bethen avilla ; the circle mage (bethe) wrote in thedas,
Beth thought her question had been simple, innocent, and that his answer would be completely innocuous, but when he looked back at her with those serious eyes, rich and blue like an ocean (and she had never seen the ocean until coming to Amaranthine, but now she had a visual reference to compare them to), so much depth of emotion contained within them...her heart sank. Aurin spoke her name, and then he spoke the truth, and every word was like a small knife to her chest. It was enough of a confession to know that what she'd thought the other day was true; not only that he did feel what she felt, but that she was ruining him, wasn't she? She was the embodiment of temptation and sin, though she had never meant to be that weakness for him. She only ever wanted to support him and be a good friend, to care for him, to love him in the way that he had always deserved... But everything that should have been wonderful and good about how they felt was apparently wrong and evil. And it hurt to think that, and to think that he had to believe it, too. Why else would he have said it that way?
The mage closed her eyes when he grew silent, and opened them again when he made his plea. It was difficult not to smile at a face like that. It was also a challenge not to want to run screaming from the room in agony and frustration, at the sheer unfairness of life and everything that bastard of a Maker had handed to her. She chose to smile at him, even if it was awkward and half-hearted, keeping the package in her lap and under her palms, though perhaps it would have made her life infinitely simpler to throw it at his earnest expression and stop speaking to him for the rest of her numbered days. Her voice was weak, throat feeling oddly parched, as she replied in as even a tone as she could manage, "I'll take it, of course, Aurin."
He kept looking at her like that, wide-eyes and bright smile, and she wasn't sure if she could maintain the pent up irritation that was wound up tightly in every part of her body. If Beth looked like she was tense, it's because she was; her heart, like her mind, was racing. She was trying to recover from the blow that his words had dealt, but it was hard to feel genuinely amicable when he was being so incredibly cruel. If she was sending him mixed messages, he was hardly any clearer. In silence, Bethen studied the simple wrapping on the gift, running her fingers over what she thought would be the spine of the book for any clues, but found none. It was easier to try and figure out what was under that paper than what was inside his head. She finally spoke again, lifting her eyee up to meet his, trying her best to sound easy-going, "But... I still feel like I should make up for this, somehow." She frowned, "And don't tell me something like 'coming back to you alive' is enough. It should be something...tangible. Real. Something to remember me by, too."
She paused, thinking of one thing that fit that description, and for one fleeting second, the idea of being sinful had its appeal. "Aurin..." Bethen said quietly, and slowly rose from her seat, one hand holding the book, while the other reached out for him. She ran her fingers through his hair, brushing it back, and brought them around to rest on his cheek as she leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on the opposite side of his face. Her voice had been reduced to a whisper as she pulled back to look at him, "Thank you, again." She lingered there for another beat or two, and that was about as much as she could stand.
The woman broke her steady gaze and pulled back, taking two steps away to lean against the desk, as if nothing had happened, at all, and there had been no break in their conversation. "I'll have to come up with something before we leave. I'm guessing we have about...I don't know, a couple of days left here. That's time enough to go into town."