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 Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:17 am
[ Unmasked Temperance: 25/25 worried bout u girl] "D-dead? How do you know?" Temperance looked at the girl closely, frowning at the way she seemed more air than substance. She was ready to believe five hundred things she'd never thought possible - this might not even be the weirdest thing. She tangled her fingers in the ribbons in her hand; maybe that was what the girl meant - Temperance could save someone. Or maybe not. She hesitated, but spoke again. "I'm Temperance." She wasn't giving out her full name to weird creatures, but her first name was even a regular word. "Do you know where you were before waking up?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 11:51 am
"I was... in my bed," she says. "I'd decided to... die. I didn't want anyone to see me as less than I was." She looks at her hands. "Why am I here," she asks again, bewildered. "This isn't how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be free of this awful, stupid body, I was supposed to be alone! Now they'll know and they'll remember me like--" She cuts off, distressed and wide-eyed.
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 3:10 pm
"Hey, it's okay." Temperance reached out to lay what she hoped was a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder. She wasn't sure if it'd be solid enough, but it was worth a shot. "Maybe you're still here because your parts not done yet. To help someone." It was all conjecture, but it was a nice sentiment if true. "Were you human? I know, odd question, but-"
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 5:24 pm
Temperance's hand passes through Vivien's shoulder, leaving it wet with strange lavender-scented water. "I was human," she says. "I was... I was engaged, I was going to be... someone... I was going to be happy." She blinks at Temperance. "You're human," she says. "Aren't you?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 6:02 pm
"I do try to be human most days." She tried to make it into a quip, but it just reminded her of how powerless she felt, how out of depth. But this all wasn't about her, after all. Vivien shimmer in front of her, wetly. A sad little cloud, Temperance thought. "If... if you were going to be happy - why did you decide to die?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 11:06 pm
"I was going to die either way," she says. "Everyone thought I was crazy. I saw things. I went... places..." Vivien trails off. "They had to remember me better. I was sick..."
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 6:21 am
"Did you think you were crazy? What if the places you saw were real? You're here, after all." Temperance chewed on her bottom lip. Even though she was here, still present in some function, there had been no happy ending for this girl. "Where did you go - was it... was it the version of Ashdown with the rain?" A long shot, but she had to ask.
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 5:16 pm
"No," says Vivien, suddenly, viciously, flaring into realness right there before Temperance's eyes. She is suddenly, somehow, solid; her will made flesh in a heartbeat. "I'm not crazy! I never was. They were real places! Real things! I saw--I saw my fiance grown old without me, my mother dying alone--a world where I never got to grow older! And I wanted to change it, but it was too late, and they all thought I was insane!"
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 9:34 pm
Temperance's mouth gaped a bit. Was.. was she solid, now? She shook herself out of it and listened to the girl. "You weren't crazy, but you saw a world you didn't live in. Did you make it a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Temperance paused. "I'm sorry." Sorry that people hadn't believed her, that she had died, that maybe her question was rude, that all that was left was a ghost of a girl. "Why are you here?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 12:27 pm
"No," says Vivien. "I had... I had a tumor. They couldn't... couldn't do anything for it. It wouldn't shrink. It wouldn't go away... I was going to die. So I made it happen in a manner of my choosing." She looks at her hands, turns them over before her. "I wanted him to come back. My fiance. My Liam. I know why he couldn't... help me. I wanted him to know that I understood. But I saw him, and I couldn't do it. He looked so sad and alone and..." Vivien looks at Temperance with clear gray eyes. "I loved him. I would have done anything for him. But he didn't do everything for me."
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 2:54 pm
"I understand," she said, and she did. "You were very brave." Terminal illness was a horrible thing, and for some people, the ability to choose their own death - to have that final measure of control - was important. For others, fighting until the very end was their way of control. Different ways and she could find fault with neither, although Temperance had been taught to discourage the first. Liam with the sick fiancee - it seemed familiar, like the echo of something she knew. Her mouth twisted. While cancer was hard on everyone, for him to have left her in such a time... Temperance wanted to knock some sense into his head. "He didn't deserve you - I know, words coming too, um, late, and all that, but still. What would you want from him, want him to do, if you saw him now?" The cogs in Temperance's brain tried to turn. "Who... who are, were you?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:00 pm
"I would want him to explain," she says. "I want to know why. I've always wanted to know why. He said he loved me..." She looks at her hands again, like she can't believe they're there. "My name is Vivien Hawken," she says. "Was. Vivien Hawken. I went to MIT. I was going to... I was going to change the world."
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:47 pm
"Vivien... Vivien, oh, I've heard about you. You've been through a lot." Temperance wanted to tell her she still could change the world, but she didn't know if that was true. From a philosophical standpoint, Vivien changed the world just by existing, by floating there in her drippy, lavender way. "Can we go find him? Or, um, you - but if you need any help, I'm here." Temperance's fingers tangled up anxiously in the ribbons on her mask.
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