[Which is more or less a representative description of Wysteria's reception of him come week's end.
She's visible from a formidable ways off, perched as she is on some outcropping of the great mountain of luggage and cargo being steadily swung up onto the Guillemot by the packet's handy crew. More notable still is the broad brimmed, slightly floppy straw traveling hat with a bright blue ribbon wound about it and tied under her chin in a remarkably large ribbon. From this auspicious perch, it's very easy to make out a mabari shouldering his way through the dockyard traffic. And where one travels, the other surely follows—]
Ah, there you are Mister Ellis! [She raises her hand to flag his attention (as if she doesn't have it already).] I was beginning to think I might miss you!
There is no suppressing the fond amusement in his expression upon surveying her, even from some distance. And with Ruadh parting the crowd, there is a delay of mere minutes before Ellis has made his way to the foot of her perch.
Ruadh sets to sniffing a circle around the bottom of the crates and packages. Ellis looks up at her, thumbs hooking into his pockets.
"I wouldn't miss your send off."
Though it is inevitable that guard duty delayed him on this day, when there was such a particular demand on his time.
With a great shifting of skirts and careful assessment of her chosen descent route, Wysteria (in her very sensible, much battere field boots), picks her way gingerly down from her lookout post. If going down is slightly more treacherous than scaling up had been, no trepidation makes itself known in her appearance. With a last decisive hop and a jangle of chains from the chatelaine pinned at her waist, she touches down on the dock.
"I trust my companion has made himself ready for travel."
"All this? Good gods, no!" Her laugh is bright and high, a genuine peal. Seemingly automatic and without thinking, Wysteria leans partly down to pat Ruadh on his broad back as he snuffles about the edges of her skirts.
"No, I've just the two trunks there. You see, those. They're the ones we pulled out of the attic some months ago. I'd thought to back a whole other case with more dresses, but I rather suspect I'm unlikely to find my way to any parties so thought it best to forego. I find it best not to travel with more boxes than one has hands to hold on to, lest they wander off while you're not looking."
The pat is all the encouragement needed for Ruadh to finish his circuit of inspection and sway his weight against her hip, satisfied with both Wysteria's attention and the results of his work.
"Have you put any weapons into one of those chests?"
"I've the parasol Mister Stark gave me"—the one with the trim little sword hidden in its handle, not that Wysteria has ever had much practice stabbing much of anything with it—"And my field knife. Though I'll be traveling with a party, and expect no trouble to come to us. See there, the pair in the leather cuirass. They're two of my traveling companions in addition to Smith Vanderak's cousin."
Wysteria raises her hand from patting Ruadh's big block head to point out two dwarves in leather armor on the boat's deck, a man and a woman, overseeing the transfer of goods from the dock to the hold. Their prudent collection of knives and hatchets are visible from a distance, as are their prominent tattoos. Carta? Hard to say from a distance. Surely not.
Wysteria's hand returns to Ruadh once more between the ears.
Subjected to Ellis' scrutiny, both dwarves seem to past muster. Enough so that Ellis doesn't cross the dock to press them specifically on their ability. (The tattoos do not go unnoticed, but that is an objection to raise at another time. Perhaps when Wysteria has returned.)
Beneath her hand, Ruadh's head lolls upward encouragingly.
"You always reassure me of that," Ellis tells her, and does not remind her of the variety of kidnappings. Or the mission where her shard nearly killed her. But they are both on his mind.
And it all has been perfectly well, otherwise she wouldn't be standing here now would she? Some might say that Wysteria has, definitively, never been entirely wrong a day in her life.
"I would like to, yes. I have hopes that the work with Vanderak will produce some interesting possibilities that I think Aldrich would find— well, quite foolish, I'm sure. But also interesting, and I should like his opinion on one or two things before I pursue them too seriously."
Here, she drops her voice to a parody of a hush—not too quiet, lest it be entirely lost on the scuffle of the dock, but hopefully not so clear as to carry.
"You remember that dream with the flying ships, of course." Of course he does. "—So if you've any message to deliver, I would be most happy to deliver it for you."
Flying ships. Of course he remembers. Of course Wysteria plans on making such a thing her particular project, now that she's managed her gun.
"Only that he should offer you tea," Ellis says. "Before he starts pressing you about the details."
The last time Aldrich offered Ellis anything, it was when Ellis was still mostly bandage and his armor was in ruins. He forcibly rejected the concept of social niceties long before either of them were born.
"And that he should give you whatever help you need," as an almost unnecessary addition. Aldrich would grumble, but Ellis can't imagine he'd turn her away.
There is something in that request which makes the line of her smile flex with amusement. It doesn't quite manifest into a laugh, but it's clear that the impulse is there, bright behind the eyes.
She is not laughing at him. Not really.
"How enduringly selfless you are, Mister Ellis. No souvenirs, no special requests from my correspondence, the loan of your dog, and the good will of your friend. One of these days, I will successfully trick you into asking for something you want and I'll be very pleased with myself over it."
But lest they linger over this outright threat unecessarily—
"You will take care of Mister Stark while I'm away, of course."
The attention given to her in this moment, observing all the brightness in her face, the widening of her smile—
It shifts something in his expression. Brief, finding no purchase, only a passing, tender thing that comes and goes almost helplessly in response. He is so fond of her good cheer, even if some aspect of it comes at his expense.
"Aye," is easy reassurance, deferring away from the topic of any possible thing Ellis might want. (It catches in his throat, held in check still.) "And Mr. Dickerson. And the chickens, and any other animals I might find alongside them."
Theoretically only the goat and the dog. But who can say what else might end up in residence?
There will, in fact, soon be a giant ant of the Donarks moving into most permanent residence there in the second cellar largely dug in Ellis' absence, nearing completion now finally now that the ground has unfrozen enough for the pair of dwarven contractors hired to finish the work. But Veronique has for some time been such a forgone conclusion in her mind that the matter of the ant's introduction to the chickens and goat and various dogs and indeed even Ellis or Mister Stark slips her mind entirely in favor of horror and dismay.
"If I come back from Orzammar and find a cow, or a gaggle of geese, or a big fat pig that you don't mean to turn immediately into bacon in the side garden, I will be very cross with you!"
She balls up her fist, but gets only as far as threatening to drum him on the chest with it. You—!
"Come now, have you any notes for me with respect to your friend? I told you I know nothing at all about dogs."
(Nevermind that Déranger has taken to sleeping at the foot of her bed, and will no doubt spend the rest of the summer in the morose state of having to put up with the sub-optimal company of various people more dull than the screeching young lady she ordinarily takes such care in herding.)
This minor show of outrage only manages to be endearing. (Ellis is adept at distinguishing a show of temper from the real thing.) The smile that comes is muted, quieted due to proximity of her departure, but present.
Between them, aware of the shift in conversation topic, Ruadh huffs and butts his head against Wysteria's hip. Leans all his weight against her thigh, licking his chops. Ellis resists the urge to kneel down to him.
"He'll help you," is what he says instead, which Ellis clearly feels is a reassuring statement. "He'll need chicken livers. Fish will do, on the voyage. Bones to gnaw on in the evenings. He likes an egg, from time to time."
A refined palate.
"And he'll like to accompany you, wherever you're going."
This is, for good or for ill, a fact she has already endured herself to. Indeed, she has supposed that was his intention—that she never be without some form of supervision, or defense, or whatever word along those lines is most convenient. Is that not what a mabari is meant to do?
So Wysteria, leaning hard to balance against the counter pressure of Ruadh doing the same against her leg, only rolls her eyes very slightly as she repeats back, "Bones, fish, eggs, livers," as if she might not recall it otherwise.
"I'm sure he will find it all quite dull, and will return to you incredibly spoiled by having done nothing but lay about in a workshop for months on end. Isn't that right?"
The big mabari with his patchwork of scars receives a thumping pat on the shoulder for emphasis.
Something of a true statement. Ruadh does not have the look of a creature that's had an easy time of it, if the scarring is any indication.
But the question is given due consideration as Ellis folds himself downward to scruff one hand up along Ruadh's scarred shoulder, thumb at his velvety cheek. Obvious fondness in Ellis' face for it, lingering as he tips his head to look up at her.
"Talk to him," Ellis advises. "He'll be lonely, otherwise, and he understands conversation just fine."
This is surely not a hardship.
"And when you think of it, scratch him about the ears. Like this."
Ellis' hand turns up, holding out for Wysteria's own hand to be guided.
This is why she's agreed to be saddled with the animal at all—the look of pure, unaltered affection in Ellis' face when he addresses Ruadh, and how it lingers there still in his face even after. The mabari is important to him. Obviously she knows that; they have spent a great deal of their time reading Ferelden folktales and histories, and she would consider herself rather well educated on the point of that people's attachment to their dogs, particularly their clever war dogs. But there is a difference between reading a thing in a book and seeing it plain on Ellis' face. That is particularly true when his only other souvenir from Weisshaupt seems to be the faintest air of melancholy.
It would have been unthinkable to turn down such a heartfelt gift as Ruadh's company, nevermind the annoying semantics implicit in the whole arrangement.
So despite a great air of being put upon—"Oh, very well."—Wysteria surrenders her hand to his guidance.
A flicker of humor for that begrudging acquiescence. Around them the heave and scrape of boxes being loaded aboard the ship and the lap of waves and bustle of preparation are a clear reminder: she is leaving and the house will be empty and all their conversation will be passed back and forth by letter, rather than in her little kitchen or the garden or over supper.
Ellis takes her hand in his own, laces their fingers together beneath his palm so he might guide her along Ruadh's great square head, obligingly lifted in expectation.
There is a knot of scar tissue here. A raised slash of a knife strike there. A cluster of punctures, perhaps from teeth, further along. And, just behind the cropped rise of Ruadh's ears—
"Here," Ellis tells her, as he presses Wysteria's fingers into place and Ruadh's nub of a tail wags encouragingly. "Right here."
So arranged and encouraged either by that wagging would-be tail or by the shape of Ellis' hand, Wysteria makes some small effort to demonstrate what she knows of scratching dogs behind their ears. Her nails scrub through Ruadh's bristling coat. Her knuckles bump against Ellis' palm.
Yes, yes, all right. See how swift a study she is!
"Ear scratches, conversation, fish bones." A brisk correction— "Fish, and also bones."
Ruadh's head butts up under her hand, tongue lolling out in appreciation. Yes, Wysteria is a quick study. Yes, her ministrations will apparently serve well enough for the future.
The tenderness in Ellis' expression remains as he lifts his hand from over hers. Scruffs his fingers against the thick muscles of Ruadh's neck, chucks him beneath the chin. Says something, so low it is swallowed up by the clatter of sailors and slap of sea against the dock, but is returned by a soft lap of Ruadh's tongue to his hand.
Looking up at her, his expression has shifted only very slightly. It is still softened, cracked open enough for some silent, honest thing to make itself plain.
There is a beat of hesitation, where Ellis might say some other thing. Even unspoken, it draws taut within his chest, suppressed enough so that when he does speak, what he has to say is—
"Aye, that is all he needs. And perhaps some space on a rug alongside your bed, if you'll permit him."
How gentle he looks there knelt before the mabari's big block head, all kindness and blatant affection. Just the edge of it, lingering there in the set of Ellis' expression as it turns upward in her direction, produces a sudden and pleasant warmth behind the ribs. How good it is to see him love something so openly. This business in Orzammar will have to be seen to and resolved directly, she decides all at once (having never given its duration any thought prior). It would be very cruel to keep Ruadh from him for long, and if she returns with no better souvenir from Orzammar then she will at least be content to know that she'll be returning to Kirkwall to witness that fine look of adoration on Ellis' face as the great dog comes bounding back off whatever packet they reserve for their return journey to rejoin his master.
"I'll consider it," she says, meaning very much to sound quite arch and cool and ruining it by instead smiling down at him as her hand continues to scratch absently behind Ruadh's ear. How difficult it is to see all that endearment in him and not simply reflect it directly back! So much so that there, amidst the bustle of the dockyard, she forgets the growing urgency to traipse up the gangway onto the little boat so she might be aboard ahead of her things and so see them directed according to her wishes, and momentarily loses track of even her annoyance over the inconvenience of such a traveling companion.
(Ruadh will take up a great deal of the space in the closet sized cabin to which she has been appointed on the Guillemot.)
"I promise to mind him very carefully, Mister Ellis."
The conversation is winding its way to an end point. Ellis is aware of this. Even as he looks up at her, lit gold in the early morning light, he thinks again that it will be weeks before he sees her again. It punches out a deep ache in his chest, stirs and shifts the emotion just slightly in his face.
That honest, closely-guarded thing is not diminished by it.
(In all the stories, is this not the place to make a declaration from? The knees?)
Lingering there, looking up at her, Ellis breathes out a deep, slow breath. Acclimating to the present moment, the inescapable presence of the ship behind them. Ruadh is content enough, luxuriating underneath Wysteria's ministrations. Ellis swipes one last pass over Ruadh's velvety snout, before he levers himself up.
"I know that you will," he tells her, voice gone thick over the words. "And I will miss you, very much."
It's a very fine thing to hear; it prompts some squeeze high in her chest that it both thrilling and terrible. Maybe this is why, weeks from now, when Val asks after her opinion on being missed by someone that Wysteria will have such a ready answer for him.
"Nonsense. We're going to write with such frequency that you'll not have the time to."
She should have written him a note here in Kirkwall, she thinks. She might have given it to him this morning or arranged to have it delivered to his mail cubby after she had gone. It would have been a charming bit of high spirits and good humor. But she hadn't; she will have to suit herself with writing something during the crossing and with sending it directly back the moment she reaches Ferelden.
"In fact, you must promise me that you'll be extraordinarily well while I'm away. I would find that considerably reassuring."
An impossible promise, but Wysteria has made a habit of asking too much. So far, Ellis has found a way to avoid disappointing her. It tends to be easier, when she's asked that he carry this or fetch that or hold such and such a thing in place. Even when she's after a particular sample or alchemical compound, those are easier to mitigate than the prospect of being something in neighboring extraordinarily well.
Straightening, Ellis' expression creases into a subdued, fond smile. No promise is forthcoming, though he reaches to interrupt her ministrations. A regrettable turn of events for Ruadh, perhaps, but that prospect isn't enough to keep Ellis from catching up her hand in his own.
Certainly, he could have made the promise. How could it be verified one way or another? But Ellis imparts something else, instead.
"He has a keen sense of smell," comes with a tip of his head downwards, towards the seated mabari. Still panting, hopefully attentive to the two of them. "If Ruadh tells you to go, heed him. Aye?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ And so, it's settled. ]
I'll be by later. For the chickens.
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[Which is more or less a representative description of Wysteria's reception of him come week's end.
She's visible from a formidable ways off, perched as she is on some outcropping of the great mountain of luggage and cargo being steadily swung up onto the Guillemot by the packet's handy crew. More notable still is the broad brimmed, slightly floppy straw traveling hat with a bright blue ribbon wound about it and tied under her chin in a remarkably large ribbon. From this auspicious perch, it's very easy to make out a mabari shouldering his way through the dockyard traffic. And where one travels, the other surely follows—]
Ah, there you are Mister Ellis! [She raises her hand to flag his attention (as if she doesn't have it already).] I was beginning to think I might miss you!
hauls prose in here
There is no suppressing the fond amusement in his expression upon surveying her, even from some distance. And with Ruadh parting the crowd, there is a delay of mere minutes before Ellis has made his way to the foot of her perch.
Ruadh sets to sniffing a circle around the bottom of the crates and packages. Ellis looks up at her, thumbs hooking into his pockets.
"I wouldn't miss your send off."
Though it is inevitable that guard duty delayed him on this day, when there was such a particular demand on his time.
"Will you come down to me?"
Doing the lord's work
With a great shifting of skirts and careful assessment of her chosen descent route, Wysteria (in her very sensible, much battere field boots), picks her way gingerly down from her lookout post. If going down is slightly more treacherous than scaling up had been, no trepidation makes itself known in her appearance. With a last decisive hop and a jangle of chains from the chatelaine pinned at her waist, she touches down on the dock.
"I trust my companion has made himself ready for travel."
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Close in as she ascends, returning to his sides while Ruadh circles her, sniffing along her hem. Aware of being discussed, and unconcerned with it.
"Aye, he's ready," Ellis answers. "And I can assume it's a journey he's made before."
All roads lead to Orzammar for a Warden, sooner or later.
"Is all this yours?"
Could Wysteria fill an entire ship with equipment? Yes.
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"No, I've just the two trunks there. You see, those. They're the ones we pulled out of the attic some months ago. I'd thought to back a whole other case with more dresses, but I rather suspect I'm unlikely to find my way to any parties so thought it best to forego. I find it best not to travel with more boxes than one has hands to hold on to, lest they wander off while you're not looking."
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"Have you put any weapons into one of those chests?"
Ha, ha. (But really.)
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Wysteria raises her hand from patting Ruadh's big block head to point out two dwarves in leather armor on the boat's deck, a man and a woman, overseeing the transfer of goods from the dock to the hold. Their prudent collection of knives and hatchets are visible from a distance, as are their prominent tattoos. Carta? Hard to say from a distance. Surely not.
Wysteria's hand returns to Ruadh once more between the ears.
"So all will be perfectly well."
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Subjected to Ellis' scrutiny, both dwarves seem to past muster. Enough so that Ellis doesn't cross the dock to press them specifically on their ability. (The tattoos do not go unnoticed, but that is an objection to raise at another time. Perhaps when Wysteria has returned.)
Beneath her hand, Ruadh's head lolls upward encouragingly.
"You always reassure me of that," Ellis tells her, and does not remind her of the variety of kidnappings. Or the mission where her shard nearly killed her. But they are both on his mind.
"Do you plan to see Aldrich while you are there?"
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"I would like to, yes. I have hopes that the work with Vanderak will produce some interesting possibilities that I think Aldrich would find— well, quite foolish, I'm sure. But also interesting, and I should like his opinion on one or two things before I pursue them too seriously."
Here, she drops her voice to a parody of a hush—not too quiet, lest it be entirely lost on the scuffle of the dock, but hopefully not so clear as to carry.
"You remember that dream with the flying ships, of course." Of course he does. "—So if you've any message to deliver, I would be most happy to deliver it for you."
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"Only that he should offer you tea," Ellis says. "Before he starts pressing you about the details."
The last time Aldrich offered Ellis anything, it was when Ellis was still mostly bandage and his armor was in ruins. He forcibly rejected the concept of social niceties long before either of them were born.
"And that he should give you whatever help you need," as an almost unnecessary addition. Aldrich would grumble, but Ellis can't imagine he'd turn her away.
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She is not laughing at him. Not really.
"How enduringly selfless you are, Mister Ellis. No souvenirs, no special requests from my correspondence, the loan of your dog, and the good will of your friend. One of these days, I will successfully trick you into asking for something you want and I'll be very pleased with myself over it."
But lest they linger over this outright threat unecessarily—
"You will take care of Mister Stark while I'm away, of course."
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It shifts something in his expression. Brief, finding no purchase, only a passing, tender thing that comes and goes almost helplessly in response. He is so fond of her good cheer, even if some aspect of it comes at his expense.
"Aye," is easy reassurance, deferring away from the topic of any possible thing Ellis might want. (It catches in his throat, held in check still.) "And Mr. Dickerson. And the chickens, and any other animals I might find alongside them."
Theoretically only the goat and the dog. But who can say what else might end up in residence?
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"If I come back from Orzammar and find a cow, or a gaggle of geese, or a big fat pig that you don't mean to turn immediately into bacon in the side garden, I will be very cross with you!"
She balls up her fist, but gets only as far as threatening to drum him on the chest with it. You—!
"Come now, have you any notes for me with respect to your friend? I told you I know nothing at all about dogs."
(Nevermind that Déranger has taken to sleeping at the foot of her bed, and will no doubt spend the rest of the summer in the morose state of having to put up with the sub-optimal company of various people more dull than the screeching young lady she ordinarily takes such care in herding.)
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Between them, aware of the shift in conversation topic, Ruadh huffs and butts his head against Wysteria's hip. Leans all his weight against her thigh, licking his chops. Ellis resists the urge to kneel down to him.
"He'll help you," is what he says instead, which Ellis clearly feels is a reassuring statement. "He'll need chicken livers. Fish will do, on the voyage. Bones to gnaw on in the evenings. He likes an egg, from time to time."
A refined palate.
"And he'll like to accompany you, wherever you're going."
Which is perhaps the biggest imposition.
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So Wysteria, leaning hard to balance against the counter pressure of Ruadh doing the same against her leg, only rolls her eyes very slightly as she repeats back, "Bones, fish, eggs, livers," as if she might not recall it otherwise.
"I'm sure he will find it all quite dull, and will return to you incredibly spoiled by having done nothing but lay about in a workshop for months on end. Isn't that right?"
The big mabari with his patchwork of scars receives a thumping pat on the shoulder for emphasis.
"Is there nothing else?"
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Something of a true statement. Ruadh does not have the look of a creature that's had an easy time of it, if the scarring is any indication.
But the question is given due consideration as Ellis folds himself downward to scruff one hand up along Ruadh's scarred shoulder, thumb at his velvety cheek. Obvious fondness in Ellis' face for it, lingering as he tips his head to look up at her.
"Talk to him," Ellis advises. "He'll be lonely, otherwise, and he understands conversation just fine."
This is surely not a hardship.
"And when you think of it, scratch him about the ears. Like this."
Ellis' hand turns up, holding out for Wysteria's own hand to be guided.
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It would have been unthinkable to turn down such a heartfelt gift as Ruadh's company, nevermind the annoying semantics implicit in the whole arrangement.
So despite a great air of being put upon—"Oh, very well."—Wysteria surrenders her hand to his guidance.
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Ellis takes her hand in his own, laces their fingers together beneath his palm so he might guide her along Ruadh's great square head, obligingly lifted in expectation.
There is a knot of scar tissue here. A raised slash of a knife strike there. A cluster of punctures, perhaps from teeth, further along. And, just behind the cropped rise of Ruadh's ears—
"Here," Ellis tells her, as he presses Wysteria's fingers into place and Ruadh's nub of a tail wags encouragingly. "Right here."
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Yes, yes, all right. See how swift a study she is!
"Ear scratches, conversation, fish bones." A brisk correction— "Fish, and also bones."
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The tenderness in Ellis' expression remains as he lifts his hand from over hers. Scruffs his fingers against the thick muscles of Ruadh's neck, chucks him beneath the chin. Says something, so low it is swallowed up by the clatter of sailors and slap of sea against the dock, but is returned by a soft lap of Ruadh's tongue to his hand.
Looking up at her, his expression has shifted only very slightly. It is still softened, cracked open enough for some silent, honest thing to make itself plain.
There is a beat of hesitation, where Ellis might say some other thing. Even unspoken, it draws taut within his chest, suppressed enough so that when he does speak, what he has to say is—
"Aye, that is all he needs. And perhaps some space on a rug alongside your bed, if you'll permit him."
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"I'll consider it," she says, meaning very much to sound quite arch and cool and ruining it by instead smiling down at him as her hand continues to scratch absently behind Ruadh's ear. How difficult it is to see all that endearment in him and not simply reflect it directly back! So much so that there, amidst the bustle of the dockyard, she forgets the growing urgency to traipse up the gangway onto the little boat so she might be aboard ahead of her things and so see them directed according to her wishes, and momentarily loses track of even her annoyance over the inconvenience of such a traveling companion.
(Ruadh will take up a great deal of the space in the closet sized cabin to which she has been appointed on the Guillemot.)
"I promise to mind him very carefully, Mister Ellis."
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That honest, closely-guarded thing is not diminished by it.
(In all the stories, is this not the place to make a declaration from? The knees?)
Lingering there, looking up at her, Ellis breathes out a deep, slow breath. Acclimating to the present moment, the inescapable presence of the ship behind them. Ruadh is content enough, luxuriating underneath Wysteria's ministrations. Ellis swipes one last pass over Ruadh's velvety snout, before he levers himself up.
"I know that you will," he tells her, voice gone thick over the words. "And I will miss you, very much."
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"Nonsense. We're going to write with such frequency that you'll not have the time to."
She should have written him a note here in Kirkwall, she thinks. She might have given it to him this morning or arranged to have it delivered to his mail cubby after she had gone. It would have been a charming bit of high spirits and good humor. But she hadn't; she will have to suit herself with writing something during the crossing and with sending it directly back the moment she reaches Ferelden.
"In fact, you must promise me that you'll be extraordinarily well while I'm away. I would find that considerably reassuring."
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Straightening, Ellis' expression creases into a subdued, fond smile. No promise is forthcoming, though he reaches to interrupt her ministrations. A regrettable turn of events for Ruadh, perhaps, but that prospect isn't enough to keep Ellis from catching up her hand in his own.
Certainly, he could have made the promise. How could it be verified one way or another? But Ellis imparts something else, instead.
"He has a keen sense of smell," comes with a tip of his head downwards, towards the seated mabari. Still panting, hopefully attentive to the two of them. "If Ruadh tells you to go, heed him. Aye?"
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