abraxaslogs | [ CLOSED ] let these bones be the giver

[ Hey, she has met his tiny horse, don't hate just because hers is a unicorn. Who, once set down on the ground, immediately goes to sniff at Geralt's boots, because Jaskier specifically made it protective. Don't ask what a chihuahua-size unicorn can do to protect her, because she doesn't know, but that's what she was told.

It's not that she doesn't want him to be there. Her instincts had told her to shut everyone out, both here and back in Nott, but his presence doesn't make her feel like she needs to get him out too. Everyone else makes her feel claustrophobic; passing Nadine and Lloyd in the hall gives her palpitations, working with the public is a nightmare, and even the people who have inhabited this space since its inception give her the sense that they'll suffocate her if she's around them. But Geralt doesn't make her feel like that, like her ribs are crushing her lungs. Maybe he should give her that feeling, because she knows that if he disappears, it will hurt much, much more than Susan ever could, but... he doesn't.

She's far too drunk and tired to think about that.

There is a pause before she says anything at all -- she contemplates just saying that everything is fine and turning the charm back on, but she is so drained and so obviously not fine that she winds up just giving a soft, humorless laugh as she draws her sweater closed around her legs, curling in on herself. ]

I mean, let's see... first, Nadine and Lloyd proved that all they need to drop me like a hot potato is a fuckin' festival, so that's just great. Then Susan disappeared. Just poof, gone. Only proof she was ever here is the shit I had to clean outta her room, and her horse. Flagg already disappeared. It's only a matter of time until everyone's gone. Just me left, again. So yeah, everything is fuckin' peachy. How're you?

[ His eyes flick down to the unicorn. He gives it a small, absent pat on the head if it will allow as he looks back at her. Wait, gone—?

Susan. He never spoke to her. He has a rough sense of who she is only by putting together the pieces: Nadine's vague mentions of a first patient and the name Susan Delgado from Julie. A fourth they adopted. She must've been young, younger than Julie, for her to have used that word. He thinks of everyone who's faded from Cadens, how Sam's place once full has emptied out until Geralt eventually moved in: half for his own peace of mind while he recovered, half because he knows Sam hates the empty rooms. Geralt wasn't close to Mal or Alina, but he still knew them. They were important to those close to him. Ciri still misses Alina, he knows, even if she almost never speaks of it. The losses never quite heal.

When Julie turns the question back on him, it draws out a wry noise. Fuck. Has he got a better answer than hers? How does he explain the overnight realization that everything he thought he knew is no longer?

He settles closer to Julie. His voice is quiet. ] It's been shit, too. [ He searched a long time for Mal. Looking for answers. He never found any to give. When people vanish like that, they simply do. An inexplicable absence. ] You and Nadine took her in.

[ He's been there. People you bring into your life because you hope. Sometimes it's not enough. ]

[ The unicorn accepts the head pat, although it does stomp a hoof and toss its head, snuffling snootily, as if it is the one doing Geralt a favor by allowing such a thing. Eventually, she will inform him that the unicorn was a gift from Jaskier, and this will all make more sense.

She makes room for him, moves the liquor bottle to sit closer to the lantern. When her hand is near, the little cloud inside sends down a quick bolt of lightning, glows from within like it intends to thunder. Sitting back, she sighs and nods. ] She came with us to Nott. That bitch from the dungeon, the whore... I guess Nadine got wrapped up in playin' mama hen to her, insisted that we bring her with us. She conned Susan the same way, made it out like they were best friends. Then she stabbed Susan, I don't even know why. I told 'em all who she was from the beginning, but everyone just assumed I was the bitch. [ She snorts. It was never surprising that the others had initially thought the worst of her without ever listening. She's used to it. ]

It was me and Nadine who kept Susan from bleedin' out. Took care of her, got her all healed up. The whole time she was in bed, I was the one who looked after her. [ Julie sighs again, slumps a little. ] She was the only other one I told about bein' dead. She was dead too, back home.

Edited 2022-01-21 05:01 (UTC)

[ State of mind aside, Julie seems to have gotten an improved grasp on her magic. The lightning sends the lightest hum through his medallion. It's a small thing, but it's good to see.

So that's the story. It's always that way, isn't it? When there are dozens of threats, when the world is shifting across its miles, it's always the ones beside you who fuck you the most. There's a lot he could say about betrayal, about trust, about what it is to suddenly feel responsible for someone you hadn't asked for—because you chose to be there when no one else was—and it starts to mean more than you were ready for. Starts to mean too much. (Throughout his investigation into the disappearances, he's never once let himself consider what he will do if he ever wakes to find Ciri gone. He can't.) But he imagines Julie already knows all this, so he doesn't. ]

You were there for her. [ He knows how much that means. (Maybe it isn't only Susan he's referring to.) He hesitates. ] Back home, we only returned to Kaer Morhen at first frost. We never knew who we'd find missing until then.

[ He's lived with that uncertainty for so long he's forgotten what it is to not feel it. The simple knowledge that it is all too possible for him to be the last one standing, alone. ]

[ The one upside to consciously isolating oneself is that it leaves a lot of free time for practicing magic. She finds it easier now, to keep hold of the magic and manipulate it, make it behave instead of fighting back against her. Like trying to capture and break a mustang, no hope of domestication but maybe she can steer it around for a bit. Her emotions can still send it all into a tailspin, cause things she doesn't want to happen, but they're less and less now. Her fires don't constantly try to explode, her water stays in the containers she aims at. She hasn't managed to successfully create actual objects yet, but she thinks that's close. She tried to conjure a make-up brush the other day and got a pile of loose bristles, but it's something.

It wasn't that Julie wasn't aware people have been disappearing. Brad disappeared, left without a trace. She's heard of the others. But it's easy to feel isolated in Nott, insulated, even, from the uncertainty that taints everyone else. Nott keeps to itself, and so do those who live there, and it was so simple, natural, to fall into the idea that they too would be left alone. Maybe that's what makes it hurt so much. That she'd felt safe.

She watches him, fingers curled in the sleeves of her sweater, remembers all the medallions. It hadn't occurred to her to ask how they were recovered, if Witchers died out on their own in the world. ] Ciri said there were only about a dozen left at Kaer Morhen. That the rest were on the tree. But somethin' comes home, they're home, and that's...

[ She pauses, looks at her fingers with her brow knit. ] With Susan and me, there's nothin' left. Not even a medallion. They tied her to a tree, burned her alive. Me, I don't know. I remember -- there was lightnin', it floated down like a ball from the sky, and it was zappin' people. I'd never seen anythin' like that before, so I ran. And then... [ She swallows hard, tries to think. ] Everything hurt, like I was on fire and bein' pulled apart all at once. And then I woke up here, in Abraxas.

[ Yeah. Something comes home. If they're lucky. Since she doesn't ask, he doesn't explain that most of those medallions are from the massacre. That's the reason so many have been hung. Because they died right on the grounds. The others who fall elsewhere, on the Path—they don't always come home.

And now the medallions are in a bowl, after Nadine helped pick them up. He isn't certain what he wants to do with them. Put them back, he supposes. Part of that tree stands. Broken, but it stands.

He doesn't know what it is to have died and returned with those memories clear in your mind. But he does know what it means to not ever be able to go back to a life you once had. He knows it intimately, several times over. ]

You told me once this place is all you have. That despite what losses, we're at least still here. Surviving. [ He leans forward; he means it, what he says. So they were both drunk at the time. What of it? He remembers what she told him. That entire conversation. It'd been important to him—the understanding that they'd both survived their own shit and that things can be as real as they feel, even if no evidence remains of what once was. ] You are not the only one still here. I am, too.

[ And the others. Julie, Nadine—neither of them believe they did much, but it doesn't matter what they think. To him, to Ciri, to Jaskier, it's forged something. Not a debt or a favour, but. More. The moment she or Nadine needs them, they will be there. ]

[ Really, she thought as much, that they couldn't all come home. If only because she figured that some Witchers were occasionally eaten by monsters (isn't that what monsters do?), and who was going to get those back? She'd even mentioned to Ciri, that she thought there would be more people who live at Kaer Morhen, that even with the medallions on the tree, it was such a smaller number than she'd initially assumed.

She closes her eyes tightly for a moment, because she remembers. She remembers the other thing she'd said too, This place gives us what we deserve. And what if this was what she deserved? To be abandoned over and over, to feel the endless pain and loneliness of people she cares for being taken from her again? Nothing she can do or change about it, only the repeated torture of it happening. What if she just hadn't understood until now, that Abraxas isn't a second chance, isn't real, that it's just Hell and she's here to be punished?

When she looks at him again, her eyes are bright, glistening in the corners where the tears don't fall. She can't seem to make her voice rise over a whisper, scratchy and thick. ] But what about when you're not here? When you leave me? All of you?

[ For a moment, he's quiet. He isn't certain if she means if he one day vanishes, too, or if she's thinking about how many of them have a home they want to return to. The first is not in any of their control, but the latter he's been mulling over for awhile. Ever since he remembers...further, he's only grown more certain. ]

I don't expect I can leave. [ He watches her carefully. It's the first time he's said it out loud; he isn't saying it lightly, either. ] I have something important here.

[ He can't speak for Jaskier—that is a choice Jaskier will need to make, if one ever exists to be made—but for him, for Ciri at least. He's realized this world is the first where she isn't running. She's walked through many, she's told him, and she's been pursued through each. Except this one. Ciri still believes going back is a desire Geralt holds deep down. He hasn't told her yet. She'll be conflicted. He hasn't told anyone other than Julie: that even if the doors can be opened, he may not go through them.

Though in truth, the matter is layered. There's also the fact that Ciri remains a possible key to opening any door. It doesn't matter that her Elder Blood is sealed here or that her magic is unpredictable at best. He already knows that if word ever surfaces, some of the summoned will look to try to use her. And that's not something he ever wants happening. ]

[ She means both, though she knows that he has no control over just disappearing. It's egocentric, and she knows it, but she fears that the entirety of everything that's happening is about her. That none of this is real, not the Singularity, not the summonings, not Geralt himself. That it is all a cruel torture designed for her by whatever power rules over the universe, to punish her for the sins she committed in her life. What she ever did that warranted something like this, she can't say. But she knows that what killed her was something otherworldly, something with a mind and purpose, and that must mean that some iteration of God is furious at her.

Her brow furrows, and when she blinks, some of the moisture lingers on her eyelashes. It is one thing for people like her to say that they can't leave -- she has nothing to go back to even if she hadn't died. Her world has more or less died, so going back would be to return to nothing. But his world, the Continent, sounds like it's still fully up and running as it always has. His brothers are still there, his life, the real Kaer Morhen. What could make him choose this world over his own (except for running water, that has to be a plus)? ] I don't understand. What's here?

[ What's here. He hesitates. He's telling her because part of him wants her to know that she doesn't have to see her future alone. That he means to be here, for a few reasons. But the other part is that he's never mentioned to anyone, outside of a rare few who learned it inadvertently, what Ciri means to him. It suddenly feels as though he should. ]

You once asked about my first time in the Horizon. I told you of a cabin, a mountain. But there was also...a girl. [ Her image follows him still sometimes. That vague figure with those bright eyes. How she vanished at the end. The only person, he thinks, who truly realized that he grieved her as though she were real in the period afterwards is Jaskier. Though he supposes Julie was right, too. If it felt real, then perhaps that's all that's needed to make it so. ]

She appeared one day. Ashen hair, green eyes. No older than thirteen. I took her in. [ He looks away, idly studying the small assortment of creatures around Julie. ] Before Ciri arrived, I thought her lost to the war at home. It isn't safe for her there.

[ He knows now he'd found her. And then almost lost her again. There's too much on the Continent, too many looking for her. It isn't safe here, either, but it's safer. He has a chance to never let anyone know who or what she is. If nothing else, it's at least some shelter from the Wild Hunt, from anything that can sense her power. Until he knows what to do. ]

[ That's a lot of information that she wasn't expecting, and it takes her a moment to parse it. Ashen hair, green eyes. He'd adopted Ciri. It explains a lot, and she doesn't really know why she never thought about it before. A memory hits her hard, Geralt and herself throwing a ball back and forth. It was only a few months ago, but it feels like years.

Were you doin' somethin' special before they got you?

Just looking for someone.

Ciri. Except not Ciri, if she was a young girl. Not the Ciri that Julie knows. Luckily, Julie has experience with people being from different points along the same timeline -- Nadine is from earlier than she and Lloyd are -- so that part makes sense. But where only a number of weeks separate herself from Nadine, Ciri is apparently from much, much further down the line.

It isn't safe for her there.

Julie's response comes out sharper than she means it to, very real alarm around her eyes. A war. You're a princess?, she'd asked Ciri. I was, came the answer. The pieces fall more and more into place, and Julie's voice is high. ] But she's safe here. She's safe. Right?

[ He can see the moment Julie puts it together. How it all fits. He's still coming to grips with it himself. It isn't even Ciri's place in his life and his in hers that trips him. He's started to accept that some time ago, as they laid their roots in this world together. But the memories he now holds, what he feels, they merge in a way that's difficult to untangle. Layered over each other. He remembers meeting Ciri for the first time, twice. He remembers watching her train for the first time, twice.

He remembers understanding exactly what she means to him, twice. ]

For the moment. I intend to keep it so. [ They can't know what the future brings, but he knows what he's willing to do. What he's already done to protect her. ] Either way, you aren't getting rid of me that easily.

[ Worse places to wind up in, anyhow. This world may be on the brink of war, but at least it isn't already torn apart by it. At least villages and towns are not being ransacked and burnt to ashes nightly. There's a reason he's avoided those keen on starting conflict, and it isn't because he's got any illusions of peacemaking. It's that he knows full well the cost. And he's tired of watching those important to him pay the price for the ambitions of others. ]

[ Really, she feels sort of stupid for not figuring it out earlier. It's not that she was unaware of some kind of connection between them -- obviously there was some kind of history there. She had just assumed that he was Ciri's mentor or something, not that they'd been together since she was barely a teenager, and it never seemed to matter anyway, not in this weird place where you automatically became family with anyone from the same world as you. And obviously it was more complex than she's used to these things being; no one just takes in teenagers from royal families, in a war, to... what? Fight monsters? Live with a bunch of smelly men who spend most of their time just wandering around? Clearly there's a bigger story, probably tragic because these things always are, but Julie isn't sure it really matters. Not if it all happened a decade and more ago.

The squeeze inside her chest abates, and she realizes with some trepidation that the thought of Ciri being in danger here gave her the same sick fight-or-flight instinct as when she'd opened Susan's door to replace the bedsheets, only to realize that no one had slept in them for at least a week. That nothing was left except some clothes still hanging in front of the fire, an unbrushed horse in the stable. And isn't this the exact problem? That she feels like this at all?

Things are so much easier when you don't care. When everyone you know is only a means to the end. She'd never cared before, not past her own kin, and they're all dead. So why does she care so much now, when she has even less control than she'd had before? Why does she care so much when she knows that she cannot defend Ciri, can't help if she's in trouble? Ciri is stronger than Julie is, knows more. Unless whatever's after her has a weakness for club drugs, what can she possibly contribute? Nothing, so why does she want to?

The cloud in the lantern flashes as it sends down a bolt. The unicorn lies down directly in front of her when she sighs and rubs her face, then reaches for the bottle. She takes a large drink from it before she leans her head against his shoulder, offers it over to him. ] So what happened to you?

[ It's not really on her. Geralt rarely lets on what Ciri is—at first because he hesitated over what it even meant and then because given all that's happened, he's not been keen on advertising his precise relationship with the people most important to him. But here in the Horizon with Julie, less of that concern remains.

He rests back against the wall while Julie leans on him. The bottle ends up in his hands. What is it? He sniffs, then decides it doesn't matter. He drinks without much question. There's a moment where his gaze lingers on her. She looks like she's only just hanging on, and that's a feeling he knows well. He isn't certain if she needs to hear what happened with him on top of her problems, but then. Misery and company do make for strange bedfellows. ]

Mm. Where to start? [ He tips more of the bottle back before passing it to her. ] Betrayal seems to be a theme. Kaer Morhen's been torn apart. [ He squints, as if in thought. ] And I think it's possible I know what the Singularity is a part of.

[ Context is absolutely missing in spades, but Julie may or may not be used to this from him by now. Explaining in detail has never been his strength. Besides, he hardly knows what the fuck happened himself. A memory surge. A vision, of what's the future for him and yet is the past for Ciri. How does that even work? Part of him continues to suspect it may be Ciri's doing, through no fault of her own. Just what she is, the nature of her magic. He isn't sure. He doesn't want to say it until he's examined the idea further. ]

[ It's just bourbon, so it's probably not unfamiliar. Or at least she assumes the Continent has whiskey, but who knows? Either way, it's alcohol and that's the important part. Julie hasn't been sober for more than a few hours since the Dimming, and she doesn't intend to start today.

If she's being honest, it sounds kind of nice to listen to anyone's problems but her own. It's been weeks of hyperfixation on her own shit, so discussing absolutely anything else is completely welcome. Even if it's upsetting, at least it's a new kind of upsetting.

She takes the bottle back and holds it on her lap, her legs folded to the side. Eyes closed, she chuckles dryly, gestures with one hand. ] When it rains, it pours, I guess. Start at the beginning.

[ It's absolutely the important part. Geralt has, in fact, been (mostly) sober. Ciri's been drinking, Jaskier's constantly several bottles in every night, and they can't fucking all be drowning their pain. The Horizon lets him drink without waking up still drunk, though. There's an appeal to that. He'll take it.

He'll also need it to start from the beginning. Julie's supply of liquor is eternally endless and endlessly eternal in this place. He doesn't hesitate to take another long pull from the bottle. ]

Some nights ago, I saw—a vision. Several. Of things which passed back home after I left. [ Or one extended vision. He's not sure. Jaskier called them dreams; he supposes if he didn't know better, he'd have, too. The sound he makes is dry. ] Ciri was always...disappointed I didn't recall much of our time. But I don't imagine she wanted this, either.

[ He'd told her he doesn't regret remembering and he meant it, but he knows it's hard for her. Especially when Jaskier is so clearly affected. Quietly, he's wondered if this is more to do with Ciri herself than the Singularity. She's had visions before. And it would not be the first time the Singularity or some other catalyst has caused Ciri's powers to trigger beyond her control. ]

[ She listens with a crease between her eyebrows, trying to understand. She hasn't heard of this happening to anyone else, and it's not clear to her -- does it mean that their lives (at least the lives of those who still have them) don't pause? Based on her own experience, that of those she came to Abraxas with, she had assumed that things simply... stopped. That they all eventually went back to finish out their lives, because how else could she have known Nadine but Nadine not known her? She doesn't have a good explanation, and this kind of time fuckery is far beyond her knowledge.

Biting the inside of her cheek as she thinks, she hesitates before she says anything. Really, she's just not entirely sure of what to think, what it could all mean. ] When you say vision... what do you mean? Like, did you watch it, or did you live it? How do you know it's real?

[ This place once took their memories, made them live different lives. It could do the reverse too, right? Give them memories that weren't really their own? ]

Both. [ It's a question he sat on himself for some time afterwards. If he lived it or simply watched it. In the end, he decided that the technicality makes no difference: they are memories fixed deep in his mind as though they were always meant to be there. ]

Ciri tells me the events to be true. [ If not for Ciri, he'd have more doubts. But between Jaskier and him and Ciri confirming that it is as she knows—there's only one conclusion he can reach. ] Manipulations of the mind tend to prey on what we know and fear, besides. This is—I recall meeting people I never even gave thought to existing.

[ It's Istredd he goes back to frequently as he's sorted this out. A man through whom he learned of Yennefer, of the monoliths—but who otherwise bears little personal significance to him. A passing encounter. And yet his face, his voice, his mannerisms are clear. Defined. Like the unique blue of his eyes. Things Geralt would only commit to memory if they'd really spoken. He can't imagine why such a figure would feature in detail in his mind if this was born from an illusion.

He takes another drink, almost absently. He hasn't really let himself stop to dwell on everything he's feeling. Doesn't want to, either. Putting his focus on what he needs to get done is easier. There are questions that need answering, problems that need solving. ]

[ She's quiet for a moment, though she accepts wholesale that he has somehow moved along his own timeline without moving along this one. She almost wants to try and draw it, sketch out what must be branches connecting two parallel lines, but that's more effort than she's willing to exert in this state of mind.

So now, he's found Ciri. Not looking for someone anymore, he has her. But that's good. It's what he wanted. So there's something else staining the visions, dreams, memories. Whatever. Betrayal. Kaer Morhen. The Singularity.

Reaching out, she puts her hand on his forearm. ] What else? How... how long was it?

[ Another beat passes. ] Months. Over a season. I remember returning home for the winter. All that happened there.

[ His head throbs. How do you separate that much time, that many memories, out of a single night that passed on reality? The Horizon made him feel as though he lived another life; now this has given him what feels like a third. But every bit of it is his, tangled together somehow.

He glances down at her hand. It's warm, and he sets the bottle beside her again. There's a sigh. He's tired. He's forgotten what it is to not be tired. That's all of them, though, isn't it? They're all fucking exhausted. Here, back home. Rolls off too many of them in waves. ]

I'm not sure what to think. [ He's quiet; a small confession. He's spent the past two weeks fixing, assuring Ciri he will find Yennefer to speak to her, keeping one eye on Jaskier, telling Sam he will watch for what might be stirring in the city. They keep looking to him to do something. It's only with Julie that he isn't compelled to dig for answers he simply hasn't got. To quash the doubts that keep rising. ] The more I go over it, the less I feel like I know.

[ Julie sighs thoughtfully, though she really has nothing to offer. She doesn't even have platitudes, because what the hell do you say to someone who lived months over the course of a night? There's nothing, there's absolutely nothing, and she's more than familiar with the frustration of people trying to make you feel better when there's nothing to feel better about. In fact, the best she ever felt when she's shared her past is when Sam just... acknowledged it. Said he was sorry, that she didn't deserve it and shouldn't have had to go through it. He didn't give her a line about being a survivor, or try to find silver linings, or assign the vague idea of things just being shitty. He said that she didn't deserve it, made it something that she actually went through instead of just being a terrible situation.

She can feel the slow beat of his pulse in the crook of his elbow. With a soft noise, she leans forward a bit, takes his hand between both of hers and then sits back again, her cheek still on his shoulder and her fingers laced with his. ] It's okay to not know. It didn't happen in a few days, back there, so you won't work it all out in a few days. You can just... sit with it. Let the pieces come together naturally.

[ There isn't anything she needs to offer, really. Mostly, he just wants to tell someone. He hasn't been able to. Jaskier is far too troubled; Ciri does not need his burdens.

He lets Julie take his hand, curls his fingers in hers. The silence settles for awhile. ]

Mmh. [ She's right. It's something he might've told another, too. Sometimes all you can do is wait and watch. But when it comes to him, he isn't certain how much it truly is all right to not know. Every time he doesn't know, every time he misses what he should've seen coming, someone pays the price. He can't help thinking it'll happen again.

After a minute, he looks up, over the railing to the empty floor below. Chairs stacked up. The somber quiet. He'd ask why she's out here with all this empty space instead of in her room, but he supposes he can guess. He wonders if it's unintentional, or if she put it all away deliberately. ]

Was it like this when you came? [ A pause, before he explains, ] Kaer Morhen...changed. Afterwards. I walked in and it was fallen apart.

[ He makes the same noise he always does, one that Julie has come to understand as him not actually saying what's on his mind. Which is fine, because she gets it. Not holding her tongue (she's never done that once in her life), but what it means now -- that he acknowledges the reality of what she's saying, but can't absorb it, for whatever reason. She has the same response to any valid criticism about herself.

She squeezes his hand. There are always going to be things they don't know, shit they can't see coming at them. People get hurt. That's life. It's not on any one person to save everyone else from incomprehensible events. None of them knew they'd be brought here. None of them knew that they could dream new parts of their old lives. None of them know what any of this all means, not really.

The tiny t-rex manages to chomp the dragon's tail, like puppies gnawing at each other, and the dragon rumbles before taking flight to sit on the railing, lording over the t-rex. One thing Julie is sure of is that dragons are way smarter than any dinosaur ever was, for sure. ]

Not... it wasn't like this when I first walked in. I came in, they were all here, but -- I felt like I couldn't breathe. There were too many of 'em, they were all too close. So I closed my eyes, and I covered my ears, and when I looked back up, it was like this. [ It hadn't been intentional. She just wanted to stop feeling overwhelmed. But the Horizon is nothing if not often startlingly literal. ] What happened, to make Kaer Morhen change like that?

[ Maybe he'll absorb it in time. Can't hurt to hear, in any case. He thinks she's one of the few who understands, if only because it isn't often he meets anyone who really gets what it is to know that you're the last of your kind. And that there isn't really anything to be done about it. It just is.

He supposes that's why, abruptly, it feels all the more important to hold onto what has become his people in this place.

His expression softens. Yeah. He imagines it would've been a lot to walk into after everything. He's felt that, too. ] After I came back to Cadens, I stayed with Sam. Quieter.

[ He hasn't really spoken to her about much that happened after she got him home, beyond letting her know he was fine. In one piece. Healed up now. But then, he's hardly spoken to anyone about it except Jaskier and Ciri. Even Sam still only has a bare handful of details.

He watches the dinosaur roar at the dragon. His lips curl for a short moment. They're entertaining little things. ]

It isn't the first time. [ That space beneath was...less of an extreme change. ] I just recall—we were attacked, and so. [ So that's the state of it now. He adds dryly, ] Didn't spawn any bodies, though, at least.

[ And maybe that's why she's spent weeks now, sitting alone, morosely practicing magic and re-reading books she only vaguely remembers from school. She'd let herself have people, people she wasn't just using as tools, and they took the earliest opportunity they had to throw it all back in her face. And she hates that she still doesn't want to let go.

That's what made it so loud, so unbearable. Like being mocked. Never alone, but always alone. She's sure they'll be back, eventually. She doesn't like the club empty -- she just can't handle it full right now.

She can't help but to let out a sardonic chuckle, digging her nails into the back of his hand for a moment. ] By the way, fuck you for roamin' around the desert and almost killin' yourself right after you spent all my money gettin' you there. Asshole. [ But she doesn't sound angry. At most, maybe mildly admonishing. She's spent all her fury on Nadine and Lloyd, has none left for Geralt and no desire to give it to him anyway. ] Sam's good at that. Makin' things quiet.

[ It doesn't surprise her to hear that Sam's company had been preferable to the somewhat smothering presence of others. Sam has a way about him, knows what to say, when to just listen, how to shine light on things at different angles. She's never known anyone else who seems to just... get it like he does.

Her brow furrows and she frowns, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. ] You mean... like back in your world? It changed after the visions because it changed at home? [ That's only slightly horrifying. ] Who attacked y'all?

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