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

"Only if you will wait while I pin up my hair properly," is the very weakest protest, made even while submitting to the delicate work of his fingers. Oh very well. He may undo the ribbons and take her red cape too.

"I refuse to have dinner with you on what it meant to be a proper evening half dressed. Properly dressed I mean. Obviously I have all my other clothes on."

Right. Shedding the hat and cape. She still has a fistful of pins in her skirt pocket.

"I don't mind it," will not matter very much in the grand scheme of things. Ellis has grown familiar with the lines separating out proper and improper. They are not impossible to move, but it takes some persuasion. And he might convince her otherwise, but—

But he doesn't mind watching the deft work of her fingers setting those pins into place, steals glances at it while he hangs both cape and hat on the little peg inside the door. His scarf and coat join them, satchel set down on the floor.

When he returns to her, it's to take her by the hand and draw her in with him to the table by the fire. Here, the assorted trays, waiting to be uncovered, the little vase of flowers and trio of candles, waiting for their attention.

"I pull your chair out?" he asks, a little teasing. "Like that time at that Orlesian estate?"

For all her fussing and fiddling, she is indeed perfectly deft with that pocketful of pins. In quick succession, Wysteria has her pale hair twisted into a semblance of neatness and picked into place. She more than ready to be led by the hand by the time Ellis returns to take her by it.

—and to scoff and roll her eyes and slap at his wrist without actually letting him go.

"If you must."

Apparently, he must.

It does necessitate letting go of Wysteria, which Ellis does regret.

But then here they are, sat together for a meal. They've done this hundreds of times before. The only difference is the shift in their status, and the weight of barely-grasped tradition bearing down on this particular evening.

"Are there other points in the future where I'll have to kidnap you?" Ellis asks, lifting the cloth over the basket of scones.

Hopefully not, considering how poorly this first attempt had gone.

Wysteria smooths her skirts once. And then a second time, laughing reflexively.

"No, I don't believe so. It's just the one time as far as I'm aware. Though I've become rather practiced, you know. I think if you tried again, I might best you."

There, see. She will simply make a joke out of the whole affair. Shifting up in her chair, she fetches the bottle on the table and promptly sets about working the cork free. She continues to talk in the interim.

"But there are other requirements now, of course. Ordinarily there would be, er, certain dishes we might be expected to share? But if those scones are made with any fruit then they should do. And then we're meant to share to a cup, but you and I have very different tastes in that sort of thing so I won't require it of you."

Pop! After a brief sniff of the wine soaked cork, Wysteria pours herself a glass of the spiced wine.

"But there is a game we might play."

"Yes, I think you might. If I hadn't had you over my shoulder so fast you might have gotten that pin into my throat."

Entirely blasé about the prospect. If anything, Ellis sounds rather pleased at over her reflexes. It doesn't interrupt his sorting through the basket, idle examination turned purposeful. After a few minutes, he lifts out one, then two, then three scones with a sweet jam filling to set on a small plate nudged between them, having apparently deemed the others unqualified for her purposes.

Then, his hand beckons towards her cup.

"A sip, for tradition's sake," he acquiesces, before prompting, "What kind of game? Not the kind we'd need cards for?"

"Oh— Well." With a little flame of guilt licking at her, Wysteria sets the cup down and nudges it gently in his direction.

"No, it doesn't require cards. Which is convenient, as I doubt either of brought any. It is more a... a game in which two people are meant to become better acquainted with one another. Though I think it's much more challenging to play when those two people have not spent quite so much time together as you and I have. Which would be very unusual, you know. I believe betrothed people in Kalvad are rarely such good friends, so it would ordinarily make sense to play along."

"We wouldn't have found time to play a game like that in between all the dances and the walks in the garden?"

But no, Ellis knows that if they'd met that way, they'd never have grown as close as they have. Perhaps he wouldn't have caught her eye at all, if not for all the science and the garden and the times they hauled each other out of danger.

And perhaps it isn't the sort of game meant to be played in a place where they'd be carefully chaperoned. That too is an advantage they've had. Tony has been the nearest thing to a chaperone they've ever had.

Ellis takes a careful sip from her cup, and leans back across the table to return it to her. There. Tradition appeased.

"Is it a question for a question?" Ellis tacks on, swallowing a second time against the lingering taste.

No, they would not have found time to have much in the way of informal conversation, she doesn't say. Instead she takes her cup back and takes a more formidable sip from it and fetches one of the scones to her.

"Not quite," she lies. A question for a question is far too easy a game. And is easily wriggled out of. She searches for a moment for an alternative, covering the pause by breaking her chosen scone in half until she finally settles on—

"It's a game where questions are asked and kisses are exchanged for answers. To be sure, ah, that by the time a couple is married that they know one another quite well."

Yes that sounds very possible.

"But it can't be played very well over dinner," she hastens to add. Obviously. "So we will have to talk about something else in the mean time and you may use the time to think up what you still care to ask me."

Questions don’t come as easily to him as Wysteria might imagine. The difficulty lies with Ellis’ disinclination to pry and the rest in that for the most part, whenever he has had some curiosity, she has very agreeably answered it when pressed. Ellis hums softly over the terms, nodding as he reaches to lift the covering over the roast duck meant for their supper.

“I’ll try to provide some challenge for you,” Ellis assured her gamely.

After all, he has been forewarned of all the things Wysteria has stored up thus far.

“Can I ask about the experiment you and Tony were working on last night?”

Tony’s comments on it had been mostly promises that the chemical reaction had been very minor, and unworthy of lengthy discussion. Ellis is expecting the exact same from Wysteria, but perhaps with a little more detail as to the chemicals involved. It would be a help, if he knew what he should need to counter in the future.

And while she explains, he can consider questions. Less ones he might ask, and more how he might answer ones Wysteria might put to him.

"Oh that."

Without thinking to preface it with a coy flutter of eyelashes as she ought to—'Yes, but what will you give me for it, Mister Ellis?' a clever woman in one of those terrible little books Alexandrie sometimes reads would say—, Wysteria promptly launches into an explanation of how she and Tony had been testing various components for smelting lighter armor plating, and how their latest combination requires fire treating and a glaze of liquified serpentstone ore, which naturally requires a powerful solvent such as—

So on and so forth, chattering along at breakneck speed as they share the dinner he's so studiously arranged for them. She is so pleased to tell him every little detail that by the time she reaches the end of the explanation, Wysteria has nearly forgotten that sense of foolishness she'd felt when he'd first snatched her up off her feet.

Had this dinner not been preceded by a kidnapping, it might very well be business as usual. They share meals. Wysteria tells him at length of what she has gotten up to in her work. Ellis listens and poses a handful of questions, as they split the food between them. When Wysteria winds to a close, Ellis is tearing one of the last rolls into pieces over his plate, watching her with a small smile.

"It sounds as if it's going well."

Minor fires aside.

"I was going to ask you how your game is started, but we needn't play if you'd rather read, or talk of something els.e"

She has made efficient work of her half of the meal and a great deal of the little bottle of wine (of which she has always been perfectly capable of drinking more than her fair share without much in the way of ill effect), and in another half mark or so the pleasant hum of the latter may begin to strike her. One might deem this, between the food and the patter of conversation, being lulled into a false sense of security. She has almost forgotten her lie by the time Ellis returns them to it.

If there is a flicker of trepidation in her expression—

"No," she resolves. "No, it can't be helped. It's tradition, you know. And we can read any other evening. Or even after the game, I suppose. If you still care to. —Which I don't see why you shouldn't, of course. But, er—"

She gives the table setting a once over, and then searches her own skirt pockets until she produces a coin. Some of the dinner things are cleared to the side and the coin is poised for spinning.

"Heads or tails? Whichever of us loses will have to answer first."

Across the table, Ellis reaches to stack their plates, refill her cup, draw the clay jug of water towards himself as he asks, "Remind me, what is the penalty if we aren't able to answer?"

A kiss is the exchange, he knows. But if there is a reward, there is likely some penalty, and it's better to know ahead of time so he might consider how best to offset it.

And in all their time together, he has grown used to the idea of how exacting Wysteria is regarding certain kinds of rules.

Here, Wysteria's hesitation is so pronounced that even she must recognize that there's no real masking it. The coin remains poised between her forefingers for spinning and after a long beat, she confesses—

"There must be a penalty. But I don't remember what it's meant to be. Would you like to suggest one?"

Here, Ellis might say any number of things, skeptical or otherwise.

But whatever he takes from the long moment of quiet study, it culminates in:

"I don't suppose forfeiting the kiss is enough of a penalty."

A joke, really. Ellis knows she expects more than that.

"It wouldn't be fair if I were drinking water and you drinking the wine," is a different sticking point. A neat solution struck from the list of possibilities. "Would you like something off me?"

His hand comes to his chest, rests over the burnished copper fastenings of his gambeson. And with that movement, the assumption: Ellis is the one who will be doing most of the forfeiting.

For a split second, she fails to comprehend exactly what he's suggesting. No, no, of course forfeiting the kiss wouldn't do. That is far too simple, and besides if he refused enough time than maybe she might begin to think he didn't care for her kisses or was being purposefully obtuse and neither of those would make a particularly good foot with which to step into a marriage, now would they?

You know. Hypothetically speaking. If this were a legitimate game and now some foolishness she were making up for her own amusement.

And then all at once Wysteria registers his meaning and in the same moment some flush of color registers at the back of her neck. It rapidly spreads into her ears and hairline, growing briefly very pink.

"Yes, that will do," is quite assertive despite her embarrassment. "Call it if you please, Mister Ellis."

She spins the coin.

Had Ellis spent even a moment considering the possibility of a reversal, he might have mirrored her reaction quite closely.

But it seems inevitable that he loses soundly to her, and so—

"Heads," is said very steadily, as he leans back in his chair. One hand remains on the table, toying with the folded hem of the napkin while he watches her tend to the coin.

If Ellis really is doomed to playing a losing game, he at least starts with advantage. After spinning there there in the empty spot on the table, glinting dully in the candelight, the copper finally falls over with a muffled click on the thin table cloth.

Heads.

Wysteria raises her attention expectantly. The color is still warm on the back of her neck.

Considering the odds, Ellis might have settled on a question. He'd be obliged to ask one sooner or later.

But he hadn't. And so there is a beat of silence as he examines the coin on the table, then lifts his eyes up to her face. Wishes, briefly, that they were sat closer. He'd like to take her hand as they speak.

With table between them, Ellis is resigned to straightening in his chair, setting elbows on the table. Clearing his throat.

"It feels as if you've told me everything I might have asked at a first meeting," he says, a little rueful, a little amused. "What would your parents make of your marriage?"

"That's not true at all. I was very cold to you when we first met, you remember. I would be shocked if I said more than two words to you."

As if Wysteria has ever limited herself to two words with even the most hateful of Tevinter kidnappers.

She has snatched the copper from the table and disappeared it back into the pocket of her skirts. This minor point of outrage has cooled the heat of her flush considerably. And anyway, it's a simple question.

"My mother would dislike it and my father would think it was perfectly suitable. He comes from common—if you'll forgive the term; you know my meaning—stock too, you know. I think she could be swayed over on account of your Warden business being just a little like the northern Hausseurs. Very, very little like it. In the sense that they are both engaged in protecting against threats, and also that they have secrets and so on. And the money might be a point of contention, of course. But if we were there or they were here, I don't see how it would matter. It would sort out either way."

Is this the first he's heard of her father? Thinking back, it might be.

Common doesn't sting, but it does prick the way a splinter might. Some small discomfort, easily set aside.

"Aye, I imagine so," Ellis agrees. "I've never known you to be swayed from a thing once you've set your mind to it."

Why would marriage be any different then the various explosives and contraptions she's been gambling with for as long as they've known each other?

"Do I collect a kiss now, or later?"

She raises her chin by a fraction in reply to that first mark—a stubborn sort of pride flashing in the angle of her face and some brief flash in her very blue eyes. That's true. They'd not managed to stop her when it had mattered before, and it seems highly unlikely that they'd have managed to dissuade her in this either—

"Oh now, I should think. Otherwise we might ask one another questions all evening and never get round to doling out the prizes."

That is a very attractive look on her face. Ellis knows it well. It has preceded arguments before, and it has come in the wake of some proposed idea before, and he has found it attractive each time. He sits a moment considering her in the light cast from the fire in the hearth, before rising from his seat.

He might say something. Wysteria's old rules, instructing: You're meant to ask first.

There is a slight pull of a smile instead, working at Ellis' face as he lifts a hand to set gentle fingers along her jaw. Ellis tips her face up as he bends down to meet her, and set a kiss to her mouth. He takes his time there, lingering close, kissing her thoroughly because there was no mention in the rules as to what sort of kiss he might give her.

Wysteria has shifted slightly in her chair as he'd risen, sitting up straighter and taller as if in anticipation of this very thing, her hands patiently folding one over the other on the table before her. And so she is very willing to have her face turned up at the behest of his fingertips on the soft underside of her jaw. Like someone easily motivated by the earning of good marks or praise, she is all rapt expectation as he bends down to her.

That said, it's a better kiss than she's expecting. If their positions were reversed, she might have kissed his cheek or his temple or only given him a chaste little kiss on the mouth like a playful tug at his tunic hem. This is not that. It's full and sweet and patient. The scrape of his beard is pleasantly chafing. It doesn't bring the heat back into her face. Rather, the kiss serves to cool some nervous impulse. It makes for a fine point on which to focus so that when they do part, the buzzing of her attention has narrowed and quieted considerably.

Nevermind the silly subterfuge and her almost stabbing him to death with a hair pin. The room is very thoughtful, and it's kind that he's gone to so much effort to make her happy.

Wysteria's face remains turned up toward him, her mouth soft. But she doesn't let him withdraw very far before asking—

"Which is your favorite color?"

See. She can be kind too.

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