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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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They're both types of animals. This is reasonable to assume.
"Isn't that right?" she asks the griffon, a highly hypothetical sort of question. "You and I will be good friends once we've finished this little trip. Not that I have much invested in a continued relationship, though. You should know that. Yes, it is a temporary sort of friendship. Colleagues, maybe. That would be a better way of putting it."
(Presently, the parameters of hers and the griffon's working relationship clearly drawn, Wysteria bends to doublecheck that her pack has nothing delicate hanging free of it which might fall prey to Butterball if not otherwise secured.)
"Do you enjoy flying, Ellis?"
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Crossing back into her space, Ellis' fingers tap a light touch to her waist briefly on his way to hefting the saddle over Butterball's back. It falls into place with a melodic jingle of buckles, and a crawk of complaint from Butterball himself.
"Aye," is so straightforward it can be nothing but a gift to her, knowing how much she likes hearing such capitulations. "I do."
As he bends, ducking low to secure the straps under and across Butterball's belly, Ellis turns the question back to her as he asks, "Have you flown much?"
Her opinion on flying will surely follow without any prompting.
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"Oh, hardly at all. Which is to say none, unless we count gliding from platform to platform in the Crossroads which I do not as one's height or speed makes no difference at all on the landscape or the general sense of that place. No, I've somehow managed to avoid it entirely. Not because I'm frightened, of course." Which is clearly the truth; the way she is currently patting the griffon square between the eyes and the general laissez-faire attitude for the whole prospect confirms it. "Only we usually carry a fair deal of equipment, or are traveling in a group too large for all of us to use them. But I'm not troubled by heights and have always been a perfectly competent rider and here almost everyone rides astride anyway so I can hardly see how anyone would even begin to contrive to fall off. Unless we find ourselves fending off some sort of attack in the air, though that seems highly unlikely."
Most Rifts don't manifest so high up as all that. And hopefully especially not ones which may be spitting Rifters out of them.
"Though I still think we ought to consider strapping you regulars riders in. It only makes sense."
puts thumb over timestamp.
In the course of Wysteria's recitation, the straps have been cinched and tightened. The saddle is secured comfortably in the center of the griffon's back, well out of the way of wings. And Ellis emerges out from beneath him, with a trailing pat of his hand to chest, then shoulder as he drifts back to Wysteria.
"He'd catch me, either way," might be a slightly misplaced show of faith when applied to a creature so concerned with his next meal. Perhaps Ellis is hopeful that his role as server will hold some sway.
His hand finds her waist, thumb against the sturdy fabric of her bodice where the stitching has embroidered into a neat little pattern.
"Let me help you into your harness," he tells her, because it is out of the question that they embark without it.
what timestamp I don't know her
But she may argue the point with other people, such as the Eyrie's master of whoever is responsible for the outfitting of the griffon rider's safety materials, and not with Ellis. He may think whatever he likes until she goes to some length to correct it.
"Yes, all right, she agrees, drawing her hand away from the fine little feathers patterns across the front of the griffon's great blockhead. She squares her shoulders a little in unconscious affect, feet following so as to turn in after the set his hand at her waist.
"Is there any particular thing I should know when it comes to steering them in the air?"
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"They're willful," is delivered with some humor. A little joke, ha ha.
He bends to lift the array of leather straps and clips from the floor before speaking again.
"You'll have to speak loudly when we're aloft, but he'll heed you. I'll show you where you might put your hands in his feathers to get his attention."
They are alone in the Eyrie, so Ellis can bend to kiss her lightly before beginning the process of looping and strapping her into the harness. It is a brisk, simple affair. If Ellis weren't lingering over the buckles, he might be done with it in a matter of minutes.
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"That's fine. I can speak at volume when I care to. In fact—and I know you will find this shocking information Ellis—, but that has historically been one of the chief complaints lodged against my character. 'Shrill.' Can you even fathom it. But in any case, I've every confidence in my ability to shout over a little bit of air."
Here, she is required to lift her arm slightly to give him access to some fiddly buckle.
"Is it very surreal for you to have a griffon for riding? I imagine it's the sort of thing a little boy might imagine a Warden do if there weren't meant to have all been extinct, and now here you are a Warden flying around on one of their backs. That's almost little funny, isn't it? In the serendipitous sort of way, I mean."
surprise
Not enough to think wistfully of griffins, though he might have done given opportunity.
The last of the buckles is snapped into place. Ellis checks them over again, diligent about the fastenings, the way each strap of the harness is arrayed. All secure enough to earn a brief, satisfied nod before he drops a second kiss to the corner of her mouth and steps back.
"But I enjoy it now, when I have reason to do it."
It is surely coincidence that Butterball must be exercised near daily, when Ellis has the time to spare.
gasp
But he has become very acquainted with the worst of her habits. Such as, turning a real question into a hypothetical one on the basis of simply not waiting for a proper response before moving on to additional stages of the interrogation.
"I didn't ride much at all in Kalvad, you know. Only in the company of my grandfather, but he's been dead for quite some time and we only kept horses for the dog cart and so on. But I believe we would both agree that I have become quite the expert since coming here." Indeed, she is not in fact a terrible horsewoman, save in the sense that she is perhaps too eager to send her animals dashing up and down various rocky inclines where a more sensible heart might feel a quaver of trepidation. "Following that logic, you are traveling under the authority of someone perfectly capable.
"Now," she continues, with only a very brief intake of breath to fuel it. "You must come along and do your own buckles and so on, else we may miss the arrival of our new comrade in arms and have to hope they know how to survive a few demons all on their own."
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On the heels of that little inhale, Ellis leans in and kisses her again. Just a peck of contact, there and gone in the span of a moment so he might turn to hoist his own harness.
"Up you go," he tells her. "I'll follow after."
He is decidedly speedier in doing up his own buckles. Faster still, in checking the packs where they have been secured, the buckles of the saddle running beneath Butterball's stomach and chest. Deft, assured touches to each of these things, leading him inevitably back to Wysteria, wherever she is in the process of ascending to the saddle.
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There are two loops at the front of the saddle; she sets one hand there more or less naturally. The other she uses to pat the space behind her in encouragement.
"Come along, Ellis. There are only so many buckles for you to attend to."
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Butterball will need little coaxing, he knows. He opts to leave Wysteria to that, as he reaches past her to affix those clips and buckles to the saddle and give each a slight, testing tug. All is secured, safely hooked into place. While neither of them expect a true aerial battle today, Ellis is hardly inclined to take risks. Wysteria performs so many miracles, but she has yet to express an interest or capability in flight.
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"Come, come, you silly thing. We can't stay here getting fat on little treats forever."
It does take considerable encouragement to coax Butterball out into the windy platform knocked of out of the tower's wall. But at last, with a great coiling of muscle and an unmotivated sprawl of wings, the beast tips out off the edge and takes them into a lazy plummeting glide. The brief shriek from the saddle's front occupant is a natural response to having one's stomach jump all the way up into one's mouth, but otherwise they're on their way without further harassment of the griffon being necessary.
Passage so far into Nevarran is a matter of days, not hours. And though Wysteria proves to be a perfectly able griffon rider—her bad impulses of erratic steering and the desire to gallop everywhere being someone mitigated by the fact that there are no obstacles to steer around, and parsing their speed is very difficult while in the air—by the time they reach the third day of travel, she has surrendered steering back into Ellis' custody. Sitting so near to the working of Butterball's wings and the great expansion of his ribs around his big lungs sucking down and expelling great huffs of the air has left her considerably more saddle sore than anticipated, and not even deploying her considerable feminine wiles (complaining) to convince Ellis to canoodle in the tent (massage the tight muscle up the back of her thigh while Wysteria lay on her back with her knee to her chest, chattering along the latest gossip pamphlet out of Val Royeaux) has been particularly effective about mitigating that.
So when they at last spot the rift gleaming bright at the bottom of a brush-dense, dry wash of spider webbing canyons, it's Ellis who must steer them safely down to it. Which is good, as Wysteria would have had no idea what to do when a half dozen crossbow bolts come whistling up out of the brush to greet them and Butterball lurches, shrieking in sudden alarm or agony or both.
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Next time.
Right now, Ellis pulls until Butterball veers sharply off to the right, encouraged by the shift of Ellis' weight into the movement. It crashes them into the crackling embrace of dried branches, but puts them low enough to the ground that Wysteria won't scream if Ellis' jumps off, nor be injured should it turn out Butterball has been hit rather than just startled. There is no way to tell whether or not he is sporting an arrow in his chest, only that his wings are presently unharmed.
Minor blessings, hopefully accompanied by the bush holding bandits rather than Venatori.
A second volley of bolts come whistling to meet them. One hits the tree trunk just overhead.
"Flee if you have a care for your life!" Ellis shouts, reaching a hand back to Wysteria. "If you go before the rest of our party arrives you may survive to speak of this meeting!"
A bluff, while Ellis pushes up in the saddle, watching the indistinct, rustling movement across from them.
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—As is the way she ducks and flinches when the dry foliage above them suddenly burst into flame, arcane fire licking at vulnerable branches.
So not bandits, then.