She was hardly what one would call "put together".

Her hair was choppy, cut like she'd taken a weedwacker to it. Uneven and course. When it was brushed it framed her ova face, tickling along the cornors of her mouth and brushing against her ear like a lovers whisper.

Her jaw was far to stubborn. Unknowingly set the way her mother's had always been, ready for all the things life would hit her with. Up from those hard angles held her pouting lower lip, the sort that would beg to be kissed if it wasn't for her curling upper one warning people off.

But usually together they were curved nicely in a smile, which took the focus away from the nose she'd always wanted to get fixed. Curse her genes for that part of her face, nessled between her wide expressive gray-hazel eyes, so light it was like looking into water. Her brother had gotten dark brooding ones, but hers...they were like liquid sin. They could pour out emotion pulling your heart strings, or freeze you out with unfeeling coldness.

The over all appearance was one of intense artisty. She was the reflection of her music. Sometimes turbulent, sometimes calm, passionate, languid, lovely or not.

Mackenzie sat in the middle of her flat on a cold folding chair. Her cello nessled in the cradle of her knees. Her fingers dancing over the strings on the ebony neck, her other holding the bow, pulling tortured music from it's body. The sound was like weeping, sadness pouring from a lost child. Her pictures was a lake, a small child looking out over it's expance, wishing for one more moment.

One moment that could last forever. Clouds would be rolling over head, threating rain. Dark gray and forboding. The child would be clutching flowers in trembling fingers, a few petals falling to the waters surface causing ripples.

The tempo picked up, as the anger mixed into her melody to cause pulsing staccato. At her side a quill worked over the lined paper, recording every rest, quarter note and cord she played.

The child could feel tears burning their eyes. Their lip trembling with the force it took to hold back every emotion that wanted and needed to fall with those drops.

Her bare toes curled with the power of it. It flowed, as emotions did. She felt the strain on her calves from the pulling muscles. But she couldn't stop, wouldn't stop for all the physical unease. She felt it, and since she did, she had to play it.

Her shoulders and elbows ached, all her joints being sorely abused for the day. Every drag of her bow had her shoulder crying, every movement of her other hand, her elbow.

Mackenzie's back was bowed, from trying to sit straight all day. And her eyes drooped. But one more moment and the scene would be complete. Just another minute, an hour, a day and she would have everything together.

And just when she thought she couldn't take anymore, the ending major cord sounded in the acustically superior room. It buzzed and vibrated around her, sounding in her head and carrying her soul.

A smile painted itself across her lips as she stood with the cracking of her knees and hips. To put her cello into it's case.

The blonde didn't even close it. She drug herself toward the blue couch under her large front window, collapsing with fatigue. The moment her eyes were closed she was dead to the world.

But the sound of the dripping faucet in her kitchen that had kept the metronome to her newest piece, echoed in her ears.

It was one thing to live for your art. It was quite another to have your art live through you.