[ Geralt joins Alucard without sitting, hands planted on the table's surface. A small corded braid—a more common feature these days than they used to be—falls over his shoulder. ]

When I lost my memories, it was different. They weren't consumed by time. But... [ He pauses. The logic is difficult because he hasn't much of it. Geralt operates through instinct, always has, and explaining where and how his thoughts line up is not his strong suit. ] The recollections that've returned over the past week, they're things I let go of long ago.

[ Not exactly deliberately, but not exactly without choice, either. Kaer Morhen belonged to time and place he no longer looks back on. It no longer shapes him like it once had. He doesn't miss the stone halls or the tree that held the dead for decades. He has a warm cabin instead atop a snowy peak where his family gathers. The ghosts of his past do not haunt those walls. He prefers it that way.

So why would such a vivid memory of it flood his mind again? For what reason? ]