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

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.

And that grip doesn't falter. The slight impulse towards reeling her in is stalled by the obvious obstacle dividing them.

"Tell me what happened," is very tender, considering the murderous snarling from the makeshift trap sitting between them.

"Nothing happened. Lady Paget was perfectly cordial," says that Lady Paget is a beast who has done something Wysteria will never forgive.

Between them, The Bag rumbles ominously.

"Indeed she was quite sympathetic to the state of Riftwatch's affairs. Particularly in the sense where I was representative of them."

A hand returns to The Bag, tempting fate. Unsurprisingly, the second attempt does not soothe the vocal displeasure radiating outward.

If he could, he would put a kiss to her palm. As it stands, his thumb draws lightly across her knuckles in familiar motion as he studies her.

"What did she say?"

No sympathies had been expressed in Ellis' hearing, but is that such a surprise? Their conversations had tended towards other matters, such as the crates in the attic that must be relocated or the creaking hinges on the doors leading out to the veranda.

Her spare hand slaps the back of his. It's a small thing. Not delicate, just a brief crack like a snap of fingers. Stop that.

"She said nothing at all." And also, "I believe she doesn't care for my dress."

Thump, thump, says the bag as Ser Puncival pummels Ellis' hand from inside the canvas.

This is not much information. It could be mistaken for a small thing. But it had been jealously guarded. Having had to expend so much care teo draw this minor aspect of the conversation from Wysteria, it become more minor turn of conversation.

There are too many layers of cloth between Ser Pouncival and Ellis' palm, but the determined prick of claws makes a ghostly impression. Ellis lifts his eyes to Wysteria, eyebrows raised for the slap of her hand, and then draws her up with him.

"Lady Paget has bad taste."

How much weight does such a declaration carry when made by Ellis, who knows next to nothing about what is and isn't good taste? (Maybe a good amount of weight, considering the majority of what he hears regarding good taste comes from Wysteria.) He keeps his hold on her hand even as he bends to lift the bag containing the loudly objecting cat.

"Come with me."

Presumably to deliver the cat.

Lady Paget has fine taste. She has stood in the woman's house for several hours now, observing the wallpaper and the trimmings about windows and the weave of rugs and even the lady in question herself. No, she isn't perhaps not fashionable in the sense that there is no whiff of the Orlesian broadsheet stylings here in this old house, but there is an air of certainty throughout it and Wysteria is quite sure that more than makes up for the other.

But what is she to tell him? Merely that he's wrong? She might; instead, her jaw has clamped stubbornly shut, as if by refusing to address the topic further she might somehow delay her reintroduction despite the fact that she allows Ellis to fetch her up to her feet and can indeed be induced to go along with him though she is nothing is not conscious of the fact that her hem has been put all out of sorts.

"Truly, it's nothing," she says only a great deal of steps later. "It's hardly as if I came here for the Lady's approval. That wasn't my intention and that remains so."

"It's not nothing."

Not if it's weighing on her this way, though Ellis isn't entirely sure how best to put it to rights. Or if it's something he can have any hand in amending.

"You'll help me barter my way out, and I'll see you fairly compensated for the insult," only seems like an easy prospect. It's far beyond his realm of expertise, admittedly, but he intends to attempt something.

He keeps their hand links through the entire march down to the drawing room. The trek is underscored entirely by Pouncival's increasingly furious yowling. The bag doesn't do much of anything to stifle the sound so surely the occupants of the drawing room must hear them coming, harp or no harp.

She makes no further attempts to dissuade him as they go, but as they near the door to Lady Paget's drawing room (through which the dulcet tones of a harp being played at increasingly desperate volume can only be faintly detected beneath the insistent yowling of a very cross feline) she makes to wring her hand from his with a desperate little hiss of, "Mister Ellis."

It is one thing to be seen about the streets of Markham, or in Kirkwall, or by common people in little villages, or even in the Gallows itself which is so full to bursting with all manner of indiscretion that their dalliance hardly warrants remark. But it is another thing entirely to walk about a fine lady's house while all but shouting out every detail of how someone might find reason to disregard any scrap of respect for her that they might have contrived otherwise. And it is a different thing altogether, she thinks, when one means to stand up before someone and make an argument.

There is no reason at all to be seen as sentimental under such circumstances.

Whatever Ellis might have intended to the contrary dissipates at the motion of her hand. There is some brief flicker across his expression, schooled into nothingness as his grip on her loosens then releases.

He has never contrived to keep hold of her when she has expressed any objection to it.

And so the beat of acknowledgement passes just outside the door, with the bag in Ellis' hands rippling under Ser Pouncival's increasingly desperate bid for freedom. Whatever might be said is cut off by a sharp, impatient voice—

"Don't just stand out there, come in."

The harp's tempo wavers uncertainly, and maybe a little despairingly at the source of such noise drawing closer.

Ellis tips his head to Wysteria, and nudges open one drawing room door to allow her to pass by him.

Quite a display of manners, considering Ellis is with one hand containing a violently objecting cat in a sack.

For an instant, Wysteria hesitates. Were she not actively in the middle of processing the demand, she might consider whether this is how victims of an execution feel right before they are marched to the wall and shot. In the moment however, she only has the ludicrous passing thought for how she owns the only gun in Thedas and for a little knot of embarrassment to cinch tight in her belly—not for Lady Paget, but for that brief ghost of a thing which had passed across Ellis' face—and then she steps through the door with her tattered skirt hem and the flush of mortification hot on the back of her neck.

The harpist stops playing.

"Lady Paget," she begins, and then must repeat herself more loudly to be heard over the din of the bagged cat. "Lady Paget, I believe you will be pleased to know—"

The woman on her divan makes an impatient little gesture with her hand. It effectively silences Wysteria with no more than an objecting croak.

"Lady Paget," Ellis takes up, in spite of the waved hand, though whatever is meant to be said is interrupted by the tearing of fabric and the emergence of one, grasping paw, claws fully extended.

In perfect unison, the three maids hovering around Lady Paget's divan take several graceful steps backwards.

"Oh, for pity's sake," Lady Paget says. Or possibly says. She has not extended the effort to raise her voice, so Pouncival's outrage more or less muffles his owner. "Ellis, please, simply put her down. There's no need for such a production."

It's surely only Wysteria who catches the minor flicker of irritation. They're a matched set in that moment, with a flush of temper creeping up from beneath Ellis' collar. Whether or not she caught his expression, this uncontrollable sign of temper is visible to her regardless, as Ellis takes an angled step forward to position himself slightly in front of Wysteria before turning the cat out.

The cat lands, as cats are wont to do, on all four of its murderous little paws. Ser Pounvical is a perfectly round orb of bristled fur standing all on end, yellow eyes turned fully black from the dilation of the animal's pupils. Wysteria, that half measure behind Ellis, cringes just faintly backward.

And then the cat totters forward on its ruffled limbs. In the seconds it requires Ser Pouncival to reach the divan, she has smoothed more of her fur down and has stopped walking like a hobbled horse, and is quite spry about jumping up onto the foot of the sofa near her mistress's slipper feet. There she sits, staring directly back at Ellis with shark-black eyes.

"There, you see. Simply done."

A look from the woman on the divan makes the harpist start, fingers tripping over themselves to resume their light tickling of the strings.

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