backscene: blood and magic Who: Aurin Demarc, Bethen Avilla, Constans Ledaal. Where: Kinloch Hold. When: A little over two years ago, and too damn early in the morning. Summary: Constans desperately needs Bethen's help, but what could he have been doing to get into so much trouble? Rating: T, for vague blood and pottymouth.
It wasn’t quite dawn, not that it would have been easy to tell. Windows were few and far between in the tower, most of them near the very top of the spire dozens of floors above. The imminently rising sun wasn’t what mattered about the time of day in a place where the sconces blazed just as brightly whatever the hour, but rather the all-important schedule. If one didn’t plan to play by the rules it was the most effective survival technique available to a Circle mage; know the timetables, be smart, and you could get away with anything.
Most importantly, for a short period before every dawn as the night watch were relieved and the morning shift prepared for duty, the Templars gathered for sermon and daily prayers in the chantry. The service was never long, but it meant that for almost a quarter of an hour in the dead quiet of the morning, well before most of the tower would even contemplate rolling blearily out of bed, only the barest skeleton crew of Templars manned the halls. For fifteen precious minutes a clever mage could roam nearly anywhere.
A tall, dark-haired young man walked with one hand pressed to the wall, a labored quality to his carefully measured strides. He wore the yellow-gold robes of a Harrowed mage, which on his part was a brazen lie. It had taken a great deal of effort and, yes, bribery to acquire them, but they were worth far more than he had paid in the freedom they provided. The Templars barely noticed mages of the first rank provided they weren’t acting suspicious, and he had learned by now to evade the guards who knew him by sight. Amazing that as simple a thing as differently colored robes very nearly gave him, a mere apprentice who should have spent most of his time confined to the first few floors, the run of the tower. They were his most valuable possession, and all he could think about right then was how he was going to ruin them with all this blood.
That he might simply bleed out and die there on the stone floor seemed less significant, somehow. He might have laughed at this thought, but when he began to chuckle the pain made him cough.
If he couldn’t find what he needed and soon, he would be discovered like this and that would sign his death warrant one way or the other. There were only a few places she could possibly be at this early hour, he knew, but all of them were woefully public and there was no time to go back if he chose poorly. With the halls silent save for the sound of his hitched breaths, he prayed he knew her well enough to get lucky and stalked stubbornly on toward the great library, supporting himself with one arm and pressing the other desperately to his chest.
When he stepped with caution into the echoing chambers of the library, he could see no movement within. His pulse fluttering with a combination of relief (I can’t be seen like this) and fear (Maker, I know we don’t have a very good relationship, but if I don’t get some help soon I’m going to die, and I don’t think you want me around mucking the afterlife up for everyone) in the stillness and gloom, it took him a few moments to hear the quiet shuffling of paper from around one of the stacks. He prayed that it was her and staggered forward to see, forgetting any pretense of nonchalance as his heart soared with hope.
“Bethen?” Bless her there she was, the only person he had ever known who would be insane enough to wake up this early just to shelve library books. As he leaned with relief against a bookcase in his ill-gotten robes he could feel warm blood dribbling through the thick, yellow cloth beneath his hand, spreading down his front in a creeping tide. He helplessly fixed Bethen with his most charming grin, hoping it devil-may-care enough to offset the horrible sight he must present right now.
“Don’t think I’m a pansy or anything,” Constans heard himself say, unable to keep his voice from breaking despite his best cheeky tone, “but I think I need some help.”