abraxaslogs | [ CLOSED ] hands like skeleton bones

Me and her got to a good place. [ Sure, it took months, the absence of Flagg, and an almost-murder to actually bring them together, but they have realized that they work better together than against each other. Seriously, saving lives together really helps forge a bond. Have beef with someone? Stab a mutual acquaintance and then work together to save them. Friendship solidified.

Though she's ostensibly examining herself, twisting her hair up in her fingers before pinning it up off her neck, her eyes flick up to his reflection instead, sharp and prepared to intervene if he seems to be in pain again, but he doesn't appear to be struggling. Pleased, she hoists herself onto the edge of the sink, watching him, feet dangling several inches off the floor. ]

It's not so bad a town. Just in a shitty kingdom, but like I said before, they leave us alone. Haven't even seen a guard once, just the local guys. And we've got magic. That's why we ain't left for the Free Cities yet. Nadine and me are workin' on gettin' better at it.

[ The noise he makes in response is intrigued, but he says nothing more of it. It's not his business. He likes Nadine and Julie both; simpler all around, if there's no longer any contention between them.

He's too busy undressing himself without undoing all of Nadine's handiwork to notice the shift of Julie's gaze. Slow-going as it is, he works it out on his own with the sort of practiced effectiveness of someone who's long learned how to manage when he's only partially functioning—though he gives a soft curse somewhere midway through before his trousers drop to the ground. ]

She said. You should come when you can. [ It isn't a bad idea. The Free Cities are not especially safer, but Nott is isolated. And regardless of what happens, it can't hold the strength of a nation. Or the advantage of being near...friends, he supposes Julie would say. Between Sam and Ciri and himself—there are more in the Cities who would lend a hand.

Speaking of. He needs to get there, as well. Cadens. He's yet to realize Julie's already spoken to Ciri and Jaskier, distracted by far too much and only barely feeling like he's started to get a grip on his mind again. Finally thinking ahead for what he needs to do. ]

What do you know of the mages here? [ Mm. Shit. He frowns at the tub, as if trying to decide how best to get in it without anything to hold onto. ] Are they willing to portal?

Thorne keeps pullin' this shit, it'll be sooner rather than later, but for now, we're gonna take Nott for what they have. [ And Nadine is convinced that Julie could be particularly powerful if she learns wild magic here and takes it elsewhere with them. Learning it somewhere that doesn't give a shit what they do certainly makes it much easier.

She makes a soft hm, leans her head to the side and rests her third hand on his elbow for support. And this fool thought he only needed a few hours to recover last night. Conquer the bathtub before trying to conquer a portal, Geralt. ]

Oh sure. They'll do just about anything for the right number of king's pieces. I mean, it's super shady, but they'll getcha there.

The three of you? [ Geralt can't recall too many who fled to Nott, who might have linked with Julie and Nadine, with the same interests. Bucky? Perhaps. That'd be the other person he'd have reached for, if Julie had not responded. Even if Sam's not been...no matter.

He grunts, sinking into the water with her invisible help. His fingers curl around the edge of the tub to steady himself the rest of the way. The water stings, though not as sharply as it might have earlier. He draws up one knee gingerly, scrubbing off the dried streaks of red. Unfortunate circumstances. He'd rather have a bath with company than one turned murky with his own blood. For awhile, he's quiet, distracted in a way he rarely is—but eventually, he glances up at Julie. ]

I need one back. If you can. [ He hates portals that aren't explicitly "shady." He's not looking forward to how this could turn out. ] I know you've done a lot already.

[ He thinks perhaps she will tell him again that it is just what she does. Because they're—friends. Which he gets, in a sense; he came to her for a reason and it isn't because he expected her to turn him away or toss him out the instant he awoke. But it's a lot to him, maybe, that he's found someone he can trust with that much in the first place. It's not something he has often. ]

Four, actually. We got one who ain't from our world, but she came here with us, and we just kinda adopted her, I guess. Her name's Susan Delgado, she's just down the hall.

[ And, much like Geralt was not asked if he wanted Julie and Nadine ~~(or really anyone else he's ever met)~~ involved in his life, they did not ask Susan if she wanted to be part of their group. She just is, by virtue of having been saved by them.

He acknowledges her help again and she sighs quietly before hopping back down from the sink and crossing the room. She hooks the leg of the stool with one foot and brings it to the side of the tub, sits down and gently starts to wash off the back of his shoulders. ]

Yeah. Might take me a day or two to find someone, but it shouldn't be too hard. We'll get you home.

Edited 2021-11-25 16:53 (UTC)

[ Four, but not counting Flagg. So he is gone. ] We've twice the people than our beds now in Cadens.

[ He can relate. Bringing people in without it ever being acknowledged. The mage girl never left; last time he came home, there was Alucard's necromancer (or is it Jaskier's necromancer by this point?) shucking desert scorpions with Ciri on the dining table, and Geralt had fallen into bed and didn't ask. He supposes they're all strays in this place, one way or another.

There's the faintest tension when she reaches for him, but it fades quickly enough. Returning brings its own set of problems. Maybe it's contrary, to hold no desire to get back to those closest to him, but the truth is he doesn't. He wants to retreat where no questions will come, where he can quietly work to bury it, alone, until it is no longer so sharp and bright. If it'd only been Thorne, if Yennefer had thrown him to the wolves, he'd know what to think. She hadn't. Not like that. It's a complicated thing, to feel betrayed by what she did when he'd have not wanted it any other way. When he knows he'd find it altogether unforgivable if she hadn't, if she'd risked Ciri's life in favour of him.

When Julie says a day or two, it almost seems to put him at ease. He'll take a day or two to breathe. Although, do they—? The realization comes incredibly late, but he's not been fully present. He rubs his temple. No amount of herbs in the world will rid him of this fucking headache. ] Do they know I'm here?

Maybe switch to hammocks. [ She's not sure if gaining people sounds better or worse than losing them. In just the group that was living in this tavern, two are gone, and Julie knows there's at least one more, who'd got here on his own, who's no longer around either.

There's a palpable loosening of his muscles when he relaxes, and she thinks that makes sense. There's an obligation when you're connected like that, a need to link it all together in the shared story. She certainly feels it with Lloyd and Nadine, both of whom she'd known less than six months before she came to Abraxas. It doesn't matter -- they are always entitled to deeper versions of anything that she needs to share. ]

They know. [ She says it lightly as she rinses the cloth, which she then uses at his hairline to start getting some of the dried blood out. ] Told 'em you're safe, not dead. Jaskier wanted to come here and help, like he ain't a month's travel away and over the border. Might wanna send him a message, when you feel up to it.

[ He snorts softly. Of course. Jaskier. It isn't Jaskier he's as concerned about, though; despite what he says, Jaskier, when it comes down to it, is capable of having a second thought where it truly matters and isn't near as rash as Ciri. Geralt may not have the years spent raising her in his memories, but he does know Yennefer. It's not hard to see the edges of Yennefer's temperament in the girl when it comes to what she is fiercely protective of. And regardless of how he may have struggled with accepting his place in Ciri's life, he does recognize he's important to her. Perhaps more than he's any right to be.

He tips his head so she can reach. He's effectively given in to all the fussing. Doesn't feel worth pretending at this point. He's blissfully ignorant of anything that's occurred in Cadens at the moment, which is for the best. ]

I sent him one. In the dungeons. [ Hard to trust himself for more at the time, and he still doesn't now. ] Tried stepping into the Horizon, but it didn't hold.

[ He'll reach out again when he's finally in Cadens. He's not certain he wants to attempt anything else while he's in Thorne's borders. ]

Yeah, maybe make your one message a little less cryptic next time you get kidnapped, 'cause they didn't seem to know what the hell you meant. Oh, and I did tell 'em that they're not allowed to be mad you didn't answer 'em.

[ They can tell him everything else; it's not worth putting more on his plate unless someone drops dead. She's already accepted that she has to play go-between until he leaves, lest everyone in Cadens go insane from stress, and that's enough responsibility for her tastes.

Between the cloth and her nails, she's able to get the most egregious chunks of filth taken care of fairly easily. There are bottles on a shelf near them, and she takes the one that holds the least offensive excuse for shampoo that she's been able to find in this shitty world. She would be willing to strangle someone for a bottle of dollar store men's 3-in-1, but the best she's been able to figure is some concoction of lye and rose water. It does lather, though, and only a few more specks of reddish brown come up, which is excellent. ] I warned 'em it would be a few days, but they're good now. They just made me promise you'd rest.

[ He frowns. His message was perfectly clear. It contained a single explicit instruction. Where's the confusion? (Beyond the utter dearth of detail or reassurance.) Besides— ] I wasn't expecting to make it out.

[ Never let it be said he lacks efficiency, last words included. The comment is made offhand, as though it's just something which happens now and again, these occasions where he's certain he's well and truly fucked. What's important is that he—isn't. It leaves a fresh set of problems on his hands, that he's sort of clawed his way this far and now hasn't got a clue what's waiting for him if he reaches the city gates as planned, or if the portal will even take him to the right place, but Geralt has long perfected the art of compartmentalizing. He will get the blood and dirt out of his hair. Everything else can wait.

Lye is all he knows, so he expects the unpleasant harshness when it trickles over the healing cuts. He ignores the burn, works the crusted blood out from under where his nails have torn. He wants to ask if Ciri sounded...all right. As if the answer isn't obvious. He knows she'll be upset he chose not to reach her directly. (It can wait.) ]

What amount of rest does a drink qualify for? [ Just asking. ]

Edited 2021-11-26 08:37 (UTC)

[ She just laughs softly. Frankly, the fact that he was able to send one out from the dungeons is interesting in and of itself, but it definitely was not a clear message. Besides, now he knows what he's going to get yelled at for once he's home.

Running her nails over his scalp, she works out the worst of the tangles, then dips her fingers in the water beside him to clean them off. With another chuckle, she traces the scar on his shoulder, scratches lightly. ]

We'll say it counts double. Rinse, I'll be right back. [ She dries her hands and stands, then walks out of the room. ]

[ Reaching up around is difficult, so he leaves Julie to his hair. He doesn't mind, exactly. She untangles it with far more delicacy than he would've on his own, if he'd have ever bothered in the first place. It's a small thing, but he's finally started to feel part of the living again by the time Julie steps out.

If fortune favours, he has a chance of actually getting himself back to Cadens without anything else going to shit. (Fortune rarely favours.)

He finishes rinsing. While she's gone for a spell, he takes a minute to put his face in his hands and close his eyes and just breathe. He considers draining the water or getting out of the tub, but those are distant thoughts. He thinks he understands that time Jaskier picked up a cushion and screamed into it. He stays that way for too long, probably, not quite listening to any footsteps how he normally would've. Only when he hears her at the doorway does he drop his hands, looking up. ]

[ When she comes back, it's with a pitcher and tankard, both filled with mead. One thing that Nott has going for it is a strong brewing culture, and the innkeeper's wife likes to keep things interesting when she brews -- the current offering on tap is blackberry. When Julie decided to ask for a job downstairs, it was half on the idea of not paying for good drinks.

In the doorway, she catches sight of him before he drops his hands, and she pauses for just a second. Then she can see his face again and she doesn't say anything, just crosses the room to hand over the flagon, set the jug on the floor next to the stool. ]

There you go. [ She sits on the edge of the tub, and when she tenderly cards her fingers through his hair again, it's not a gesture of grooming, but comfort. ] Hey. I know it's a lot, but for right now, you're okay. Don't worry about anything else.

[ The temptation to ignore the flagon in favour of the jug is extraordinarily high. He resists, if only by virtue of the fact that reaching for it requires effort. Her touch is almost startling. Something inside him coils tight before he exhales, and tries not to overthink. Anything.

For awhile, he's quiet. He does not, usually, care how close to death people see him. Not like that. If there was a time where he was fussed about his pride over simply getting back on his feet, it was too long ago to remember. But the unrestrained concern for his wellbeing he's found here threatens to overwhelm him in a way he can't explain.

He keeps it to himself, making a wry, thoughtful sound instead. ] Used to be I only needed to worry about getting back to my horse.

[ She takes her hand away with a sense of alarm at the way he stiffens, worried that she'll trigger a flashback or something. She doesn't actually know what happened to him at the castle, and she feels like she's walking on eggshells that she can't even see, trying to avoid further harm without knowing what could possibly cause it.

Ultimately, she stands, takes a step away, reasoning that she can't fuck things up if she keeps distance. He likes distance, despite the fact that they haven't bothered with much of it so far, but she knows that he does with others. She'd rather not be just someone else pushing and prying at him right now.

Fuck, why couldn't it just have been a booty call? Fucking Thorne.

Collecting various blood-stained cloths to put in the sink and soak, she lets out a bright noise, suddenly remembering one of the messages she had promised to pass on. ] Oh, I almost forgot. Roach is safe and being spoiled by Rinwell, according to Ciri and Jaskier.

[ She refrains from asking why one would name a horse Roach in the first place. ]

[ His head turns when she retreats, like he's sort of belatedly aware he keeps—shit. Showing too much of his hand. And really, he doesn't mean to push the brunt of it onto Julie. It's just that she's the one who's here and he trusts her and he finds his guard keeps slipping.

He sets the flagon down; finally clears the darkened, bloodied water out of the tub. He's spent more than enough time sitting in his own filth as it is.

Wait, Roach? Geralt does, in fact, seem to perk up at that. By now, he's gathered Ciri and Jaskier must've found something: his campsite, his gear, even scant evidence of his trail would say much. He'd left a good amount of blood in the sand. Ciri is a skilled tracker and he'd told her what he was hunting before he left. But he'd largely given up his horse as lost, either killed in the fight or fled far into the desert. ]

Didn't think she'd make it home. [ The fondness is unmistakable. For once, much of his ambivalence is absent. Facing people is complicated; the concept of returning to his mare waiting for him is not. It's what he could use right now. ]

[ It's not entirely his fault -- Julie is incredibly unused to being the person who helps instead of wrecking shit up further. It's easy enough to go through the physical steps, clean, heal, feed, but knowing how to actually handle it... well, frankly, she would be much more comfortable if she could just shoot at the problem. Is that an option, just inventing the shotgun and firing on the castle? Because that would be great.

His tone makes her smile, like it surprises her in some way that he cares about his specific horse. ~~Not enough to give her a decent name, but enough.~~ It doesn't, really; it was never that she thought he didn't care, just more that she assumed it was more of fond detachment. ]

Can't underestimate horses. Leave a horse somewhere and it'll get back home, as long as it stays alive.

[ Just wait, Julie, until you find out they're all named Roach. Every single one he's ever had.

Something in her smile leeches some of the tension out of his shoulders. It is, he thinks, true. That this Roach has a home. She never has before. Home was simply where he took her and set up camp. Except in the winters, he supposes.

He makes his way out of the tub by inches, settling on the stool near Julie. There's a vague attempt to dry himself off with a towel, though there's no helping some of the blood that will inevitably seep into it. ]

Nadine said she never saw a real horse before this world. [ Actually, Nadine said she'd never rode a real horse, but to Geralt, the two concepts are the same. If she hasn't ridden one, he presumes that means there were none around. So it's curious that Julie seems more familiar with horses, if they come from the same world. It's not a significant point, really. But Julie's right: he can't do anything about Jaskier or Ciri or Thorne. Not for the moment. May as well talk horses. ]

[ Horse names are free, Geralt. You can have as many of them as you want, you don't have to reuse the same one.

Satisfied that he's backed away from whatever mental edge he had been at, she approaches again, holding the last clean towel left in the room. It's fine, she'll just steal some of Nadine's while the pile of them that she's got in the sink dry out. There's still a certain wariness in her movements, but she's never exactly been one to let that stop her from doing things, so she stands behind him and dries his hair. ]

I'm sure she's seen a horse, but back where we're from, most people don't ride anymore. We have cars to get around instead, and most people don't live with enough land for horses, or really any animal that can't live inside with them. Most people live in cities, so they don't have space for pastures or stables, and they don't move around enough to keep a horse happy. But our country is a huge one, and she and I are from different places in it. She's from up northeast, where there's a lot of industry, factories and stuff, and there's not much land. I'm from Kansas, in the middle of the country. We have lots of farmland because we grow most of the food, and there ain't as many cities around. Not everyone there is a farmer, but everyone knows someone who is. My uncle and aunt, they had a little farm, only big enough for them to feed themselves, really. I used to stay with them as much as I could while my parents worked, and usually they put me to takin' care of the animals, 'cause that's easy for kids. That's where I learned to ride.

[ No one's ever accused him of creativity.

He settles a bit while she dries his hair, listening to an explanation that he doesn't fully understand. He only sort of vaguely grasps it from having seen a city not unlike what Julie is describing in the visions he shared with Sam so long ago it seems a lifetime past—but it's still new to him, the idea that a city would be so packed, so full, that it had no room for a few stables. Even the largest city in Redania has them.

Farms, on the other hand. That he's familiar with. ]

Sounds peaceful. [ Whether or not that's true, it does so to him. A small farm with a horse or two—yeah. It's not a life he's ever experienced, not really one he's imagined much. For the most part, he tries not to let his imagination wander towards places he will never go himself. Every now and again, though, he thinks...if he'd have liked it, a quieter if shorter life amongst some crops. Or would he have found it dull, yearning ironically for a chance to travel? ]

Few places on the Continent are short of farms. [ The land is not always fertile or worth tending, but people will try. ] But I learned to ride on the mountains.

[ She's been by, he knows, those mountains. Only one person that glittering collar could come from. He will not admit it, but the absurdity of the thing on a wild wolf does make him smile. ]

Peaceful's just a nicer word for boring. [ She's maybe a little disgusted by it, the idea of spending her whole life on the farm, had spent years trying to figure out how to get away from it. Peaceful isn't perfection; living in the quiet of the country doesn't mean escape from stress and unpleasantness. It just lacks the noise and resources of the city.

There's a small pause, and she sighs, gets a comb from the shelf. Her tone gains a thoughtfulness when she adds, ] But there was this one back meadow that no one really had time to take care of. And in the spring, April and May, the whole thing would be covered in wildflowers, mostly weeds. Daisy weeds, milkweed, dandelions, that kinda stuff. When I was outta school for spring break, I'd wake up and put everyone in the pasture, then take the horses out there and let 'em run. Ridley, that was my boy, he was a big ol' draft horse that someone worked too hard, sold him for a song when he couldn't pull weight anymore. My uncle, he had a real soft heart, wound up buyin' him just to keep him alive, and I got put in charge of gettin' his weight back up, makin' sure he recovered. Just basic stuff. He wound up livin' until... [ until Captain Trips killed most of the animals ] until things went bad, and he loved that field. Even if I wasn't ridin', he just wanted to lay out in the sun and eat clover, he'd bother me all day if I left him in the paddock instead. That was peaceful.

[ She hasn't exactly been paying attention to what she's doing with her hands while she talks, and she realizes abruptly that she's long finished combing out his hair. It's not something she usually thinks about, the actual parts of her life before the pandemic that she'd liked; it's almost always easier to keep those memories tucked away in locked boxes in the back of her mind. It's simpler to remember all the things and people she hated, that Trips let her slough off like dead skin in her journey to Vegas, because losing things you wanted to lose anyway doesn't hurt. But Ridley, the horses -- she'd always planned, in her mind, to have horses once she was away from Kansas, when she was rich and famous and had everything she wanted.

Careful to avoid the nasty welts marking his back, she drapes her arms over his shoulders, leans to one side to better see him. ] That castle, is that your home? It's beautiful. We don't have nothin' like that in America.

[ She treats that wolf no differently than she would treat a little yap-yap lapdog. People food and cuddles and belly rubs. It's not like she's never met a wolfdog before. They were very legal in Kansas. ]

[ As he tends to be, Geralt is quiet while she talks: not interrupting, not even commenting. It's a pleasant story, a pleasant recollection. He finds he likes it when people tell him of those. World is shit as it is. It always will be, he thinks, but there are moments and maybe they're made all the more significant in their rarity. As much as he would not describe his childhood, his life, as happy, the feeling wasn't altogether absent, either. There were pockets of gentler memories here and there. People. Perhaps it's good to know Julie has a few of the same. ]

Was he your first horse? [ He remembers his first horse with an especial fondness. He outlives all of them, eventually, a fact he's come to accept a long time ago, but he hasn't forgotten any of them. In some ways, it feels less as though he's left each one behind when he gives his next the same name. They're good, loyal companions. They make the endless roads less lonely.

When her arm settles around him, he turns to glance up at her. Hm. A wistful expression flickers over his face. ] We call it Kaer Morhen. I grew up with a handful of other boys and the old man to keep us all in line. I imagine he fantasized a hundred times of kicking us off the highest wall.

[ The fortress is marked with plenty of bloodstains and corpses, but it's home. It's where the doors will always open for him. It's the only place where he can be sure of that, where no matter what, he knows he won't be turned away or abandoned in the cold. Deep down, that's where he really wants to be right now. (Vesemir would know what to tell him.) ]

Edited 2021-12-02 21:25 (UTC)

He wasn't the horse I learned to ride on, but he was the first animal I ever had that was mine, really. Even before that, I never had any little pets like you get kids, hamsters and shit. Closest I ever had before that was a goldfish I won at the fair, and that thing died the same night. [ As goldfish kept in plastic bags tend to do. ] Ridley was mine though. Whenever I couldn't go to the farm for a week or so, then came back, he'd almost knock me over from nudgin' so hard, and he'd cry if I walked away from him before dinner time. My uncle would always say he could smell me on the wind, 'cause he'd paw up a mess before I could get out there.

[ She chuckles at the visual of a frustrated old witcher wrangling a bunch of little boys; she knows it's probably nothing like she's imagining, given what she's gleaned about their origins, but kids are kids everywhere, right? A group of them is enough to drive absolutely anyone insane, and she can hardly believe that giving them superpowers (her grasp of what constitutes "mutations" is tenuous at best) makes it any easier. ] If he wasn't completely off his rocker, then yeah. You ever tried to make a bunch of kids listen to you? You'd have better luck herdin' cats.

Kaer Morhen. [ The sounds are just the tiniest bit off in her accent, vowels too rounded, the rs just a touch too sharp, but at least she didn't read it first. Jaskier had been visibly perturbed by her initial assumption of how to pronounce his name. ] Does that mean somethin'?

[ Geralt knows not at all what a hamster is or why one would win fish as a pet rather than food. He tries to imagine a common river fish as an animal companion. Maybe it's not too far off from catching a frog and putting it in a crate. (Is the purpose to simply watch it swim? Are they decorative? Like a fancy pond?) ]

They say a horse is the best friend you'll have on the Path [ And that was true, wasn't it? For a good part of his life. But he's trying not to think of Jaskier or anyone else for the moment.

Children are indeed children everywhere. It's a wonder any of them sat still long enough to do their readings. Vesemir would probably claim that none of them listen to him to this day, a century later, and he'd be right. ]

Keep of the Elder Sea. Sea dried up centuries ago. Now it's stone and fossil.

[ As far as he knows, Kaer Morhen has always stood. He's not old enough to remember a time when it wasn't there. It's bigger, really, than the one Julie has visited—but he can only span so much of the Horizon. ]

The path? There's only one, in the whole country?

[ Look, Jaskier has already confirmed that the concept of zoos, of keeping animals just to have them, is a thing in their world too. Is it so hard to imagine people keeping fish for looking-at purposes? Giving them to dumb kids at the local fair as a prize for throwing a ball in a cup is a different story entirely, but just the idea of pet fish cannot be that unfathomable. The prettiest fish are all toxic anyway, so what else can be done with them?

Her brow furrows a little with thought as she considers what he says. She knows that whole oceans have dried on Earth before, but it was millions, if not billions, of years ago; now that the worry is the opposite, it seems almost unbelievable to live in a castle that witnessed such a thing. ] Y'know, back home, before the superflu hit... we thought it was gonna be the other way around. The seas were gonna overflow and wipe out billions of people, and the other disasters would take care of the rest. They said we had fifty years to fix things before it would be too late, mankind would be doomed.

Guess God didn't feel like waitin' it out.

[ CLOSED ] hands like skeleton bones

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