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

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

You came to the side of the bed
and sat staring at me.
Then you kissed me—I felt
hot wax on my forehead.
I wanted it to leave a mark:
that’s how I knew I loved you.
Because I wanted to be burned, stamped,
to have something in the end—
I drew the gown over my head;
a red flush covered my face and shoulders.
It will run its course, the course of fire,
setting a cold coin on the forehead, between the eyes.
You lay beside me; your hand moved over my face
as though you had felt it also-
you must have known, then, how I wanted you.
We will always know that, you and I.
The proof will be my body.

— louise glück

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How very serious he is. It makes her laugh, that solemn tolling note coloring his timbre. It's too tender and too sweet that he should be so completely concerned with his answer to what is, she thinks (hopes?), a very unnecessary question to begin with. If Ellis truly were opposed to something, she has difficulty imaging that she could convince him to shift his opinion on the matter even at her most persistently persuasive.

"That's good," she says, smiling against the warmth of his cheek in that secret little space between them. The shadows of his form as thick here, the light from the intended fire failing to penetrate this far. Her nails scuff gently at the scruff of his neck. It's an affectionate scratch like one might afford a dog behind their shaggy ears. "As I enjoy spending a great deal of time in your company, and if you ask me then us being married makes for a very convenient excuse to do so."

As if they hadn't monopolized one another's time before.

"And I think it's very romantic, you know. That we should both end up in the same place like we have."

Beneath these many layers of blanket and fur, arranged comfortably over her with Wysteria's fingers in his hair, Ellis' breathing has slowed and evened. He is so fond of her laughter, even more so when he can feel it humming up from her skin beneath his mouth.

"Which place is that?" is less solemn, content to let the edges of his tone soften with the certainty that she is convinced, rather than harboring some uncertainties as to his investment.

Between them, he is aware she has more specific ideas about romance. Ellis is well-read, yes, but has not taken quite the same note of certain themes. Or he hadn't, until he and Wysteria were passing books back and forth between them.

"Here, generally. With Riftwatch. In Kirkwall. In Thedas."

She hardly notices the green glow of the anchor in her palm anymore. It seems so natural that he should sometimes be touched in that electric green light as she scuffs fingers through his hair or idly across his shoulder. But it's true that the odds are outrageous—they both allegedly have other lives they really ordinarily would be attending to, don't they?

"Obviously I'm not saying that it's a good thing Corypheus has gone rampaging across the world, poking holes in Veils and doing dreadful things in the Anderfels and so on. I'm merely noting that the circumstances of you and I being here like this are extraordinarily unlikely. I don't think I've ever had something quite so rare as all that before."

She pushes his hair back from his temple. Kisses his cheek. See? Romantic.

Were he another man, who had lived a different life, it might be slightly more feasible to entertain the idea that the Maker had sliced open the sky and delivered her here for him.

But all heavier matters aside, Ellis can appreciate the odds Wysteria is alluding to. Imagine, had the rifts delivered the person standing two paces to her left rather than Wysteria herself.

"Aye," he says. "I have been very lucky."

And braces himself on one elbow, so he might lever himself up and set a kiss to her mouth again.

Imagine, he might never have come south. He might never have known her. He might be entombed in the Deep Roads, or embroiled in the brewing conflict in the Anderfels. But instead he is her, flushed warm beneath blankets alongside her.

"I understand."

Not that she is pleased for the state of Thedas, only for the two of them brought together this way.

"I thought you might." Her mouth prickles from the kiss even after its gone, this too given the sensation of a kind of a gluttonous over-ripeness.

"Otherwise I wouldn't have said it, as it sounds a little macabre. 'Oh, look at all these awful things that have happened but isn't it charming that they did otherwise I'd never have met you and there I'd be in Kalvad probably doing something very dull instead and finding myself some equally boring husband.' It could all appear a little selfish. Which I suppose it is. But only a little."

And if it's more than a little selfish to think so, then maybe she doesn't mind being self centered on the subject. How could she be? Propped there on his elbow like that, she can nearly get a proper look at him. It's difficult to imagine not seeing him so with regularity, and so pleasant to do so now that she has no trouble at all pretending in the moment that it will always be so.

Her hand migrates, moving to play interception between his chin and hers. It reduces the kiss she gives him to barely there.

"Although come the morning my face is going to be all red from kissing on you. So one of us is in fact making a considerable sacrifice for all of this."

"I've an elfroot salve in my bag."

Perhaps enough of a remedy to alleviate some of this dreaded redness. (It was not exactly packed in the spirit of warding off beard burn. At this late stage, it seems unlikely Ellis will need it for any other kind of mishap.)

However, Ellis' bag is across the room. And it would be such a shame to spoil their present arrangement, so the words remain suggestion only, set against her fingertips as his head dips slightly.

"If I fetch it, can I kiss you again?"

Properly, without the guard of her palm over his chin.

"If you leave me to go fetch it, I won't kiss you at all."

Surely this is the most gentle way she's ever teased him, her fingers curved gently about his chin and her eyes bright and close in the nearness of their faces. Her smile must be a felt thing more than it seen, so for emphasis she manages to articulate one of her limbs just well enough to hook an ankle over his calf. Trapped.

(How perfect he is like this. Maybe she would miss those creased wrinkle between his eyebrows if they ever went entirely away.)

"Try again," she says, her hand slipping from its place between them. "Let me see if I've grown immune."

Under the crook of her ankle, the drape of his body settles more completely into place. The suggestion of movement is easy to give up.

When had he last managed anything resembling something lax and boneless? Perhaps on the floor of that little shed, feverish and aching, back slick with salve and Wysteria's hand in his hair.

This is not that. But it is near to it, in the way intention has resolved itself to attending her.

Try it again she asks, and Ellis takes immediate advantage of the removal of her hand to kiss her again. This too has a softened, open quality to it. His hand comes to her face, fingers at her temple, slipping along her hairline. He lingers in this kiss, as if he hasn't been kissing her for hours now, as if there is still some deficit meant to be sated.

Maybe there is. After all despite her little lost of complaints, she certainly seems all too happy to tilt her face up into the lax quality of his kiss. To indulge herself with the shape of his fingers drawing back through her loose hair. Maybe she will wind all her limbs about him and so hold him here exactly like this for as long as she can bear his weight. Maybe she will demand her kiss for for a long time yet, even though it's so late and they've spent the whole of the day traipsing about in the foothills, examining wolf corpses and rehanging all the shelves in a coach house's pantry. It would be only fair, given that prickle against her skin.

"Oh no. It's still terrible," must be a patently falsified complaint. Her hands are idle at his neck and she twists faintly under him, imploring that he kiss her again. "You'll have to continue."

Ha ha ha.

"You aren't tired?"

There is so little room left for her answer. Ellis is kissing her still, between one word and the next. Soft, languorous kisses, given in answer to the incremental movement of her body beneath him.

"I thought you might be."

Or that Wysteria would tire of his weight pinning her down, or some lingering ache would require space, or that she might rather read or talk or do any other thing in the dwindling hours of the night than let him kiss her as he pleases. Even after all things passed between them, Ellis still holds himself braced against some future end point.

"I'm exhausted," is her answer, as easy as those kisses or the bend of her wrist are; as pleased as the idle tracing of her fingertips or the shape of her smile that bends against his mouth on hers. She punctuates this statement with an insisting tilt of her face.

But kiss her again, it demands.

"Only I want to make you laugh, and I'm too stupid right now to think of anything very witty," is managed somehow in the intervals. "So you'll have to make do with ridiculous."

There, she sets her teeth to him. For good measure.

The application of teeth draw a reaction. Easily, helplessly, because he exists in this close, warm space beneath blankets and her skin and he hasn't fully wound himself back together enough to temper his responses. His thumb smooths along her hairline as Ellis draws in a shallow breath, smiles against her mouth.

Kisses her again, as requested. Open and easy, before he tells her, "You're perfect."

Maybe there won't be a laugh. But there is the curve of his smile, remaining even when the kiss breaks again.

"What do you want for breakfast?" is the kind of absurd question likely to get him scolded, regardless of his sincerity in asking. His mouth returns to hers, then to her jawline, without waiting for her to drum up an answer.

It's a very fine compliment. How pleasant it is that someone should think so; it warms down to the center of her, an excellent reward in exchange for the simple scrape of her teeth.

"Bacon." It tickles to have him kiss her there. She squirms a little. "And a boiled egg, and the heel of some bread with warm broth to soak it in. And another cup of that cider, or coffee, or both." Exhausted and ravenous, apparently.

"Do you know how to drive a sledge and dogs, or will we have to puzzle it out? You recall that I'm an excellent driver."

With a little blind fishing across his shoulder, she draws the heavy fur further over them.

A comprehensive list.

Ellis will rise with the sun, and see about gathering these listed elements for her. Their host might be obliging, considering how much she has already entertained on their behalf.

Under the weight of the coverlet, Ellis settles by degrees. Draping over her, a loose-limbed weight across her chest. A chuckle humming in his chest for the assertion as to her capabilities behind the wheel, before he tells her, "We might hire someone to drive us. It'll save us from purchasing the cart."

A lower, thicker quality to his voice where the words come pressed against her throat.

He must feel her scoff. The sound isn't very loud in that narrow space, but the effect is surely notable—the air of faux offense, punctuated by a pinch that Wysteria delivers to his bicep. "Was that an insult, sir? How dare you!"

The very audacity! She tsks once more between her teeth for good measure. The hiss of it is nuzzled very close to his temple.

It's true that she's tired and that he's very heavy and eventually these two things will urge her to slither out from under him. But he's so beautifully warm and she can feel it when Ellis begins to uncoil; she can't bear to do so now. Instead, Wysteria smooths her hand idly along his shoulder and his back, the press of her fingers firm as if she coax whatever drags of tension remaining in him out.

She doesn't say, Go to sleep, Ellis, but it must live there in the shape of her touch and the slow huff of her breathing.

"'Hire someone,'" mumbled. "Ridiculous."

"Hire someone, so I might hold your hand on the way back."

A murmur against her throat, followed by a deep inhale of breath. Not quite a yawn, but so near to it that the distinction is hardly worth noting.

But the request, unvoiced as it is, still has the desired effect. The beginnings of composure, drawing muscles taut, that had returned to his body are easily smoothed away. His fingers twirl a lock of her hair in slow, absent loops as his breathing slows.

It's not his intention to drift off. There is so much in this moment, such ease and warmth, all things good kindled between them. He'd stay in it longer, hours, if it were left to choice. But it had been a long day, regardless of how they'd planned to spend the night.

A milder scoff, more gentle. Surely he has had enough of holding her hand. And she will be wearing a mitten besides. And so it hardly seems worth the coin when they might have a fine adventure sorting out the semantics of driving dogs.

She is thinking, distantly, of those semantics—how someone might manage a whole team of animals and what route they might take, the shape of the river like a little ribbon laid out and twisting in a wobbly line back to the lodge, how the great fade touched wolf's corpse may be secured—, and it's hard to say at what point she realizes—

that time has passed. That he has gone slack across her. That he is so warm, and lovely, and she likes to imagine that she could press her fingers against the gentle shapes of his joints and feel all the parts of him fully unwound. What a novelty it is. How fascinating. There is an urge to lay here and observe all his shapes and angles, the feeling of him. To be awake until the light touches the window and filters in under the edge of the fur heavy about them. The impulse hangs full behind her ribs. She presses her face into the soft curl of his dark hair, breathing in the low smell of sweat and soap and—

A kiss, pressed near his ear. It's the last thing she concerns herself with.

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

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bow territory

🎀