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

The dust cloth is allowed to fall back down over the cat fur covered chair. Her attention—

Wavers from his face to his thumb at her wrist, and then back up again. She adopts a smoothly cool look. Without dislodging his hand, the white hair is flicked away.

"I imagine the Lady Paget is one of those women who one might describe as formidable if you were to meet her at some gathering. Why? What is your impression of her?"

"Lonesome."

Maybe a generous summation, considering the amount of menial labor that's been put to him over his time in her company. He's yet to tell Wysteria about the ordeal of the curtain hanging, after all. A whole day she spent, despairing over the drape of the cloth.

The motion of his thumb at her wrist is far too deliberate to be mistaken as an absent tick.

"Did she invite you to dine with her tonight?"

"Yes. Although I will say that it seemed to me a very absentminded sort of invitation like the sort of thing one does because they imagine they ought to. I understand that it must be very rare for a Lady to do anything she doesn't expressly wish to do. But out of habit? That is certainly quite possible. 'Lonesome' indeed."

Why yes of course a guest must come to dinner no matter how shabby that guest might be.

(Wysteria tipping her chin up just slightly has nothing to do with habit at all; that is strictly done on purpose.)

There is a temptation to take advantage of her upturned face. It would be very easy to lean down to her.

Instead, when Ellis bends it's to meet her wrist half-way, having lifted it to his mouth to put a kiss where his thumb has tracked.

"You'll see it if you spend a day or so here."

Not that Ellis is inviting such a thing. One trapped member of Riftwatch is quite enough for Lady Paget's purposes.

"But you'd be such a distraction to me that I don't think we should allow it," is also said with great seriousness. Ellis' mouth moves against her wrist to impart this concern, as he moves in a step closer to her.

The tinge of color which had begun to fade flares back again with renewed vigor. She can feel it warming her neck and passing into her face thanks in no small part to the gentle heat of his mouth. When he speaks just there at the skin below the edge of her sleeve's buttoned cuff, she can feel just the faintest edge of his teeth. The soft humid shape of his voice so near.

She's missed him too. At least when it is a matter of swords then at least she may then distract herself with all manner of very reasonable worries, but this? Knowing he is perfectly well, just removed, is a very intolerable kind of absence. There is no good reason for it when he might instead be in her company in Kirkwall, and so she has spent a series of days growing increasingly sullen over his absence. Here are all the books she would like to discuss with him if he were in Kirkwall still (she had written him on the subject, but it isn't the same), and here is all the gossip she would like to share with him (she had lift messages on his crystal for him to review when the time allowed). If he were in Kirkwall she might be greeted at the ferry slip in the morning by someone willing to warm her autumn chilled hands or walked home to the house in Hightown. In the little garden under the brisk snap of fall air, he might kiss her goodnight. His hands would be at her waist, and he would be very warm in the dark, and she might—

Well, it was all nonsense. And now here they are in some miserly old woman's drafty winter house (one would think the winter house would be more robust against the wind), so it hardly matters.

"You truly are acting the beast, Mister Ellis. I'm appalled to discover you in such a state."

Appalled. That's one word for it.

"Which state is that?"

His mouth remains at her wrist while his hand finds her waist, only lifting once alternately anchored. Ellis looks her over, smiling a little at finding her face so flushed.

Once, he'd told her exactly how much he missed her when their work takes them in opposite directions. He's thinking of it now, of all this time with her letters and her voice on the crystal like a tether, stretching thin between her in Kirkwall and him here, in this cavernous estate. He thinks to say it again, and does, soft against the palm of her hand:

"I missed you."

Which state is that, he says, which is outrageous. Him with his hand at her waist and the affectionate little things her breathes into the round curve of her palm knows very well to what state she refers. It is unbearably rakish. She would do well to insist now on how poorly it suits him, particularly when viewed so up close. To that end, the edge of her thumb moves as if to silence him by pressing against his lips. It turns tentative only at the last instant, soft at his lower lip. The impulse to press timidly there toward the edge of teeth and his warm breath is—

interrupted by the FHWUMP! of a calico cat leaping down into the covered chair from the shadowed heights of the top of a nearby wardrobe. Wysteria squawks. Her startled jump sends a delicately pressing thumbnail slashing up across Ellis' cheek.

There's a pained shout for the dig of her thumbnail, a crucial moment of distraction in which the cat continues it's descent, leaping down to skitter across the floor. Ellis' hand tightens on Wysteria's hip, before immediately pivoting to try and head off their fleeing quarry.

"Make sure that door's closed!" Ellis calls to her. The level of urgency in his voice is slightly ridiculous in this setting; it's previously been reserved for rifts and active threats.

Yowling, the cat slides across the hardwood. Perhaps on target to vanish under the armoire, should it's exit strategy be denied.

In a monumental display of the sort of self discipline and teamwork forged by the fires of three years of dangerous field work, Wysteria leaps for the door as commanded. It is only when she has slammed it decisively shut with a walloping crack that she marks the blood under her nail.

The cat screams. It veers off and slides under the armoire with an audible thump in the same moment that Wysteria whirls around shrieking, "Have I cut you?!"

Somewhere below them, the reclining Lady Paget's heavy-shadowed eyes roll upward to mark that muffled shriek, and gestures to the harpist to Go on, won't you? And drown that out.

Meanwhile, Ellis' momentum has brought him thudding into the armoire as the scritch of Pouncival's claws mark his progress towards the farthest corner beneath the comically heavy armoire. Ellis' bend towards the floor is stalled by Wysteria, which freezes him half-stooped between the immediate potential for capturing his quarry and Wysteria's distress.

"Aye?" posed almost as a question, before Ellis spares on hand to touch his mouth. "Don't worry over it."

The muddle of delayed intent is truly more unsettling than the scratch rising on his face. There'd been a split second where she'd been looking at him, her finger set just so—

It's a wrench to have been interrupted. Ellis turns that aggrieved emotion down towards Pouncival.

"Don't worry over it," is wailed back to him, all misery as she descends upon the near side of the armoire. Sorry, were you perhaps considering shifting this very heavy piece of furniture Ellis? "What if it leaves a scar? Oh, there is blood here under my nail. It's monstrous. After all this effort to come fetch you and effect a rescue!"

From under the armoire, Pouncival greets Ellis with a murderous spitting. All the cat's hairs have stood on end, tail bottle brush wide and paws sucked up into her body in an attempt to make the parts of her which might be manhandled as small as possible.

Edited 2021-09-08 07:16 (UTC)

The dilemma is as follows:

While Ellis is compelled to reassure Wysteria that a minor scratch to his face is hardly remarkable enough to hold his notice in comparison to all other injury he's survived, he is also aware this is the closest he's been to having captured Pouncival after hours of pursuit.

It's a difficult decision.

"It's unlikely there will be a scar," is said as Ellis lowers himself further, all the way onto his belly. One hand absently squeezes her hip on the descent. "I will wash your hands of the blood once we've seen to Pouncival."

Because in spite of his advice, Ellis seems determined to put his face directly down to that cat.

"Stand along the side please?"

Surely that's a decent trick, yes? Trick this cat into thinking there's a second opponent in the room, despite Wysteria's inattention to the matter.

Despite her distress, she moves to follow his direction—or rather, takes a step toward it and then pauses.

"Wait, Mister Ellis. Didn't you say that you were warned by one of Lady Paget's maids of the cat's unpleasant disposition?"

See, she is indeed a very attentive listener. So keen are her ears that she can recall little vital details such as these even in moments of crisis!

Anyway, obviously Pouncival chooses this moment in which to make her attack.

A necessary sacrifice.

Surely this will be a comfort to Wysteria, if her own scratch to his face is utterly dwarfed by Pouncival's claws.

There is some blood, the origin of which is not immediately discernible due to Ellis' beard. What's more important to Ellis is the moment in which he has both hands gripping Pouncival around the middle as she thrashes in his grasp. Still stretched onto the floor, Ellis is not in the ideal position for leverage, but surely—

No. When Pouncival's claws swipe across his knuckles, it loosens his hold and the cat is free.

Bad news for Ellis, still on the floor, and Wysteria's hem, in convenient swiping distance.

The clatter and spit of the cat's assault, largely invisible to her beneath the edge of the armoire is enough to make her jump, to say nothing of whatever blood and pained replies Ellis might have for his attacker. So when the claws come swiping in her direction, she is primed to leap back with a squeal of dismay—wrenching her skirts sideways in an effort to avoid them being shredded. Which would be a fine idea, had Pouncival's claws not latched onto her hem.

The cat is dragged out from under the armoire still clinging to the fabric. The moment it is exposed to the open air, it transforms into a whirligig of claws and spit and flying fur as it attempts to detangle itself from Wysteria.

Two of Riftwatch's finest, outmatched by a cat.

The momentum carries the cat onwards, and the spinning pass only narrowly avoids Ellis' face, enraged furry blur passing just centimeters from his cheek. He rolls further, tries to assess how best to grab hold of the beast, but the flurry of movement makes it impossible to discern a clear entry point.

"Wysteria!" is just aimless protest, frustration as Pouncival caterwauls. The weight of the cat is beginning to rend small tears in the fabric of her skirt, which will likely become large tears if left unattended.

"Don't let it back under the furniture!" is the sole instruction as Ellis scrambles to his feet to go yank a drop cloth from the table.

Somewhere, a harpist is plucking all their strings remarkably hard in an effort to make the notes resonate as loudly as is possible.

Here though, Wysteria is attempting to both back up from the thrashing cat and avoid the further destruction of her skirts (She has to attend dinner tonight) which is resulting in a comic dredging of the animal and the distinctly increasing distance between Pouncival and Pouncival's would be captor. It takes a full moment of wiping the floor with the cat (literally; there is a trail of gently settled dust which has been swept up by the cat's floundering backside) for good sense to finally reach her. With a cry of frustration, Wysteria crouches abruptly down toward the slavering beast. In a swift motion, she closes the bulk of her skirts about the squirming cat.

"Quickly! I have him!"

A raking paw punches free, swiping murderously at the air.

The urgency of the situation means there's hardly a split second to consider the appearance of ankles and calves.

Instead, Ellis crouches, dust cover in hand, to sweep the layers of cloth over Wysteria's skirt. Pouncival's desperate, furious bids for freedom are stifled. Hopefully for good.

"Let go," Ellis instructs. "You should be able to draw your skirts free without taking him with you."

Theoretically.

Yes, in theory she should be able to draw her skirts free. In practice, this requires delicate maneuvering and the eventual final detachment of a cat's snarled paw from the mutilated hem of the dark blue garment. But afterward, miraculous unscathed, they are left with an ominously murmuring make-do bag, both of them crouched around it where it sits on the floor, and—

"Oh."

There is blood beading in Ellis' beard. Wysteria reaches out, but doesn't touch him. Her hand instead dances around the prospect of touching his face and then falls away. She looks down to regard the thing trapped between them.

"Perhaps this will win you your freedom."

A special dispensation for dangerous services rendered, surely.

Can cats growl? This one seems given to it, considering the sound rumbling from within the layers of fabric.

"Perhaps I should bargain with her for a new dress for you," is not a vote against Wysteria's ability to repair the garment. (Or Ellis', if it comes to that.) But more a sense of how much is at the Lady Paget's fingertips and that perhaps some of that largesse should be parceled out to Wysteria.

The collection of scrapes have not drawn his attention. Wysteria's faltering hand is caught up again.

"I'll be sure to explain to her how you captured her pet."

In glowing yet delicate terms, surely. Ellis has yet to work out whether or not he might present the bundle to Lady Paget or if he will have to find a way to extract the cat for presentation.

Across from him on the other side of the snarling cat in a bag (more or less), Wysteria suddenly bristles. She scoffs.

"I have no need of the Lady of the house's charity. I am perfectly capable of doing my own mending. And furthermore"—has the sound of a thing spinning up toward full speed; a great monologue's threatening presence rising over the horizon. "If we are to broker for your freedom, it seems prudent to give you all the credit. Particularly when you were wounded in the process. In fact, I should like no part of this attributed to me including that mark I have left on your cheek. You may say it was Pouncival, and we will hope that it elicits some further sympathy from the Lady."

She will be damned if she accepts some garment from the woman who deemed her wardrobe so lackluster.

The vehemence of it takes Ellis by surprise. His eyes widen at her, thumb pausing in it's mapping of her knuckles.

Tempting fate, Ellis puts his free hand on the squirming, venomous bundle as if that might quiet Pouncival and leave him in a far better position to parse Wysteria. (It does not quite Pouncival. It does inspire some lashing movement within the wrappings, that does not dislodge Ellis' hand.)

"I thought you'd like a new dress," is said slowly. Ellis has the sense the dress is not necessarily the objectionable part of all this.

He turns her hand over in his own, examining for traces of blood as he continues, "Or to have some recognition for helping me accomplish what I'd spent most of the morning failing at."

Eventually, if prompted, Wysteria will come out with the heart of the grievance. Or so Ellis assumes.

"Not from the Lady Paget, thank you." The blood—his blood—is contained to under her thumbnail. There is only a trace of it. "I am perfectly content without either her accolades or charity. If she is capable of doing me any favor at all, it will be to grant your early release from her custody so that we might return to Kirkwall together."

Wysteria's attention flicks to the thrashing lump under his hand. She makes then to extract her fingers from his examination as if this will close the topic to all further debate or inquiry.

"Come now. Where must Ser Pouncival go now that you've successfully apprehended him?"

Ser Pouncival must go to the drawing room, trussed in a dust cloth to be opened by the lady of the house, at her own peril.

Ellis might say this. A straightforward answer, to be buffered by the query of whether Wysteria should like to accompany him in, or if she would like to retire to the suite of rooms Ellis has been allotted to wait for him there.

Instead, his hand tightens around hers to stall against escape as he asks, "Did Lady Paget offend you?"

His hand tightens about hers. It halts her escape.

"No, don't be ridiculous," sounds Yes, she's dreadful.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

perfect 10/10

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