Any excuse to get out of the Gallows is a good one right now, and Ellie's headed up the stairs to the towers, her head a million leagues away. Even if she doesn't have anything pressing to accomplish, she feels far too restless to stay, and Kirkwall doesn't seem as safe as it used to.
Instead, she turns a corner, and nearly runs full-on into Margaery.
With a gasp she reaches out to grip her elbow, to steady her.
"Oh fuck," she breathes, and then gasps something that could almost be a laugh.
She doesn't jump as much as she might've in her earlier weeks, but Margaery gives a startled gasp all the same - in the aftermath, her breathless laughter carries the same punch.
"Hello, Ellie." she greets with a touch more warmth than normal; after weeks of being on the roads without proper communication with many, it's difficult not to be so... open. She leans in for a proper hug, squeezing just for a moment before stepping back so she can get a good look. Fingertips briefly ghost over the curve of Ellie's cheek as she asks, "Have you been well?"
They shattered a few conventions early, these two; Ellie doesn't flinch when she leans in for a hug, and even returns it. Margaery's fingers find her cheek just a little warm, her smile breathless but genuine.
Slowly but surely she's getting used to touch again.
"Super," Ellie answers, with a wry smile, knowing Margaery knows better. "Middle of a war zone, plenty of Venatori ass to beat."
Even with that, her smile warms. She's genuinely glad to see her. "What about you? Any trouble?"
It's not quite amused skepticism that makes up the entirety of Margaery's expression, but it's close. "I'm sure the Venatori have no idea who exactly they're going up against, until it's far too late."
Besides that, it's difficult not to allow her own smile to grow in the face of genuine warmth. "I've been useful, which is more than I could've hoped for. Derrica has been teaching me practical skills and methods for healing, and it turns out that my training to be lady of a household is handy when it comes to overseeing supply distributions for refugee groups."
She pauses as she takes note of the direction Ellie's going in - not so different from her own.
Fuck. Ellie. Stop flirting. Ellie breaks eye contact enough to shake her head, smiling, and come back to it with a much more level head, brightening up at the mention of Derrica.
"Figured you would find something to do. Kinda fits you."
... or would, but she knows that's not all there is to her.
"Yeah, but I'm trying to figure out whether I want a horse or a griffon. What d'you think?"
(... bless her, she completely missed the angling for Ellie to invite her along.)
Ellie's cute, in a way that makes Margaery's smiles come naturally, always. Of course, she also has the good sense not to verbalize her opinions because she'd very much not like to potentially insult someone who can kill her, but she thinks it might be obvious, sometimes, with her own expressions.
"Horse," she says definitively, because if her hint-hint hasn't worked, she'll more or less happily follow up with something more straightforward, "so I might ride with you, if you're available for company?" Her eyes widen with hopeful expectation, as if she's genuinely concerned Ellie will deny her something she so clearly wants.
Ellie manages to get it out, feeling a little stupid, but also glad for the company. Ugh, one would think that being around Dina all these years would've given her a better social sense for when someone appreciates her company.
"Some place where we won't come across people very often," comes the easy answer. "I'm afraid that there's an amount of socializing that even I'm unable to overcome."
No complaints because that's how Margaery's been helpful, but if she has to plaster on another smile and listen to a sob story that tugs on the strings of her already-tenderized heart -
"How does going for a ride along the coast sound?"
"I know what you mean," Ellie admits with a nod, and tilts her head towards the stairs, so they can start heading toward the stables. Thankfully they're not far.
It doesn't escape her that Margaery thinks she's a restful person to be around, enough to not consider being around her as "socializing".
"You'd think I'd get used to being around this many people, but it's been a long-ass time and I still can't relax."
"I think you need to give yourself more time." Because as much as Margaery would love to reassure Ellie that socializing is a strength she won't utilize often, the very nature of being in Riftwatch makes that an obvious lie. "I've spent my whole life around people and I still become exhausted every now and then."
She takes care to watch where she's going so she won't face plant on the stairs, but she makes sure to glance over when afforded a possibility.
"Have you made good friends here, at least? People you feel you can trust?"
Ellie's knees protest the stairs, but Ellie's knees protest everything; Joel used to complain of aching joints, and she figures they'll be shot by the time she's his age. It's an optimistic thought, making it to that age.
"We'll see. All depends on how much time I get."
Ellie says it with matter of fact air, the attitude of one who's accepted such things. Living in her world, one has to.
She gives Margaery a half-smile.
"Friends, sure. Trusting's something else." She hesitates, realizing that sounds shitty, but shrugs. "You know, how it depends on what you're trusting them with?"
There's a part of Margaery that'd like to counter Ellie's point, but as someone who's actually died, it feels far more hypocritical to sprout optimism even if she looks at Ellie and sees a better survivor than she ever was.
"I understand," she says gently, sensing the hesitation more than seeing it. "Friends can be a very blanket term to cover a multitude of roles in your life. And yet, it's only friends who can get close enough to you to hurt you."
The concept of betrayal, at its core, demands an intimacy willingly given.
"I'm the same way."
At the end of the day, Margaery knows she's only ever trusted people here with bits and pieces of herself, all shattered shards so that they might not see the whole truth. But none of that matters now, as they approach the stables.
"See, you get it," Ellie murmurs, half to Margaery and half to herself. She can sense, though, that there's a heaviness to her. She's good at putting on a smile and making things work, far better than Ellie is, but ever since Margaery let her peek beneath the mask, she knows just how much effort that takes.
Ellie sweeps ahead leans down to pluck a yellow dandelion from the yard -- and holds the gate aside for Margaery automatically, leading the way down to where the horses are.
"Uh, kinda. I started when I was a teenager."
Ellie picks up an armful of tack, starts to go about getting one of the horses saddled, a roan mare. She blows and lips Ellie's hair, clearly familiar with her.
"I didn't have parents, so the state had me in military boarding school. I hated it, so I snuck away all the time. There was this old soldier, Winston, who taught me how to ride. He had a horse named Princess. Real sweet girl."
Ellie rubs the horse's nose, slipping her the dandelion as a treat.
"When I got away for good, we usually had a horse around, and I rode for my patrols. Haven't had one of my own since Shimmer, though."
She listens as she prepares her own mount, one hand rubbing over a soft nose and another against the coarse texture of an elegant neck. To someone completely blind to Ellie's mannerisms, it might seem as though she's only lived a rather exciting, adventurous life. But Margaery still hasn't forgotten how it feels to hold a hand with missing fingers, and it's even more impossible not to note the air of caution Ellie has, always, creating gaps of distance.
"When I was younger, I had the opportunity to ride far more often," she says as she smiles at the persistent nosing around her trousers, interrupting herself to cluck softly and produce a small apple she's saved for this occasion. "But I would still have lessons during the day and well into the evening, so dawn was the only time I could ride. Dawn, or very late into the night."
Highgarden is as beautiful as ever, in her mind.
"It was not ... unusual for my brother and I to ride parallel to rows of fruit trees, to smell the fragrance of ripeness in the air before the harvest. We would often feast on them, too. Juicy peaches, tart fireplums-" she suddenly laughs, the sound soft. "I'd come back with tangled hair and the lower half of my face covered with sticky residue, if you can imagine it."
Ellie grins at the sight of the apple; Margaery evidently knows how to buy a horse's affections, and she's not disappointed for it. She likes that she can properly outfit her own horse, that she doesn't need help to take care of herself.
Some nobles are more than bearable, she thinks. Glimmer and Margaery fit the bill. They carry themselves like queens, but when it comes down to it, they're people, and not afraid to show it. It's there in the way Margaery's face lights up when she talks about her home, or her family. Her childhood sounds like a fantasy, but Ellie reads between the lines.
"I can imagine it," she says with a smile, settling the bridle behind her horse's ears, giving her cheek a scratch as she lifts the reins up over her head to lead her out of the stables.
"I mean, it's kinda harder to picture you rough-and-tumble now, but. Sounds like a place like that would be hard to resist."
She wants to ask more about her brother, but knows it'll bring up sore things, so instead she keeps it going as best she can.
"I didn't have gardens or anything as a kid, most of Boston was ruins or slums," she says, without sadness. Wistful, mostly. "But my best friend and I would sneak out of our school and go running over the rooftops, where the guards wouldn't look, and stay out past curfew."
She swings up and into her saddle, rubs her horse's neck as she urges her to a walk.
"We had all these abandoned places to explore and make our own. We found a ruined store once, with loads of masks, all shaped like monsters."
She doesn't respond until she's comfortably seated on her horse herself. It's easy enough to picture what ruins or slums might look like, given she's visited them many times herself, but something about Ellie's aura and speech always feels distinctly urban, a touch distant, clinical, in a way that speaks of lonelier settings.
Perhaps it's the constant presence of so many places left abandoned, in her stories. Whatever the case, it makes Margaery want to reach out and hold onto Ellie, sometimes. To keep her from moving forward alone.
"Were you not afraid of those masks? Or was it easier to play with such a treasure trove of beings you could pretend to be?"
To Ellie her way of thinking and speaking is normal; it's the way of life where she's from. She's a child of an apocalypse, who's never known a land of plenty, or what safety is. Densely populated areas still spook her.
She leans comfortably back on the horse, grasping the back of the saddle to look behind her, the reins held loosely in her other hand. The horses know where to go to get out of the compound, so she let her mount have her head while she concentrates on the conversation.
Not enough, though -- her first reaction is to laugh, more surprised than anything, but she quickly stifles it when she realizes how it must sound.
"Oh- shit, no. They weren't scary. I guess they were supposed to be, but where I'm from there's way uglier stuff to be scared shitless of." Letting that ominous statement lie, she pushes on, "It had things like werewolves and vampires, and other stuff with big teeth. But we were just- y'know. Kids. We put them on and chased each other around and roared at each other."
She finishes with a softer laugh, this one almost wistful.
"... it's been a while since I thought about that."
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faderift2021-08-27 09:27 pm
For Margaery
Instead, she turns a corner, and nearly runs full-on into Margaery.
With a gasp she reaches out to grip her elbow, to steady her.
"Oh fuck," she breathes, and then gasps something that could almost be a laugh.
no subject
"Hello, Ellie." she greets with a touch more warmth than normal; after weeks of being on the roads without proper communication with many, it's difficult not to be so... open. She leans in for a proper hug, squeezing just for a moment before stepping back so she can get a good look. Fingertips briefly ghost over the curve of Ellie's cheek as she asks, "Have you been well?"
no subject
Slowly but surely she's getting used to touch again.
"Super," Ellie answers, with a wry smile, knowing Margaery knows better. "Middle of a war zone, plenty of Venatori ass to beat."
Even with that, her smile warms. She's genuinely glad to see her. "What about you? Any trouble?"
no subject
Besides that, it's difficult not to allow her own smile to grow in the face of genuine warmth. "I've been useful, which is more than I could've hoped for. Derrica has been teaching me practical skills and methods for healing, and it turns out that my training to be lady of a household is handy when it comes to overseeing supply distributions for refugee groups."
She pauses as she takes note of the direction Ellie's going in - not so different from her own.
"Were you going for a ride, by any chance?"
no subject
Fuck. Ellie. Stop flirting. Ellie breaks eye contact enough to shake her head, smiling, and come back to it with a much more level head, brightening up at the mention of Derrica.
"Figured you would find something to do. Kinda fits you."
... or would, but she knows that's not all there is to her.
"Yeah, but I'm trying to figure out whether I want a horse or a griffon. What d'you think?"
(... bless her, she completely missed the angling for Ellie to invite her along.)
no subject
"Horse," she says definitively, because if her hint-hint hasn't worked, she'll more or less happily follow up with something more straightforward, "so I might ride with you, if you're available for company?" Her eyes widen with hopeful expectation, as if she's genuinely concerned Ellie will deny her something she so clearly wants.
no subject
Ellie manages to get it out, feeling a little stupid, but also glad for the company. Ugh, one would think that being around Dina all these years would've given her a better social sense for when someone appreciates her company.
"Any place you've been itching to visit?"
no subject
No complaints because that's how Margaery's been helpful, but if she has to plaster on another smile and listen to a sob story that tugs on the strings of her already-tenderized heart -
"How does going for a ride along the coast sound?"
no subject
It doesn't escape her that Margaery thinks she's a restful person to be around, enough to not consider being around her as "socializing".
"You'd think I'd get used to being around this many people, but it's been a long-ass time and I still can't relax."
no subject
She takes care to watch where she's going so she won't face plant on the stairs, but she makes sure to glance over when afforded a possibility.
"Have you made good friends here, at least? People you feel you can trust?"
no subject
"We'll see. All depends on how much time I get."
Ellie says it with matter of fact air, the attitude of one who's accepted such things. Living in her world, one has to.
She gives Margaery a half-smile.
"Friends, sure. Trusting's something else." She hesitates, realizing that sounds shitty, but shrugs. "You know, how it depends on what you're trusting them with?"
no subject
"I understand," she says gently, sensing the hesitation more than seeing it. "Friends can be a very blanket term to cover a multitude of roles in your life. And yet, it's only friends who can get close enough to you to hurt you."
The concept of betrayal, at its core, demands an intimacy willingly given.
"I'm the same way."
At the end of the day, Margaery knows she's only ever trusted people here with bits and pieces of herself, all shattered shards so that they might not see the whole truth. But none of that matters now, as they approach the stables.
"Have you grown up riding?"
no subject
Ellie sweeps ahead leans down to pluck a yellow dandelion from the yard -- and holds the gate aside for Margaery automatically, leading the way down to where the horses are.
"Uh, kinda. I started when I was a teenager."
Ellie picks up an armful of tack, starts to go about getting one of the horses saddled, a roan mare. She blows and lips Ellie's hair, clearly familiar with her.
"I didn't have parents, so the state had me in military boarding school. I hated it, so I snuck away all the time. There was this old soldier, Winston, who taught me how to ride. He had a horse named Princess. Real sweet girl."
Ellie rubs the horse's nose, slipping her the dandelion as a treat.
"When I got away for good, we usually had a horse around, and I rode for my patrols. Haven't had one of my own since Shimmer, though."
no subject
"When I was younger, I had the opportunity to ride far more often," she says as she smiles at the persistent nosing around her trousers, interrupting herself to cluck softly and produce a small apple she's saved for this occasion. "But I would still have lessons during the day and well into the evening, so dawn was the only time I could ride. Dawn, or very late into the night."
Highgarden is as beautiful as ever, in her mind.
"It was not ... unusual for my brother and I to ride parallel to rows of fruit trees, to smell the fragrance of ripeness in the air before the harvest. We would often feast on them, too. Juicy peaches, tart fireplums-" she suddenly laughs, the sound soft. "I'd come back with tangled hair and the lower half of my face covered with sticky residue, if you can imagine it."
no subject
Some nobles are more than bearable, she thinks. Glimmer and Margaery fit the bill. They carry themselves like queens, but when it comes down to it, they're people, and not afraid to show it. It's there in the way Margaery's face lights up when she talks about her home, or her family. Her childhood sounds like a fantasy, but Ellie reads between the lines.
"I can imagine it," she says with a smile, settling the bridle behind her horse's ears, giving her cheek a scratch as she lifts the reins up over her head to lead her out of the stables.
"I mean, it's kinda harder to picture you rough-and-tumble now, but. Sounds like a place like that would be hard to resist."
She wants to ask more about her brother, but knows it'll bring up sore things, so instead she keeps it going as best she can.
"I didn't have gardens or anything as a kid, most of Boston was ruins or slums," she says, without sadness. Wistful, mostly. "But my best friend and I would sneak out of our school and go running over the rooftops, where the guards wouldn't look, and stay out past curfew."
She swings up and into her saddle, rubs her horse's neck as she urges her to a walk.
"We had all these abandoned places to explore and make our own. We found a ruined store once, with loads of masks, all shaped like monsters."
no subject
Perhaps it's the constant presence of so many places left abandoned, in her stories. Whatever the case, it makes Margaery want to reach out and hold onto Ellie, sometimes. To keep her from moving forward alone.
"Were you not afraid of those masks? Or was it easier to play with such a treasure trove of beings you could pretend to be?"
no subject
She leans comfortably back on the horse, grasping the back of the saddle to look behind her, the reins held loosely in her other hand. The horses know where to go to get out of the compound, so she let her mount have her head while she concentrates on the conversation.
Not enough, though -- her first reaction is to laugh, more surprised than anything, but she quickly stifles it when she realizes how it must sound.
"Oh- shit, no. They weren't scary. I guess they were supposed to be, but where I'm from there's way uglier stuff to be scared shitless of." Letting that ominous statement lie, she pushes on, "It had things like werewolves and vampires, and other stuff with big teeth. But we were just- y'know. Kids. We put them on and chased each other around and roared at each other."
She finishes with a softer laugh, this one almost wistful.
"... it's been a while since I thought about that."