The meaning makes itself clear before she finishes. Makes itself clear when she mentions the clasp, and Ellis is reminded: all is not as it had been.
"I'm sorry. I bought it before."
Which is perhaps revealing in and of itself, that he had seen the thing long before Satinalia and purchased it in anticipation. It had lived tucked into a corner of his trunk, joined gradually by poem and chatelaine in due time.
"I can replace the chain," is a sincere offering, because he can fix nothing else. The frown has lightened, but not disappeared.
Her thumb and forefinger: shifting absently against one another.
"It's all right. I can have it fixed just the same. And you shouldn't have to—" She laughs. It sounds dismissive. Not embarrassed. "Well I only wanted to say something since it may be some time since you see it again. And I know that if I gave a friend something and then hardly saw it that I might grow concerned. That's all."
"It's my gift, to you," Ellis tells her, unwavering. "I'll bring you a better chain for it."
Simple as that, rectifying an oversight. Nothing need be said about the rest, though they've hardly spoken of it.
Ellis reaches to catch her hand, cease the movement of her fingers. Not to draw her down from her perch, just to keep hold of her for a moment as he looks into her face.
The absent shifting of her fingertips does stop as he takes her hand. "Well," she says, all brisk cheer in the watery afternoon light. "I suppose that's fine then."
It would be easy here in the brief beat of silence which follows to say something further on the subject. But truth be told, she is in good spirits and anything of import on the subject would only serve to bring them low, and so Wysteria bites back on the impulse. How pleasant and sensible it is, she decides, that they merely resolve on a solution.
"But really, Mister Ellis," she says instead. The line of his brow is so very serious. "Panties. I truly am scandalized."
She gives him an over exaggerated long look—not laughing but close to it—as she hops down these last two steps and turns her hand and arm so she might instead offer him her elbow for linking with. He may keep her folio for the time being.
"Are you for the Gallows, or have I caught you during some obligation?"
"I had the night watch," he answers, arm looped through hers obligingly. "No obligation but to get a few hours sleep once we return."
And reclaim Ruadh, wherever he had roamed to within the Gallows itself. But that's not so urgent. It might even be that Ruadh simply finds him, as has become their routine in the past month or so since they've arrived here.
But by and by—
"That wasn't the important part of it." The poem. And then: "Did you dislike it?
Then, seems to be the unspoken agreement as Wysteria wheels them in general heading of the docks and ferry slip, they may as well escort one another across the harbor. She has her own business to attend to in the Gallows, and would in fact be there already if not for some dreadful obligation to see her solicitor earlier that morning.
So by and by then, while they traipse along more or less downhill with their elbows linked—
"Oh, I know that. I'm only teasing you. —I mean not teasing you," she corrects. Definitely not teasing him. She would never do that, obviously. "No, I thought it was very kind and prettily put. And so was the other one you copied out, by the way. The one in the letter you left behind? I suppose I can say so now that I'm less furious over the whole ordeal. At the time it seemed wholly terrible and ominous and like the very worst thing in the world that I'd ever read. But I'm pleased that I saved it instead of burning it while I was feeling very angry at the world and very sorry for myself. I've read it again since and it's a very pleasant set of verses. I will have to have my revenge on you soon. I'll find something very sentimental and then you can laugh at me next."
And he has no reason to believe that whatever it is Wysteria might select is being deployed in the same manner Ellis has used his copied-over verses. After all, in all the time he has known her, Wysteria has never seemed to have any difficulty sharing exactly what is on her mind.
(Is it for the best, that his meaning is misidentified as sentiment and teasing?)
"I'm glad you kept it," he presses on, steady as the pass down the uneven stone of the road. This too, is said very carefully. "I thought they were pretty verses."
And then, tacked on: "I've missed reading what you pick out."
"Then I'll find you something very long. Something so sincere that it isn't in the slightest bit amusing." This, all cheerful patter like they are still exchanging jokes (or as if she could drag him into doing so by sheer force of will; how grim he's become since returning from the Anderfels).
"I've missed having such a sympathetic partner. Mister Stark is far too busy for the sort of reading we do, and truth be told I don't know if Valentine cares much for fiction. We mostly discuss essays. It is good," she says, tightening the angle of her arm briefly about his. "To have a companion in this sort of thing. I'll say so even if you can't bring yourself to."
But it can be. (It will be, he thinks, even if there are moments when it feels as if he can give her nothing but this wrenching, raw bit of truth that he's kept clamped behind his teeth for so long.) Ellis has been telling himself for such a long time now that it is enough to have this: Wysteria's voice bright in his ear and her arm linked through his as they walk together. This is closeness enough.
"Aye, it is good," is not untrue. It is good to have a companion. It is good to be returned to her. Ellis is aware of the incongruity between now and then, the state he existed in before he left and how impenetrable it seems to be to him now. How had he found his way to such a manner before?
His hand crosses his chest, so his fingers might find her wrist to touch lightly as they cross the street at a slant, angling towards a set of stairs.
"Will you read it aloud to me? When you find something long and unamusing and very sincere?"
"If you like," is easily given. After all, he'd done a great deal of reading aloud to her while she'd been laid up and so low in the Gallows infirmary. It's only fair to accord him the same consideration. That, and she likes the idea all on its own. Maybe she will find some way of getting a laugh out of him then, painstaking sincerity or no.
"Though you must be warned that I'm a very poor reader when it comes to verses. One of my governesses tried very hard to break me of the habit of pausing at the end of every line or reading more or less only for the rhymes, and now it's all I think about and I find it doesn't do much to improve the sound of anything. But of course, Mister Ellis. I shall be most happy to have my revenge in person."
She can't touch his wrist in return, so instead Wysteria sets her cheek briefly to his shoulder and cinches the link of their arms momentarily tighter, and is pleased by the resolute shape of the whole thing. To that end, she keeps her arm tight in his even after she's otherwise straightened and as they reach the stairs, though it makes traversing the latter with their differences in height somewhat hilarious.
"Oh, but that reminds me. I have a project that I could use your help with. Not this moment. I won't keep you from your bed. But should you find yourself with a free hour or two later today—"
His thumb runs briefly along the bend of her wrist, the base of her thumb, in a silent expression of gratitude. Ellis does not make any move to separate, even as they clear the bottom step.
They can return to their usual habit. (If anything that came out of illness and pain can be called a habit.) But Ellis already knows he'll be fond of her reading, just as he tends to be fond of Wysteria's approach to most activities. Even if this particular exercise turns into Wysteria's opinions on whatever verse she chooses, it would still be pleasant to spend time listening to her.
But he is spared trying to pare this sentiment down by the tacit request she follows her agreement with.
"I'll have the time to spare. What are you thinking of?"
The gun, perhaps. He's already promised himself to it, and it would be easy enough to give her whatever assistance she needs in the midst of whatever other duties have been assigned to him.
Let no one say she isn't merciful—or that she is so fully ignorant to his distemper that she doesn't recognize the responsibility to keep the conversation dashing along at a clip lest he otherwise be permitted to think too hard on any particular point.
"I need a spare set of hands. To, ah,"—she waggles her fingers at the end of the arm to which he's been so firmly linked, tendons flexing under his fingertips. "Make a spare hand, I suppose. I've ambitions for some adjustments in my future which first require the making of a cast. It will be very rough draft, of course. Eventually I'll have to find someone whose left hand I like enough to take for myself—oh how macabre that sounds—but for the time being, two right ones will do while I sort out exactly what I wish to do with it. And it will take some time for the cast to set, and I think I will be bored without company."
Having reached across to set his fingers at her wrist, Ellis' thumb presses lightly at the edge of her hand once more. Thinking on what's been taken from her, and what she might fashion for herself.
"You have mine."
Hands. Company. Surely she already knew, whatever she would ask of him is most always easily given.
"I'll be awake again by the afternoon. Will that suit you?"
"This afternoon should suit perfectly well, Mister Ellis. I have some work to see to on behalf of the Division first, and then some papers to file in the Felandaris office—I do wish someone would come along to lead the project. The office is becoming rapidly unmanageable without anyone being there full time. I have been thinking of suggesting it to Mister Dickerson, you know. He clearly has a passion for the thoery, and is no stranger to the task of keeping up paperwork and seeing that a place be arranged in a certain kind of order. Mister Stark doesn't care for him very much of course, but I suspect it to be a matter of the two being somewhat unfamiliar with another and so easily remedied."
Wysteria turns her hand, knuckles bumping him in her eagerness to swat away this dovetail in the conversation while she sucks in a breath and girds herself to continue chattering along.
"Yes, the afternoon. I'll see that I've all the materials necessary, so come by the work rooms whenever it is you've returned to the land of the living. Please and thank you."
Being so accustomed to the flow of conversation, Ellis is aware of the pointed nature of this recitation. The nudge of her knuckles prompts a shift of his hand where he's settled it, thumb running along the seam of her sleeve as he considers Wysteria's patter.
"Would you like me to bring something to read?" he questions, in the wake of paper and the idea of Silas ascending to project lead.
A stopgap measure, while Ellis considers the bigger picture, how he might approach it.
These are very important points she's making, thank you. Even so, she allows herself to be swayed from them readily enough. His question is a simple one, after all.
"I suppose. If you like. I imagine that I'll have my hand in a plaster for at least an hour, and surely only have half that worth of conversation. That is to say, that's all I can be trusted to provide. I suppose if there were a particular topic or happening which you would like to discuss, then we might arrange to fill the rest of the time that way. But some a bit of reading serves just as well."
A twitch of humor at that. Only half an hours worth of conversation. Ellis is certain Wysteria might manage the full hour and then some, if past experience is any indicator.
As to what he might like to discuss—
Would it not be unfair, discussing what's at the forefront of his mind while she had a hand in plaster? (And for all the other reasons. Ellis has them listed, knows them well.)
"I'll think on it," is what he settles on. "We get on well enough, book or no."
Even under these circumstances. Ellis imagines it weighs on her more than she's showing, the matter of the arm.
"Oh, hardly any of that is really worth talking over. Truly most of that was writing just to write—to feel as if I were doing something, you know. The illusion of productivity, or what have you."
This is said with said casual candidness that it must be true, and also must be something she has made purposefully remote either by time or his return or some other factor so that if it ever held a sharp edge (maybe it had) that it's now been blunted.
"Oh, but that does remind me. I told you I was going to tell you everything I found out about dreaming and the Gates. But that too should make for a very short conversation, so I'm tempted to retain it until this afternoon in case we need to fill, oh, forty seconds or so."
His fingers flex over her elbow. Yes, Ellis understands. He hadn't been able to write, but he'd thought often of what he might put to paper if the option had been open to him.
But it had been hard enough to conceal the crystal. Taking the book was out of the question.
Wysteria would scoff to hear that all her writing had been kept. Ellis senses this, and so opts to direct his attention more fully to the latter statement.
"Save it," Ellis decides for her. "I assume it's not something to be heard by anyone else seated by us on the ferry."
This early, it's surely those afflicted with hangovers or the irritability that comes with rising at such an hour, both of which might do better if spared scientific theory.
"You might tell me of the celebrations I missed, while I was away."
At this suggestion, her reaction is instant and extreme—a twisting of the features so severe it's if he's shown her something rotten or suggested she put her hand into a bag full of live snakes. Her "Ugh!" is, in a word, emphatic.
"You mean the celebrations you didn't miss. It has been a thoroughly miserable year of parties of all kind, Mister Ellis. First I was abed for the Duke's grandson's birthday. Miss Ellie told me as many of the details as she could remember, but it isn't the same as being there in person and I have been longing, no dying, to observe the interior of that house. And I'm quite certain that all the music and dancing was lovely, and I've heard the Duke keeps a fine library. Do you know, de Foncé and Madame Baudin are some sort of cousins and yet they dislike each other so much that there hasn't even been any invitation to for tea or to anything like it which might ordinarily— Not that I have any great fondness for Madame Baudin, of course. Which I say so freely because she would point it out herself, I'm quite sure. But it's the principle of the thing."
Which as everyone knows, Wysteria takes highly seriously (for as long as the principle is convenient to her, anyway).
"And then there were all the undead for Satinalia proper, though I'd hardly prepared a good costume and now make for a dreadful dancing partner. And then Brother Gideon blew up the make up party to follow, and there has been nothing since. I think everyone is convinced that Riftwatch parties are cursed affairs, and at this rate we'll never have another one again. And now we'll spend Summersday getting nearly assassinated in Antiva! It's all highly unjust!"
This unspooling of misery carries them down another flight of stairs, along a narrow side-street. Shutters are opening above them. The sound of seagulls and the lapping of the tide beckon them forward. Wysteria's hand is warm, the link of her arm anchors him here, and Ellis is very aware of them both.
"I should apologize," he says, once he has is certain the flow of her answer has reached a natural conclusion. "I am glad that I didn't miss our dance."
Something easier to say now that he's returned. It would have been to difficult to admit from his perch on the very heights of Weisshaupt towers.
"Oh." Her scoff is mild rather than that sharp insistent thing Wysteria ordinarily deploys, as breezy as the breath of harbor wind which plucks at her hair from beneath her felt cap and divides it into wild filament strands about her ears and face.
"I'm afraid those days are well behind us, Mister Ellis. But truly—I'm pleased to hear you so passionate on the subject. When next we're at some function where the subject must naturally arise, I will do everything in my power to secure you an appropriate alternate. I would hate it, truly hate it, if my own inconvenience were to signal the end of your dancing career. You're far too fine a partner to deprive the floor of."
Her response is unexpected, and it carries a whip-crack sting with it as the words lands.
It is not so far removed from the minor fracturing of a bone. A small injury, relatively speaking. Something he'll carry along with him, as he moves forward. Something that might pain him, if he sets his weight wrong.
But there is nothing from him for a few moments. His fingers move over the seam in her sleeve. The quiet stretches as he orders his thoughts, waiting for the initial flinch away from this thing to pass.
"You're exaggerating my ability," is mild too. Not the point Ellis finds important, but isn't capable of simply letting it pass on his way to the more relevant response: "But you won't have to trouble yourself with that, with finding an alternate. I'll manage."
No hesitation over it: Ellis doesn't want an alternate.
"'I'll manage,'" she parrots back, the pitch and cant of her voice in (poor) imitation of his. "A likely story. That sounds to me as if you meant to loiter on the sidelines if you bother to show up at all, sir. I have put far too much effort into the improvement of your footwork to let it go to waste, Mister Ellis! 'Exaggerating my ability'—how dare you disparage my efforts in such a fashion!"
It's a joke. All of it is. It's just a silly little nonsense conversation. An absurd little thing exchange designed to fill the time that it takes them to trot down to catch the ferry and make their way across to the fortress island. Later—at the next party they have cause to attend, maybe—she will make some reference to it and hope that he laughs. That's all that it is, and so there is no reason at all to feel even a little insulted or annoyed by his being contrary. That would be absurd. Of course that's how he must be. It's the part she had already mentally cast him in. The joke wouldn't stand up at all if he were to go along with it.
Traipsing down the stairs arm and arm, Wysteria bullheadedly charges through that little inexplicable twinge in her chest.
"And if that isn't what you mean—if you really will be responsible for finding yourself a new dancing partner—, then you must at least promise to pretend to entertain my suggestions. I couldn't bear it if your new choice were someone I disapproved of."
The look he gives her is so very measuring. Assessing, as he observes her profile, marks the wisps of loose hair playing about her face, the brightness of her expression. All that he feels for her, Ellis can feel how it stretches in all directions, how impossible it is to get his hands around the edges of it.
And Wysteria, who can be so sharp, will perhaps never look directly at him and see this truth. Ellis could let her carry them along, momentum drawing them past every moment where he might make himself very clear to her.
Though Ellis has never dug his heels in, asked for her attention. It feels like an unkindness, a selfish act. Ellis balks every time, but this—
"There won't be a new choice, Wysteria."
Gentle over the words. I'll manage means something other than finding someone new to dance with.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"I'm sorry. I bought it before."
Which is perhaps revealing in and of itself, that he had seen the thing long before Satinalia and purchased it in anticipation. It had lived tucked into a corner of his trunk, joined gradually by poem and chatelaine in due time.
"I can replace the chain," is a sincere offering, because he can fix nothing else. The frown has lightened, but not disappeared.
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"It's all right. I can have it fixed just the same. And you shouldn't have to—" She laughs. It sounds dismissive. Not embarrassed. "Well I only wanted to say something since it may be some time since you see it again. And I know that if I gave a friend something and then hardly saw it that I might grow concerned. That's all."
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Simple as that, rectifying an oversight. Nothing need be said about the rest, though they've hardly spoken of it.
Ellis reaches to catch her hand, cease the movement of her fingers. Not to draw her down from her perch, just to keep hold of her for a moment as he looks into her face.
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It would be easy here in the brief beat of silence which follows to say something further on the subject. But truth be told, she is in good spirits and anything of import on the subject would only serve to bring them low, and so Wysteria bites back on the impulse. How pleasant and sensible it is, she decides, that they merely resolve on a solution.
"But really, Mister Ellis," she says instead. The line of his brow is so very serious. "Panties. I truly am scandalized."
She gives him an over exaggerated long look—not laughing but close to it—as she hops down these last two steps and turns her hand and arm so she might instead offer him her elbow for linking with. He may keep her folio for the time being.
"Are you for the Gallows, or have I caught you during some obligation?"
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And reclaim Ruadh, wherever he had roamed to within the Gallows itself. But that's not so urgent. It might even be that Ruadh simply finds him, as has become their routine in the past month or so since they've arrived here.
But by and by—
"That wasn't the important part of it." The poem. And then: "Did you dislike it?
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So by and by then, while they traipse along more or less downhill with their elbows linked—
"Oh, I know that. I'm only teasing you. —I mean not teasing you," she corrects. Definitely not teasing him. She would never do that, obviously. "No, I thought it was very kind and prettily put. And so was the other one you copied out, by the way. The one in the letter you left behind? I suppose I can say so now that I'm less furious over the whole ordeal. At the time it seemed wholly terrible and ominous and like the very worst thing in the world that I'd ever read. But I'm pleased that I saved it instead of burning it while I was feeling very angry at the world and very sorry for myself. I've read it again since and it's a very pleasant set of verses. I will have to have my revenge on you soon. I'll find something very sentimental and then you can laugh at me next."
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And he has no reason to believe that whatever it is Wysteria might select is being deployed in the same manner Ellis has used his copied-over verses. After all, in all the time he has known her, Wysteria has never seemed to have any difficulty sharing exactly what is on her mind.
(Is it for the best, that his meaning is misidentified as sentiment and teasing?)
"I'm glad you kept it," he presses on, steady as the pass down the uneven stone of the road. This too, is said very carefully. "I thought they were pretty verses."
And then, tacked on: "I've missed reading what you pick out."
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"I've missed having such a sympathetic partner. Mister Stark is far too busy for the sort of reading we do, and truth be told I don't know if Valentine cares much for fiction. We mostly discuss essays. It is good," she says, tightening the angle of her arm briefly about his. "To have a companion in this sort of thing. I'll say so even if you can't bring yourself to."
Unconfessed indeed.
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But it can be. (It will be, he thinks, even if there are moments when it feels as if he can give her nothing but this wrenching, raw bit of truth that he's kept clamped behind his teeth for so long.) Ellis has been telling himself for such a long time now that it is enough to have this: Wysteria's voice bright in his ear and her arm linked through his as they walk together. This is closeness enough.
"Aye, it is good," is not untrue. It is good to have a companion. It is good to be returned to her. Ellis is aware of the incongruity between now and then, the state he existed in before he left and how impenetrable it seems to be to him now. How had he found his way to such a manner before?
His hand crosses his chest, so his fingers might find her wrist to touch lightly as they cross the street at a slant, angling towards a set of stairs.
"Will you read it aloud to me? When you find something long and unamusing and very sincere?"
Just this once, maybe.
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"Though you must be warned that I'm a very poor reader when it comes to verses. One of my governesses tried very hard to break me of the habit of pausing at the end of every line or reading more or less only for the rhymes, and now it's all I think about and I find it doesn't do much to improve the sound of anything. But of course, Mister Ellis. I shall be most happy to have my revenge in person."
She can't touch his wrist in return, so instead Wysteria sets her cheek briefly to his shoulder and cinches the link of their arms momentarily tighter, and is pleased by the resolute shape of the whole thing. To that end, she keeps her arm tight in his even after she's otherwise straightened and as they reach the stairs, though it makes traversing the latter with their differences in height somewhat hilarious.
"Oh, but that reminds me. I have a project that I could use your help with. Not this moment. I won't keep you from your bed. But should you find yourself with a free hour or two later today—"
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They can return to their usual habit. (If anything that came out of illness and pain can be called a habit.) But Ellis already knows he'll be fond of her reading, just as he tends to be fond of Wysteria's approach to most activities. Even if this particular exercise turns into Wysteria's opinions on whatever verse she chooses, it would still be pleasant to spend time listening to her.
But he is spared trying to pare this sentiment down by the tacit request she follows her agreement with.
"I'll have the time to spare. What are you thinking of?"
The gun, perhaps. He's already promised himself to it, and it would be easy enough to give her whatever assistance she needs in the midst of whatever other duties have been assigned to him.
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"I need a spare set of hands. To, ah,"—she waggles her fingers at the end of the arm to which he's been so firmly linked, tendons flexing under his fingertips. "Make a spare hand, I suppose. I've ambitions for some adjustments in my future which first require the making of a cast. It will be very rough draft, of course. Eventually I'll have to find someone whose left hand I like enough to take for myself—oh how macabre that sounds—but for the time being, two right ones will do while I sort out exactly what I wish to do with it. And it will take some time for the cast to set, and I think I will be bored without company."
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Having reached across to set his fingers at her wrist, Ellis' thumb presses lightly at the edge of her hand once more. Thinking on what's been taken from her, and what she might fashion for herself.
"You have mine."
Hands. Company. Surely she already knew, whatever she would ask of him is most always easily given.
"I'll be awake again by the afternoon. Will that suit you?"
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Wysteria turns her hand, knuckles bumping him in her eagerness to swat away this dovetail in the conversation while she sucks in a breath and girds herself to continue chattering along.
"Yes, the afternoon. I'll see that I've all the materials necessary, so come by the work rooms whenever it is you've returned to the land of the living. Please and thank you."
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Determined.
Being so accustomed to the flow of conversation, Ellis is aware of the pointed nature of this recitation. The nudge of her knuckles prompts a shift of his hand where he's settled it, thumb running along the seam of her sleeve as he considers Wysteria's patter.
"Would you like me to bring something to read?" he questions, in the wake of paper and the idea of Silas ascending to project lead.
A stopgap measure, while Ellis considers the bigger picture, how he might approach it.
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"I suppose. If you like. I imagine that I'll have my hand in a plaster for at least an hour, and surely only have half that worth of conversation. That is to say, that's all I can be trusted to provide. I suppose if there were a particular topic or happening which you would like to discuss, then we might arrange to fill the rest of the time that way. But some a bit of reading serves just as well."
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As to what he might like to discuss—
Would it not be unfair, discussing what's at the forefront of his mind while she had a hand in plaster? (And for all the other reasons. Ellis has them listed, knows them well.)
"I'll think on it," is what he settles on. "We get on well enough, book or no."
Even under these circumstances. Ellis imagines it weighs on her more than she's showing, the matter of the arm.
"You left much for us to discuss."
His poor mail cubby.
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This is said with said casual candidness that it must be true, and also must be something she has made purposefully remote either by time or his return or some other factor so that if it ever held a sharp edge (maybe it had) that it's now been blunted.
"Oh, but that does remind me. I told you I was going to tell you everything I found out about dreaming and the Gates. But that too should make for a very short conversation, so I'm tempted to retain it until this afternoon in case we need to fill, oh, forty seconds or so."
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But it had been hard enough to conceal the crystal. Taking the book was out of the question.
Wysteria would scoff to hear that all her writing had been kept. Ellis senses this, and so opts to direct his attention more fully to the latter statement.
"Save it," Ellis decides for her. "I assume it's not something to be heard by anyone else seated by us on the ferry."
This early, it's surely those afflicted with hangovers or the irritability that comes with rising at such an hour, both of which might do better if spared scientific theory.
"You might tell me of the celebrations I missed, while I was away."
Because that's Ellis, so concerned with parties.
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"You mean the celebrations you didn't miss. It has been a thoroughly miserable year of parties of all kind, Mister Ellis. First I was abed for the Duke's grandson's birthday. Miss Ellie told me as many of the details as she could remember, but it isn't the same as being there in person and I have been longing, no dying, to observe the interior of that house. And I'm quite certain that all the music and dancing was lovely, and I've heard the Duke keeps a fine library. Do you know, de Foncé and Madame Baudin are some sort of cousins and yet they dislike each other so much that there hasn't even been any invitation to for tea or to anything like it which might ordinarily— Not that I have any great fondness for Madame Baudin, of course. Which I say so freely because she would point it out herself, I'm quite sure. But it's the principle of the thing."
Which as everyone knows, Wysteria takes highly seriously (for as long as the principle is convenient to her, anyway).
"And then there were all the undead for Satinalia proper, though I'd hardly prepared a good costume and now make for a dreadful dancing partner. And then Brother Gideon blew up the make up party to follow, and there has been nothing since. I think everyone is convinced that Riftwatch parties are cursed affairs, and at this rate we'll never have another one again. And now we'll spend Summersday getting nearly assassinated in Antiva! It's all highly unjust!"
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"I should apologize," he says, once he has is certain the flow of her answer has reached a natural conclusion. "I am glad that I didn't miss our dance."
Something easier to say now that he's returned. It would have been to difficult to admit from his perch on the very heights of Weisshaupt towers.
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"I'm afraid those days are well behind us, Mister Ellis. But truly—I'm pleased to hear you so passionate on the subject. When next we're at some function where the subject must naturally arise, I will do everything in my power to secure you an appropriate alternate. I would hate it, truly hate it, if my own inconvenience were to signal the end of your dancing career. You're far too fine a partner to deprive the floor of."
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It is not so far removed from the minor fracturing of a bone. A small injury, relatively speaking. Something he'll carry along with him, as he moves forward. Something that might pain him, if he sets his weight wrong.
But there is nothing from him for a few moments. His fingers move over the seam in her sleeve. The quiet stretches as he orders his thoughts, waiting for the initial flinch away from this thing to pass.
"You're exaggerating my ability," is mild too. Not the point Ellis finds important, but isn't capable of simply letting it pass on his way to the more relevant response: "But you won't have to trouble yourself with that, with finding an alternate. I'll manage."
No hesitation over it: Ellis doesn't want an alternate.
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It's a joke. All of it is. It's just a silly little nonsense conversation. An absurd little thing exchange designed to fill the time that it takes them to trot down to catch the ferry and make their way across to the fortress island. Later—at the next party they have cause to attend, maybe—she will make some reference to it and hope that he laughs. That's all that it is, and so there is no reason at all to feel even a little insulted or annoyed by his being contrary. That would be absurd. Of course that's how he must be. It's the part she had already mentally cast him in. The joke wouldn't stand up at all if he were to go along with it.
Traipsing down the stairs arm and arm, Wysteria bullheadedly charges through that little inexplicable twinge in her chest.
"And if that isn't what you mean—if you really will be responsible for finding yourself a new dancing partner—, then you must at least promise to pretend to entertain my suggestions. I couldn't bear it if your new choice were someone I disapproved of."
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And Wysteria, who can be so sharp, will perhaps never look directly at him and see this truth. Ellis could let her carry them along, momentum drawing them past every moment where he might make himself very clear to her.
Though Ellis has never dug his heels in, asked for her attention. It feels like an unkindness, a selfish act. Ellis balks every time, but this—
"There won't be a new choice, Wysteria."
Gentle over the words. I'll manage means something other than finding someone new to dance with.
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slaps down bow