faderift | I have been allowed to survive to this. Through everything. Miracle. Grace.

The pile up of dog, goat and girl in the doorway cannot be missed; it is not a quiet affair.

Ellis doesn't have to turn towards the door. He simply looks up and there she is. (It is in this moment that he considers: He has never seen Wysteria's hair loose in this fashion.) Having caught sight of her, Ellis has little attention for anything else for a long moment. The hammer in his hands, the bite of the cold, even the briard and the goat.

But Ruadh has no such hesitations. Abandoning entirely the scent he'd been snuffling after along the fencing, Ruadh wheels around to face the approaching...threat. Challenger. Irritant. There is no answering bark, but a raising of hackles, the suggestion of teeth, as Ruadh trots forward. Perhaps to inspect, perhaps not.

Which draws Ellis back to reality, enough that he drops the hammer to catch Ruadh before he can pass with a soothing murmur. His hand passes over old scars, sleek, short fur, before his gaze turns back to Wysteria.

What is there to say? If he thinks of anything, it's blotted out by the sight of her. That's the trouble, of wanting so much, of feeling so much. There's nothing to be done with it.

The goat isn't deterred by either dog, the fall for the hammer, or any of the various personal dramas (canine or otherwise) which might be occurring in it's vicinity. It barges past the briard and makes its way directly toward it's favorite part of the garden—directly beside the chicken coop where two stacked bales of hay are covered by a tarpaulin—with little more that a dismissive flick of the tail.

That leaves just the dog and the girl in the doorway, the latter of which has clearly been stunned into rare silence. Perhaps it's the grey early light, or her state of undress, or the shock of her partially amputated arm with its vivid red scar, but for a moment she looks especially dumbfounded to have discovered Ellis and a mabari in her garden. And then, with much the same attitude as the goat before her, Wysteria is shoving past the briard.

"You horrible villain! You're not meant to be here!" is outrage or shrill relief or both all at once. Her face flushes twelve shades of red as, with a suspicious dog following tightly in tow at her heels, Wysteria storms across the narrow garden toward him.

Only the briefest of looks is spared for the goat (handsome, whoever gifted it chose well) to be sure of it's trajectory away from anything delicate and in need of tending. There is some comic similarity in both Ellis and his newfound companion, the pair of them both shooting a scrutinizing glance sideways before swiveling back to mark Wysteria's approach.

You're not meant to be hear is one of those things Wysteria means nothing by, but catches at him regardless. It wedges like a splinter. Ellis is distantly aware of it; more present in his mind is the creaking ache of his joints as he levers out of the crouch by the raised garden bed, straightening fully upright to meet Wysteria as she approaches.

She's going to be cold, he thinks. She's not properly bundled against the frigid morning.

But the sight of her is so, so welcome. He can do nothing but look at her, one hand drifting back to Ruadh's shoulder as a safeguard against any further hackle-raising.

He should say something, he knows. The expression on his face will resolve itself into words, sooner or later, but even the questions or cautions won't stick for the revelation of her, unchanged and flushed and blustering across the garden to scold him.

It's outrageous that he should be standing there in the garden, looking battered and tired from travel and rough living but definitively not dead or missing or called off to some dark Warden business in the Deep Roads. It's absurd! It's insulting! It's the sort of make believe thing she has been stubbornly convincing herself would happen since the delivery of that dreadful note he'd left for her—

(The note wasn't dreadful. The purpose of it was. Maybe in the next days, she'll reread it stripped of the context of Ellis isn't coming back and find something more satisfying in it.)

—And, as it always is, being correct is so very satisfying.

"You might have sent word. A raven. Anything! Déranger, down!"

His dog is in her way as well. So either the mabari will cede ground or it will find itself contesting with Wysteria's intentions to trample into Ellis's space and throw an arm about him.

Whatever Ruadh had intended (it is likely he had intended on keeping well in the way of both approaching female and her canine) doesn't matter. Ellis' hand leaves his shoulder as steps immediately around Ruadh's bulk to catch hold of Wysteria, crumple down into her, put his face in against her neck as his arms came round her waist.

An explanation is for later (He was alone for miles and miles, and it had never felt safe to take any risk, to call Thot down and have her force up his crystal so he might indulge himself. He'd wanted to hear her voice, Tony's voice, so badly that it was impossible to trust that urge.) after he has somehow had his fill of her. She is bristling with anger and so warm in his arms and she looks herself again, healthier than he remembers her being when he left.

He's holding onto her so very tightly as Ruadh pads around to his opposite side in a paltry attempt to ignore Déranger, at whom he is still huffing and curling a lip at. Ellis' hands flatten against her back, over her shoulder blades, cinching her in tight against him while he fails to do anything other than hold onto her. He exhales a hard, shuddering breath against her neck. If he says something, it's muffled beyond hearing by the fabric of her housecoat.

That deserves a scolding to—this part where he doesn't immediately jump to explaining himself. Surely he must have a half dozen excuses prepared, and maybe even one of them will be satisfactory enough to excuse a very modest measure of the worry she and Tony have been dutifully laboring under. How dare he not launch directly into one.

Instead, Wysteria finds herself tightening her arm more stubbornly about him. There is a dreadful knot wound in her chest which she has been steadfastly ignoring for some time, and now as it begins to loosen in the proof of his presence she finds herself fiercely angry. Or protective. Or relieved. Or pleased. Or some combination of all of them, none of which would be particularly happy to be dislodged from him by concerned dogs, or by the cold leeching up from the paving stones through her soft soled slippers and from his clothes, or by propriety. She has not, however, stopped speaking:

"How dare you not come indoors immediately! I can hardly believe you mean to—what? Fuss about in the garden until I noticed otherwise? When did you arrive back—Oh really, Mister Ellis. If you've been in Kirkwall for any time at all and have said nothing to me, I really will be very cross with you. Déranger, stop that!"

(This last to the fawn colored briard, who has taken to nosing insistently at Wysteria's side in an vague attempt to insinuate her moppish body between them, and so shepherd her from the vicinity of the sour tempered mabari—)

At her other side, Ruadh is sniffing along Wysteria’s hem, electing to ignore the briard entirely as he does so. Mabari are famously intelligent creatures. They understand without being told, what’s important, what will need to be safeguarded and attended to.

There is surely no way to be close than he is, though Ellis has bowed further into her, hands moving across her back, one rising to her nape to hold on to her more securely. The flow of words, all this scolding, is so welcome that Ellis can say nothing in the face of it. His throat closes around months of silence.

He’d missed her so badly. The pain of it is so stark against the relief of their reunion.

What can he say? If he opens his mouth he has little sense of what might come of it. A second, deeply drawn breath against her collar, as the ache of this moment rattles through him.

So quietly that it might be missed, as Ellis has not made any effort to lift his head and Wysteria has, as always, more to say, he tells her:

“I missed you so terribly, it might have killed me.”

Or part of him. Whatever part of his heart only beats because Wysteria and Tony had made it so.

Her inhale must be very sharp so near to his ear. Her hand where it has slung across the back of his shoulder has tightened into a fist against the outer layer of his gambeson.

"Then just think of how we must feel," is both more insistent and less scolding, and requires no definition for 'we.' "Not knowing if you were alive or dead and miserable all this time over it. I have told everyone that you would be coming back soon, and I was beginning to—"

Here, the thing in her chest has unwound enough to catch in her throat. How dreadful it would have been so be wrong. Terrible enough that she is forced to veer from the image of it.

"I was very worried for you."

What is he to do with this sentiment?

It punches into him like a knife to the gut. Ellis is silent in the face of it, eyes closing as he breathes out hard against her collar. She is holding on so tightly and he doesn't wish to be turned loose.

Here is a truth: he hasn't been able to slip this hold. The grip she has on him had held fast all across Thedas, to the very center of a place that Ellis had stood and considered whether or not he belonged there rather than here. And he'd followed the pull of it back, back to her, back to Tony, and back Richard and Jone and all the rest of the tangled mess of acquaintance he has somehow acquired.

"I'm sorry."

He's told her that before. Outside of Tantervale, with rubble still in his hair. It's hardly enough, but it's so weighted down with emotion that the words seem like to burst in the air.

"You ought to be."

She has made herself quite clear about how she feels about these disappearances and wordless periods of absence. She had been angry with him then too, hadn't she? In that horrible dream they'd all shared—

(Is she angry now? Not really. Or only a little, and that only because he's very worn down and she dislikes it's appearance in him and because she's so very relieved.)

"The roving around on dangerous business is one thing, but don't think I haven't noticed that you've yet to answer when exactly you returned." Here, finally, the clasp of her arm loosens so she can pull back—not far enough to look him sternly in the face, but the gesture implies it. "You have seen Mister Stark, haven't you? Or at least have sent him some note. Oh Déranger, for gods' sake!"

The serious briard has taken advantage of this very minor opening of space between them by sticking her nose directly into it. In an instant, the fawn colored dog has politely but firmly bullied herself further between them. Wysteria squawks in outrage, her loosened hold on Ellis slipping from shoulder to grasp at his forearm as she forced to wobble back to accommodate the dog's presence. She bends her neck directly to address the interloper:

"Déranger! Have you no manners at all? Do not smell there—!"

The unconscious tightening of his arms against the movement is such a minor form of protest, one that never quite comes together into something that might be spoken aloud. She stirs, and Ellis lets her go.

He allows her that sliver of space which soon, by necessity, widens to accommodate Déranger's inspection. Ruadh, largely unseen at the moment but very nearby, gives a low rumbling noise from the vicinity of Wysteria's hip in mild warning. Unheeded, likely, but a tangible expression of caution.

"It's alright," for the pushy little briard. (Suffering by comparison to Ruadh in this sense.) Two hands reluctantly slipping from Wysteria's shoulder and the nape of her neck to her waist, steadying her as this stalwart defender insists upon inspection. "We've not met."

Does any part of Ellis linger in that house? He's been gone a long time; scents fade.

To the question—

"I don't know what time it was," Ellis tells her. "Very late. I was lucky to find Tony still awake in his office after I stabled the horse."

Lucky more of a pretense; they're both aware of what kind of hours Tony keeps.

(The briard between them has pressed herself firmly against the front of Wysteria's legs through her shift, mop face turned pointedly away from the Warden. If she patiently ignores his presence and that of the mabari, clearly they don't exist.)

Wysteria makes a tsking sound between her teeth. Lucky indeed— "See. You really might have sent word. Left a message on my crystal for me while I was asleep. Something."

But this is the last bit of scolding she'll give him (this morning, anyway). Her feet are cold in their slippers and the dog is pushing against her and there is a great deal to tell him, and no sense standing out of doors in the misty grey morning to while they do it.

"Come inside. We can make all the proper introductions there."

Here, a moment of hesitation. They are still stood close, with the exception of her very determined chaperone, and Ellis balks at separating further as much as he balks at the invitation.

He has had a little time to understand the shape of hesitation in him, the fear that he will cross that threshold and find that he no longer fits neatly within the chaotic rhythm of Wysteria's house. His eyes move over her shoulder to the open doorway beyond her as Ruadh butts his head against Ellis' hip.

Briefly, his hand leaves her hip to touch her cheek. His fingers are cold against the flush of her skin. Ellis' thumb sets there for a matter of seconds as his eyes return to her.

As always, what answer is there to give other than the obvious?

"Aye," he answers, unhurried and easy in spite of any unspoken indecision. When he gives her his arm, it's as much to be led as because he knows Wysteria finds some amusement in such gestures.

If she marks any shred of his hesitation, it surely doesn't translate to the eagerness with which Wysteria gloms onto Ellis' offered arm. With a last shooing hiss at the briard who is skeptical enough with this whole arrangement and the mabari that she doesn't need much encouragement to lead the way back inside, Wysteria drags him eagerly across the little garden courtyard and over the threshold.

The kitchen beyond is as one might expect it to be: a riot of papers and books and half assembled prototypes of various nightmares, and a not inconsiderable side of dirty dishes. The fire in the great unused cooking hearth has been allowed to burn down to little more than embers, and the stairwell down into the cellar-slash-work room is dark. To say that is remains unchanged from when last Ellis saw it would be incorrect; but it is familiar in its chaos, the tenor largely unaltered despite ample evidence elsewhere (piled stones and working equipment crammed into one corner of the garden) that something has indeed been afoot.

"Sit, sit," Wysteria insists, loosing her arm from the crook of Ellis' elbow so that she might snatch at the big mop of a dog's collar. The leather band is comedically expensive, encrusted with a rich selection of stones better suited to dripping off a high born lady's neck than a guard dog's. "I'll put her in the hallway and then see to the fire and the kettle. Come along, Déranger. You're being shockingly rude to our guest."

"You don't have to," is contradicted by a low huff from Ruadh, but no one's asking him.

Regardless, Wysteria will manage her dog as she sees fit. The goat is at liberty to gnaw through whatever hay can be reached, for the moment.

Rather than sit, Ellis crouches at the hearth. Wysteria is certainly capable of this too, but Ellis takes up the task of kindling a fire without hesitation while Ruadh circles the space, snuffling through the clutter.

If Ellis were to examine any of it, the collection of items might give him some idea of what Tony and Wysteria have been poking their noses into since he's been gone. But he'd rather hear them speak of it. There is a pressure gathering at the back of his throat, the great ache of something like regret and something like relief, all mingling and making it hard to say much of anything else as he busies himself with wood and kindling.

"Nonsense. She'll only make a nuisance of herself. That's her profession," Wysteria explains, hauling the sullen briard by the collar to the door and finally through it. A brief conversation is held between the two in the corridor—'No, you must stay there. Sit. Don't look at me like that. Go sniff at the goat's bed if you're so broken up about it.'—and then Wysteria backs into the kitchen again, dredging the door to the hall firmly shut.

Poor, dedicated Déranger.

Unburdened by the objecting presence of her guardian, Wysteria in her shift and housecoat and wild unbound hair whirls back around to face Ellis at the hearth. It's a strange picture, even without taking into account the mostly empty sleeve.

"Now you must tell me everything! I insist. What's the point of you having been gone for ages and ages if you haven't returned with all manner of news? Don't tell me that it's confidential for the Division Heads or Warden business either."

Crouched, heel to haunch, Ellis pauses with flint in his hands and sparks growing into flame under his patient ministrations to watch Wysteria as she turns her attention back to him.

What a terrible thing, to see so clearly—

It is difficult, wanting.

Some complicated, tangled thing pulls taut in his chest. Maybe it works across his face, mingling with exhaustion for a long moment before Ellis scrapes himself back together.

"Some of it I cannot say much of," Ellis admits, true to form. "But only because I don't know what to make of it myself yet."

The simple fact that he's spoken not at all of Wardens and their duties and their politics to her before now is suddenly unavoidable. What would Wysteria make of anything he said?

"It's not as exciting as you think."

"Nonsense. Exiting or no, I should like to have some notion of what you've been doing this whole time. And besides," she says—why does he look so drawn and miserable?—as she moves to fetch the kettle down from its hook. There's still water yet left in it from the day before. "Not knowing what to make of it is precisely why we ought to review every detail. It's precisely like when myself and Mister Stark find ourselves turning over a problem. It's always a considerable help to speak the thing aloud with others."

With a click of the kettle lid's tin lining, she seals it shut and makes to join him there before the kitchen's great hearth.

"You might begin by introducing your new companion."

By the time she's arrived, the fire has caught. Ellis is crouched there still, feeding crumpled, ink-splotched papers into the licking flame as it roots into the logs. Ellis thinks to rise and take it from her, but instead he maintains this balance to whistle over to the questing mabari.

An answering boof of sound, the butt of a head against a haphazard pile of books and equipment before Ruadh's nails click against the kitchen floor as he makes up his mind to heed the instruction.

Not that he comes to Ellis. He puts his snout instead to the hem of Wysteria's housecoat, nosing towards bare ankle, huffing all the while. His great brow is wrinkled up, visible even at this poor angle.

"Ruadh," Ellis says, anyone's guess as to whether the thick, fond burr of his tone is simply for the dog or whether it's incidental to the introduction he's meant to be giving. Roo-ah said so warmly, in spite of the lines and exhaustion written into Ellis' face. "He'll make himself known, in his own time."

Wysteria has, at this point, spent a rather inordinate amount of her time around dogs and goats and chickens and magical snakes and giant ants and so on that a dog, even an extraordinary large and grizzled one who puts it's big muzzle so directly near to her bare skin, is taken more or less in (metaphorical) stride. Were she still in possession of both her hands, she might twitch her hem slightly out of the way to get a better look at the great box headed animal. As it is—

"And where did you er—stop, that tickles—find him? At Weisshaupt?"

—she leans slightly past Ellis's stooped shoulder to hook the kettle over the fire.

“Aye.”

One correction follows, as Ellis watches Ruadh trade inspection of Wysteria’s ankle for butting his head at her hip: “He found me.”

And Ruadh choose Ellis too, though he might have spun out his days in service to a better Warden.

“I was eager for him to meet you.”

Whatever kind of meeting this is, it appears to be somewhat successful.

"To meet me?" Wysteria's freed hand hovers briefly over the blunt shape of the mabari's great square head. After a moment, she offers a tentative pat pat between his ears.

"I think you greatly over estimate my affinity for creatures of all kind, Mister Ellis. You and— Well. I'm sure you're quite the grizzled old gentleman, Ruadh," she says, addressing the mabari directly. "And I'm sorry for Déranger's behavior. She doesn't mean anything by it. She has only been educated very strictly. And I'm pleased that you've attached yourself to Mister Ellis. Maybe now that he has you to mind he'll stop bringing me whatever little beasts be comes across in Lowtown."

She fires Ellis a sidelong look.

Hope springs eternal, Wysteria.

The small pat of her hand seems enough encouragement that Ruadh bequeaths a brief lap of tongue to her palm.

"I found a bell in my mailbox," Ellis tells her, watching them. Neither confirming nor denying the status of future little beasts. "I expect it's for the goat."

He's sat back on his heels, looking up at her. It's good, for Ruadh to know her. To know everyone who needs protecting, and commit their scents to memory.

"I'm amazed anyone could fit anything else in your mailbox," she says airily, wiping her tongue wet palm off on the hip of her housecoat. Gross. "Given the prodigious amount of mail in—Oh!"

If Ruadh in his grizzled state is at all prone to starting from sudden exclamations, then this might send him twitching back. But surely he's witnessed things more dreadful than a young woman in her sleepwear abruptly rounding back toward his master in alarm.

"I've something for you! It wouldn't fit in your box, so I told myself I would just give it to you in person when you came back and now it's been sitting and waiting for ages."

Ruadh's ears flick, weight shifting but not transitioning into a retreat. Instead, he circles around behind her to hover at her right hip. All the better to observe Ellis, maybe.

"You needn't have done that," Ellis tells her. "You've been generous already."

In the early hours of the morning, he'd gathered the contents of his mailbox. Wysteria has left him so much.

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