 |
|---|
|
| Players |
|
|
Factions |
|
|
Music |
|
|
Prue has a heart-to-heart with her future self about passions and regrets.
May 30, 2022
Hyperion Hotel, San Francisco
"I couldn't find one. Sorry."
Prue brushes her blonde hair over her shoulder again, tossing the handmade paper box down onto the desk before her.
Prue's past self, dark-haired and shorter-haired, looks up from the future Book of Shadows. She shuts the book lightly and sets it onto its rostrum again. "It's okay. I think between us all, we gave him enough to sketch on. Phoebe says he's an amazing artist."
Future Prue smiles a thin, tentative smile, but comfort showed uncommonly on her face. "He is. He's been good to us."
"Champion," past Prue chuckles, walking over to lift the box's lid. She reaches down to take a stack of the photographs inside.
Some are printouts, some are developed traditionally. Presumably they were done whatever way was most possible at any time, whether by way of toner or chemicals and supplies that may have been easier to come up with. The juxtaposition of the grim subjects and people drained of hope with the pert, glossy images seems almost comical. Almost.
Prue can see a wordless chronicle of time passage. She's not sure exactly when each picture was taken, but she can extrapolate more some of them, based on what she already knows and recalls from her time.
"It's one of the only things that I kept." The older, blonde Prue offers.
Her younger self looks up from the photos in her hand. It takes her a few seconds, before she looks back down and up again, then sets the stack atop the others in the box. "I thought the...perspective, you could say, looked familiar."
"It's stupid, I put it down for a while when things started to get weird." The blonde settles half-sitting on the desk. "You know what's ridiculous?"
"Phoebe's 'fashion forward' nightmares?" Prue from the past gave a soft laugh.
Her future self echoes it, nodding and then holding up a hand, shaking her head. "Besides that. I actually ran Buckland's."
It comes as a surprise to the brunette Prue. "You...ran Buckland's?"
"Right up to the end," her older self replies. "I thought with things going a little...crazy, it would give me some kind of stability. I held on to it as long as I could, but...after a point, it just wasn't possible anymore. The city was just falling apart." She shook her head. "We were all falling apart."
"I'm sure you did everything you could." Prue reached out to place her hand on her older self's arm. "Which is kind of surreal to be saying to myself, but at least I have a pretty good idea that it's accurate."
"I did," the blonde Prue answers. "I really did. But if there's one regret I have, it's ever taking that up again. I should have just stuck with my photography. Now all I've got is...sad pictures of empty faces." She picks up the box top and wedges it back on. "If you can get back home, promise me one thing?"
The younger Prue nods instantly.
The future Prue leans closer, placing her hands on her past self's shoulders, looking right into her eyes.
"Don't ever put it down. And don't look back. Don't go back to Buckland's. Don't beat yourself up over what's past. Just keep moving, keep going, and be there. You're...you've got it right. You're taking that step, right now. I know, I remember it. Keep on that path, no matter what happens. Just for a little longer, and I promise it'll lead to better things than this. Just...don't stop and get afraid. Don't let fear win." She squeezes both hands. "Don't let Barbas win."
Prue of the past reaches up to take her own hands, and they're rougher, harder, and colder than her own. "I promise," she replies, barely above a whisper. "I will never let fear stop me from living. If there's one thing I've learned from seeing this place, it's not to live life with a bunch of regrets. And I'm not saying that to cast aspersions on anybody here, I just..."
"I know." Blonde Prue smiles a tiny bit more. "That's what I'd say too."
"Well, technically you are saying it, just...five years ago." The younger Prue chuckles, reaching up and releasing one hand, to brush her fingertips through her own future hair. "So, blonde. I can't say I saw that coming."
"It was a...it was totally a The Craft thing," the future Prue explains, mood lightened. "Remember that scene where they change their hair color? Maybe it's just me doing something crazy, to make up for all the things I never did that I wish I had."
"And it outdid the kinda sorta dirty blonde Phoebe did for a while."
"And that." Prue of the future laughs. "I can teach you how. It's ridiculously easy."
"It's not...personal gain, is it?" The past Prue straightens up to stand taller, smiling.
"Nah," her counterpart replies. "Even if it were, the Whitelighters aren't here to hassle us about it. But I'm one hundred percent sure that little tricks like this don't count as personal gain. If you can't use magic to revive the sense of wonder in yourself, what's magic for at all?"
The younger Prue pauses to think it over, then nods her head. "I like the way you think."
And they both laugh.