bethen avilla ; the circle mage (bethe) wrote in thedas,
The mage didn't pull away from the light sensation on her shoulder, but it was not nearly as comforting or reassuring a gesture as intended. Bethen only felt guiltier for having possibly come off as accusatory or supercilious; she hadn't meant to be so abrasive, and the last thing she wanted was to push anyone away, yet she didn't think she was entirely wrong to point out how great a challenge it was for Deidre to comprehend the full gravity of being a mage. She mostly regretted having expressed the thought in such an unpleasant, awkwardly blunt manner. Her feeling of culpability over her tone and her choice of words made her cheeks burn, and she couldn't look at the cleric as she felt the fingers touch her and then retract.
It was the question the sister asked that caused her to glance back, and the movement of her eye allowed for a single tear to fall free from its corner. "I did," she affirmed with a nod, "I did believe it. How could I not? I was seven years old when the templars came for me. I hadn't done anything wrong, I hadn't hurt anyone. But my parents let me go. I had to wonder... If they loved me, if they didn't think I was a monster, why would they just let me go?" Her voice was trembling, primarily with sorrow, but there were still traces of hurt and anger. She ran a thumb under her eyes to dry her cheekbones, sniffling just a little. "I understand now that they were just protecting our family, and they had little other choice. They thought they were doing the right thing for everyone, including me. But it hurt then, to think that my own parents hated me so much that they would have me locked up in a Tower. And how could I not believe that I was worth less than other people when I was treated that way? That I shouldn't want or didn't deserve the same things as normal people do, when I was completely abnormal?" At some point, her idle hand had balled into a fist at her side, fingernails digging crescents into her palm before she consciously unclenched it.
Bethen turned her head down again, staring at the well-trodden dirt of the road under them, hesitant to expose her innermost insecurities. But Dee said the truth was important to her, and she knew that she wouldn't be judged for the following confession: "For the longest time...I hated myself, hated what I am. I don't feel that way anymore, but I know that I will never be an equal in society. I could save an entire nation, and still be scorned for alleged sins that I never committed." Unspoken was that she had abandoned religion for this very reason. She had truly given up on Andraste's vision when she wanted to stop experiencing self-loathing because of how it was interpreted by her followers. But she had expressed enough of her resentment toward the faith already not to feel like entering an even heavier debate on religion, especially not with a priest.
While she had been prepared to tell Dee about her childhood anguish, she had been completely thrown by her second query regarding the nature of her relationship with Aurin. Had her face not already been colored from being on the verge of crying, she would have been flushed then. "As...as a friend, I mean," answered the Warden, finally. She was a terrible liar, but there was enough veracity to that statement that she hoped it wouldn't seem so conspicuous. "Just to be near him, to laugh with him, to be someone he can confide in, without having to feel...ashamed. Or worried that something bad will happen because of it." That was the minimum of the way she wanted to be with him, but it made her uncomfortable to repeat to a woman of the cloth just what sort of feelings Aurin had awakened in her, feelings that she was led to believe were reciprocated to some degree. While he hadn't been explicit, those small moments of tension and underlying desire were not one-sided or imagined on her part. And that realization changed everything.