[open]

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria & YOU
WHAT: Anchor-related adventures and/or drama in fantasy September.
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Some anchor and rift-related peril; open stuff is in the comments, but may use this as a catch-all. If an open prompt doesn't suit you, feel free to wildcard me or hit me up and I can write something bespoke. Prose or brackets is a-okay.

Comments

[heorte]

"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.

[heirring]

"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.

[heorte]

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.

[heirring]

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."

put a bow on this y/n

[heorte]

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..."