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.
Doubt plucks the hood of his brow askance, skepticism translucent in a glance. It’s the same glance that catches the flicker on Ellis’ face, and he stifles the sentiment with a controlled breath and a hand raised to smooth his whiskers.
Of course.
Silas waits for Ellis to take his moment, pressure released back into default neutrality.
“If they sent the records to a university it’s likely they believe they contain something worth dissecting.” To business. “How long ago were they taken?”
“It would be exciting research. And dangerous. Difficult to keep quiet without evangelical dedication from all involved.”
Across the room, Thot pushes a foot fully into Ruadh’s maw while groping around his jowls. She is ribboned with glistening slobber and matte swaths of ash.
“Florus might have insight into the level of buy-in from scholars pressed into service on similar projects. The level of student involvement. Simple information gathering from the periphery might be an easier pitch than deep infiltration, to start. Eavesdropping in taverns close to the university, pursuing rumors of the blighted or deceased.”
It's a smart approach, but time-consuming. The kind of thing that requires patience, and Ellis is not an impatient man, but—
"How long do you think we would have to listen?" is a necessary question, even as Ellis considers whether they might press past that step. Or accelerate it, compress all that attention into a shorter time-frame.
He is thinking too of the pair of Tevinter agents in the lower dungeons, and what use they might make of them.
“Not very. A week, perhaps two. Long enough to identify leads or otherwise be confident it isn’t being openly discussed if we haven’t heard anything in that time frame. Much longer and we might need to enroll in the university.”
Certainly a joke, delivered without any cadence or lilt to unhitch humor from the base futility of it all: the dregs of Riftwatch up against the might of the Tevinter Imperium.
He arches a brow down into his coffee as he tilts it.
“Decisions regarding next steps could be made on the ground with anything gleaned. The spymaster could be consulted.”
All this is absorbed quietly. At some point, Ellis' eyes shift to Thot and Ruadh, observing the jabs of Thot's paws into Ruadh's scarred bulk, before he returns his study to Richard, his expression, the lift of his eyebrow.
A nod. Ellis understands. It feels sound, as far as exceedingly dangerous proposals go. Yes, they will consult the spymaster. Yes, they will have to enter the university either way, assuming all their listening indicates there is something to be retrieved.
"Do we have anyone you think might suit?"
This surely becomes the bigger question.
And it is one Ellis also finds himself less equipped to answer. He had a list ready, when Tony had asked who would be useful in the midst of Tevinter assault on Tantervale. But spywork is something different entirely, requires skills Ellis cannot fully evaluate.
This is a question that warrants more rugged contemplation, more gristle than meat to chew through in all his impatience with the dangers of Riftwatch of late. He keeps to his cup, a creep of pale light at the window sapping at the hearthfire’s glow.
Two names. Ellis doesn't flinch. This is about what he had expected. There are often very few that Ellis would trust to be capable, focus on the work, not get mired in argument and squabble.
Now Silas looks up, and Thot pauses in her grooming of Ruadh’s tattered ears with her tongue poked poisonous blue through her teeth before pressing on at half speed. Unsure.
“Of course,” Easy. He has the rest of his coffee to swallow down, and does, all at once in a bitter bolt that strikes sharp at the fuzzy lines around his mouth, nearly a grimace. The cup goes back onto the table. No need or desire for a second round.
“May I tell you something?”
Seeing they are asking permission to make the conversation treacherous this morning.
A low, rumbling noise from Ruadh at the delay. It pulls Ellis' attention back for a moment, assessing without any real concern to Thot's immediate well being.
The concern comes when he looks back again to Silas. He can't anticipate what might follow the question, but there is, of course, only one answer to give.
"Aye."
Quiet. Expectant. The business of their respective creatures shuffled to the side.
Ellis is not given to displays of emotion, so the reaction is very muted. A raising of brows. Straightening in his chair. A pause, while he draws together some response.
"I don't understand," is lacking. Ellis knows this.
But he knows too that Silas will expand on it, even if his explanation is knife-sharp, leaves a series of small cuts in its wake.
The gathering of his patience is a wearying task, writ plain in the pause he takes for the inevitability of this response, the tuck of his chin scruffy to his collar when he sits back. He’s not angry. Just unhappy.
“The withholding of information,” he explains, “the buffering from any danger or temptation you’ve decided I mustn't face. Dabbling in other dangers is desired within your limits. I should stay close by your side, or I should remain far behind. Here I have kept my word to you and still might have died pointlessly in the kitchen.”
Silas breathes out sharp through his nose, coffee breath turned in a draconic spill between them in the beat before he stands to seek out a wide-necked bottle from his desk. Empty, and clean enough to warrant keeping after a sniff.
“You’ve sought out my expertise. How do you think my list will benefit from your review?”
Ellis has stilled, straightening in his chair to track Silas' movements around the room. By turn, Ruadh has lifted his own head to scrutinize the pair of them, Thot momentarily ignored.
Response comes slowly, delayed by some hesitation over questioning what might have happened in the kitchen. Ellis hasn't heard all of what occurred, and Tony's allusions to difficulties was not—
"I'm not asking after it to second-guess you," Ellis answers carefully. "I'm asking so I do not hear it for the first time in front of the Scoutmaster."
The earlier points are left to themselves. Ellis is reluctant to counter any of them, and the impulse to do so makes him even less inclined to try. So this one thing, a minor explanation of what has passed between them in the last few moments, is what he offers up in turn.
There isn’t far for him to go. There are the two beds, the hearth, the desk, the table, all carefully arranged to make the most of limited space. The bottle, which might have been for whiskey, is now for the leftover coffee, swirled underhand in its pot to check for residual heat before he tilts it to pour.
“Then you won’t mind if I add myself to it.”
Reasonable, orderly where he stands to measure coffee down the bottle’s throat close by.
"It's for the Scoutmaster to decide whether it's an acceptable risk or not," is a very diplomatic answer.
Yes, Ellis will mind. Just as he minds when Tony and Wysteria prod at rifts and cause small explosions in the kitchen.
Only this is not quite that, because Silas had said himself: to be caught in Tevinter was to meet a very bad end, one way or another.
The resentment Ellis might feel at having to bite back any objection is muted, reduced down to a tension in his jaw, right hand folding over his left on the tabletop. Ruadh is very still where he's sprawled across the floor.
Silas stoppers the bottle, grimy with coffee dregs at its base. Enough to down like a shot tomorrow morning if he’s feeling bold. What would the Captain think? The rustling of him recedes back to the room’s tiny window, where there’s just space for him to square the bottle in the chill air of the frame.
Better to admire his handiwork there for a moment than return to the table, where Ellis is sitting very still.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I haven’t often been afforded opportunities to choose what should happen to me.” And, after a pause to fold his arms: “We can both be certain Miss Poppell will continue to terrorize this world well into her seventies.”
Thot has anchored one foot up under some fold in Raudh’s chest, the other poked blind about his neck, under his chin. She lies belly up between his paws, watchful with her ears flattened to the floor.
A small spark of rueful amusement, there and gone again in the span of a moment. A truth: it is unlikely Ellis will be alive to see what Wysteria's reign of terror looks like when she is seventy years old and perhaps more energetic than ever. Ellis is already old, for a Warden.
He does not say this.
"There's no reason to apologize to me," is what he offers instead.
As always, there are things Ellis might say to clarify. To explain himself. And as always, Ellis lets them fall by the wayside. He is quiet instead. Waiting. There is some tangled sentiment held fast behind his teeth. Ellis doesn't have the words for it yet.
Slowly, gradually, Ruadh's snout dips low enough to nose at Thot's exposed belly, watchful through the entire action.
Answering silence stands in for obvious doubt. But there’s cruelty in specificity and in looking down at his arms he’s seen a vest button he’d missed in his haste to evade Ruadh. The button takes priority.
“Well,” once he’s fastened up and refolded, stranded now for several seconds in the no man’s land between desk and table in his own quarters, “thank you for returning my familiar.”
She’s stretched her goblin paws up over her head, whatever instinct to rabbit kick at Ruadh’s snout lost between forms or never there to begin with.
A reprieve. Surely Silas has something else to say. But Ellis rises from the table rather than prompt him.
"I kept her too long."
To the tune of I'm in your debt.
Not just for the additional months. Thot had been a comfort. Silas hadn't given her over to him with that intention, but it had become true all the same as the days and weeks passed within the walls of that fort.
"I'm very grateful," is genuine, even as Ellis lowers himself to his haunches beside the pair. Thot doesn't need any assistance extricating herself, so it's more an offering of his hand for those batting paws. "I know where she would have rather been."
Dick watches him sink down, a sharp-eyed shade against the compact slab of his desk, cluttered with papers and books and a pickled dragon’s eyeball. It’s sturdy enough to withstand his weight settled back into it, not quite a sit while Thot the cat tests her teeth and claws comb light around Ellis’ knuckles.
He’s quiet again, acknowledgement of genuine sentiment in all the right notes at the pit of his throat. Courteous.
In much the way he knows his own use, he knows hers.
Thot is permitted. The light prickle of tooth and claw is a welcome thing, even as Ruadh rumbles in grumpy warning.
She has been of service. More so than Ellis thinks Silas might realize, and more than Ellis is capable of explaining. (He's already said too much aloud to Silas, and there are things not meant for him to carry.) So there is quiet, Ellis' attention turned down to Thot while awareness of Silas' scrutiny hums at the periphery of his thoughts.
"Let me know when you're ready," Ellis says finally. The matter Silas has raised doesn't feel exactly settled, but Ellis can see no other way forward in this conversation. "I'd like to speak to the Scoutmaster together."
Unsurprisingly, Ellis is out of his depth when it comes to spywork. Hopefully Silas will be able to close that gap, present a cohesive idea for them to act upon, to Yseult.
Making a list, submitting it to the Scoutmaster for criticism within days of remarking upon the carelessness with which they use Eluvians to cast Rifters down the throat of the Tevinter Imperium. Why wouldn’t this be well received.
Now Ellis and Ruadh the mabari are in his quarters and he must wait for them to leave, pushed back to his desk by their joined presence now as he’d been pressed to the hearth earlier. Thot is less bothered, still using the dog to anchor herself in spite of his grumbling. She does recede, teeth put away with a last rasping lick, her wide eyes yellowed in the firelight.
Silas isn't made to wait long. Ellis understands they've reached a conclusion.
Ruadh teeth nip after Thot, one last little expression of affection before heaving to his feet with a deep rumble of complaint as Ellis says, "You know where to find me when you've finished."
And with a single, soft whistle, Ellis makes for the door with Ruadh trotting along behind him.
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no subject
Of course.
Silas waits for Ellis to take his moment, pressure released back into default neutrality.
“If they sent the records to a university it’s likely they believe they contain something worth dissecting.” To business. “How long ago were they taken?”
no subject
Of course, that's a problem.
"It wasn't all at once. From what I could find, it seemed that they'd been sending them in batches. It's been going on for a year, maybe two."
no subject
Across the room, Thot pushes a foot fully into Ruadh’s maw while groping around his jowls. She is ribboned with glistening slobber and matte swaths of ash.
“Florus might have insight into the level of buy-in from scholars pressed into service on similar projects. The level of student involvement. Simple information gathering from the periphery might be an easier pitch than deep infiltration, to start. Eavesdropping in taverns close to the university, pursuing rumors of the blighted or deceased.”
no subject
It's a smart approach, but time-consuming. The kind of thing that requires patience, and Ellis is not an impatient man, but—
"How long do you think we would have to listen?" is a necessary question, even as Ellis considers whether they might press past that step. Or accelerate it, compress all that attention into a shorter time-frame.
He is thinking too of the pair of Tevinter agents in the lower dungeons, and what use they might make of them.
no subject
Certainly a joke, delivered without any cadence or lilt to unhitch humor from the base futility of it all: the dregs of Riftwatch up against the might of the Tevinter Imperium.
He arches a brow down into his coffee as he tilts it.
“Decisions regarding next steps could be made on the ground with anything gleaned. The spymaster could be consulted.”
no subject
A nod. Ellis understands. It feels sound, as far as exceedingly dangerous proposals go. Yes, they will consult the spymaster. Yes, they will have to enter the university either way, assuming all their listening indicates there is something to be retrieved.
"Do we have anyone you think might suit?"
This surely becomes the bigger question.
And it is one Ellis also finds himself less equipped to answer. He had a list ready, when Tony had asked who would be useful in the midst of Tevinter assault on Tantervale. But spywork is something different entirely, requires skills Ellis cannot fully evaluate.
no subject
“Bastien,” says Silas. Fitcher. “Ket.”
Richard Dickerson.
“I could provide her with a list of prospects.”
no subject
"I'd like to see them, before we go to her."
And then—
"Thank you."
For the expertise. For indulging him still.
no subject
“Of course,” Easy. He has the rest of his coffee to swallow down, and does, all at once in a bitter bolt that strikes sharp at the fuzzy lines around his mouth, nearly a grimace. The cup goes back onto the table. No need or desire for a second round.
“May I tell you something?”
Seeing they are asking permission to make the conversation treacherous this morning.
no subject
The concern comes when he looks back again to Silas. He can't anticipate what might follow the question, but there is, of course, only one answer to give.
"Aye."
Quiet. Expectant. The business of their respective creatures shuffled to the side.
no subject
It’s early enough for his eyes to be quite clear at the back of his saying so, glass shrapnel sharp without his narrowing them.
The rest of him is mundane as ever, rangy and a little rumpled without a chance for adjustment after Ruadh’s earlier interruption.
no subject
Ellis is not given to displays of emotion, so the reaction is very muted. A raising of brows. Straightening in his chair. A pause, while he draws together some response.
"I don't understand," is lacking. Ellis knows this.
But he knows too that Silas will expand on it, even if his explanation is knife-sharp, leaves a series of small cuts in its wake.
no subject
“The withholding of information,” he explains, “the buffering from any danger or temptation you’ve decided I mustn't face. Dabbling in other dangers is desired within your limits. I should stay close by your side, or I should remain far behind. Here I have kept my word to you and still might have died pointlessly in the kitchen.”
Silas breathes out sharp through his nose, coffee breath turned in a draconic spill between them in the beat before he stands to seek out a wide-necked bottle from his desk. Empty, and clean enough to warrant keeping after a sniff.
“You’ve sought out my expertise. How do you think my list will benefit from your review?”
no subject
Response comes slowly, delayed by some hesitation over questioning what might have happened in the kitchen. Ellis hasn't heard all of what occurred, and Tony's allusions to difficulties was not—
"I'm not asking after it to second-guess you," Ellis answers carefully. "I'm asking so I do not hear it for the first time in front of the Scoutmaster."
The earlier points are left to themselves. Ellis is reluctant to counter any of them, and the impulse to do so makes him even less inclined to try. So this one thing, a minor explanation of what has passed between them in the last few moments, is what he offers up in turn.
no subject
“Then you won’t mind if I add myself to it.”
Reasonable, orderly where he stands to measure coffee down the bottle’s throat close by.
no subject
Yes, Ellis will mind. Just as he minds when Tony and Wysteria prod at rifts and cause small explosions in the kitchen.
Only this is not quite that, because Silas had said himself: to be caught in Tevinter was to meet a very bad end, one way or another.
The resentment Ellis might feel at having to bite back any objection is muted, reduced down to a tension in his jaw, right hand folding over his left on the tabletop. Ruadh is very still where he's sprawled across the floor.
no subject
Better to admire his handiwork there for a moment than return to the table, where Ellis is sitting very still.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I haven’t often been afforded opportunities to choose what should happen to me.” And, after a pause to fold his arms: “We can both be certain Miss Poppell will continue to terrorize this world well into her seventies.”
Thot has anchored one foot up under some fold in Raudh’s chest, the other poked blind about his neck, under his chin. She lies belly up between his paws, watchful with her ears flattened to the floor.
no subject
He does not say this.
"There's no reason to apologize to me," is what he offers instead.
As always, there are things Ellis might say to clarify. To explain himself. And as always, Ellis lets them fall by the wayside. He is quiet instead. Waiting. There is some tangled sentiment held fast behind his teeth. Ellis doesn't have the words for it yet.
Slowly, gradually, Ruadh's snout dips low enough to nose at Thot's exposed belly, watchful through the entire action.
no subject
“Well,” once he’s fastened up and refolded, stranded now for several seconds in the no man’s land between desk and table in his own quarters, “thank you for returning my familiar.”
She’s stretched her goblin paws up over her head, whatever instinct to rabbit kick at Ruadh’s snout lost between forms or never there to begin with.
no subject
"I kept her too long."
To the tune of I'm in your debt.
Not just for the additional months. Thot had been a comfort. Silas hadn't given her over to him with that intention, but it had become true all the same as the days and weeks passed within the walls of that fort.
"I'm very grateful," is genuine, even as Ellis lowers himself to his haunches beside the pair. Thot doesn't need any assistance extricating herself, so it's more an offering of his hand for those batting paws. "I know where she would have rather been."
no subject
He’s quiet again, acknowledgement of genuine sentiment in all the right notes at the pit of his throat. Courteous.
In much the way he knows his own use, he knows hers.
“She’s pleased to have been of service.”
no subject
She has been of service. More so than Ellis thinks Silas might realize, and more than Ellis is capable of explaining. (He's already said too much aloud to Silas, and there are things not meant for him to carry.) So there is quiet, Ellis' attention turned down to Thot while awareness of Silas' scrutiny hums at the periphery of his thoughts.
"Let me know when you're ready," Ellis says finally. The matter Silas has raised doesn't feel exactly settled, but Ellis can see no other way forward in this conversation. "I'd like to speak to the Scoutmaster together."
Unsurprisingly, Ellis is out of his depth when it comes to spywork. Hopefully Silas will be able to close that gap, present a cohesive idea for them to act upon, to Yseult.
no subject
Making a list, submitting it to the Scoutmaster for criticism within days of remarking upon the carelessness with which they use Eluvians to cast Rifters down the throat of the Tevinter Imperium. Why wouldn’t this be well received.
Now Ellis and Ruadh the mabari are in his quarters and he must wait for them to leave, pushed back to his desk by their joined presence now as he’d been pressed to the hearth earlier. Thot is less bothered, still using the dog to anchor herself in spite of his grumbling. She does recede, teeth put away with a last rasping lick, her wide eyes yellowed in the firelight.
a long delayed bow to slap on this thread
Ruadh teeth nip after Thot, one last little expression of affection before heaving to his feet with a deep rumble of complaint as Ellis says, "You know where to find me when you've finished."
And with a single, soft whistle, Ellis makes for the door with Ruadh trotting along behind him.