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

The weather has grown increasingly warm, humidity and heat blanketing Kirkwall and the Marches, breaking only intermittently for bouts of rain. It is miserable, but a more bearable kind of miserable than Kirkwall had been coated in ice.

The garden is flourishing, everything coming into bud or bursting open in the sun. Frequently Ellis comes in to Wysteria in the kitchen smelling of earth, sweat and dirt on his skin, smudged on his palms. The flowers that appear on her table shift, winter blooms giving way to spring: daffodils and crocus and hyacinths to accompany the books left on her table.

When he'd asked her to accompany him out of Kirkwall this morning, it had been presented as an errand. Not so unusual, considering their habit now. But the errand turns out to be a pond an hour's ride out of the city. It's a more idyllic setting than the Marches have a right to host, but more importantly, it's shallow to a point, and the water is calm and it's secluded. Perfect for—

"I thought we'd see about teaching you to swim," he tells her, as he swings out of the saddle and leads his horse towards a low-hanging branch. He's prepared for this to be received much like the archery lessons: with a great deal of sighing and the clear sense that he's being humored.

She ought to have been more nosy with respect to the nature of the errand. It would have saved them all a great deal of trouble, for the sound she makes in reply from up on the docile brown mare borrowed for the ride is indeed a great heaving, indignant exhale. The broad brim of her hat casts a wide shadow over which obscures a vast portion of her eyeroll, but does not disguise the put upon drop of her shoulders or the way she briefly seems to threaten to droop straight out of the saddle and onto the ground.

"Oh really, Mister Ellis," she grumbles, kicking free of one stirrup and then another.

"You might have at least warned me. These are not my best things—I would hardly wear my best stockings for riding—, but I would have picked something entire different if I knew they were to be drenched. And I would have brought something to change into besides. Do you know how dreadful it is to sit in three damp layers? To say nothing of being on a horse in them."

All this Wysteria says as she clambers down from her own saddle, hopping to draw the reins over the mare's head so it too might be tethered to the low hanging branch.

"At least you picked a fine day for it. The weather is truly atrociously warm."

All the bluster of her reaction sparks up amusement in his face that kindles and catches, pulls into a smile as he watches her. It's particularly endearing to find that at the end point of so many complaints, Wysteria is still willing to entertain him.

But they are all fair objections. Ellis is nodding along with them, assessment of the weather excluded, as he runs his palm down the neck of her horse. A soft whicker and shift of the horse is the only reply Wysteria receives for a moment, before he turns back to her.

"Check my saddlebags," he instructs, one hand pressing briefly at the small of her back as he passes her to check the ties. Wysteria is more or less left to uncover a neatly wrapped parcel that surely contains lunch, and clothing, tunics and trousers, one set smaller than the other. A makeshift swimming outfit, one that Ellis is fully aware Wysteria would never be caught dead in were they in a public place, but the idea of trying to purchase a suit on her behalf felt—

Daunting. Less so than simply buying something light and make-shift for the purpose of an afternoon.

Unsurprisingly, this is the point Ellis worried over the most.

From the flank of the horse and over the flap of the saddlebag, Wysteria shoots him increasingly faux outraged looks until eventually the last simple article of clothing has been drawn out.

"I suppose you think you're quite clever," is equal parts chiding and pleased as she bundles the clothes—both sets of them—under one arm.

She flicks a glance down, past the horses to that lovely still pond. It is all lovely and summer golden, little white wildflowers creeping along the bank's edge. A bundle of low, shrubby trees, a smattering of tall grass and pale spindly poplars, are a collection all more or less fit to change in if one were pressed to the indignity of putting on new clothes out of doors.

She pivots back to him.

"Well. I see there is nothing to be done for it."

No particular rejoinder in response to his own cleverness, though maybe there was a chuckle. Hard to say that it wasn't just Ellis' mount shuffling her hooves restlessly.

"I appreciate you humoring me," he answers her, very solemn. A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth, doesn't quite break across his face, as he continues, "I promise I won't look."

An assurance that comes out almost teasing, tone warmed in the wake of her acquiescence.

If his focus remains narrowed in on this exact moment, on Wysteria's huffy pleasure and the warmth of the sun and the promise of the day, Ellis can think less of what an oddity he is within the tableau. It becomes surreal, if he considers it at length.

Her scoff is powerful, rooted from deep in her chest. The larger pair of clothes is judiciously separated from the bundle and looped over the Ellis' empty saddle.

"If a fish touches me, I will scream."

And then, turning her nose resolutely up into the air, she traipses off into the shrubbery.

"Did you learn to swim in Lake Calenhad, Mister Ellis?" This she asks loudly from somewhere in the stand of greenery.

There is no reason to tell her that the chances of being touched by a fish is probably quite high.

"Not in Lake Calenhad," Ellis answers, voice pitched at a more moderate level. He's in the process of toeing off his boots, undoing his bracers. "It was a pond, not so dissimilar to this one. I don't think it was noteworthy enough to have a proper name."

A glorified puddle, Ellis remembers someone saying. The memory is akin to stepping in a hole, being momentarily unbalanced.

"It's a good way to learn. No current to deal with," he tacks on, unnecessarily reassuring.

That's all right; she probably will shriek only a little bit. But who wouldn't? It is unnatural to brush so close to anything with fins which hasn't been roasted first.

"I trust you," is automatic, thoughtless as somewhere she undoes a series of buttons. "And did you learn with the boy who stabbed you with a nail, or did someone else teach you the lesson?"

I trust you catches him, warms him through in much the same way as her hands on his face or held in his own might have. It's said so easily. The cadence of it settles, the kind of thing that must be committed immediately to memory. He wants to hold onto the sound of her voice making that declaration.

"My uncles taught me first," he answers. Having stowed his bracers in a saddle bag, he takes a moment to run his hands over the horse's flank. "Then I'd swim with the boy who stabbed me with a nail, after I'd mastered enough that everyone was certain I wouldn't sink when pushed in."

It can be assumed that Ellis' method of instruction will not involve shoving her into deep water.

"Your uncles," she repeats in tones of 'oooh' and 'ahhh.' "I don't think my uncles ever taught me anything, save perhaps how to be exceptionally dull over dinner. They are all from my mother's side and most of them work in the government and I fully believe it has devoured all spirit they once had. Oh, except for Uncle Randolphus. But no one has seen him in person for ages."

And then, in a much more sober tone—

"Should the buttons on these trousers go up the left side or the right? How is anyone meant to know the front from back?"

"The right," Ellis advises her, though he declines to offer any theories as to identifying the front from the back.

Instead, having made his way to the gently sloping edge of the pond, he crouches alongside to test the water. A little scattering of tiny silver fish dart away from his fingers as he flicks them across the surface.

"Are you stalling?" he asks, a very genuine sounding question that may or may not be intended as teasing provocation.

"Stalling," gasps back the provoked shrub. "Need I remind you that I am already quite proficient in the water and that there is virtually no reason whatsoever for a delay. Just because you may strip down to whatever you like in ten or twenty seconds doesn't mean everyone can."

Which is true enough, though perhaps not the entirety of it. The legs of the trousers look very silly tucked into the tops of camel colors boots, and she can only imagine what the rest of her looks like.

She hesitates for a moment, studying the shadow of Ellis through the gaps in the shrubbery's foliage as she fusses with the lacing of the tunic in an attempt to cinch it tighter or higher, though the lay of it is plenty conservative.

"I'm coming out," is announced clearly, for otherwise she will never do it. Already she is elbowing her way back out of the brush, bringing her dress and shift and stays and stockings and various ribbons and so on with her. "And I beg you to avoid too close a study because I look ridiculous."

She looks—like someone awkward over being caught in trousers, mostly. Not ill fitting necessarily, save perhaps around a kind of stair climbing sturdiness of the thigh, but certainly ill worn. Maker forbid she linger over the discomfort though; instead she stuffs her unworn clothes into one of the saddlebags and coming briskly skittering down toward the water as her hands some vaguely unconscious effort at shielding whatever falls between navel and knees.

Straightening at the first rustle of the bushes, Ellis is positioned well enough to turn to observe Wysteria's march from shrubbery to saddlebag and then the apprehensive progression towards him in all it's glory.

Ellis doesn't laugh. (Intelligent enough, perhaps, to know that mirth would not be well-received.) But he can't help his smile, or that for a moment as he does exactly what he'd been instructed against and looks her over, that all the affection he has for her is very clear on his face.

Between them, he reaches down to catch Wysteria's hands and interrupt their fluttering attempts to settle somewhere around her waist.

"You are very good to humor me," he tells her first, very solemn. "And you are still very pretty."

Ellis has stripped down to his tunic and trousers, laces loose at his collar, feet bare. A smile twitches at his lips, then is fought back as Ellis lapses back to seriousness.

"But I'm going to have you take the boots off as well."

"Oh course I still am," Wysteria snips back at him, an absent grumble even as she makes no attempt to either dislodge her hands from his or shove him back into the water (which is, for the record, what he deserves for that absurd look on his face).

That sense of heroically laboring under the indignity of his requests persists as she toes out of her boots and allows her attention to skirt toward suspiciously assessing the water.

"Remind me to bottle some of this before we go. I have run entirely out of the river water I took on my last trip and it is so hard to find fresh water in Kirkwall that didn't come from a well. Well water is a terrible option for a component case."

Are, at best, only half words he will parse. But that isn't really the point.

She kicks the second boot off and up the bank.

"I will," Ellis assures her, though she's right: the reasoning behind bottling it doesn't quite register in any meaningful way. He doesn't ask. There's always the chance she decides to explain in detail on the ride back.

Instead, seeing her feet suitably bare, Ellis draws her along with him down to the edge of the water, stopping when the water laps over their feet.

"We're going to wade in, to start," he explains. "I don't expect you to learn every part of it all at once, so we can begin with the basics today and see how it goes."

This, like archery lessons, promises to be part one of many sessions. Ellis can hope it's marginally more pleasant for her than time spent in the training yard. The water is lukewarm, and mostly clear. Without having taken any steps forward, the silt beneath the surface is undisturbed. It's easy to see the rippled sand, the scattering of green-coated stones further in. Ellis gives her hand a little, prompting tug, expression expectant.

"And I told you, I am an expert wader. In skirts, even. Really, I hardly see why trousers were even necessary. Not that I don't appreciate the thought, Mister Ellis. It is very charming of you to have considered every detail."

This as she hesitates at the very edge of the pond. With a sidelong look shot in his direction, she edges into the water. The silt gives gently underfoot, and green things clinging to small stones shiver, and small living things fleet anxiously away from the disruption—

"Go on then. You might as well explain them. The basics, I mean."

Edited 2021-04-24 14:44 (UTC)

"It's easier to demonstrate," Ellis tells her, with a little squeeze of the hand to prompt her to keep moving. "But we'll walk until the water comes to here."

A hand lifts, taps his own throat.

"I promise you, this is all easier done in trousers."

Having some understanding of all the fabric and layers involved in her usual styling, Ellis is certain the weight of it would have made bouncy a real challenge. And he'd like to make this easy for her. Unlike the archery, this isn't a skill he expects her to need at any immediate point in time. It can just be this, the two of them in a pond alone on a warm day, without anything else to it.

"Easier to demonstrate," she echoes back, only a little skeptical. "There is nothing at all in the world which can't be written down or spoken of in some fashion, Mister Ellis. In fact, I would be unsurprised to find there are books on this very subject written, no doubt, by some eccentric man at leisure or some such person."

But this is an altogether petty complaint, and she doesn't mind complying with his requests. Indeed the day is warm enough that the barely cool water is something of a relief, and she had been so enthusiastic about the prospect all those many weeks ago, and the trousers are not so completely terrible (only mostly). So she continues to allow herself to be coaxed deeper into the pond.

It is only once the level of the water has passed above her navel that she begins to drift a little nearer to him, her other hand absently seeking out his forearm as a secondary handhold. The footing underneath is softer here, more likely to give way to the shape of their combined weight, and it is one thing to wade about in water which reaches only above the knees and quite another to be more in than out of it.

"Did you go swimming at the Ambassador's party? You remember. That day you were so kind enough to walk me home after."

Walk being loosely applied here.

A twitch of a smile in response. His arm flexes slightly under her hand, fingers squeezing hers, as he recalls the night in question. His memory snags less on the walk itself, Wysteria's arms around his neck and her weight settled against his back, than it does on the quiet moment in the garden after.

"No, I didn't," he answers her, adjusting their trajectory as his toes come up against a the spindly branches of a fallen tree limb. "There was plenty else to keep my attention that day."

And he didn't care so much for an audience, marking the ink on his skin and the scars winding their way down his side. Living alongside Riftwatch for so long still hasn't dispelled the need to pick and choose who's allowed the space to pry.

Wysteria is shorter than him, and Ellis is mindful of it. Unprompted, he halts the forward movement, stood neck-deep in water. He doesn't free his hand or arm from her grasp, merely shifts to stand face to face as he tells her, "This is the first thing I learned to do, float in a place where I could put my feet down if I felt afraid or that I was drifting away."

It's hard to tell whether this will be difficult for her or not. Wysteria tends to surprise him.

"Lean back, and try to relax. I won't let go of you."

Relax is a very fine suggestion in theory and a very difficult sort of instruction to follow in practice. There is something secretly alarmed at this, living in the back of her head and behind her ear, whispering things she can't quite make out but must be the repeated mantra which all children who grew up near a river know. Mind the bank. Mind the current. Mind not to go anywhere you cannot see the bottom of. Did you hear about that little boy who drowned in the summer when the weather was so lovely?

(No one ever knows who it was. That isn't the point of those stories.)

How pleasant swimming seems while on solid ground.

"If I lean back, what is to stop my head from going under water?" She already feels the urge to rise up on her toes to get more clearance from the water, using her grip on him to balance herself a little.

"Me," Ellis tells her, very serious before shaking his head, continuing towards a more sound explanation.

"I don't know all the science behind it," he admits, which seems like an oversight now. Maybe he should have tried to gather a few pieces of scientifically-grounded information before bringing her here. "But I know that you'll float, and it'll be easier in the trousers than it might have been otherwise."

Under the water, his free hand finds her elbow. His fingers slip beneath the cuff of the tunic to her skin, thumb running back and forth there as he grasps for a better explanation than That's how it works.

"Do you want to watch me try it first?" is a little like a compromise, a demonstration to make up for the lack of concrete answer.

"No," is her brisk, immediate answer. It's softened a moment later, more measured by half: "No, it's all right. I'm sure I am quite capable thank you."

With his hands still firmly holding on to him, she squeezes her eyes shut (an unnecessary step) and allows herself to lean slowly backward. There is some urge to tip her chin up as high as it will go, bare feet hesitant to leave the muddy pond bed, and the moment her feet leave it she balks a little at the untethered quality of it.

From the point of view of a third party, she must look rather silly: scrunched face, grasping hands, the uneasy bobbing between some awkward jut of her chin and the tentative uneasy stir of her legs as if she might slowly walk her way toward being more parallel to the surface of the water—

Edited 2021-04-26 19:33 (UTC)

The benefit of holding so tightly to Ellis is that the slight movement of her legs doesn't propel her anywhere.

"I had a cousin who would splash water over my face every time I tried to float this way," Ellis tells her. It's maybe not such a relevant thing to know in the course of instruction. What it might be good for is easing the panicky tension of her body, and drawing her mind away from the strangeness of something unfamiliar. It's why he continues, a little coaxing: "The same one who took care to remind me there might be monsters in the dark."

Floating isn't any kind of work, not really, but Ellis had suspected it would be a challenge for her, and the expression on his face indicates that instinct might have been correct. Her hands are very tight on him. He folds his free hand over hers where they grasp at his arm, remains a tether as he reminds, "You can put your feet down whenever you care to."

"Ah the return of—" She lifts her face up by a degree or two, for talking feels like it has somehow unbalanced her. "—your terrible cousin. I do not want to put my feet down. If I put my feet down—" She blindly kicks a little in a stubborn attempt to right the trajectory of her limbs. "—I will not be swimming and that isn't the point."

Anyway, she is at least as this point confident that she will not suddenly fall back into the water where she will illogically drown. His arm and hands are steady enough, and yes. Technically she can put her feet down whenever she likes. So it is hardly as if going under would even be the end of the world.

Probably.

"Is it possible all people don't float? Maybe there are exceptions."

Or she's wiggling slightly too much. Who can say.

"We'll have to look into it when we get back," Ellis proposes. Science, how does that work? "But you're managing. Try to arch your back a little, if you can."

Advice skirting the edges of propriety, maybe. The trousers alone might have bent the limitations of her patience.

"I think you're a natural. You're taking to the water much faster than the archery."

Ha, ha.

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