[PRP] Evergreen (Liam & Temperance)

[The Semblance of Unity]

In spite of everything, some things never changed. Liam was as easily found as before: still a professor, still had office hours, the usual. Temperance was tired beyond belief still - her clinicals had changed, her course load was more rigorous - which is why it took her so long to visit. But it had to be done before the university went on break. She still didn't understand what it meant to be a principal, but when had she ever understood anything about this magic? It was always a case of bashing herself against the wall of it until something gave. It wasn't pretty, most of the time it didn't even work.

Squaring her shoulders, she knocked twice on his office door, then pushed it open. "Professor Noor?"

silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam's office was a cramped as ever, the bookshelf overflowing with books, the same diplomas and photographs jockeying for space on the open wall. Professor Noor himself seemed sobered, jumping a little when Temperance opened the door - was it from his experiences at the seance, or everything that came after that had done it?

"Temperance," he said, a hand going to his heart.

"I wasn't expecting any visitors. What... what brings you here?"

Hadn't he done enough to scare her away?

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

He seemed a little different, somehow - and her eyebrows shot up. But in the next second, she dismissed that notion. The pictures were the same - as far as Temperance could tell - the clutter the same. She brushed absently at the seat of one of the chairs in front of his desk before sitting down in it.

"Questions, as usual." She played with the string of her hoodie for a moment. "Nothing heart attack inducing, I'm sure." Another pause. How was she even supposed to phrase this? Temperance crossed her legs.

"How were the eighties?"

silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam met her question with a confused look, and then he leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose. "The eighties... you mean... you were there, too? With Shiloh?"

He sighed through his teeth, looked her over.

"Of course you were," he said. "Everyone was there but me. How were the eighties?"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Mmm, you were there. You protested in front of a water fountain. And I was there. And I was there." Temperance paused. His phrasing meant Shiloh must have stopped by. She stopped pulling on the string of her hoodie.

"What'd Shiloh have to say about it?"

silverah

 

[Silverah]

"Several thousand years ago, I was there," clarified Liam, "but judging by what Shiloh's told me, things shook out differently from how I might recall them."

He flattened his hands against the desk - nothing up his sleeves. No pretenses. "And what did you think of your past incarnation?" He asked. "I see hints of her in you sometimes. I miss her."

Maybe that was why he pushed her away?

Anyway, he was currently showing more vulnerability than he'd ever previously - if Temperance could believe that.

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Several thousand years seemed like too long a time for anything. "She seemed... tired, mostly. Pre-occupied, only half- there. I can't really blame her." It had been so weird to see the same face as her own self and have it be...different. Uncanny valley levels. Her sisters - some of them - looked liked her, but no one had her exact face, twirling toothpicks in the same way, gangled the same.

She smiled a bit. "Tell me about her. Am I too hellishly different?"

silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam looked at Temperance with sad eyes. "You're from a different era," he said, shrugging. "You have different concerns. Different battles to fight."

He eased backwards, hands going slack against the desk, shoulders relaxing. "I met her through the club," he explained. "She'd come into the community through her work. It was somewhere she could go and have a drink and everyone there knew what she was dealing with. She had a good heart. Soothing hands. She knew as much medical magic as anyone was willing to use."

He bit his lip.

"I think you're a little more impatient," he said. "You have more to prove."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She hmm softly. "Nature vs nurture I guess." Different battles, indeed. "You seemed different, even though I suppose, after everything, it's still you. You were a different kind of hard." Temperance couldn't quite connect the two of them in her head. Like sides of the same coin, she supposed, never in contact but rotating around the same core.

"Do you wish I was her?" The answer didn't necessarily matter to her; Temperance had firmly squared this Liam away into a certain category which rendered most of his opinions just that: opinions. This was a new world, with new magics, but she didn't doubt he still killed. What if-

"Did the ball still happen?"

silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam shrugged. "Of course I seemed different. You met a younger me, before all this. A me whose friends were dropping dead around him, who was afraid that one wrong move would end with his death, too. I'm older now. I have different concerns."

He looked a little bit pained at her next question. "I've known hundreds of versions of you," he said softly. "None of them were you. None of them were her. Each incarnation is unique unto itself. I do not wish you were her. I do not wish her death on you. Hers was a light snuffed out too soon. Yours... you still have a chance. A year until the cage resets. You could do wonderful things in a year."

He looked down at his hands: turned them over, flexed them. Did he see blood? "My memories are unaltered," he said. "But this is a world built on different principals. A world where dear Adoelle never existed. I suppose it did and it did not. Its events are a mystery to me. I can no more remember it than I can pull the moon from its orbit."

He leveled his pale gaze at her. "But I don't suppose that changes your verdict on me."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Maybe this will be the last me," she said lightly, like a joke. A year until the cage resets - what did that mean for her, exactly? Was the sigil recast year after year, different principals chosen each time? Temperance looked at his hands as well, finding something in the way he turned them round: familiarity.

She sighed. "It does not. After all, even though in this time you were not given the opportunity, you still made the choice before. You would make it again. You are you." Temperance shrugged.

"Do you know who the principals are this round, then?"

silverah

 

[Silverah]

"I would hope so," said Liam, though his expression did not give away any clues to his meaning. He made no move to respond to her accusation of his youness, because it was, after all, true.

However, at her trailing question, he made a face. "Not this round," he said firmly. "Now. The cage was remade. The fundamental nature of the reality was altered. That's never been done before. It was always Heliodora, Adoelle, and Michael. From its inception."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "It's not very nice to ask trick questions," he said. "You already know. The boy - Shiloh. And you. And another - I don't know who. I'm still getting my bearings."

"You put a key in the sigil. Why?"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Her eyebrows winged up at his comment that he 'hoped so'. What exactly did that mean, anyway? It was kind of odd to hear that the principals had never changed. From what had happened, she assumed it was sort of a rotation - like the ball had been.

"Not a trick question." She frowned. "And not me, for one." Temperance did not like that Liam magically knew who was a principal and not. There was no way she was ever going to admit to being one out loud. Shiloh was one and... based on America's visit from Heliodora, her then, too. "I have no idea who they are and I didn't put the key in.... the symbol choices were voted on in a group, so I don't think you can really pin one symbol on one person, can you?"

silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam shot her an unamused look, blatant in his disbelief. "That's how it works," he said. "Three is a powerful number. One symbol for one principal. Combined, the three form a sigil and the cage is locked. Even if you may have voted on them independently, ultimately, the symbols are each connected to a single principal."

He paused, then repeated himself. "That's how it works. You are a principal, whether you believe it or not. You have tied yourself to the magic of this world."

He dug through his desk, pulled out a legal pad, and slid it across to her - on it, was Shiloh's shaky drawing of the new Sigil. It was inexact but still clearly recognizable.

"Why did you put a key in this?" he asked again.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Excellent artistic skills," she remarked dryly. Not that she could do any better; Temperance was not exactly a talented drawer.

"Why do you want to know about the key specifically?"

silverah