Who: yennefer + others When: july Where: nott + nocwich What: after the events of the coup and yennefer's escape to nott, she is making due in what she suspects will be her new normal. Warnings: will update if needed.
[ His skin tingles where her fingers glide over him. He's relaxed in a way he seldom is. ]
If you want to call it that. [ His answer is unhurried. He makes no move to retrieve it with any haste. Only when the position of his leg forces him to shift his weight regardless does he finally roll onto his other side and reach beneath the bed for a small leather pouch.
He lays back on the bed and places it between them. Ingredients, as she requested. They are portioned into small jars, vials, and tins—a collection of herbs and monster bits he's gathered throughout the month. There is, equally, a few jars not obtained by his hand but rather a friend. The handwriting labelling those are distinctly more feminine than the rest.
As she surmised: not the most sentimental of gifts. He might occasionally have his whimsy—little carvings here or there—but they never end up in Yennefer's hands as they did his other lovers, not even in their long dreamlike decades together. Perhaps it simply feels as though the depth between them goes beyond such gestures.
There were many letters, however. ]
Nadine Cross passed a few items along. [ Up until a few weeks ago, neither he nor Nadine realized the connection between them. He supposes that's no surprise when it comes to they three, private as they are. ]
Said she owed you one. [ His lips curl into a tease. ] I didn't know the great sorceress of Thorne herself was making friends.
[ neither of them are in any rush, and yennefer sees no reason to be. yennefer could be okay with spending the entire weekend in this room, if they choose to, even though she knows there are others she needs to see. people she needs to connect with. but she also...
she's on no real timeline. she is here for this, for this easy, calm, relaxed, time with geralt. so she doesn't push, doesn't ask again, just watches him with a small smile curling at her mouth.
but in time he does decide to move, and she sits up just a bit to watch as he reaches over to retrieve something from under the bed. it is only when the bag is set between them that yennefer sits up even further, pulling the bag into her lap as she gives geralt a curious look. it's only when she pulls it open and sees the jars does she let out a laugh - partially surprised, also partially not at all.
she pulls out a couple of the jars, looking through them with a sort of young, bubbly excitement. ingredients she hasn't seen in weeks, and some she hasn't seen at all. she pauses when she pulls out a jar with a label and clean, curled handwriting, and she turns to geralt with a questioning look just as he answers her. nadine cross. ]
I came across her in the Horizon, first. She was sitting in the midst of a garden, surrounded by flowers. [ yennefer continues looking through the bag, that lightness, that young excitement still somewhere on the surface.
part of her wonders if she needs to say it, or if the words are obvious without the air to guide them. she reminded me of triss. yennefer is quiet for a moment, thinking about that day, how she'd felt stepping into that overgrown place, and then she moves on. ]
She made some comment that no one in that barbaric desert of yours could teach her alchemy. [ it is a joke, a teasing curl to her own mouth, even if there is more than just a little truth to it. ] I've been giving her some lessons, a little more guidance than what she can find there.
[ she finishes searching through the bottles, closes the bag and sets it aside. she smiles at geralt again before leaning over and kissing him, gently, softly. it says something that he may not have given her anything overtly sentimental, and yet she is perhaps more pleased with what she did receive. ]
I should be impressed that you're making friends. [ a beat, and then a kind of softening. ] Though I'm not. Or rather- not surprised.
[ Propped on one elbow, Geralt watches her go through the pouch, the lilac of her eyes lit up bright. He can't help the genuine smile that takes over his face.
Yes. That does indeed sound like Nadine. He found her quite differently, haunted by the absence of her memories and the lost children she could not recall but felt were there. It was an unusual place for both of them to be. It's good, he thinks. To know that Nadine and Yennefer have become friends, of sorts.
Yen need not say it. He sees it, too. Her affinity for healing and teaching. It reminds him of Triss. He supposes that's why, ever since, he's felt something quietly protective over Nadine. ]
Here and there. [ Acquaintances, allies, connections. There are not many he would call friends out loud, but he can admit that his attachments have grown throughout his time here. It is the nature, maybe, of being in one place, with the same people, day in and out. He has not ever had that experience until this place. Until this foreign world that's steadily become more home than the Continent was.
A few quiet moments pass. His hand rests on hers, their fingers curling together. He glances at the window, weighing when he should tell Yennefer that he has another he needs to see to. He's reluctant to leave her, but...John is important, as well. He's made his promises. ]
[ it would make sense- for them both to draw their own, but similar, conclusions. would make sense that they see the similarities in her.
they’ve each settled into something they could almost call a life, something they might almost consider theirs, were it not their understanding of how quickly these things could be taken from them. yennefer, in just the last week or so, has had much of what she would have considered her life striped from under her very feet, if not for the people. if not for her people.
(she chooses not to think of those she’s lost- of how even triss had once been here, nevermind the countless others they’ve watched disappear. it doesn’t help her, in this moment, to acknowledge the things they’ve lost, whether shared or separate. )
but yennefer does snort, at his words. here and there. she knows the truth, the things he doesn’t say. the breadth of what she assumes is his family, his group, his people. she watches him grow quiet even now, studies the likes of his jaw, his neck. their hands are intertwined, but she decides that isn’t quite close enough, shifting so that her head is set against his shoulder, her body pressed to his side. she feels, slow and low and deep beneath the surface, the casual beat of his heart. ]
You’re thinking of them, now. [ her voice is just as casual, just as lulled into their easy companionship. her eyes remain on their hands, and she sounds… relaxed.
it feels like this might be a first for them - talking about this, even when they’ve known otherwise for years. the other people in their circles, those they’ve let in. perhaps it isn’t fair, that she’s making the reach, the magic and presence of her in his thoughts something he must be used to even after their time apart. ] Him.
[ Hm. There she goes, prodding away. He isn't bothered, and it saves him the effort of having to explain precisely who and what is on his mind. Or why. Him indeed. Now that Yen's magic has returned, now that they are no longer so distant, he's sure she has felt the many people that circle his thoughts despite his claims otherwise.
Lately, however, he's found fewer reasons to pretend.
He studies the curve of her lips. ] He was injured in the attack.
[ John is all right, from what Geralt gathers, so he isn't especially worried about that. It is, he thinks, a much simpler desire than worry or fear or anything so terrible: he just wants to see the man. Perhaps he's drawn to the way John bares his heart so unlike anyone else Geralt has been with. It tugs on something within him he had not known could exist with...well, anybody, beyond maybe Ciri. He's grown accustomed to a certain distance, playful or otherwise, that permeates most of his relationships, no matter how close he grows to someone.
And because he cannot read her thoughts in return: ] Have you met?
[ she has. geralt has always been someone with lists of attachments, most kept beyond an arms reach, but many making their way under his skin. she had known of some of them, when they were all in thorne, those years ago, and could assume based on their distanced interactions over time. geralt had many people that circle his thoughts, some yennefer knew and many she did not. still, she does not go searching like she could. only really goes for the one that takes up geralt's thoughts now.
he was injured in the attack and a few more details fall into place. a city guard, a quiet man, a kind of softness she can just barely make out. yennefer is certain she'd seen him around the castle, but to geralt's question, she shakes her head. ]
I did not see much of the city guards. I was more acquainted with the royal ones- particularly Ellya's dedicated ones. [ she shrugs - when she thinks back on her time in the castle, how fully integrated into it she had been and how far distanced she feels to it now, it's difficult to really think about who she had or hadn't known. she went into the city itself from time to time, but not nearly as often as she probably should have. or could have. and now, never will again.
but that's not what they're talking about, so she turns back to the conversation. ]
[ Mm. That would be consistent with how the kingdom operates, he supposes. As far as he knows, John has little to do with the royals and that appears to be how he preferred it. Patrolling the streets and being with his men. Geralt would not deny he'd feel better with John elsewhere, but he understands the need for the familiarity. And Thorne would be far more familiar to John than the Free Cities.
Still. He intends to speak to John about it. So that John can at least have a choice. ]
At the Masquerade. Amongst the Fey. I saw his true face a few weeks later. [ He curls a lock of dark hair around his finger. ] I think I made him nervous.
[ Not because he was a Witcher but because of something far more mundane.
His lips quirk. He gives her hair a gentle tug. ] Have I made you curious?
[ yennefer hums, remembering the masquerade. remember the freedom the masks had given them all, but particularly how much she'd felt it. it had been a good night, all things considered, though the memory of others who she'd attended the event with is suddenly heavier in her chest than it was a moment ago.
I think I made him nervous geralt says, and yennefer's lips turn up, thinking she perhaps knows what it is geralt is referring to. at the tug, yennefer looks up at him, sees the quirk of his own mouth. it is warm, in this room. warm curled up against his side on this threadbare bed.
she sets a hand on his chest, taps with one finger over his heart. ]
I'm always curious as to who makes it in here. [ she is teasing, though only partially. ] And we don't generally have many opportunities to talk about them.
[ It had been a good night. One that fell apart not long after in the hunting woods but perhaps that was only to be expected. They've never been spectacular at keeping things good. This time, it may be different. Geralt should like to think so. It feels different, and it is in part the conversation they are having.
He has seldom spoken to Yennefer about the other parts of his life. She hasn't, either. They've stayed so separate from one another.
He smiles. He wants to wave away her implication, but he doesn't. Instead, he says: ] Then shall I talk about you next?
[ He doesn't wait for her to answer. ]
He's a good man. [ His lips twist wryly. ] A little too good.
[ He does not mean for him; those are not the types of thoughts that Geralt has. He means too good for the world they live in. For the circumstances they find themselves in. ]
[ most of their good nights did no last, just as most of their safe days ended. yennefer had gotten used to those changes, those shifts in their tides. something about this feels different, but she also isn't quite sure yet if it is something she can depend on.
for now - she knows that they have this night. that she has him, in this night. for however long it will last.
he smiles, and she does in turn, the feeling warm and full in her chest. ] You can, if you'd like. I won't stop you.
[ a good man. yennefer...doesn't snort, exactly, but there is something knowing in the sound she makes. a little too good. the two of them have lived too much life and swam through too much shit to forget where too good of people generally end up.
still, there is a kind of pause in him when he says that, and yennefer knows what he doesn't say. ]
[ Frankly, he had not asked nor wondered, which is perhaps a fact Yennefer will not find unusual for Geralt. He seldom wastes his time digging for what he deems frivolous information and for him, it had never made any difference whether John was in Thorne for a month or a year when they met.
Though he does know John was not there for the abductions. (For which he is thankful.) He also knows he first saw John in the Feywilds. That places his arrival somewhere mid-spring of the year before. ]
I'm not sure you'd like him, [ he muses, a playful edge to his tone. ] He might be too courteous for your tastes. Not nearly coarse enough.
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no subject
If you want to call it that. [ His answer is unhurried. He makes no move to retrieve it with any haste. Only when the position of his leg forces him to shift his weight regardless does he finally roll onto his other side and reach beneath the bed for a small leather pouch.
He lays back on the bed and places it between them. Ingredients, as she requested. They are portioned into small jars, vials, and tins—a collection of herbs and monster bits he's gathered throughout the month. There is, equally, a few jars not obtained by his hand but rather a friend. The handwriting labelling those are distinctly more feminine than the rest.
As she surmised: not the most sentimental of gifts. He might occasionally have his whimsy—little carvings here or there—but they never end up in Yennefer's hands as they did his other lovers, not even in their long dreamlike decades together. Perhaps it simply feels as though the depth between them goes beyond such gestures.
There were many letters, however. ]
Nadine Cross passed a few items along. [ Up until a few weeks ago, neither he nor Nadine realized the connection between them. He supposes that's no surprise when it comes to they three, private as they are. ]
Said she owed you one. [ His lips curl into a tease. ] I didn't know the great sorceress of Thorne herself was making friends.
no subject
she's on no real timeline. she is here for this, for this easy, calm, relaxed, time with geralt. so she doesn't push, doesn't ask again, just watches him with a small smile curling at her mouth.
but in time he does decide to move, and she sits up just a bit to watch as he reaches over to retrieve something from under the bed. it is only when the bag is set between them that yennefer sits up even further, pulling the bag into her lap as she gives geralt a curious look. it's only when she pulls it open and sees the jars does she let out a laugh - partially surprised, also partially not at all.
she pulls out a couple of the jars, looking through them with a sort of young, bubbly excitement. ingredients she hasn't seen in weeks, and some she hasn't seen at all. she pauses when she pulls out a jar with a label and clean, curled handwriting, and she turns to geralt with a questioning look just as he answers her. nadine cross. ]
I came across her in the Horizon, first. She was sitting in the midst of a garden, surrounded by flowers. [ yennefer continues looking through the bag, that lightness, that young excitement still somewhere on the surface.
part of her wonders if she needs to say it, or if the words are obvious without the air to guide them. she reminded me of triss. yennefer is quiet for a moment, thinking about that day, how she'd felt stepping into that overgrown place, and then she moves on. ]
She made some comment that no one in that barbaric desert of yours could teach her alchemy. [ it is a joke, a teasing curl to her own mouth, even if there is more than just a little truth to it. ] I've been giving her some lessons, a little more guidance than what she can find there.
[ she finishes searching through the bottles, closes the bag and sets it aside. she smiles at geralt again before leaning over and kissing him, gently, softly. it says something that he may not have given her anything overtly sentimental, and yet she is perhaps more pleased with what she did receive. ]
I should be impressed that you're making friends. [ a beat, and then a kind of softening. ] Though I'm not. Or rather- not surprised.
no subject
Yes. That does indeed sound like Nadine. He found her quite differently, haunted by the absence of her memories and the lost children she could not recall but felt were there. It was an unusual place for both of them to be. It's good, he thinks. To know that Nadine and Yennefer have become friends, of sorts.
Yen need not say it. He sees it, too. Her affinity for healing and teaching. It reminds him of Triss. He supposes that's why, ever since, he's felt something quietly protective over Nadine. ]
Here and there. [ Acquaintances, allies, connections. There are not many he would call friends out loud, but he can admit that his attachments have grown throughout his time here. It is the nature, maybe, of being in one place, with the same people, day in and out. He has not ever had that experience until this place. Until this foreign world that's steadily become more home than the Continent was.
A few quiet moments pass. His hand rests on hers, their fingers curling together. He glances at the window, weighing when he should tell Yennefer that he has another he needs to see to. He's reluctant to leave her, but...John is important, as well. He's made his promises. ]
no subject
they’ve each settled into something they could almost call a life, something they might almost consider theirs, were it not their understanding of how quickly these things could be taken from them. yennefer, in just the last week or so, has had much of what she would have considered her life striped from under her very feet, if not for the people. if not for her people.
(she chooses not to think of those she’s lost- of how even triss had once been here, nevermind the countless others they’ve watched disappear. it doesn’t help her, in this moment, to acknowledge the things they’ve lost, whether shared or separate. )
but yennefer does snort, at his words. here and there. she knows the truth, the things he doesn’t say. the breadth of what she assumes is his family, his group, his people. she watches him grow quiet even now, studies the likes of his jaw, his neck. their hands are intertwined, but she decides that isn’t quite close enough, shifting so that her head is set against his shoulder, her body pressed to his side. she feels, slow and low and deep beneath the surface, the casual beat of his heart. ]
You’re thinking of them, now. [ her voice is just as casual, just as lulled into their easy companionship. her eyes remain on their hands, and she sounds… relaxed.
it feels like this might be a first for them - talking about this, even when they’ve known otherwise for years. the other people in their circles, those they’ve let in. perhaps it isn’t fair, that she’s making the reach, the magic and presence of her in his thoughts something he must be used to even after their time apart. ] Him.
no subject
Lately, however, he's found fewer reasons to pretend.
He studies the curve of her lips. ] He was injured in the attack.
[ John is all right, from what Geralt gathers, so he isn't especially worried about that. It is, he thinks, a much simpler desire than worry or fear or anything so terrible: he just wants to see the man. Perhaps he's drawn to the way John bares his heart so unlike anyone else Geralt has been with. It tugs on something within him he had not known could exist with...well, anybody, beyond maybe Ciri. He's grown accustomed to a certain distance, playful or otherwise, that permeates most of his relationships, no matter how close he grows to someone.
And because he cannot read her thoughts in return: ] Have you met?
no subject
he was injured in the attack and a few more details fall into place. a city guard, a quiet man, a kind of softness she can just barely make out. yennefer is certain she'd seen him around the castle, but to geralt's question, she shakes her head. ]
I did not see much of the city guards. I was more acquainted with the royal ones- particularly Ellya's dedicated ones. [ she shrugs - when she thinks back on her time in the castle, how fully integrated into it she had been and how far distanced she feels to it now, it's difficult to really think about who she had or hadn't known. she went into the city itself from time to time, but not nearly as often as she probably should have. or could have. and now, never will again.
but that's not what they're talking about, so she turns back to the conversation. ]
Where did you meet him?
no subject
Still. He intends to speak to John about it. So that John can at least have a choice. ]
At the Masquerade. Amongst the Fey. I saw his true face a few weeks later. [ He curls a lock of dark hair around his finger. ] I think I made him nervous.
[ Not because he was a Witcher but because of something far more mundane.
His lips quirk. He gives her hair a gentle tug. ] Have I made you curious?
no subject
I think I made him nervous geralt says, and yennefer's lips turn up, thinking she perhaps knows what it is geralt is referring to. at the tug, yennefer looks up at him, sees the quirk of his own mouth. it is warm, in this room. warm curled up against his side on this threadbare bed.
she sets a hand on his chest, taps with one finger over his heart. ]
I'm always curious as to who makes it in here. [ she is teasing, though only partially. ] And we don't generally have many opportunities to talk about them.
no subject
He has seldom spoken to Yennefer about the other parts of his life. She hasn't, either. They've stayed so separate from one another.
He smiles. He wants to wave away her implication, but he doesn't. Instead, he says: ] Then shall I talk about you next?
[ He doesn't wait for her to answer. ]
He's a good man. [ His lips twist wryly. ] A little too good.
[ He does not mean for him; those are not the types of thoughts that Geralt has. He means too good for the world they live in. For the circumstances they find themselves in. ]
no subject
for now - she knows that they have this night. that she has him, in this night. for however long it will last.
he smiles, and she does in turn, the feeling warm and full in her chest. ] You can, if you'd like. I won't stop you.
[ a good man. yennefer...doesn't snort, exactly, but there is something knowing in the sound she makes. a little too good. the two of them have lived too much life and swam through too much shit to forget where too good of people generally end up.
still, there is a kind of pause in him when he says that, and yennefer knows what he doesn't say. ]
How long has he been in the castle?
no subject
[ Frankly, he had not asked nor wondered, which is perhaps a fact Yennefer will not find unusual for Geralt. He seldom wastes his time digging for what he deems frivolous information and for him, it had never made any difference whether John was in Thorne for a month or a year when they met.
Though he does know John was not there for the abductions. (For which he is thankful.) He also knows he first saw John in the Feywilds. That places his arrival somewhere mid-spring of the year before. ]
I'm not sure you'd like him, [ he muses, a playful edge to his tone. ] He might be too courteous for your tastes. Not nearly coarse enough.