heorte | when i go towards you it is with my whole life.

For a moment, she lets the quiet linger. There is a space there for if he decides to find his way to the end of that thought.

But not much of one. After a moment's serious study of the tipped low line of his brow she says, "Good. Because I don't know that I could bear to be so removed from other people and I should find it very difficult to stop speaking our mind about one another not that I have gotten into the habut. And anyway, it's quite possible it will never matter at all. Provost Baudin and Madame de Cedoux both have been here for far longer than I . It is entirely possible that you will be stuck with me for a very long time and that all your hair will go entirely grey because of it."

He's bent low enough that she can kiss him at the place where his poor hairline has already silvered.

So. There.

What a sweet thought, to have such a life. How slim the chances are that a man like him might be so fortunate to be allowed that kind of blessing.

Ellis' thumb passes over the shard again, obscuring the flickering light of it. Her right hand is released, only so Ellis can touch her cheek.

"I would be a very lucky man."

Is this the moment to tell her? Ellis feels the weight of what he's kept aside, the Calling, the poison in his blood, the death that waits so patiently for him, all bearing down at once. This room is comfortable and warm and far removed from it, and he balks at the thought of inviting in such a thing.

No. Not yet.

"Are you sure you don't want me to sleep in the stables?" is a shift in topic, a roundabout way of soliciting some confirmation that her concerns have eased.

Wysteria's cheek pulls in his palm as she wrinkles her nose.

"And be stuck next to you all of tomorrow while you smell of horse? Anything but that."

Have her concerns been eased? In parts and pieces, maybe. Logically she knows the likelihood for worry is small. And there is some reassurance in Ellis' willingness to—be there in the room regardless. Those can be enough.

"And please don't sleep on the floor. It would be beastly of me to insist on," is gentle, meant to be soothing in kind. Half the reason she'd hesitated over the matter of not sleeping was in effort to spare him the flicker of tension that she can feel weighs on him now.

Then, brisker— "But when we go to sleep, you will swear to keep your eyes closed until I've gotten under the covers. And we will never say it occurred to another living soul. And if I snore you must promise not to tell me because I'm tortured by the possibility and would prefer to be happy oblivious."

"I promise," is easily bequeathed.

In other circumstances, Ellis could have put her at ease by reciting a litany of terrible sleeping habits he's persevered adjacent to in his time. Joppa hadn't quite snored but he had made a particular sound, a terrible wheezing noise that he'd claimed was likely the product of having been hit round the chest too many times. Cathán had tended to kick, but only at people laying along his left side, something he and Ellis had often forgotten on their most exhausted, miserable nights until it was too late.

Comparatively, Ellis is hardly worried about Wysteria. Though in return—

"Listen," he says after a moment, fingers slipping gently across her cheek, falling down the line of her jaw to bracket her shard-pierced hand where he holds it between them. "I've—I know that I have nightmares. Wardens usually do."

A phrase that distances the thing from Ellis specifically: Wardens suffer this.

"But you should know. So it doesn't catch you too much by surprise."

In reply, Wysterja makes some low tutting noise, all mingled surprise and fondness and a childish kind of sympathy. She doesn't turn her hand to pat his, but she does clearly consider it. Poor thing.

"I imagine that is quite normal, given the demands of your occupation. Shall I wake you if I notice some disturbance? Valiantly rescue you from sleep."

(Is the offer of someone who doesn't know how dreadful nightmares can be, someone who has never shared a bed with anyone in her entire life, and a person who thus grossly underestimates her ability to sleep through the end of the world. But still.)

It's not unexpected. Ellis knows her. He knows he's asking her to reach for something that exceeds her grasp.

But Ellis isn't certain how to make it real for her in any meaningful way.

"Push me off the side if I've woken you," is his advice, though he isn't so sure he'd wake her regardless. Or how well he'd respond to being shaken awake, which very quickly becomes the bigger concern in his mind. He shakes his head slightly as he says, "But it's more likely I'll wake on my own and go sit by the fire there."

He looks down, pausing as he laces their fingers together slowly.

"This might all be for nothing. But so you know."

As promised. An attempt to do better, to keep her from moving about a room in the dark.

So you know, he says, and despite how plain the flicker of unease is in him she can't help but be a little satisfied. There is something—good, rewarding even in knowing something a little like a small secret. Or to be given the consideration of being thought of so far in advance so as to be given the benefit of a disclaimer.

It's kind. Sweet, even, though she'd never say so to his face. One doesn't tell a grown man he is such a thing with any directness, and certainly not when the matter in question is being talked about with such painful sincerity.

Her smile twitches, slanting briefly wide.

"I swear to kick you out of your side of the bed straightaway should I notice anything amiss." And then because it is there, she kisses his brow again. And then because he seems so grim, she kisses him there a third time.

This is as serious an answer as he can hope for, perhaps. And it is good to see the flex of Wysteria's smile. He'd have been content with that, even without the kisses she punctuates her agreement with.

They are sat at the wrong angle, but Ellis sways forward anyway, the urge to simply lean his head on her shoulder, turn his face in against his neck coming and going within the span of a moment. His grip tightens on her hand, before he straightens by degrees. Some of the concern has left his face, but it's still in his voice, which thaws by degrees as he asks, "Can I kiss you good night? Please?"

Tacked together because she'd asked for such consideration and he doesn't mind adopting it.

"Just once, and then I'll close my eyes so you can get into bed," is added, a small clarifying edge to what he's asking her for.

It's quiet and his hands are about hers and she is so much better at seeing him like this when he is this close and it's just the two of them, that it's difficult not to recognize the quiet sense of urgency which lingers about the edges of him. He is so often quiet and still that any restless impulse glows like the after image of magic at the corner of her eye.

She doesn't answer as she ought to. Instead, with her hand in his, she leans forward and kisses him. It's meant to be a tender, soothing thing—forget what she's said and her long series of nonsense worries, and the events of the day, and all the things which have put that serious furrow in his brow. And for a moment it is.

And then—having made that list of things which might yet be weighing on him in her own mind and recognizing how the shape of them threaten to linger; weighing her own self satisfaction and fear like a stone in each hand; because he had thought her uncertain and tried to reassure her—when she ought to stop kissing him, she exchanges gentleness for insistence.

This, the third time, still holds the same surreal quality as the first two kisses they'd traded.

This is happening. They are here. He is alive and Wysteria is kissing him and the sweetness of it roots somewhere deep in his chest. Briefly, he thinks of spring, and their garden. Her mouth is so gentle at first; all the tension draws from his body as she kisses him. His free hand raises unconsciously to her hip, but no further. He expects her to draw back, remembers just a little of how she had done in the kitchen.

Instead, the point of deliberation is almost a tangible thing, softness tipping into something more deliberate. The decision is there in the way Wysteria shifts into the kiss, and for a moment there is just the blurred impression of her mouth, the clutch of their hands, and the brief pull of his hand, slid to her waist as if to encourage her forward.

When Ellis checks himself, it should be familiar, even this close. She has seen him sparring. It's the same hitch from the training yard, the sudden awareness of a blind spot. Ellis makes a soft sound as he breaks from her, drawing a deep breath. He leans his forehead against hers.

"Wysteria," said like a question, murmured so close to her mouth. When he takes his hand from her hip, it's only to lift up to her shoulder, flip the long end of her braid in his fingers on the way up to touch her neck.

His hands are all work rough, warm about hers and broad against the side of her neck; his lip and chin are a scrape of beard bristle, and even like this with them both settled on the latch hook rug he is the sort of broad and sturdy which on any other person might qualify as daunting. It would be simple to be ill at ease, to think of the work of his mace and to sense some natural lack control, which between two people she thinks must be the least bearable sensation in the whole of the world. But that check is telling. He is careful and deliberate, and the way he says her name sounds pained and grateful all at once.

It's very charming to be obeyed. To know how dreadfully sincere he is in his affections (uncreative and dull, she'd once been mistaken in thinking), and then to sense his restraint. It's like being handed a guiding rein.

"Will you tell me what you're thinking?" Is like a trade. He'd been good enough to ask the same, hadn't he? To reassure her. To pretend that arcane things could be easily understood. It is only fair to extend him a similar courtesy.

Though maybe it's different when it comes from so close, looking intently at him from such a proximity that she can see little more than his eyelashes and the weather ruddy curve of his cheek, the scrape on his face.

"Aye," holds place for the actual answer, making the intent clear even before he's gathered his thoughts. It takes him a moment. They've slipped slightly from the course Ellis had imagined the evening taking. A kiss. Wysteria climbing into bed. Ellis laying beside her and wondering if this is a night where sleep comes easily or not at all.

Instead—

"I care about you very much," he tells her, the words stilted under the weight of some larger sentiment. His thumb sets gently at the hinge of her jaw, fingers very gentle as they cup her neck. Ellis opens his eyes, draws back slightly to watch her face as he continues, "And I am very worried of unintentionally pressing you into ceding things to me you aren't prepared to give. Or inclined to give."

A shade of his apology in her kitchen, the immediacy of his words colored over with dread.

"I want nothing but for you to be comfortable with me, and what we are to each other. Does that make sense?"

"But that is what I want as well. For you to be certain," she insists. "I know this all to be—difficult, is not the right word. I don't doubt your care, only I would prefer it if you were happy and I know you worry a great deal." About everything all the time, though she imagines there's little she can do to check that impulse. She knows that to an extent it is simply what he is.

"So we must be very honest with one another. And confident that any opinion spoken is not merely one of convenience, regardless of subject. Even if the answer is simply to refuse or delay. Yes?" Anchor shards, and midnight fears, and memories of thaig carvings, and—whatever they are meant to be. That is the only rational approach.

Her focus is sharp like the inquisitive point of a hovering pen ready to take notes. She doesn't lean forward after him. Instead, she absently tucks her skirts into the bend of her knee, insinuating her hand there. It is the slightly more dignified version of sitting on it.

"Would you like me to tell you how we would be if we were in Kalvad?"

Wysteria makes it sound so simple. Ellis' thumb strokes lightly along her neck, a small smile working it's way onto his face to displace the furrow of worry. (It stays rooted in his chest, the worry of crossing some line, of doing some damage to her.) There is space between her question and his response that is all muddled with tenderness and lingering uncertainty before he nods in answer.

"Aye."

Even though Ellis would surely be a very different man in Kalvad. His knowledge is limited, but he's certain of that.

But he likes to hear about her home, and he likes to hear her. So he straightens a little further in turn, giving her space to speak and reducing the temptation to kiss her again.

And in turn, she gently removes her left hand from his and does the same with it as with her right. It will be easier not to be so demanding of his affections that way. Sitting up straighter, elevating her chin—

"Well first, we would have likely met at some gathering of a mutual friend or family member. There we might have had a pleasant conversation on some subject or other, or maybe it would have been the sort of thing where one is expected to dance and we would have done that. And if you had thought I was witty or charming, or in some way pleasing then it's possible you might solicit an invitation to another mutual friends where we might run into one another again, or contrive to visit a friend in the region and call at my father's house in passing and then you and I and my mother would sit in a room for conversation.

"—I can't decide if you would like her or not. She is a very particular woman. But I believe she would approve of you in a general sense. And a military man, for I suppose that is a close enough comparison, is respectable enough for her not to dismiss out of hand. My father rarely goes to parties or dinners, so you might introduce yourself then as well if you'd not met him. —He is a different sort of particular. And he would be extremely suspicious of you, but I doubt he would be unkind. Are you following so far, Mister Ellis? We have spoken two or three times at this point."

In the course of her explanation, Ellis stretches out sideways across the rug, propped on one elbow. One hand curls around her ankle, replacing the relinquished contact at her neck. It feels essential, to have at least one point where he is touching her.

"Aye, I'm following," he answers dutifully. "Would I have been allowed to bring a gift to you at this point, or would that have been a unappreciated?"

Presumably unappreciated by her parents, not by Wysteria herself.

Or hopefully Wysteria would appreciate whatever he selected, in this hypothetical scenario. Ellis has been giving Wysteria little gifts for nearly two years now, but still, maybe he shouldn't assume his own proficiency.

"Flowers," she answers, pulse fluttering a little in the direction of her throat. His hand on her ankle is—on her ankle. "But absolutely no gifts. That would be presumptuous beyond believe, to say nothing about it being outrageously extravagant. If you brought me a gift and didn't propose on the spot and anyone found out about it, my reputation would be tarnished forever."

Her eyebrows rise and fall for effect.

"Now, let us assume at this point that you find my company very agreeable. Likely because I'm pretty and because I'm the heir to my mother's estate and to my father's business. It certainly cannot be because you know me well. In which case, you might arrange to stay at your friend's for the season. And let us say that friend is married, in which case his wife might invite myself and my mother out for a day in her gardens or walking and then you and her husband might be there as well. And we might speak a fourth or even fifth time. Perhaps we might even walk around the yard together while they had tea by the house."

"Flowers," Ellis repeats in an undertone, observation rather than interjection, as Wysteria goes on.

By comparison, he has tarnished her reputation several times over. His thumb rubs absently up and down the bone of her ankle as he looks into her face.

"I wouldn't be allowed to hold your hand?" he clarifies. "Or would I hold your hand to signal my intentions?"

"My hand. Oh no, Mister Ellis. You might offer me your arm if our walk was particularly treacherous. If you held my hand without reason—for dancing or to help me up a stair or up from a chair and someone were to see, then everyone would either assume we were engaged already or that you were desperate for my fortune and looking to put me in an inconvenient position so that my family would be compelled to agree to our marriage despite your considerable debts or the ruin of your own family's connections. —Would be the theory. But no, no holding of hands."

She shifts her leg by a very minor fraction. Not away from his hand. And not toward it either, she has decided. She is only making herself more comfortable.

"Now, eventually—somewhere around five dances or seven pleasant conversations—there would come a point where you would be obligated to make a decision as to whether you meant to seriously pursue me. In which case, we might continue in that vein. And if not, you would have to either turn your attentions to some other lady or cut short your visit and be away. For a man and a woman can only spend a handful of times in one another's company before they are understood as being attached. And once a pair is understood as attached, if they were to become unattached at any point—well, everyone would wonder what objectionable thing had been discovered."

They'd had once dance, but many conversations. The point of this story isn't for comparison, Ellis knows, but still. Some minor calculation inevitably happens in the wake of this new information.

"Would I ask you?" Ellis questions. "Before we became attached?"

The motion of his thumb had ceased in the wake of her movement. But the contact remains, for the moment.

"No," is her immediate scoffing response. Imagine! Discussing these things aloud? Truly absurd.

But lest she sound completely toothless, she hastens to add—

"Let us say only that if I'd allowed it to reach the point where you'd have been faced with such a decision, then that would have been an expression of my own interest. I'm hardly short of suitors, Mister Ellis. I would have refused your invitations and replaced you long before it became a question otherwise."

"I see."

And though they're talking about Kalvad, Ellis is fairly certain the same rule applies here. It's a small comfort.

But the question that leaves him with—

"How long would we be attached before I asked you to marry me?" is a slightly hushed question, careful around a sentiment that is not so far removed from Thedas. People marry here. They will be attached for some time. Ellis doesn't intend to ask her to marry him.

"Well it would depend," she says, tilting her head gently to one side—ear resting gently against her shoulder as she regards him.

"On your feelings and mine, and on the weather and politics and whether you were called away by your duty or if my family went away for holiday. But given the level of our attachment to one another—we have spoken a dozen times now, I think; my gods, perhaps you even know of my fondness for books at this point!—, I would expect your proposal by the end of the season and be naturally heartbroken if fate intervened. Oh but if you failed to propose by then, everyone would assume there was a reason why you hadn't and our attachment and reputations would very much be in doubt unless you wrote to me for all the time we were apart and asked to marry me the very next time we crossed paths.

"I have always liked that version best, I think," she adds after a moment, a little more gently. "You can say so much in letters."

"Aye."

They have said a great deal in letters. Maybe if they'd never taken up the habit, they wouldn't have landed here now. A lot of things had been easier to put to paper.

It seems to be the end of his questions. Ellis' gaze drops to where his hand is settled around her ankle, thinks that he is glad they met here. He's done next to nothing right by the Kalvad standards, but—

"It's a little late for the rest of it, but I can still write you letters."

And flowers, but that goes without saying.

Late? Maybe it is.

Above him, some small thing in her expression softens by just the narrowest degree. Withdrawing her hands from where they've been jammed so studiously behind the backs of her knees is a delicate thing. Gentle. And after, she doesn't reach out to touch him; instead, Wysteria laces her fingers together. She lets her palms open up across her lap.

"Would you tell me how it would be if I were from this place instead?"

no subject

no subject

ellis u dumbass

it's Fine

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject