abraxaslogs | WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

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WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

Welcome to The Free Cities! The portal exits outside the capital city of Cadens. The first impression of the city is its sheer size. It sprawls out across the landscape like a great hulking beast at rest. The wall that encircles it barely contains it, the buildings of Cadens practically bulging against its restraint.

The air here seems thicker somehow, tinged with a scent that’s acrid and smoky. Smog hangs high over the city, belched out by smokestacks that tower over the industrial district. The desert stretches out behind it, dotted with towers and dust clouds that disappear into the horizon. Multiple gates lead inside and each is staffed by soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms that wave a steady stream of people through without appearing to pay much attention. People are coming and going almost all of the time, to and from the outposts and areas of activity around the city proper. It’s difficult to tell just what’s out there beyond the impression of tall metal structures and a great deal of labor. Wagons carrying travelers to Libertas and Aquila roll out from the Travel Post outside the city wall.

Anyone who can sense magic will notice a much lower concentration here. No one will be stopped or questioned at the gate, even if the soldiers seem to take note of the fugitives from Thorne.

The activity and sheer number of citizens can be overwhelming. It’s crowded and loud and feels constantly in motion with everyone talking and yelling over each other. It’s easy to get swept up in the ever-moving throng or find oneself ducking into the mouth of a narrow alley just to breathe.

Anyone who’s willing to make their way to the northern part of the city and Portham Hall will find Prime Minister Marlo Reiner available to receive them.

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Where we live. She says it so effortlessly. Geralt looks over for a moment before glancing away again.

"It's where I brought you," he replies. A journey he has no memory of and which now she hasn't got, either. He wonders if it will mean something, that they are making it now. Not that it's the same, but—

It does feel, a little, in a way that he understands isn't logical, that things have come full circle. That after he'd lost her in the Horizon, he's found her again now. To bring her home.

He lets the thought fade out as she describes Jaskier with an enthusiasm he's come to find familiar. It draws the smallest smile out of him, even as he continues to face ahead. He isn't sure what Jaskier said about him, to have reassured her, but Ciri seems to trust him almost implicitly, without question.

"We travelled together. For some time." A long time. Longer than Geralt would've ever imagined all those years ago. "You think he's only teasing?" he adds dryly, a little teasing in return. "That I'm prone to tears?"

Where he brought her, he says, like she's supposed to know what that means; she does not, but Ciri doesn't really question it either. Maybe it isn't their home, but simply somewhere to stay. Or visit. It doesn't seem that important, honestly -- just the fact they're going there together, that is what matters.

Ciri laughs at the teasing question in return, shaking her head.

"Oh, I don't know. You do not seem the type, but looks can be deceiving. Don't worry. I won't tell anyone else." She winks. Clearly, Jaskier's attempts at rewriting Geralt's personality haven't been all too successful, even for someone without a memory. He tried.

But... speaking of anyone else:

"Is anyone waiting for us in the mountains?"

For some reason, it almost feels like... there should be. Though she couldn't explain why.

He smiles faintly at that. It fades at the edges when she speaks up next. Is there anyone.

"No," he replies. He wants to explain more, but finds he can't.

His hand rises unconsciously to brush the medallion against his chest. He's aware the Kaer Morhen he's created is not a replacement for what he's left behind on the Continent. It's one of the only things he feels as if he's left behind. Yennefer, Jaskier, Ciri. They are here. But what remains of his brothers are not. It's been over three months. Winter has nearly passed back home. The frost will melt soon. And he will not have arrived, as he should've. They will set off, in spring, with one less of their own.

(He can't know, either, if he would've been the only one to have not made it. Every winter, it's simply a matter of waiting, during the first week or two. Watching the door.)

He tries to push past it, before she can ask more. "There is a friend, of sorts. You'll like him. He's furry."

Edited 2021-09-28 21:43 (UTC)

Her eyes catch on the medallion. They stick there, lingering, and there is an odd, bittersweet sort of feeling in her chest. A tension, not quite an ache. Like a longing, or a sadness.

She swallows it, unsure.

"If you have a Moglad too," she jokes instead, eyes lifting up to Geralt's face. "I will start feeling left out."

Ciri does not, thankfully, press for more. He can't tell if it's because she senses she shouldn't ask or if she simply realizes, without needing to be told, what the reason is. He remembers how it was for him: lingering feelings, a knowing without knowing or fully understanding why. It's a memory that still leaves him disconcerted. He's aware he wasn't himself in this place. But nor was he not himself.

It'd appear she's experiencing the same.

"Fortunately," he replies, "my companion is much more prone to shutting up."

The Horizon is not an expansive place. It's a short clip before the mountains pull into view, the chill beginning to take hold as the path grows snowy, rougher, but smooth enough to ride up. The stone walls loom ahead. He glances over, curious to see her reaction to what are the beginnings of his home. (Her home, too, if she wants.)

And of course, the white wolf is there: yellow eyes that match his, scars in places that are familiar. It walks the grounds, paying little attention to either of them.

Edited 2021-09-29 21:38 (UTC)

She does not know how to place -- let alone name -- the feelings that arise inside her chest, like a hot burst of sunlight in her heart, equal parts painful and bright. There is that aching familiarity again, the sense that she should understand, and at once the sense that she does not need to. That she already does. A calm relief at odds with the thrumming of her pulse in her throat. The sense of waiting, longing, of a journey come to an end.

She drops the conversation.

Now that the path ahead is clear, Ciri presses her heels into her mare's flanks, and shoots forward like a loosed arrow to see it for herself.

She rides ahead with such conviction, it takes him aback a little. Geralt follows behind at a steadier pace, bringing Roach through the gates. The keep bears all the marks of time and bloodshed that he remembers. He’s seen no reason to erase that history of it—no reason to pretend as though it never existed.

He simply doesn’t explain to those who come by and walk through the buried bones and scorched walls. They can draw their own conclusions.

But Ciri is—different. He catches up to her, silent, waiting for her to take it in. Will she find it off-putting? Too fucking dour? He doesn’t know. He realizes, despite having no memory of her being at Kaer Morhen, that he—that he wants her to feel at home here. In this place where he would’ve taken her, trained her, taught her to be…something more.

He wants, deep down, for her memories of this place to have brought her enough comfort that, even in their absence, this version of her will still feel the same way. Because that—that will tell him more than any questions he could ask. Won’t it? He’s almost afraid of what he might find out, but it’s too late. They’re already here.

Just like most things in the Horizon, Geralt's domain is and isn't as large as it seems. It looms, the mountains striking against the backdrop of the rest of this place, rising into view like they go on forever. But the ride is not long.

She crests a point along the path where the fortress finally comes into view. One hand lifts to shade her eyes as the light glimmers off the snow in the courtyard, catching dully on the bones rising like strange, curved and skinny trees from the ground, bleached branches reaching for the sky in a sparse and macabre forest. As Geralt rides up alongside her, he'll find Ciri sitting straight-backed on her horse, chest rising and falling rapidly with the flurry of emotions trying to push their way into her brain, where there is nothing but there should be something.

Something important. Something more.

The tears cling to her eyelashes, hot, melting the snowflakes that have begun to gently float down on them and settle on her hair and trembling hands.

She chokes, the words thick with a fervent wistfulness.

"Oh, Geralt," she breathes. "It's beautiful."

It is, he thinks, the first time a stretch of silence has left him uneasy. (Nervous). He hesitates, wondering if he should speak, or if he should simply tell her to come inside before she the chill grows too cold. Except she doesn't even seem particularly cold here. She's just taking it in, with an expression on her face he can't even begin to work out.

Beautiful. He stares at her. In all truth, he can't say what he was expecting. He was simply waiting. To see. And now that she's reacted, he's—

He looks away, peering up at the trees. Mountains that aren't really there. He's aware, always, that this is not Kaer Morhen. It lacks the most important pieces. (His people.) But it's close enough, for the part of him that. Misses home. A part he won't ever fully acknowledge. It is beautiful. For all of the blood that's spilled here, for all of his conflicting feelings about being brought to a place he never wanted to be, he's come to find a quiet calm about the icy snow, the bleached bones, the whisper of wind through the walls.

It isn't something he ever anticipates anyone raised outside of these walls to understand.

He swallows. His fingers brush Ciri's shoulder. "Come inside."

She does not understand this feeling. The way it grips her, lungs so full with it she can barely breathe. Her eyes roam the grounds, catching on the parapets, lingering on each set of steps leading upward, taking in the way the fortress is set so neatly carved into the mountain, as much a part of it as though it had always been here. There is an old, solid weight to it, improbable as that is in its existence within this liminal space; it has the feeling of a building lived-in, died-in, of centuries.

Geralt's touch startles her out of her almost trancelike reverie. Ciri turns to look at him with a jolt, and for a moment, she looks--

Younger, spring-green eyes wide and round, a faint dusting of freckles across her nose. The scar is very nearly gone.

She catches Geralt's hand.

"Thank you. For bringing me here."

He blinks. The sudden youth in her face startles him. It’s—fuck. He’s never seen her as a child. When he’d created her in this world, she’d had no real features. He’s no idea what she had looked like growing up. But he realizes, to her, he would know. He would have watched her become a young woman. He would’ve been there for her.

For a moment, the loss is sharp. All this stolen time between them.

Then she grasps his hand and he looks back at her. I never brought you here. He knows that’s not what she means. That she only knows that he took her here now, in the Horizon.

He doesn’t answer. The words catch and die on his tongue. He hops off Roach instead, waiting for Ciri to follow him inside. Toward the large wooden doors that lead into the main hall. She will find it familiar, too. Just emptier than usual. More echoes within the walls.

“This is your home, too,” he says. “Make it as you like.”

She follows his lead, slipping off her horse and into the snow that crunches softly beneath her boots. Despite it, she does not feel cold -- only the pleasant sort of chill that nips at the nose and cheekbones, leaving a flush and a certain incongruous warmth in its wake.

At first, she leads her horse by the reins, looking around while they walk, taking in the rest of the courtyard. The training equipment, in particular. At these, she decides to let go of the sleek black mare, knowing she will stay put (or not, and Ciri shall will her back when she needs her). The horse pauses, watching her master wander the courtyard on the way to the door of the Keep itself, zigzagging slowly away from Geralt and then back again before rushing to catch up as he approaches the door. Then, the horse plods away to go find somewhere out of the snow.

When the heavy wooden doors shut behind them, the great hall seems to open up. Any candles unlit on their black iron chandeliers flicker warmly to light. The firepit crackles. What should have been cold stone walls and empty tables feel surprisingly welcoming, though their emptiness is noted with a fleeting ache of sadness, the stray thought that it feels as though there should be someone else here too. The tree also fills her with a soft discomfort, a melancholy that feels well-worn and inevitable, the type that every person carries in their hearts, just a little bit, with their natures constantly knowing about the fact of death.

Ciri steps toward it, reaching out to brush her fingers very gently over the edge of one dangling medallion. There is a wolf etched upon it, visible through the deep pockmarks that curve through one side, like someone had hammered uneven nails in and yanked them out. She looks at it for a moment. It is such a strange sensation, feeling without knowing.

When she turns to survey the hall and Geralt once again, Ciri's clothes have changed. The cuirass has faded away, any subconscious need for armor gone in the safety of this place; the clothes are similar, but look softer and a little looser, more comfortable, though her sword remains on her back.

"I think it looks perfect."

She just says that, not knowing exactly why she thinks it. But she does.

"Show me the rest?"

She is the first to approach the tree. Even Geralt’s not touched it, though not out of avoidance. More—it’s always been there. As embedded in the floors as the benches and tables. It’s possible there might be one or two missing medallions—his memory isn’t clear, the exact number—but they sway gently under the brush of her fingers. (He wonders what they will do, at home, without his medallion to bring back and hang with the others.)

His gaze lingers on Ciri for a moment. She looks right at home here. The same way, he thinks, he’d felt when Jaskier would arrive and stay for a drink. At ease. An unquestioning sense that things were exactly where they should be.

He blinks. Of course. The rest.

The fortress is much larger in the real world ; in here, it’s limited to a handful of rooms upstairs. One is his; the others are empty. He supposes he could construct the underground area, as well. He’s just. He hasn’t. He finds himself reluctant to recreate that part of the keep. Still, he takes her up the winding staircase. His room is down the hall. Sparsely decorated, as usual. It’s why, when he opens the door, he notices immediately it’s changed. There’s more than just his sheathed swords, a bed, some candles.

There is a flower, on the dresser. Jaskier’s flower, glowing with an otherworldly flame, the one he’d brought for her from a strange domain of fire. And beside it, a small handful of familiar items: a single candy inside a clam shell, a soft stuffed bird, a crown of daisies. Gifts. From the others, for the girl who wasn’t.

Geralt hesitates. Fuck. He doesn’t know how to explain. She will remember once this is over if he gives them to her, and she will ask how he’s come to have these things if he tells them they’re hers. They’re obviously not gifts that came from him. It also doesn’t feel right to keep them from her now that they’ve. Appeared. She should have them.

He reaches for the flower. “These are yours.”

Edited 2021-09-30 22:11 (UTC)

Technically, it's possible there isn't anything up the stairs, but Ciri seems to know, innately, that there should be. She doesn't catch Geralt's look, too busy looking around herself, taking in every detail as they walk. Pausing at the top of the steps for a moment, Ciri peers over the railing to observe the great hall from above before turning to catch up to Geralt once more with the quick, excited movements of someone who simply can't wait to see what comes next.

He shows her down the hall and to a room that must be his (for some reason, she's quite sure it must be), where she lingers in the doorway and looks around expectantly. It's not until Geralt steps further inside to approach the small collection of oddities on the dresser that Ciri follows, letting the door stay half open behind her.

"They are?"

She looks surprised, but reaches out to take the flower from Geralt's fingers, admiring it curiously. It is beautiful, a fierce little thing, glowing softly in her hands. Her eyes move over the other items. They seem unfamiliar to her, more unfamiliar than the keep, even though she has no memory of any of it. Still, if Geralt says they are hers, she believes him.

Looking up again at Geralt, with an innocent curiosity, she asks, "Where is my room?"

For awhile, Geralt leans against the doorway, watching. She hums with an eager sort of energy, the kind that's never within these walls. He thinks, she must be the first to have set foot in here and been raised here without any memories of the violence that befell it or the horrors that lie beneath it. To her, it's just.

Home.

He glances up sharply. Which one. Somehow, it'd not occurred to him—of course she'd have a room. He doesn't know which one should be hers, which one she might've been given.

He peers out of the hallway, taking a step. He could choose one right now, but that doesn't feel right.

"Which one feels like yours?"

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WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

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