i. basics
Card: 14. Temperance
Character Name: Aalin Pace
Faceclaim: Morena Baccarin
Age: 38
Gender & Pronouns: Female, she/her
Outside Occupation: UX Designer
ii. character interview
If you could be in charge, would you be? What would you do?
“I’ve been in charge before. I’ve led teams of disparate people, I’ve tried to hold their hands and maneuver them through trials and tribulations, I’ve succeeded and I’ve failed. While there is great satisfaction in a job well done along with the knowledge that you were instrumental in getting there, there are so many drawbacks. The blame, if given, rests squarely on your shoulders. Tempers flare and you’re the one they attack. At times it’s like herding cats. Cats that are on fire and refuse to be put out.”
Her answer seemed to please The World. There was a nagging feeling that Aalin had once known this person, but she couldn’t remember the specifics. It was quite infuriating, if she was being honest. A puzzle she would never be able to solve, not if what The World had told her was true. She would be limited to the stacks of journals held within these walls. Second hand information. It wasn’t the way Aalin liked to learn, but she supposed it would suffice. For now.
Aalin shook her short crop of hair over her shoulder. “Over the years, I’ve learned I like to lead from the sidelines, if at all. My skills are more useful than my leadership, I think. People forget you’re there if you’re not the one standing in the middle of the room shouting your opinion and marching orders, leaving much more room to soak up information. You learn something about the people on your team when they think you’re not listening, more than they’d ever tell you to your face. Not to mention the amount of time I have for my own education. Leading can be so tiresome and time consuming.” She let out an exasperated sigh, remembering all too well how exhausting the launch of Google News was, despite its success.
It was the most Aalin had spoken uninterrupted in years. She liked how The World let her say her peace, even though it felt like every word was being analyzed for some greater purpose. Aalin was used to that, though she was more used to being the one doing the analyzing. A quizzical look blossomed across her face, genuine curiosity in her words. “How does anyone get anything done when they’re in charge?”
What is your favorite part of your power?
When I first came to “The Lair”, I found only a few fellow Councilors, the beginnings of my new family. Immediately, I felt their abilities slamming into my brain and could no longer deny The World and her claims of magic and the Arcana Council. As soon as I felt their powers, however, they were gone. No...not gone...suppressed. Hiding beneath the surface, bubbling under a fog. Had I done that?
The World called it “Power dampening”, but some of my peers called it something far more crass. It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t control it yet, but I have to admit it was calming not to have everyone waving their abilities around all willy nilly. The Empress was the only one I really trusted, until a new member came in soon after me. They seemed more grounded than the rest, more willing to keep the balance the world so desperately needs.
No wonder they call me Temperance.
I never noticed before I came here, how much the anxiety inducing meetings got to me back in the “real” world. The men swinging their egos around, mousy women taking anything they threw at them, and the ones who wanted to argue any point with any person who would listen. It was chaos and I just shut it out and went to work. No wonder no one ever noticed me. Even here with all the large personalities, it was a wonder The Lovers even saw me unless I was taking away their abilities.
Read us a journal entry from your first life.
Journaling has always brought me peace. I would have kept one even if The World had not asked us to, though to be honest, it would have contained many different entries, I’m sure. I know some of the others detest the assignment or feel it’s beneath them, but I agree with The World’s idea to keep our lives recorded, and from our own perspectives. How interesting it could be to reread these tomes after centuries away from that point in our lives.
I still find myself coming to terms with my newfound abilities. Magic has and always will be a force of balance, but I find myself off-kitler as I adjust. The Ancients warned us of this, but you never really know a feeling until you’ve felt it. Every time I walk into a room, I feel the others’ abilities as if they were tangible entities I could reach out and hold, and I feel myself softening them until they’re almost indistinguishable. More practice is needed, to be sure. At times the others’ abilities are too overwhelming, even when they’re not being used. I can still feel them, hanging in the air around me. I can tell some of my new companions despise my power. They tend to forget I’m there, until they can no longer wield their powers.
Perhaps that is why I was chosen. To keep the balance.
I’ve never faltered when it comes to balance. I find myself dancing on the precipice of light and dark, “good” and “evil”, chaos and serenity, never tipping one way or the other. My companions seem to have a harder time staying on one side or the other, when they should be toeing the line between. But that is not their strength, and I understand that.
If only they did. If only they learned to lean on their fellow Councillors for their strengths. Perhaps with time we shall grow and harmonize the way the Ancients want us to. I’m optimistic, but I feel the other Councilors’ gifts and can sense how dangerous they would be if used for selfish purposes, if used without the rest of us to balance.
iii. background
Balance. Life and death. A new soul comes screaming into the world as another peacefully fades out of it. This is how Aalin entered this iteration of her life, with the truest sense of harmony and symmetry. On the clear night in December, as a fresh snow was falling over the hospital grounds in Ashland, Oregon, Aalin Pace came kicking and screaming into being, replacing the soul of her mother. The doctors had known it would be a difficult birth, but Nooma demanded to go through with the pregnancy. Aalin was to be her little miracle, even if it killed her. And that she was, even if Nooma wouldn’t be around to see it.
In childhood, Aalin was a calm and obedient child. She was bright, but never tried to outshine anyone. ‘Easy going’ and ‘kind’ were the two go-to words used most often to describe the child who never seemed to have any squabbles. In fact, most people felt so much more at ease around her that whatever argument they were having seemed to falter.
Ever the mediator and with a scholastic reputation, Aalin was picked constantly for group projects, sometimes even when she’d rather work alone. The value of having the smartest girl in class in your group was not lost on her classmates, but more times than not, she was quickly forgotten as the rest of her peers vied for the coveted title of “project leader”. Aalin would simply roll her eyes and put her nose back in her books, all too aware that the “leader” really was more of a figurehead than a contributing member of the group. The rest of her team may wish to fail, but she would not.
It wasn’t until she entered the graduate design program at UC Stanford that Aalin really understood what it was that was missing in her life. She never truly felt like she belonged, never felt like she was seen or appreciated for the talents she possessed. Most of the time she didn’t mind playing second fiddle to the more rambunctious people around her, but sometimes it would be nice to be noticed. Her classmates stampeded over her despite their lack of natural ability, and though Aalin was one of the most easy going people you could ever meet, she wasn’t about to flunk out of school because she didn’t have a backbone. Her mother hadn’t given her life so that she could have one to let it be squandered.
So Aalin but her nose to the grindstone and worked. She worked in the background while her roommates went to keggers, she worked when her best friends dragged her out to bars only to forget she was there 15 minutes after getting there. She worked harder than she ever had, and she gained the attention of more than a few tech companies that were springing up all over Silicon Valley. While her peers were fighting cutthroat campaigns to get job offers from any worthy company, Aalin focused simply on doing a good job. She even helped some of her classmates study, but when push came to shove, it wasn’t her peers who got the holy grail offer.
Google, a new company in Palo Alto, California, wanted her. As it turned out, Aalin picked the best possible study buddies, a pair of PhD students who wanted to branch off and create a new tech research company. They were blown away by her academic achievements and her enduring personality and offered her not an internship but a fully staffed position at their new office. Aalin still wasn’t sure she found her niche, but every day that she walked into the conference room for a morning round up, she felt a genuine smile pop up on her face. Still usually the quiet girl in the back, Aalin listened and soaked up every tidbit of information she could get. The company’s code of conduct “Don’t Be Evil” truly resonated with the young woman and she couldn’t imagine herself in a better place.
That is, until a being calling themself The World entered her life.
It was 2004 and Google had just released their IPO, effectively becoming the future force to be reckoned with, all thanks to Aalin. It was a write up in Time that got The World’s attention, they explained to a very confused Aalin. The existence of magic, of past lives and revoked immortality sent her reeling. However there was a bit that hung in her mind, unwilling to be explained away by logic. The World had called her Temperance and explained that she was the embodiment of balance and compromise. She saw into Aalin’s soul and spoke things no one had ever bothered to ask about or try to see. It was as if she had been truly seen for the first time in her life – in this life – and Aalin wasn’t ready to let that feeling go.