abraxaslogs | [ march / open ] you left me, you left me no choice but to stay here forever

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[ march / open ] you left me, you left me no choice but to stay here forever

Who: Julie + others + open
When: March
What: this month is A Lot (this post is a catchall)
Where: Cadens + the Horizon

[

bitchcraft or bitchcraft#2753 for a starter ]

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[ There's never been a way to be completely shielded from loss. Julie knows that. There is no way of ever knowing when a terrible accident will befall someone you love, of knowing if or when your own body will turn against you and put you down. She's used to that. She had to become used to it very quickly, and she did.

But Lloyd had become such a constant for her that she literally never even considered being here without him. Some childish, naive part of herself made the assumption that they would either stay together here, or else exit together. But they didn't, and she's not sure what made her think like that -- Lloyd was here for two months without her, before she came through the well. Of course either one of them could be left without the other. But she never prepared herself for it, if such a thing were remotely possible. It wasn't a pained thought that she avoided. It was just not a thought at all.

It's a long time that she just sits there, clutching his hand in silence. Long enough that many of the butterflies flicker out of existence, and she watches them without words, tears occasionally falling from the corners of her eyes. When only a few of the butterflies remain, circling his horses, she opens her hand to release a herd of tiny fiery mustangs that surround the others. She finally speaks, and her voice is creaky, soft and still distant. ] In my world, the mustangs were the only horses left. They're wild, so they weren't exposed like all the regular horses. I saw a few herds, when I was walkin'.

[ The minutes tick by. He doesn't keep track of them. Her fingers curl tightly in his and he stays close enough that she can cry on him. He doesn't know if it's the first time she's let herself do so or not, since her friend vanished. Sometimes—it feels like those who've lost the most are always the first to lose more.

His gaze drops from the flaming horses when her voice breaks the silence. ] We haven't got those. [ Mustangs are not a breed that have made their way to the Continent. ] They're beautiful.

[ He looks over at her. When I was walking. It brings up a thought. How long has she been in here? Has she even stepped out once? He's not interested in coaxing her out of the Horizon. She will leave when she's ready—and he thinks, even if she might feel as if she won't ever be so, he knows she will be in time. (The alternative feels too much like yet another loss—and he can't entertain that.)

But she needn't stay in her domain the entire time. He knows Lloyd's was nearby—that undoubtedly, she must have memories of him associated with her space. Maybe it might be worth going where she doesn't have to see ghosts.

A few more seconds go by before he speaks, as much a suggestion as a question. ] Come walk with me?

Edited 2022-03-17 14:00 (UTC)

[ It's not the first time she's cried, and it's as much against her will as it has been the other times in the past few days. Her tears fall in the same way that the body forcefully expels poison -- too late, not enough, and entirely involuntarily. Before she came to Abraxas, Julie cried only as a manipulation tactic. She'd never seen the point of crying otherwise, and she'd always learned to push those emotions away. Any strong emotion except anger was just something to shove down and ignore. And now, now that she is not in a constant daily battle just to keep living, now that she is facing things she had, for her entire life, not thought real, she doesn't know how to digest these things silently, swallow and never acknowledge them. They come out in tears because she doesn't know how to stop it, not because she's actually allowing it to happen.

She watches the horses too, as they sweep up his tamer ones in their rush, and she can remember when she first saw them. She thinks it was Utah, but honestly, it could have been anywhere between Pratt and Flagg's border; it's not like she took a direct mapped route. She can remember the mountains in the distance, the way she'd just stood still for a minute because she thought she'd begun to hallucinate again. The whole walk until then, she'd only seen birds and lizards and squirrels, little animals that were never at risk. But every domestic horse she'd found had been dead, bloated like everyone else, and yet there they were, a whole herd of wild horses just grazing in the middle of nowhere. As if the world hadn't collapsed around them.

He asks her to walk and she looks at him like it's something she's never considered, a foreign concept. She's been sitting in this same spot for days, not moving at all, and it had not occurred to her to go anywhere else. When she sinks, she has a tendency to stay in one place for quite some time -- nothing had kept her in that big box store except herself, and she knows she would have stayed if not for Flagg's call. But now the man asking her to walk is not one she's afraid of, doesn't make her a promise to get her on her feet. He just asks.

So she nods. Keeps hold of his hand. Lets the horses burn themselves out. ]

[ While she decides, he waits, patient. More than most, he understands the desire to retreat. He often has. As much as he's there to witness others in their grief, his own is rarely seen by anyone. He's never quite allowed it.

Julie nods and he stands with her. His wolf climbs to its feet to follow. They make their way down the staircase—past the dancers and out the door. He realizes, aside from Sam's gathering, he hasn't seen Julie outside of the club. They've only met at hers. In truth, the thought's never even occurred to him. He's used to going to people, so that's what he's continued to do. Her place always has more than enough comforts and changing sights as it is.

They step out now. The Horizon dips and curves with structures of every kind. Doesn't matter where they walk—place is a circle—so he simply picks a direction. A gentle breeze rustles the air. Created by him, perhaps, without his noticing. It's usually there when he's outside anyone's domain, which may only be because he expects to feel it. ]

When I need to clear my head, I walk in here. [ A few familiar sights lay alongside and up ahead—spaces he's visited or passed by. ] It's quiet.

[ Silent, nearly empty most of the time except the few who come in and out. Peaceful. A rare thing these days, especially in Cadens. He wants to give her that—a bit of peace and quiet where they can find it. ]

[ It's not that Julie doesn't leave her club; she does, if perhaps less frequently than she used to. She visits Sam, Jaskier, goes up the hill to feed the wolf. She likes to explore the domains of others, but prefers to do it when no one is around, because most people don't like it when you dig around their personal spaces, and because she is, very often, one of the only people in the Horizon at all. Kaer Morhen was the only place she'd ever deliberately avoided entering beyond the front gate -- other than Nadine and Lloyd, Geralt was the only person she'd known before she had the ability to enter the Horizon. It had felt too much like breaking into the home of someone real, too invasive even for her. She'd never entered the keep until Ciri invited her in, showed her around.

But she has become more reclusive, she realizes, as the domains of people she's actually met fade away and are replaced by those of people she's never seen, who don't come back after the first two or three visits. What point is there in the constant exploration if it only brings her more isolation, more silence? Instead, she stays in her own space, ventures out for those she knows but increasingly less for those she doesn't.

Besides, she has magic now, something that occupies the time she used to spend wandering. Hours, every day, are devoted to it, like she fears it will fade away and escape her if she stops practicing. So she devotes herself to it, both in here and out in the real world.

It strikes her that she can scarcely remember a pleasant breeze, at least in recent memory; Nott had been in freezing winter when she left, the breeze in Cadens is obnoxiously warm, almost worse than nothing at all when it hits the skin. They'd controlled the climate so carefully at the Summit, none of the breezes felt real. And here, where it's absolutely not real, is where it feels most real of all.

There is still grief in her face when she looks around as they walk. Grief for the familiar things that are now gone, places that people had carefully crafted and filled with themselves, only to have their efforts erased so that someone else could do the same. The empty space next to her club, a painfully blank expanse where Lloyd's Inferno once stood, that now makes her stomach clench and turn. The silence feels oppressive to her, hangs in the air like a threat against her, because Julie doesn't know how to use peace and quiet to clear her head. All she knows is how to drown out noise with other, louder noises -- music and bodies and alcohol, drugs and sex and instant gratification that lets her simply look away from her problems. Even when she wants to be alone, she cannot stand true quiet anymore. It terrifies her.

There is a tremble in her hand when she tightens her grip on his fingers, reaches for the wolf on her other side. Her voice is small. ] Quiet makes you go insane.

[ If it were some weeks ago, he might've taken her to Kaer Morhen: not the coziest place, but still home for him. These days, not even Ciri ventures in much. Geralt goes only to repair what he can and now that he's largely finished with the main hall, he's faced with what lies beneath. He's not yet ready to touch it. He isn't sure when he will be.

So it's nowhere in particular they go instead. He's seen the ever-shifting domains each time he returns. He's started noting them—the ones that spawn, the ones that vanish. Sometimes he goes specifically to check on what remains and what does not. It paints a rough picture of what's happening across the continent. Though what to make of that picture, he still doesn't know. These are details that he, like always, tucks away until he finds a place where they might fit.

There's a soft sound that acknowledges her remark. It can. But. ] You listen past it. You find the wind or a bird calling. [ His grip around her hand in return is light, but firm. ] A trickling stream. If you let it, the quiet fills itself.

[ The Horizon is empty of people on occasion, the creations rise and fall, but the life given to it continues on regardless. The music from her club that trails behind them, the scurrying feet of a squirrel running up a tree. Rain pouring down a forest perpetually trapped in autumn. He doesn't know if she can hear the same; for him, it's something he's learned to do after years alone, in secluded mountains and forests. There's merit, to filling the silence whenever you can—Jaskier is not so different—but he thinks, too, that there is a difference between finding comfort in it and being afraid to go without it.

He can't solve her grief or fear, of losing people, of loneliness. They're not things that are meant to be solved or erased. He can only help her carry them. And if she can feel a little safer out here with him, quiet and all, then it's a start. ]

[ She falls silent, tries to hear the things that he does. And it's not that she can't hear all those soft sounds, the noises of existence rather than human intention. Of course she can hear them. But above them, she hears her own heartbeat, her breath, and she is immediately shot back into the store. Just her own pulse in the silence, reminding her endlessly that she was the only one left, that no one was going to find her.

She's sure he can hear the way her heart rate speeds up, feel that she gets tense despite her efforts not to.

Her fingertips brush the wolf's fur and it returns her to now, to here. Here where she's not alone, not here and not in the real world. She's not alone. Even without Lloyd, without Flagg, she's not alone. She doesn't have to be in the store.

Somewhere in the distance, birds chirp away merrily. ]

[ There's a moment where he slows, a little, to make sure she doesn't fall behind. He can hear it, the flutter of her heart, even if he doesn't say anything—just waits for her to find herself again with his hand in hers, because he knows she will.

When some of the tension leeches from her, they walk further. The wolf trots along the other side of her. It bumps against her leg now and again, as though it understands. Maybe it does. She's not alone, no. And though this was not his intention when the animal first appeared with him instead of with Jaskier, his wolf is always here. For companionship, even when he isn't. He's sent it to her once or twice, in the past. He knows she visits it, too.

But right now, they're both here. He's beside her, but there's a sense he's following her a bit, too, like he's waiting to see if she might pause somewhere or keep going. ]

You can take him with you. The wolf. [ When he has to go back, he means. She can keep it for as long as she needs while she's in here. ] He'll stay.

[ She doesn't pause. Most domains they pass seem only like backdrop to her, and even the ones she knows get little more than a passing glance. It feels easier to simply keep walking, just continue putting one foot in front of the other without any real awareness as to what's around them.

Not that long ago, she'd walked forward because she felt compelled to, and when she reached a door, her club lay in front of her, fully formed. Maybe if she walks again, she can find something else she needs.

Looking between them, Geralt and the wolf, she doesn't say anything. She really doesn't know what to say, except "thank you", and that seems so... insufficient. Pointless, just a stupid nicety to fill the air. It's not enough and she doesn't know how to make it be more.

She doesn't say anything. But her hand tightens around his again. Not out of fear or a need to be grounded, but intentionally. ]

[ She need not thank him. For similar reasons, he doesn't tell her he's sorry: about Susan, about Lloyd, about all the shit that's happened which she doesn't deserve. It feels—not enough. Not for these wounds.

He looks at her and squeezes her hand in return instead: an understanding.

She keeps going without pause, so he does as well. Jaskier asked him once how he does it. How he copes. And his answer remains the same, that living is living. There's no shape it's meant to take, no depth of struggle that makes it more or less worthy. He's spent most of his life living by inches. Sometimes you wander, aimless, because that's all you can do.

He's unhurried as a result while they walk. He keeps time for himself only to make sure he won't lose track of it out there, where he's sealed in a cave. Beyond that, he simply stays with her. The snow crunches beneath their feet as they circle towards where his keep rests on the mountains that aren't full mountains. On the outside, it at least looks not much different other than one more broken railing that could've easily been shattered long ago. At least two other winter domains have converged alongside his—and a frosty chill spans across each.

Wordlessly, he drapes a cloak over her shoulders—his, from the size of it. It is warm, though. ]

[ She has spent so much time in the last two years just stuck in survival mode, trying to keep going, minute-by-minute. She's exhausted, truly, and it has taken until now for her to actually feel that. Turning away from that fatigue, hiding it behind a wall of distractions, it could only ever work for so long, and she supposes that she knew that, knew it would eventually come crashing down around her. But some stubborn, stupid part of herself thought she could keep pushing that moment away if only she tried hard enough, kept the house of cards she was building balanced.

Lloyd had been on the bottom tier of the house. A key support. It was never just him bearing the weight, but he bore enough of it.

It's when she realizes that the "winter" section of the Horizon seems to have widened that Julie actually seems to become truly aware of the surroundings. She doesn't recall there being quite so much space devoted to snow and freezing wind, not the last time she came to sit with and feed the wolf, but then again, it has been a hectic few weeks, and she's had less reason to spend quite so much of her time in the Horizon. The cloak seems to come from nowhere, and it does drown her slightly, but it's warm where she is barely dressed, and it smells like Geralt.

She reaches for his hand again, automatically, barely even noticing that she's doing it. At the same time, she is looking toward the keep. It looks all right from the outside. She hasn't seen the inside since it was wrecked. ] Did you make it bigger? Not Kaer Morhen, the mountains. This whole area.

[ The question takes him by surprise, a bit. He's actually not given it much thought—the way it's expanded. He's noticed, but the Horizon is constantly shifting. He's grown used to it. People coming and going. Recreating and creating.

He lets her take his hand again, peering up at the keep. ] No. It's Ciri's and...another's.

[ Rinwell's, except he's never visited hers nor she his. He hasn't any idea that she's actually beside him, filling that space left behind by someone else. He pauses for a moment. Most of Kaer Morhen has been righted, as best he can, but it won't ever be the same. He's not certain he wants it to be. Erasing what happened—he can't bury the past.

He starts to walk again, slowly, the fortress looming closer. ] I've been repairing it.

[ Feels as though that's all he does lately. Here, himself, the people around him. He's just been trying to keep together what's fallen to pieces, and every day there's another crack. He doesn't know what else to do. He wishes he could do more and he can't. ]

[ It might also be one of those things that's most noticeable when one wears very little clothing. The expansion of cold areas has a bit more impact when your outfits mostly consist of glitter, even if woo-woo magic keeps you from feeling cold.

She follows him up the hill, her brow furrowing. Why didn't she come help? He'd told her it was attacked, but she'd gotten distracted with everything else, fixated on her own bullshit and forgot to ever offer assistance. She doesn't think she could have done very much -- god knows she's not exactly handy -- but she's capable of enough. It was just another thing that seemed easier to ignore than actually deal with. Like she could just look away and it would fix itself, or at least that she would never have to see it broken. But nothing works like that, even when there's magic to help it; making things pretty and sparkly and fun can only cover up the ugly, not change it. ]

I'm sorry. I should have come to help.

[ Surprise etches more clearly across his face. He hesitates. Somehow, her apology—it makes him realize he's never thought to even consider anyone should offer to help. He's mentioned to almost no one about it in the first place. Both Nadine and Sam stumbled on the mess incidentally. They helped briefly, as did Ciri, but for the most part, Geralt's entered the Horizon day by day, cleaning it up on his own over the past several weeks.

They all have their burdens. He doesn't expect anyone to drop theirs for his. ]

Don't be. [ He looks back ahead. ] And you did help.

[ Maybe not how she thinks of it, but she had. When they sat and talked that day. She was the first person he really spoke to about what happened. The first he told that he'd decided to stay in this world.

There aren't many he talks to easily, not many to whom he confesses what weighs on his mind. She's one of the rare few. ]

[ He says don't be, like it's that simple, and she sighs. She can't explain the myriad of reasons that she feels guilt -- from upbringing to culture to the fact that he has done so much for her, someone he has only known for months -- so she doesn't try. She just swallows against the lump in her throat and nods a bit, looking down at the ground as if to watch her step, her free hand holding up the hem of his cloak. The wolf butts its head against the side of her thigh.

When she looks up again, it's at the keep, trying to see where creatures that he'd described could have possibly touched it. He'd said there was a monolith in Kaer Morhen, hidden, but Julie thinks of natural monoliths as truly enormous, as big as the Singularity if not even larger. Something that should be incapable of hiding within a manmade (elfmade?) structure. She tries to picture Bottleneck Peak or Chimney Rock, jutting up through the floor of the main hall, but she's been in there, seen that there was nothing. Maybe the Conjunction's monoliths were more akin to a piece Stonehenge or an obelisk. But even then, how could two thousand years' worth of people and Witchers not know it was there? ]

It looks all right, from the outside. [ She tries to make her voice not sound cracked and distant, like this is an actual conversation, like she's not just a few breaths away from collapsing into a heap again. ] That's good. You can fix anythin' when the bones are still holdin' up.

[ His gaze lingers on Julie for a second longer. There's something she isn't saying, but as is his nature, he decides not to push. She has enough on her mind.

It looks all right. Old and worn as ever. A quiet half-smile appears, before slipping away. ] You sound like the old man.

[ She's right, though. Sometimes all they have are bones.

He watches her while she watches the keep in turn. All her frayed edges, her reddened eyes. The snow drifts down: constant, without ever adding to the inches of snow already on the ground, though the footprints fade in time. A few white flakes cling to her hair.

He gives her hand another brief squeeze. ] We can keep going.

[ He's not certain she really wants to be here, taking in...this. Kaer Morhen is a dying place. It has been for a long time. ]

[ A ghost of a smile crosses her face too, barely touches the corners of her mouth, and there's a small huff of a laugh. It's all fleeting, only there for a moment, but it's there. While she has endless stories about her sprawling family, he so rarely mentions his. Which she gets; it's not exactly the kind of family that she imagines lends itself well to quick, funny anecdotes. But she likes when he does talk about them, because it is reassurance that, despite everything, he wasn't entirely alone in facing down a world of monsters and cruel humanity. Proof that he's not quite the man of stone he presents.

She hums, a tinge of amusement still in her voice. ] Do I? Hope I don't look like him too.

[ Honestly, she doesn't mind being here. It feels neutral for her, steady and just foreign enough to not trigger anything within her mind, but still not completely unfamiliar -- it reminds her of countless movies, pictures she's seen in history books. Nadine's domain is too idyllic, rings hollow and eerie. Lloyd's Inferno gave her flashbacks if she walked in the wrong places. Sam's house is comfortable but emphasizes the life she didn't have, nicer and prettier than anything she'd known as a child. Jaskier's domain changes even more than her own does. Additionally, his main pet(?) talks, which is cute but also weirds her out. Kaer Morhen and its bucolic backdrop are like a palate cleanser.

But she cannot feel strongly enough at the moment to do anything other murmur a soft okay and follow him, the wolf padding along her other side. She knows he has to leave soon. He was already out of the city when this all happened, and she didn't expect him to show up while he was out there. She doesn't want him to be unsafe. ]

[ There it is. The smallest smile on her face. It's something, even if it vanishes as fast as his. ] He can only dream.

[ A wistful note lingers in the air—a longing sort of regret. He moves past it quickly. It's all right. He knows what he decided and he knows what he's leaving behind.

The wolf noses at her hand. She says okay, and he starts past the snowy mountains. He does need to leave soon, before nightfall out there, but he keeps pace with her as they make their way around. She worries him. They all do. He leaves the city often, knowing there are people who will tell him if anything's happened and yet every so often, he has to ask if there might arise a moment when he simply can't come for them in time. But he's good at exactly one thing—needs the familiar shape of it in his otherwise restless days—and it's this, out here.

Still. Perhaps when he returns, he might stay...home, a little longer for once.

The snow starts to fade behind them. Eventually, they reach the steps of her domain. He glances over at her. ] You can reach me out there. If you need me.

[ He'll answer, even if he's halfway out in the desert. ]

[ That tinge of melancholy does not escape her; she has never had a choice in losing people, but she knows that feeling of hurt. Of wanting to keep them no matter what the circumstances, the pain of knowing that they don't know you're all right. She'd felt it when she got to Flagg's border and they picked her, had looked out the window and thought, I'm okay, Mama. You don't have to worry.

It startles her slightly, that the first thing she thinks to say is maybe they'll pull him too, he can stay with us here. It feels like the best case scenario, given what she knows about their world. She knows she shouldn't want anyone to be forced into coming here, knows that Geralt doesn't think like that, because he has made a decision while she only had acceptance. It's not the kindness it feels like, not for people who have options other than death at home. And she thinks that, even if Geralt wouldn't actively want his brothers, his father figure, here, it would make him happy. A whole world where they can run around fighting monsters and witchering (?) and not being treated like shit. To Julie, someone who probably wouldn't have gone back even if that were possible, it sounds pretty damn okay.

But she knows it's not. She doesn't say anything. She strokes the wolf's face as they walk, casts a glance back at the keep. Maybe this place gives us what we deserve, she'd said.

In front of her domain, he speaks and she looks at him with wide eyes. She nods -- of course she knows she can reach him, doesn't believe that he would willingly ignore her. She didn't believe that even at Eifstide, always thought he'd answer. Her concern shines in her gaze. ] I know. Just... please be safe.

[ She's never said that before, because she trusts him and has faith in his abilities. But the desert is dangerous and Witchers die too, she's seen the proof. She can't handle any more pain right now. ]

[ She's right, that it isn't what he wants, but in truth he's actually not given the possibility much thought. In a sense, it feels natural to him that he will leave his other family behind. He's never had easy choices to make. There's a sacrifice to everything. What is gained is lost in equal measure, and he's not ever known different. He doesn't know what it is to have all that what he wants without giving something up; the thought of a quiet happy home in this world with everyone he truly cherishes is fanciful, a distant dream he might entertain only very briefly in his most private moments.

Realistically, he understands that for this to exist, this here with Ciri, he can't keep every part of his life intact. And he can accept that, because as important as they are to him, they are...it. Destined to fall one by one. One way or another, he was always meant to lose them or they him.

But it does hurt. There's a measure of guilt, knowing he can't tell them he's all right.

He studies her for a moment, the open concern on her face. It will take more time, before he grows accustomed to anyone worrying for him. ] I will. I'll be back soon.

[ He walks with her to her door. The wolf follows her in and he waits until she's well within the building, where she won't see him simply vanish, before he finally leaves. ]

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[ march / open ] you left me, you left me no choice but to stay here forever

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