faderift | [open]

"She is my hired mercenary guard, acquired just before our departure. She has finally arrived from—oh, I'm not certain where he fetched her from, actually. Orlais is my assumption. That's the language she knows best."

Assis. Reste. Ici. Au pied, and so on.

"I suspect you will like her."

This, quite confidently.

Gently, Ellis' fingers guide a few stray locks of hair back from her forehead. There would be a who fetched her? if Ellis wasn't so certain the culprit were Val. After all, who else would choose Orlais to seek a bodyguard? Who else would be seeking a bodyguard for Wysteria at all?

"Maybe," is less non-committal than it would be, prior to having acquired something very close to friendship with Bastien. His fingers return to their ministrations.

"Why didn't you bring her along with you?"

Surely this is the real point of contention: that this Orlesian guard had opted to remain somewhere in Kirkwall rather than accompany Wysteria on this venture.

Her eyes remain on him from under the line of his hand and wrist, peering free of the shadow cast by them and the edge of the cloth draped across her forehead. Watching him, some absent flicker of—it isn't concern or fear, really. Perhaps trepidation is the best phrase for it. So it's only the palest glint of uneasiness which briefly rises, only to be smoothed away and forgotten as he reorders the loose strands of her hair.

"Oh, she has been charged with minding the house while we're away. With the second cellar being dug, I shouldn't care to have no one in attendance there while de Foncé's contractors work."

This is all perfectly rational, Ellis.

The second cellar. Ellis' expression ticks towards amused and exasperated both. One misstep had been enough to put him off, or perhaps it was the minor dust up over the ventilation. Either way, Ellis seems to find this answer unsatisfactory.

"The ghost minds the house," is a mild objection, for he doesn't intend to argue with her in this state.

The cloth is tipped slightly farther back along her forehead, edge folded to spare the errant drips of water from running into her eyes. His hand passes back over her hair again.

However, it is difficult to be charitable, considering their present circumstances.

"You might advise her to consider her priorities when we return."

Logically, some of this may not be the woman's fault. How many times has Wysteria described an experiment to Ellis in the most benign terms, only to set the kitchen table on fire shortly thereafter?

Edited (words) 2021-09-08 21:56 (UTC)

Something in it makes her laugh. It's a tired Ha that is louder than it ought to be and descends into a wheezing twittering before she covers her mouth with her free hand. They are meant to be quiet lest some Venatori find and catch them.

"Yes," she says after a moment. The word passes softly between her fingers. "I will consult with her on the subject directly. Though I can't be too harsh with her. She and de Foncé are already the best of friends, and he will be furious if he hears I've been sharp with her. It wouldn't surprise me if he preferred her company to mine."

Yes, they are meant to be quiet.

However, even this exhausted, strained laugh is so very welcome. A smile comes and goes, briefly breaking the solemn look on his face.

"I find that hard to believe."

But then again, Val de Foncé is Orlesian. And in possession of questionable prioties.

"Won't he be unhappy to hear that she let you put yourself into danger without her guidance?"

"I put myself into danger? I think you will find that I had very little choice in the matter, Mister Ellis."

She lifts her hand from her face, allowing her arm to unfold across the blankets piled over her with fever-touched languid slowness. Uncovered, there is still some flickering shape of humor in her expression.

"But I think that is very near to the spirit of the thing in question. He will first blame me for being very foolish."

"No one was foolish."

Apart from a guard that chooses to stay home to observe dwarves rather than protect their charge.

Ellis' fingers draw along her scalp. Her updo has loosened. He has seen it in similar state before, after a day of field work, but the disarray is more so than usual now. It's foolish. He's foolish.

She is very warm, and he can feel the burn of her fever and thinks again that they cannot sit here forever while Wysteria is in such a state.

"He might have chosen someone more suited to traveling," is tacked on without any real thought as to the quality of the argument. Just carrying on the conversation because it seems a fair distraction in the moment, and that is sufficient motivation.

"I can't tell if you're casting aspersions against myself or Lady Derangér now," she says, a prim and dreadful flash of humor. Given her condition, it doesn't quite travel far enough to become a gleam in her pale eyes but that is a failure of the body and not one of the spirit. "Or whether you're simply remarking on Valentine de Foncé's preferences in general."

Somewhere beyond the tent, some variation of the breeze carries the low murmuring sway of a conversation here. It's too low to parse the details. Only the vague outline of the thing reaches this far. It is something like the shift of his fingers, the fever in her making the point of contact both keen and obscure. She can hear the soft rasp of her own hair. She can't quite define the sensation.

"You will form a wrinkle there," she tells him. "Between your brows."

There's an answering smile to that spark of humor. Ellis knows exactly what it should look like, given that he has often seen such an expression on her face. But it's far better than the misery that had been written there before.

The slow draw of his fingers through her hair continues as he makes a minor show of considering her warning.

"You might have to refrain from repeating any of this then, to prevent it."

In which this is such a specific thing. Under different circumstances it might be a more broad request; Wysteria does have a habit of prodding at any given dangerous phenomenon within a fifteen mile radius. But right now, Ellis would rather any of that than her here in this tent, burning up with fever and bearing up under pain she pretends is not as bad as they both know it is.

"Again, with this idea of choices Mister Ellis. But of course. I will do my level best if it might save your face."

Her free hand absently pats the top of the blanket. It must be in place of doing the same to the back of his hand or some similarly consoling gesture. Poor Mister Ellis, with his wrinkled brow and shock of graying hair.

And then her hand rises, fingers touching his wrist.

"You won't tell Mister Stark will you? Not today."

It stills the motion of his hand. And then he reaches with his free hand, catching hold of hers. The intent is surely to return her hand to the blanket, but Ellis keeps a loose grasp on it as the sweep of his fingers resumes.

And he is quiet for a moment, considering what she's asked of him.

"Will you tell him?" he counters. "Not today, but when we've made it back to Kirkwall."

Of course, it might not matter who says what if they bring Wysteria back to Kirkwall in this condition. The word will spread regardless of what Ellis does or doesn't say. Ellis asks her this in full assumption that the fever will break on the road, and that there will be some choice in what is relayed to Tony.

"When we return to Kirkwall," is like an agreement or like confirmation. Yes, Tony may hear all about it then. But what purpose would there be in saying the thing now? Her fever will break and they will ride the rest of the way south and then it will be a problem which they might examine with clear heads having saved Mister Stark any obligation of—

What? Concern?

That, maybe. She can think of no other word for it.

"I'm sorry you were here."

It is near enough to agreement to satisfy Ellis. And it isn't such a hardship to wait until they reach Kirkwall. There is little Tony can do from there.

His hand tightens on hers. His head shakes, an immediate, silent no.

"I'm not sorry to have been here."

Though he can do nothing for her either, apart from dip cloth in water and read until she sleeps and stroke her hair, none of which has done anything for the fever or the condition of her hand. What use is he, now that the need for a well-wielded mace has passed?

His thumb smooths across her brow again in a slow, careful sweep, without dislodging his hand from her hair.

"I want to be here."

Words weighted down with some other thing Ellis cannot say. It's near enough. It's meaning is the same.

The curl of her fingers shifts absently in his, a miniature consoling motion. That there is something ridiculous in the effort isn't something she's particularly well positioned to observe. She is to say again that all will be well. Or that she only meant that it would be preferable to her that he not worry.

Instead:

"Yes, yes. You're very gallant, Mister Ellis."

"No."

The same discomfort Silas (then Richard) had stirred up with his assertions of noble prickles to life now. He shakes his head. His thumb smooths the edge of the cloth at her forehead.

"It has nothing to do with what's gallant."

Even if the accusation of gallantry were true, it's such a wholly separate thing that what keeps him at her side.

"Nonsense. It's a very kind sentiment. One I would very much prefer you not to be in the position to—" She wrinkles her nose in some small expression of frustration. The shape of this thought isn't arranging itself in the way she would wish it to.

"I mean that it would be better if you hadn't been here, as I intend to be perfectly well. So there will have been no point to any of the fuss."

There. That's slightly more satisfactory.

What use is it to argue?

She had said something similar the first time, in the sewers. (And again, after the tournament.) The sickening fear that she will not be perfectly well is wedged like a crossbow bolt between plate, messy and deep and in such a way that it will not come free easily.

Ellis says nothing. His grip tightens on her hand. His fingers draw again through her hair, careful to avoid disturbing what's left of the arrangement of pins.

"I would rather know," he says, after some consideration. "Even if you will be perfectly well in a day or so."

Clumsy. But it will have to do.

The sound she makes is some small noise of frustration, a protest in miniature which she can find no appropriate word for. She is not allowed, she thinks, to find either the steady grip of his hand on hers or the careful way his hand moves gently across her hair to be at all comforting though it reminds her distantly of some instance when she was very young and someone (she can't remember who for it might have been a maid as easily as her father) had done something very similar.

No, that is not permitted. Because then she might consider why she might need comforting at all in the first place and she is quite determined not to be at all ill or to be frightened by the prospect of being ill; she is merely here in a tent on the roadside, bundled beneath a collection of blankets and cloaks by strange happenstance which will be perfectly resolved in no time whatsoever.

There is no reason at all to be doted on or so fussed over.

"The book, Mister Ellis," she says at last. "I should like to hear a little more of it."

Had she not spoken, Ellis wouldn't have broken the quiet. It wouldn't have been such a surprise if she'd lapsed into silence. That's been the way of it, with the fever. But he sees the impulse towards speech resolve in her expression, nods in response.

But his answer is slower in coming. His hand leaves her hair, turns the cloth on her forehead and smooths the fabric back into place, then migrates down to join his other hand to cup hers between them both. Briefly, he draws her hand up and bends to put a soft kiss to her fingertips. She doesn't want to speak of this anymore. There's nothing else to be said anyway.

One of his hands keeps hold of hers as it returns to settle over the blankets.

"Aye," he acquiesces. "Here now, Patricio and Alekos had very nearly persuaded the duke to grant them permission for their engagement but for the interruption of Rosalía..."

Edited (minor dialogue adjustment) 2021-09-19 06:23 (UTC)

[open]

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place your bets on how many tags until ellis realizes it's a dog

Lets see how long i can keep up this ruse

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put a bow on this y/n