oversight: by: heretics (dw) ([±] not great taste)
John Blake ([personal profile] oversight) wrote in [community profile] abraxaslogs2024-03-12 08:35 pm

Here Comes the Rain Again [ closed ]

Who: John Blake & Co.
When: Post event #17 - Epulum
Where: Free Cities
What: Following the celebration-turned-investigation, Blake returns to the Free Cities to find Norman Jayden is missing. While presumed to have been sent home, Blake doesn't find himself entirely convinced, especially with the change in weather...
Warnings: N/A


gynvael: (358)

[personal profile] gynvael 2024-03-20 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
True to form, Geralt simply directs Blake straight down the corridor, passing by the three bedchambers and a multitude of potted plants. This house is a luxury that Geralt is not entirely unused to—Yen likes her comforts—but which was seldom his to have in any permanent manner. Until now.

Why Blake has come here, Geralt chose not to question closely. The man clearly hasn't many places to turn nor, apparently, much by way of coin. And though Geralt does not do charity, denying Blake such a small thing feels akin to throwing a scruffy stray out onto the street without a scrap.

So. Here they are.

Wordlessly, he pushes open the door. The copper tub sits inside. Towels, soaps, oils. Scents. Seems fairly self-evident. A small fuzzy leosylph peers around Geralt's ankle. He nudges it away with his foot.

"Don't use that." He points at a glass bottle at the far end. He does not explain why it should go untouched, but one may guess it's to do with Jaskier, not Geralt. "Eat what you want afterwards. I'll be in the cellar."

Kitchen has a plate of hand pies to spare, and Blake looks...hm. Like shit.

The door shuts.
gynvael: (339)

[personal profile] gynvael 2024-03-20 01:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Their home has few visitors, and even fewer Geralt trusts to wander about freely. He doubts Blake is here to cause trouble; he actually isn't sure why Blake is here beyond the man's claim to need a wash. Which. Perhaps that is all, but he's starting to learn it's never so straightforward with Blake.

The door to the lab is left open, the strong smell of herbs drifting past the threshold. Blake's footsteps approach as Geralt empties a reddish powder into a small vial.

Blake looks better. Not the best, but better.

"You smell like the bard," he remarks.

He moves his sword out of the way—left unsheathed for once. The bejewelled phoenix affixed to the hilt glints in the lamplight. With a crackle of heat from his palm, he ignites a flame beneath the glass gourd, filled with a cloudy liquid.

"You can't see shit out there." His eyes do not leave his task. Gently, the alembic begins to drip. "Stay until the dust clears."

There have been small breaks in the storm, but right now, it's whipping into a frenzy.
gynvael: (342)

[personal profile] gynvael 2024-03-21 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
Mm. Geralt's eyes flick upwards. Blake said it, not him.

He looks back down. "Sword oil. I had a blacksmith who helped with enchantments before he vanished, but back home...this was how we did it."

No spells, only alchemy. The problem is the lack of ingredients, but he's beginning to find substitutes. He's experimenting with a corrosive coating, something that lets him cut through armoured monsters with fewer risks and less effort. He's a little tired of aiming for the narrow strip along the underbelly and nearly losing his fingers for it every time.

Besides, he hates it when his blade bounces off the thick carapace.

Blake's waiting hands receive a mortar and pestle. He drops a large scorpion tail into the stone bowl with no instruction. A mortar and pestle is for one thing and one thing only; he assumes Blake can put it together. Does he need the help? No, but he can't say he minds an extra hand. If Blake is staying, he may as well make himself useful.

"Don't taste it," Geralt adds, deadpan.
gynvael: (427)

[personal profile] gynvael 2024-03-21 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
His lips twitch very faintly. He adjusts the alembic until the droplets flow a little more freely. Tools in the Free Cities are more refined than the Continent, but they're familiar. Most of the lab contains labelled jars, carefully sealed specimens, a shelf of leather bound books and notes.

"So I've learnt." Blake registers as somebody from the same sort of sphere as Dean or Sam, though his accent is especially foreign in places. "You've never said what you do."

Back home, that is. Blake doesn't give the impression of a soldier, but something about his demeanour isn't entirely that of a common civilian, either.

Perhaps he's curious.
gynvael: (343)

[personal profile] gynvael 2024-03-23 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
While Blake weighs his answer, Geralt picks up the mortar and tips out the black powder onto a scrap of parchment.

He interrupts the story once, holding out his hand for a wooden bowl next to Blake. "Pass that to me."

Bowl acquired, he lets Blake continue while he adds the powder. Law enforcement is not a term they use, but he can gather what it means, something akin to the city guard or a king's guard. Those who carry out the laws of the land. He can see how one might grow disillusioned with that sort of corruption. Where Blake served, if it's as large as he claims—then the ones in power undoubtedly wield their authority with little regard for commoners.

So retaliation is no surprise, either. Isn't that how it often is? An eternal cycle. The people rise. They crown a leader and root out his enemies. And a new power controls the villagers below.

The politics are not what catches his attention, though. It's what Blake says about a culling.

Geralt has only shared very little of himself—the majority of it unwillingly, when the shadowed birds descended. He thinks of their time in the mines—when he found him lost in the tunnels. Blake is less skittish now, but Geralt senses the turmoil lingers beneath the surface.

He retrieves a glass vial. "When I was a boy," he begins, adding a few oily drops to the powder, "a mob of humans descended on our home. To purge the Continent of our kind. I hid in the cellar with the other children. The bodies were endless."

He pours the viscous substance into another small bottle, adds the distilled liquid, and gives the vial a shake.

"The massacre was a hundred years ago. To this day, I dream of it." He glances up. "Just because a wound still pains you doesn't mean it isn't healing."
gynvael: (ml: 026)

[personal profile] gynvael 2024-03-26 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
His gaze matches Blake's amusement. He's not one for false reassurances. Pain doesn't go away. Once you hurt, it leaves a mark. Even decades later, you'll feel it. But you can carry on. You can still find a purpose for living. It isn't the end of everything.

Blake's hand lands on his arm. Geralt looks contemplative, but makes no further remark. Not even when Blake reaches for the gloves. They're well-used and well looked after; Geralt grants little attention to his appearance, but he takes care of his equipment. If one wondered what he bothered to spend his money on besides ale, one need only look at his swords and saddlebags. The gloves are a decent make. Would be a waste to throw them in a drawer.

The finished concoction goes into a cabinet. Geralt cocks an eyebrow. "And undo all that fucking scrubbing?"

He won't stop Blake if the man insists on leaving, but Geralt's invitations are not extended out of courtesy. It's a question of practicality. What's the point of bathing if you'll only run headlong back into a swirling gale of sand and grit?

Still, he recognizes that Blake is, perhaps, a little like a wandering stray. (A little like he was once.) Peering in for brief comforts before slipping away. He doesn't mind.
gynvael: (293)

[personal profile] gynvael 2024-03-27 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
His eyes remain on Blake for another moment. Then he begins to clean up the remnant of powders and empty bowls.

"Peace and quiet never stay long."

If not Blake, something else would chase it away. Truthfully, he's a little restless as it is; he dislikes being trapped inside for any length of time, and though the house is larger than the room they once had, it isn't anywhere near the size of Kaer Morhen.

In any event: "Watch the door when you leave. I don't need that damned thing escaping again."

He means the little leosylph, which he's already chased through the fucking storm once. One might think a singular experience would teach it a lesson, but apparently, Coram possesses the same amount of self-preservation as Jaskier after a perceived slight.