[M4] Azimuth (Temperance)

[shibrogane]

Temperance gets home and the door's hanging open. Adoelle, her throat torn open, hands bloody, tear-tracks on her face, waits a scant few feet inside. In a cluster of strange shadows is another person, a stranger of such average height and build that they cannot possibly be identified. Her mask is gone. An air of burnt sage hangs heavy in the apartment, so thick as to be a miasma.

"Hello, inheritrix," says Adoelle. Her voice is a whisper, but it carries quite well.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She was tired, tired beyond belief. Sunny had vanished, the sigil was cast and whatever would be would be. For now, Temperance just wanted to take a hot shower, scrub blood off of her hands and sleep. There was class tomorrow, after all, she thought, and a near-hysterical bubble of laughter tried to trickle out of her throat. Wearily, she climbed up the stairs, the white of her Halloween night dress smudged here and there with rusty streaks. She'd spent the majority of the cab ride home trying to surreptitiously hide her hands.

Temperance paused. The door was open to her apartment. Dealing with a break-in was absolutely not what she needed right now. She fumbled around in her bag and grasped the knife. Her mace had migrated to the bottom and what good was it there? Moving slowly inside, she flipped the light switch. And felt her fingers go numb.

"Y-you," she said softly, blue eyes wide and flicking between Adoelle and the figure behind her. "You're dead." Inheritix? Her heart beat up into her throat. Adoelle was dead, dead, dead. She'd felt the blood beat out of that gaping wound, abandoned her in the last moments to move on to try and save someone else.

Maybe if she just... left the apartment and came back in an hour, everything would be cool again. She edged back nearer the door, reluctant to go and equally reluctant to stay.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Don't go," says Adoelle. "You'll regret it if you do."

She folds her hands in front of her. "You wanted this, didn't you? To take my role? You're part of the sigil, now, whether you listen to me here or not."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Temperance took a deep breath, released it. And then she closed the door. She looked at Adoelle and her ravaged throat and still her instincts were to seal it, something, anything.

"I didn't want to take your role... I wanted.... I didn't want anyone else to die so needlessly, I didn't want the ball to repeat and someone else to be offered up because I c-couldn't save you." She felt like she was the verge of tears. It was so easy to stay rational and collected under stress, but Temperance needed her own space, her home in which she could break down and no one see.

Get it together, she told herself. And, after a shaky breath, she did - a bit. "Would it ease any discomfort for me to patch your throat now?" Temperance didn't look at the gaping wound more than she had to, instead gesturing to the computer chair, the ottoman, the bed, wherever.

"Sit... I guess." Another deep breath. "Who are you, and what do mean? Does this... does this mean everything worked?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Adoelle nods. "You did it right, Temperance," she says. "I feel no discomfort, and when I'm gone I'll be... gone... so there's no need for you to spend your energy."

She looks down, puts a hand up to conceal the wound. "You repaired the world. But things have changed, now, and--I don't think it's an imposition for me to say that you must conceal your role in it." She stares at Temperance. Her brown eyes are very pale, the color of a light beer. Before they had been a warm woodsy brown. "People like you aren't wanted in the medical profession. People like you are feared. And if they knew how strong you were..."

She shrugs one shoulder.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I'm sorry," she said. And she was full of apologetic guilt over a death that she hadn't prevented, over the very fact that Adoelle in some form had to be resurrected to come tell her things. Temperance's shoulders slumped. They'd done it, whatever it was, right. That had to count for something, right?

She looked up again, past the hand wrapped around Adoelle's throat to her face. "Conceal? People like me.... what do you mean?" Temperance knew beyond a doubt that she was not strong, that was what she had struggled for, why she had bothered some of the other nobles until they could no longer stand the sight of her. She was weak.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Magic," says Adoelle. Her stare is intense. "People who are magic. They know about it, here, and it's rare. They're afraid of it."

She says, "It's your secret to keep."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Will...will the others, everyone involved in the casting keep their magic? Is there even still an alternate Ashdown?" A secret. She swallowed. All she wanted to do was to heal people with her magic. Maybe she should take ninja lessons, Temperance thought, her brain making silly, overwrought connections.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Adoelle nods. "Yes," she says. "The other Ashdown still exists. Its... seed... still exists, so it'll keep going regardless."

She rises. "You'll be alright," she says. "Be careful." She glances over her shoulder at the shadowed stranger.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I'll be okay; I'm not as strong as you think I am." Her mouth turned up into a wry smile. Somehow, it was vaguely comforting that that other, weird Ashdown was still there. She had to see a man about something there, anyway. Temperance followed Adoelle's glance back.

"Who did you bring with you?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I brought your fourth," says Adoelle.

"Hi," says Sonny.

"At your service," they say, sourly.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"You... disappeared... turned into sunlight or something back there, I-" She should just shut up. Magic was weird and while this Sunny, maybe, they looked very different.

"It's a... good look for you," Temperance said, feeling rather boneless. "What's next?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Dunno," says Sonny. "What d'you want? Your wish is my command."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"To shower," she said and that caught bubble of a laugh did escape, just one. "But I guess I need... what does it mean to be part of the sigil - like... what are my responsibilities?" It bothered her a little how Sonny had phrased that bit. It was just the tiredness and the eventual collapse speaking, but it sounded a little wrong.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Sonny looks like they're biting back some kind of bitchy retort. "Means you made the world," they say, "Means that you remade me. Your responsibilities are whatever you want, if you want them. If you don't, then that's your choice."

The Semblance of Unity