Firelight ripples from the catch of Thot’s goggly eyes to the steel of his breastplate under collar and coat and fur, now retroactively present. He’s warmed enough to pluck at the tips of his gloves, leather peeled away inside-out and dropped to dry between his boots.
“But I’m not sure she’s a creature.” Something else.
“Back at home she was a celestial spirit, summoned from the upper planes and bound to my service.”
A few diced hunks of potato drop into the pot. Ellis gives Thot an appraising look.
The explanation might have meant something to Wysteria or to Tony. But to Ellis, it is a very abstract concept. And it seems lofty, when applied to Thot herself.
Whether it was a name she was given or gave herself, an arch to his brow suggests he isn’t sure, and might never have thought about it up to this moment. He looks down to her in the shadow of his cloak and she looks back up at him with her ears laid back flat. You know, like an owl has.
“Celestials are from planes roughly analogous to your ‘Golden City.’ They’re usually well-intentioned.” In the cosmic sense.
“I suspect the less that’s known about her nature here, the more likely she is to be tolerated.”
Why pretend otherwise? Silas' instincts are correct. Maybe the majority of Riftwatch might not be so affronted, but there are enough potential objectors that it's wise to allow Thot to exist as a cat or bird or some variation on the two. A flicker of a smile is raised, just for Thot, where she is peering from within shrouds of fabric.
Ellis lapses into quiet after, attention falling to his preparations. There is the tink and thunk of ingredients tossed into the pot to fill the silence, rustling as Ellis draws out handfuls of rice, a pleasant bubbling noise as the stew simmers.
There is much to think about. Spirits manifesting as cats becomes one more item to consider.
Ellis doesn’t drink, or he might busy himself portioning out whiskey from a flask in his pack. As is, he boosts Thot to a perch at his shoulder to rustle it out for himself -- wax-sealed leather twisted out from the tuck of his journal and an extra scarf. Just a bolt to scorch his throat and warm his chest, the cork worked back in firm before he thinks to tilt it across Ellis’ preparations in silent offer.
It’d be rude not to.
And everyone knows how well-mannered and civilized Mr. Dickerson is.
Then he’ll either put it away or he won’t; Thot will blink her lantern eyes and bustle out through the crevice into the night at some unspoken exchange. The quiet lasts for a while.
“Have you ever considered caring for an animal of your own?" He pauses. "Something more personable than a chicken."
The appearance and portioning of the whiskey is observed without comment.
There is always, unceasingly, a part of Ellis that just craves—
No. It is unconsulted. It is of no consequence.
"No."
There is no real invitation towards further discussion in the answer. Ellis' life is not very well suited for pets of most stripes. However, after a moment when he makes a thoughtful noise, almost relenting, Richard might assume it's Ellis reconsidering his position, but the addition is, "I've wondered if Wysteria would keep a goat."
Dick settles into more of a recline, his elbow braced across the back of the bedroll, cold let to creep up through the earth under his seat.
There’s no outward reaction to firm denial, past a twinge of doubt between his brows for the swift finality of it. No. In much the same way a caiman might tolerate a frog’s flopped landing or a scatter of loose dirt from a creature traipsing along the bank, he weathers it with an impassive kind of stillness. His follow-up was curiously specific.
"Aside from the milk, they've a taste for weeds. It'd save me some time to have one clearing those when spring comes."
There's some amusement in a look Ellis directs across to Silas as he stirs the pot, observing the contents before he continues, "Are you developing an interest in farm animals?"
A signal that Ellis is happy to lay out his ideal plan for the ecosystem he's establishing in Wysteria's back yard, if Silas leaves room for it.
Is she paying you to maintain her grounds? would not be a very nice thing for him to ask for a myriad of reasons.
But he does think it, quiet for the beat the words ought to slot neatly into while he watches Ellis cook a meal for them. Irony fails to find him in this moment. His insides are hollow with hunger; it saps at the space between his ears.
“It will be useful knowledge for me to have once I’m happily retired and own a farm of my own,” he says.
This is likely not a serious statement. Ellis' gaze is measured, studying Silas before he nods.
"Aye, it would be."
Nevermind that Ellis really would like to see such a thing come to pass. Silas, trying to maintain a farm. It occurs to him that there's no guarantee Silas would be happy there either, but Ellis isn't entirely sure of what setting would make Silas happy.
"Would you tell me something?" is a shift away from whatever point Silas had likely wanted to make. And it's farther from the information they're carrying back to Kirkwall with them, from conversations that they might want to have.
A farm in any version of Mr. Dickerson’s future is far less likely than Wysteria learning to love a goat for its practical applications.
But he's put the idea out there with flat affect, little in the way of distinction between deadpan shade and dry honesty. There’d be more cause to believe in potential for the latter if he didn’t arch his brow when he says:
Sitting back, his forearms coming to rest at his knees, Ellis' hands come together. Right hand covering over the left, the damaged fingers that have grown clumsy in the cold, there's a moment spent rubbing warmth into the joints before he speaks.
"When you were younger, did you ever think about what your future might be like?"
And surely the train of thought makes itself clear: And what did you think about?
His brow has muddled into a defensive hood before he has the presence of mind to meter a pause in between thought and reaction. A trace of low-burning fluster grips into a prickle at the back of his jaw. Familiar, by now. Neither reaction is so extreme that it can’t be quietly vented out some discreet release without evidence of the effort involved; flash frozen resistance thaws into pause for (uncomfortable) contemplation, pages stuck together.
Half a dozen clarifying questions could give him more time to assemble a coherent answer.
“Yes,” he says. “I think that’s natural.”
The comfortable slant of his slouch back against the bed roll is naturally inert, still apart from the tip of his chin down and aside in thought.
A quirk of a smile at the question, but Ellis bypasses it instead to say, "I'd like to hear what it was you envisioned, if you wouldn't mind."
Would it even be comprehensible to him? Sometimes, Tony and Wysteria try to explain bits and pieces of their lives, or they mention something in passing, and it strikes Ellis as if they lapsed into a new language entirely. It may well be the same for Silas, but Ellis asks anyway. Perhaps the broad strokes of it will be understandable, perhaps not. He still wants to know.
There is something about Richard Dickerson that naturally precludes this kind of curiosity in people. It’s part of what has made him so successful in the roles assigned him over the years.
His eyes are pale on Ellis across the fire, the eyes of a creature caught out in a dumpster by a flipped switch or a suddenly opened door. Not fearful, but not entirely certain how to proceed, either. Surely Ellis knows what he’s looking at. Why shouldn’t he go right back to cracking rotten chicken bones between his teeth.
“When I was very young,” he says, “I aspired to be a warlock of Dendar, the Night Serpent. As was common, among my people.
“A sort of chevalier mage,” seems like a necessary clarification, issued matter-of-fact after a pause for to consider a question he’d asked Ellis, once. I assume most children want to be chevaliers, he’d said. "They are popularly considered to be very evil."
Yes, Ellis can understand the idea of it when coupled with that descriptor. Maybe the Night Serpent, the magic, is all beyond him, but the idea of becoming a chevalier, that is easy for Ellis to understand.
"Are they evil?" is asked without any accusation behind it. Neutral.
“Acolytes of Dendar work to restore the Yuan-ti empire to its former glory,” is an answer. “Their magics are fueled by ritual sacrifice. Dendar herself consumes nightmares and subsists on fear. It’s said that one day she will rise from her slumber to swallow the sun.” Plunging the world into eternal cold and darkness.
He tilts his brows, his pride for this retelling a void, sunk back into silence while he reflects.
“So," he finds Ellis again, focus restored with less life than before, "unfortunately."
He’s sat himself up to say so, ankles drawn slowly in and folded under with some help from a reach and pull of one hand. He keeps his fingers curled under the ankle of his boot, buffering the bone for as long as he can stand it. The pinch of his knuckles between ankle and stone gives him something to focus on apart from the fire.
“I was found to be unfit for the honor as a youth and reassigned to less desirable work. My hope eventually waned. I was still young. Pre-university.
“My expatriation is a more recent development, although it’s not the first time I’ve failed to conform to expectations.”
Edited (idk man i just hate bein redundant) Date: 2021-09-08 04:08 am (UTC)
There are parts of these sparse explanations that feel understandable, though by the same turn Ellis knows his grasp of what Richard is alluding to is lacking. There are pieces of this missing. Ellis isn't sure he has to right to pry after all of them.
A break in conversation while Ellis draws two metal bowls from his pack. He stretches to offer one to Richard as he presses, "Do you regret it? Not being able to pursue it?"
He leans to meet him halfway without thinking, the offered bowl taken with his free hand. Glancing eye contact in the process rings honest. Whatever this is, it’s gnawed him to his core.
“We’re meant to have risen above emotion.”
A shadow at the cave entrance sees him turning, then -- Thot reappears in a silent rush of black feathers and the sick crack of a young rabbit’s skull hitting the stone under talons where she lands. It’s still twitching in her grasp, blood smearing uneven after half a hop and a dragging step closer to the fire, flippity flop.
Silas exchanges his bowl for a knife in his boot, already on his way up to his feet to see to it.
"Thank you," is for Thot, words warmed with fondness. It's easy to be fond of Thot, however complicated his relation to Richard (Silas) is at any given moment.
But there is some consideration after, watching the work of Silas' knife.
"You haven't," is not a question. Ellis saw Silas in the dream. And yes, it was a dream, but parts of it were very true.
His hands stretch back over the fire, bowl balanced on one thigh. The crooked fingers are tipped towards that warmth first, and a few beats before Ellis adds, "Do you aspire to regardless?"
Is that something tied to the position he'd hoped for, or was we for his people, family, whoever he left at home?
At Ellis’ thanks, Thot highwater bobbles around the fire to him, blood-sticky claws paused mid-reach for his pant leg for her to groom her beak down into her mess -- polite enough to wash her feet, first. Behind her, Silas is making short work of the rabbit: hide reversed, guts twisted deftly away, bone cracked and meat quartered for roasting.
“It’s significantly more difficult to accomplish as a human,” he says in his matter-of-fact way, because it is.
Thot is just starting to reach again when a silent request sees her scarpering back across the cave to retrieve rabbit refuse. She’ll tangle her talons in and carry it out, far enough away to keep roving predators from pursuing hunger into their home for the night.
The steel of his misericorde, stripped from the back of his belt, is long and narrow enough to function as a skewer. He’s quiet for a little too long on the heel of that last question while he works.
"No," is an answer close to hand. It comes without any hesitation.
No, he doesn't have aspirations. Or not the kind Silas has outlined, the kind of thing that might shape a life one way or another. He's been shaped. The trajectory has been determined.
There is nothing else after that. Ellis seems more than content to watch Silas' handiwork with the knife with nothing but the sound of Thot's grooming to fill the quiet.
That line of questioning effectively cut short, Silas doesn’t measure Ellis with another look until he leans to slant skewered rabbit up into the lick of the fire between them. Thot returns and resumes her grooming in short order, the fierce hook of her little beak needled through void black feathers and the sticky creases of her feet.
She nibbles clots of blood and pelt from the crooks of Silas’ knuckles as well; he leaves to scrub the rest off in the snow and returns and is quiet.
The rabbit was fat in spite of the cold. The savory crackle of it soon mingles with the scent of stew.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2021-08-30 04:50 am (UTC)Counterintuitively, perhaps.
Firelight ripples from the catch of Thot’s goggly eyes to the steel of his breastplate under collar and coat and fur, now retroactively present. He’s warmed enough to pluck at the tips of his gloves, leather peeled away inside-out and dropped to dry between his boots.
“But I’m not sure she’s a creature.” Something else.
“Back at home she was a celestial spirit, summoned from the upper planes and bound to my service.”
no subject
Date: 2021-08-30 05:06 am (UTC)The explanation might have meant something to Wysteria or to Tony. But to Ellis, it is a very abstract concept. And it seems lofty, when applied to Thot herself.
"I see."
Maybe. Maybe not.
"Did you name her, or did she name herself?"
no subject
Date: 2021-08-30 06:31 am (UTC)Whether it was a name she was given or gave herself, an arch to his brow suggests he isn’t sure, and might never have thought about it up to this moment. He looks down to her in the shadow of his cloak and she looks back up at him with her ears laid back flat. You know, like an owl has.
“Celestials are from planes roughly analogous to your ‘Golden City.’ They’re usually well-intentioned.” In the cosmic sense.
“I suspect the less that’s known about her nature here, the more likely she is to be tolerated.”
no subject
Date: 2021-08-31 03:47 am (UTC)Why pretend otherwise? Silas' instincts are correct. Maybe the majority of Riftwatch might not be so affronted, but there are enough potential objectors that it's wise to allow Thot to exist as a cat or bird or some variation on the two. A flicker of a smile is raised, just for Thot, where she is peering from within shrouds of fabric.
Ellis lapses into quiet after, attention falling to his preparations. There is the tink and thunk of ingredients tossed into the pot to fill the silence, rustling as Ellis draws out handfuls of rice, a pleasant bubbling noise as the stew simmers.
There is much to think about. Spirits manifesting as cats becomes one more item to consider.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 08:45 pm (UTC)It’d be rude not to.
And everyone knows how well-mannered and civilized Mr. Dickerson is.
Then he’ll either put it away or he won’t; Thot will blink her lantern eyes and bustle out through the crevice into the night at some unspoken exchange. The quiet lasts for a while.
“Have you ever considered caring for an animal of your own?" He pauses. "Something more personable than a chicken."
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 08:52 pm (UTC)There is always, unceasingly, a part of Ellis that just craves—
No. It is unconsulted. It is of no consequence.
"No."
There is no real invitation towards further discussion in the answer. Ellis' life is not very well suited for pets of most stripes. However, after a moment when he makes a thoughtful noise, almost relenting, Richard might assume it's Ellis reconsidering his position, but the addition is, "I've wondered if Wysteria would keep a goat."
Wysteria would not.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 09:09 pm (UTC)There’s no outward reaction to firm denial, past a twinge of doubt between his brows for the swift finality of it. No. In much the same way a caiman might tolerate a frog’s flopped landing or a scatter of loose dirt from a creature traipsing along the bank, he weathers it with an impassive kind of stillness. His follow-up was curiously specific.
“Why a goat?”
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 09:15 pm (UTC)"Aside from the milk, they've a taste for weeds. It'd save me some time to have one clearing those when spring comes."
There's some amusement in a look Ellis directs across to Silas as he stirs the pot, observing the contents before he continues, "Are you developing an interest in farm animals?"
A signal that Ellis is happy to lay out his ideal plan for the ecosystem he's establishing in Wysteria's back yard, if Silas leaves room for it.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 09:55 pm (UTC)But he does think it, quiet for the beat the words ought to slot neatly into while he watches Ellis cook a meal for them. Irony fails to find him in this moment. His insides are hollow with hunger; it saps at the space between his ears.
“It will be useful knowledge for me to have once I’m happily retired and own a farm of my own,” he says.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-04 02:40 am (UTC)"Aye, it would be."
Nevermind that Ellis really would like to see such a thing come to pass. Silas, trying to maintain a farm. It occurs to him that there's no guarantee Silas would be happy there either, but Ellis isn't entirely sure of what setting would make Silas happy.
"Would you tell me something?" is a shift away from whatever point Silas had likely wanted to make. And it's farther from the information they're carrying back to Kirkwall with them, from conversations that they might want to have.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-04 08:03 am (UTC)But he's put the idea out there with flat affect, little in the way of distinction between deadpan shade and dry honesty. There’d be more cause to believe in potential for the latter if he didn’t arch his brow when he says:
“It depends on what you’d like me to tell you.”
no subject
Date: 2021-09-04 10:09 pm (UTC)"When you were younger, did you ever think about what your future might be like?"
And surely the train of thought makes itself clear: And what did you think about?
no subject
Date: 2021-09-04 10:51 pm (UTC)Half a dozen clarifying questions could give him more time to assemble a coherent answer.
“Yes,” he says. “I think that’s natural.”
The comfortable slant of his slouch back against the bed roll is naturally inert, still apart from the tip of his chin down and aside in thought.
“Why do you ask?”
no subject
Date: 2021-09-04 10:57 pm (UTC)Would it even be comprehensible to him? Sometimes, Tony and Wysteria try to explain bits and pieces of their lives, or they mention something in passing, and it strikes Ellis as if they lapsed into a new language entirely. It may well be the same for Silas, but Ellis asks anyway. Perhaps the broad strokes of it will be understandable, perhaps not. He still wants to know.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-04 11:19 pm (UTC)His eyes are pale on Ellis across the fire, the eyes of a creature caught out in a dumpster by a flipped switch or a suddenly opened door. Not fearful, but not entirely certain how to proceed, either. Surely Ellis knows what he’s looking at. Why shouldn’t he go right back to cracking rotten chicken bones between his teeth.
“When I was very young,” he says, “I aspired to be a warlock of Dendar, the Night Serpent. As was common, among my people.
“A sort of chevalier mage,” seems like a necessary clarification, issued matter-of-fact after a pause for to consider a question he’d asked Ellis, once. I assume most children want to be chevaliers, he’d said. "They are popularly considered to be very evil."
no subject
Date: 2021-09-05 12:21 am (UTC)"Are they evil?" is asked without any accusation behind it. Neutral.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-05 04:58 am (UTC)He tilts his brows, his pride for this retelling a void, sunk back into silence while he reflects.
“So," he finds Ellis again, focus restored with less life than before, "unfortunately."
They're pretty evil.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-08 02:34 am (UTC)There's a pause, letting Richard's explanation settle. He stirs the contents of the pot, considering his next question, and deciding to ask it anyway.
"When did you stop wanting that?"
no subject
Date: 2021-09-08 03:48 am (UTC)He’s sat himself up to say so, ankles drawn slowly in and folded under with some help from a reach and pull of one hand. He keeps his fingers curled under the ankle of his boot, buffering the bone for as long as he can stand it. The pinch of his knuckles between ankle and stone gives him something to focus on apart from the fire.
“I was found to be unfit for the honor as a youth and reassigned to less desirable work. My hope eventually waned. I was still young. Pre-university.
“My expatriation is a more recent development, although it’s not the first time I’ve failed to conform to expectations.”
no subject
Date: 2021-09-08 04:11 am (UTC)A break in conversation while Ellis draws two metal bowls from his pack. He stretches to offer one to Richard as he presses, "Do you regret it? Not being able to pursue it?"
no subject
Date: 2021-09-08 04:36 am (UTC)He leans to meet him halfway without thinking, the offered bowl taken with his free hand. Glancing eye contact in the process rings honest. Whatever this is, it’s gnawed him to his core.
“We’re meant to have risen above emotion.”
A shadow at the cave entrance sees him turning, then -- Thot reappears in a silent rush of black feathers and the sick crack of a young rabbit’s skull hitting the stone under talons where she lands. It’s still twitching in her grasp, blood smearing uneven after half a hop and a dragging step closer to the fire, flippity flop.
Silas exchanges his bowl for a knife in his boot, already on his way up to his feet to see to it.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 04:34 am (UTC)But there is some consideration after, watching the work of Silas' knife.
"You haven't," is not a question. Ellis saw Silas in the dream. And yes, it was a dream, but parts of it were very true.
His hands stretch back over the fire, bowl balanced on one thigh. The crooked fingers are tipped towards that warmth first, and a few beats before Ellis adds, "Do you aspire to regardless?"
Is that something tied to the position he'd hoped for, or was we for his people, family, whoever he left at home?
no subject
Date: 2021-09-09 07:37 pm (UTC)“It’s significantly more difficult to accomplish as a human,” he says in his matter-of-fact way, because it is.
Thot is just starting to reach again when a silent request sees her scarpering back across the cave to retrieve rabbit refuse. She’ll tangle her talons in and carry it out, far enough away to keep roving predators from pursuing hunger into their home for the night.
The steel of his misericorde, stripped from the back of his belt, is long and narrow enough to function as a skewer. He’s quiet for a little too long on the heel of that last question while he works.
“Do you have aspirations?”
no subject
Date: 2021-09-16 03:35 am (UTC)No, he doesn't have aspirations. Or not the kind Silas has outlined, the kind of thing that might shape a life one way or another. He's been shaped. The trajectory has been determined.
There is nothing else after that. Ellis seems more than content to watch Silas' handiwork with the knife with nothing but the sound of Thot's grooming to fill the quiet.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-16 07:27 am (UTC)That line of questioning effectively cut short, Silas doesn’t measure Ellis with another look until he leans to slant skewered rabbit up into the lick of the fire between them. Thot returns and resumes her grooming in short order, the fierce hook of her little beak needled through void black feathers and the sticky creases of her feet.
She nibbles clots of blood and pelt from the crooks of Silas’ knuckles as well; he leaves to scrub the rest off in the snow and returns and is quiet.
The rabbit was fat in spite of the cold. The savory crackle of it soon mingles with the scent of stew.
Things could be worse than they are.
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