bethen avilla ; the circle mage (bethe) wrote in thedas,
Ungodly hour or not, Bethen was almost always found in the library when she wasn't either in her room or in the dining hall, and even then, there were days when she would bring her meals to the archives (to the Senior Enchanter's chagrin, but she always cleaned up after herself and left things more clean than they were before she came in). One might be surprised how much work there was to be done, but given the vast number of books in the entirety of the building (at least two full floors worth, not counting private collections) and the number of residents who needed research materials each day, that she was so frequently busy with upkeep wasn't actually all that odd. And certainly some of her peers thought that putting books away or retrieving was a job best left for Tranquils, that it was beneath a mage's level and wasn't worth her time. But the training that Tranquils received to concentrate on their given task couldn't make up for the efficiency and dedication of Beth's passion. If she didn't know the title of every tome in the building and where exactly it resided by heart already, it would only be a few years until she did.
Not that it was in her plans to stay in the library forever. There were at least four drafts of a proposal that had already been scrapped, and one still in the works sitting on her desk, waiting for her to come back from her early hours of solitude in the stacks, her favorite time to work. Certainly a library by its very nature was more quiet than most places in the Tower, but it was even more peaceful in the time when it was just her, the books, and the Templars, who had grown used to her by now and no longer questioned why she was out of her quarters ahead of almost anyone else.
Needless to say, she wasn't anticipating any visitors when she heard someone call her name and looked up with surprise. "Constans?" If she didn't know every inch of his face so well by now, she almost wouldn't have recognized him in those robes. It was the color and the title associated with them that was more jarring than his presence in the room, even though it was rare that she would see him up at the crack of dawn. Had he...? Surely not, if it had been his time, word would've already come up through the vine faster than he would have been able to tell her in person. That was how it worked in a Tower occupied primarily by young adults with nothing better to do than talk idly of one another.
But she didn't have too much time to contemplate what clothes he was wearing or why, when the more important thing to focus on was the bright crimson that was staining them. In the process of leaping out of her chair to rush to his side, Beth dropped the quill that was in her hand and let it roll off the table, leaving a pool of ink to spread over the stone floor. Nevermind that; there was a more important fluid about to spill all over the place. She reached for his arm to steady him, lead him toward an open seat and settle him down in it before he collapsed on the spot. She gathered up the soaked material, pushing it up to see the wound for herself without a second thought to the fact that his blood was also dotting her own sleeves. She glanced up at him for only a second, "Maker's breath, what have you done?"
Without further word, she leaned over with grim determination set in her brow and clamped jaw, one hand still holding back fabric while the other hovered over the open skin. A faint blue glow emanated from her palm as she cast a spell to knit his flesh back together.