Laurie hunched over her desk in frustration, grinding her teeth. Her hand gripped the silver quill so tightly that her fingers were beginning to grow purple but she didn't notice this. Her eyes remained focused on the growing ink blot that crept across the pristine white paper. No dollar store lined paper and ballpoint pen for this woman, only the best parchment and ink well would do. At least that was what she had thought.

A cry of frustration engulfed the empty hallways of the hollow apartment. The thud of Laurie's head on her oak desk seemed to echo before silence resumed. A glance at the clock confirmed it.

Six hours.

She had been sitting at this same spot, in this same chair, in this same room for six hours. Without food or water or respite of any sort, she had sat and I stared at a growing ink blot. Even the fresh candles she had lit had burned so low they had drowned in their own wax, without a moment's rest.

Six hours!

Laurie sighed. It was a sigh of utter defeat as she finally laid her pen to rest and pushed herself away from the desk. Her hand looked dented and bruised from the pressure of simply holding the pen and Laurie winced as she flexed it slightly. Her legs trembled slightly as she stood, as though it had been days since she last moved, instead of hours.

Her head hung in defeat, she attended to her bathroom needs before raising her eyes to meet a devastated and angry face reflected at her in the mirror. This pivotal moment was marred by the shocking recognition of an ink blot covering her forehead.

"Why?" she muttered angrily, reaching for a wash cloth and the soap. The urge to laugh or cry hovered close to the surface but her rage kept both at bay.

"Why??" she repeated, though she was alone in the apartment. She scrubbed angrily at her forehead, marring both the white wash cloth and porcelain sink with the deep blue of ink.

Frustrated, she threw the wash cloth down in a fit and splashed water on the mirror.

"I have done everything you asked me too!" she exclaimed in a fit, her voice raising to almost a yell. "Everything you demanded of me I have done, and still you elude me! Why dear muses, why have you abandoned me?"

Her trembling legs gave out and Laurie sat down on the cool bathroom floor in a huff. Her body shook in silent sobs as the darkness closed around her.

"I can give nothing more." she murmured, all the fight leaving her. "There is only me left. Why can't that be enough?"

As she closed her eyes, a light twinkle in the night caught her ear.

"It is enough." A chiming voice said, melding with the new sound.

Laurie opened her eyes, unable to bring herself to hope it was real. In her reflection, far above her, she could see three faces, clouded and vague though they were, hovering behind her.

They were back.

Her muses were back!

"Come, shall we work now?" they chimed together, voices like angels after the cold, dead silence she had lived in.

Climbing shakily to her fee,t Laurie nodded, "Yes... yes!" she whispered, overcome with the sweet emotions of their return.

She smiled, shyly at first and then more broadly as she excited the bathroom. Her steps grew more confident as their blessed presence follower her, filling her with a joy she had almost forgotten.

Her muses were back and she could begin anew. Laurie returned to her desk to dispose of the soiled papers. She retrieved her pen and began anew filled with the spirit of her muses and unable to be stopped.