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"I'm a Grey Warden. An old man in a house of corpses isn't such new territory."

In some ways, it had been relatively tame in comparison.

"We did a service by stumbling into that trap. Who knows how long he'd been operating there?"

Something bleak to think about. Maybe he should have been more strident about keeping that man alive or leaving the place intact. Were there people seeking lost family that would never have the opportunity to solicit answers? Was that man even capable of providing answers? Ellis sighs, sets the line of thought aside.

The man is dead and the structure burned. It's done.

"I've wondered about that."

He addresses the second point first, leaning backwards as he does.

"We found a few bodies, but that doesn't mean that's all he's done." A few, he thinks, and wonders briefly at the callousness of his own wording. As if killing that many people wouldn't have been bad enough. "Plenty of people must've stopped at that inn, just like we did. I doubt he treated them any better than he did us."

For his part, he's glad they burned that fucking place to the ground. No one else will go through that; and knowing that does, on some level, make the experience feel worth it.

He's quiet a long moment, before circling back around to the first.

"So for a Grey Warden, that's just a normal Tuesday?"

There's no need to agree. No, no other travelers would have been spared. The only difference is likely that they'd been lucky in a variety of ways. Ellis doesn't care to think too hard about how they'd differed from the people who'd come before them.

If Vanadi hadn't had that lockpick—

"Not exactly," Ellis says. "But I've had worse Tuesdays."

On the sliding scale of Blight-rotted villages and drooling, snapping darkspawn, hurlocks lurching out from the dark or gleefully tunneling up from beneath your feet, some corpses and a wild-eyed old man with a knife don't quite match up.

"But I don't think telling you about the details is going to put your mind at ease."

A lift of his eyebrows.

"Is that what you're trying to do?" Asked half as a joke, really. With more seriousness, he goes on, "I'm not going to get scared off from this." A look towards Ellis, maintaining eye contact. "Thedas. Riftwatch. Nothing's going to happen that makes me decide to give up and hide."

Maybe that's not quite the right wording. But he's sensed the feeling off people, the concern when he's exposed to the darker, uglier realities of this place. Not exactly the feeling of being coddled, but.

"You're right, I have seen worse. That was back home. And maybe things can be pretty goddamned terrible here too, but this is where I am now."

Not home, of course not, but — something. He's here, and he's invested.

There's something unjust about the situation, more so with Holden than Ellis has ever perceived with Wysteria. It's something close to what he's gleaned from Tony, when he talks about home.

They are here, and they cannot leave. They've been left nowhere to hide, even if they would do so. It doesn't diminish Holden's assertation, but it casts a pall over it.

"I don't think you're the type that can be scared off," Ellis says after a moment. "But I can't tell what it means to you, to be here."

"When I figure it out," he says, humor maybe a little bleak, "I'll let you know."

He's quiet long enough to breathe out, slow, and decides that's not answer enough.

"My mom used to tell me something, every once in a while." Mother Tamara, specifically. He can hear it in her voice, even as he speaks it. "If you're going to go somewhere, you should leave it better than you found it. I'd like to do that here, if I can. It doesn't matter whether or not I meant to come here, or whether I like it or not. It matters what I do now that I am."

And he'd like, at the end of this, to go home. What had scared him about the idea of them being dream-selves, or whatever-the-fuck, hadn't been any questions of personhood or even mortality. It's the idea that he might not see Naomi Nagata again in this lifetime. That's the despair that winds around his bones and threatens to drown him.

But, maybe, it can be allayed that little bit by doing his damnedest to be the man she'd be proud of, who she loves.

It's an admirable thing to say.

Ellis' quiet in the wake of it has less to do with Holden and more to do with his own apprehension, some kindling awareness of the kind of man he is and the wide gulf separating him from Holden.

"Then I think we should start by getting you a weapon," Ellis says at last. "Or some chainmail."

The latter, maybe slightly a joke.

In that silence, he has time enough to think that maybe it was a stupid thing to say. But he knows that's his own self-critical mind speaking, not a judgment from Ellis. The right thing to do can be such a hard thing to find, a distant light in a clouded sky.

But the answer, when it comes, sparks a glimmer of humor.

"I have promised not to come back with any more holes in me, next time." Maybe not in quite so many words, but. It's a promise in spirit. "Any recommendations?"

It's not like he knows the first goddamn thing about medieval weaponry. And there is, clearly, going to be value in learning to defend himself, and others, here. Goodbye to the days of having a gunship for intimidation purposes.

Edited 2020-11-17 22:36 (UTC)

A flicker of amusement passes over Ellis' face that has nothing to do with Holden's capabilities and more to do with the novelty of someone asking him sincerely, without having to be cajoled into it. (Wysteria.) He looks Holden over, assessing him in a way he hadn't done before this.

"What were you like in a fight where you came from?" Ellis asks finally.

He can make a guess: Holden's lanky, tall, would probably do best at a distance with some room to move. But it's hard to say what should be put into his hand. A sword? A dagger?

Amos had been easier to size up in a lot of ways. Like calls to like. Ellis recognizes enough of his own capabilities there to know Amos would do fine with a heavy blunt, if he cared for it. Holden's trickier to pin down.

"I was with the Navy for some time when I was younger."

An easily translatable place to start, he's found, with people here. Spacefaring sounds a lot like seafaring, and he doesn't need to immediately explain what a solar system is.

"I had some training in hand-to-hand, and weapons training, but I doubt much of that is applicable here." If there were guns in Thedas, he imagines he would've seen one by now. "Most of my combat experience has been from a command deck, but I can handle myself."

Edited (worDS) 2020-11-19 00:15 (UTC)

Familiarity with his fists but likely with weapons Ellis has never seen in his life, outside of the design Wysteria had unfurled across her kitchen table and Tony's brief invocations.

"We're mismatched," Ellis tells him, because it is the truth. "I don't fight the way I think would be most comfortable for you."

In which "comfortable" is a relative term. How comfortable could Holden be in a place so far from what he was used to? But before the admission can be mistaken for a denial—

"I know a little about sword. Enough that we can see if you are suited for one. And I know a man who is talented with blades, to show you what I can't."

He can see the truth of it. Ellis, built sturdier, wielding a mace with practiced ease. No, they wouldn't fight the same way, even setting aside different worlds of origin.

(He emphatically does not think about being five years old, waving around a fallen stick, and calling it knighthood.)

"When can we start?"

"When you aren't going to tear that open," accompanied by a tap at his own stomach. Ellis assumes there are stitches there, but even if not, the sentiment remains the same. They can start when Holden is fully recovered, and unlikely to bring the ire of everyone in the infirmary down upon them.

Technically: magical healing has taken him past needing stitches anymore.

Less technically: the possibility of Derrica and/or Sister Sara actually murdering him.

"I'll let you know when I get the go-ahead."

A nod in return, plan accepted. Ellis knocks his knuckles against Holden's knee before he rises.

"Try not to stay up here all night," is the last word of caution, though he's hardly going to tell Holden to get some sleep. There's some familiarity between them, enough that Ellis knows how useless it would be to remind Holden that he needs sleep.

So he leaves him to his thoughts, hopefully to find some solace before the night is out.

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sticks bow on this perfect thread