WHO: Ellis + OTA WHAT: Homecoming WHEN: Guardian WHERE: Kirkwall NOTES: Thread collection. Closed and open starters in the comments. Holler if you want something bespoke or drop in a wildcard, I'll roll with it.
Wysteria knocks the breath out of him. It is hard to speak in the wake of her request, to pare down the choking pressure of reaction to offer her a steady, reasonable answer.
There had been whole days, maybe even weeks, where Ellis had thought of what it would be like to let go of her. He could have let the Anderfels, Weisshaupt, the embattled squabble of Wardens, have him back. In time, he would be as he was before he came south. (Someday, he won't have the opportunity to choose that path. It waits for him.)
It is not very difficult to disappear. Ellis has done it before. Maybe there would be relief and numbness in due time, once he'd cut away the part of himself that feels so much for Wysteria out, once the bleeding stopped. He'd seen that path very clearly, understood what it would look like if he chose it.
But here and now, looking at her, it is hard to think that he wouldn't bleed to death of it if he were to try. The roots of what he feels are set so deep that there would be no staunching the wound if he attempted to cut them out.
Please don't, Wysteria says, and Ellis draws a deep, ragged breath in, shakes his head. His gaze drops, but inevitably, quickly, returns to her. Lips part, but nothing comes, though the answer breaks across his face. It is a pained thing, raw in it's inevitability: no, he couldn't do that again.
She isn't blind to it—the weight of some thing slung about him like a millstone. Maybe it's all the time spent on the road, or whatever he'd found at Weisshaupt, or just simple exhaustion, or how much he has missed her and Tony and the Gallows (unbelievable as this very last thing must be; the Gallows, she has heard, is a difficult place to feel any affection for). There are a great many instances in which that look on his face and Ellis' lack of some spoken thing would be a perfectly satisfactory response. Yes, yes; she understand the sentiment even if he can't put the thing into the right shapes. And she will be easy on him, and let him go along so long as they understand that they both understand one another.
But there are some things which simply must be said. One cannot make an oath without speaking the words, and that is what she is binding him to.
"That's not an answer," is patient and not without humor, but is most certainly insistent.
(—is the thing she'd told Mister Stark too, when he'd tried to avoid the subject of forming a rescue party.)
The answering wrench of a laugh sounds like a wound. It comes as a brief, low burst of sound that raises Ruadh's head from where he had still been flattening himself along the floor, nosing towards Wysteria's ankles. Assessing, with a short keen of a whine in answer, but not huffing up onto his feet. Not yet.
Wysteria is so very clever, and she knows him well by now. Ellis abides by his oaths, keeps his promises. That is what she is after: the kind of assurance that Ellis will always, always honor.
There are some things that simply must be said. Ellis can feel the catch of one such thing at the back of his throat, held carefully in check for such a long time now. And he knows that it will color every single word he says to her here, unmistakable but silent. Easy to look past.
"I can't leave you," he tells her thickly. This is a different kind of oath, drenched in some long-held, unacknowledged thing. "Not so long as I'm drawing breath."
The metal of the little machine in his hands has warmed from handling. Ellis' thumb runs down along the flank of the little dog in a small, unconscious movement. His eyes never leave Wysteria's face, gaze very steadily watching her in return.
That laugh that's dragged free of him is jagged enough that it probably ought to induce some sympathy in her rather than the warm flare of affection that it does. But she's always enjoyed being right and getting her way, and she knows before he says anything at all that she's successfully cornered him. Or that he's allowed her to do so. It doesn't really matter which, does it?
And the promise he gives her—it would be a good one even if it weren't in answer to her asking for it.
Across the table from him, Wysteria's expression where she has her chin in her palm falters just a little. Not failing, just straining under some abrupt inexplicable prickle of feeling that's lodged in her throat. She has done so very well at not crying, but he is so dreadfully serious when he says it and it's a matter of either being struck by the sentiment or laughing at him and no measure of high spirits is quite powerful enough to swallow up the effect of all those weeks of worry. So the smiling line of Wysteria's mouth wobbles. She sniffs once and hurries to turn her hand and brush away the threat of extremely silly tears.
"Good," she says. "That's good. Because I'm afraid I become entirely intolerable company when you're not here. Everyone is thoroughly sick of me saying Mister Ellis this and Mister Ellis that. I'm quite convinced that even Lady Asgard is tired of hearing about you from me."
When she does laugh, it's short and no doubt in place of sniffling and entirely at herself.
A tabletop's worth of separation feels intolerable.
Someday, he will have to leave. There is nothing else for it. He is a Warden, and that's what Wardens do. They fight monsters. They die. That is the only end to the story. As far as Ellis knows, that is the final chapter. It waits for him. That has always been a comfort.
Except now, in this moment, there is no finer thing that Wysteria's laugh over that brief wobble of her mouth, that moment when her brow pinched and Ellis saw some familiar thing there followed by another familiar reaction, the way Wysteria holds the former reaction in check. His study of her is so very intent.
How could he ever leave her, so long as there is enough life left in his body to keep him here?
"Then for Lady Asgard's sake," is a very little joke, faltering slightly as Ellis sets down the little mabari. It's for no one's sake but Wysteria's, and certainly not for a woman Ellis has only ever met once in the midst of a haphazard skating game.
There is a beat of quiet there. Ellis draws breath. Opens his mouth.
Says nothing.
Instead, he covers over the crooked fingers of his left hand, makes an effort to sit back slightly in his chair. Inhales deeper, steadying himself.
(This useless thing living in his chest, dug in so deep that there is no reaching in to snuff it out, even if he could bring himself to attempt it.)
"Well obviously," she laughs again, willing her eyes to stop their watering with a wrinkle of her nose. In a last ditch defense, Wysteria fetched her heretofore untouched cup and swallows down a great deal of hot tea in one gulp. "Myself and Mister Stark are simply too good of company compared to the sorts of rocks and sticks and whatever else is in the Anderfels. No wonder you had to acquire yourself the world's largest dog to make up for it."
The cup is set resolutely aside. Wysteria's sleeve makes a last swift pass at the corner of of an eye, compulsive, and then all at once she shifts where she is sitting as if to rise up and out of the chair. Déranger, whose attention has been studiously pinned on the Warden in the room, pivots her bead eyed mop face toward the movement.
"This is silly. It's too cold and dark in here by half and far too gloomy. If we stay here much longer, you and I will both become far too serious and grim when this is nothing but a reason for good spirits." She bangs her fist decisively on the table, rattling dishware. "Come along, Mister Ellis. We should go find ourselves a proper breakfast. We can get those crossed buns and a great slab of bacon and take it over to Gallows and surprise Mister Stark with it before, and you can tell us all about how miserable you've been before he gets too deep into his papers."
A low grumbling comes from somewhere beneath the table, whether in response to Déranger or to the implication of impending movement is anyone's guess. (Perhaps an objection to being named simply a dog.) Across the table, Ellis manages an unsteady laugh, punched out and shaky as he rises with a scrape of the chair.
"Aye, I'd like that."
Not so much the conversation, but being in the room with the two of them. In due time they'll hit upon something to debate over, and Ellis can lapse into quiet, listening as they banter back and forth. It will be a very good way to spend a morning.
Ellis has not let himself fully consider how much he would have missed such an occasion before this exact moment. It is not so far removed from the prickle of feeling returning to frozen limbs after coming in from the cold.
Under Déranger's watchful eye, Ellis rounds the table, extends a hand out to her, inviting, as he reminds, "You'll need your cloak. It's cold."
Even if he cannot say the rest, cannot tell her a true thing, the sentiment comes couched in such a small offering of care. That is enough for Ellis, in the moment.
Without the obstacle of the table between them, it's a matter of course that Wysteria accepts the offer of his hand. Only at the last moment does she recall to be mindful of her feet so she doesn't accidentally trod all over some bit of the mabari lurking under her chair, leaning hard on the benefit of Ellis' hand to keep her balance as she quick steps to avoid Ruadh.
"Ah, yes. The cold," she says in some knowing tone, all forced lightness for she refuses to shed so much as a single silly tear. Standing there between Ellis and the chair and amidst the grumbling of two dogs displeased with this rearrangement, Wysteria fixes him with a serious look which she can maintain only for as long as it takes her to say,
"That must account for why you've let your all the hair on your head grow so long. You're positively shaggy, Mister Ellis."
Before she flashes him a wobbly smile, fiercely squeezes his hand, then separates to fetch the bright red cloak from its peg.
"Come along, Déranger," she calls to the briard with a snap of her fingers once the cloak has been donned, the coals in the fireplace shoved all the way to the back wall, and the little copper mechanized dog has returned to its box and gentle bed of wood shavings. "You may as well make good your acquaintance with both these gentlemen. I suspect you will be obligated to tolerate their company for quite some time to come."
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literally makes you wait a million years for a dialogue-less tag, forgive
There had been whole days, maybe even weeks, where Ellis had thought of what it would be like to let go of her. He could have let the Anderfels, Weisshaupt, the embattled squabble of Wardens, have him back. In time, he would be as he was before he came south. (Someday, he won't have the opportunity to choose that path. It waits for him.)
It is not very difficult to disappear. Ellis has done it before. Maybe there would be relief and numbness in due time, once he'd cut away the part of himself that feels so much for Wysteria out, once the bleeding stopped. He'd seen that path very clearly, understood what it would look like if he chose it.
But here and now, looking at her, it is hard to think that he wouldn't bleed to death of it if he were to try. The roots of what he feels are set so deep that there would be no staunching the wound if he attempted to cut them out.
Please don't, Wysteria says, and Ellis draws a deep, ragged breath in, shakes his head. His gaze drops, but inevitably, quickly, returns to her. Lips part, but nothing comes, though the answer breaks across his face. It is a pained thing, raw in it's inevitability: no, he couldn't do that again.
a GREAT dialogue-less tag
But there are some things which simply must be said. One cannot make an oath without speaking the words, and that is what she is binding him to.
"That's not an answer," is patient and not without humor, but is most certainly insistent.
(—is the thing she'd told Mister Stark too, when he'd tried to avoid the subject of forming a rescue party.)
weLL
Wysteria is so very clever, and she knows him well by now. Ellis abides by his oaths, keeps his promises. That is what she is after: the kind of assurance that Ellis will always, always honor.
There are some things that simply must be said. Ellis can feel the catch of one such thing at the back of his throat, held carefully in check for such a long time now. And he knows that it will color every single word he says to her here, unmistakable but silent. Easy to look past.
"I can't leave you," he tells her thickly. This is a different kind of oath, drenched in some long-held, unacknowledged thing. "Not so long as I'm drawing breath."
The metal of the little machine in his hands has warmed from handling. Ellis' thumb runs down along the flank of the little dog in a small, unconscious movement. His eyes never leave Wysteria's face, gaze very steadily watching her in return.
"Not again."
no subject
And the promise he gives her—it would be a good one even if it weren't in answer to her asking for it.
Across the table from him, Wysteria's expression where she has her chin in her palm falters just a little. Not failing, just straining under some abrupt inexplicable prickle of feeling that's lodged in her throat. She has done so very well at not crying, but he is so dreadfully serious when he says it and it's a matter of either being struck by the sentiment or laughing at him and no measure of high spirits is quite powerful enough to swallow up the effect of all those weeks of worry. So the smiling line of Wysteria's mouth wobbles. She sniffs once and hurries to turn her hand and brush away the threat of extremely silly tears.
"Good," she says. "That's good. Because I'm afraid I become entirely intolerable company when you're not here. Everyone is thoroughly sick of me saying Mister Ellis this and Mister Ellis that. I'm quite convinced that even Lady Asgard is tired of hearing about you from me."
When she does laugh, it's short and no doubt in place of sniffling and entirely at herself.
no subject
Someday, he will have to leave. There is nothing else for it. He is a Warden, and that's what Wardens do. They fight monsters. They die. That is the only end to the story. As far as Ellis knows, that is the final chapter. It waits for him. That has always been a comfort.
Except now, in this moment, there is no finer thing that Wysteria's laugh over that brief wobble of her mouth, that moment when her brow pinched and Ellis saw some familiar thing there followed by another familiar reaction, the way Wysteria holds the former reaction in check. His study of her is so very intent.
How could he ever leave her, so long as there is enough life left in his body to keep him here?
"Then for Lady Asgard's sake," is a very little joke, faltering slightly as Ellis sets down the little mabari. It's for no one's sake but Wysteria's, and certainly not for a woman Ellis has only ever met once in the midst of a haphazard skating game.
There is a beat of quiet there. Ellis draws breath. Opens his mouth.
Says nothing.
Instead, he covers over the crooked fingers of his left hand, makes an effort to sit back slightly in his chair. Inhales deeper, steadying himself.
(This useless thing living in his chest, dug in so deep that there is no reaching in to snuff it out, even if he could bring himself to attempt it.)
Instead: "It was intolerable, being so far away."
Half a sentence. Close enough to the truth.
no subject
The cup is set resolutely aside. Wysteria's sleeve makes a last swift pass at the corner of of an eye, compulsive, and then all at once she shifts where she is sitting as if to rise up and out of the chair. Déranger, whose attention has been studiously pinned on the Warden in the room, pivots her bead eyed mop face toward the movement.
"This is silly. It's too cold and dark in here by half and far too gloomy. If we stay here much longer, you and I will both become far too serious and grim when this is nothing but a reason for good spirits." She bangs her fist decisively on the table, rattling dishware. "Come along, Mister Ellis. We should go find ourselves a proper breakfast. We can get those crossed buns and a great slab of bacon and take it over to Gallows and surprise Mister Stark with it before, and you can tell us all about how miserable you've been before he gets too deep into his papers."
bow on this y/y?
"Aye, I'd like that."
Not so much the conversation, but being in the room with the two of them. In due time they'll hit upon something to debate over, and Ellis can lapse into quiet, listening as they banter back and forth. It will be a very good way to spend a morning.
Ellis has not let himself fully consider how much he would have missed such an occasion before this exact moment. It is not so far removed from the prickle of feeling returning to frozen limbs after coming in from the cold.
Under Déranger's watchful eye, Ellis rounds the table, extends a hand out to her, inviting, as he reminds, "You'll need your cloak. It's cold."
Even if he cannot say the rest, cannot tell her a true thing, the sentiment comes couched in such a small offering of care. That is enough for Ellis, in the moment.
yyyy : ' )
"Ah, yes. The cold," she says in some knowing tone, all forced lightness for she refuses to shed so much as a single silly tear. Standing there between Ellis and the chair and amidst the grumbling of two dogs displeased with this rearrangement, Wysteria fixes him with a serious look which she can maintain only for as long as it takes her to say,
"That must account for why you've let your all the hair on your head grow so long. You're positively shaggy, Mister Ellis."
Before she flashes him a wobbly smile, fiercely squeezes his hand, then separates to fetch the bright red cloak from its peg.
"Come along, Déranger," she calls to the briard with a snap of her fingers once the cloak has been donned, the coals in the fireplace shoved all the way to the back wall, and the little copper mechanized dog has returned to its box and gentle bed of wood shavings. "You may as well make good your acquaintance with both these gentlemen. I suspect you will be obligated to tolerate their company for quite some time to come."