[ For a time the book is quiet, its pages still. Passive. Minutes tick by — slowly at first and faster as the other shoe fails and fails and fails to fall. If Ellis is feeling especially optimistic, he might allow himself to suppose that the issue is resolved.
Presently, a leggy black cat stops cold in her wandering along the wall line at the far side of the yard. She bobs her head.
She croaks at him, inaudible at a distance, teeth and tongue peeked white beneath the wide goggle of her eyes. ]
One that shouldn't be met with immediate unease, and yet—
Well, surely the moment of hesitation is forgiven once Ellis lays down his mace, crosses the yard with the air of a man embracing his fate. Folding down, Ellis makes himself very low, holds out hands to Thot.
"Come here then," he coaxes. "On your own, are you?"
There’s a little arch at her back that coils down into a roll across packed earth and stone. For a beat, she is all snake belly and elbows and webbed claws. He should come to her.
Before he can, she pancake flops to her feet and dashes away for the keep.
It’s not long at all before Tricky Dick emerges onto the scene, distinct in vest and tall boots and a tunic (he might count as casual) rolled at the sleeves -- leagues sharper than when Ellis saw him last. There’s a storm blue on the horizon, not close enough yet for the breeze to beat back the stickiness of the sun’s heat, and he glances to its shadow as he crosses the yard. Curiously, Thot trots at his heels rather than cut ahead to guide the way.
"Alright?" he inquires through his teeth, once he considers himself Arrived. If he spent more time with Tony, air quotes might be involved.
Perhaps the only saving grace with Ellis is that there is never any indication of malice. When he holds up both hands, it's in a mix of apology and placation.
"I don't know what you wanted me to say," is true.
There are ideas Ellis can't (won't) entertain. Richard had been treading along those lines, and there's every indication that he will likely continue on to make his point. This is the trouble with conversations begun late at night, spurred on with exhaustion and pain. Ellis had never intended for them to continue on in the daylight.
"I'm sorry," follows after, genuine. There is a splotch of ink between thumb and forefinger, blotchy along the delicate web of skin there.
Venom stirring in the tilt to Richard’s shoulder and the sliver of his eyes settles after a delay for suspicion. His feathers smooth with it, and there’s something of Thot the Hawk in his bright-eyed reconsideration of Ellis’ raised hands, his contrition. Could he be overreacting? He kicks up a brow, takes in a breath.
No, it’s wardens who are wrong.
“‘I’m in the training yard,’ would have been a safe start.”
Still. The acidic sizzle in his inflection is gone and his posture has straightened out. Between them, little goblin hands have found Ellis’ thigh as Thot the Cat stretches up to prick needle claws through his pant leg. She blinks up at him as she reaches.
“We can ferry to Kirkwall if you’d prefer to speak outside of the Gallows.”
Would he prefer to speak outside the Gallows? Whether or not he would prefer to speak at all is besides the point. Richard is here. Ellis is already bending to lift Thot, folding himself down to encourage her up into his arms.
"Seems a long way to go," he observes, straightening with his feline cargo.
And what is the use of inflicting his company on Richard through the ferry trip, the passage from dock to preferable Kirkwall location?
Even with exhaustion and pain marring the memory, Ellis knows he might have left well enough alone then. And that he'd made a mistake in assuming Richard would leave it all there, to dissipate at the dawn. He tucks Thot into the crook of an arm, gaze lifting from her to Richard's face.
"But it doesn't matter to me," he says evenly. "Either way, we might find somewhere to sit."
Polite as it may have been to offer, Dickerson doesn’t seem at all surprised by Ellis’ disinclination to take him up on it. His memory isn’t at all obscured. He’d said they’d continue the conversation, and he’d meant it.
“There is a table in my quarters,” he says.
Thot’s stretched like a drop of pitch in his grasp, hind claws late leaving the ground, only to kick up at ease in the crook of Ellis’ arm once she’s nestled there. She splays her toes, flicks her tail, stretches one paw to touch under Ellis’ chin and past it, aiming to curl grasping fingers over his lip.
Richard ignores her -- a stern, static figure in his vest and boots and a faint prickle of sweat he doesn’t care for.
“Unless you have more neutral territory to suggest.”
Ellis tips his head back out of Thot's reach, gamely allowing the poke of her little toes to prod at the underside of his chin. Grasping fingers limited to chin and throat, a generous prospect surely.
It does affect the angle at which he can study Richard, but needs must.
"I don't."
Because the alternatives are common areas and his own quarters, and Ellis is aware of his own need for an exit route. (One which even includes leaving the entire island for Kirkwall proper, if it comes to that.)
"I've finished here, for the time being."
True enough. The yard has quieted, with the exception of what sounds like a mage having at the targets on the far side beyond the armory. But that's not something Ellis can assist with, and is thus not for him to worry about. He tips his head toward the towers. Lead on.
The best that can be said for Thot’s efforts is that she keeps her claws in now that she’s been lifted, cold nubs at the lead of whatever grasping touch.
Richard nods to acquiesce to acquiescence, a short breath puffed out just shy of a sigh as he turns.
“Then please follow me.”
Through the yard, into the keep, round the stairs up into the mage tower.
His shared quarters are not, in fact, shared any longer. Loxley’s bed is long made, and his trunk long empty. Books and notes and a pickled dragon’s eyeball at the desk all belong to Richard. There’s a breastplate balanced against the trunk at the foot of the other, lived in cot. A few scattered bottles. An extra pair of boots. Stale weed smoke hangs musty in the space -- clings to the walls and blankets and old wood in the hearth the same way it does his clothes.
The table is spare save for a bottle of wine and a lamp, which he sparks alight in spite of the afternoon sun filtering in through a lone window.
There is, inevitably, a moment where Ellis considers retreat. A kind of quiet, anxious dread coiled in his chest in the course of their travels from the training yard and up the stairs, and it weighs on him now as his gaze sweeps the room.
Thot's questing paws root him in the moment. He watches Richard light the lamp, leaves the door ajar behind him as he lets invitation draw him further into the room, seat him at the table.
A considering look towards the bottle of wine, but even having shifted Thot back into the crook of an elbow doesn't see his free hand reaching for it. It stays instead on Thot's sleek belly as his gaze turns to Richard, eyebrows raising.
Ellis doesn’t reach for it and Richard doesn’t offer it. Instead he steps away to shut the door, severing the only clean getaway either of them might have made with a quiet click.
His return to the table is anticlimactic.
He sits in silence for a moment with his hands joined and studies the woodgrain. It’s been months since anyone’s been in here. Athessa was the last person to knock on his door.
He waits out the first, snippy replies, draws a breath, considers the scope of the question apart from the topic he suspects is waiting in the wings.
"It's not impossible."
The particulars of what a victory would cost—
Well, that's not the question. Ellis makes the tally all the same, set against what has already been sacrificed. It's a familiar calculation. He'd learned it at Joppa's elbow, has had nearly fifteen years to perfect it on his own.
"We could have talked about the war on the training yard," stands in for something else, a question.
But they can skip the preamble. There’s an air of pages being hooked under, a thick chapter flopped over and smoothed right to left in a deeper draw of breath and a harder screw-turn of eye contact along the table. He’s sat beside rather than across, the chair angled in -- close enough for a sharp kick in the shins, should either of them be so inclined.
The stubborn impulse towards No is likely written all over Ellis' face.
But it's held in check. His fingers curl in Thot's fur, the lightest inclination towards a belly scritch as Ellis looks directly back at Richard.
"Is it so hard to guess?"
Is not an answer. But Richard has, for some time now, had a knack of making Ellis feel as if he has been rendered transparent. It's not an entirely comfortable thing.
And there is an element of predictability in this. Richard had asked him for something that feels like—
“Why approximate when we have the power to make ourselves perfectly clear.”
It just makes sense.
No elfroot, no wine, and for Richard, no distractions. There’s an answering challenge to his patience, a steady lean of weight onto an invisible prybar. He hasn't blinked.
The only small mercy between them is Thot. She lolls idle where she’s held, purring, velvety soft, the thin whip of her tail curled and flicked in a lazy cycle between her feet.
This level of scrutiny inevitably brings with it discomfort. It's inescapable.
Ellis doesn't like to be studied closely.
He doesn't like to dredge up such explanations either. This one in particular is thorny, barbed with things Ellis is honor-bound not to speak aloud. And he knows instinctively that Richard will find the incomplete nature of the answer unfulfilling, and the impasse barring him from the rest to be a frustration.
Thot's purr vibrates under his fingers.
"I don't want this life for you," is as close as Ellis can get. It's shadowed with a particular truth: You're asking me to gamble with your life. There are many who do not survive the Joining, but that Ellis can never say.
The edge to his intensity dials back by a matter of degrees, his thoughts turned inward from their attempted scorch through to the back of Ellis’ skull. Mind-reading would have made his entire ordeal here in Thedas markedly easier.
As is, he’s left to turn over the answer he’s been given in silence.
Brief silence.
“Why should my desire be secondary to yours?”
There may be a fang to stick on swaddled in the puffy gums of his careful neutrality. It's hard to tell. His curiosity for the answer is genuine.
Because you don't know what you're asking invites questions Ellis won't answer, so that answer is discarded. Instead, Ellis leans an elbow on the table. His hand has stilled over Thot's belly. The scar curving up his neck is easily seen, instructive even, as Ellis counters—
"Suppose I asked you to take your knife, and cut my throat?"
Almost a joke: Ellis has considered a variation of that question not so long ago, and maybe had their conversation in the tent in Starkhaven gone differently—
But it hadn't. And now there is this question, a rebuttal that carries more weight than it should, because he's said more than he should to Richard in the course of their acquaintance.
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But still, Ellis' answer is slow in coming. ]
You needn't feel obligated to carry on that conversation.
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What should I feel obligated to do?
[ The Mr. Ellis is silent in a stutter of ink that deftly turns a comma into a question mark. ]
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I couldn't tell you.
You do more than you should already.
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I haven't considered it.
Why? Do you believe that?
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Alright.
[ If Ellis had said this out loud, it would have absolutely sounded like a question. ]
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Presently, a leggy black cat stops cold in her wandering along the wall line at the far side of the yard. She bobs her head.
She croaks at him, inaudible at a distance, teeth and tongue peeked white beneath the wide goggle of her eyes. ]
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One that shouldn't be met with immediate unease, and yet—
Well, surely the moment of hesitation is forgiven once Ellis lays down his mace, crosses the yard with the air of a man embracing his fate. Folding down, Ellis makes himself very low, holds out hands to Thot.
"Come here then," he coaxes. "On your own, are you?"
Not that Ellis believes that to be the case, but.
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There’s a little arch at her back that coils down into a roll across packed earth and stone. For a beat, she is all snake belly and elbows and webbed claws. He should come to her.
Before he can, she pancake flops to her feet and dashes away for the keep.
It’s not long at all before Tricky Dick emerges onto the scene, distinct in vest and tall boots and a tunic (he might count as casual) rolled at the sleeves -- leagues sharper than when Ellis saw him last. There’s a storm blue on the horizon, not close enough yet for the breeze to beat back the stickiness of the sun’s heat, and he glances to its shadow as he crosses the yard. Curiously, Thot trots at his heels rather than cut ahead to guide the way.
"Alright?" he inquires through his teeth, once he considers himself Arrived. If he spent more time with Tony, air quotes might be involved.
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"I don't know what you wanted me to say," is true.
There are ideas Ellis can't (won't) entertain. Richard had been treading along those lines, and there's every indication that he will likely continue on to make his point. This is the trouble with conversations begun late at night, spurred on with exhaustion and pain. Ellis had never intended for them to continue on in the daylight.
"I'm sorry," follows after, genuine. There is a splotch of ink between thumb and forefinger, blotchy along the delicate web of skin there.
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No, it’s wardens who are wrong.
“‘I’m in the training yard,’ would have been a safe start.”
Still. The acidic sizzle in his inflection is gone and his posture has straightened out. Between them, little goblin hands have found Ellis’ thigh as Thot the Cat stretches up to prick needle claws through his pant leg. She blinks up at him as she reaches.
“We can ferry to Kirkwall if you’d prefer to speak outside of the Gallows.”
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"Seems a long way to go," he observes, straightening with his feline cargo.
And what is the use of inflicting his company on Richard through the ferry trip, the passage from dock to preferable Kirkwall location?
Even with exhaustion and pain marring the memory, Ellis knows he might have left well enough alone then. And that he'd made a mistake in assuming Richard would leave it all there, to dissipate at the dawn. He tucks Thot into the crook of an arm, gaze lifting from her to Richard's face.
"But it doesn't matter to me," he says evenly. "Either way, we might find somewhere to sit."
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“There is a table in my quarters,” he says.
Thot’s stretched like a drop of pitch in his grasp, hind claws late leaving the ground, only to kick up at ease in the crook of Ellis’ arm once she’s nestled there. She splays her toes, flicks her tail, stretches one paw to touch under Ellis’ chin and past it, aiming to curl grasping fingers over his lip.
Richard ignores her -- a stern, static figure in his vest and boots and a faint prickle of sweat he doesn’t care for.
“Unless you have more neutral territory to suggest.”
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It does affect the angle at which he can study Richard, but needs must.
"I don't."
Because the alternatives are common areas and his own quarters, and Ellis is aware of his own need for an exit route. (One which even includes leaving the entire island for Kirkwall proper, if it comes to that.)
"I've finished here, for the time being."
True enough. The yard has quieted, with the exception of what sounds like a mage having at the targets on the far side beyond the armory. But that's not something Ellis can assist with, and is thus not for him to worry about. He tips his head toward the towers. Lead on.
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Richard nods to acquiesce to acquiescence, a short breath puffed out just shy of a sigh as he turns.
“Then please follow me.”
Through the yard, into the keep, round the stairs up into the mage tower.
His shared quarters are not, in fact, shared any longer. Loxley’s bed is long made, and his trunk long empty. Books and notes and a pickled dragon’s eyeball at the desk all belong to Richard. There’s a breastplate balanced against the trunk at the foot of the other, lived in cot. A few scattered bottles. An extra pair of boots. Stale weed smoke hangs musty in the space -- clings to the walls and blankets and old wood in the hearth the same way it does his clothes.
The table is spare save for a bottle of wine and a lamp, which he sparks alight in spite of the afternoon sun filtering in through a lone window.
“Have a seat.”
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Thot's questing paws root him in the moment. He watches Richard light the lamp, leaves the door ajar behind him as he lets invitation draw him further into the room, seat him at the table.
A considering look towards the bottle of wine, but even having shifted Thot back into the crook of an elbow doesn't see his free hand reaching for it. It stays instead on Thot's sleek belly as his gaze turns to Richard, eyebrows raising.
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His return to the table is anticlimactic.
He sits in silence for a moment with his hands joined and studies the woodgrain. It’s been months since anyone’s been in here. Athessa was the last person to knock on his door.
“Do you think it’s possible to win this war?”
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He waits out the first, snippy replies, draws a breath, considers the scope of the question apart from the topic he suspects is waiting in the wings.
"It's not impossible."
The particulars of what a victory would cost—
Well, that's not the question. Ellis makes the tally all the same, set against what has already been sacrificed. It's a familiar calculation. He'd learned it at Joppa's elbow, has had nearly fifteen years to perfect it on his own.
"We could have talked about the war on the training yard," stands in for something else, a question.
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But they can skip the preamble. There’s an air of pages being hooked under, a thick chapter flopped over and smoothed right to left in a deeper draw of breath and a harder screw-turn of eye contact along the table. He’s sat beside rather than across, the chair angled in -- close enough for a sharp kick in the shins, should either of them be so inclined.
Thot licks her nose, blue over black.
“Tell me why you’ve been angry with me.”
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But it's held in check. His fingers curl in Thot's fur, the lightest inclination towards a belly scritch as Ellis looks directly back at Richard.
"Is it so hard to guess?"
Is not an answer. But Richard has, for some time now, had a knack of making Ellis feel as if he has been rendered transparent. It's not an entirely comfortable thing.
And there is an element of predictability in this. Richard had asked him for something that feels like—
Harm.
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It just makes sense.
No elfroot, no wine, and for Richard, no distractions. There’s an answering challenge to his patience, a steady lean of weight onto an invisible prybar. He hasn't blinked.
The only small mercy between them is Thot. She lolls idle where she’s held, purring, velvety soft, the thin whip of her tail curled and flicked in a lazy cycle between her feet.
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Ellis doesn't like to be studied closely.
He doesn't like to dredge up such explanations either. This one in particular is thorny, barbed with things Ellis is honor-bound not to speak aloud. And he knows instinctively that Richard will find the incomplete nature of the answer unfulfilling, and the impasse barring him from the rest to be a frustration.
Thot's purr vibrates under his fingers.
"I don't want this life for you," is as close as Ellis can get. It's shadowed with a particular truth: You're asking me to gamble with your life. There are many who do not survive the Joining, but that Ellis can never say.
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The edge to his intensity dials back by a matter of degrees, his thoughts turned inward from their attempted scorch through to the back of Ellis’ skull. Mind-reading would have made his entire ordeal here in Thedas markedly easier.
As is, he’s left to turn over the answer he’s been given in silence.
Brief silence.
“Why should my desire be secondary to yours?”
There may be a fang to stick on swaddled in the puffy gums of his careful neutrality. It's hard to tell. His curiosity for the answer is genuine.
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"Suppose I asked you to take your knife, and cut my throat?"
Almost a joke: Ellis has considered a variation of that question not so long ago, and maybe had their conversation in the tent in Starkhaven gone differently—
But it hadn't. And now there is this question, a rebuttal that carries more weight than it should, because he's said more than he should to Richard in the course of their acquaintance.
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slaps bow onto this
BOW