If he'd known, he'd have come back sooner. It's not an excuse or a regret, per se— just a fact. The unfortunate problem that arises once one starts feeling more than callous selfishness on endless loop: that he can't be everywhere at once. He can't always be wandering in Fenris' shadow the same way he can't always be here waiting for the window to pop open and reveal her green-grey eyes. The ones he loves— gods take him for admitting it now— are the ones he has to trust to know how to care for themselves, even as the world conspires. And when hours later he walks in to find her there, Ataashi's already curled up in a bracketing ball at her side, making the two look utterly denned down, as though the massive wolf considers her companion to be both pack and littermate.

But he doesn't need to look past the warm mess of dark fur to see why she's really here.

He can smell it on Ellie already. Salt, or— iron, possibly. Faint in hitting his nostrils, but present all the same. Readable aside from it, and even more so once he sees the outline of bruises on her skin.

Oh, darling....

Fearsome creature that she is, it doesn't matter whether she's been out fighting Venatori assassins or tavern brawlers: he ends up beside her with a pot of numbing salve and soft rag tucked in his grip (brand new, from the looks of it; part of a more recent push for renovation between Astarion and Fenris within the bounds of selfishly imposed isolation— Circles this, lyrium that, nightmares and old haunts and fresh fears— it was too much for a while), either waking her gently or not at all when he begins patiently tending to the marks etched across her skin.

Glaring at Ataashi when she snuffles in her sleep.

(He'd send her away if he wasn't certain she'd jostle the whole damned bed with one lumbering leap.)