Celene held very still, unsure if the pounding in her head meant she was safe, that she'd survived, or if it meant she'd been banished to some form of purgatory for failing her Harrowing. Her stomache rumbled angrily and she decided she wouldn't be hungry if she was in hell, and took the leap, opening her eyes cautiously. The familiar sight of her apprentice's dorm greeted her, and she realized the smell alone should've warned her she was home. Cold, slightly damp, old stone was the scent most of the circle mages lived with their whole lives, and you mostly stopped noticing it until you'd been for a walk on the grounds, or someone'd had perfume smuggled in.

A hovering figure finally caught her attention, but Celene couldn't bring herself to sit up quite yet.

"Are you alright?" Jowan asked, sounding more anxious than usual. "Say something, please!"

"Jowan?" she said, sitting up and finding it made her head pound worse to do so.

"I'm glad you're alright," Jowan said, his anxiety not sounding particularly allieviated. "They carried you in this morning, I didn't even realize you'd been gone all night."

Celene tried to smile reassuringly. Jowan was her closest friend, but it was more that she wasn't very close with anyone else than that she and Jowan had a special kinship. Still, she knew she'd feel awful if he had been gone for a day and she hadn't noticed his absence.

"I've heard about apprentices who never come back from Harrowings," he continued. "Is it really that dangerous? What was it like?"

"It was a test of ability-" Celene said, shrugging her shoulders and hoping her nonchalance would calm her friend. "That's all."

"There must be something more or they would tell the apprentices what's involved," Jowan said, his tone dangerously close to pleading, or begging. "I know I'm not supposed to know... but we're friends. Just a little hint, and I'll stop asking, I promise!"

Celene suppressed an external sigh, but didn't quite quash the internal one. Only Jowan would see fit to pressure her to talk about the Harrowing, when he knew it was forbidden, under the pretense of friendship. Then again, it would be nice for him to stop asking. Maybe it was the headache, or the Harrowing, but Celene's patience was stretched thin. Still, tolerance and kindness and patience were things she tried to maintain, even though sometimes on the inside she would've preferred a rude comment. She was unsure if that made her efforts more heroic or less.

"Patience- You'll go through it soon enough," she said, one of her watchwords accidentally slipping through.

"And now you get to move to the nice mage's quarters upstairs. I'm stuck here and I don't know when they'll call me for my Harrowing," Jowan said, crossing his arms and turning away. She didn't catch if he stomped his foot too, but it wouldn't have been any more childish.

"They'll summon you to the test when you're ready," she said sympathetically, feeling her sandpapery throat croak for water. What happened to the apprentices whose Harrowings took more than a day?

"I've been here longer than you have..." Jowan said pensively, and a mental picture of a slightly older than her, gangly little boy popped into Celene's head. "Sometimes I think they just don't want to test me."

Her fingers twitched unintentionally beneath the skirts of her robes. Lately she'd been hearing rumours about Jowan... They didn't say anything good. But rumours couldn't be enough to make First Enchanter Irving stop Jowan's Harrowing, could they?

"What are you talking about?" she said, the lie sliding smoothly and gracefully from her lips, even though it left behind a sour feeling in her stomache that had nothing to do with her growling hungriness.

"The Tranquil never go through a Harrowing," Jowan said. Celene winced minutely. She had some slightly heretical and entirely nonsensical superstitions about putting voice to things that you didn't want to happen, and sometimes even had trouble thinking bad things, but Jowan didn't appear to have her problems, spewing out awful scenarios like they were nothing. "You do the Harrowing, the Rite of Tranquility... or you die. That's what happens."

Cullen's face, unguarded for the brieftest of seconds right before she touched the lyrium for her Harrowing, flew across the expanse of her mind like a comet. How desperately sad he made her aside, Celene realized she had nothing to worry about, nothing she could honestly lay claim to. Of course there would always be the threat of death if there were too many rumours and too many believed them, but she'd passed her Harrowing. She was, relatively, safe.

"They're not going to kill you Jowan," she said determinedly, becauce if words could bring bad things into being, surely they could bring good.

"They might not, but the Rite of Tranquility is just as bad, maybe worse. You've seen Tranquil around the tower, like Owaine who runs the stock room. He's so cold. No, not even cold. There's just... nothing in him. It's like he's dead, but still walking. His voice, his eyes are lifeless..."

Celene knew from experience there was a guiltly red flush creeping up her neck. When she'd been younger she'd once said something about Owaine not being a person, and even though Tranquil didn't exactly have feelings, Celene wasn't entirely sure they felt nothing, because Owaine had seemed almost hurt. She'd apologized to him, but felt horrible ever since. She supposed that was what happened when you were cooped up in a tower with people, you never quite got past your mistakes.

"I think you're reading too much into it," she said, smiling too brightly as she tried to defend the Tranquil mage retroactively.

Jowan shook his head slightly, but gathered himself from his frettings. "I shouldn't waste your time on this. I was supposed to tell you to see Irving as soon as you woke up."

Hearing the First Enchanter's untitled name gave Celene a little jolt, but she said goodbye to Jowan calmly and tried to look as though she was supposed to be heading towards the kitchens, even though most everyone knew most everyone else's business within the tower. She passed by two girls who had never liked her very much on the way, and overheard them gossiping about how Cullen had said her Harrowing was the quickest and cleanest he'd ever seen, and that she was very talented, and very brave. She tried not to smile as she hugged the knowledge to her chest.

Celene sat in the dark, unwilling to go back to sleep after the dreams that had pounced on her. She'd always been a light sleeper, and the Fade had always pulled at her strongly, giving her vivid and strange dreams, but the ones she'd been assualted with tonight were unbearable. She couldn't remember what they were about now that sleep had fully deserted her, but the tears wouldn't stop flowing down her cheeks. Makerdamn Jowan, and his suprisingly not imaginary girlfriend Lily. She could already tell that her decision had been made, but she didn't have to like it. Helping Jowan would put her in a lot of trouble, especially if the rumours were true. Jowan had said they were probably born of him sneaking around with Lily, but so soon after Mouse had lied, Celene had felt the ring of untruth. Still, if someone could get out, be free... And it helped their case that Celene harboured her own inappropriate crush.

She knew every crack and line on her Templar's hands, even though they often wore gloves; she knew where his lips began, even through his helmet; and his eyes were so beautifully true it sometimes made her want to cry. She'd write poems of him if she could just think how to start. Or finish. Or anything in the middle that wouldn't get them into trouble. Her soul felt starved for him, but it wasn't something that could ever be fed.

Somedays she didn't understand how people could live like this. Other days, things felt fine, and she helped with the very young children, because she liked them and was good with them, and attended to her studies and chores. But then there were days like today, where she felt trapped, and like a sparrow that had once found it's way inside and then just wound up beating it's head against the glass, trying to get out.

Maybe someday they'd transfer him away, and he'd forget about her, and marry a nice normal girl, and any children they had wouldn't have the Circle or prejudices hanging over them like a noose ready to tighten at a moment's notice. He could be happy, and she could have an empty routine, and maybe not think of him so much, and at night she'd dream. She'd will dreams of him into being, and in her weaker moments imagine that he dreamed of her too.

She wiped the tracks of tears down her cheeks roughly away and pushed herself off her new bed in her new quarters, though the rough treatment didn't stop new tears from forming. She needed to be positive, in addition to kind, patient, and tolerent. A walk would clear her head, she decided, padding softly out of the room, the floor cold enough beneath her feet that even when she hit a rug her bones still ached. Celene didn't bother throwing any more clothes on than her night gown, glowing white in the semidarkness and brushing against her ankles, even though the cold was painful deep in her sunstarved bones; she liked the reminder that she was still alive, and while there were plenty of Templars who might mutter about teaching a mage girl a thing or two, most were too scared to try it.

When her feet led her to the Templars' guarded door without her permission, Celene admitted she had a problem. Perhaps helping Jowan and Lily escape would get her sent to the mage's prison, and she could be out in the open while they took her there, and then waste obsoletely away. It would be more than spending a long life within the circle, spreading false hope and wasting away on the inside instead of out. And she didn't appear to be strong enough to stay away.

Maybe it wouldn't matter after tomorrow, she bargained with herself on her way back. And maybe, if it didn't matter anymore tomorrow, there might be a moment, just one, outside of these ties that bound her, and threatened to break her. Maybe there could be one stolen moment of his arms around her, and the Maker wouldn't resent her enough to take it away. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.