abraxaslogs | [ OPEN / CLOSED ] i think i found a way to kill the sun

[ She isn't as familiar with his movements for that bit of effort to be a concern, but it doesn't go unnoticed all the same. ]

Kaer Morhen.

[ She repeats around a second piece of cheese before busying herself with opening up her basket. Himeka knows, well, absolutely nothing about his past, but there is something about this large stone building that seems fitting, even if she can't exactly place why. Maybe she's just sensing his touch on the place's reconstruction in Horizon? Or maybe the stone just fits a man who tries to keep up a stony disposition. ]

I won't pretend that it looks welcoming, but it actually reminds me a bit of some of the camps and keeps I stayed in.

[ If in some disrepair.

She takes out two ceramic bowls with wooden lids. Then, after setting them out on the table, she glances at the wolf...and with a wave of her hand duplicates one to create a third. Can't leave anyone out, now!

Pushing one in front of Geralt, she makes sure that everyone has a set of chopsticks and a deep spoon--yes, even the wolf--before sitting down properly. With a smile, she lifts the lid on her own and nods to Geralt to do the same. ]

It's called "ramen". This version in particular includes ginger chicken, soft-boiled eggs, two kinds of mushroom, green onions, tofu, radish, bean sprouts, and garlic!

[ Oh, yes, she removes the lid for the wolf too. No thumbs and all. ]

It's a dish that's popular in Hingashi...which isn't all that far from where I grew up.

[ Looks like they're both sharing bits about their childhoods, huh? That's what you call bonding. ]

It isn't meant to be. [ Welcoming, that is. Not for outsiders. This place was never meant to receive visitors at all. It only does so here, in the Horizon, because it isn't real. And because he does miss home. Part of him is aware he's built it in part out of sentimentality, even if he won't ever say it.

He reaches for the bowl, peering at it. He does not, in all honesty, know why she has handed him two wooden sticks, even if he gathers they're meant to pair with the spoon as a utensil. Removing the lid reveals a steaming broth. He can smell it, rich and spiced, but he can't place everything that's actually in it. Ramen, she says. He lifts an eyebrow. Sniffs the bowl. Then he glances down at the wolf, who's already muzzle-deep in the soup, chewing on the meat. Not a picky eater.

Incidentally, neither is he. He dips his spoon in without much hesitation and scoops up some of the chicken and. Sprouts? Not any sort he's encountered before. He consumes it all anyway. There's only the smallest frown as he decides how to go about the long noodles before using his fingers to help them onto the spoon. If he sees how she's making use of the sticks, he does not appear inclined to mimic her even if he's watching in curiosity, at ease with simply eating the way he knows.

It's good. The soup. Unusual, but good. ]

Is that where your kind are? [ He recalls Estinien mentioned something of the sort. ]

[ That makes sense if this is a military outpost or something, though that is one hell of a place to grow up. Maybe he is from some sort of neighboring village?

Himeka takes a sweep of the room once again as she slurps up her own noodles. She is not the sort of person to judge others for their upbringing, but even she doesn't think this would seem optimal for any child. ]

Did it always look like this?

[ So...broken and run-down? Mayhaps it has a happier past than she is imagining.

At the very least she is glad to see that both the wolf and Geralt seem to be enjoying their meals. That he uses his fingers isn't a bother either--the point is to eat the food, so long as he is able to do so she will consider it mission accomplished. Of course she could offer to show him how to use the chopsticks, but she doesn't. Should he ask she would happily oblige, but he is free to mimic what he can of her movements all the same. ]

Hingashi? No, well--yes.

[ That probably begs further explanation. Want as she is to leave many things unexplained, she does offer this-- ]

There are Raen all around Hingashi and Yanxia. But I grew up in the Ruby Sea, which is right between the two.

Like shit? [ Amusement flickers in his eyes. He knows what it looks like. And it is shit, with an unending chill and rats that nest in every corner. Pieces broken off of the walls and windows, blood staining the wood and stone. It's still home. ]

Humans burned it down when I was a boy. [ The answer comes casually. ] But it wasn't exactly full of good cheer even when I first arrived.

[ It is, probably, not something most can understand. How he feels about this place, his childhood. Because he knows another may look at it, at how he was raised, and think it cruel and unkind. He can't deny some of it was that. That and then some. But there's more to it, too. A warmth and belonging he's received nowhere else. Even with the old memories that have resurfaced, it's still to his slice of Kaer Morhen where he's retreated for solace. Maybe it's just that he's never had anything other than what he found here. The world has not embraced him outside these walls.

He studies her. ] I thought you were an Au Ra.

[ He's learned two things about her from the elf, and it's that she is not a dragon despite appearances and her ears are her horns. Or is it the other way around? In any case. ]

Edited 2021-12-26 22:39 (UTC)

[ Himeka smiles at that, titling her head to the side just so. ]

Something like that.

[ She was trying to be more delicate about it, something that she is generally not known for being good at, but if he's going to come out and say it... His description does strike her as odd, though. Not that Geralt said it had been burned down at some point, it definitely looked like there could have remaining damage from sort of siege, but how he describes his attackers.

Geralt is a Witcher, a monster hunter for coin with good taste in meat and drink. That is what she understands of him. But from the terminology that she's gleaned from all the other hyur and hyur-like peoples, "human" is the moniker. And yet...he's picking that in particular for what, for her not to assume other Auri-like people had come to the assault? That doesn't really make much sense. ]

"Humans"?

[ She tilts her head to the other side as she chews on a piece of tofu, regarding him openly for a moment. ]

I thought that was what you called yourselves.

[ Or...maybe there are different tribes? Or a different usage all together? It can be so complicated.

Likewise, she picks her spoon back up in her left hand. ]

I am. The Raen clan of Au Ra left our ancient homelands some time ago. You can find us all over the East, so I've learned.

[ In all honesty she was pretty surprised to see other Auri out of the sea. Unsurprisingly she assumed an immediate kinship with them that was not always reciprocated. ]

It's not. [ He puts one of the egg halves in his mouth. Hm. That's different. He glances down at the wolf, who's devoured most of the bowl, before looking back up. ] Witchers are Witchers. We aren't human.

[ They were, once, but they've left it behind. He gathers to someone like Himeka, the distinction might seem finicky. Perhaps it is, if appearances were the only factor. He obviously doesn't bear horns or scales. At a distant glance, the average Witcher could pass for human. He's aware he's the only one who looks that unusual, between the glow of his eyes and his white hair. But they don't live as a human, they don't grow up with humans or participate in their society, their politics. They certainly do not identify as one. He'd never want to, either. Too much history for that.

A clan. That tracks. Like druids, keeping to themselves in their corner of the forest. Or the east, as it were. He considers, how she's phrased it, as though it's a discovery made later in her life. ]

So you've learned?

[ Huh. She actually stops mid-slurp at that. Far be it for her to tell someone else how to define themselves, if he wanted to call himself toast she would respect it as much. But she is, as ever, still curious. ]

What makes you different? I'd thought it was just the name of your job.

[ It's a loaded question posed with not a hint of the baggage that actually surrounds it.

Himeka finishes offer a couple of spoon-fulls before she nods, deftly splitting half of her egg in two with her chopsticks. ]

I grew up in the Ruby Sea. You've seen it before--well, you've seen a neighboring village. The Kojin were the ones that taught my predecessors how to build and maintain that bubble.

[ Loaded to be certain. But she asks it with little by way of expectation, and after a few seconds of silence, he simply gives a noncommittal raise of an eyebrow and puts more chicken in his mouth. ]

We're harder to kill, for one.

[ Significantly harder. And yet still too easy to do so, it feels like. He leaves it at that. The rest, he thinks, is implied: as in, it also doesn't matter, either, whether they see themselves as human, as belonging. The humans clearly do not agree one way or the other.

Is that what it is? The kojin? He does remember. That'd been—a strange time for both of them. He considers before adding without much context, ]

She still has your gifts. [ The sweets, he means, and the shell. They had appeared, unbidden, even afterwards, and it only seemed fitting to give to Ciri. They were meant for her. ]

[ As he seems want to do, Geralt's response offers little outward info, but much to think about. Witchers then...are perhaps a hardier type of human? Ones best fit for the job of hunting down monsters? Being difficult to kill would certainly lend to that.

Curious as she is by nature, Himeka accepts the answer for now. She has never been the sort to needle or pry unless it was absolutely necessary, confident enough in the fact that the answers will come eventually. The journey is half the fun, after all. ]

That's a trait most people would want.

[ She pops one half of the egg into her mouth, pausing mid-chew to beam when Geralt mentions the gifts. At least she does swallow before she speaks. ]

Does she?

[ That makes her happy. It had been such a one-off in wanting to offer something to both of her guests at the time, bereft of her memories as she was, but they still meant something to her even then. Pieces of the person she was that she forgot. (Ironic given how the situation is actually quite a bit reversed in that regard...but that's neither here nor there.) ]

I'm glad. I did chance upon her while we were all still imprisoned back in Thorne. She's grown up into a lovely woman.

Mm. [ His gaze flickers. ] The process leaves something to be desired.

[ What doesn't kill you, he supposes. The wolf at this point has moved to Himeka and is looking up at her with keen eyes that are as yellow as his—apparently waiting to see if she will grant it another egg of its own.

Geralt, meanwhile, simply looks up. He remembers Ciri mentioned they'd met, but he'd not been sure if Himeka would've put together that she was the same girl. Seems she did. That makes it easier than needing to explain. ]

She's certainly that. [ The gap is something he'll never get used to. Part of him will always remember her as a girl of thirteen, fourteen, only months ago, and now she's a young woman with a decade of scars etched on her. And yet she still turns to him time and again. ] She recalls that I raised her.

[ And he does not, is the implication. He hasn't discussed this with anyone other than Sam, but. Himeka is one of the few who both came across him while he'd had the shadow of the girl following him and later met Cirilla in actuality. She already knows what Ciri means to him—what he had wanted her to mean to him, even when he held nothing else about his past. He can acknowledge that now. ]

[ ...Or it could not be at all what she was imagining. Himeka cocks her head to the side. ]

The "process"?

[ He's opened the door for inquiry so of course she is going to take it. Does one...begin as a human and become a Witcher? Or is this just something unique to Witchers that makes them hardier than they may normally be?

Luckily for the wolf, she is not the sort to let anyone go hungry. At such a pointed look she gladly takes the other half of her egg with the other end of her chopsticks and places it on the table in front of it. There you go, furry friend. Eat up!

The more Geralt speaks, the more questions Himeka has, it seems. She goes back to her ramen and starts to pool some noodles onto her spoon as if they are talking about the weather and not the shadowy girl Geralt had been so protective of in the initial iteration of his domain. Himeka hadn't initially made the connection between the two until Ciri introduced herself and began to speak about her profession and the later conversation with Geralt at Sam's cookout--it seemed too fitting to be a coincidence. But she saw no reason to share that discovery with anyone else.

"Recalls" is another interesting way to put it. She slurps up the noodles before she asks for clarification, not exactly picking up on what he's implying. ]

Should she have forgotten?

Mm-hmm. [ She'll have to wait for details on that topic. He's even less inclined to explain it, with so much of it still freshly resurfaced in his mind.

(That wolf is becoming spoiled as fuck, but what can you do. Seems happier, though.)

Ciri, he is more willing to delve into as of late, more than he had early on when he'd still been trying to sort out what place he had in her life with so many years missing in his memories. What bumps they'd encountered when they'd first seen each other, they've...smoothed out some. Most of it. He knows, at least, that she trusts him. In the end, he realizes that's the most important thing. ]

She was a child when you met her, [ he explains, ] because she was a child when I last knew of her. Until she appeared in this world, I thought her lost in the war at home.

[ Himeka cocks her head in the other direction. He doesn't seem inclined to offer more information without prompting. Were he not providing the conundrum of timeline discrepancies with Ciri, it would warrant a follow up. Another time, perhaps.

Because this is something Himeka has a vested interest in, regardless of whether she would have chosen that life. Enough that she even stops eating to allow what he's saying to fully settle in. (Should the wolf choose to make an attempt on her unguarded bowl, she will allow it.)

She recalls how alarming it had been to see Emet-Selch again down in the dungeons--but that situation is very different--he is far from family, even if she does feel some sympathy towards him, even if she does not agree with his actions. Instead she tries to think of how it would feel to suddenly see Alisaie or Alphinaud all grown up. ]

...Then I suppose it must be something of an...hm...unnerving comfort to see her alive and well?

[ What's left of the broth in his bowl after the noodles are gone, Geralt has decided to dip the bread on the table in it.

Alive and well. That's one way to put it. She's alive, and she's survived, but he can tell something has happened to her—a lot of things—and part of him doesn't like that he can't remember. He can't remember how well he did and did not protect her in the end, after all these years. It's not about any sense of failure. Not really. More that he just...doesn't know, as things stand, where his mistakes may have laid. Hard to avoid them, when he hasn't got any idea when and where he made them. ]

It unnerved her more than it did me. [ He can't imagine what it's like, to step into a world where no one important in your life remembers meeting you, knowing you only by name at best. They're not just a year or so apart, like he and Jaskier. There's a decade between all of them and Ciri. ] But we've found our footing.

[ As much as possible. Occasionally, she will make a comment and then hesitate, as though she realizes too late she's remarking upon an event he has no memory of. It always leaves a heavy weight in the air every time, however brief. ]

[ Bread in ramen broth...something she hadn't considered but it is something she will absolutely try. Once the weight of this new discovery settles a bit.

Usually a keen listener, Himeka is also a terrible liar and it's clear that she's thinking deeply when she starts to draw inward. Never having considered herself much of a "big thinker", she's trying to work past the urge to simply push it aside to bring up with someone more knowledgeable than her. There always feels like a better authority to go to, but without so many of the usual suspects present...she'd been fairly content just running errands for the locals and not worrying too deeply about the big picture. At least not until she can get better answers from Emet-Selch. (As if this all weighs on his insight, which is while not insincere, not usually as forthright as needed.)

How ironic that it keeps being Geralt who unwittingly brings her back to it. At least this time she feels she owes him more of an explanation than the ominous implications left in the air in Sam's kitchen.

She manages to smile, albeit more weakly than usual. ]

That's good.

[ That they found their footing, at least. ]

I cannot imagine how difficult that would be...to remember people who don't remember you.

[ Well--she has some semblance of it, if on the receiving end. Looking back on their past conversations, how many small jabs were made at what she has apparently forgotten in some past life thousands of years prior?

There's a pause as she stares at her half-eaten ramen for a moment, before finally venturing-- ]

--...I had wondered once before it the mages here were able to pull people across time as well as from our different stars, but I'd written it off entirely.

[ Himeka's gotten that look again, distant, like he's unlocked a door she had not realized existed. Geralt keeps eating—gives her the time she needs to work out what's on her mind. He feeds the wolf the broth-soaked bread in the meantime and scratches its ears.

So that's what she's thinking about. Geralt was introduced to the discrepancy early on: Jaskier, without a damn clue about Nilfgaard's march north, Yennefer in the midst of the battle of Sodden, Ciri from fucking ten winters ahead. It's only now that it strikes him not everyone would have this experience.

He pauses, a chunk of bread in his hands as he turns over how much he wants to say. Most of his information comes from Ciri. And he isn't interested in letting anyone know how exactly Ciri came to have such a firm grasp on how dimensional travel and time lapses work. ]

Jaskier is from a year prior to me. I suspect time and place both run concurrent. [ He draws a straight line across the table with his finger. ] When they took us, we were pushed off our path upon our own sphere. Doesn't matter what point in our lives we were. From here, those paths can only continue forward. I would not expect to return home to find Cirilla as the young girl I once remembered.

[ She will either return with him as she is here—grown, carrying the memories of this world, same as him—or she will not be on the Continent at all. That's how he understands it, at least, from what she's explained. The logic tracks. It makes more sense to him than the existence of multiple versions of a singular person, second by second, all living in parallel. ]

[ Himeka looks up then, a little surprised. So this isn't a recent revelation for him? Has she been taking the timeline consistencies for herself and Estinien for granted? Of course, he did show up a few weeks prior to her...but she hadn't thought too much on it. Just a small blip, like how travel can be different on the First. They were taken from the same point on their star, but the time it took to get them to Abraxas just differed.

This, on the other hand...is quite a bit more drastic. ]

Hold on.

[ She needs a moment to think this through again, replaying how Geralt just described it. This is not a way she has really thought about time before, despite already having some experience with changing it.

"I suspect time and place both run concurrent...Doesn't matter what point in our lives we were. From here, those paths can only continue forward." ]

So...

[ She splits her second half of the egg into two more pieces. ]

You're saying that because of arriving here...were you to return to your sta--erm, sphere, you would forever be unable to return to the same time as your friends and family here?

[ He can hold. Geralt chews on the bread, thinking a few points over himself. All of this—it's so damn far out of his scope. It'd be out of anyone's scope. The person who knows the most is Ciri, and it's only because she's lived it.

Geralt tilts his head. Yeah. That's what he's saying. When he rephrases, though, it's reduced to a simplicity typical to his manner of explaining. ]

I don't believe there's an alternate version of Ciri waiting for me to return to her at precisely the right point in time, no.

[ Though he's considered: what if there was? He's not written it off, exactly. No matter how absurd, there's room for anything to be possible. That he's even here in Abraxas at all tells him much can be done that none of them were ever aware of. So who the fuck knows? Perhaps one can select a specific point in time and merge right back into it as if nothing ever happened.

But then, he'd hold memories of a future for that version of Ciri, that she wouldn't have lived. What then? How would that work? He can't think of any way that could ever not cause an infinite amount of chaos. Perhaps the only possibility for this scenario is that none of them remember their time on this world. Not the people they met, not what they saw and learned. A complete reversal. Somehow, that concept feels especially dangerous. ]

[ She has to think on that again. That, at least, makes more sense to what she is expecting...G'raha travelled to the past and inevitably changed and corrected the future as a result. That would be something similar to this, wouldn't it? ]

...To be honest I had thought some on what this may mean when we return.

[When. Himeka does believe they will, somehow and someday. ]

When we travelled to the First, my friends' were sent at different points in time prior to my arrival. Or, well, their souls were. Even though it had only been a few weeks for me, one had spent nearly five years in that same amount of time.

[ He peers at Himeka closely. In all honesty, it isn't something he's considered in this context. He's thought about how each world may have evolved differently over generations—which explains the discrepancy in developments between all of them, why some are steeped in magic and monsters, and others seem to have lost it to time and stories—but Himeka's words make him realize there may be another angle to this. ]

If the Singularity is the point that connects every sphere, each world's relative proximity to it may alter the flow of time.

[ Maybe not at a precise interval—Yennefer and Ciri arrived nearly at the same time, yet the gap between them is immense—but time might simply. What. Move unpredictably? It sounds fucking absurd to think of it in that manner, but everything happening in this place falls under fucking absurd.

If. He still doesn't know who or what to believe. The longer he's here, the more he thinks there is truth to it. How much truth he's not yet decided, but there's obviously some kind of power to the Singularity that can't be measured. Ciri would not be so affected by it if that weren't so. ]

[ And that is certainly something she hadn't considered either. Where the different stars are situated...is there a rhyme or reason to it? Is it random? Is there an effect and connection to the Singularity based on distance? Or-- ]

--or may make it easier to pull people from those respective worlds.

[ This is.

A lot to think about.

She just wanted ramen.

She puts her utensils down entirely and presses her mouth to her curled knuckles as she just thinks. After a long quiet moment, she just sighs in defeat, dropping her hands. ]

I don't know what to make of this. Other than the fact I know several individuals who would be much better equipped to guess on this than me.

[ Or that. He really didn't mean to break her mind with this, though it seems he might've. Geralt lets her process in peace while he finishes off the broth and sets what's left of the scraps down for the wolf to lap up. The wolf, who should be blissfully unaware of the conversation between them, but that it's connected to Geralt means the animal has laid down, looking equally contemplative. ]

Mm. We can guess all day long and we'll still know shit all. [ Not that he isn't concerned; it's just that he knows better than to force pieces into place that don't belong out of a need to fill in the gaps. If they don't yet have answers, then they don't have them. ] May as well let it rest.

[ Putting this complication aside, they also don't know a way back or anything about that: how it'll work, if it'll work, what state it will leave their spheres in even if they should find a way. He can't sit and dwell on some distant future that may or may not come to pass. It's why he's put most of his focus on protecting those most important to him. Friends. (Family.) In the meantime, he will watch for the answers as they come. He's already learned more than he knew a few months ago. It's something. It's progress. And yeah. He does still have a fucking headache over everything, but what else is new? ]

[ That has been how she'd seen most obstacles in her way: I don't know what I don't know and I won't know until I do. But it is a bit different now, isn't it? The burden of insight has shifted, there is no convenient long-lost friend turned wizard waiting to whisk her back and forth between worlds now. All she has to guide her path are her own wits which...seems dangerous in and of itself.

She had trained once as an Astrologian. Now is one of the times she sees the appeal in consulting the cards for some sort of guidance, even if the notions of fate and destiny never sat well with her. Just the thought that something stronger and wiser than you could be guiding your actions may be a comfort.

But...in the end, she much prefers when her choices are her own. If she makes the choice to put some effort into this conundrum, something has to come of it. Right? ]

For now.

[ Himeka sighs, shaking her head before offering Geralt a weak smile. ]

I'm not overfond of worrying myself, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some sort of responsibility to make sense of it.

[ His head tips to the side. He watches her for a second or two before answering: something that edges close to reassurance, but isn't quite. ]

You will. [ He understands what she means. Patience and avoidance are two different things. He wants to know as much as anyone. But they've been in this world just months. He's only beginning to grasp what it all means and drawing solid conclusions at this stage seems nebulous at best. Hasty at worst. ] Not all answers come from questions.

[ That's all he says about it. People often tell you more when you aren't asking; that much he's learned through the years. He's let Sam speak to the Prime Minister while he's gleaned what he can from the desert outpost through the hunter he's met; Kylo has granted him information on Thorne, and the queen. Jaskier will tell him if anything of Solvunn arises in his conversations with Estinien. A picture is forming, however murky. He thinks of his first conversation with Relena long ago. That she thought her time was best spent listening to what the locals were afraid of. He'd not disagreed. Still doesn't. ]

If I learn anything worthwhile, I'll pass it on.

[ She can only nod at that. He's right--sometimes there is naught to do but wait, but she has never been someone who likes to sit around and do as such. So she'll have to find ways keep herself busy, other mysterious to unravel that carry many fewer headaches, if she can swing it.

Himeka finally goes back to her soup, not without putting some noodles on the table now for the wolf. ]

I'll do the same.

[ For now she is content, at least, to pretend there isn't much else to worry about outside of a dusty fortress, a quite man, and a very hungry ~~hippo~~ dog. ]

[ OPEN / CLOSED ] i think i found a way to kill the sun

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