For once, Pheobe didn\'t have a snappy comeback. Her mouth opened, a parting of full, dark lips, as if she had an immediate answer, but the shut again when she realized she didn\'t have one at all. She thought for a while, mouth set, unsmiling, and folded her arms loosely.
She sensed the girl\'s frustration, and made a mental note to stay away fromt he subject of her illness, unless the young lady herself brought it up again.
"It\'s a gift," she said, at length, "Every day I\'m alive, I\'m breathin\'. My belly ain\'t always full, and I ain\'t always got a place to sleep, and sometimes the little aches of livin\' just keep insistin\' on making me miserable, and I start to think it ain\'t worth it no more, but then I remember: It may be shoddy work, but I\'m alive, and each day is a gift the lady made for me with love, and it won\'t do to spit on it, thinkin\' like that. \'Sides, tomorrow could be better." She shrugged, and her smile returned, "Dunno if that answers your question, but it\'s the best I can do, at present."
She looked up, quickly, directly over Alia\'s shoulder, and spied a rough-hewn bench being vacated near the entrance to the sanctuary. The bard gestured toward it, "Y\'feel like sitting down, lass? Even bein\' healthy and happy that prayer pillow was none too good on my knees, and I\'m feelin\' it now. Doesn\'t do nobody no good, standin\' \'round like this, leastaways."