Stood aside with one hand on the open door, Richard clocks her momentum catching at the threshold with a glance down to her boots (which have ribbons), and then the further hesitation at her hands. He looks again to the darkened room’s interior, with furniture set out empty in a museum diorama of transplant loneliness, and takes in a breath, reconsidering appearances. Hm.

Wysteria walks in before he can casually suggest the city of Kirkwall a second time.

So it’s fine.

“Yes,” he answers, easily. “We’d been traveling together for several weeks before we were brought here.”

He leaves the door standing open behind them, and speaking quietly while he crosses to the desk and quickly fumbles through the process of striking up a wad of tender and touching it to a pair of oil lamps. One of them, he carries to the table on his way to closing the door.

“I take it the native magic is so fundamentally different you haven’t been able to do much with it in those two years.”

Oil lit, the room doesn’t look any more lived in than it did in complete shadow, but it is substantially warmer in atmosphere.