Oh, are we very concerned about this being uncomfortable for Thot? The lines around his eyes crease a little tight beneath a pinch at his brow, timed near perfect to the plop of damp crystal to palm.
“It isn’t.”
Indeed, past the flex and reset of her beak, the finch seems happy to wing from Silas’ open hand to the high turn of his collar. He tucks the crystal away behind his lapel while she preens.
“Keep her warm and avoid crushing her to death and she will be fine.”
Silas' answer is accepted. Ellis seems more or less prepared by now to accept all Thot's oddities in stride. His gaze follows her up to Silas' shoulder, before Ellis looks back to her keeper. Whatever he finds in the expression on Silas' face goes momentarily unremarked upon in favor of more practical matters.
"Does she need to eat?" Ellis asks. Casting back through all the time spent in Thot's company, Ellis cannot recall that he's seen her eat, but admittedly he has not been overly concerned with it before this point.
That she preens at imaginary nits in the bristle under Silas’ chin may erode at this assertion; the beady glitter of her eyes and busy flirt of her feathers sends all the signals the human mind is wired to expect of life. She is a strange bird, but a bird, and upon cursory inspection nothing more mystical or terrible.
“But she is physiologically delicate.” So don’t put her away into a pocket and sit on her. He breaks eye contact after that unspoken warning.
The offered finger he lifts sees her springing to it from his collar. From there, it’s for him to offer her out, even as she skips across his knuckles like a flipped coin.
There's no need for two hands to take possession of Thot. She is a small bird, and she comes willingly. But Ellis reaches with both hands. One to provide a perch, and one to catch hold of Silas' hand before he can draw back.
His thumb presses gently over the green pulse of the anchor embedded there. (He is thinking of Wysteria, ensconced in her infirmary bed.)
"Thank you."
However businesslike this hand off has been, Ellis is not convinced that this is small thing Silas is offering by giving over Thot into his care.
Ellis has a way of grabbing him this way, in a singular movement that catches him again just off his guard. So captured, hawk by the ankles or cat by the scruff, he is naturally still. Tolerance via familiarity saves them from coiling tension. There is some prickling at his chops while he watches the splinter of green in his palm muted under thumb, subtle discomfort in an invisible pin at his ears.
It’s very early in the morning for this.
“You’re welcome.”
Thot bounces like a note along the creases of Ellis’ sleeve, little claws clumsy in their clamber for purchase up to the shoulder.
Thot is insubstantial. Delicate. Her weight hardly registers beneath the padding of his gambeson. She is permitted, as always. Her ascension is unimpeded.
Soon he will snap his breastplate into place. He will lift his pack. He will pass from this room with nothing but what he crossed into Kirkwall with, and close the door on all the most precious things he's collected in two years time. They will remain here in this little room, and Ellis will pass into the north to collect something improbable, and hope it shall all be as he left it when he returns.
It is far too late to hesitate, so he does not.
"Swear to me you'll do nothing until I return."
His hand is warm around Silas'. It is not a tight grip, but it is firm, decisive as all the moments in which Ellis reaches out for others tend to be.
The promise may be nothing more than Silas placating him. But Ellis chooses to believe otherwise. Chooses to believe that in all of this, he is not misplacing his faith in Silas' word.
Under his own scrutiny, Silas crooks his thumb to trace an arc along the knuckle pinched at his palm, needle-tongue light across the web. He doesn’t answer.
There’s a twinge at the sound of his name, barely there -- tension tuning fine through the hollow of his cheek. He lifts his thumb out, fans his fingers from the light touch of their grasp.
Still held, of course.
“I won’t undermine our previous agreement while you’re away.”
He looks up and the blue to his eyes is as autumn crisp as it is distinctly (cordially) unhappy about his having to say so.
“I swear it.”
A broad stroke agreement to do ‘nothing’ is not on the table.
Still held. Ellis' grip doesn't waver, even after Silas bequeaths this begrudging reassurance.
Instead, Ellis studies Silas' expression. His thumb passes back and forth along Silas' palm as he scrutinizes his face, weighs up the careful boundaries of this new agreement. Silas is clever. Ellis understands that he's left himself loopholes.
On his shoulder, Thot hops in close to the collar of his jacket. The scar at his neck is masked by the folds of his scarf.
"Alright."
Recognition that maybe he's elicited the most he'll get from Silas.
Caught fast, Silas is more at ease than the average fox clamped in conibear jaws — resigned to his fate or confident in his escape. It’s very hard to tell. He doesn’t flinch from inspection any more than he has from contact.
A roll at his throat gums up the gearworks of his jaw at the brush at his palm, pins a trace of tension understated in through the scruff of his neck.
What kind of Warden is well-versed in good-byes? They are chased out or they leave in the night after their work is done, and their hosts breathe a sigh of relief to see the back of them. What a thing it is, to feel some specific sense of loss, to understand that he would be missed and that he may yet be welcomed back.
"Good-bye, Silas Atheris."
Something said seriously, in spite of the little bird preening at Ellis' shoulder and his thumb set gently in against Silas' palm. He holds there for a beat longer before his grip loosens, and draws away.
“No,” Silas agrees, posture as starch stiff as the pop of his collar. Clearly he is not.
The addition of his last name in particular coaxes a sigh out of him, seems to break some invisible bubble of tension. Ellis is the very portrait of a human doing its best. He has a weary beat to reflect on that while he’s still held.
“Safe travels,” he says, once he’s free. Earnest, in his way. A little curt -- a splinter of unspoken warning against the weight of guilt sure to press down should he renege on his various assurances of taking great care, returning in one piece, returning at all, and so on. He does not ask Ellis to swear.
His turn to exit is inevitable and direct without hurry.
It’s early in the day and there is work for him to do.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
“It isn’t.”
Indeed, past the flex and reset of her beak, the finch seems happy to wing from Silas’ open hand to the high turn of his collar. He tucks the crystal away behind his lapel while she preens.
“Keep her warm and avoid crushing her to death and she will be fine.”
no subject
"Does she need to eat?" Ellis asks. Casting back through all the time spent in Thot's company, Ellis cannot recall that he's seen her eat, but admittedly he has not been overly concerned with it before this point.
no subject
That she preens at imaginary nits in the bristle under Silas’ chin may erode at this assertion; the beady glitter of her eyes and busy flirt of her feathers sends all the signals the human mind is wired to expect of life. She is a strange bird, but a bird, and upon cursory inspection nothing more mystical or terrible.
“But she is physiologically delicate.” So don’t put her away into a pocket and sit on her. He breaks eye contact after that unspoken warning.
The offered finger he lifts sees her springing to it from his collar. From there, it’s for him to offer her out, even as she skips across his knuckles like a flipped coin.
no subject
His thumb presses gently over the green pulse of the anchor embedded there. (He is thinking of Wysteria, ensconced in her infirmary bed.)
"Thank you."
However businesslike this hand off has been, Ellis is not convinced that this is small thing Silas is offering by giving over Thot into his care.
no subject
It’s very early in the morning for this.
“You’re welcome.”
Thot bounces like a note along the creases of Ellis’ sleeve, little claws clumsy in their clamber for purchase up to the shoulder.
no subject
Soon he will snap his breastplate into place. He will lift his pack. He will pass from this room with nothing but what he crossed into Kirkwall with, and close the door on all the most precious things he's collected in two years time. They will remain here in this little room, and Ellis will pass into the north to collect something improbable, and hope it shall all be as he left it when he returns.
It is far too late to hesitate, so he does not.
"Swear to me you'll do nothing until I return."
His hand is warm around Silas'. It is not a tight grip, but it is firm, decisive as all the moments in which Ellis reaches out for others tend to be.
The promise may be nothing more than Silas placating him. But Ellis chooses to believe otherwise. Chooses to believe that in all of this, he is not misplacing his faith in Silas' word.
no subject
Two can be uncomfortable in this position.
no subject
His grip doesn't shift. It remains, firm and warm, as Richard's thumb works over his knuckle.
"Please."
no subject
Still held, of course.
“I won’t undermine our previous agreement while you’re away.”
He looks up and the blue to his eyes is as autumn crisp as it is distinctly (cordially) unhappy about his having to say so.
“I swear it.”
A broad stroke agreement to do ‘nothing’ is not on the table.
no subject
Instead, Ellis studies Silas' expression. His thumb passes back and forth along Silas' palm as he scrutinizes his face, weighs up the careful boundaries of this new agreement. Silas is clever. Ellis understands that he's left himself loopholes.
On his shoulder, Thot hops in close to the collar of his jacket. The scar at his neck is masked by the folds of his scarf.
"Alright."
Recognition that maybe he's elicited the most he'll get from Silas.
no subject
A roll at his throat gums up the gearworks of his jaw at the brush at his palm, pins a trace of tension understated in through the scruff of his neck.
“Alright.”
Anything else?
no subject
What kind of Warden is well-versed in good-byes? They are chased out or they leave in the night after their work is done, and their hosts breathe a sigh of relief to see the back of them. What a thing it is, to feel some specific sense of loss, to understand that he would be missed and that he may yet be welcomed back.
"Good-bye, Silas Atheris."
Something said seriously, in spite of the little bird preening at Ellis' shoulder and his thumb set gently in against Silas' palm. He holds there for a beat longer before his grip loosens, and draws away.
no subject
The addition of his last name in particular coaxes a sigh out of him, seems to break some invisible bubble of tension. Ellis is the very portrait of a human doing its best. He has a weary beat to reflect on that while he’s still held.
“Safe travels,” he says, once he’s free. Earnest, in his way. A little curt -- a splinter of unspoken warning against the weight of guilt sure to press down should he renege on his various assurances of taking great care, returning in one piece, returning at all, and so on. He does not ask Ellis to swear.
His turn to exit is inevitable and direct without hurry.
It’s early in the day and there is work for him to do.