Prior to departing for Starkhaven, a packet of folded parchment is deposited into Wysteria's mail cubby with the full expectation it shall not be seen for some time, potentially after all is said and done and what becomes of the Marches is settled.
As promised, a number of diagrams and scratched notes detailing the potential uses of a certain prototype. Each formation is thoroughly described, with a scattering of sketched out positions, as well as weak points to be especially targeted.
Folded in half, and set in over the top of the parchment, a note—
Wysteria,
As promised, some material that I hope to be helpful when you take your creation to the Division Heads. If you've any questions and I am not on hand, Warden Digiorno will be able to help you make sense of them.
You needn't worry. Your accomplishment here is too impressive to ignore.
And later—Wysteria's work in the field presumably having resolved itself long before the final questions of Starkhaven were ever settled—, when he returns Ellis will find an envelope waiting in his mail cubby. Its outside has been vigorously marked 'DO NOT BEND' in large, looping letters. Inside is a collection of very delicate pressed plant cuttings ranging from snips of ferns to little yellow summer flowers.
The note accompanying them reads:
Mister Ellis,
Having worked so long in the company of Seneschal Pizzicagnolo (are you aware he collected such things?), I find I have yet to fall free of the habit of taking little bits of the world as I see them. And I have seen a great deal of the Free Marches these past weeks!
I doubt they would survive inside a letter to the Seneschal at his new post, and so I hope you will accept them in his stead and understand them as a small token of my appreciation for all your assistance. And should you ever tire of plants and little growing things, you must tell me for I suspect I am a somewhat poor giver of gifts and I cannot tolerate the idea of becoming boring or predictable.
Upon opening the envelope, there is some calculation—
The cuttings are carefully set here and then set there, measured against the potential of breeze from a window and whether or not such a thing might destroy the pressed cuttings before they are very gently folded back up and set into the packet of letters that reside at the bottom of his rucksack.
A few days later, a small painting appears on the kitchen table in the Hightown house. The frame is flimsy, light wood brushed with gold paint, but the image is pleasingly rendered: a trio of songbirds, one dusky brown, one gray-blue, and one bright yellow, stationed among puddles of rainwater along Kirkwall's steps. A piece of parchment, folded over, is tucked loosely into the edge of the frame.
Wysteria,
I'd be honored to accept whatever cuttings you collect in your travels in the Seneschal's stead. The collection from the Free Marches has been put into a safe place among my things.
There's no cause to worry yourself over the quality of your gifts. I've never had any complaints.
I believe this painting is a decent size to cover that strange stain on the wall in your front room. If it's not to your taste, it can at least occupy the space until something that suits you better comes along.
— Ellis
Edited (edits to slap one extra word in there, forgive ) 2021-08-02 19:42 (UTC)
The painting is of course instantly assigned to its new place over the front room's very suspect stain which has somehow rebuffed all attempts to be scrubbed away or painted over. The hanging of it is an hour's work consisting of Wysteria's enthusiastic chattering and fending off books which have turned themselves into vindictive projectiles with a croquet mallet while Ellis attempts to drive a nail into the plaster.
The house, temperamental though it is about the initial wound to its wall, seems to take no exception to the painting once it's actually in placr. At the very least it doesn't bother with flinging the picture from the wall, which can only be celebrated as the frame seems unlikely to survive such a misadventure.
Later, a note tucked among his things—
Mister Ellis,
Speaking of art, I have been on the hunt for some encyclopedia of flora and fauna with prints simple enough that I might copy them on to something. Should you come across such a volume while in search of new reading material, will you please make an effort to acquire it for me? It should not be a gift. I will insist on paying you back.
The note is found that evening, transferred from satchel to pocket to carry the reminder through the coming days.
The fruits of his search yield a thick, heavy volume, almost comically large with gilt-edged pages. It bills itself as the single-most thorough compilation of information on Thedas flora and fauna, with a range of illustrations accompanying each entry, from simple silhouettes to light sketches to detailed diagrams.
By comparison, the slim little collection of Orlesian verses is utterly dwarfed. But it's still set on the table with it's grander companion, alongside a small basket of biscuits from the bakery two streets over.
Written on a scrap of torn parchment tucked between the title page and contents, a note:
Wysteria,
This might serve your purpose. I had a look through it, and the illustrations should be easy enough to work with.
Consider it yours. The only payment I care to have in return is your opinion of the accompanying volume, or a copy of your favorite plant out of the book.
In a sealed envelope left in his mail cubby, written on a heavy page of parchment in remarkably crisp, orderly lines—
Mister Ellis,
I am holding various kindnesses, small favors, and indeed may consider escalating to conversation and even daily pleasantries in reserve until my demands are met.
Please provide the sum paid for the book in question. I will be very cross with you otherwise. I am quite serious.
Best Wishes, Solemnly, W.P.
furious at being trapped into referring to currency jsyk
Wysteria has her answer promptly, waiting for her the next morning in the Hightown house kitchen. Presumably deposited after Ellis had seen to the chickens, as the eggs have been gathered, fresh water set out and feed scattered along the ground for the roaming fowl.
Set on her table, beneath a small bouquet of lavender, a piece of tissue-thin parchment detailing the pricing of two books (the larger of the two came at surprisingly low cost, though the receipt bears no particular reasoning for it) in a stranger's wobbling, looping script. Folded around it, a piece of parchment bearing Ellis' handwriting—
Wysteria,
Should you have doubts as to the enclosed accounting, you may ask after my purchases with Jayne, who keeps the small bookshop three streets over from the bakery you favor. She will be happy to tell you of the sale, and likely of the book in question.
But please understand, I am unconcerned with the coin. Am I not allowed to choose a form of repayment that suits me?
Tucked between two pages of his latest book of choice. At what point did she sneak it in there? How did she unobtrusively fetch the little volume from his satchel? Who can say.
Mister Ellis,
Suits you? My word, Mister Ellis. I have never known you to be so particular
I insist you accept the repayment I've enclosed. And I thank you for your understanding and tolerance on behalf of this little particular necessity.
Regarding the Orlesian verses—
I believe I have said before that I have a very poor grasp on poetry. But I rather like the passages about the seasons. They are very prettily done. Does Spring not recall the verses of the Chant where Andraste first hears the voice of the Maker? Let us discuss it in more detail the next afternoon it is convenient to do so.
Best Wishes, W.P.
There is a equitable sum of money (for the encyclopedia, not for the book of verses) tucked into his things, and a carefully traced drawing of an illustration of a shoot of meadow grass.
The coin should be tipped into the pouch designated for such holdings but Ellis leaves it set aside instead for some future purpose. (Perhaps for the maintenance of the garden, or the installation of a little bench or the cultivation of bushes along the front walkway.) But the drawing—
That is propped with great care on his bedside table, to occupy the space for a time before it too vanishes into his pack.
Accompanying the basket of eggs set on her counter the next morning, a brief note:
Wysteria,
Will you set aside some time on that afternoon to explain why you are so concerned about repayment on this item?
— Ellis
PS I've been charged with assisting the Kirkwall guard with the dealings of those flooded warehouses, before the next rainstorm worsens the condition of the cargo. My next free afternoon, once all is resolved, is yours.
It turns into the work of a week or so, not only shifting sodden cargo but making repairs to prevent a repeat of the initial flooding. And over the course of a week, the collection of eggs deposited on the table each morning are accompanied by small bouquets of wildflowersand once, a handkerchief with a tiny bluebird embroidered in one corner. Several small notes (The plant in the front room should be turned, if you wouldn't mind or I've nailed down the sticky board at the top of the stairs, mind you stay prepared to duck in case the house has taken it personally.) mark the passage of time.
Until Ellis does appear, slightly damp from the pattering rainstorm that started during his trip from Lowtown to the Hightown house.
"Are you busy?" comes in lieu of greeting, as he drips just inside the doorway.
If the contents of the kitchen's wide old table is any indication—covered in a great mountainous expanse of paperwork—, then yes. She is quite busy. But within the Hightown house, a great heap of documentation often means nothing at all and may bear no reflection whatsoever on the occupant's current state. For rarely is the table perfectly clear, and it has been quite a busy few weeks and no doubt a great deal of this is backlog from time spent carousing around the Free Marches.
However.
Today Wysteria does indeed seem quite preoccupied, frowning thoughtfully at a stack of papers with various offical seals and stamps from an assortment of public offices. A half dozen of them are annotated in Orlesian and she has before her a robust phrasebook with which she has been interrogating the translation amended to the various pages.
"Only a little," she answers without looking up, absent to the point of distraction. —And then a beat later blows out her cheeks and throws down her pen. She swivels in her chair toward him.
"Do you know any Orlesian, Mister Ellis? I had thought to consult Lady Asgard on the subject, but she has been so very busy lately with all the work the Ambassador has given her. I have heard that he keeps her in his office quite late, you know."
By this point, Ellis has carefully worked off his sodden coat and hung it to dry on the usual peg inside the door. Just inside the doorway, Ellis scrubs a hand quickly through his hair, shakes out the worst of the droplets, then claims the chair adjacent to Wysteria once satisfied that he is not a danger to her papers.
"I don't know as much Orlesian as Lady Asgard," is surely an answer Wysteria could have guessed. "But I've some."
In which some is a fraught, complicated thing. Ellis is too Fereldan to ever speak Orlesian passably, the thick, blunt edges of his accent ill-suited to the lilt of Orlesian turns of phrase.
"It's likely not a help for your research," he cautions, because his assumption is simply that most of her correspondence would be related to her work in some form.
"Oh that is perfectly well. It has nothing to do with my work. It is a legal matter. Here, this phrase—"
She reads aloud some bit of Orlesian. Her accent is passable, but stilted.
"I believe it is something near to 'irreconcilable differences,' yes? I am only trying to be very certain of the wording. My solicitor doesn't speak it at all and the translation was provided by a third party."
She turns the page about, reaching across the table to lay it flat before him. She partners it with a page clearly meant to translate the passage into Trade. What is instantly clear from the page—the latter, if not the former—is that the document pertains to triggering the separation of assets upon dissolution of certain forms of legalized partnerships.
Legal matter draws a slight, questioning frown, that deepens by degrees upon hearing the phrase in question. His answer is a moment in coming, stalled presumably by inspection of the papers, but largely in part while Ellis considers and then discards his own questions.
"Almost," Ellis tells her. "It's very close, what you have. But there's a different phrase for it, when you're talking about these sorts of partnerships."
Ellis speaks it aloud for her once, then a second time, slower, trying to flatten his accent enough so as not to mangle the pronunciation. It can be heard, how this is a variation on what she'd read aloud a moment ago, similar but deviating at the tail, a new set of syllables, accented accordingly.
"I can write it for you better, if you've a piece of scrap paper," he offers, loathe to make his mark on any sort of legal paper. His gaze lifts back to her, the question in his expression still there, still unspoken.
Her study of him, or rather the working of his mouth around the phrase, is intensely focused—rather akin to the fixture of her attention on some problem of mathematics or some mechanical issue she has yet to solve. A scrap piece of paper is promptly produced; Wysteria passes it and her pen to him.
"If you would. I'm ashamed to that that I can never quite sort where the spaces and accents are meant to go. I have always been a rather poor study of languages, you know. It is lucky that so many people in Thedas are so well acquainted with Trade."
Inquiring looks? Those are for far more subtle minded individuals, Mister Ellis.
A flick of a smile, brief and warm, before his expression turns intent once pen and paper is at hand.
It is clear that the scratching composition is Ellis' best attempt at good handwriting. The effort is recognizable, as some of his notes to her have been very painstakingly written out, though the final outcome is still far from lovely. Lifting the parchment up, Ellis blows carefully over the letters before passing it back over to Wysteria.
"Are you assisting Lady Asgard with this?" he questions carefully. "The separation of her assets?"
For a moment, she regards him blankly across the paper. Her laugh, when it comes, is an explosive thing—high and delighted and very bright as if he has said something truly hilarious.
"Lady Asgard! No, not at all! And I entirely doubt her as a candidate for annulment. I have seen—well, I cannot say. But I daresay that the usual reasons are entirely inapplicable. Lady Asgard," she echoes and laughs again, all good spirits as her attention lowers to what he has written on the page.
"No, it is for myself and Monsieur de Foncé of course. Although presently there is a small unexpected complication which my solicitor and I are struggling to untangle. It will be resolved presently, I am most certain."
He pauses to silently mouth the phrase as noted. Yes, all right. That does seem more correct...
Of course, Wysteria says, and Ellis echoes silently, confused, Of course?
Ellis is not unused to feeling as if he's missed a step or two in the course of conversation with Wysteria. In fact, it is a familiar sensation by now, realizing she has outpaced him, or that he is lacking some vital piece of information that renders Wysteria's explanations intelligible to him. Wysteria rarely treats it as a hardship to backtrack, and so it is easy enough to mend what's missing.
However, in this matter, it is less that he's missed a step and more that he has the sensation of falling through a trapdoor.
A hand reaches across the table, fingers finding the back of her wrist to lightly. Ellis doesn't know exactly how to pose the question, so lets the expression on his face carry his confusion forward for him: brow drawn into a frown, eyes intent on her.
The touch at her wrist brings her attention from the page—briefly, as she has already made a move to make a new note on her the pages she has laid before her. It takes a most definitive double take for her to get as far as marking the exact, nearly comically sober expression he has adopted.
Wysteria sets the page aside.
"Why Mister Ellis, you look as if I've told you someone has died. Surely it comes as no surprise that—"
She abruptly grinds to a halt.
And then she colors a very bright red.
"Oh! I forgot entirely to tell you, didn't I? Ack, Maud will be so mortified. You mustn't say anything to her on the subject. I shouldn't like to look so foolish. It was entirely incidental—Oh! But that means you thought I would have de Foncé as my husband properly! Oh really, Mister Ellis."
"What was I meant to think?" feels like the best way forward, narrowing down between what Wysteria might have forgotten to tell him and Maud's involvement and his own folly in perceiving Val de Foncé as Wysteria's husband to the question that seems most relevant.
There was a wedding. Tony had made a speech. Ellis knows all of this, even if he hadn't been in attendance.
If there is some terrible, traitorous clench of feeling somewhere deep in his chest, that is besides the point. Unrelated to present confusion, Orlesian terms referencing marital separations and the bright flush of Wysteria's face.
"Well—well I would hope that at the very least you might have harbored some skepticism regarding the nature of the attachment! It is hardly as if the gentleman in question and I have been particularly—Well, no. I suppose we have been rather closely associated these many months. And I shouldn't say that there is no friendship in the thing whatsoever, as he has been most considerate and has even played his part quite well, but—"
She is growing more flush by the moment, hands falling to the papers before her so she might begin to shuffle them absently this way and that.
"I am very surprised, you know! That only the Ambassador of all people even thought to inquire. But I suppose everyone has just been being very polite, which is indeed what Valentine and I were gambling on in the first place so that our little ruse, such as it is, would go on without remark. It was very important that if anyone were to for some reason ask friends or colleagues about the nature of our marital status that the arrangement would be confirmed without question—
"There is a loophole!" she declares, as if slicing through her own rambling with a very sharp knife. "Regarding the ownership of this property and the limitations on its use imposed by the ridiculous way in which it came into my hands. This partnership has negated some of those restrictions, and when we are annulled and the deed is passed back to me it will be with far more manageable terms. But it is a bit of legal trickery and the city is under the impression that I'm a native to Thedas, and so it was all done very plainly so as to arouse as little suspicion as possible. —Or rather, they were under that impression. It has all become somewhat complicated now."
A particular gift of Ellis': the ability to wait out the entirety of a winding explanation up until the point where description resolves into a specific answer.
It's served him well with Tony and Wysteria both, but has gone easier when the topic was less—
Well.
Fluttering of papers and exclamations dwindle down to a specific answer, one that Ellis lets sit for a few moments. His gaze drops, observing the turn of pen in his hands while he absorbs the information, realigns his perception of Wysteria's marriage in his mind. A ruse. Legal trickery.
What is there to say? The conversation he had with Madame de Cedoux is still at the forefront of his mind. (What would be different had he protested then?) The study of the pen continues a moment longer, Ellis' thumb running along the faint ridges of the grip before he draws in a deep breath.
"Complicated in what way?" comes very steadily when spoken, Ellis' eyes lifting back to Wysteria's flushed face.
Here, a marked hesitation. It stands in bold contrast to the unchecked chattering of mere moments ago. But finally:
"I have always worn very stout gloves during meetings with my solicitor or any representative from some wing of the Viscount's office. But the other day when I was discussing the subject I had a small amount of discomfort with my anchor—very slight, I assure you," she is quick to add, aggressively heading off what she suspects may otherwise be a point of content. It quickly becomes evident, given the momentum she immediately builds afterwards, that this was the item over which she had been hesitating.
"Which caused the glove in question be to removed, which then prompted a great deal of questions, and then the whole affair was revealed and now there is some debate as to whether an annulment can even be granted and if it were to be passed through, whether I would have any rights to property after or if de Foncé would be required to keep it or else forfeit the deed to the city. It has something to do, you see, with the Chantry's latest ruling regarding the rights of mages to own property. Not that I am a mage as far as anyone in Thedas is concerned, but as you know the Chantry has always put Rifters and them in alignment.
"And now here we are," she summarizes, gesturing to the paperwork between them. "As I said. It is only a small unexpected complication to a plan that you will agree was otherwise quite clever."
In spite of how quickly Wysteria moves past it, alarm still flickers across Ellis' face. The pen turns in his hands again, small fidgeting movement that absorbs the impulse to reach for her shard-marked hand.
Instead, there is a few beats of scrutiny, watching her face, before his attention falls to the papers scattered across the table, pen tapping at the webbing between thumb and forefinger as Ellis scrutinizes them again. Or appears to. His attention turns inwards, weighing up the entirety of what he's been told, setting it against the tightening clutch of reaction in his chest.
"Yes," he agrees slowly, a little absently in the response. "It was quite clever."
In which clever sits very close to foolish, to some heated, worried objection that's come far too late to be of use. If anything, Ellis has come to understand that innovation tends to occupy the same risk, or it does in the way Wysteria and Tony tend to approach it. Had it worked, he might still have told her it was a foolish risk, or been present in a room where Tony said such a thing. Ellis is suspicious of his own instincts in this, how much of his own good sense is guided by some other emotion.
"Wysteria," Ellis says, and then stops. It must be familiar to Wysteria by now, what it looks like when Ellis is turning something over in his mind, attempting to resolve it into words. He is still looking at the papers between them, her hands resting over them. "Have you considered what you might do if this complication becomes too entangled for your solicitor to manage?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
post mod plot
As promised, a number of diagrams and scratched notes detailing the potential uses of a certain prototype. Each formation is thoroughly described, with a scattering of sketched out positions, as well as weak points to be especially targeted.
Folded in half, and set in over the top of the parchment, a note—
no subject
The note accompanying them reads:
no subject
The cuttings are carefully set here and then set there, measured against the potential of breeze from a window and whether or not such a thing might destroy the pressed cuttings before they are very gently folded back up and set into the packet of letters that reside at the bottom of his rucksack.
A few days later, a small painting appears on the kitchen table in the Hightown house. The frame is flimsy, light wood brushed with gold paint, but the image is pleasingly rendered: a trio of songbirds, one dusky brown, one gray-blue, and one bright yellow, stationed among puddles of rainwater along Kirkwall's steps. A piece of parchment, folded over, is tucked loosely into the edge of the frame.
no subject
The house, temperamental though it is about the initial wound to its wall, seems to take no exception to the painting once it's actually in placr. At the very least it doesn't bother with flinging the picture from the wall, which can only be celebrated as the frame seems unlikely to survive such a misadventure.
Later, a note tucked among his things—
no subject
The fruits of his search yield a thick, heavy volume, almost comically large with gilt-edged pages. It bills itself as the single-most thorough compilation of information on Thedas flora and fauna, with a range of illustrations accompanying each entry, from simple silhouettes to light sketches to detailed diagrams.
By comparison, the slim little collection of Orlesian verses is utterly dwarfed. But it's still set on the table with it's grander companion, alongside a small basket of biscuits from the bakery two streets over.
Written on a scrap of torn parchment tucked between the title page and contents, a note:
no subject
furious at being trapped into referring to currency jsyk
Set on her table, beneath a small bouquet of lavender, a piece of tissue-thin parchment detailing the pricing of two books (the larger of the two came at surprisingly low cost, though the receipt bears no particular reasoning for it) in a stranger's wobbling, looping script. Folded around it, a piece of parchment bearing Ellis' handwriting—
you're welcome
There is a equitable sum of money (for the encyclopedia, not for the book of verses) tucked into his things, and a carefully traced drawing of an illustration of a shoot of meadow grass.
no subject
That is propped with great care on his bedside table, to occupy the space for a time before it too vanishes into his pack.
Accompanying the basket of eggs set on her counter the next morning, a brief note:
no subject
It should be very difficult to badly boil eggs, and yet Wysteria has managed it.
no subject
It turns into the work of a week or so, not only shifting sodden cargo but making repairs to prevent a repeat of the initial flooding. And over the course of a week, the collection of eggs deposited on the table each morning are accompanied by small bouquets of wildflowersand once, a handkerchief with a tiny bluebird embroidered in one corner. Several small notes (The plant in the front room should be turned, if you wouldn't mind or I've nailed down the sticky board at the top of the stairs, mind you stay prepared to duck in case the house has taken it personally.) mark the passage of time.
Until Ellis does appear, slightly damp from the pattering rainstorm that started during his trip from Lowtown to the Hightown house.
"Are you busy?" comes in lieu of greeting, as he drips just inside the doorway.
no subject
However.
Today Wysteria does indeed seem quite preoccupied, frowning thoughtfully at a stack of papers with various offical seals and stamps from an assortment of public offices. A half dozen of them are annotated in Orlesian and she has before her a robust phrasebook with which she has been interrogating the translation amended to the various pages.
"Only a little," she answers without looking up, absent to the point of distraction. —And then a beat later blows out her cheeks and throws down her pen. She swivels in her chair toward him.
"Do you know any Orlesian, Mister Ellis? I had thought to consult Lady Asgard on the subject, but she has been so very busy lately with all the work the Ambassador has given her. I have heard that he keeps her in his office quite late, you know."
no subject
"I don't know as much Orlesian as Lady Asgard," is surely an answer Wysteria could have guessed. "But I've some."
In which some is a fraught, complicated thing. Ellis is too Fereldan to ever speak Orlesian passably, the thick, blunt edges of his accent ill-suited to the lilt of Orlesian turns of phrase.
"It's likely not a help for your research," he cautions, because his assumption is simply that most of her correspondence would be related to her work in some form.
no subject
She reads aloud some bit of Orlesian. Her accent is passable, but stilted.
"I believe it is something near to 'irreconcilable differences,' yes? I am only trying to be very certain of the wording. My solicitor doesn't speak it at all and the translation was provided by a third party."
She turns the page about, reaching across the table to lay it flat before him. She partners it with a page clearly meant to translate the passage into Trade. What is instantly clear from the page—the latter, if not the former—is that the document pertains to triggering the separation of assets upon dissolution of certain forms of legalized partnerships.
no subject
"Almost," Ellis tells her. "It's very close, what you have. But there's a different phrase for it, when you're talking about these sorts of partnerships."
Ellis speaks it aloud for her once, then a second time, slower, trying to flatten his accent enough so as not to mangle the pronunciation. It can be heard, how this is a variation on what she'd read aloud a moment ago, similar but deviating at the tail, a new set of syllables, accented accordingly.
"I can write it for you better, if you've a piece of scrap paper," he offers, loathe to make his mark on any sort of legal paper. His gaze lifts back to her, the question in his expression still there, still unspoken.
no subject
"If you would. I'm ashamed to that that I can never quite sort where the spaces and accents are meant to go. I have always been a rather poor study of languages, you know. It is lucky that so many people in Thedas are so well acquainted with Trade."
Inquiring looks? Those are for far more subtle minded individuals, Mister Ellis.
no subject
It is clear that the scratching composition is Ellis' best attempt at good handwriting. The effort is recognizable, as some of his notes to her have been very painstakingly written out, though the final outcome is still far from lovely. Lifting the parchment up, Ellis blows carefully over the letters before passing it back over to Wysteria.
"Are you assisting Lady Asgard with this?" he questions carefully. "The separation of her assets?"
no subject
"Lady Asgard! No, not at all! And I entirely doubt her as a candidate for annulment. I have seen—well, I cannot say. But I daresay that the usual reasons are entirely inapplicable. Lady Asgard," she echoes and laughs again, all good spirits as her attention lowers to what he has written on the page.
"No, it is for myself and Monsieur de Foncé of course. Although presently there is a small unexpected complication which my solicitor and I are struggling to untangle. It will be resolved presently, I am most certain."
He pauses to silently mouth the phrase as noted. Yes, all right. That does seem more correct...
no subject
Ellis is not unused to feeling as if he's missed a step or two in the course of conversation with Wysteria. In fact, it is a familiar sensation by now, realizing she has outpaced him, or that he is lacking some vital piece of information that renders Wysteria's explanations intelligible to him. Wysteria rarely treats it as a hardship to backtrack, and so it is easy enough to mend what's missing.
However, in this matter, it is less that he's missed a step and more that he has the sensation of falling through a trapdoor.
A hand reaches across the table, fingers finding the back of her wrist to lightly. Ellis doesn't know exactly how to pose the question, so lets the expression on his face carry his confusion forward for him: brow drawn into a frown, eyes intent on her.
no subject
Wysteria sets the page aside.
"Why Mister Ellis, you look as if I've told you someone has died. Surely it comes as no surprise that—"
She abruptly grinds to a halt.
And then she colors a very bright red.
"Oh! I forgot entirely to tell you, didn't I? Ack, Maud will be so mortified. You mustn't say anything to her on the subject. I shouldn't like to look so foolish. It was entirely incidental—Oh! But that means you thought I would have de Foncé as my husband properly! Oh really, Mister Ellis."
no subject
"What was I meant to think?" feels like the best way forward, narrowing down between what Wysteria might have forgotten to tell him and Maud's involvement and his own folly in perceiving Val de Foncé as Wysteria's husband to the question that seems most relevant.
There was a wedding. Tony had made a speech. Ellis knows all of this, even if he hadn't been in attendance.
If there is some terrible, traitorous clench of feeling somewhere deep in his chest, that is besides the point. Unrelated to present confusion, Orlesian terms referencing marital separations and the bright flush of Wysteria's face.
no subject
"Well—well I would hope that at the very least you might have harbored some skepticism regarding the nature of the attachment! It is hardly as if the gentleman in question and I have been particularly—Well, no. I suppose we have been rather closely associated these many months. And I shouldn't say that there is no friendship in the thing whatsoever, as he has been most considerate and has even played his part quite well, but—"
She is growing more flush by the moment, hands falling to the papers before her so she might begin to shuffle them absently this way and that.
"I am very surprised, you know! That only the Ambassador of all people even thought to inquire. But I suppose everyone has just been being very polite, which is indeed what Valentine and I were gambling on in the first place so that our little ruse, such as it is, would go on without remark. It was very important that if anyone were to for some reason ask friends or colleagues about the nature of our marital status that the arrangement would be confirmed without question—
"There is a loophole!" she declares, as if slicing through her own rambling with a very sharp knife. "Regarding the ownership of this property and the limitations on its use imposed by the ridiculous way in which it came into my hands. This partnership has negated some of those restrictions, and when we are annulled and the deed is passed back to me it will be with far more manageable terms. But it is a bit of legal trickery and the city is under the impression that I'm a native to Thedas, and so it was all done very plainly so as to arouse as little suspicion as possible. —Or rather, they were under that impression. It has all become somewhat complicated now."
no subject
It's served him well with Tony and Wysteria both, but has gone easier when the topic was less—
Well.
Fluttering of papers and exclamations dwindle down to a specific answer, one that Ellis lets sit for a few moments. His gaze drops, observing the turn of pen in his hands while he absorbs the information, realigns his perception of Wysteria's marriage in his mind. A ruse. Legal trickery.
What is there to say? The conversation he had with Madame de Cedoux is still at the forefront of his mind. (What would be different had he protested then?) The study of the pen continues a moment longer, Ellis' thumb running along the faint ridges of the grip before he draws in a deep breath.
"Complicated in what way?" comes very steadily when spoken, Ellis' eyes lifting back to Wysteria's flushed face.
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"I have always worn very stout gloves during meetings with my solicitor or any representative from some wing of the Viscount's office. But the other day when I was discussing the subject I had a small amount of discomfort with my anchor—very slight, I assure you," she is quick to add, aggressively heading off what she suspects may otherwise be a point of content. It quickly becomes evident, given the momentum she immediately builds afterwards, that this was the item over which she had been hesitating.
"Which caused the glove in question be to removed, which then prompted a great deal of questions, and then the whole affair was revealed and now there is some debate as to whether an annulment can even be granted and if it were to be passed through, whether I would have any rights to property after or if de Foncé would be required to keep it or else forfeit the deed to the city. It has something to do, you see, with the Chantry's latest ruling regarding the rights of mages to own property. Not that I am a mage as far as anyone in Thedas is concerned, but as you know the Chantry has always put Rifters and them in alignment.
"And now here we are," she summarizes, gesturing to the paperwork between them. "As I said. It is only a small unexpected complication to a plan that you will agree was otherwise quite clever."
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Instead, there is a few beats of scrutiny, watching her face, before his attention falls to the papers scattered across the table, pen tapping at the webbing between thumb and forefinger as Ellis scrutinizes them again. Or appears to. His attention turns inwards, weighing up the entirety of what he's been told, setting it against the tightening clutch of reaction in his chest.
"Yes," he agrees slowly, a little absently in the response. "It was quite clever."
In which clever sits very close to foolish, to some heated, worried objection that's come far too late to be of use. If anything, Ellis has come to understand that innovation tends to occupy the same risk, or it does in the way Wysteria and Tony tend to approach it. Had it worked, he might still have told her it was a foolish risk, or been present in a room where Tony said such a thing. Ellis is suspicious of his own instincts in this, how much of his own good sense is guided by some other emotion.
"Wysteria," Ellis says, and then stops. It must be familiar to Wysteria by now, what it looks like when Ellis is turning something over in his mind, attempting to resolve it into words. He is still looking at the papers between them, her hands resting over them. "Have you considered what you might do if this complication becomes too entangled for your solicitor to manage?"
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