for the times when you really truly want to do something, but find resistance or that starting feels impossible
most helpful action to get into a task is:
look at it
options include: review what you've already done
open the tab on screen
blur your eyes at first if that helps
fullscreen the image
browse or skim relevant texts
let your gaze move around how it will
JUST...LOOK!!!
Your brain has resistance towards starting the particular project in the way that you've previously conceived of it. Instead of fighting that resistance, try to change your approach to starting your work. Ie, start with colored pencils on a piece you were doing in gouache, include a new stitch in a crochet piece,
Step one: identify the process
Step two: identify places where something new can be included
Step three: brainstorm new options to fill these spots
Step four: select one or more options and try your piece from this new angle
encourage yourself by asking questions
start with: "What am I actually trying to do right now?"
then try: "What would this look like if it were more fun?" "How would I do it if anything was possible?"
divide into discrete tasks
make the closest or shiniest one literally as small & specific as freaking possible
image text: I BELIEVE IN YOU
screenshot text: The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
W.B. Yeats (via billowy)
"Hasn't Anyone Ever Taught You How Precious Life Is?" - A Mito Fic
Rated: Not Rated
Hunter x Hunter - Through Chairman Arc
Mito & Gon, Mito & Leorio, Mito & Killua
Words: 5.1k
Warnings: Angst, Grief, Medical Setting (Standard Chairman arc, you know the drill.)
[Ao3 Link!]
A world where someone fills Mito in while Gon's in the hospital, and her journey to his bedside.
--
Mito never leaves Whale Island.
She's never wanted to leave, honestly. That spark, that longing that had fuelled Ging, that fuels Gon… it never quite set ablaze in her.
What lies beyond the shores may be enticing, but no more so than what joys could be found right here. Someone had to stay after all. For years, she stayed because Gon did. Because someone had to be there for the boy, constant and static and stable. Giving him a place to sleep each night, and food on the table, and arms to cry into.
She's not sure she could ever explain it to them. That while she might enjoy a vacation once, or the excitement of a visitor… a life of adventure never called to her. The song that called them away would never reach her ears.
So when Gon left, Mito stayed, and she knew that she would wait there for his return. Washing the sheets and tending to the garden and running the bar, and when he returned it would be just as he'd left it. No matter what he found out there, their tiny pocket could remain the same, a bubble to sink into whenever he saw fit.
When he's gone, Mito changes, ever slightly. Nothing as drastic as him, naturally, but it's the first prolonged time where Mito has no one to look after but herself. It's different— lonely— exciting—? It's a lot of things, but even as Mito does something new, lets herself change into a role beyond her ties to Gon, she knows. She knows that part of her will always be defined by Gon, by the place in his life she's held.
And she doesn't regret it. Not for a second, the protest she'd raised, seeing him for the first time. Two years old, hair a matted mess, eyes wide and watching.
From the moment she'd taken him, from that very first night, tucking him into bed beside her as she tried to wrap her head around what she'd just gotten into. Seeing him there, quiet, sleeping breaths causing the slightest ripple in the sheets.
That night she'd told herself she'd accept it. Whatever way they could describe it; cousins, aunt and nephew, mother and son— Mito would love Gon.
Whatever words were fine. Seeing him there, small against the sheets, Mito knew.
Gon would always, always be her baby.
--
She gets the call on a sunny midday afternoon.
There's a dissonance that rings in her head, looking out the window to the pleasant fields beyond, the sun streaming in, faint rainbows refracted through the glass left by the sill.
It is a beautiful day when all of Mito's worst fears come true.
A unfamiliar man's voice speaks gently, a rehearsed placation still only in dress rehearsal. He introduces himself as a friend of Gon's. It's not Killua, she can tell that for sure. Of the other friends she'd heard tale of in Gon's oh-so-infrequent letters, she'd hazard a guess this would be Leorio, although she wouldn't be certain.
He doesn’t bother to introduce himself. She doesn’t bother to ask.
He relays the information to her carefully. He apologises in advance, but as soon as he says it's about Gon, she knows. She just knows.
"He's still alive," He says, but all that lingers behind those words is just as palpable as if they had been spoken. There will come a time this statement is no longer true. As for when…
Mito's pretty sure the man repeats most things he tells her three times over. She goes for the pen she keeps behind the bar by the time he repeats the name of the town the second time, scrawling it across the first napkin she finds.
Her handwriting grows near illegible. All the strength has left her hands, any exertion feels impossible. She's going slack.
Her weight is suspended upright only by the edge of the counter, countertop digging hard into her stomach.
She doesn’t feel it.
All her other senses go dull; it’s not blurry, it’s the absence of anything.
Absence, the profound understanding of loss seeping into her organs.
Still alive, for now.
The voice on the other end is the thinnest thread, tying Mito to something so she doesn’t sink entirely.
In the end, Mito gets the man's phone number, the name of the hospital, and the city.
"I'll book you a flight. I think I can get an airship by this evening, if you’re able to.”
“I-I— there’s— Whale Island doesn’t have— an airport—“
Mito bites her lip hard. She can’t be falling apart now, she needs to pull it together, needs to focus, needs to make sure she can get there, get to her boy. She’s barely keeping her eyes above the surface.
“Don’t need one. We’ll get a ship right to you, okay? As long as there’s a clearing big enough to drop a ladder.”
It doesn’t compute in Mito’s head. She can’t think of a way to reply.
“Guess you've never taken a private ship before, huh? Well, I’ll get 'em to send the best."
Mito nods, remembers that she's on the phone, and stutters out something she hopes resembles a thank you.
"Don't mention it. I'll see you soon."
Then the line clicks dead, and Mito is left there, cradling the receiver in her limp palm.
She takes a breath in. The air here, the smell of it, the same air she's breathed her whole life. Traps it in her lungs for just a moment longer, just a little longer, then breathes it all out.
Along with it falls out a wail so piercing, it can be heard all the way at the shore.
--
True to the man's word, the ship arrives that evening.
It's easy to see it come in, air traffic is slim over Whale Island, and the clearing off behind the house made for as good a docking spot as any.
Surely, it'd be equally easy to see from the house. Mito knows this, but still, she hugs Abe goodbye and promises to return quickly midafternoon, then paces outside.
Mito thinks she's holding it together decently well, all things considered. She'd managed to throw some money, some clothes, the essentials into a bag and slung over her shoulder before she stalked outside. Paced out to the field where she waited. Waited, staring up at the sky.
A few hours later, Abe walks out to greet her, bringing a sandwich along with her. As Mito loves Gon, so too does Abe, and love Mito all the same.
For this reason, she knows there is no point in pulling Mito away, so she leaves her the sandwich, and hugs her again, and returns to the house.
Mito bids her farewell, and does not touch the food.
She breathes in deep, letting her legs fail beneath her as she tumbles to the ground.
How many times had she done that with Gon? Those light and breezy days together; picnics in the summer, watching the clouds go by; stargazing in the winter, staring at the constellations.
It chokes her, these memories. Reaches around her throat and pulls tightly on all her vocal cords.
By the time the ship arrives, Mito's tears have dried for the 3rd time, and she's reasonably sure there's not enough liquid left in her to sob.
The ladder drops down, and before Mito can reach it, a man in a suit comes sliding down.
He introduces himself, but Mito can't find herself remembering his name. He flashes a Hunter's license at her, proof of his identity, but it doesn't matter. Seeing that card only makes Mito think, maybe— maybe if she'd been a little stronger, been able to snap the precious card Gon had worked so hard to earn, he'd still be here. The thought rots in her mind, growing sickening. Still be here, she thinks, as though he were already dead. Mito's stomach turns.
The man continues to talk, though Mito just nods politely, and follows behind.
For the first time, Mito parts from the soil of Whale island, bound for somewhere new.
As Mito's foot left the ground—made contact with the wooden ladder rung, suspended in place— she looked down at what she had left behind.
At that moment, she thought to herself, she would be fine with never returning again, if it meant that Gon would be okay.
And yet she considered, she would be fine with staying bound there forever, if Gon would be okay.
As she climbed higher, and higher, reaching up and up one step at a time, she thought that this would be alright too, an endless climb to the heavens should Gon wait just a little longer to reach them.
As she neared the top, she looked down at the home she was leaving, and the distance between her and that warmth. Then, she thought, she'd be fine with diving back to meet it, with her body crashing down and splintering through the roof as the two reunited, if it meant that Gon would be okay.
None of these events came to pass and Mito's body found its way into the ship.
The ride is quiet. Or maybe it's loud. There's only a dull roar in Mito's ear, a hissing static that echoes on ad infinitum, and she doesn't know if it's the ships machinery or her own frazzled mind concocting the sound.
Either way, she doesn't speak a word for the ride. No one bothers her.
She doesn't sleep over the journey, but at some point the night grew a bit brighter, and the edges of sunrise are beginning to peek into view when the ship finally lands in Swardani City.
Mito hardly realises they've stopped until the man earlier is front of her again, ushering her towards the exit.
She thinks she manages to thank him, though she's not certain how politely, and steps off the ship.
The first thing Mito lays on upon as she disembarks is a young man, straightening up as his gaze meets hers.
"Ah, you must be the lovely Mito-san I've heard so much about! It's a pleasure to meet you."
The man nods kindly, but when he looks up, there's a familiar look in his eyes. The shadows beneath them, the pink tinge around the edges. Yes, the look Mito herself is wearing is mirrored in this man perfectly.
"You must be Leorio, yes? I- I've heard much about you as well."
Her breath gets caught thinking about it, the letters she's so carefully preserved in the drawers.
Ging never once wrote her a letter. But for as irregular as they were, when Gon promised to write, he followed through. She raised him right in that respect at least, to keep a promise.
Leorio smiles, waving her over towards a sleek black car parked off to the side.
"Ah? All good things, I'm sure."
Mito laughs gently, carefully.
"Yes, of course!"
There's an unsaid thing on the edge of her tongue. Part of her wants to say it, that of course she knows him, because Gon has told her, and Gon had wrote it, and everything she had been told had been from what Gon shared— but saying that, letting the name fall from her lips would mean there was no way she could speak it without her voice breaking under the weight. Instead she dances around it, carefully delaying something so minor, under the looming shadow passing over their heads.
Leorio gets in driver's side, and Mito enters passenger. No escorts this time. Mito finds it a relief.
He chats amicably throughout the drive. In what's a vague surprise to Mito, though not an entire one, Leorio hadn't seen Gon in quite a while.
"Eh, you know how he is! Better than I do, for sure. Always getting into something or other. Didn't know how extreme things were getting over there. Just thought… I mean they were together, yanno? Killua and Gon, balancing each other out. You ever meet Killua? A real cocky brat! Well, he came to the hospital with Gon, so maybe we'll run into him."
Mito's grasp on Gon seems to get pulled even further, the melting taffy stretch of time drawing out her understanding. Whatever scrape he had gotten himself into now wasn't anything Leorio was willing to divulge information of, if he even had it. It's funny, the both of them meeting for the first time, both having traveled from a distance to be here.
"'Course, I ain't the only one. Everyone's flying in what with the election, but there's a whole host of his friends all clamouring to pay him a visit. Doc says it's good for him an' all, someone talking to him. Well, there's no shortage of people to speak, I suppose."
Mito stays quiet. She'd heard, of course, of an assortment of friends. Letters detailing another person she'd never heard of before, as casually as if Mito had known them her entire life.
It's funny, back home she'd always worried. For such a friendly boy, there were so few people around his age to play with. So few people for him truly to befriend.
When he'd first written about Killua, scribbling handwriting too excited to scrawl the characters correctly, Mito had ran her fingers across Gon's words. Right there at the end of that letter, in bold black ink, Gon had declared Killua his first best friend. In that letter, stuffed into the drawer alongside the others, there's a smudged spot across the paper, from the single tear Mito let fall upon the page.
She'd known that. She'd known of quite a few friends. But for there to be so many…
Mito hopes that means she'd done something right.
"You were top priority mind you! Well, I thought so anyway. Morel spent half his time contacting all sorts of folk, but I thought if anyone had a right to know, it was you."
Mito's throat closes. For a moment she considers what might've happened had Leorio not been there. Gon, lying there, dying, and her none the wiser. Gon, his last breaths quiet, weak, failing, all while Mito had no idea. Her son, dead, buried or burnt or simply discarded somewhere.
Would she have known it? Woken up one day with the feeling, the understanding deep in her core that he was gone? Or much more horrifying, how long might she have gone on unknowing? Tending to the garden and smiling to the bar's patrons as her only child decomposed?
Mito rolls down the window. The air in the city is thicker than the breeze on Whale Island.
"…Thank you,” She says eventually, though she faces the blurring cityscape more than the driver, "You're a kind man."
When Mito glances over towards Leorio, she finds his gaze looking far past the road ahead of them, out past the entire city.
"I'm not. It's all my own selfishness, really."
He taps his fingers along the steering wheel, squinting off at the next traffic light.
Mito sighs, a quiet wistful thing. Her breath, like the air out, the vivid summer breeze.
"All hunters are selfish, aren't they?” Every one she has ever known. It's the nature of the thing, Mito understands this more than perhaps anything else.
"Damn right we are," the man agrees, "Some of us more than others."
That last part Mito's not sure if it was meant for her ears. It's a low growl, caught under the man's breath like a rat pinned in a trap.
Mito cracks a wry smile.
"Am I to assume you've had the pleasure of meeting Ging?"
Leorio barks out a laugh, gripping the steering wheel a touch tighter.
"Nah, nah… There's uh. A friend of mine. Of ours. Won't pick up his damn cell. He should be here. He's gonna regret it, not showing up now of all times. He better, or I'll make him. W-when Gon's good and better, he'll make it up to the kid."
Leorio grumbles a bit more under his breath, a flurry of remarks more so directed to the unlistening stranger than to Mito herself.
He seems to catch himself mid insult, whispered in a language Mito doesn't recognize.
"—Eh, Ging too. Not like he's shown up, though of course I tried to reach him after I called you."
Mito covers his mouth with her fingertips.
"Ah, well if you do find a way to call him, be sure to pass it along. I haven't heard his voice in a decade, myself."
"Charmer, isn't he."
"Quite."
Leorio slams the brakes as a light suddenly switches to red. Resting his head against the steering wheel for a moment, he looks over to Mito.
"Well, sorry to insult your…"
"Cousin," Mito supplies.
"—Cousin, but I know he'll be at that stupid election later this afternoon. If I've got anything to say about it, I'll drag his ass to this fucking hospital. Or at least cuss him out for being such a deadbeat."
This time, Mito laughs.
"Wonderful. Make sure to get in a good insult or two, for my sake."
"You have my word."
The light finally switches to green, and the car lurches forward as Leorio slams the accelerator.
"Thank you," Mito says, casting her gaze out towards the street. "For this, and for your selfishness."
And the rest of the ride, she keeps quiet, watching as Swardani City becomes a greyish, blackish, blur.
--
It's still early morning by the time Mito makes it to the hospital, escorted in through a side door at Leorio's side.
She keeps her head down, following behind him as he navigates the corridors with a practiced ease. She has no desire to observe the tasteful paintings and photographs meant to split up the blank white walls, no need to consult the directional maps and signs, no patience to let any part of her mind be devoted to processing the sensations of this space when her son is lying somewhere within this walls, drifting further away.
There's a part of her that wonders what she's doing here. Leaving her grandmother behind is, in a way, just as selfish as all those hunters before her. She knows full well the struggles Abe would face left to tend to the house, run the bar all alone. The neighbours would pitch in, of course, but Mito had left in such a hurry. It would be presumptuous to assume she’d be able to get home as fast as she arrived. As it stands, she’s a few days' journey from Whale Island, minimum.
There’s a limit to how long she can stay. Is this that siren's song, that call that pulled Gon away from her?
She hadn't heard it, hadn't known how hypnotic its grasp could be.
The same urge that pulls Gon away calls Mito to return, back to where she came from.
How hypocritical.
When Mito catches sight of a reception desk down the hall, she braces herself for interrogation.
She's not sure how much of it she could take, a badgering down, a flurry of questions, Mito struggling to justify her existence here.
She wasn't a hunter, no, but she was his mother. That had to count for something, right?
In the end, she worries for naught.
Leorio lazily waves his hunter license towards the receptionist, walking forward along a painted green line across the floor. Mito follows along quickly, the receptionist only sparing her an extra glance for a moment.
"She's with us," Leorio says, waving Mito forward.
The receptionist nods solemnly, and does not say a word.
Grateful, Mito follows along.
She knows they've made it when Leorio slows, hesitating in front of a solid white door.
It looks so unassuming, less like the door to a patient's room and more like a back exit.
But it’s the air in him, the way a stillness overcomes his nerves. She knows there is nothing else standing between her and her son.
Just this final piece of wood, a few steps, and the months of life he’d lived tangling him away. Tangling him into this.
“I know it’s prickish to say it now, since it won’t change anything— you’ll go in, we both know it,” Leorio meets her eye, “but it ain’t pretty. Felt like someone oughta warn you at least.”
Mito nods. She maintains her posture, her gaze locked into his. She will not waver here.
“Just… know it’s still him, under all that. Still going.”
Mito nods again. She doesn’t waver. She doesn’t trust her lips to follow suit if she'd tried to say anything else, so all she says is,
"Thank you."
Leorio looks at her, then pulls his gaze away to stare at the ceiling.
"Really, I didn't do a fucking thing," He tells the florecent lighting, "Didn’t even know he’d gotten tangled in this whole mess until I was being told the number of his damn hospital room.”
Mito’s heart catches. Far too similar, yet she finds herself reflecting not on any empathy for the man, but instead her own lingering fear. How narrowly she'd avoided ignorance.
“I- I wouldn’t have known at all, if not for you.” Forcing the words out of her mouth, hauling them deep up from where they’d been buried in her stomach.
“Hm. Then I’m good for one thing, at least.”
Leorio pulls his gaze down, then shoves his hands in his pockets, an awkward posture that emphazised his lank. He leans back against the wall, somehow distinctly chalant.
“Well… Ladies first. I’ll be waiting out here.”
A cruel trap, stationing himself between her and the exit. She won’t be able to run away once she steps in with Leorio behind her. Not without shame, at least.
Good. If she’d turned just by seeing him, she’d deserve to be trapped with the reality of it. To abandon him here? Now? She’d be no better than Ging.
That’s the promise Mito made wasn’t it? A responsibility to care for Gon, always.
Mito's never been married, but she knows the shape of a vow well enough. In sickness and in health, till death do us part. Words wasted on lovers. No vow is required of family, but Mito knows she made it anyway. Made it the day she held Gon against her chest, watching as Ging walked off down the path, not turning back. Never turning back.
Maybe that’s why no one asks it of her. It’s just assumed. That’s what it means to be a mother, isn’t it?
When Mito steps through that door, she knows it isn’t innate. Knows there’s nothing in her blood that keeps her moving forward, walking towards the wheezing machinery, the murky air that seems to surround that single bed. There’s glass between them, but Mito would’ve walked all the way up to his bedside if she could.
And every step is agonising, and each breath she takes makes her nauseated, but Mito chooses each movement forward. Goddamn it she chose to be Gon’s mother. She chose it, she earned the right to be his family more than Ging ever did, ever will.
She chooses it again and again with each second she spends in that room. Till death do us part. And after that too. Gon will always be her baby.
Mito's fingers press against the glass, followed by her palm, her arm, her entire body, laid flat against the pane.
He looks so, so small. All the tubes running in every direction like vines deep in the forest.
There is nothing about him to recognise him by. Had this figure been presented to Mito with no elaboration, would she have been able to claim him as her son?
There’s some hair sticking out, the dark strands as thick and wiry as ever. It’s grown again. He should’ve cut it by now. By the looks of it, no one's trimmed his hair since she had, in that cozy little pocket of time, that short little return.
Mito wants to hold him desperately, and is desperately thankful she cannot. She's afraid she'd wilt entirely if she did.
Mito stares and stares and stares, the time ticks by without ever brushing against her skin. It's only when she feels her eyes twitching, the endless white glare stinging just as much as the tears she's holding back— that she turns away from the window.
Her breath catches in her throat. At this point, she fears it'll be trapped there forever.
The rest of the room, what she hadn't taken in when she entered, is fairly blank. More white. A little bench against the wall. And to Mito's surprise, Killua.
Sitting slumped, hugging one knee to his chest as his head lolls off to the right, his other leg bent oddly beneath him.
There's more than a few scratches across the parts of Killua's skin Mito can see. Pale skin, pale hair, pale bandages like patchwork across his face and legs.
"Killua…" Mito barely breathes it, but by the first syllable, he's already jerking awake on reflex.
His eyes snap open, wide and wild, darting around the ground frantically. She watches his posture change in an instant, hears the uncomfortable crackling as he gathers himself in a split second. The way he tenses up, the way he presses himself backwards.
If Mito had eaten anything this morning she's certain it'd be on the floor by now.
It's less than a second before Killua lays eyes on her. Relaxes, posturing dissolving as recognition floods his irises.
Mito tries to believe that makes it better.
"Mito-san! I- I was about to leave, actually."
"No!" Mito interjects, "Please, don't leave for my sake."
It's pathetic, relying on the company of a child to break the space. Give something more than herself for the lifeless air to seep into.
"Really, I was! I've— I've got to catch an airship home."
Instantly, Mito's mind is flooded. The fraying striped tablecloth on her kitchen table, some stains from years gone by never fading. The creaky old steps up to the second floor, always a telltale sign when Gon was out of bed when he shouldn't be. The fallen leaves from the tree collecting in the corners, swept aside and never away. Little shoes left haphazardly in the entryway, and her tripping over them time and time again.
He haunts that space even while he still lives, Mito's memories forming the apparition out of her own sense of purpose and idle loneliness. To lose him, she fears, would solidify the thing into a proper ghost.
"When does your flight leave?" Mito asks, because anything else she could say dies in her throat.
Killua passes his gaze to a clock on the wall, hanging above the door Mito had entered from.
"…I've got a few minutes."
Killua settles back down onto the bench. He perches on the furthest edge of the right side, just barely hanging over the end. He brings one leg up to his chest, and keeps the other curled beneath him. His eyes, wide, follow Mito as she follows suit, placing herself beside him. There's just enough space between them for another boy of Killua's size to sit down. Both of them stare out towards the bed, and not each other.
"When did you get here?" Mito asks the empty air.
"Same time as him."
"Leorio told me you were with him."
"…Yes, Ma'am."
He's never called her "ma'am" before. Somehow, Mito can't find it in herself to bring it up.
Seeing Gon there, or the machines, bandages, flesh and electricity that encompass what he has become, leaves nothing for Mito to suppose. What had happened, how this had occurred… it's incomprehensible. Something far beyond Mito, she's sure. Trying to envision what could've occurred leaves her stranded one way or another. Grasping at clouds while her feet are still anchored to the shore, or drowning again, awash in the agony her own mind helplessly conjures in a pathetic facsimile of a truth she cannot know.
"I'm sorry."
Killua's teeth handle the words roughly, a syllable held with unpracticed care. Then the words are rushing out, a landslide of things all tumbling over each other.
"I promised I'd be there 'cuz I'm his friend but he's so selfish you know that? Always running off ahead without me, and I don't know why he won't— he doesn't— but it doesn't matter anyway because I'm always cleaning up his messes, but this time he owes me— he's gonna apologize, I'll make him. So I'll make him better cuz— he's gotta. He's gotta, and I swore I'd protect him. Don't worry. I'm gonna fix it."
Between the words slot in ragged breaths, pulling in more and more air with each word. With every syllable, he pulls Mito's attention further and further, until she's staring right at him.
He meets her eye.
"Mito-san, I'm going to save Gon. I promise."
…Mito still doesn't understand it. The siren song that called Gon and Ging away. The adventure that pulls all these hunters towards what they pursue. It's all white noise in Mito's mind. She knows it, she’s accepted she’ll never view the world the way Gon does.
But in that moment, when Killua locks eyes with her, Mito understands this. Understands the trust, the complete and unshakable belief and devotion. There is no room for doubt in Killua’s eyes. They are purely, openly greeting her, peering into her and telling her the truth. She understands all of Gon's praise, understands when Gon had said Killua could do anything.
“I’m going to save him,” Killua says.
And Mito understands.
If Mito were a good mother, she'd smile and placate him. A boy only as old as her son, wracked with grief making such an absurd statement? This is the place for gentle affirmations, reassurances whispered gently.
If Mito were a good person, she'd tell him to keep himself safe. To be careful, to not risk his life here. There is a spark of danger that electrifies his words, the current she's come to recognise.
A possibility lingers in Mito's mind, that there are things even worse than just losing Gon. There is always more to lose.
But the Freecss have always been selfish in the end, pursuing their own desires above all else.
"Okay," She says, "I'm counting on you."
Killua smiles, a real smile, the edges of it cracking the dirt still smudged on his face. It’s a horrible little thing, that tiny smile, the light in his eyes when he hears Mito’s words.
** ahh i see you have to put the words in a sentence to make the story because the story will not manifest fully formed from a sparkling mist of starlight by itself you have to make it words in a sentence you have to do it one speck of light of at a time i see i see
