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Candlelight carries the dust as Faye brushes it from her robe. It’s a nice purple, round-collared one that’s sat in her underbed storage for a year, pushed away from her uniform blue and grey robes. As standard they’re given two. One to wash, and one to wear. None to consider your ‘finest’. She’d managed three, the third having been sweet-talked out of Mihael, a templar who always managed to mess up duties enough to be stuck on laundry duty with crotchety Vanya. Having gone just a step beyond courtesies - laughing to let him think he was funny, smiling at him even when he was grumpy - she’d been trusted enough to collect her own things. Trusted enough to not be noticed as she folded another robe into her own. When he realised, he hadn’t turned her in, but he didn’t speak to her anymore. Neither of them had gotten into trouble and she had genuinely enjoyed talking with him, and the robe had honestly been left in that pile for weeks - these are the things she remembers to make herself feel less manipulative.
The third robe is for her Harrowing. She can’t risk having one robe in the laundry and the other worn all day, it’d inevitably have stains from potions, or the a drip from the ceiling, or Jowan’s wild gesturing with his fork at lunch. It wasn’t vanity so much as appeasing. Greagoir has this idea in his head that the most primly dressed mages were the least likely to become abominations, or something along those lines. (Which didn’t make any sense, because pride demons.) She can behave around templars, she can complete her assignments on time. She doesn’t enjoy it, and she wouldn’t say she was good at it, but she can do it. The robe - just a bit too big as she slides it over her head - was a little something more. Maybe, if she excelled once, she’d be excused just a little bit in the future.
It’d be nice if Irving or Greagoir recognised resisting a demon as the feat it is. She takes a seat in front of the mirror. The girl reflected back doesn’t look like she could house a demon. From the inside out, Faye isn’t as sure.
The ends of her hair are uneven from templar scissors. (She would cut it herself, but sometimes Cullen was the one tasked with haircuts, and he was nice and listened to instruction.) She combs it and lets herself girlishly wonder if she should wear it up or down. Up, she decides. The length of her hair lends itself to a feral look when she’s exhausted, and she didn’t want to emerge from the Fade looking anything but a better version of herself. Would they be able to tell from her eyes? The indigo of her eyes is solid, there was no wavering grey or green for the demon to slip into. Would they not even take the moment to meet her eyes before striking her down?
There is an hour until her Harrowing. She closes her eyes to the idea of it. Senior Enchanter Sweeney needs help organising the shelves after Davyd’s last prank, Rodric’s offered her chess rematch and she’s still (still) muddling through a thesis on the fraternities. Of course she’ll survive. These things won’t get done without her. This doesn’t reassure her like she’d meant for it to; it all congeals together into a heady nauseating pressure in her head.
Her eyes refocus on the grey brick wall. This could be any room in the tower at all. She turns her face away. Nineteen years of her life were spent being prepared for her Harrowing, it was pointless to waste her last hour sitting around. Sweeney would probably appreciate if things were seen to.