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

"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."

"I did say that. I like when you do."

Having studied his hand at her knee, the way the fabric of her chemise is drawn in by the placement of his palm, the way it drapes at her hips and stirs at the movement of her hand, Ellis raises his eyes up to her face.

"I have nothing to give you," is a more practical objection. "No name, no land. No family."

She is looking at him already, and so the moment Ellis raised his attention hers is there to meet him. There is a soft pinch at the corner of her mouth—that fixed and thoughtful look she adopts when confronted with a puzzle which requires solving.

"I don't have any of those things. And I'm a rifter. Are you implying that I'm a poor prospect, Mister Ellis?"

Her hand in his hair tightens by a fraction—a soft, chiding tug.

"You," Ellis begins, letting the grip in her hair carry him upwards. His hand moves from her knee to her thigh to her hip, holding there as he straightens. "You are too good for me."

No time wasted on the protest that Ellis should be giving all of those things to her. Isn't that what he is meant to promise? Hearth and home, and then himself, all to be put into her hands?

The Blight too the former, and Ellis gave the Wardens the latter. What's left? He hadn't realized there was a need to save anything. There would never have been a way to predict Wysteria.

"Can you be content if we don't marry?" he asks, lifting a hand to her cheek.

This too is not romantic. But it is practical, trying to find an understanding of her boundaries, of what is tolerable to her.

I don't know, she'd said all those weeks ago in that little kitchen when he'd first kissed her. She had been telling the truth then. Most sincerely so. Being uncertain then had been like bending to press her cheek into his raised hand is now; it's something she wanted, genuine and urgent.

"I find it difficult," she says after a long moment with her face in the curve of his hand. What she wants is— "To not think about what other people think of me. But I'm very selfish. And should you ever be held hostage by a Lady again, I would prefer to not come rescue you under the guise of being your colleague."

It's not an answer, but also it is. Before they lay down, he will have to go around and lock both their doors. And they will have to rise early to slip away. And she will refuse to hold his hand as they cross thresholds into ornate drawing rooms. And that's very dreadful. And also—

"I want—" Lots of things. Her hand has slipped from his beard and raises abruptly to absently pick at her lower lip. A soft, embarrassed impulse which after a moment resolves into: "But I can't. I know it isn't how anyone at all is in Thedas, but I can't."

Maybe it's not outright yes or outright no, but it is an answer. Ellis understands what she is telling him, these points upon which she finds herself caught. They are immovable. He understands that too. They are parts of her that Wysteria can't excise.

Kissing her isn't an answer either. It's an acknowledgement, maybe, absorbing all that was said and accepting it. It's a very tender kiss. His hand slips to curl at the nape of her neck, thumb at her jaw, and he kisses her slowly, lingering. Sets his forehead against hers as he breaks.

"Alright."

This is not romantic. It is not even a proposal, not the way Ellis would have done if he were the boy he'd been once. It is nothing more than acceptance. These are Wysteria's terms. It is what makes so many things bearable for her.

And Ellis has in many ways grown so used to giving her what she wants, to the best of his ability.

Alright is not an answer, no matter how sweet or pleasant the kiss which precedes it is (though it's both).

In that narrow space, freshly kissed, she studies him with her eyes wide open and her heart full in her chest, tucked tightly behind the shape of her ribs. He is so present, and his eyes are clear, and his eyelashes are quite dark— Her fingers hover at his tunic collar. It's a tentative thing, where her attention on him fundamentally isn't. Her chemise is very thin. The fire is warm.

"Alright?"

"Alright," he says again, no clearer now than it was a moment ago.

Alright twisting up regret in his chest. He has so little to give her. He cannot even give her all of himself.

Ellis thinks to kiss her again. He might simply do that, kiss her until there is nothing else to say. Maybe it would be a better answer than anything else he might give her. He can feel the beat of her pulse underneath his thumb. His palm has curved comfortably at her waist.

"I've no ring for you," isn't necessarily an answer either. "So you'll need to be patient, until I do."

It's not at all how one is meant to receive a proposal. Maybe that's why there is some element of unreality to it—as of even now they are speaking only in hypotheticals. If it mattered so much to her, then maybe he might say Alright— Or make excuses about the lack of a ring, or speak to patience, or appear so miserable there in the corner into which he's been backed.

It takes her a moment to sort these pieces and align them with reality, during the interim of which something bright and hot flares behind her ribs and threatens to crack open. But that is sensibly tamed, of course. Indeed, she has the sensation well in hand before she ever says, "Oh."

Or, "Well I shouldn't care to force you. I'm only explaining my perspective on the subject, Mister Ellis. It is perfectly alright"—what a dreadful word—"If you disagree."

His hand is curled at her waist, but that's never stopped her from drawing delicately back from him.

"In any case it's hardly as if it matters tonight, now does it? You will have to lock the doors, as previously discussed. I'm afraid I did no such thing before leaving my room."

"Wait," comes as Ellis cedes his grip on her hip, his hand at her neck, physical connection winnowing to a loose catch at her wrist.

Yes, he will go around and lock the hallway doors. He will close up this room so they might get into this great bed together and Wysteria will feel secure in it. But not just yet.

"I know you are lowering yourself to meet me here," he tells her, in which here has nothing to do with this room or this bed or even this estate, but with the kind of marriage they might make together. It cannot be what she had ever hoped for. "I should ask you properly, with a ring and some ceremony, aye?"

So that at least some part of it might be as she imagined.

Nevermind what Ellis might have imagined. He has some idea of the way these things must go, and that is enough of a guide.

Her retreat, hardly begun, is easily halted by his hand at her wrist.

"Not at all."

She has spent the bulk of the evening pretending to be in good humor, so clearly she is capable of it. What is equally clear is that Wysteria is making no effort to temper her most reflexive reaction. Her frown flashes broadly, and the diminished flush in her face aburptly burns hotter.

"Those things don't matter at all to me. If that's how you believe it's meant to be done properly, then— But I need only know your intentions. And that they're sincere and not because I've persuaded you." And, because it's the thing which seems most obvious in this moment: "You look perfectly miserable at the prospect, Mister Ellis."

"You should have a ring," he tells her, in a low aside, as his thumb strokes gently along the inside of her wrist. It's not so much an indication of intention, perhaps, but a quiet, stubborn assertion that's easier to speak aloud than navigate the difficulty of what he wants, whether or not he is so very miserable at the idea of marriage.

"Sit, please," is a prelude to drawing her those last few steps to the edge of the great, ornate bed. Ellis has seemed to think better of sitting there beside her, regardless of being fully clothed. The one concession towards retiring to bed: the laces drawn open at his throat. It is no more scandalous than how he has often come to her from the training yard, gambeson undone and tunic open, but the presence of the bed in the room shifts most everything. He's aware of it.

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