Beatrice

Beatrice spent roughly four centuries guarding a library she could not leave, waiting for the one person destined to come for her — and was found instead by someone who had no idea who she was waiting for and decided she was worth saving regardless.

Background

Created by Echidna, the Witch of Greed, Beatrice was given a duty she could not refuse: guard the Forbidden Library in Roswaal's mansion and wait for a specific person whose arrival would end the contract. The terms gave her reason to drive away everyone else, and she exercised that right for four hundred years. When the terms of the waiting stopped making sense, Subaru found her before she had decided what to do next.

Powers & Abilities

Ability	What it does
Yin Magic / Quasi-Spirit Contracts	Contracts with quasi-spirits give her access to exceptional magical reserves; her base power is significantly above what should be available to a spirit of her class
Dona Dona	Manipulates gravitational force in the space around her, trapping opponents within an irregular field
Al Shamac	Tears a target briefly out of the current timeline — a high-cost ability with significant consequences for repeated use
Spirit Contract (Subaru)	After contracting with Subaru, she draws on his gate to fuel abilities she could previously only use sparingly

Personality

Brusque, dismissive, and pointedly uninterested in being moved by anything. Her affectations of disinterest are four centuries old and very thoroughly practised. The version of Beatrice that Subaru reaches under them is neither a different person nor a hidden one — it is the part she stopped letting anyone close enough to see when waiting started to feel like it had no end.

Relationships

• Subaru Natsuki — the person who decided she was worth saving without knowing the terms of the contract she was bound by, and whose contract she accepted for the same non-logical reason he offered it
• Emilia — the person Beatrice is now allied with by extension; their relationship is functional and occasionally warm in a way that neither of them makes a point of naming
• Ram — a fellow resident of Roswaal's mansion; a sustained mutual wariness that functions as a kind of respect

Role in the Story

Beatrice represents Re:Zero's argument about isolation as a defence — that waiting for the right person is a reasonable strategy until you have waited so long you no longer believe they exist. At that point, someone has to choose to find you anyway, and the series uses Subaru's specific irrational stubbornness as exactly the right instrument for that task.