heorte: (Default)
ellis ginsberg. ([personal profile] heorte) wrote2019-09-10 03:02 pm
nonvenomous: (i understand humor)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-18 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"Don’t give yourself too much credit. There is the Inquisitor’s message to consider," he raises his eyebrows to himself, matter-of-fact, "and I don’t think you cared for me much at the time."

He hadn’t fully imprinted, or whatever this attachment is.

Richard is quiet again. Just for a moment, to reorient himself away from the sidestep of this latest exchange.

"Is your fear just that I will die?"
nonvenomous: (sigh)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-25 03:55 am (UTC)(link)
The breath he huffs in for rebuttal is spent without shaping itself into speech, tension screwed in tight at the back of his sternum and held there. He’s found a mark on the floor to frown at, his jaw worked and prickled and set.

“Obviously.”

The table, the lamp, the cat, the wan slant of afternoon light through the window.

“Am I to believe you’ve made headway in your research with the Tevinter Imperium crashing down upon the Free Marches?”
nonvenomous: (pic#14254264)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-25 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
By turn, Richard seems aware of the burdensome reality of his default recommendation. Still speaking to the ground, there is a distinctly defensive brace to his pause in suggesting:

“I could accompany you.”
nonvenomous: (Default)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-25 05:38 am (UTC)(link)
“It’s difficult to make a case without knowing what your reservations are.”

He can guess.

He is guessing, the off-axis tuck of his chin already offended by some slight he’s imagined -- a matter of personality, or ability, or trust, as so often seems the case of late. It’s almost certainly his martial ability -- he thinks to the meaty clop of a Shriek’s blade into his thigh. Even in his dreams he’s pathetic.

It doesn’t really matter. The cold knot in his gut is the same.

“How deadly will it be for you?”
nonvenomous: (thot zoom)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-26 01:42 am (UTC)(link)
He doesn’t have to look to sense the confusion in that break, buttoned down as he is in a vice of personal dismay, frustration, and so on. There isn’t much buttery lamplight can do to soften the lines drawn in hard around his mouth, along his nose, between his brows.

But packing it all away still comes naturally -- a kind of psychological reflex upon recognition of how far off the cliff edge he’s strayed. All it takes is a pause for perspective to check against the dazzling flash of an impulse that’d see the table turned over and the lamp spilled and the wine bottle broken, very wasteful. And embarrassing besides.

So he’s quiet until it’s neutral on neutral.

“I could send Thot with you.”

She’s cleaning between her toes, which are splayed like Ellis’ hand over her belly. The faint fork to her tongue rasps once or twice at his wrist along the way.
nonvenomous: (literally just kevin)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-26 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
“I’ve been without her before.”

If Wysteria hadn’t stepped in to assist him he might never have managed to fish her out of the Fade in the first place.

He sighs at the thought as he looks to her.

The shape she’s coiled herself into in Ellis’ lap is an unlikely one, feet kicked up and out, her head twisted under and around to get at them. Not quite an ouroboros, but certainly closer than any cat with a mammalian spine should be.

“I could,” he cannot quite help but needle back, claws pricked and retracted before he hoists himself back up into eye contact. Earnest. “I’d like to.”
nonvenomous: (assent)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-27 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
“I have one.”

It would be magnificent if not for the scorched fur, the edges of stitched hide crisped black by demon fire, the faint stink of blood that clings coppery to the interior.

His arms are still folded, the carve of his frown preoccupied — with the logistics, perhaps. Thot pauses in her grooming to tilt her chin up after the attention her brow is getting.

“Would it surprise you terribly to hear that my name is not actually Richard Dickerson?”
nonvenomous: (im leaving)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-27 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
“Silas,” he supplies, after a sufficient enough silence to convince him that Ellis doesn’t intend to ask him. He’d helpfully suggested that the question of do you like stories is typically followed by the offer of a story if answered in the affirmative with much the same tint of put-upon patience.

Skyhold is something.

He contemplates standing and slips a slender folding knife from his vest instead. Once it’s flicked open, he can reach to take the bottle on his table by the neck.

“You’re free to leave,” he says while working steel through cork, as if he hopes it should have gone without saying. “I closed the door to argue in private, not to detain you here.”
nonvenomous: (i understand humor)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-27 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
“I prefer Silas, among friends.”

The cork is fiddly work and he is well-tuned into the twist of it, lest he slip and spill blood across his trousers. When the catch of it finally releases with a grimace and a muffled thwonk, he’s careful to fold the blade away again before he adds:

“But I will answer to either.” Or ‘Mister Dickerson,’ as the case may be.

He does not seem put off by his decision to stay. Even if it does mean that he’s forced to stand and plant the open bottle on the table so that he can retrieve a cup from the trunk at the foot of his bed. Thot has rolled and stretched a paw up in pursuit of Ellis’ chin.
nonvenomous: (trust me)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-27 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
“If I’m not being too presumptuous.”

Ellis called him to assist in the construction of a chicken coop and hadn’t squeezed his head off his shoulders when he’d informed him of his betrayal of Masters Stark and Poppell-de Foncé. His confidence in the shape and nature of his classification in whatever rolodex of non-Wardens is absolute.

Because he can be merciful, particularly after having held Ellis’ feet to a very small but also very persistent fire, he adds (as he pours) a more concrete: “Yes.”
nonvenomous: (busted)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-29 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
Silas certainly seems to believe the issue resolved, past the catch of friction to a pause before he lifts the cup to drink from it -- as if he’s sensed he’s missed something, but isn’t sure what. It hasn’t occurred to him that there might be another reason for him to punch a knife through Ellis’ jugular, beyond his previous expression of disappointment over his ongoing existence.

An exchange he was asked to forget about.

He must feel very strongly to have brought it up again on his own.

“Mm,” he says, instead of you’re welcome. And at least in clear part due to the wine being better than he expected. “I’d have mentioned it before, but it's never seemed important.”
Edited 2021-08-29 03:35 (UTC)
nonvenomous: (trust me)

[personal profile] nonvenomous 2021-08-29 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
“If you die alone in Weisshaupt, I’d like you to know who you have to blame.”

Silas says so very reasonably, as he also has a way of doing. There’s an affectionate resignation to the otherwise chilly grip of his reproach in a look.

(no subject)

[personal profile] nonvenomous - 2021-08-29 05:22 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] nonvenomous - 2021-08-29 06:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] nonvenomous - 2021-08-29 07:19 (UTC) - Expand

BOW

[personal profile] nonvenomous - 2021-08-29 07:46 (UTC) - Expand