abraxaslogs | [ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?

[ That's a fine place for the bar to be. It's really all he gives a damn about, too, and he's learning to draw more on the parts of this plane that can be bent and shaped.

Her teeth do leave an imprint, though. He grips her in return, just as hard, and either he will leave marks if she wants them or he will not if she doesn't. She hangs onto him with a sort of unrestrained intensity he's come to associate with her, and he rides it out with her. Curves over her as she catches her breath until a fire bursts along his spine and right through him. He shudders. His heart stutters in the spaces between its missing beats.

He rests his forehead in the crook of her shoulder, breathing. Lets her hand stay where it is as he leans into her palm a little. ]

[ There are already bruises forming, she can feel them. On her hips, her thighs, her neck from his teeth. It doesn't occur to her to wipe them away, not even subconsciously, because she has never been the sort of woman to care. Not before Abraxas and certainly not now. Her legs loosen around him and she stops biting him with a kiss to the marks she left behind.

With a deep sigh, she tilts her head to his, closes her eyes as she waits for her heart to slow back down. Idly, she combs her fingers through his hair, runs her fingers over the nape of his neck, then speaks in a thick voice. ]

Better?

[ Geralt waits for it, too, as he listens to her heart. His own steadies out quicker—almost unnaturally so—but he isn't hurried when he finally eases off of her and lays down beside her instead on his side. Is it still a couch or a bed? Both? He can't tell anymore, but there's room as needed, which is all that matters.

His fingers rest on her hip briefly, then her stomach. The question feels loaded, complicated, even if he doesn't think she means it to be, but he answers simply as he often does. There's a faintest curve to the edge of his lips. ] Always.

[ Better. Yeah. It tends to be, with her, and though he's been fond of her early on, it's grown into something more solid than that since. There's a part of him that will forever remain uncertain of whose domain will flicker out of existence next in this place—there's some reassurance, each time he sees that hers is still standing, flashy as ever. Or when he finds his wolf covered in some shimmery decoration or another. ]

[ Yeah, she's almost positive that the couch was not quite this wide before, but it's fine. It's not like the room is cramped. She had a dinosaur in here a little while ago.

Rolling onto her side to face him, she props her head in her hand, elbow pressed into the velvet. She reaches up with the other, runs her thumb over his cheek. Her gaze is more obviously dubious than it might ordinarily be; she knows that something is not right, is occupying him, but she's not going to push him to talk about it. Mostly she just doesn't like it when her efforts are in vain.

Her eyes soften after a moment, and she moves her hand to put her palm flat on his chest. ] How do you get enough oxygen with a heartbeat that slow?

[ She doesn't ask, so he doesn't explain. It isn't anything to do with her. He's always got something on his mind, even at his most relaxed. Feels like that never ends. But for the moment, he can set it aside easier and bring his attention here, to this too-plush couch and her hand on his chest.

He shifts slightly. She means his breathing, he thinks. ] I need less of it. [ That's what he gathers, at least. He can scale higher altitudes where the air is thin, remain underwater a little longer than most. ] Or so I presume. Never was an exact science, our mutations.

[ Some things remain consistent between the Witchers; others do not. They do all emerge with some kind of mark on them, though. His just happen to be especially prominent, for several reasons. ]

[ It actually does not occur to her that he may not know the word oxygen, let alone the fact that it's carried in the bloodstream. It's very difficult to gauge what knowledge people from another time and world have. Explain cell phones? No problem. Explain basic building blocks of existence to someone who has never even heard of them? Not as easy. ]

Mm, who needs exact science when you're messin' with DNA? [ Her voice is drier than the Sahara. The more she learns about Witchers, the less she thinks of everyone in that world except the Witchers themselves.

With a sigh, she closes her eyes and turns back onto her back, though she twists her neck to still be able to converse. ] Oh, I sold that horse. Never woulda thought I'd somehow end up with three fuckin' horses at once.

Is that what you call it? Our genetics?

[ That's the only thing he can conclude, by her use of that term. He tucks an arm behind his head; if he still has any remnants of his injuries, he seems to no longer let it bother him.

Oh. The horse. He'd hoped she'd find a use for the animal, either to ride it or sell it. Makes sense to sell it, he supposes. They're not exactly simple to stable and truthfully, he's just been fortunate Rinwell's grown so eager to look after Roach in his stead while he was limping about. ]

Enough for some of the cost of a portal?

[ He knows Julie's been saving up for a trip of her own, between the three of them, that she'd ended up handing him most of it, if not all of it, instead. She hadn't even hesitated. ]

DNA is what makes your genes. Fuck, I barely remember biology class, but I think the way my textbook said it was... that DNA is the alphabet of your body, and genes are the words arranged to make the story of you. [ That sounds stupid, but she can't tell if it's because it's wrong (entirely possible, if not probable), or because it's a trite, catchy sentence designed to help teenagers pass science exams. At least she thinks it gets the idea across. ] I'm sure there's someone around here who knows way better'n me. Anyway, the idea of messin' with DNA is a big fight in my world. It's too close to playin' god. No good ever comes from playin' god. Present company excluded.

[ Really, she would have kept Roach Two if not for the fact that she had already had stumbled into ownership of multiple other horses first. She'd been meaning to sell off the mare that carried Lloyd and Nadine to Nott anyway, and it was actually easier to sell the pair of them than it would have been to sell just the one. ] Between Pearl and Roach Two, I made back about half. But I can't leave until I... I have to get better at magic. Nott's the only place that we know of where this kind is popular. It'll be too hard to get help in Cadens.

[ She doesn't quite know why she's so determined to learn it, except that Nadine is so sure she can do it. Very few people in Julie's life have ever believed that she had the capability to do something skilled like that. ]

[ Amusement flickers over his face. He's certain there is, but her explanation is sufficient in concept. Not like he's especially studied alterations in depth, either. There's a thoughtful sound at that. ]

We weren't created out of hubris. [ That's not it, not the way she says it. Playing god as though the people who made them were seeking some sort of ascension in their work. ] They were afraid.

[ No good does come of it either way. The reasons don't change what happened, to him or any of them; it doesn't make it better—but the roots of fear are deep in the ways they were birthed and shaped. He's always believed the mages were afraid of making the Witchers, too, of what it might mean, of what they could unleash. It's only that they feared the monsters more. And so here they all are. Monsters and Witchers alike, dying out. Perhaps exactly as they wanted.

He turns to look at her. She's only recently spoken about this new magic she's learning, but he can tell it's important to her. He understands. What it is to find a real reason to keep moving forward. ] Then when I see you, I'll be expecting a powerful mage.

Most decisions people make are 'cause they're afraid, but it don't mean there's not hubris there too. If it was all fear, they'd treat y'all better. They made you to be their heroes, but from what I understand, they seem to have forgotten that.

[ It doesn't make sense to her, at all. If his world really does track as closely to her world's past as she believes, then they no doubt have a surplus of stories about heroic knights and warriors. King Arthur winning battles doesn't sound like much compared to fighting literal monsters. The mages wanted David to defeat Goliath, so why be upset at David in the aftermath? Witchers appear to do exactly what they were designed to do, and unless there's some shit that she's really misunderstanding, they also don't sound like they've lost their humanity. Geralt reasons and converses and, from what she can tell, isn't a cannibal, so what's to be afraid of?

She laughs and rolls her eyes, like she can't picture herself as a proper mage. Granted, her entire understanding of what a mage even is is based on the ones in Abraxas, or else fairytales of Merlin. They all seem so polished and skilled, and all she wants to be able to do is make fire without exploding shit. ] I'm workin' on just not blowin' shit up right now. The best I got so far are these little fireballs, but they mostly fizzle out or explode in the air pretty quick.

[ For a moment, he's quiet. He knows what she's saying. It's more... ]

They made us to be their weapons. [ And then they become something more, something impossible to control. They became a people of their own. It's a complicated circumstance. He has little care for the humans that stormed the keep, but he's under no illusion his own kind have the high ground to stand upon, either. No one in any world does. ] And I'd hate to be lauded as a hero.

[ Doesn't quite suit him. Songs aside. In truth, he doesn't even much give a shit whether the world likes him or not. Not anymore. A rare handful do, for whatever reasons, and he's learned for that to be enough. He just wants to do what he does and not be bothered the rest of the time. Go home in the winters; ride out in the spring. Maybe find an old friend now and again.

He hums, a curl to his lips. Sounds about right for magic, when one starts. Or for anything new. ] When I was a boy, I destroyed many things learning. Part of the process.

[ It confuses her that they ever thought there was another outcome. They didn't build a weapon from scratch, they jerry-rigged one out of magic and children. How can it be surprising when children grow up to have their own thoughts and opinions? And also basically superhuman abilities. Of course it backfired, but she thinks that it probably wouldn't have gone so badly if everyone had just been kind to the Witchers all along.

She chuckles and rolls into the space next to him, rests her head on his shoulder. If he doesn't want to be thought of as a hero, then he really has to make Jaskier stop writing it. She's read his lyrics in her karaoke machine. ] Don't worry, nobody who actually talks to you would think that for long anyway. Too many grunts and growls.

[ The noise she makes is interested, having never particularly associated him with magic. At least not performing magic, although retrospectively, she supposes that she's mostly assumed the magic of his world to be more scientific than she's used to thinking of. Sparks and light versus simmering cauldrons. Though she knows logically that they're two branches of the same tree, to someone from a world where magic is entirely imaginary (with some very specific exceptions that didn't occur until literally the end of the world), they feel different. The whole subject makes her feel very stupid, how much everyone else seems to know that she just doesn't.

Draping her arm over his chest, she looks up at the side of his face curiously. ] What kind of magic can you do? I never heard you really mention it.

[ Something of a laugh escapes him in a huff. She isn't wrong. ] Are you saying I lack the charm?

[ Wouldn't be the first time he's been told such. He stretches his arm out so she can pillow her head on him, his hand dropping back down to rest in her hair afterwards. He studies her ceiling, the steady lights that illuminate the room, compared to the flickering flames he's used to. Most of him has relaxed some, compared to when he first showed up at her door. ]

We call them Witcher Signs. Simplified spells. [ The most simplified that a spell can be, with a minimal use of power. And not especially flashy. When he lifts his free hand to demonstrate, all she will sense is a light hum of magic and a faint distortion in the air above them. A barrier. To a proper mage, it likely only just barely passes as a real spell. It's more than suited for someone like him, though. ] We were tutored under priestesses. I collapsed a section of the temple once.

[ She laughs, her voice still teasing. ] Charm needs a higher tolerance for people's bullshit than you got. That's why I was surprised when you told me anyone bothers draggin' you to royal parties. No one has more bullshit than rich, powerful people.

[ Which she doesn't blame him at all for. The more charming you let yourself be, the more people will want to take up your time and energy. It's much more efficient to save up any charm one might have for situations that are actually beneficial.

She watches the space above them when he lifts his hand, and the air shimmers like heat on asphalt. It might be simple and unimpressive to him, but she's never seen anyone just do something like that, and her eyes widen. ] Is magic like, a religious thing for y'all? If priestesses teach it?

If it tempers your disbelief, I wasn't invited for my conversing.

[ Actually, he was specifically told to keep his mouth shut that one time, which much to Jaskier's chagrin he didn't. For once. And that—

It's in the past. Mostly. Other than the fact that Ciri is very much here and with him and. (His.)

He turns to see the spark of interest in her eyes. It must be something else, to not know this power existed for much of your life. And then to realize it could be yours on top of that. ]

Magic's what you choose to make of it. Some use it in service of their faith. [ Others wield it strictly for their own gain. Then there are those like him, where it's a matter of practicality more than anything. ] The temple's one of the few willing to take in a Witcher.

[ If he had to call any other place another home of sorts, it would be the temple in Ellandor. He returns rarely, but he knows he's always welcome there when he does. He can't say that about too many places. ]

Oh, so they just wanted you there to look pretty, huh? [ With a chuckle, she slings her leg over him and then rises to sit astride him with a thoughtful expression.

Magic is what you make of it. That sounds so boundless that she can barely wrap her mind around it. It almost makes her sad, that the first thought she has is that it's probably a good thing her world didn't have access to it; they'd managed to destroy society, the environment, the economy, basically every aspect of existence without magic. She can't imagine how much shittier everything would have been if magic was on the table too.

She sighs. Sometimes the enormity of the universe that she'd never known before she got here makes her head hurt. ] What is it a temple to?

[ A small smile lifts his lips. ] That's all I'm good for.

[ His hand rests on her hips as she settles atop. He thinks she might've liked being at a banquet. Not for the politics, but for the novelty of it. Kings and queens. The dancing. (The inevitable brawl that breaks out if the Skelligers are invited.) Things that are apparently near obsolete in her world, from what he can tell.

He studies her as her expression turns contemplative. Though he doesn't ask, there's a bit of a question in his gaze. She's got something on her mind, even if she isn't saying it. But then, don't they all? The pockets of reprieve only do so much. The world still exists outside.

When she speaks, his thoughts are drawn back. He blinks. ] The one I was sent to? Melitele, they call her. Fertility, birth. The usual. [ Julie may or may not have heard the name before in passing; Jaskier has occasionally sworn upon the goddess' tits. ] The temple is a place of healing, but also of learning. [ He considers. ] Perhaps something similar exists in Nott.

[ Not necessarily a religious order, but just a place. One that might be willing to take on any student so long as they had the desire to learn. Even the most talented of mages needed a guiding hand from someone to fully grasp their potential. ]

Not all. There's one or two other things.

[ Unfortunately, banquets didn't even become obsolete -- they just lost all of the actual meaning. Anyone who has ever sat through a shitty high school sports banquet can confirm. A real banquet sounds like fun, although it's entirely possible that she only thinks that because she pictures Medieval Times (But Real). Jousting and giant turkey legs for everyone! But it can go on record that she would absolutely be down to party with Skelligers.

She catches his look and smiles with maybe a touch of bittersweetness around the edges. ] It's just kind of funny. My world didn't have magic, but they were always obsessed with the idea of it. It was in all our stories, our shows, we even had people we called magicians, even though they couldn't really do anything. Just sleight of hand and party tricks. But we never really had magic, at least not enough for us to know about. Thing is, we were probably better off for not havin' it. We just... ruined everythin', for power and money that only ever went to a few people anyway. The global warming I told you about? They knew for years and years what they were doin'. I mean, decades before I was even born, they knew and they lied, because there was money on the line. By the time Captain Trips hit, it'd been ignored so long that there was no goin' back. Same with pretty much everythin'. If humans could touch it, they'd fuck it up permanently. It's better we never had it. For every person it coulda helped, ten others would have used it to wreck things for a few dollars. We never would have made it past Babylon. I guess it just sucks realizin' that other worlds have real monsters or shit like that, and you somehow still come from the most evil one.

[ Which is possibly hyperbolic, given that she doesn't know every world, but it's true that nearly every single person she's told her story to immediately seems to pity her for being from that version of the world. And she's someone who survived it, kind of. But people from worlds with supervillains and aliens and celestial beings fucking with them, they feel sorry for her.

It's much easier to try and forget the polluted, capitalist hellscape that she'd thought was the zenith of human achievement for so long. Instead, she listens to him talk about the goddess, which rings a bell for her. ] She sounds like Hera. Hera was the queen of the Greek gods, thousands of years ago. Married to Zeus, and she was goddess of married women, mothers and childbirth. [ Does Julie only know this because of a Disney movie? Shut up, is the answer. ]

But they did a real good job wipin' out the idea of women bein' worth worshipping, at least in my part of the world. One God, always a man, who only had one son. The most important woman in the whole Bible was really only important because she was a virgin. But it's hard to treat all women like shit for a couple millennia if they have goddesses to look up to.

[ He acknowledges that faintly, whether it's true or not. The most evil, he means. What constitutes? Is it a world that cares so little for anything except power and riches that it will eat itself alive or one so afraid of each other and hungry to conquer that it will crush all manner of people under its feet, even the children, until there are only ashes? The only thing humans have done with magic on the Continent is wield it to control kingdoms and weaponize monsters and men. In the end, it doesn't matter. A wound is a wound. If her world is as scarred as it is, he imagines it becomes hard to see anything else but that. ]

Every monster is real. Whether it bears claws or not. [ Hers simply take a different form, it seems. ] All you can do is keep from becoming one, too.

[ He shifts his hand, laying it on her leg while he tucks the under behind his head. He hasn't any idea what she's referring to when she talks of her singular god, but he grasps what she means to say. It's funny. How uniform her world sounds sometimes, despite how vast it apparently is. Melitele holds one of the largest followings and it's nowhere near enough to influence how people at large behave. All the temples do is serve as a place of respite while people continue to war and kill around them.

Though part of him longs for the peace of the temple, in truth. Perhaps it's where he might've went, if Kaer Morhen was not an option, were he back in his world. But he can't, so he's here instead conversing of goddesses and human nature. And while it isn't the same sort of calm, it does take his mind off things. He's detached enough from the concept of it. Faith, that is. At least in this sense. ]

The Continent's left matters of faith largely alone for now. They've enough horseshit to fight over as it is.

[ Then again, with Nilfgaard marching—who knows what they mean to spread, if anything? Their soldiers certainly believe in something they deem greater. Hard to find that line, between faith and blindness. ]

[ Just dumps a stack of history books in front of him. Two thousand years of genocide? Sorry, Continent, but that's some junior leagues shit. Earth has been on its bullshit since the Stone Age. Just wiping out groups of "the other" for funsies ever since humans took their first breaths.

In fairness, the world was never as inflexible as she makes it sound. It's simply impossible to really speak for nearly eight billion people. But where she spent her life was extremely homogenous, poisonously so, and it was reflective of large swaths of a large portion of the world, for sure. And she wasn't someone who fit that mold -- everything about her stuck out like a pink rose in a field of baby's breath. She was too loud, too wild, too colorful, and had spent most of her life feeling smothered.

The only parts of her old life that she misses were a handful of months at the very end. Well, that and the internet. The internet was pretty great.

She sighs deeply, as if to dismiss the entire matter from her brain, because honestly, what does it matter? She can never go back and she doesn't really want to, anyway. She just wants to get better at magic (and maybe help invent TV). Making a noise that's most akin to a purr, she gently moves his hand from her thigh, puts it between her legs instead, then leans over him. She kisses him and nips at his lower lip. ] And what if I want to be just a little bit of a monster?

[ Quietly, he's started to question the validity of going back, too, for entirely different reasons. He's never said it out loud, not wanting to worry Ciri yet, but by Ciri's own admission, the Singularity has been the first object she's come across capable of shielding her from the Wild Hunt. And he thinks—he already knows what he's willing to do. He just doesn't know if she will consider that too high a price for him to pay. It isn't, of course. Not for him.

He looks up at Julie, as willing as she is to let the matter rest. At the moment, the only thing he needs to know is what the people on this world are capable of. And from what he's seen, it isn't a hell of a lot different than anywhere else. The same thirst for power, the same fears that consume. So at least that much is predictable.

She guides his hand, and he slides it a bit further upwards as they kiss. A vague sound of amusement comes out of him. ]

Depends. How's your bite?

[ Unfortunately, it all seems very out of their hands, at least for now. No choice in coming, no choice in leaving, left to the whims of the Singularity. Julie figures that there will eventually be an answer, that someone will work out how to appease it or communicate with it, but until then, she just tries to avoid disturbing it. What that even means, she's not sure, but she's not willing to tempt fate by taking a stand in the fight over it.

She chuckles and puts her hand to his cheek, drags her teeth over his neck on the opposite side. ] Sharp. Just a lil' bit venomous. Like a garter snake.

[ He tilts his head back, more than content to let her nip along his throat. His other hand rests on her waist—glides down, down again.

Fitting description for her, he thinks. Sharp and a little venomous. From what he's learned. He's never asked, much, what her past holds beyond what she's chosen to share. Mostly, he's let the hints and pieces unfold where they will. It's less he doesn't want to know; more he simply doesn't feel the need to push. Sharing of that sort is not what they come together to do, although—

Despite that, he's still told her more than most about himself. ]

Only a little? [ He inches his hand between her legs higher, until his fingers find the warmth he's seeking. It's a lazy, teasing movement. ] Show me.

[ Honestly, it just doesn't occur to her to share very personal things often. Part of it is her own desire to forget, part is that she is accustomed to her life not being very interesting to others -- instead, she is used to lying, making things more special and unique. It's an urge she feels less now, since even her dull, mundane nothing life was still so different to many of these people, but she doesn't care too much for the memories. And besides that, she simply doesn't want him to begin to feel like she is too much, that he would rather write her off. She likes him. Cares about him. It would be too much of a blow, at this point, if he cast her aside, treated her the way men so often treat women.

It's easiest to just keep the half-walls they have, walk along them and ignore the bricks between them.

With another quiet laugh, she rocks into his hand, insistent and impatient. She finds the place where she can feel his pulse (it takes a second), murmurs against his heartbeat. ] You test all your monsters?

[ Not that she waits for an answer. She bites down hard with a hum, weight resting more heavily on him. Her nails rake along his chest. ]

[ It's a simple manner of going about things. He doesn't mind keeping it that way—doesn't mind never quite parsing what it is that's here, because if it works it works. He knows he entrusted himself to her, when he had no one else; knows she came through for him. That's the part that truly counts to him in the end.

He meets her insistence, exploring, letting her push against his hand. Her hair falls over him as she lingers along his throat. ]

Only the ones I like.

[ His eyelids are lowered; an encouraging noise comes when she bites down—a sharp pinch that snakes down his spine. He spreads his fingers against her, feels the slickness, and slips his middle one inside. His other hand rests against the small of her back. Her lips are soft—and it isn't often he lets someone spend that much time with their teeth so close to his pulse. ]

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