Nadine nods. Geralt understands. So often he understands. It makes it so much easier to talk about these things with him - she never has to explain or offer more than she intends to. He simply understands.

Even this. That strange divide between who one was and who one is. She wonders what it's like to not feel that way, to look back at one's life and follow that thread unbroken back to earliest memories. To be satisfied and whole. It's like some sort of dream, just an idea she's aware of. Maybe when she was very young, but her early childhood is mostly just an idea, too. She remembers the faces of her first parents, though they're hazy and blurred. Her mother's voice. The presence of her brother, two years older, the shape of him but not his name.

She takes another long drag, tilting her head back to exhale the smoke upwards, watching it as it catches the light. Another life. Lives. Her history cut in pieces and stored in separate boxes in the palace of the mind. But she meant what she'd said. She's happy with what her life is now. Here and in this place.

"Here's to no more demons. And better days ahead than behind."