chapter eight
remnants of a lost childhood

        Before Sabrina is—that is, before Sabrina is truly Sabrina—she is Darkness.

This is how Sabrina's story begins:

A dark storm is trapped in a glass jar hidden away on a shelf until finally, The Ancient One sheds a light on it and decides to give it a purpose.  After all, everything must have a purpose because who are we in this vast universe?  Humanity has always, and will ever only be tiny specks on the horizon.  The universe continuously expands, but humanity does not.  We are but the flapping of a bird's wings in comparison to the hurricane of our universe.  Eventually, all humanity will die out.  But maybe, The Ancient One can teach this Darkness to be something else.  Something greater than humanity.  Something more.  She finds a ritual in the back of The Book of Cagliostro.  And so fifteen years ago, The Ancient One emerges with the Darkness, molded into the form of a baby, and proclaims that she had been abandoned. 

In a way, The Ancient One makes Sabrina who she is today.

Sabrina is born during a storm.  (Was Sabrina ever really born, though?).  She fears storms for the rest of her childhood.  Maybe it's because subconsciously, she knows that this is where her life starts and that subconsciously, she knows that she is unnatural.  That her very existence is a violation of the rules of the universe.  That she does not belong here.  Sabrina is passed around different arms as she grows up.  Nobody has enough time to dedicate it all to Sabrina, so they take turns.  And it is because of this that Sabrina grows up without knowing the feeling of a stable home. 

But that had never mattered to her before because she knew that deep down, she was loved. 

Fast forward and Sabrina is eight years old.  This is the first time that she begins to doubt if she is really loved and the first time that she shows her aptitude to magic.  There's a darkness in her eyes, something that The Ancient One has never seen before.  Her fists are clenched at her sides and papers are flying through the air and she is surrounded by a force field of wind as the room morphs and twists around her.  She carves holes in the wall with small translucent blades that embed themselves in the stone walls.  The Ancient One assures her that she is loved, and that is the end of the conversation.  Sabrina is eight years old and is told that she is loved.  And that is enough for her.  The anger fades away.  The wind dies down.  That is enough for now. 

The next day, Sabrina is taught her first lesson about control and balance.  The Ancient One realizes that Sabrina is the "so much more" that she had intended to create all those years ago.  Up until the day that Sabrina had lost control, The Ancient One had feard that in the process of creating life out of the Darkness, she had stripped it of all the qualities that had made it unique.  But like the entity that Sabrina had once been a part of, she has the power to consume worlds if she is not careful.  The Ancient One also learns that she's stronger in Sabrina's presence.  That she feels more youthful. 

This is the first time that The Ancient One steals from Sabrina. 

(It will not be the last).

Fast forward again and Sabrina is thirteen and bleeds just to know that she is alive.  She seeks the thrill of a fight and is forbidden from leaving Kamar-Taj (not that she lets that stop her).  Mordo is lecturing her as he wraps her bloody and bruised knuckles in a cloth but Sabrina cannot care less.  She feels as though, on some days, there is a darkness inside of her, telling her what to do.  Urging her on.  Driving her darker impulses.  Some days, she surrenders to it because it is all too loud and she does not know how to block it out.  Mordo is the first person she tells about the voices.  The Ancient One teaches her to block them out and they do not bother her as much anymore.  She feels lighter without them. 

Sabrina is fourteen and taking her first swan dive off of the Kamar-Taj rooftops.  Mordo saves her before she can make a fatal impact on the ground.  Mordo demands to know what she was thinking and Sabrina simply answers I wanted to see what would happen.  To this day, Sabrina still wonders what would happen if Mordo hadn't saved her.  There is no real meaning to this memory, not that she can place, but it is still so prevalent in Sabrina's mind. 

Flash forward one final time, and Sabrina is fifteen and sitting on a park bench in New York City with an ache in the center of her chest, so wide that she thinks she could reach a hand through it.  She has an untouched ice cream cone in hand because that is the only thing The Ancient One can think to do to lessen the pain of the truth.  She watches the children in the park who play with their friends and parents without a single care in the world.  Remnants of a childhood that she never had.  Remnants of a childhood that she had lost.

The ice cream drips onto her hand.

Stubbornly, she had looked everywhere but at The Ancient One as she spoke.  She sits on the edge of the park bench and The Ancient One sits on the opposite end.  The gap between them speaks more than Sabrina's words ever could.  I'm angry with you.  Why would you do this to me?  I do not trust you.  I do not forgive you.  But The Ancient One does not beg Sabrina to look at her.  The Ancient One does not beg Sabrina for forgiveness.  And maybe it is because she does not want Sabrina's forgiveness because The Ancient One feels as though she has nothing to be sorry for.  Sabrina wonders if things were different if The Ancient One would have continued on with the lie.  If she would have added kindling to the fire and kept it burning until the ends of the Earth. 

Sabrina doesn't know what hurts more: the fact that The Ancient One had kept this from her for so long or the fact that she hadn't apologized.  Someone she once knew had described guilt as bullet holes in your chest.  Eventually, they will heal over.  Sabrina wonders if The Ancient One doesn't feel any guilt because The Ancient One had let go of her guilt years and years ago.  But that doesn't change the fact that Sabrina thinks that she should have apologized to her.  Even if she believed she did the right thing.  Intent does not change impact.  If you hit someone without the intent of hurting someone, there is still the chance that they will feel pain (and you would apologize, even if you hadn't meant to hurt them).  Even if The Ancient One might not have intended to hurt Sabrina in the way that she did, Sabrina still feels that she deserves an apology.  Only then will The Ancient One have her forgiveness.

And finally, she breaks the silence that has lapsed between her and The Ancient One.  "Is everything else true, then?"

"Yes," The Ancient One answers.

"So, after all this time, what was I to you?" Sabrina asks.  She tries to keep the angry tears at bay.  "Just a scapegoat in case the Dark Dimension decided to cut off your supply of eternal life?"

Sabrina does not understand why people will go to such lengths for a taste of immortality.  Eternal life is a concept that is desirable at first, but soon, you learn that history just repeats itself over and over again.  People age and wither away until you are left alone in the vast world.  Humans fight other humans and Earth is consumed with war and death and destruction for years.  Homer had written in The Illiad that Gods envy mortals.  They envy the inevitability of death that they do not have.  So, if the Gods envy our inevitable doom, shouldn't we be content with the knowledge that one day, we will fade away from the world?

"You are so much more than just that," The Ancient One replies. 

"So it's true?" Sabrina asks.  "You draw power from the Dark Dimension?"

"Yes."

"Do you take from me, too?"

"Sometimes."

"Who else knows?" Sabrina asks.  "Who else is in on this?"

"Nobody."

This is the only answer that satisfies Sabrina.  The others cannot lie to her if the others do not know.  This makes their love for her all the more real.  She thinks that The Ancient One had loved her at a distance because she knew of Sabrina's nature.  She had been the one to bring her from Darkness, after all.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" Is the next question that Sabrina asks.  She dreads the answer.  "Or were you going to let me live a lie?"

The Ancient One doesn't answer for a long time.  Sabrina wonders if she herself does not know the answer to the question.

"Yes," The Ancient One answers.  "It was always going to end like this.  I had just hoped that it would not be today."

"Of course," Sabrina answers. 

She doesn't hide the bitterness in her voice.

"We must go now," The Ancient One tells Sabrina gently.  "Strange and Mordo need our help."

✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･ﾟ✫*

On the other side of the glass mirror, New York City reminds Sabrina of a kaleidoscopic dreamscape.  An ever-evolving maze of city streets and skyscrapers fragmented like shards of glass.  The thing about the mirror dimension is that it is a map of patterns, as though the objects were reflected against each other in a mirror.  It's mind-bending at first and vertigo-inducing, but if you know enough about patterns, it's easy to navigate.  You can bend everything to your will in the Mirror Dimension.

They find Stephen and Mordo in a maze of fire escapes and stone pillars, standing on a shard of cement, hovering above it all.  The Cloak of Vitality has not left Sabrina's shoulders and wraps itself around her protectively.  Kaecilius looms over Stephen, about to deliver the fatal blow with his translucent weapon when The Ancient One moves her hands in a swift motion, separating Stephen from Kaecilius.

The fragment of the fire escape that Stephen has fallen backward onto morphs into cement as it joins its other fragmented pieces to form a circle in the void of the Mirror Dimension, surrounded by the circling buildings.  With one motion, Sabrina finds herself being pushed to the edge of the circle along with Stephen and Mordo.  She can only watch with a churning stomach as the brand in The Ancient One's forehead glows gold.  The same brand that Kaecilius and the Zealots wear on their foreheads.  They belong to the Dark Dimension.  Nothing can change that now. 

"It's true," Mordo whispers in horror.  "She does draw power from the Dark Dimension."

"It's not the only thing she draws power from," Sabrina says quietly.

The Ancient One casts her gaze at Mordo.  It's only for a split second before she turns back to Kaecilius but that's enough time for Sabrina to see that there's something in those blue eyes of hers that Sabrina can't quite place.  Perhaps it is the feeling of guilt.  This feels like a knife to the gut to Sabrina.  What had Mordo done to deserve The Ancient One's guilt that Sabrina had not?  Mordo had followed her and blindly trusted The Ancient One for years—but so had Sabrina.  So why not her?  The Ancient One had betrayed them both that day.

"Kaecilius."

"I came to you broken, lost, in need," Kaecilius begins.  He and The Ancient One begin to slowly circle each other on the stone circle, each straying to the edges.  Sabrina finds herself edging closer to Stephen.  There's something about his presence that brings her comfort.  "Trusted you to be my teacher, and you fed me lies."

"I tried to protect you," The Ancient One tells him.

"From the truth?"

"From yourself."

"I have a new teacher now," Kaecilius replies.

"Dormammu deceives you," The Ancient One says.  "His eternal life is not paradise, but torment.

"Liar," Kaecilius hisses as the two Zealots flank his side.

The first Zealot charges at her in a blur of a flip, but The Ancient One easily dodges to the side.  He crashes to the ground with a thud.  She falls to one knee as she summons her Tao Mandalas, parrying blows from both Kaecilius and the remaining Zealot.  She dispatches the Zealot and rolls underneath Kaecilius, pushing him backward.  The man rolls and plants his hand on the cement circle, pushing a wave of tile in The Ancient One's direction.  The wave simply passes through The Ancient One, pausing as she pauses and rolls back to Kaecilius as she falls forward and slams her own hand into the cement.  Sabrina watches as Kaecilius is pushed backward by the force of the wave and rolls to a stop at the edge of the circle.   

The woman runs at The Ancient One once more, but The Ancient One blocks her blow and guides her wrist away from her.  The woman recovers and fabricates her mirror-shard-like blade, but The Ancient One deflects, Tao Mandalas glowing once more.  She strikes the woman in the face with her shield and the woman falls backward with a grunt of pain.  The next Zealot charges at her, swinging a fist at her arm, but The Ancient One is quick to deflect his blow and pull him into a headlock.

Kaecilius charges at The Ancient One and brings down his blade in an arc.  The Ancient One blocks his blow easily.

This is where things start to get messy in Sabrina's head.  

Sabrina lets out a strangled gasp as Kaecilius stabs through the Zealot in order to stab through The Ancient One.  She can only watch as time seems almost to slow down and The Ancient One's eyes widen as she falls forward, father down the blade.  Kaecilius grins and retracts the blade from The Ancient One's stomach before he kicks her limp body through a portal. 

Sabrina's vision is blurry and she cannot bring herself to move from the place where she's been cemented, but someone—or something is dragging her along to the portal.  She's numbly aware of how she's soaring through the air, and it takes a few moments to realize that it is The Cloak of Vitality that carries her through the portal and now she's plummetting down, but the cloak is slowing her fall which is more than she can say for the limp body of The Ancient One as it tumbles alongside the skyscrapers. 

She can make out Stephen's form just below her and Mordo just below him.  The Ancient One beats them to the ground and lands in a sea of glass.  Sabrina, Stephen, and Mordo land on the ground moments after.  Sabrina finds that she can move again, broken free of her temporary horror.  She can hear her heart palpitating in her chest as she pushes through the crowd that has gathered around The Ancient One's body.

Stephen falls to the sidewalk beside The Ancient One's body.  Sabrina can only stare down at it numbly.  She thinks she might be sick.  Shaking her head, she lets out a slow breath, backing away slightly.  She feels Mordo's hands on her shoulders and she turns around, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms tightly around him.  She squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a pained, strangled sort of sob.  There's a childish part of her that says The Ancient One might have survived the fall, but the older part of her knows that nobody, not even The Ancient One could have survived the fall.

She does not think that The Ancient One deserves her grief.  But despite the lies, Sabrina still loves The Ancient One.  She doesn't think that anything can change that.  The Ancient One will always be a part of her whether she likes it or not.  She had taught Sabrina everything that she knows.  And like the others that Sabrina had loved—even if it was only for a fleeting moment—she will become a part of the mosaic that Sabrina is today.

"It's going to be okay," she hears Mordo mutter faintly.

But even Sabrina knows that Mordo doesn't quite believe himself either.

author's note: i.....don't know what this was.  i don't really have anything to say.  yeah.  but would you guys rather i make act three MoM or make MoM in a separate book?