CLOSED | She said, "Where'd you wanna go? How much you wanna risk?"

[notathreat]

WHO: Ellie & Jude, Various
WHAT: Various closed prompts in one convenient place!
WHEN: (Spanning) Fantasy September
WHERE: Gallows, Kirkwall, Arlathan Forest
NOTES: Gonna have some fallout/followup threads from this log re: Abby's canon update! Mind the warnings. Graphic injuries. Spicy/sexual content. Hookah use. More TBD.

Comments

[grindset]

This flicker of hesitation is so brief, it likely doesn't even register. They don't know each other well enough to mark such subtleties.

"The undercity."

He isn't ashamed of it, doesn't qualify—though Ellie would no doubt find that story interesting—doesn't lean into it as an assertion, doesn't even expect her to take it poorly, but a part of him is nonetheless waiting to see where that information lands. He wouldn't have been asked at home; anyone would simply have looked at him, known, and made their judgments. (Even him. Even though he tried.)

Strange, to both appreciate a thing and be disappointed by it in the same thought.

[notathreat]

Ellie is a person who moves like a knife, all cuts and sharp angles. She has a young face that makes her look younger than she is despite the scars, wary eyes and maimed hands. She stays precisely far enough away from people when she talks to them that they can't touch her with an outstretched hand, like she's always gauging the distance of someone's reach, even when there's no threat to be had.

And something in her relaxes when he says that. Like a piece has clicked into place, like she's letting go of a tiny bit of her guard.

She nods to herself, like it makes sense.

"I'll bring the telescope by later tonight." And leave it there, along with blankets.

[grindset]

It's a mutual unwinding—barely a conscious thing. It makes sense, and it makes sense Ellie would accept it.

No hurry, he would like to tell her, and it can wait until tomorrow, but those sentiments had fled from his vocabulary long before he came here and took on a rifter's existential uncertainty. Far from a new and terrifying concern, it's almost a relief—if the Fade took him back suddenly, at least then the failure wouldn't be his.

"I'll be here," is what he settles on, and can only hope it's true.