, as well as irritating her caretakers somewhat with her antics. A hum of bleak amusement escaped her, and she stared at her healed fingertips. Rather than needle and thread, by that point in time, she was allowed paints and canvas. A change her soulmate had brought, what with her unfortunate habit of poking herself with all things sharp and pointy. The need to feel as though she were atoning for something, and pain, it seemed, was the best method to gaining that. Not that anyone around her understood that, nor the gravity of what she had to make up for.

Not that she would ever likely make up for it all. But that was fine. It had to be, and Sakura had to be content with it. Glorfindel would only despise her once the truth came to light. She had to be ready to bear the pain his rejection would bring. You deserve it though, the voice murmured, ever a reminder of the truth.

Sighing softly, Sakura sat up then, blinking as a tell-tale soft knock sounded, and Noeneth glided into the room. Pale grey eyes surveyed her, a soft smile breaking out on her face then. "It would seem the day has arrived," she said, gentle hands and a soft gaze examining her chest. "Never did I think I would be able to issue you with a clean measure of health so soon – if only because you seem to have a tendency to find injury," Noeneth remarked, a fond amusement playing on her lips. One which crushed Sakura's heart. Faker. Liar. Deceiver. The words to describe that which she was rang around her brain, like knives sinking into flesh, cutting to the bone.

But her ever practiced smile remained fixed in place, even as those light grey eyes narrowed on the scars of the wound to her heart. In some ways, Sakura mused, it was a wound that had never ever healed in body and spirit. Sasuke had ripped something out of her that day when his hand speared through her chest, chirping with bright white lightning, and then Melkor had twisted her with that gaping emptiness, giving her fire and scale, and now Sakura didn't particularly know what to do in order to heal it. If she even deserved as such. She probably didn't even deserve that much. Monsters deserved to be in pain. That was a simple and plain truth.

"There," Noeneth spoke, ridding the room of the silence which longed to consume her so and drive her to the depths of madness with all the whispers it brought forth from her own mind. "No more bed rest, nor other constraints upon your activities from this day forth. Words I am certain you are glad to hear," she said, smiling genially still.

"No doubt about that," Sakura mumbled, frowning then as the scar over her heart seemed to throb out of the blue. "Do you think you'll ever be able to spare any time for me, now that your healing work is done?" she asked, wondering why she was asking such a question. Really, she should have been grateful at the thought of not having to lie to a kind elleth who, for some strange reason, thought her a friend.

"Must you ask such a foolish question, Lothien?" Noeneth asked, tilting her head then, staring at her with an unreadable expression. "I declared you a friend – should that not answer your question for you?"

Sakura ducked her head, shame welling up within her then.

"Though should Lord Glorfindel not be available for any reason, then I have been informed I have the dubious pleasure of supervising your painting," she said, a wry grin on her lips then. Sakura smiled, as was no doubt expected, the grin feeling as though it were cracking her face. Deceiver, the voice whispered, ever an insidious little reminder as to what she was and what she couldn't have as a result of that matter.