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

"For a man who claims to have no interest in arguing, you are being remarkably argumentative."

It is a testament to her concern that she doesn't poke him somewhere sensitive out of an obligation to have some form of revenge. Instead, ameliorated by the press of his thumb, she makes do with wiping the excess salve on the waist of his trousers (revenge enough) and then sees to looping the bandage about him while muttering a few further opinions. How he is absurdly stubborn, how she isn't even tired and will hardly be able to eat anything at all, and that it is outrageous how he should choose now of all hours to be so intractable—

She is angry, she thinks. Properly and uselessly so, for there is no productive direction to be furious in. She is angry at the softening curve of his shoulder because she is angry at the thing that made it necessary. And she is angry at that little jar of jam and the cheese and bread and the take he has had to take to clear away the sawdust because it should have all been done so much more easily than it has been.

The end of the bandage is made secure then tucked securely away. With a hand smelling of salve, she takes him by the chin and plants a sullen kiss on his bristly cheek. There. For Maker's sake, was that so difficult?

With a great deal of huffing and puffing, she stuffs a piece of cheese into her mouth.

The kiss is there and gone, too fast for him to turn his head and catch her mouth. That urge resolves into the tightening of his hand at her knee. The grasp holds there as his free hand pats lightly at the bandages looped around his chest.

"Thank you," is for the bandages, for the application of salve that's dulled the racing pain in his back down to something manageable enough that he can stretch to snare the tunic from where she'd draped it over his pack without pain stabbing at him. It stays drawn over one bent thigh as he reaches for a slice of bread.

It's just that he's reluctant to let go of her, even to pull on the tunic. Without the constant beat of pain, there's more space for the leaching pull of fatigue to crowd forward, accompanied by the full weight of how narrowly they'd escaped. When he looks at her, frowning and chewing and irritated, his expression is cracking open, revealing amidst all of this conflicting emotion.

That hand at her is so very—insistent is not the right word. And neither is desperate, though there is some air of both in it. Like he needs her to remain there with her knee between him fingers and thumb, either because it is supporting him or because—Because what? Because she might otherwise loose herself and draw outside the range of his reach?

That seems very unlikely.

Yet there is something like a wound in his face when she looks at him, she thinks. Discovering it there doesn't lessen her bristled temper. Only complicates it.

"What is it? Say what you're thinking of."

Oh, it's any number of things he might say. Ellis considers them as he looks at her, brow drawing into a slight—

Not a frown. Just contemplation, some serious edge ebbing into his expression but not displacing the raw, tenderness there. And in that is a thing that he has not said, but cannot be such a mystery to her. Wysteria is very insightful, at times. And it's been a long time since he has been such a mystery to her.

His thumb draws along the bend of her knee.

"I was afraid for you," he says, softly. "Of not being able to protect you, in that room."

Ellis' eyes raise to her.

"But you got us out, and you saved me," Ellis says, voice growing firm over the tail-end of that sentence, anticipating her disagreement. "I'm proud of you."

It makes her—

Frown more fiercely. And then look away to glare hard at the glint in the wood fore stove. She eats another piece of cheese.

"I'm quite cross," she says. "About having to leave so much of our things in that place. My field journal was in my case. And a very good book I was in the middle of."

That isn't why she's angry. Or isn't all of it, obviously. But it is preferable to discuss that than any alternative reason, and certainly preferable to addressing the hot flush flaring up the back of her neck.

"You're not eating."

At that prompting (or is it accusation?) Ellis' hand finally cedes it's grasp on her knee to tear the bread in his hands into quarters, the better eat in one bite.

"We'll have it all back," Ellis says slowly, watching her face intently. The glow of the stove is not so ideal for marking the redness creeping up from beneath her collarbone, but it's not impossible to discern some discontent in her.

He does refrain from saying it will be an easy thing to deal with. Easier, perhaps, if they return with mages and more fighters, perhaps those who can fire at range through the windows. Ellis means to suggest it, whenever they turn in a report on the matter.

But in the moment, after dipping the second piece of bread into the jam and consuming it, Ellis looks to her and says, "You're meant to tell me things too. Whatever it is you're thinking."

Ellis does not think she's only concerned with the lost equipment.

"I have been telling you all manner of things," she reminds him, and then busies herself with another piece of cheese. And a bit of bread. After, she brushes her hands off on her knees. After, she—

Looks back at him. She is bristling and red faced, jaw set and teeth clamped together to keep from allowing the line of her mouth to slant sideways. There is a clenching sensation high in her chest.

True to his word, Ellis has matched her bite for bite, but when she stops, it draws him up short before he could reach for anything else.

The flush to her face is not a trick of the light. Ellis marks this, silent. The first impulse is to reach out for her, and that's telegraphed in the shape of his hands, how his body turns further towards her in some minor, instinctive motion.

"Wysteria," is spoken very quietly between them in this room.

"You're meant to be angry because if it were anyone else who'd done such a thing to you, I would be furious with them," she blurts out, fierce and demanding and devouring of that delicate quiet.

"You're meant to be angry for that reason. Because it would upset me terribly to lose you in such a dreadful way, and I'm not foolish—I know we're engaged in a way and that at any moment some terrible thing could happen. But that is precisely why one should at least be able to trust that what is dangerous won't come from their partner in the work. You should be angry because if someone else does such a thing to you, you must tell them never to do it again because it's very important that you not be left in some ridiculous old manor or on some field or anywhere else. That is why you should be angry. It's why you must be."

Some of her fury and embarrassment and the demanding shape of her affections have come up in the form of hot tears threatening to spill. She impatiently wipes them away, sucks in a breath, and then glares at him.

"It is very unreasonable to be frightened for you, but I must be something. And I would appreciate it if you were to give the matter—yourself, I mean—the same care. That is all."

It is an old argument. Yes, the first time Wysteria has put it to him so explicitly, but she is not the first person to say such a thing. She can't know she's echoing someone else, certainly, but Ellis is aware of a ghost summoned into the room. Cathán, years ago, snapping some similar thing, is pulled to the forefront of Ellis' mind.

It's a hard sentiment to engage, considering how long he has spent in the business of trying, one way or another, to throw himself away.

And it's even more difficult to reconcile that with Wysteria in front of him, laying bare something Ellis knew some part of already: losing him would be painful to her. There are times when he might underestimate her attachment to him, but it is impossible to do that now.

"Will you come here?" he asks, a smaller request first instead of directly engaging with all that's been said. Yes, he could kneel up to her, but it would inevitably call attention to all his injuries, and that feels counterproductive in the midst of all this discussion.

I am here, is right there on the tip of her tongue—visible in the sulky and faintly childish twist of her features. But it would be a silly, petty thing to refuse him. It isn't what she actually wants to do despite the flare of her temper which demands some pettish response.

So Wysteria does as he requests, shifting over to be nearer and thrusting her hand out with the clear expectation that he hold it.

And he does, lacing their fingers together and bringing her knuckles to his mouth before coaxing her closer, drawing her in against him without ceding his grasp.

"Had someone else put me in that position, I would be very cross with them," he tells her, very sincere. What cross actually looks like for Ellis might be a bit more difficult to detect, but that doesn't mean it's absent. "But I've no reason to be cross with you, because I'm going to ask you to make me a bargain and I expect you'll say yes."

There's a difficulty here, beyond his own lack of attachment to his own well-being. It's the same struggle he's been skirting along with since he befriended her and Tony in the first place: how can he possibly ask them to refrain from prodding at dangerous things, when their entire work seems to hinge on that exact activity?

So here, a compromise. Or what Ellis hopes to be a compromise, even if he can't imagine that it would have stopped him agreeing with her about the rings. It had seemed like such a small thing, after all.

Here again, the impulse to be a little petty. Oh, so for anyone else this would be cause for a little temper. What then makes her so different? It is irresponsible, you know, to treat a person so unevenly in these cases. It it like to make them willful and stubborn and very silly, and she has quite enough of all those qualities all on her own thank you very much.

But fine. Drawn in close—as close as he dictates, for she is delicate about pressing so near given all the battery which has occurred about his back and shoulders—, she suits herself with frowning a little harder near to his neck and restlessly smoothing the lay of that borrowed shirt's collar with her spare hand. It's not quite turned to lay flat, and it's a relatively straightforward thing to correct compared to a long list of others things which are not.

"What manner of bargain?"

"That the next time we come across something, some...magical thing," Ellis begins, a pause where he considers his terms. Rifts must be excluded surely. They've been poking at rifts together for so long that to begin attempting to restrict it now is absurd.

He's not quite drawn her into his lap, but the intention is there. It stalls as he pauses over the specifics of his request, his thumb rubbing back and forth along her knuckles as he continues, "When it's the pair of us alone, far from anyone who might be helpful, then we save experiments until we've made it back to Kirkwall, aye?"

There are less reasonable requests. He isn't a mage. She isn't one either. Not properly. And this is true: magic here in Thedas is dangerous, untamed. It is all sharp edges and quiet threats, grown from grim places like fungi under heavy stones.

(It's good that he stalls. Given the shape he's in, she might balk at being drawn so near.)

"Very well. It's agreed."

And surely it will be easy to comply. There are other people who wouldn't know when a thing has been steeped in magic.

"Thank you."

And that's all there is. Ellis lapses into quiet, the restless movement of his hands carrying on a different, unspoken conversation.

"I liked seeing your magic," he tells her, abrupt into the warmth of the space between them. He doesn't say: I wanted to see it enough that I ignored good sense to do it. Wysteria is carrying enough, she doesn't need Ellis' poor decisions heaped onto her shoulders as well.

"Nonsense," she grouses primly, a last death throe for her ill-humor. "It hardly warrants the name."

The collar has been smoothed to her satisfaction, or at least has achieved a state as close to it as it is likely to reach. Clearly it has lived at the bottom of some drawer or trunk for quite some time, not a favorite of the owner from whom she'd borrowed it. The wrinkles attest to that much. Regardless: here, her spare hand falls away.

"Don't," is for the departure of her hand. Ellis turns his head in against her shoulder, as if to account for the loss contact. When he continues, it's spoken there, slightly muffled but clear enough.

"It's magic," he tells her, clear about his opinion. Uneducated opinion, perhaps, but surely he's been adjacent to enough magic to be able to recognize it at a glance. "I'll want to hear more about it, when we're home."

He might well say when my head is clearer, but the edge in Wysteria's voice has ebbed away, and Ellis is in no hurry to call it back.

"There is very little to tell," she says, though in that narrowed space and with his head placed so, it becomes a more delicate thing. She turns her face a little—just a few degrees toward him—and says, "Which you would do tell to remember, should anyone ask you. Though I've no doubts in your discretion."

But it is true that she has gone such a long time without being called a mage in Thedas, and though there is little about the idea that truly rankles her there is no denying that there are some who might take exception to the idea. And better, surely, to move about as an scholar from beyond the Fade than to be a scholar of the arcane from it. It would make no difference in the Gallows of course, but—

But, well she doesn't know exactly. And theoretically the not knowing, she has been told with respect to this particular thing, is meant to be dangerous. Which is a conversation so opposite to anything like what she wishes to have that she instead suggests the first thing which comes to mind to replace it. That is:

"But shouldn't you be resting by now?"

Discretion pricks at the edge of his thoughts.

But Wysteria's instincts are correct. This thing she's shown him is an easy thing to safeguard. He knows just as well as she does how Thedas treats its magic users. That's an easy reason to keep her abilities close to the chest. Rifters were already a source of debate tilting towards an unfavorable outcome. Ellis wouldn't see her nudged any further along towards the far side of that scale than she already is.

Whatever question he'd been considering, about to ask against her shoulder, is more bypassed by Wysteria's query. He turns further in towards her, grimace hidden by the position he's placed himself in.

"I am resting."

In a sense.

He shifts by degrees, realigning his body until he can put his head into her lap with a low exhale of discomfort that tapers into a sigh.

She doesn't protest the delicate rearrangement, though this is far from the ideal way in which he is meant to rest his head in her lap. He ought to do so in the summer, in the shade of some tree in an hour of idleness where she might idly twirl his dark curls between her fingers and they might discuss some book to avoid the flustered heat of embarrassment to keep from crawling too high up the back of her neck. It is not meant to occur because he is in pain, or because he is exhausted. It isn't not at all like how she had pictured the thing—

Her hands fall gently to him anyway, fingers delicately threading through his thick hair despite the prickle of fever and sweat she finds there. That will break in an hour or in two, she thinks. Hopes. Tells herself so very strictly so that she won't consider it at length.

Her nails are kept so trim that they hardly catch against his scalp. If she were a less poor musician, she might hum to him in an attempt to encourage him to sleep more quickly. But as it is—

"So you are."

Her hands in his hair are so good. It blunts the pain singing through his body, all protest at the movement ebbing down to a manageable roar as Wysteria's fingers thread into his curls and skim along his scalp. One hand curls over her thigh, just above her knee, as his other returns to her hip, slides to span the small of her back.

He closes his eyes. Time passes. His fingers trace the detailing of her dress, attention narrowing down to the feeling of her hand in his hair.

"I didn't ask about your hand," he says eventually. He should have asked hours ago. "Is it hurting you now?"

He closes his eyes. Time passes. The filaments of his hair slides between the faintly calloused tips of her fingers, and she studies the lines which make up his brow and nose, the shape of his mouth and the shadows cast by his eyelashes.

"My hand is perfectly well," she answers, slow due to the meditative quality of the quiet and his weight and the shape of his hands more than because it's a lie.

(It's barely one. Her hand aches, but that is ordinary.)

She twirls a dark curl between her fingers. She doesn't care to discuss the anchor. No one asks Gwenaëlle Baudin whether her hand hurts after she closes a rift.

"Has anyone ever said to you how handsome your hair is?" Is a preferable point of conversation.

Is he meant to say no?

Some passing urge tugs towards that answer, a denial that is untrue. The urge to conceal is always there. (Or just some instinctive urge towards self-preservation that flinches away from excavating painful things.) The silence stretches. He breathes out. He says—

"Yes. Once."

There had been others. Wysteria knows this.

"It was a long time ago," follows after, his thumb stroking back and forth over the top of her thigh. Whether or not it is good to hear now, well. (It's not as good as her hands feel.)

Was it your pretty girl who danced with you when you were a boy?, she doesn't ask. It doesn't particularly matter and he will go rigid where he lies if she were to ask. Instead:

"Good. I'm pleased someone has said so."

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

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veering close to bow territory here

tentatively slaps one on there unless you have something to add