you strike me {temperance} as someone who's never satisfied

[attr="class","petitcontentstyle"]

emperance’s time at Our Lady had been some of the best years of her life, but she was never one who was great at change. When the supernatural community, for the lack of a better word, came out, she had felt like she was rocked with full force. Time had not exactly situated her feet back to solid ground, and even nearly two years later, she was adjusting to a world that now knew exactly what she was. It was hard, to say the least, and change had only begotten more change. Some of the hidden fully embraced the new dawn, but she had a harder time with it. She had always felt a little bit more secure in the shadows, but now witches were out, opening up real shops to the human public. She always wondered, in the same way someone might consider what’s for dinner, what would have happened if her mother’s coven had operated so openly.[break][break]

Real magic had always hidden in the mundane. It was all a false dichotomy, the sacred versus the profane. They were so much more intertwined than anyone ever stopped to consider. The local metaphysical store might have sold hokey incense sticks, but they also had candles poured with real intentions, with careful inscriptions carved into the sides, or blessed crystals that channellers had slaved to clean and revive. Operating undercover, she reflected, had almost been easier. There was no persistent challenge, no demand for results that shop witches had faced in the last two years. It wouldn’t be long before someone would be sued over a misfired or misaligned charm. It was only a matter of time.[break][break]

She rounded a display of greeting cards, unsure why the shop’s owner had bothered with the paper craft. They were completely inert (she could feel that), full of only designs of swirls and fairies with knee-high striped socks. It was, in a word, quaint, but before she could find a solution to the issue, she collided head-on with another patron. The sound of a pot breaking was accompanied by the tell-tale feeling of dirt over her feet.[break][break]

”Oh, forgive me.” The words were out her mouth before she registered who the other person was, and she bent to pick the shards of plant pot from the ground. It hit her then, the familiar magic. They had slept in the same room for five years as students, and it still took her half a second to recognize her as her number one rival. Still, she couldn’t leave the pieces of pot and plant on the floor. That was awful manners. ”Theodora,” she greeted, depositing the pieces on the counter and dusting the soil from her hands, ”it’s been a while.”[break][break]

Cohort had never necessarily meant friends, a fact which Temperance found quite unfortunate. Theodora had never liked her, not really, and Temperance had always felt like she had to keep her back to a wall when Theo was in the room. She registered as a specific sort of threat, and neither woman had ever learned to properly communicate with the other. There had been moments – there was always bound to be moments in close quarters – but on the whole, Temperance was rather sure Theo wouldn’t spit on her if she was on fire.

[attr="class","petitcontentstyle"]
ow had she been? Even if blithely meant, the question was loaded at best, and Temperance had spent too much of her time rooting for the land mines buried in words. That was her specialty after all; few could lace simple words with more power than she and other wordsmiths. With tongues like double-edged swords, they ranked the importance of words rather high on the scale. Even without her power to consider, Temperance bristled at the thought of indicating that the school she had inherited from Theo’s mother was anything less than pristine. Glamours had begun to fade on it, as Robespierre tapped into the ley lines that had long fed Our Lady’s wards. The brick was cracking, the flowers wilting. Pushing that to the back of her mind, Temperance shrugged as nonchalant as she could manage. ”We’re getting ready to welcome the new cohort, so it tends to be a little...bustling around.” It was something of note that any question about her own well-being was redirected to give the general scheme of Our Lady. For Temperance, the two had become so intertwined that separation felt like death. She hardly noticed her own quirk anymore. ”And how are you?”[break][break]

She nodded to Theo’s thanks. ”Of course,” she said, allowing the words’ bite to slide off of her shoulders. The gauntlet that had been thrown between them had not come from Temperance’s hand, not that that seemed to make Theo feel any different. In her wildest dreams, Temperance didn’t think that Our Lady would have been really left to her instead of Theo. It had felt like a pipe dream to even apply, but to be given the golden scepter? She hadn’t expected it, not when Theo had wanted the same thing. Still, that did little to account for Theo’s turncoat to the Robespierre support team, a barb which still stuck in Temperance’s side (purely on behalf of Our Lady, of course). Temperance claimed that she didn’t understand how someone could turn their back on their own legacy – a wonderful thought until she realized she had done much the same to her own mother.[break][break]

Theo had always been good at the things Temperance wasn’t. Theo had an ease about that, try as though she might, Temperance had never picked up. She had tried, while the rest of their cohort had slept, to affect the air of self-worth that Theo projected. For all her practicing, she still only managed to come off cold and regal, haughty without any back-up. Charm was not a word or concept that existed for Temperance, and the glancing moments where it might have were nothing more than dumb luck. Still, she didn’t try to temper the elegant air she took as Theo appraised her. ”Your duties at Robespierre don’t take all of your time?” Even she had to admit that the words came out sharper than she had initially intended.

[attr="class","petitcontentstyle"]
emperance ducked her head respectfully at the blessing, trying her best not to forget that the new cohort were still Theo’s sisters in Our Mother. She may have left them, but they would be waiting, like the ever patient Lady, for her return. ”Thank you. They always need it that first couple of months.” Already, certain names were starting to crop up for her, names attached to public school records of similar offenses. She was always trying to redirect some new witch’s…enthusiasm into a more productive passion. That, however, did not always work.[break][break]

The wisdom passed down to Temperance from the last headmistress – from Theo’s mother, she always had to remind herself – had its limits. She had not felt prepared for the start of the Robespierre Academy, any more than she felt prepared for the school year or the issues that came with a building kept past its age by magic. She was beginning to fear, quietly and privately, that the veneer of Robespierre would further chip away the crumbling prestige of Our Lady. It was not an unfounded fear, but it was still a little ridiculous. There had always been other witch schools; there were always those who were not even fit to be invited into Our Lady. But Robespierre felt different, especially since Theo was behind it. It brought up strange anxieties that Temperance wanted desperately to put back to bed. ”You’ve got quite a mix over there. How is it – teaching all the others?” In her common day, Temp lived in the insular world of witches, and while she did not ascribe terrible names to the others, they were still not her people. To be with them, in command of them..it felt odd.[break][break]

Temperance gave her best noncommittal and diplomatic smile. ”I’m glad. It really has been a long time since we’ve spoken. My afternoon is free. Our Lady has waited a long time; she can stand to wait a little while more.” She picked up the incense she had come to buy and made her purchase quickly. ”That was always the first lesson, wasn’t it? ‘Magic comes from the bond; nurture the bond first,’” she had quoted the old adage of Theo’s mother without thinking until the words were out her mouth. Her smile dipped a wing into a frown, catching her mistake. She had not meant any barb, at least not that time.