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

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.

"I don't want to."

It's an instant objection and insistent despite the pink blooming in her face and chest. Her grip on the drawn up hem is secure. And there in that flush above the neck of her chemise is drawn that old dracolisk claw scar, a sternly pale line.

That dark green ribbon comes softly undone.

"I like it," she says, just as gently. "When you touch me."

Which is different than what she'd just said. It's not finding some simple pleasure in being part of what he likes. It's selfish. A little demanding.

It's pleasing to hear.

It's not that Ellis has ever doubted Wysteria's ability to speak her mind. It's only that he knows it can be a more complicated matter to do so when it's tangled up with this, all that they are doing together. It's difficult terrain to navigate.

He hooks his fingers into the hem of her stocking and slowly draws the fabric down her thigh. Pauses to kiss her bared knee again, without the slim barrier of stocking in the way.

"Alright," marks out what she's said to him. Ellis understands it, that minor shift of language. He feels it somewhere deep in his chest, emanating warmth as his hands draw the stocking down her ankle, and encourage her foot up to lift the stocking away.

"Now the other," feels like an extraordinarily unremarkable thing to say, when his free hand has returned to curl at the back her knee, fingers on bare skin. But they're accomplishing a particular task here, aren't they?

It's absurd that her heart races for any of it. He is only taking off her stocking. She does that every day. But the soft scuff of work worn hands on very tender skin and the rasp of his beard and his warm mouth at her knee are thrillingly novel. She thinks of bending down, that she might lean all that way to kiss him for it as if there might be some difference in the tenor of that kiss while she stands over him and his hands have just been at her—

So it's a good thing that he reminds her otherwise.

Wysteria starts with a soft squawking, "Yes of course," before promptly making to shift her weight and trade up her stocking foot for her bare one. If she sways a little closer, a hand dropping to Ellis' shoulder, it's for balance. The hoist of her hems, held now in one hand, are traded.

"I'm sorry," she says suddenly. "If when you return to the Gallows everyone is quite sick of you. I think they're all very tired of me going on about the subject."

"Oh?"

A single word, weighted down with amusement.

"About the injustice of my absence, or otherwise?"

Asked all the while his hands move up her calf, thumbs sliding in tandem over the bend of her knee and staying there, lingering at the top of her thigh. This is familiar terrain now: the stretch of dark stocking, the tiny, neatly tied bow, the sliver of bare skin between the gathered hem of her chemise and the top of the stocking. It takes Ellis a moment to raise his eyes from it, turn his smile up to her.

"Oh generally, I'm afraid. The former specific subject being included, of course. But I'm certain that even Lady Asgard who is—and I say this with all due affection—quite the gossip, is fatigued of hearing every time you come to my mind."

His hands are very warm, and rough edged from the weight of the mace or buckling on armor or wrestling dreadfully ill-tempered cats into bags. Paused there at the top of her thigh, it prompts—

Very tentatively, she shifts her hand from his shoulder to his temple, fingers delicate at Ellis' hair. One dark curl is taken between thumb and forefinger and turned gently in the same way someone might slip free a ribbon's bow.

The sensation of it draws a breath from him, a sigh as his head tips just slightly towards the motion of her fingers.

"You'll have to seek me out instead, from now on," he tells her, fingers tracing lightly at the underside of her thing. "Whenever something comes to mind."

Though it's not quite so immediate, even in Kirkwall. They have duties. Ellis is sure in the time he's been gone she's come up with a handful of new ventures to occupy her and Tony. And there'll be the usual duties that demand his own time, the armory and the training yard, toting heavy things up and down the Gallows towers or taking his turn on guard rotation.

But still, he'll be closer to hand there than he has been for the past weeks.

"I can hardly call on you every time my mind wanders in your direction, Mister Ellis. You would never be rid of—"

Is interrupted by a soft little sound and a twitch of her knee. It's a ticklish response to the soft skim of his fingertips on the underside of her thigh. And because he sounds very sweet when he answers the little turn of her fingers.

"Ellis." Gently, in recovery from her own squeaking laugh and punctuated by a faint twist of his dark curl. "You're meant to be removing my stocking."

"I am."

And he hadn't been, though he had lapsed in his task. A small smile slants across his face as he does return his attention to her stocking.

"And I would never want to be rid of you," Ellis continues, as his palms move up her thigh to attend the bow. It comes away easily, and Ellis folds it into his palm before hooking fingers into the stocking. He stays there a moment, knuckles against her thigh, before he begins the process of working the fabric down again. Down along her thigh, exposing skin and kneecap and the length of her calf, all the way down to ankle and foot.

He coaxes her foot up, draws the stocking off. And then there they are, with his fingers around her ankle and nothing left for him to attend to.

And then there they are. Him, with his fingers circled about her ankle. Her, with her foot set across his thigh, skirt rucked high and her fingers delicate at his temple. Her leg is very bare, bathed gold in the fire light, and the room is wide and far too ornate. And there is the bed at her back, absurdly expansive.

"Ellis." She turns her fingers, sweeping tenderly through his dark hair. "May I ask you something?"

Somewhere, several floors below them, a beleaguered harpist is summoning up a tune "best suited to a chilly night, but not the dreadful one you attempted last Kingsway."

If Ellis is considering this occurrence, or the whereabouts of the staff within the house, or even the prowling nightly routine of that thrice-cursed cat, it is a very distant calculation. Wysteria's bare leg is occupying a fair amount of his attention in the present moment, to the near-exclusion of everything else, with some ground ceded to the motion of Wysteria's fingers as she sets them into his hair.

"Aye," is easy to give her. It was easy before he kissed her in the kitchen of her little house. Yes, she may ask. Yes, he will try to answer her. (Whether or not he manages something satisfactory is a different thing entirely.) His thumb draws up and passes back down the bend of her ankle, refusing the temptation to put his hand back behind her knee, or higher.

There is a question she hasn't asked him because it hasn't mattered. Or because she suspects the answer will be painful, or complicated. Or because she combination of the two. There is nothing quite so dreadful as an inquiry that is both effectively pointless and one which stings. What use is there in such a thing but to make life more difficult than it needs to be?

But.

The hand in her skirts eases faintly, allowing the angle of her thigh to rule their fall (or lack thereof). His hair is soft between her fingers.

"Will you tell me why you can't marry me?" Not won't. Can't. Like it's something beyond his power to do. Because it must be.

A soft sound, kneejerk, meets the question. More exhale of breath than vocalization.

The line between can't and won't is so blurred. Ellis knows Wardens who have taken a husband or a wife. It has never been his business before now, to think much of that choice. He might have considered it a bit more, if he'd ever been able to envision Wysteria's appearance and how she had rooted herself in him, so quietly that he'd not noticed until it was too late.

When his head bows down to return his mouth to her knee, it's such a measured motion, slow enough so as not to dislodge her hands in his hair. His mouth is thus occupied, warm against her kneecap, as he casts his way towards for an answer. Thinks to say I'm a Warden, a kind of truth but not the entire truth, and he is not quite reconciled to the idea of half measures.

"Wysteria," is not an answer. It is maybe a plea for mercy, as much as it is a fond, aching sigh of a thing. It comes softly against the dip of her kneecap, the hinge of bone and pale skin. His hands have shifted from ankle to her calf, thumbs at either side of shin bone.

If he were thinking of it more clearly, touching her this way would feel surreal to the point of unbelievability.

That soft scrape of beard and the heat of his mouth isn't sufficient distraction, but the way he says her name—a little wounded, a little desperate; tender in the ways which both ache and thrill—might be close. It prompts a hesitation that is unlikely to be felt, given that its characterization is a pause where she might ordinarily press. But it's a hesitation regardless. Maybe she doesn't actually wish to know the answer. Maybe the answer is complicated. Maybe it's a secret.

But now that she's voiced the thing, there is no unasking it. It will pick at her. It will live between her ribs, a shape that she won't be able to bend around without feeling.

The line of her leg keeps her skirt hiked even when she releases the fabric entirely. It makes it very easy to take his face into both of her hands. There's no gentle press at temple and jaw; she makes no attempt to urge his attention around to meet her eye to eye. But—

"I'm not frightened of the answer. And I won't be angry. I only need to know."

Maybe he should have understood this to be inevitable. Wysteria would always need to know. She would always ask. Ellis has never known anyone in his life to seek knowledge and answers the way Wysteria does. Why assume he would be exempt from the scope of her curiosity?

"I'm very old, for a Warden," Ellis says. His mouth moves softly against her skin. Wysteria's palms are good where they bracket his face; he doesn't lift to look at her. "We die early and violently, most of the time."

Even now, here with her hands so softly set against his face and into his hair, fire warm at his back and her skin under his lips, there is a bitter edge to the observation. Ellis is here now, alive, when so many are not. Still.

"I couldn't give you what a husband ought," is true in so many respects. "Because I already gave what's left of my life away, before I met you."

There is a quiet pause, a full and rounded beat, that follows in which her hands remain gently about his face. It's a tender thing, implying a modicum of patience there in the firelight and under the soft shape of his mouth—

Which Wysteria promptly shatters by asking, "Is that all? Because you're concerned you may die?"

It's perhaps a little more blasé than one might ordinarily hope to have a serious confession recieved.

Even without lifting his head, Ellis knows the expression on her face. He remembers it, what she had looked like in her kitchen upon receiving some other jagged confession.

His thumb strokes along the side of her knee, hands having slid up her calf as he drew in a breath.

"Because I will die, Wysteria, doing my duty as a Warden."

There is no uncertainty. The only missing aspect of that truth is when death will find him, and Ellis has found there is no way to calculate or anticipate it's coming. What can he promise her? Uncertainty?

He cannot even give her the whole of this. It's not his to tell.

"I don't want to make you a widow," comes nearly in the same breath as, "Can we lay down?"

"Wait."

It's not like a question or a request so much as it is telling him what to do as she shifts, hopping a little awkwardly in one place in an effort to neither dislodge him or withdraw her knee from his possession. The brisk quality—of the demand? Order?—is somewhat undercut by the comedy of her faintly wavering balance.

"If you're so certain, then why do you get to pick? I'm the one who would be the widow. Maybe I should like something to remember you by."

No, they are not laying down yet.

In spite of her intentions otherwise, the hop does dislodge Ellis, if only out of anticipation that she might tip one way or the other. It pulls him away from her knee, draws up one of his hands as if to catch hold of her hip before better sense kicks in and spurs him on to simply return her foot to the ground as he speaks.

"I've nothing to give you that you don't already have hold of, Wysteria."

What more is there? She has everything of him, all the parts of him that matter. Every living piece of him is hooked by her.

To stand on both her feet at once again is almost bizarrely grounding, the hem of her chemise falling back to its intended altitude with no further preamble. She misses the warmth of his hands instantly. The shocking heat of his breath—

"I know that. But I want—" What? "I only think the sole thing worse than to be a widow would be to be something with all the same feelings and no name at all to put to it. That's all."

Surely he can understand the logic in that.

When his hand returns to her knee, it's not quite the same. The thin fabric of her chemise separates his palm from her skin. The ache of his knee on the floor is beginning to set in, but he doesn't yet rise.

"Are you asking me to marry you?"

"No," is instantaneous. That would be absurd. She can't ask him that any more than she can pull down the sun out of the sky, no matter how much she might enjoy his company.

"I'm telling you why your reason for not asking me seems kindly intended but ultimately highly impractical. And that I would prefer to be a widow some time from now rather than a dishonorable woman."

Her hand at his cheek turns, plucking faintly at Ellis's beard.

"You've said before that I am to state my preferences."

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