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

The implication of some minor thing to be rectified doesn't dislodge Ellis from her neck. But it does stall the trail of soft kisses Ellis had begun applying to Wysteria
s throat, the motion coming to a tapering halt.

"Aye?" he asks, prompting.

If she has lifted her chin just a fraction to encourage that path—Well. No one else is there to see and she is fairly certain he won't fault her for it. And also it means she can be quite self-sure, delivering her assessment to the crown of his head more or less down the length of her nose:

"Well only that it seems to me as if one of the fundamental advantages in being courted by some strapping Fereldan farmer is to occassionally be swept off one's feet or thrown over a shoulder in the very literal sense. That's how it is in all the books I've consulted on the subject, you know."

This time, the progress of his mouth is halted by a short burst of laughter. He presses his smile in against the curve of her neck.

"I see."

Not a no. His fingers come around to her waist, palms running up her ribs then down to the curve of her hips, then back up again.

"So you'd like me to lift you that way?" comes the question, considering. "Carry you around the Gallows in my arms?"

His laugh or the tickling burst of air or the scuff of his facial hair from it makes her laugh too—a twittering, absurdly girlish sound—, and it's only after that she considers the possibility of the sound carrying from beyond the room to the corridor where anyone at all might be listening.

(Or peering through a keyhole or—)

But it's a brief flicker of awareness, there and gone as she tucks her face in closer to him and hisses a little well humored protest.

"Mister Ellis, you have truly forgotten all semblance of propriety! But also, I believe it's meant to be a surprise."

A surprise.

Or it's meant to be a surprise, the way he's meant to ask before he kisses her. If Ellis prompts her, he's sure Wysteria will tell him almost exactly how he's meant to sweep her off her feet and the right circumstances in which he should be on the look for to deploy such methods.

He weighs it against how nice it is to have her tucked in against him. His lips move against her neck as he speaks again.

"I'll think on it then," Ellis tells her softly. "Ways to surprise you with it."

Would the ghost object to Wysteria being swept off her feet?

"I shouldn't expect to carry you from the room in the morning?" is entirely teasing. Ellis knows the answer already.

Her appalled hiss and the hand which flaps at his shoulder must be answer enough. Honestly, Mister Ellis.

"If you try, I will scream," is somewhat undermined by the inviting tilt of her chin. He can kiss her neck more if he likes.

Yes, he could kiss her neck more. He would like to.

He thinks again of the way her voice had sounded, telling him I love you.

So his mouth moves briefly at the underside of Wysteria's jaw, setting a last kiss to the high point of her throat before his hands lift from her hips. Maybe a disappointment, right up until—

Ellis sweeps her up into his arms, hoists her up off the ground to hold her against his chest.

"This way, aye?" he asks, inviting instruction, practice for a real attempt.

Edited 2021-09-25 02:38 (UTC)

Her squawk is half indignant, half surprise—scrabbling at his shoulders as her soft soled shoes come up off the thick carpet. By the time he's secured her high in the sway of his arms and she has ceased her squealing, she's anchored the grip of both her hands somewhere on his tunic.

"No, that's not—! Well yes," she lowers her voice to a hiss. "More or less, I suppose. But you can't simply pick me up and do nothing with me, Mister Ellis. What would the point of that be?"

There's a further hitching motion, securing her just that much more closely as he widens his stance.

"Then what shall I do with you?"

If he leans in just so, he can put his mouth against her shoulder, put a kiss there too. A slip of her scar is showing. Ellis has only ever seen it once before, and he considers it for a moment before lifting his head to meet her eyes.

And some of the humor cools, as Ellis considers the broader meanings of the question. Watches Wysteria to see what she'll make of it.

Clutching at him and cinched very close, she is maybe slightly less advantageously posed to consider the broader implications. At least at first, as she instantly answers, "How should I know? That is the entire object of the thing, Mister Ellis."

But after she has said it and with the shape of his kiss cooling gently on the bare skin of her shoulder, it occurs to her that he is asking properly. That there may be true answers to the question.

And that she is only particularly interested in one of them.

Bound in close to him, her hands absently shift at his tunic. This is not a slow kiss in a garden and heat prickles faintly at the back of her neck.

"What would you care to do with me?"

How many occasions has he had to look up into her face?

It's a novelty. That's charming enough on it's own, though it becomes secondary to the question she's put to him.

Holding her this way, turning until he's put his back to the fire, he can watch the thoughts turning over in her mind, the way her consideration shifts the expression on her face. He's always enjoyed watching her puzzle her way through things, though the present moment is far removed from the question of rifts or chemicals or even the care and feeding of chickens in the garden.

"Help you out of this dress," Ellis tells her, the easiest request to offer up. They've already done that, after all. He's adopted a slow, small sway where he stands, his hands tight and secure on her. When he continues, it's to offer a second, more ambiguous wish: "Then I want to share that uselessly big bed with you."

In the little garden under the brisk snap of fall air, she had imagine he might kiss her goodnight. His hands would be at her waist, and he would be very warm in the dark, and she might say, Might you stay? Just for a little while.

"Very well," is almost comically prim given their current arrangment. She studies him. Her fingers fidget at his collar; the door to her room is still unlocked. She ought to say so. She ought to send him round to see the door bolted and her things brought over.

But instead:

"You will have to set me down first. I'm uncertain you can see to my buttons like this."

As she speaks, Ellis presses a second kiss to her shoulder.

"Aye," is terribly fond by contrast, though the agreement doesn't see him setting her down there. It only sees a minor adjustment of her in his arms as he turns to cross the room, over the plush carpet, to set her down beside the bed.

He lifts a hand to cup her cheek, spends a long moment looking at her. Thinking again of what she'd said, how firmly she'd declared her feelings.

"Tell me, what do I do with these laces?" he asks, as his opposite hand steals down to her waist, slips around to the small of her back. "You're strapped in more securely than I am in my armor."

"It is hardly so complicated, Mister Ellis," she snips very gently. Her hands rise to set, fingertips first and delicate, at his wrists. "You only undo them."

It's almost strange to be upright, on her own feet, and below him once more. And she is very aware of the expansive bed behind her. Not that it means anything at all, of course; they've shared even smaller beds before. Why, they might lie in this one and hardly even touch.

(He looks so fond and so intent and she isn't particularly frightened or embarrassed.)

"And then you will have to help me step free of it. And then undo my stay laces here." In a line down her front. She studies him. "And my stocking ribbons."

Having begun his work after Wysteria had set his hand into place, the way Ellis pauses over the instruction is easily seen.

She'd attended to her stockings on her own in the past. Ellis had put a hand on her ankle at one time or another, but never more than that. The initiation set to him marks out a shift in the comfortable proceedings they'd established for themselves.

"I prefer your dresses," he says, rather than call attention to the instruction involving stocking ribbons. "But you looked very pretty in this one."

Imparted with great sincerity as the lacing comes loose, muddling the effect of the garment. The laces feel very delicate in his hands, and he takes his time with the undoing of them. Whether or not Wysteria intends to keep this dress is a question for the morning. For now, it's enough to create enough space for the fabric to begin slipping down her body as Ellis finishes his work.

"Here," is a little prompting, meant to draw her forward towards. Not perfect, but it's well-enough for a Fereldan brought up on a farm.

"It's a very fine dress, Mister Ellis. But you're right that there's hardly anything at all to this one." Though the fabric is very soft and smooth, and drips willingly from her into a dark lavender puddle once the laces have been undone and he has helped her that prim little step forward.

"When we return to Kirkwall remind me to show you all the seasonal pamphlets from Val Royeaux. The corset boning alone might turn an arrow, I think."

And then there she is in her short stays and pale chemise. One hand to his wrist is for balance so she might slip free of her soft soled shoes. Her stockings are all dark and designed to coordinate with that pitch blue dress.

"Here." That hand at his wrist turns, fingers and thumb angled to guide. Here, is the lacing of her stays, pale cording at the base of her sternum.

Here.

It will be a simple thing to undo these ties. Ellis observes the effect of his hand there, Wysteria's fingers resting on his wrist. Rather than fall to the task, he gives the ties a little pull, reeling her a step closer to him.

"It sounds like a better alternative to the armor I'd been imagining for you."

Just in case Wysteria had thought Ellis had let that particular project lapse.

His fingers tug at the ties, unraveling the bow, before carefully working his fingers beneath the sturdy fabric to encourage the two pieces apart. This too isn't so far from that day by the pond, his hands on her waist then. His knuckles move against her ribs, with only the fabric of her chemise as a barrier.

"Maybe we can persuade Tony to commission one for you. For your work in the field," he suggests, eyes on the work of his hands rather than on Wysteria's face.

"I have no intention of carrying around twenty stone of anything, be it boning or steel, Mister Ellis. Anyway, I've squeezed into one or two of Lady Asgard's corsets and they're far too long in the hip to be at all comfortable for wearing out of doors." Squeezed being a function of her size versus Alexandrie, who is so exquisitely bird like, rather than any shortcoming of the garment in question. That must of course go without saying even to Ellis, who knows nothing at all of fashion.

"There's a reason she is so rarely seen sitting down, I think. There are really only two modes of wearing and they are either standing upright or lying somewhat horizontal. On a chaise or some equivalent, I mean."

Her hands, which had first hovered absently about his, have settled only a little restlessly at his biceps. And she is not surveying his work, quite certain it would the heat at the back of her neck travel hot into her face. Instead, she is taking advantage of his bowed head to make a study of his grey hairs and the line of his brow, and how very dark his eyelashes are while, at the edge of her vision, laces are pulled over and his fingers—smashed and all—turn more of less deftly.

It's only once he's made his way to the last lacings that she lowers her attention further still and nods with brisk approval.

"See. I told you it was perfectly straightforward."

No, Wysteria isn't made for corsets. The idea of her being so limited in her movements are preposterous to the point of absurdity, and Ellis' low chuckle carries that sentiment as her stays come loose and his hands lift away. There's a moment of something close to indecision as to what might be done with them, before he sets his palms at her waist.

"Easy enough to manage, with your instruction," he agrees, still stood close to her rather than having stepped back to allow her space as she shrugs off the garment. "You'll have to guide me through the rest."

In which the rest means her stockings.

Despite the invitation, Ellis still has some sense that Wysteria might change her mind at the last moment. And he wouldn't fault her for it. It has always been his intention, for Wysteria to set the pace of anything that passes between them.

"I find it difficult to believe you don't know how to remove a stocking, Mister Ellis," she says, already in the process of parting the open stays and shedding them fully.

In the hand, the garment is remarkably unsubstantial. After a hovering moment of indecision, Wysteria allows it to drop and join the dark lavender dress and soft soled shoes already discarded on the floor. And then it is just his hands at her waist, very warm through the simple cotton chemise, and his eyes on her and the prospect of her stockings. And the fire is high enough in the fireplace and there is a lamp at the side table, which is more than enough light to see by.

"It will be easiest if you kneel with a knee up, I think. Then I may set my foot there and balance off your shoulder."

Or she might stray backward to sit at the edge of the bed, though there is something illicit in that prospect which makes it seems outrageous to suggest.

No complaint or counter suggestion comes. Instead, Ellis simply leans in to kiss her, with his hands at her waist. There is some small slip of his palms, finding the small of her back while still maintaining a sliver of space between their bodies. His mouth is very soft against hers, not quite chaste but neighboring it.

"Aye," is said almost against her mouth, in the wake of the kiss, just as he's broken from it. "I can do that."

Maybe because Ellis has had the same thought: that the involvement of the bed in this equation would be far too much to ask of her. After all, he'd chosen to set her down on her feet rather than setting her on the bed when he'd let her out of his arms.

His hands slide back along her waist, then her hips, before breaking contact entirely as Ellis levers himself down to his knees in front of her. There's a moment where he stalls there, looking up at her, before bringing one knee up from the floor and silently beckoning to her with his hands.

It is in that moment, with that sweet little kiss still warm on her lips and him on both his knees before her, that Wysteria realizes she had made an extraordinarily dreadful miscalculation. For as when he'd hefted her up into his arms, there is something very charming about being above him. Or perhaps in the particular angling of his face required for looking up at her. It is so specific and particular to this—to a sort of secret and very particular intimacy, for in what other circumstances would she ever be taller than him?—that it prickles at the back of her neck and sends something in her center flutter a little.

The edge of the bed might have been simpler after all.

"Oh. Er, yes—" With a soft hop and the gathering of her hem, Wysteria sets a dark stocking foot at his knee. "Let me just—"

The skirts of the chemise are very light and easily gathered. It is drawn to knee (which he has seen countless times before) and then beyond it with little fanfare until there, high on her thigh, the dark green ribbon securing the stocking is exposed. It would be prudent, she thinks, to now glance away and study some point on the expensive damask wallpaper. But—

But.

Yes, he is breathless looking up at her. Yes, he has seen her stockinged knee before, and yes, perhaps he has even seen some shadowed mirror of this action before, this gathering and lifting of skirts. But this time, the fire hasn't been doused and there is light enough to see by, and so there is no blurring the line of her leg, or the sliver of pale skin between the lifted hem and the fabric of her stocking above the satin of the ribbon.

Rather than reach immediately for the bow, he instead sets his fingers at her ankle, rubs a palm up her calf to the back of her knee. His thumb runs back and forth over the delicate silk, marking the knob of her ankle.

"I thought of you so often," he tells her, looking up from his hands on her leg, his eyes finding hers. "Every morning when I woke, and every night before I fell asleep. Remind me, the next time I agree to some assignment, that I shouldn't go far from you for so long again."

A break, as he puts a soft kiss to her knee, before he slides his palm up along her thigh to the ribbon.

"Is this alright?" is a more important thing though, in Ellis' eyes. Is it alright, that his hands are here? Is it alright that he's touching her this way?

She'd invited him to do so, didn't she?

Only that wouldn't mean anything for her to say, would it? After all, she has spent the evening miming sweet good humor and cheerfulness for Lady Paget while they both know she has been anything but. If she says it that way, maybe he will wonder if she has changed her mind in this brief interim. Or maybe he will think she's only being stubborn, daring herself to be so. And she thinks of Kalvad, and all those dreadful people who say words they don't mean.

"Yes." The chemise is twisted up thick in her hands. "I find it very charming that you like touching me."

He has been doing so all day—his hands at her hips and waist and the small of her back, or at her wrist or reaching to lace their fingers together.

A lucky thing, isn't it?

Here is a quiet worry Ellis has kept: that there will come a point where Wysteria has had enough of him touching her, enough of linked fingers or the wandering of his hands to her elbow or wrist, her back, and all other places he's grown used to applying some glancing contact.

(An easier worry to set aside now, in the wake of I love you bestowed so firmly upon him.)

His thumb strokes along the inside of her thigh beneath the ribbon. Ellis watches her expression, notes the way a few locks of hair have escaped her combs, the look on her face, the clutch of her hands at the fabric.

"You can change your mind," he reminds her, voice low, as his hand leaves her ankle to join the other in working the small, delicate bow of the ribbon loose. He makes a cautious business of it; his hands are not often put to such fine work.

honestly

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