Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Come in," came the pleasant voice. Sabra Sabina sat behind a large, imposing looking wooden executive desk in a large, cushy chair. "Oh, Sorcha. How are you, dear? And Nageya? What can I do for you?" It was rare anyone outside her children and grandchildren came to see her at the Cottage, and rarer still to be sought out at all. She'd have been hurt, except for the fact that all was still going according to plan.

"One of my portals?" Sabra quirked a brow. "A salvage mission without your guardian, I presume. How large a diameter do you require? And where, might I ask, are you planning to go?" She approved of the girl's politeness, as well as her efficiency at getting to the point.

"Hmm...I'll have to haul one of the larger ones out of storage," she said thoughtfully. Not to mention one of the ones better equipped for distance, since otherwise it would be a couple of jumps, and the more one had to portal-hop, the more disorientation caused. Thank goodness the Imperial portals held fast even after the Ti'ama who'd given them birth came to their end, so far as their planetary body was concerned. "Zephyrus should make an excellent destination, though be wary at the entrance port--you'll want to get into the caves before disembarking." Aeolus had been quite thorough by all accounts; the remainder of the cities should be quite safe. "Though do take Eli--if you weren't already planning to." In case of incident, and also because the boy ought to see some of what 'once was' instead of merely reading about it.

"Indeed. I raised him to be a useful sort," Sabra said wryly. It was as if she could see the gears in Sorcha's head turning as the child plotted--it was vaguely endearing, really. "Do take care to return him in one piece."

From the mouths of babes--nice to have a shred of intelligence on that front. "Oh, perhaps a day to retrieve it, another to test it after being in storage for so long...I see you are in something of a hurry?" Sabra asked, back to vague pleasant smiles.

Sabra tsked as she leaned forward in her chair, chin resting on her artfully posed hand. She had to look up at Sorcha from that angle; she offered her best face of concern. "My dear, whatever has you so frustrated that you're tempted to raze a town? Surely it is not the lack of funds alone that vexes so?"

Sabra almost wanted to reach out and hug the girl--oh, how she'd missed being confided in! And how useful a confession it was, too. If there was one thing she was really quite good at, it was dispensing advice. Especially when it came to her grandchildren--she'd been manipulating them long enough to read them well; even know more about how they would react than they themselves did.

"I think, perhaps, she forgets," Sabra began, after a long pause following Sorcha's last confession. "She is a creature of her senses, and out of sight is out of mind--it is less that she does not trust you, I think, and more that her mind does not trust itself to remember. The things she hides from you purposefully are nothing less than that which she hides from herself. Most of it perhaps, is simply lost in the day to day; as one day's excitements replace yesterday's, so too are their events gone, lost to easily recalled memory."

The woman reached to pat Sorcha on the knee. "In short, dear, simply remind her when applicable that you in fact were not there at all times though you'd certainly wish to be, and slowly it will dawn on the kraken that she does not have you by her side constantly and she needs a better recall of the times you do not spend together." She played with the idea of letting Sorcha in on one of Dacj's closely guarded secrets--ah, but perhaps not. It was a card still uncertain, after all.

Sabra chuckled. "Because the things she hides from herself do not like to stay hidden, and she dwells overmuch on what she cannot force herself to forget at any given moment." The woman shrugged goodnaturedly. "She and her brother share that habit, you know. Perhaps pessimism runs deep in the family." It must've started with Philomena--honestly, cynical even as a kitten! It was like none of them could quite bring themselves to trust the world for longer than the briefest happiness.