Welcome to Gaia! ::

She'd been deposited back in Ashdown without trouble. Exhausted, Temperance showered and slipped into bed, the crystal skull winking at her from her bedside table. Stretching out her fingers, she touched the skull, stroking it gently. "I'm... s-sorry," she whispered.

She'd skipped classes the next day.

And the next day, she texted Zac, asking him if he could come over. That she found something in that otherland and needed an opinion. It was a shoddy excuse for company, something that might make her feel better.

Temperance opened the door and ushered him in. Her studio was kind of messy and the only places to sit where her bed and the computer chair next to it. She waved vaguely to them before taking a seat on her half-made bed. The food was a nice thought, but she hadn't felt hungry these past couple of days.

"Zac, thanks for coming by. I-" She trailed off. The crystal skull winked on her bed and she picked it up, turning it over in her hands.

Temperance shoved a hand through her hair. "I went to other Ashdown. I just.. couldn't sleep, not well... since, since the ball and..." It was disorganized thinking that caused her words to trip over themselves like overeager college students at a free barbeque.

"It's... a skull. It's my f-fault, really, and this I have to carry and no matter what I did, it was wrong and-" She looked up. "In another cycle they lived."

Slowly, she told him about bits and pieces of what had happened to Per, to her. She hoped Per wouldn't appear in her dreams. How this skull was Per's and she had to carry it around - it was a constant reminder of failure. As she spoke, something ghostly formed around the skull, then flickered out. Temperance didn't notice.

"Zac, there's... so.. so much blood on my h-hands. This is just the newest ad-dition. I don't know what to do."

"It doesn't matter if I tried," she said fiercely. "How many more are going to d-die because I can't be competent enough? I'm just a stupid nursing student that no one even wants to take!" She'd tried magic and found nothing in her that could do it - and maybe that was because she hadn't tried the right way. But she'd seen how the nobles were and no one wanted her for that. She ran up against walls, smacking into the same ones again and again.

Being a good person meant nothing if she couldn't save anyone. "What remains. You must look after it," she said dully. Temperance remembered that sickening crunch. Dee had been wrong in some things, but so, so right in others. "It's meant as a reminder."

She looked at him tiredly, blankly. "It's not enough."

"Of course I know I'm not the only nurse who's- s**t, I'm not even a real nurse!" It came out harsher than she intended; she knew she wasn't special because people had bled out in her hands. But... if she were someone else, if she knew more, if she wasn't only a nursing student, maybe they would have all lived. Temperance had failed each and every one of them. If she closed her eyes, she could smell the blood, feel it sticky and slick on her fingers, soaking into her clothing, hear the crunch of small bones.

She sighed, and it was a shaky sound. "I... I'm sorry. You don't deserve this... I..." Temperance was lashing out and she knew it. "Maybe you should go," she finished, in a very small voice.

Temperance sighed and started to pull away, but his words stopped her. "Shadow? W-what do you mean?" She looked at the skull next to them. As of right now, it was simply a skull.