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[nonvenomous]

Book/crystal/correspondence/action/whatever you desire.

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[nonvenomous]

He would disagree.

[ Just a casual observation, brief and to the point as Richard gives up on his fork and folds the toast up in his fingers to finish it off that way. ]

How well do you know him?

[kantikoy]

I imagine so.

[ That's the way of Ellis. It's also the way of Adrasteia, to insist someone is a good person even if they themselves would disagree with that evaluation.

She has no regrets in that direction. ]

I knew of him, before Adamant. We were never close, before. Why?

[nonvenomous]

I’m a curious person.

[ This feels at least slightly more normal and polite than professing to be a curious human. ]

And it’s by his grace that we’re spending this time together.

[ He pushes the last of the bread in past his teeth in a lump, and effectively excuses himself from any kind of immediate answer with the time it’ll take him to chew it down. ]

[kantikoy]

[ Adrasteia nods at that. They're both curious people, clearly, or none of this would be happening. ]

Running water seeks its own level. Something my father used to say.

I'm glad that Ellis has people in his corner. [ She'd worried, upon her arrival to Kirkwall and learning he was here, that he didn't. That he had no one and was just existing, surviving as part of a group but functionally separate. It's nice to know that isn't entirely true.

She waits for him to finish chewing before asking: ] Do you miss your home terribly?

[nonvenomous]

He’s done well for himself here.

[ His saying so is more calculated and considered than the sentiment should call for. It’s an easy observation to make, word choice and framing the only complications. He makes it sound as though Ellis has started a farm, and seems to know it, staying further elaboration with a drink of water. ]

I miss pieces of it that were important to me. [ Easy, reasonable, dry at a glance. He misses his cat and his god.

Otherwise there’s no love lost between him and the snakehole he crawled out of. ]

What about you?

[kantikoy]

Hm.

[ Adrasteia smiles to herself. She's very glad to hear that Ellis has done well, made friends, a lasting impression on several it would seem.

Also, who wouldn't miss the pieces of home that were important to them? But it's interesting, that his answer isn't just 'yes'. She has the impression that Richard is very particular about the things he says.

She's just not sure what that says about him. ]

I grew up near Amaranthine, do you know anything about it?

[nonvenomous]

It sounds familiar.

[ Doubtless he’s read or overheard something in the year and a half he’s been here, even if the overall focus of his study has been directed towards the Fade and its spirits. His curiosity is too low key to suggest any immediate association between the name and anything the Darkspawn might’ve gotten up to there in decades past.

He’s only interested because she’s asked -- but he is interested. Breakfast has fueled some life back into him, worn down as he is. ]

[kantikoy]

It's a trading port and a place that is very proud of being where and what it is. It's also the Warden's arling in Ferelden. There's a route that runs between Amaranthine and Denerim, called the Pilgrim's Path. Anyway. It's off the Amaranthine Sea, southeast of here, along Ferelden's eastern coastline.

Wardens are very important there. The Hero of Ferelden saved the city from a darkspawn attack that happened just months after the Blight ended.

[ She opens her hands on the table in front of her, wondering if any of that information was even of any particular use towards answering his question.

Adrasteia takes a drink of her ale before she continues. ]

I've been a Warden since I was seventeen. I got as far from Amaranthine as I could; ended up in Orlais, in the Blasted Hills. I've never been back.

It's a lovely city, don't get me wrong. But there's nothing left there for me to miss.

crystal / after thot's grand entrance

[heorte]

Can you spare some time today?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaCqvZ1WsAEhyxR.jpg

[nonvenomous]

Of course. Where would you like to meet?

[heorte]

Do you know the tavern called the Gold Dragon? I can be there in an hour.

[nonvenomous]

I’ll see you there.

[nonvenomous]

[ He’s quiet while he does the math, cool eyes locked on across the table, steady, measuring connection at odds with his earlier slither in and out of eye contact. In any other month, at any other time, he might say I’m sorry that happened to you or that must have been very difficult.

Here and now, scruffy and ill-rested, he asks: ]

How did you survive?

[kantikoy]

I was fifteen and living with cousins outside of town, in the wake of the blight and my parents' deaths as a result. The area was overrun almost immediately; there were Wardens around, fighting. I did what I could to protect my cousins, which was mostly setting any creature on fire that came too close.

[ Adrasteia takes another sip of ale and shakes her head. ]

I was very lucky that no one was paying much attention, or I could have been shipped off to a Circle immediately.

[nonvenomous]

[ Thedosians don’t fuck around with their origin stories, do they? Unsure what he expected, Richard nods on a distinct delay to allow for imagination to play itself out. ]

That is fortunate, [ he agrees, presumably on the subject of avoiding Circles and not her dead parents. ] I’m sorry about your family.

[kantikoy]

It's alright. It's not an uncommon tale, especially amongst Wardens.

[ Most of them have dead family. ]

But thank you.

topples over into action at last

[heorte]

There is a table wedged into the corner near the open window towards the back of the tavern. Ellis is already occupying one seat there, back to the wall, with a small book open in front of him. The window has been cracked open enough to invite a breeze. Two tankards are set on the table.

Ellis closes the book as Richard approaches.

"The owner is offering some kind of stew," Ellis says, watching Richard's expression. "If you haven't eaten."

https://i.imgur.com/8iYamqt.png

[nonvenomous]

Two months ago, Richard Dickerson had the look of a street cat who’d bitten out half its fur: raw and lean, manic, too bright in the eyes.

Today the motion of him drawing the opposite chair back and settling into it is smooth; he leans to rest his satchel against one of the table’s legs. He’s neatly groomed, vest and coat pressed. His expression is mild, neutral, glad for the offer of ale. Set affect to: human man.

Richard draws the near tankard in, and something warm nudges under the ankle of Ellis’ boot.

“I’ll see how this treats me,” he says, and drinks. “Thank you.”

this thread really just an excuse to get some facetime with thot

[heorte]

You're looking better feels like the wrong thing to say. Rude, maybe, or just needling directly at what Ellis knows Richard hadn't wanted to discuss. He'd meant what he'd said on the street that day. They didn't have to talk about the dream. Ellis can uneasily content himself with the knowledge that Richard, to his knowledge, is fairly good at keeping secrets.

Under the table, his feet carefully shift, blindly making room for...something. Hopefully the cat. Ellis is almost certain the owner of this establishment doesn't keep a pet.

"I've a question to ask you, and I recognize it's prying," Ellis says, resorting to honesty, momentarily setting aside the little nudge at his ankle. "You needn't answer it, but it'd be helpful to know."

[nonvenomous]

What question is there, really, that Ellis could ask beyond the boundaries of any indignity not previously faced?

Richard does tip the tankard up to drink again -- more deeply -- before he sets it aside. Just in case.

“Try me.”

It’s nastier to silently accumulate leverage than it is to establish it outright: if you’ll answer one in return. But he is sometimes nasty, and he is nasty now, with no outward indication in an encouraging glance. What dream?

The thing beneath the table feels to have gone, or was never there. Imagined, perhaps.

[heorte]

"What you did to summon her," at which point Ellis does pause, not because he thinks Richard doesn't know who he means but because he is tilting his boot carefully to one side, seeking a furry occupant. "Is it something—"

Another beat, while Ellis visibly reorders the question. He isn't worried about Richard.

"Is it something that would be dangerous for you, if Ser Barrow carried his objections out of the sewer with us?"

[nonvenomous]

“Probably.”

Ellis was there with them, when they were all together trekking silently* down through a rat’s nest of dark, twisting tunnels to find that chamber. Richard and Ser Barrow have barely managed to maintain any working relationship at all, nevermind a positive one.

“Not that your Chantry would care to debate the distinction, but my blood is a material component of the spellwork rather than a source of power fueling it.”

He has a very reasonable way of saying so.

There is nothing for Ellis’ boot to find beneath the table -- just a flicker of movement low at his periphery as Thot the cat coils to propel herself uninvited up into his lap.

*Presumably Wysteria was not silent.

[heorte]

"It's not my Chantry."

Not that Richard needs to hear Ellis' opinions on religion.

Thot is marked, but all Ellis does in response is lean back in his chair to make her leap easier than it might have been had he stayed leaning forward with his elbows braced on the table.

"Are you concerned about him?" is maybe the real question. Does Richard see a danger here? Is Ellis' concern misplaced?

[nonvenomous]

It’s your world.

He doesn’t press the point, past a glance that does some of that work for him.

Ellis is just one Warden, after all.

“I believe there is a greater chance than not that he reports whatever he believes I’ve done to an authority, or someone he believes will do it for him.” His inflection is limited in a way that would be curious for someone who didn’t have a known habit of narrating crises as he might a tax form tutorial.

Thot lands with room to spare, lighter than she looks, fangs already poked long from the flex of her whiskers as she stretches up to sniff under Ellis’ chin. Nosy.

Silas drinks.

[heorte]

It's hard to say if Ellis' brow drawing towards a frown is for the possibility of Barrow snitching, or awkward apprehension at Thot's inspection. Ellis' hand shifts indecisively on the table, before he leans fully back against his chair to better keep Thot in his periphery.

"Hello," is solely for her, a little warm note of amusement breaking through before he looks back across the table to Richard.

But to the matter at hand—

"I don't know very much about magic, but if you need someone to intercede on your behalf, I would."