So clever, Wysteria is. When has Ellis ever been able to decline in the face of these specific things? A request for help, the sincere profession of dismay and gloom, Ellis has acquiesced in the face of them since they very beginning of their acquaintance.
But he finds himself wedged into an impossible position in this moment. There is no clarity in how he might answer her. He has been so wrong-footed by this, the idea that even this small tradition is closed to him, that he lapses into silence.
There is something fleetingly pained in his expression. Despite everything, he has the impulse to ask Don't you know? It goes. Ellis' gaze drops, follows the shift of his hand from their linked arms to the brief lacing of their fingers as Ellis draws her those last few steps down and aside to remove any impediment they pose to Kirkwall's pedestrian traffic. The low carved wall is at Wysteria's back. Ellis' thumb draws along her knuckles.
"You don't need to think of it," he promises at last, though he cannot say he expects that to bring her the relief she is seeking. "The circumstances of it are mine to manage now."
no subject
But he finds himself wedged into an impossible position in this moment. There is no clarity in how he might answer her. He has been so wrong-footed by this, the idea that even this small tradition is closed to him, that he lapses into silence.
There is something fleetingly pained in his expression. Despite everything, he has the impulse to ask Don't you know? It goes. Ellis' gaze drops, follows the shift of his hand from their linked arms to the brief lacing of their fingers as Ellis draws her those last few steps down and aside to remove any impediment they pose to Kirkwall's pedestrian traffic. The low carved wall is at Wysteria's back. Ellis' thumb draws along her knuckles.
"You don't need to think of it," he promises at last, though he cannot say he expects that to bring her the relief she is seeking. "The circumstances of it are mine to manage now."