VETTA VIEWED her recently acquired assemblage of broken vase pieces with a sense of satisfaction. Here was a worthy project that was full of self-educational value far exceeding the value of the vase itself.

Inspired by the dedication of Wackie Mandrake, she imagined piecing the fragments together and presenting the item almost as good as new to a grateful owner who despite the words of the maid would probably be missing it terribly as a cherished possession.

Although Vetta was not a possessive creature herself, she appreciated how people clung to certain things for comfort and familiarity. It promoted well-being, very much a part of the five wellsprings of joy, and so her mission was a bright and clear path before her. She would trod along it, uplifted and inspired by the knowledge she was doing something to help a fellow being in the trammels of existence.

"I find with puzzles, it's always best to start with the edges and then work your way from there," Anthera said, coming into the room just then early that evening and seeing an array of pieces neatly arranged upon a table, pattern side up. "Although your puzzle seems to have a lot of jagged bits and very few starting points."

"It is a vase," Vetta said proudly.

"You're rummaging in other people's litter for a hobby now? That could lead to all sorts of life style choices you know."

"Really?" and Vetta looked around in puzzlement.

"Ooh, look. Those two bits must go together," and the Meditia girl snatched up the indicated pieces and clicked them in place.

"I know," Vetta said, "it's so exciting when that happens. Please hold that pose while I find some glue. Pairing all the pieces will halve the puzzle in an instant."

"There's optimism for you. Sure you have all the bits?"

"I am. I saw this beautiful vase when it was whole and when it was sadly broken and all the pieces gathered in an instant."

"Running about madly were you? Guilty conscience makes fixers of us all."

"Oh no. It was not me," Vetta said with artless honesty. "It was... unexpected." She could not name the culprit for fear of disparaging someone without really knowing what happened.

"Apply the glue to the one edge only, that's it. Now wipe the excess and stand it so the pieces are supported and won't move until the cement has fully dried," Anthera said, ignoring Vetta's denial.

"You sound as if you have done this before," Vetta replied, grateful for the instruction. There was a glance and a smile from the other.

"I'll leave you to it. Don't want to steal your glory."

"Thank you. You are very kind, more than kind."

***

THE DAYS PASSED and apart from Pirouette who viewed the whole matter with Perfectine disdain, the other girls of Wonder dorm watched with polite amusement whenever Vetta got out her ceramic project and endeavoured to make progress with it. Then it got kind of boring even for the most indulgent among them and any fascination as to what the vase looked like was dampened by repeated views of the growing shape.

"It has no handles then?" one observer observed as Vetta turned the thing around and around one evening to check the cement was dry so she might endeavour to place a new piece in its unique slot.

"I hope not," Vetta said, pausing in her appraisal with a look of slight panic on her face. "I do not remember any. Do you think there should be?" She looked at the remaining pieces carefully arranged on a tray. There were only five left by this time, all of about the same size. None had the look of a handle about them.

Meresinth laughed.

"If it didn't before it was broken then one would not expect it to afterwards."

"That is a relief," Vetta said and resumed her concentrated stare at glaze and patterns, cracks that were all but invisible now, and the remaining pieces. Thus she was left to herself once more as everyone else got on with their lives.

All Vetta could think of was making a broken thing like new again so she could return it to its owner, the lady living in the Twilit Estate. It was like righting a wrong, reducing a moment of stress in an anguished world, bringing perfection back into flawed reality. It was a way of helping.

Then one day there was only one piece left and those who caught a glimpse of the project anticipated success. Yet Vetta returned the incomplete thing back to its safe cupboard shelf several times with a look of dismay upon her face as if that final moment was too much for her. With a sigh on one occasion she simply got up off the carpet and wandered out onto the balcony to get some fresh air and duck the swooping wings of wobbly pigeons in search of handouts.

The others waited and when the Poldorama girl did not return, there was some speculation that she might have thrown herself off the balcony in despair. Then everyone turned their attention to the worktable upon which the almost-vase sat, glinting in the room light. Next to it was that one single piece which seemed to blight the young girl's endeavours. Meresinth could stand it no longer and approached the table.

"Don't touch it!" Anthera warned the mischievous Arbornica girl.

"I wasn't going to do any harm," Meresinth insisted. "Just trying to puzzle why there's that great big hole in the side. Look, the piece that fits in there is right there, waiting to be placed."

"Perhaps she is lingering over it, enjoying the puzzle so much she does not want it to end."

"Or she's too stupid to see what's in front of her face," Pirouette said unkindly. "You know how she's always walking or running into things. Probably broke someone's heirloom and is guilty-bound to fix it. Only she doesn't know how."

"No. It's not quite like that," Esper said softly. "There is though something that puzzles her about this piece," and she looked at the irregular curved hexagon which showed a generous part of the floral design of the vase.

There was a sound then by the window. Vetta had indeed not thrown herself into oblivion. The others scattered and pretended they were doing something else as the girl re-entered the room.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Everyone was silent and watchful when Vetta went over to her work table and looked at what remained to do.

She examined the distinct vase shape as it had grown piece by piece from the slightly concave base, turning it slowly around, noting how the pieces gathered together formed some semblance of the original piece. Here and there cracks still showed in areas devoid of patterns but the lip was complete, a smooth edge in a full circle.

Then as she turned the largest gap came into view, and everyone watched more intensely. Vetta stared at it and picked up the piece that obviously went there. She turned it round in her hands, aligning it and occasionally pressing it to the constructed vase. The clinking sound was audible across the quiet room, as was the sigh that followed yet another apparent failure and Vetta placed the piece upon the table in defeat.

A shadow fell across her worktable and she looked up to see Meresinth Woodbine hovering close.

"I can see you're struggling," she said kindly. There was a cackle from Pirouette's corner where the Perfecta girl flicked through a magazine so brightly printed its pages glowed and threw coloured light across the ceiling with each page turn.

"It is most baffling," Vetta said.

"Sometimes, where I come from, we like to see things from the inside out."

"That's nice," Vetta said, none the wiser.

Esper came up just then as well and Anthera skirted the edge of the table too. She picked up the troublesome piece and presented an edge to the perplexed girl.

"See how the curve swells the shape so the inner part seems bigger than the outer?" she said, her magnified eyes scanning the shape in detail.

"Um," Vetta said with unabashed puzzlement.

"It is as Meresinth said," Esper pursued. "Sometimes we have to see inside something to understand it better."

"May I?" the Arbornica girl said, taking the piece from Anthera just as Dolly Bloomen snored a little louder when she shifted in her bed. Pirouette added a snigger to her cackle of earlier as she skipped her magazine perusal onto the accessories section.

Everyone who was interested watched as the Arbornica girl's long fingers snaked deftly through the circular opening at the top of the vase while holding the hexagonal piece. She lowered it and twisted her wrist until the piece faced the gaping hole.

"Slight turn clockwise," Anthera whispered, watching the tricky manoeuvre with intense interest.

"What direction's that? Ow, I'm beginning to cramp."

"Towards where Vetta's sitting," Esper added a helpful instruction.

"Ow," Meresinth said again, then there was a clink and the hole was filled. Perfectly. It stayed there even without the glue.

"It fits!" Vetta squealed. "How did you do it? I tried so many times and it was always too big."

"You tried by putting the piece through the hole from the outside," Esper endeavoured to explain. "The inner surface was larger."

"Bit like concreting a floor and finding you've concreted yourself into a corner too far from a door or window," Anthera tried to create an image of a similar problem.

"Oh. Like finding an odd number of cheese wedges among an even number of guests," Vetta said in happy understanding.

"Exactly," someone replied offhandedly.

***

WITH THE LAST piece safely in place Vetta left her masterpiece to dry overnight, looking forward to the moment when she could present it to Widow Mint, all fixed and good as new.

Only of course, it could never be that, and Vetta learnt something of the connoisseur's eye when she went on her errand.

"What's this?" the lady said when Vetta presented the vase with its mosaic of crack lines. Veltra the maid hovered in the background, a diminished and worrying figure.

"There was an unexpected incident," Vetta said brightly as if this were good news. "Thanks to the quick thinking of your maid all the pieces were rescued and I put them back together, almost by myself." She had to admit the help of her dorm mates of course.

The lady examined the vase.

"I wondered what happened to this, just for a while, and then forgot all about it." She chuckled, seeing how all the pieces fit snugly together. There must have been a hundred of them.

"Good as new," Vetta said hopefully.

"Oh no, not at all. The thing is ruined. Could not even give it away."

Vetta's face fell, thinking her actions had caused the ruin. The lady noted her reaction.

"Oh, don't blame yourself dear. Once broken, the magic is lost," and she chuckled hoarsely again, thinking perhaps of other things long out of service and devoid of magic as a result.

"I'm sorry," was all Vetta could think of to say.

"Don't be. I guess you'll want paying. Must have taken you ages. Maid take this and trash it and give the girl something for her trouble."

"Yes ma'am," the maid said, sidling forward to take the vase.

"Oh no," Vetta cried. "I do not want money."

"Then what do you want?"

A brief glance at the vase told a story of sorts.

"Maid, let the child keep the cracked thing. It was an heirloom of sorts, I think, but trees shed leaves and rivers run dry. Not much to be gained by giving away worthless things like that but we can't be cluttering the place with stuff forever."

"Yes ma'am," and the maid returned the vase to Vetta, who held it as a thing most precious.

"Now scoot," the maid said quietly as she ushered the girl from the august presence of her mistress, "before you get me into more trouble."

"Oh maid," a commanding voice floated down the steps, "that'll be coming out of your wages, your pension, and so on to several generations. I checked the insurance inventory a while back so know its former value to the smallest fraction of a coin."

The maid winced, then shrugged and gave the girl a smile.

"Never mind," she said. "You meant well," and she pushed the girl beyond the ornate gate.

Vetta wandered out of the Twilit Estate in a daze and onto a busy walkway. She had a fight of it not to be tripped and bumped by passersby, all seeming intent on testing the cement that held the rejected vase together.

She pondered the thing as she walked. It was complete and needed no further work. That passion had run its course.

It had been rejected by its original owner, the one who had at one point in its existence imbued it with pleasurable thoughts of ownership and the enjoyment thereof. Such feelings had dissipated upon its rejection. It was now something of an orphan. A damaged, rejected thing without a true home.

Vetta knew there was still a future for the cracked vase. It did not weigh her down, rather there was a lightness to it for the wings of possibility gave it flight and carried her to the shed of Wackie Mandrake, that impassioned hobbyist with a vague sense of purpose.

Mold Ampit met her at the sheet metal door with a puzzled expression upon his friendly face.

"Well, young lady, what might we be able to help you with today? Have you more fragments for Wackie to ponder over?" he asked pleasantly.

Vetta held out the brightly colourful vase with its wonderful flower spray design upon it.

"Yes," she said, beaming as brightly as the vase.

"I'll be glazed!" the man said, remembering who he was in the presence of. "Wackie, come out here and have a look at this!" he then shouted over his shoulder. There was a clatter and a curse and then his friend appeared at the doorway, a magnifying monocle in one bloodshot eye and tweezers held in a trembling hand. The piece of porcelain in the tweezers dropped to the floor when he caught sight of what the girl was holding.

His free hand hovered over the mended vase reverently as the monocled eye peered closely at the completeness of it.

"There were no handles," Vetta assured him.

Wackie gently lifted the thing from the girl's grasp and held it to the light, rotating it.

"As complete as if it were never broken," he breathed in awe. "Brought back from oblivion."

"It is yours," Vetta said happily. "I know how much you like these things." She could not understand why they fascinated him so much but that was not part of the bargain. It was simply enough that he did.

"Bless you my dear," he said in response. "However did you manage such a miracle?"

"I think," Vetta replied, pleased with how delighted the man seemed to be, "you had to be on the spot at the right moment."

"Well miss, seems you're always on the right spot. You are a friend indeed."

"Friendship," Vetta said, "is one of the five wellsprings of joy."

To her it was all that needed to be said.