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

This is true enough. But it doesn’t completely discourage him from brushing a last kiss to her mouth before his grip loosens.

“I’ll have you there in due time,”
Ellis promises. “Before you’ve even time to realize your toes are cold.”

Though some of that is down to Wysteria and her command of her skates. Ellis isn’t going to point this out, but there’s a reason he’s kept hold of her hand as they set out again towards their destination.

It's a good thing he keeps this last bit to herself, for otherwise she might do that thing she likes to do best—scoffing with her whole throat and chest and jabbing her fingers in the direction of his well padded ribs. Instead, Wysteria merely nods her approval—"Very good, Mister Ellis. Then lead on"—and makes to unravel herself from him (sans one grasping hand).

To her credit, she does eventually grasp the fundamentals well enough that she might untether himself from him completely and be perfectly well even on the rougher surfaces of the frozen river. But that would necessitate releasing his hand, and even after these many hours of being near to him she is loathe to dispense with that little point of contact. But it frees her up for chatting conversation, and to observe the riverbanks as they scuff along, and to discuss at length the state of the Lodge and Riftwatch's presence here in the mountains, and the present state of the war effort, and a considerable portion of the work she and Tony are currently engaged in.

Wysteria has never had any trouble whatsoever filling what ordinarily might default to silence, peaceful or otherwise. She confidently transforms the pristine beauty of the great outdoors to a social function, rather like they are sweeping along the margins of some grand party and she is valiantly defending him from being plucked into wearing conversations with the trees and glimpses of wildlife.

By the time they reach the village, it's fires glinting is the softening burnish colors at the end of the day, she is indeed still quite warm from the exercise. And by the time they traipse their way into the common room of the village's lone pub, she is red cheeked from the weather and the trampling around in the snow on the way up from the river both. Her skates once more are hanging off her shoulder by their laces, and she is laughing triumphantly over having successfully crammed a fistful of snow down the neck of Ellis's clothes.

The easy recitation carries them along, all the way to their destination.

It's pleasant, as all their journeys tend to be. (With notable exceptions, so far few and far between.) Wysteria has plenty to tell him about, even though they've been in each other's company so consistently over the past few days. And she mercifully avoids outlining any overtly dangerous experiments, which feels like a nod to their honeymoon.

Even trailing after her, ice and snow all down his back, Ellis' expression is brightened into a fond smile. Having jogged up from a few lagging steps behind, Ellis catches her around the waist, holds tight at her hip before they pass through the doors.

"That was underhanded," as if Wysteria's ruthless streak is any kind of news. "Are you hungry?"

She must be cold as he is, but they might consider dinner before sequestering themselves for the evening.

"Ravenously," is all laughter and faux thrown elbows as she plays at attempting to free herself from his hold. "But I'm sure the lady of the house will let you sit by the hearth and warm your back. Oh careful, careful—mind the skates."

All in good cheer, Wysteria claps a firmer hold on the base of the skate blade laid before her shoulder to keep it from biting into any of her bundled clothes.

Laughing and all in high spirits, Wysteria pushes through the door and into the lively public house. It isn't crowded precisely, but this is clearly where a great deal of the village goes when the daylight begins to go. A fire is burning high in the great hearth, complete with a knot of old men near it, and various tables and chairs dotted with cold-flush tradesmen and women. It's busy enough that the woman keeping the bar seems unlikely to pay them much mind for some minutes, and so Wysteria simply wades in to find them a place far from the frost glazed windows to sit.

Following in her wake, Ellis is content enough to wait until she has found a table adjacent to the elderly men, where Ellis can very well put his back to the fire.

It would be easier if he could put his back to a wall, but the option hasn't presented itself. The itch of unease that usually prickles between exposed shoulder blades may at least be dulled by the amount of snow Wysteria managed to get down his coat. No one is staring, and the air of the room is more than welcoming, but they haven't entered this room unobservered. And the curiosity is noted, whether Ellis registers it as a cause for concern or not.

Scrubbing the lingering melting snow from his hair, Ellis unwinds his scarf first before letting the skates drop from his shoulder.

"You'll need to keep to one side of the bed," Ellis warns, mock serious as he watches her settle herself across the table. "I expect it'll take some time for me to warm up to a suitable degree."

Fair warning. Ellis hasn't forgotten Wysteria's complaints about cold feet.

"Nonsense! The fire is just there," she cries, all good spirits as she adjusts her chair and scoots closer to the table's edge. "I guarantee you will be perfectly warm by the time your find your way to bed."

From someone else, it might cut dangerously close to innuendo. From Wysteria, this is simply a fact dispensed with the brutally high humored thoughtlessness as she might render anything else. Indeed, he has spent these last hours listening to her assessment of a great many topics. This is just one brisk observation in a very long line.

The skates having migrated to across the back of her chair, Wysteria removes her mittens and lays them both on the table. She aggressively works her fingers so as to encourage some mobility back into them. The anchor glimmers there in her naked palm, nauseating green and winking in the lamplight.

"Let me do that," comes as Ellis reaches across the table for her hands, though his can hardly be any warmer. If the proximity to innuendo registers, it doesn't influence his expression one way or the other.

They'll skate back tomorrow. Or the day after. Perhaps their little room will be so cozy that the prospect of leaving it to return to the lodge will be intolerable. For all that they are technically here to do some sort of work, they have so much latitude to do as they please.

"Are you hungry?" is a nonsense question, just to prompt her into some opinion. Ellis hasn't entirely shaken the impulse to take her directly up to a room, where they might be alone and he could give in to the passing urge to put her fingers to his mouth to warm them.

She surrenders her hands without complaint or commentary. This too is thoughtless and cheerful—a sweet, unconscious kind of familiarity where chilled fingers may be rendered into his possession without hesitation or remark.

"Aye," is a blatant impression of him, and punctuated by a flashing sidelong look. Some brief glint of teeth. "You have had me walk down a considerable length of the river, Ellis!"—

(Walk being an exaggeration.)

—"It's only natural to have developed an appetite. Though to be honest, the thirst is the real issue. I've been thinking very seriously this last hour of a mulled and spiced wine made very hot. It's the precise right weather for it, and if you like I will hand you the cup so you can warm your hands and take in the smell."

Someone is approaching their table, and she is turning her face to meet them in anticipation of it being someone who ought to fulfill her desire for a hot drink. Only Wysteria finds herself greeted by the anxious and weather bitten face of an older man. This man sets his fingertips tentatively at the edge of the table—

"You're come up from Kirkwall, yeah? Riftwatch."

He blinks at the anchor glow in her hand, and then turns his attention expectantly to Ellis.

Nothing in this man signals aggression. Not overtly.

But still, Ellis' hands shift over Wysteria's, masking the gleam of green from view. All the warmth and tenderness flatten out of his expression, turning serious.

"Aye," is concession to what is undeniable. Wysteria's shard telegraphs the information. The question is a formality.

There is the briefest pause afterwards, where Ellis glances across the table to Wysteria. But he knows what must follow after the answer, and dutifully offers it.

"Do you have need of us?"

The man frowns; it seems to be a reflexive impulse—the wrinkles around his mouth and at his brow suggest it's a practiced habit. He drums his fingers once there at the edge of the table.

"We've had some trouble. Wolves coming down into the valley. Only they're not wolves so much as they are—"

"Ah!" Wysteria interjects. The gleam in her eye is a different kind of bright, sharp with interest. "Fade touched, I assume? Unnaturally large. Unnaturally aggressive. You recall, Mister Ellis, the pack of gurguts last summer in—"

"Something like that," is a very blunt pin devised to interrupt the build of Wysteria's momentum.

Nonetheless, she continues. With her attention still on Ellis rather than their petitioner: "There must be a rift somewhere in the mountains. Near their den, one would assume."

Sparing a brief glance up to their petitioner, Ellis' mouth twitches towards a smile. Something like that might have stymied another person, but it's a paltry effort when set against Wysteria unraveling a thread towards a point of interest to her.

"Aye," Ellis repeats, his thumbs running along the backs of her hands still held between his even as he reassures, "We can attend to them. It'd be a help, if you or one of your people have an idea of where the den might be."

Followed by, "If weather permits, we might try tomorrow," directed to Wysteria.

Not that Ellis hasn't had the immediate thought that they might want to assemble the local hunters to rally behind them while they deal with this business. Or send down to Kirkwall for someone to come up on a griffin to assist. He might yet propose one or the other, or both.

"Certainly! And," she adds, this for the increasingly glassy eyed gentleman at the edge of their table. "If it's somewhere where the snow is very thick, we might ask to borrow the proper snowing shoes if anyone has a set they might lend. I'm afraid we didn't account for higher elevations— Oh! But if no one can equip us, we might race back to fetch all the required things and then return in a day or two—"

"We've snowshoes." It's the desperately blunt defensive motion of a man being bludgeoned. And in what is clearly uncharacteristic, he hurries to answer Ellis before Wysteria—who has already started to form a further syllable—can continue on her tear. "I'll go with. I've an idea of where they come from."

Wysteria does indeed begin to say something then ("Oh Ellis, we must try to—"), but whatever it is she apparently judges as abruptly inappropriate to discuss before company for a look of clear evasion manifests there in her face and she struggles for a moment to redirect to "—must try to...be very quick about seeing the whole matter resolved. Obviously. As we are fine upstanding members of Riftwatch. And that is what Riftwatch does. Solve problems. Promptly."

Even as Ellis' fingers flex in their hold over hers, fond, Ellis considers that there's a chance this man might have written a letter and waited for an official answer had he realized what soliciting help from the pair of them might have entailed.

"Aye," is for Wysteria, the twitch of humor resolved into solemnity as he turns back to their newfound guide. "And we'd be obliged to you, serah, for helping us to do just that."

Whatever thought Wysteria has had, it will likely come out once they've seen themselves to a quiet room. Ellis has the briefest consideration for the potential for disaster that might come attached to it, but puts that aside for the moment.

"If you bring the supplies in the morning, we intend to take a room here for the evening. We should make an early start," Ellis suggests. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the tavern maid passing, considers the likelihood of mulled and spiced wine."

"Early," affirms their would-be guide, hastening to say so lest Wysteria be tempted to interject further.

She has, however, apparently run out of immediate words to say and merely smiles and nods in that way which strangers might consider either appropriately or far too enthusiastic and Ellis will recognize as the sort of tell tale sign that her thoughts has already raced ahead from the point and her body is only miming at the sort of pleasantries required for ending a conversation.

To that end, she eventually summons—

"Oh! And this is Warden Ellis. And I'm Mrs. Ginsburg. So you will know what names to call us by come morning, serah."

The afflicted gentlemen blinks once for Warden, and twice for the shape of their hands together, and then he simply nods seriously and introduces himself as Tomar. 'I'll let you back to it then,' he says, and at last beats his retreat back to his fellows nearer the door.

Wysteria immediately snaps her attention round and leans in across the table to hiss closely to Ellis: "We must retrieve one of the wolf's corpses and bring it back to the Gallows with us. Mister Dickerson and I have a particular interest."

If Tomar believes early will curb Wysteria's enthusiasm, he is going to be sorely disappointed.

Ellis had marked his retreat, taken stock of those waiting for him and their reception of his report. They have been in this area before, done favors for the village with varying levels of success. There is some satisfaction in knowing that Riftwatch is still regarded as a trustworthy resource.

And while the immediate pivot back to the gathering of a wolf carcass and likely having to smuggle it back without their guide asking too many awkward questions was inevitable, Ellis' good sense is waylaid by the quiet pleasure in Wysteria's choice of introduction.

His hands are still warm around hers.

"It won't be so easy to do without being noticed," Ellis says, which is not a no.

Particular interests indeed.

"Should I save my questions for later?" is a concession to her whisper. And the fact that they are clearly the subject of some scrutiny here.

"Yes, I think that would be for the best," is all eager enthusiasm. He has not said no, and she has clearly made exacting note of this fact. "There is no need to startle anyone by discussing the hauling about of a dead fade touched creature. —Oh, hello."

This last bit is at a considerably more natural volume and directed to the woman who has clearly arrived to serve their table just in time for 'dead fade touched creature' if the sidelong look on her face is any indication. It fades only marginally as Wysteria cedes directly into asking after mulled wine and whatever is being made in the kitchen particularly if it's some sort of stew, and a bit of bread and butter if you have it, and tea maybe? Or barring that, very hot water at least—

Oh, hello doesn't fully detract from the snippet of overheard conversation, but there is certainly no space allowed for any follow up questions this woman might have. Wysteria's barrage of questions as to the availability of this or that inevitably bars their server from anything other than keeping up with her.

By contrast, Ellis is easily dealt with. Only at the very tail end, after Wysteria has more or less secured their entire meal does Ellis offer up his opinion when prompted: Yes, he too would like some tea with his meal.

Dead fade-touched creatures aside, it is a pleasant meal. Oddly more privacy than they would have been afforded in the lodge. The passing curiosity over the pair of them is nonspecific, keeps itself to a respectful distance. It's a far cry from being known, from being curious about the pair of them specifically. Maybe they would have been better served passing up the kind offer of the lodge and seeking other accomodations.

But meditating on that gets him nowhere, and Wysteria keeps up a lively flow of conversation throughout their meal that requires his attention. It carries them all the way up to the cozy little room Ellis passed over three coins to secure for them.

"The cook said she'd set aside some breakfast for us," Ellis is saying now. "I thought we'd rather have it downstairs than up here on a tray."

Not that Ellis had anyway of knowing that this room is just a bed piled with blankets and furs, a scattering of chairs, and a hearth when the question was asked.

"I'm dreaming already of a boiled egg," Wysteria says immediately, which may very well be agreement that she would prefer to take breakfast downstairs.

A perennially early riser, she is ordinarily one of the first members of Riftwatch down in the dining hall on days when she has taken a bed in the Gallows. Surely staying in charming mountain inns is no different. And it will be early enough that they may have lively conversation over toast and butter and jam and whatever outrageously oversalted slab of meat may be found for them without much need to moderate themselves beyond volume. Yes, eating at a proper table is very agreeable.

Though most things do at this moment. Wysteria has had three cups of that hot mulled wine, and a further cup of mushroom coffee, and it's put her already good spirits into fine ones. She isn't drunk per say (it must be said that Wysteria Ginsberg née Poppell can consume a truly prodigious quantity of alcohol with very little difficulty), but she is smiling and all rosy cheeked and good cheer as she goes about throwing her skates and her satchel into one of the waiting chairs. She stands with her back to the fire in the hearth and unwinds the thick blue knit shawl from about her shoulders.

"Mister Dickerson will be so pleased if I return with a wolf. A dead one won't be as nice as a live one, but I doubt anyone would let us keep one alive even if we were to make use of the lodge's kennel. Still, there may be plenty to learn from cutting a body open."

This is charming evening conversation, surely.

Following along in her wake, Ellis is free to observe with great fondness her flushed cheeks and wide smile. She is satisfied. Ellis would be content simply to exist adjacent to the glow of her for the remainder of their evening.

But, knowing that Wysteria can carry a conversation quite far but not entirely on her own, Ellis obliges her with the obvious question:

"And what are you trying to learn?"

Probably something prudent to consider before they begin discussing how he might aide and abet her gathering of the aforementioned carcass.

At the table, Ellis had opened the buttons of his coat and pulled loose the folds of his scarf. Now he begins the process of shedding both, before bending to unlace his boots. The laces themselves are sodden still from melted snow, so no doubt Wysteria's will be too. He is already thinking to be sure they are all set by the fire to dry. Neither of them need to lose a toe to frostbite on this venture.

"Oh, all sorts of things. But primarily how exposure to the fade and in what measurements might change a native animal's being."

Wysteria cheerfully folds the shawl into a neat triangle while she talks only to carelessly drape it over the back of the chair alongside her along things once she's finished. Evidently inspired by his own trajectory, she bends next to see to her admirably sensible winter boots.

"And whether it can be reverted and to what end the energy might otherwise be utilized. I think Mister Dickerson would like it very much if we could find some way of designing various fade-touched beasts according to our wishes."

So, morally questionable experiments. The usual.

Laces undone, Ellis shifts and turns over to nudge her hands aside. He'll manage her boots.

"Wouldn't that involve exposing them to the fade?"

Maybe he should simply be grateful that they're containing these experiments to animals, and not soliciting volunteers to be hurled into the fade. Or worse, taking turns tossing each other into the fade.

Small blessings.

"Now there is a thought," she says, sounding for a moment as she it is indeed an entirely new idea to her. Only Wysteria laughs as she straightens away from her boots to give him the room to work, so she can't possibly be serious. Twitching the edge of her tartan skirts back out of his way is mostly unnecessary, but she does it anyway without thinking.

"We might try that once we understand a little more of how it should be done. But it seems inconsiderate to do before that point."

He is bent down wrestling with her boot laces. How far does she get unbuttoning the great slew of buttons along the ribs of her dress's bodice before he realizes what task her hands are occupied with?

It becomes difficult to decide whether Wysteria would have arrived at the thought on her own, or if Ellis has nudged her towards something that will sooner or later generate a fair amount of stress for him.

However, in this moment there's enough distance between now and then for Ellis to chuckle at her assessment.

In the course of encouraging one foot up, then the other, so he might work off both boots and set them aside, Ellis does become aware of the working of Wysteria's own hands. Of course she's found something to do with them. In all the time he's known her, Wysteria has proven herself incapable of remaining idle for very long.

Kneeling still, fingers circling one ankle beneath her hem as he looks up at her, Ellis entreats, "I meant to attend your buttons, Missus Ginsberg."

What a lovely thing it had been, to hear Wysteria introduce herself with his name. And strange, to find this balance between something long buried and fractured apart, and the unexpected pleasure of hearing her say the name.

The use of that name—it clearly pleases her, both here in this room and to have claimed it as hers downstairs. It's different when he says it rather than her simply using it, of course. It broadens her already wide smile by a further degree. It almost makes her laugh, that warm cheerful shape which blooms behind her ribs in reply to that name from him. After all the work she'd done to lever it out of him—

Her hands have stopped, but haven't fallen away.

She is all good cheer when she says, "I could do them back up again if you wished me to."

"Leave them," Ellis replies, ceding his grip on her ankle as he rises. "I'll finish."

The shift in their circumstance doesn't always feel real. In between the moments when he calls her wife, or her ring is made visible, they might be continuing along as they had been: trading these small touches behind closed doors, out of sight.

He ducks his head to kiss her, briefly and softly. Hands set on her hips, squeezing lightly before he circles around to attend the string of buttons. Turning her towards the fire as he does, betraying the line of thought that leads to—

"Are you still cold?"

little women reenactment or yada yada yada to village dealers choice

I rolled the bones and they say yada yada but reserving the right to surprise you with peril later

10/10 can't wait

Re: 10/10 can't wait

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ruthlessly yada yada yadas past dinner

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