closed.

[heorte]

WHO: science nerds
WHAT: vibe check
WHEN: drakonis
WHERE: wysteria's haunted house
NOTES: all fine here.

There has yet to be a chemical fire today, so Ellis feels it's safe to spread his mending out on the side of the table Tony and Wysteria haven't covered with sheets of paper. He's been carefully repairing items of clothing over the course of the afternoon, and is presently meticulously reinforcing the seam at the shoulder. It's comfortable in Wysteria's ramshackle, lightly-haunted house, and Ellis has decided not to examine that too closely. (Once he does, this place will likely cease being comfortable for him at all.)

As he's worked, he's kept half an ear on the conversation. Most of the discussion is theoretical, touching on subjects he's familiar with but can't parse well enough to contribute. However, Ellis has developed an ear for the kinds of turns a conversation takes before it veers into dangerous territory, so it's best not to zone out completely.

"It sounds like you need a dwarf," he says, when their conversation hits a lull. "If you could persuade one of their artisans or smiths to work with you."

Comments

[heirring]

"Oh, the Deep Roads," Wysteria remarks, shifting some paper around until she finds her pen. A note about the zipper is jot down in some unrelated margin; that's a good idea. "I don't think I'd realized Orzammar had a proper entrance to them."

She didn't realize there were proper entrances to that place at all - just unofficial places where the tunnels had been cracked open, or old abandoned doors or—

[propulsion]

'Warden business'. Tony's mouth quirks to the side at the ambiguity, more noting it for later than feeling impulse to dissect the meaning behind it right this second. They have more pressing matters to discuss, such as--

"It's all in the wrist," he says, nodding to the paper plane in Ellis's hands. He brings his own hand up to demonstrate. "Keep it parallel to the ground. Like throwing a dart. How often did Warden business take you into the Deep Roads?"

[heorte]

"I'll find you a book about dwarven civilization," Ellis promises Wysteria, as he mimics Tony's motions. A few false starts, then the plane drunkenly arcs across the table to an inelegant skid past Tony's knee, settling in front of Wysteria.

"A fair amount," he answers, delicate. The turn in conversation exacerbates the gnawing sense of...shame, maybe. It's the kind of guilt that comes from a job left undone and ignored; Ellis has been in Kirkwall for long months, and he isn't so sure he shouldn't be ranging across Thedas or delving back underground with whatever Wardens aren't tangled in affairs in the Anders or elsewhere. "I was part of a few expeditions meant to explore the lost thaigs."

Regardless of what Alistair had said, Ellis finds it hard to shake the inclination towards secrecy. But still, talking about exploration veers away from what exactly they'd been looking for and the clusters of darkspawn they'd encountered. One is easier to discuss in Wysteria's warm, cluttered kitchen than the other.

[heirring]

Is there a very small, warm glance in Ellis' direction at the mention of books? Maybe. Who can say. It is very brief. But at the mention of the thaigs, Wysteria's attention comes all the way up from her absent note taking and general paper shuffling.

"Expeditions, you say? Why Mister Ellis, I had no idea you had such a history of being integral to academic research prior to this point. You really should have said something before now."