bethen avilla ; the circle mage (bethe) wrote in thedas,
He sounded weak, looked even worse, and it just went against better judgment to let him go outside in his current state. Much as he was joking with her, the thought did cross Beth's mind that someone like Lirana wouldn't be too pleased to find an apprentice sleeping in the bed on the opposite side of her wall, even if he was fully clothed. Though, how much harm could it have really done? It was only Constans. Given how much time she spent in his company in public, it wasn't the most far-fetched conclusion for anyone to draw about the exact nature of their relationship.
She wouldn't like the assumption, but she could live with it. There were more important things at stake. If she let him out of her sight, she ran the risk of letting him get caught before she could find out what was really going on for herself. It also didn't help that her maternal instincts had kicked in upon seeing just how pathetic he looked. Were she without ulterior motives, she would have wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and spend the day spoon-feeding him soup simply out of pity.
Beth frowned and shook her head, "I'd rather have people think...well. I'd rather you try to sleep it off here, than collapse in the middle of the hall or faceplant into your breakfast." But she didn't want to seem too insistent or pushy about the idea. He didn't need to think she was trying to keep him captive, or that this was some other kind of invitation. "Unless you have somewhere more important to be. I'm not going to stop you from leaving, but I'd be willing to risk that reputation if it meant you'd be safe and out of sight for a while."
"Regardless, I have to go clean up the Library. If you stay, I can get you some food and a health poultice on my way back to speed up your recovery. I still need to figure out what to do about those," she gestured at the stained shreds on the ground, "but by then, you should be well enough, and I think Aurin will be gone. We can pretend this whole thing never happened." The key word was pretend. Beth couldn't forget or just ignore what she knew. She had to know the truth, but she also had to make him believe he could keep trusting her.