abraxaslogs | [open] july catchall

[ For now, Ciri doesn't move closer, letting him have his space. Casting a slow, quiet look around the mess in this room that matches the one outside.

When he apologizes, she only shakes her head. She is sorry too, of course-- but as nice as sympathy might be, both of them know it's not going to make Viktor feel better. Won't ease the heaviness in the air to fill the silence with platitudes.

So Ciri doesn't say she's sorry. She doesn't ask him questions or try to offer advice.

She gestures, instead, vaguely at the room. ]

You need a hand cleaning up?

Or would you prefer getting out of here for a few hours? You could get as soused as you like, and I'll make sure you don't break an ankle getting home.

Suppose there's always the option to stay here and keep throwing things. Won't stop you.

[He shakes his head. He made the mess, he’ll deal with it. Later, when he feels like he can put his legs under him again. For now, all he really wants to do is stay right where he is, as though he doesn’t have the conviction to do anything, much less move.]

As tempting as all of that sounds, it’s unproductive.

[Viktor has destroyed enough, and the thought of getting drunk rolls his stomach. No, he needs a certain clarity of mind for what he has to do next.]

I told him this would happen. I told him we needed to find a way to stop it.

[ Ciri doesn't argue. Even if being productive doesn't sound like something Viktor should focus on right now, Ciri knows him well enough to realize it won't do him any good to push. She is here if he wants some sort of company, which he hasn't rejected. So she will simply be here, and listen, and make sure he doesn't knock a table over on himself or something if he decides to go throwing things again.

After a moment, she comes closer and sits on the floor with him. ]

And did he have anything to say about that?

[They'd fought about it, actually. Viktor hasn't forgotten, and now the conversation hurts more than it ever did at the time.]

He didn't think there was a point to it. That if we spent all of our time and energy working on the summoning ritual, we wouldn't be able to enjoy what we had.

[Viktor obviously hadn't agreed, and now he's been proven right. He'd tried, desperately, for the both of them, but in the end it didn't change anything. Viktor had believed in Jayce's vision of a future for both of them, but just believing in something doesn't make it true. He should have known better.]

Jayce didn't want to live with a foot in each world. He wanted to be here, with me. Maybe he just didn't want to think that this could happen to us.

[ For a long while, Ciri is silent. She pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms loosely around them, and watches the scattered papers by her boots without registering anything that might be on them.

He didn't want to think that this could happen to us.

It's a sentiment Ciri is intimately familiar with. The risk, ever present in the background. The anxiety, always pushed away in favor of the easier, simpler: it won't happen to us.

If Viktor wants to fill the silence, she will listen. She's not ignoring him, but when there's nothing actually comforting or useful to say, Ciri's not the type to try to fill the space with platitudes. There's no it'll be okay from her. No you'll see him again, I'm sure.

She listens quietly, and thinks, and after a minute or two looks up again.

Meets Viktor's eyes steadily. ]

You're going to study the ritual.

[In the silence, he thinks he can guess her train of thought. There's nothing they can materially do to prevent this from happening, and it could be any one of them, at any time. Anyone who believes they can make a life here, uninterrupted and indefinite, is fooling themselves. Jayce was fooling himself--and Viktor had gone along for the ride, too blinded by his passion and optimism to prepare for what now seems inevitable.

She catches on quickly. That's what's important.]

I don't think the ritual will be enough.

[He can't simply reverse it. Viktor has lived too long in this world and undergone too many changes to simply step back where he left. He'd create a new timeline just by existing, and if he wants to have any hope of surviving a return, he needs to find some way to secure his newfound health, or at least the memory of how he achieved it. Similarly, the thought of his Jayce, the one that spent more than a year here with him, right back where he left with no recollection of their time together is unbearable.

No, there needs to be another solution.]

What would you do, if it were Geralt?

[ She has an answer. She would go to the Singularity herself and find a way to force it to let her through.

After all, she's done it before; she's opened doors and destroyed them. She's searched dozens of places and times for Geralt and Yennefer and her own freedom. Gone to strange lands, worlds with nothing but death, trod through piles of bones in endless graveyards, though blizzards and deserts.

She will do it again. But she deeply, desperately hopes she'll never have to.

Ciri lets out a shallow, unsteady breath.

Viktor is right. Hope isn't enough. So she gives him her answer, condensed into the only words that matter, with the stony, hard-eyed conviction of someone who knows exactly what it means. ]

I would do whatever it takes.

[He doesn't need to tell her what he plans to do, because she knows what she would do in this situation, and she knows him. Viktor is not a stranger to being here, alone, with no one else from his world, but he can't go back to that, not after having Jayce for a year. He needs to see him again--some version of him, and he won't wait around for the Singularity to bring him back, if it does so at all.

The look he gives Ciri is pained, because she must understand.]

Then you know what I have to do.

[Whatever it takes, at any cost.]

I know.

[ She meets his gaze without hesitation, and without judgement. ]

But you do not have to do it alone.

[ Slowly, giving him time to move away if he doesn't want to be touched, Ciri leans over to place a hand on his wrist. Gives him a gentle squeeze. ]

I can't ask you to do this.

[It will likely be dangerous. He might destroy himself, in the process. Viktor is willing to take that risk, but he won't put anyone else in harm's way in the process. This is not the summoning ritual--this is reaching beyond the barriers of the multiverse itself, to seek out a universe that might have him. One where he can make things right. The dangers of it are unknown. and so are the sacrifices.

He won't ask her to make that choice. Her hand on his wrist, however, is all the answer he needs.]

But if I find a way to secure this life for you and your family, that knowledge is yours. Without question.

Edited 2023-08-08 02:09 (UTC)

Thank you, Viktor.

[ When he doesn't pull away, she scoots a little closer. Just stays there, offering the comfort of a warm body nearby, the promise that he's not alone. ]

But I prefer to make my own choices, too.

What can't you ask me to do, exactly? What have you got in mind?

[They sit, shoulder to shoulder, while Viktor tries to articulate what it is he hopes to accomplish. The truth is that he doesn't know. He has a wealth of information--from others who have achieved multiversal travel or are familiar with alternate universes and timelines, but no idea how to make those systems run on the magic of the Singularity. And it will come back to the Singularity, in the end. That's what has him concerned.]

I don't know what this will cost. I've hardly begun to explore what might be possible.

[But he doubts it will be easy, and he doubts he will emerge from it unscathed. He might depart this place entirely, without even a chance to say goodbye.]

I only know that I can't let the Singularity take anything else from me.

Then you seek some measure of control over the Singularity itself.

[ She makes the conclusion as though it's the only natural one, without trying to immediately dissuade him. ]

I don't think it's impossible.

[ In fact, she is quite sure it isn't. ]

I don't think there's any way around it.

[If the Singularity is the most powerful thing in this world, and the source of all magic in it, then whatever he plans to do leads there one way or another. He just doesn't know what that will look like, not yet. Or what it might do to him, if he tries to tamper with the Summoneds' inherent connection to it.]

No, it's not impossible. But even if it were, I've done the impossible before.

No, I mean--

I'm sure it isn't.

[ She's skirting some uncertain ground here, but with Viktor as determined as he is to figure out a way to understand and use the Singularity, Ciri thinks it can only help to give him some context rather than let him just run ahead with nothing but his desperation and stubbornness. She's been there before, herself. It's rarely the best approach. ]

The Singularity is a source, yes. But it is also a doorway, standing at the juncture between space and time. One that can be opened, and almost certainly can also be directed by the right means.

Whatever ritual they've used to bring us here, it's imprecise. Incomplete. We know they can't control who they bring over, or half of us wouldn't have been imprisoned back in Thorne. [ Exactly the reason Viktor himself said it's not the ritual he wants to study, really. Ciri agrees with him. ]

Viktor, do you know if there are any similar monoliths in your own sphere? Even one that might be hidden inside a tower, especially one of great magical power?

[Viktor lifts his head, seemingly confused by how authoritatively she speaks on the subject. He won't pretend to know how this kind of thing works, across other worlds, but he's been assembling all of the information he can, with the hope he could cobble something together. Ciri speaks of the Singularity as if there's an equivalent in her own world, and he furrows his eyebrows.]

We already know they don't know what they're doing.

[The Free Cities, despite all their talk otherwise, has never given any indication that they know who they are as individuals. They're searching for broad strokes, favorable skillsets, desirable careers. Beyond that, it's as Ciri says. Incomplete. He just has to figure out how to fill in the missing pieces--and then expand beyond that, so that he can go exactly where he wants.]

Not that I know of, but it's not out of the question. Piltover destroyed or otherwise obfuscated the magical history of Valoran. Are you saying you have something like the Singularity's physical form, on your Continent?

[ She meets his eyes, and nods. ]

Yes. Monoliths where chaos concentrates. There was... evidence. [ She looks away, picking up some bits of paper around them as if she's just noticed the mess again. Something to fiddle with. ]

That they could be used like portals between worlds.

I do not think it's a coincidence that something similar exists here.

What kind of evidence?

[Not to say that he doubts her, but Viktor is a scientist. Empirical proof is everything. If the Singularity functions even slightly the same as her monoliths, then this is a good lead to chase. There’s just one problem.]

How do you propose we use it, then? I thought that crossing the threshold of the crater simply deposits you into the Horizon. Unless there’s some kind of activation that we’re missing?

[ Well. The main piece of evidence, of course, is Ciri herself.

But she will not say that. She trusts Viktor, but not... quite that far. Not to mention the huge potential for danger she'd be opening him up to on top of the danger to herself, Geralt, the others.

Luckily, Ciri is used to keeping her secrets. Her expression doesn't change; she answers immediately, and easily. It's not a lie. ]

Black residue. We call it stellacite. It is not native to our sphere. I can't say if that mineral would show up elsewhere, but the evidence here that the Singularity is a portal is our very existence in this world, isn't it?

The Continent's histories speak of the Conjunction of the Spheres, a great cosmic event that brought all manner of monsters and people of various races. The monoliths are said to be left over from that originating event. Here, the Singularity is said to be the source of all magic in this sphere. I haven't researched its history in depth beyond what's common knowledge, but I assume it's the oldest thing on this continent as well.

[ She shakes her head. Whatever she's omitting, it remains true that even she cannot cross the threshold into the crater. ]

I have no idea.

[If he thinks she's hiding anything from him, he doesn't show it. He has no reason not to take all of this at face value, so he does. Her description of a physical thing--something he can potentially test the chemical composition of--is an excellent start, though he can't recall seeing anything like what she describes at the crater.

Then again, they were distracted at the time.]

The whole continent seems to revolve around it. One of our number--gone now--did some kind of analysis. Said that the Singularity was pulling the very earth towards it, gradually. There is nothing in this world more powerful.

[But that doesn't mean they can't wield that power.]

I refuse to believe the researchers in Cadens are smarter than me. If they figured it out, why shouldn't I?

[open] july catchall

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