Journey to the sanctuary 2

The cold ground was course against the bare souls of her feet. Buttons had been walking for days now. The island, the bastion of light, the final shard of hope that rose proud and luminescent out of the darkness was her determination. She crouched on the ground and pulled the bag from her shoulder, now cold and motionless its weight had become ever more apparent. Out of a pocket inside her cowl she produced two stones and a small lump of dried grass. She placed these in the pile of fine twigs she had arranged on the ground in front of her and struck the two together. Embers fell from the white stones in a flash briefly illuminating the inky surroundings. If an observer were to look upon the scene they would have seen only her silhouette and a brief yellow light in a wilderness of blackness. But there were no observers, there was the coal black sky and the icy wind. One ember floated into the grass and took hold, she picked up the grass and blew into the tinder. Three breaths and a small green flame ignited in the palm of her hand, she pushed the burning clump into the small twigs and began to add from the pile of larger sticks which she had already gathered from the skeletal trees that stood like splinters in the desolate ground. The fire grew into a proud blaze that beat back the chill of the desert. Buttons sat staring into the green flames, they flickered and waved in the wind they created. She sat there unblinking, hypnotised as the flames glowed, incandescent. As she peered into the green she began to see into the flames. At first they seemed to splash into existence only to be consumed by their own furious vigour but the longer she looked the more she saw the world inside the flame. Their centres were pure green, the outer frame was brilliantly white. The closer she looked the more detail she could see in the green, there were tiny shapes. Leaves; a forest, lush and full and then gone as the flame expired. Her eyes widened and she bristled with curiosity. She took a stick from the fire for light and went to fetch more wood. Using her cowl to drag huge logs back to her camp she built the fire into a thumping furnace and as she looked again she realised that the flames were not like smoke; they were not without substance. They were like shards of glass, fragile pieces of a lens that peered into another world. They didn't disappear at the top of the blaze, as they floated into the vacuous sky they were drawn further and further away from their world they didn't disappear at all, they just grew dark.
The night here had lasted weeks. Buttons didn't know where the light had gone but here in the fire there seemed to be a world full of light and rich with life. turned from the fire, so only one side of her was against it. She had to think, if there was a world there and the flames were like glass maybe they could be a window rather than a lens. But could the window be opened? Could she get through it? She turned again to the flames, the heat poured from the tumultuous mound. She knew to try to enter would mean death.
She went to her sack and pulled out her button bag. She opened it up and laid the materials she had before her; several types of thread, hundreds of buttons and needles. Some were very rare, some were very potent, some were unsafe to look at for too long and she quickly covered those over with the corner of her splayed out button bag.

Hours passed and the night remained unchanged, there was no time anymore and no way to know when or if it would ever end. Buttons thought; she sat cross-legged on the ground looking at her buttons and needles and thread. Outwardly she didn't move for a long time but inside her mind was feverish with combinations and eliminations. Connecting herself however briefly to this world was dangerous. Would it consume her? Would it burn the whole world? Would it pull her in? No, she would pull something out of it.
She gathered more logs, as many as she could find. She even cut down some of the trees that hung absently in the blackness. When she had enough she cast them all into the fire. She needed large flames, huge flames as big as she could muster. If her plan was to work she would have to cast some imbued thread into the bottom of the flame, latch it onto part of the other world and pull that part of the world out of the flame all before it reached a height where it was too high to bridge the gap between this world and the other.
She gathered a silver thread and hurled it into the flame. Almost as soon as she had flung it in she pulled it out but by this time the thread was far above her head. There was a crack then a snapping noise and the fire went out. All that was left was a large glowing seed the size of her fist. It emitted a green light with a yellow haze, it was beautiful. She scooped earth from the ground and buried the seed and fell asleep.

Buttons awoke to a twilight world, a deep green forest as far as she could see, there was still no sun but there were thousands of floating fireflies zipping through the broad palm like leaves of the forest. The smell of the vegetation was sweet and humid, the icy wind was dampened and slowed by the countless wooden pillars that sprouted from the ground, each one bore several glowing fruit of yellow and red.
Buttons smiled and heaved her sack onto her shoulder once again. She had pulled permanence from evanescence and now she could walk towards sanctuary in a world of her own creation.