The Egoverse was quiet.
Not from stillness.
From alignment.
The forge of Diligence still glowed with effort. The lantern of Charity cast warmth across the soil of memory. The tree of Humility swayed gently beside the Throne Eternal, its leaves whispering truths.
Then came Temperance.
She did not descend.
She emerged—from the space between extremes, from the silence between storms. Her robes were woven from twilight—half light, half shadow. Her eyes held no judgment, only equilibrium.
She carried a chalice.
But it was empty.
Pride rose.
Temperance stepped forward, her presence neither soft nor stern. She did not smile. She did not frown. She simply existed—balanced, whole.
"You have remembered," she said. "You have healed. You have endured. You have given. You have built."
She raised the chalice.
"But can you hold your power without drowning in it?"
Pride looked into the chalice.
It reflected not his face—but his extremes.
His rage.
His silence.
His hunger.
His restraint.
Temperance placed the chalice in his hands.
"You must fill this," she said. "Not with dominance. Not with denial. With balance."
She turned, leaving behind a single scale—its arms perfectly aligned, its base rooted in the soil of memory.
It settled beside the Throne Eternal, not as a judgment, but as a compass:
Power is not in control. It is in harmony.