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

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?"

"I'm not the one with a fistful of snow down the neck of their shirt."

It's equal parts cheerful and sly, quite pleased with herself even as Wysteria allows herself to be steered closer to the hearth and the fire crackling along in it. She folds her hands obediently at her center, one over the other and, after a sparse moment where it seems she might insist on playing coy, she folds smoothly back into that pattering rhythm of chatter as he sees to her buttons—

"No, I'm not cold. That mulled wine did fine work, as so did all your attention. I hope Serah Tomar will bring us snowshoes tomorrow. I have a great fascination with them, but have never gone. I can't imagine traipsing about with great things on our feel will help in defending against wolves, of course, but otherwise— I imagine I will be much better at it than skating. After all, it's only walking."

She half turns.

"Are you still cold?"

"No."

Is mostly true.

"It's melted now."

Is it an improvement to have a great damp patch spread across his back instead of a slurry of snow caught there? Hard to say.

Ellis bends, kisses the nape of her neck before assuring, "I'll leave everything to dry. It won't keep us from our expedition in the morning."

Whether or not Ellis is cold, his mouth is still warm enough where it finds her skin. It's his fingers that run cooler in the moment, though how much bother can they be through Wysteria's underthings?

Not very. Not this close to the hearth and with the prickle of his beard scuffing against the back her neck. She squirms at the scrape of it, laughing, and reaches back to bat in the general direction of a wrist or elbow.

"I imagine if your things are still damp come morning that the lady of the house would be pleased to press them dry for you. We are seeing to their wolf problem, after all."

The brush of his mouth is only briefly interrupted by the swatting of her hand. Undeterred, Ellis sets a last kiss behind her ear, before returning momentarily to the task at hand.

"Don't count it solved just yet."

Has anything they've attempted gone as planned? Ellis doesn't need to recount all the ways in which even the most dull assignments have turned into some shade of disaster in the course of attempting to solve them.

The buttons come loose. Ellis has grown practiced.

"If I hadn't left the book back at the lodge I'd say we write back to Tony before we go."

Just in case.

"I've my crystal with me," she assures him, because of course she does. "We can contact him on the trek up with Serah Tomar in the morning. If you like, you may even write an impromptu report for the Commander when we get back. It will all be highly official, and we'll make ourselves appear to be highly industrious members of the company. Or incredibly foolish ones, if something does go poorly. Which it will not. They're only wolves, and we are both armed."

She raises her left hand with the anchor in it for emphasis. Then, seeing as it's up already, she makes to extract the arm attached to the aforementioned hand from the arm of her dress.

She has had practice too, and the prospect of a carcass to dissect has clearly distracted her sufficiently to make her immune to such things as embarrassment or bashfulness.

(And why should they find her even if there were no promising diversion of work?)

"Have you ever killed a wolf before? Fade touched or otherwise, I suppose. What is the Fereldan opinion on them, being as they're rather dog shaped in general?"

"Aye, I've killed a wolf before," is the first answer given, on the way to the application of his mouth to newly revealed shoulder.

It's a light kiss. Ellis' mouth doesn't remain there, even as his hands make their way down the last quarter of the buttons at the back of her dress. The temptation to lean into her as he speaks is clear, telegraphed even in that brief drop of a kiss and stymied in favor of completing the work at hand.

"There are some who believe we are descended from them," is as slow and methodical in delivery as the work of his hands. "That the man who united the tribes and settled the land was son of a werewolf, and the wolf remained in the blood. Anyone claiming to be a descendent of his might say they've wolf in them, and call them kin."

There's a passage in that book he'd given her, years ago now. Ellis thinks he'd have done better to mark it for her and pass it along with a note than give her this answer himself.

"But even so, you don't let your kin eat up your livestock."

And so the matter is reconciled, more or less.

"You must tell that to my cousins. They have a powerful skill for eating their way through a prodigious number of whatever beasts can be found to sacrifice to them at any time they might choose to visit."

It's a good joke despite the impracticalities of the semantics such as the fact that Ellis is highly unlikely to ever be in the position to tell her cousins much of anything, much less to criticize their ravenous appetites. She is pleased enough with herself over it so as to be all smiles and high humor as she makes to peel her second arm free from its sleeve also.

"We have no such thing as werewolves in Kalvad, if indeed they can even be said to truly exist here. But we are meant to have the fae. They supposedly were creatures derived of the old untamed magics."

Liberated from the majority of her bodice, empty sleeves hanging comically about her waist, Wysteria turns round to him. The lacings of his tunic are familiar ones. She raises her hands to begin picking the tie open.

"It used to be that magicians—mages, rather—, the very powerful ones, were said to be distantly related to them. I can think of no good equivalent for them here in Thedas, save perhaps for spirits. They both traverse a place meant to be in a kind of parallel to the world which is seen every day. Although they, the fae, are of course only children's stories, whereas spirits clearly are quite real."

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ruthlessly yada yada yadas past dinner

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