abraxaslogs | March Catchall

[Nadine takes the bottle with a hard to read look. She's watching him closely, though, eyes searching his face. The weight of what he's saying isn't lost on her, and she offers another nod.

She isn't quite sure what else to say. Like Julie, she has no interest in returning home. That world and that life...she knows she can't go back to them. Whatever life she can find here, that's it - though she knows ultimately, it's out of her hands. But isn't it always? She could just as easily be run down by a cart in the road or choke on a piece of dinner. Very few things in life are certain.

As far as she knows, Geralt and his people have lives to return to. Hard lives, in some cases, but still. This isn't something she would have expected.]

You're choosing to stay here.

[As though they have a choice. But she understands. There's a difference between accepting a situation and embracing it. Between making do and making a life. Their own home must be more than just 'dangerous', but she isn't going to ask for the details.]

That's...nothing you need to apologize for. I...I can't imagine that was an easy decision.

[ Something of a choice. A decision to not search for a way back, for Ciri to stop worrying that there's more she can do to unlock her powers. He can't risk it. Not her, not the effect it may have if her magic ever interacts with the Singularity to that degree. Even smaller spells have gone awry.

His expression softens. It was a bit of a joke, his remark, but Nadine's sincerity is not unappreciated. ]

We can't rebuild if we're looking back.

[ And he is building something here. It isn't what he had, it isn't what he'd have imagined a year ago. It's full of fucking complications he's yet to resolve. But it's his. It has the people who matter to him in it.

In the end, that's what makes a home for him. Where they are, where they need to be, that's the place he'll stay. ]

Isn't that the truth.

[Nadine sighs, raking back a loose bit of her hair. It's starting to get too long, she doesn't think she's bothered getting it cut since she came here. She sits, finding herself needing a break.

But what Geralt says resonates with her. She's thought about the same thing, herself. Building a life here. There's always that lingering possibility that Flagg could return, but even so...what is she supposed to do? She already spent a lifetime waiting around for him. She'd filled her part of whatever bargain had been struck on their behalf. While she knows she'll never be truly free of the past and that life, she's at least more free than she's ever been. There's potential and possibilities that hadn't been open to her before. In every aspect of her life. She has a family here, small as it's become, and friends, and...whatever the hell Jaskier is. She has magic for god's sake. Real magic that's her own, aside from whatever Flagg may or may not have left her with. The possibilities are myriad.

But losing Lloyd has cast a pall over the thought. It will clear, she's sure of that, but it's still hard to think about it now.]

It's...hard, though. Not looking back. Uh, there's a pitcher of fruit juice in the ice chest, if you want a drink. And...a pitcher of wine, if you want a real drink.

[ He finishes putting away the section of jars he's working on. Then he stops, palms on the table. Lets her sort through her thoughts as she sits. He didn't come here to have her talk about what happened, but he won't mind, either, if that's where they end up. If there's something she wants to get off her chest.

Only when she mentions a drink does he look up. Oh. Mm. He digs out the wine without hesitation. They're in need of a real drink. ]

Well-worn paths are easier. [ He passes her a cup and sits beside her. ] Even the darkest ones.

[ There's comfort in it—that familiar sort of pain. When you know it's waiting for you, how it feels. It's tempting to stay in it and tell yourself there isn't better for you. He's spent his fair share doing exactly that. But he's learned, perhaps, the difference between living and existing. ]

Yeah. They are.

[Nadine takes the drink with a grateful nod. Normally she shies away from drinking in the real world, but...a little wine isn't going to hurt.]

I spent my whole life knowing what my path was, it's still hard sometimes. I still find myself living by rules that don't really apply anymore. Even though...God, one of the last conversations Lloyd and I ever had was me trying to convince him that he can just live his life for himself now. He...uh...he really struggled, without having direct guidance.

[It's the most polite way she can think to express that Lloyd had been a man who needed someone to follow. To tell him what to do and make choices. He'd been young, though, there had been time for him to learn to stand on his own...only there wasn't, not really. It feels like a cruel joke.]

It's just hard to think about building a life when there's that little voice that keeps saying it probably doesn't matter anyway. Randall could come back, I could vanish, everyone in my life could just vanish tomorrow...I am getting so sick of losing people.

[ As little as he knew Lloyd, Lloyd was also not a difficult man to know. Guidance is not a bad way to put it. Nadine had looked after him. He could tell, from the way they interacted. It's a hard thing, to lose someone you especially felt responsible for.

For a moment, he's silent. He isn't certain how much Julie may have told Nadine about what they discussed of Flagg. Of what he is. There's a furrow to his brows when she says his name, but he leaves it be for now. ]

When we leave Kaer Morhen, we call it the Path. We don't know what waits on it. It isn't the most forgiving. But the more we travel it, the more we make it ours. [ He leans forward, arms on his knees. ] You're surviving in this world. You came to Cadens. Learned magic. You already have your path, Nadine. You've been making it.

[ There was a time he tried to leave things behind. It's never quite worked. In the end, he's only ever been able to move forward when he started to carry it with him, all that lies in his past, however painful. And he thinks, she might find the same holds true for her. ]

[Already making her path. Nadine turns the thought over in her mind, sipping at her wine. It doesn't feel like she's on a path, but how long has she been here? Not even a year. That's not long at all, in the grad scheme of things. But it calls so much into question.

For most of her life, she'd believed - and has no reason to doubt now, exactly - that her path had already been laid out for her. She had a purpose, a set future. Now...]

Do you believe in fate? I don't mean as a vague sort of concept, I mean that...that there is some powerful force that determines things for us.

[That thing out there even more powerful than Flagg, that even he was bound by. Then what about here? Did that hand extend through all worlds? Or is this some little loophole?]

[ Funny, how different his answer would be had she asked him that a few months ago. Fate. He hadn't, for a long time. Or he hadn't wanted to. Perhaps that amounts to the same thing.

He does now. He does because he's realized he was mistaken about what the concept of it meant.

Geralt turns to look at her. ] Destiny, fate...it can only dictate what passes through our lives. It can't determine what we choose to do with it.

[ It was his decision, to return for Ciri and bring her home. To keep her safe, find answers for her. Ciri's decision to stay with him, then and now. Maybe they were pushed towards each other by some force, for a reason, a purpose—but it isn't why they've remained together. ]

But do you think it can punish us, if we choose wrong? That there's...consequences.

[Hardly a new thought for Nadine, she's considered consequences for a decade at least. But with everything that's happened, she can't help but wonder. Which is stronger, fate or the power here?

Maybe it's her upbringing, but the fear of punishment always seems to hang over her. That the universe, fate, God, something will take her to task and punish her. It wouldn't be undeserved.

Her wine is finished quickly, and she pours another.]

[ What was it they said? Calamities, befalling those who turned their back on Destiny? No. He still doesn't buy that. ]

The world is a shit place. Not all consequences are of our making. [ He turns the wine in his hand. Some are. Not because of fate, but because that's how it goes. You make your choice and the pieces fall where they will. But as for punishment, who decides? Why should a mother lose her child because she turned away for too long when a king can sit on his throne massacring villages for years before his time is due?

He's never especially thought of himself as a deserving man. He's done too much for that. But undeserving—it's not that simple. They have what they have, and they make what they can of it. That's all life is.

He studies her for a minute. There is a certain reason someone asks a question of this nature. ] What choice did you make?

So far? Pretty much the ones I was supposed to make.

[Nadine shakes her head, thinking back. She's not an idiot, she knows there was opportunity for her to change her mind. To make a different choice. But the consequences...]

But back home I knew what consequences I'd be looking at. And I knew...I wouldn't be the one suffering them. Now...now it's all these vague possible things I'm worried about. What if I'm not supposed to be here? What if...

[What if she was a Judas? Damned and condemned but necessary to whatever course her world was supposed to take. She knows enough to understand that balance is important. Good can't exist without the opposite, the same as light.]

I don't know, I've just been thinking a lot about the divine and forces bigger than us all. I spent most of my life knowing who I am and what I'm doing. Even when I was little, as scary as it was....it was something to hold onto. Sure, life sucked, but it was okay because someday...I'd be a queen, and I'd be with him, and I'd be powerful...

[She shakes her head again with a little laugh that has no humor in it.]

That's how Lloyd still saw me, you know. Even here, even without Randall...look how great that turned out.

[ Reading between the lines, when she says I knew I wouldn't be the one suffering them, he can understand what she's implying. That she made a choice she knew she was wrong, because she thought she would be safe from what came of it.

He doesn't ask what it is she did. In some ways, it isn't important. It's not for him to judge nor forgive. That's on her, and on those she hurt or believes she hurt. It says enough, that she's afraid she will be punished for it. ]

Is that what he promised you?

[ Power? No. She says it, but he's come to understand her after all she's told him about her life, after she's confessed of how lost she feels now. He doesn't believe power is truly what it was about. It runs deeper than that: being with him, as she describes. A place to belong. A place in their new world, when the old one only ever rejected her. Flagg came to her when she was only a child. He's known this for some time, and it's always left him...uneasy is putting it lightly, even if he can accept it's real, what she feels for the man who isn't a man, who she calls her husband. For her, it's real. But knowing what he does now, he's especially—

Protective. ]

Yeah. One of the very first things he ever said to me, before I'd even seen his face. Nadine will be my queen.

[That wasn't all that had been said - written, really - but Geralt doesn't need to hear the rest. But there had been so many promises made, over her life. Some of them he'd even kept.]

He really did save me, back then. I'm not the only one. He saved Lloyd. For his own ends, I know, but...and he did keep his promises. He protected me, he married me, he gave me power...I was important to him.

[She doesn't think Flagg can love the way normal people do, but she'd mattered to him. That seems as close as he could ever come to love. And god, how special it made her feel sometimes. There's a sick sort of vague guilt at that, but it's something she's learning to live with.]

But fate or not, I chose that. I chose him. It's not like...I have stood at the crossroads a couple of times. But I chose Randall.

[ It's eerie, how casually she tells him these things. Geralt takes a minute or two. He wants to ask, What did his promises cost? He can guess. She doesn't need a reminder. She already knows. ]

You may have been important to him. But you are not important because of him. [ There's a difference. He doesn't care if this man has spent her entire life promising her things. She hasn't needed him since he vanished. She never did. ] You can make new choices.

[ She already has, by leaving Nott behind. He had wanted to be there, hadn't he? That had been his decision and they'd all followed him. In truth, Geralt isn't even sure Flagg needed to be a demon. Promises of power and safety in exchange for loyalty—she would not be the first to fall into that. Not nearly.

She can have better, here. She can choose better. In the end, that's what it comes down to. They can't change what they've done. But they can choose something else, something more. ]

At this point I think I'd just rather not be important at all.

[Another humorless laugh. Not important on any grand scale, anyway. But if the powers of this world are to be believed, all of them are in some way. That's not something she's forgotten.]

But I am making my own choices. Some, anyway. Who knows if they're any good, but...

[At least they're hers. And maybe that alone is worth whatever consequences might catch up to her down the line. Even if it's an illusion of freedom and control, it's a pretty damn convincing one.]

If I get screwed over in the end, at least it's because I tried to live my own life.

[ The curl to his lips is ironic at best. He's spent most of his life, avoiding becoming important to anyone. So much for that.

What makes a good choice, besides? He's never found a measure for it. Only for what he does and does not regret. Maybe that's all it is. Maybe that's the measure of it. ]

This world, the ones we left, there's never been room for us. [ Not really. If he once held any bitterness over it, it's long faded. ] The least we can do is carve our own place in it.

[ More than anyone, he sees it in Ciri. He knows the prophecies, the power she holds, and he doesn't care. He doesn't give a fuck where everyone believes her path is meant to lead. She wants to be not a princess or beholden to her bloodline, but here, a Witcher. And if that's what she wants, he can't see why she shouldn't have it.

He can't see why Nadine shouldn't have the same, either. Too many doors have closed for them as it is. If they won't make what they can for themselves, who will? ]

And it never really does get any easier. Being...different. Not really belonging.

[Another thing that all of their little group from Nevada shares. None of them had any place in the world, before the plague. There's no anger on Nadine's part about that, it is what it is. It can be lived with.

In that, she and Geralt are alike.]

Even before...I was always different. Orphan trauma, I guess. I...I never really had people, before this. Aside from... [She waves her hand vaguely, he knows she means Flagg.] I had my son, but...there was so much I kept from him. So much of myself I couldn't give him, even though I gave all I could. And...any time I started getting close to someone, not that it happened often, I kept so much of myself from them. I'm...I'm trying to do better, now. But god it was easier when I didn't care about other people.

[ No. It doesn't. He belongs with his kind, but his kind are not wanted, pushed out of the world by those who first brought them into it. He accepted that a long time ago. ]

I believed the same once.

[ That it was easier not to care. Lately, he doesn't know. What does it mean, if you end up struggling just as hard to keep people away? Maybe it was never really easier. Maybe it only felt that way, because it was what he knew best. He isn't certain he's in a place to answer that. This is new—here, with Ciri and Jaskier and everyone else. It's tentative, fragile. He still spends much of his time keeping to himself. There are a number of things he's yet to tell even his closest friend. Things he can't say he ever will tell.

Like Nadine, it's. Slow. ]

You have a place here. [ She does. There's room for her, in whatever it is they've started to build in Cadens. ]

[Nadine nods, unable to find her words in the moment. She hates the surge of emotions Geralt's words bring. She has a place. And that he says it so plainly, so simply...it's just a fact that he's stating.

She clears her throat, pinching the bridge of her nose to ground herself.]

Thank you. I...thank you.

[The chance of losing control of herself if she says more is very great. She's doing better, but still vulnerable and still raw. Letting the floodgates open so recently, she'd have thought she was still hollowed out. Instead she finds herself more prone to prickling at the corners of her eyes.

At least Geralt isn't the sort to draw attention to it.

Or judge.]

[ It's a rare thing, he realizes, that he's even able to offer anyone a place. If not for Ciri, it may never have crossed his mind at all, that this is something he has—something he can do. But she found a place with him, with all of them, and he thinks Nadine can, too.

Not that he isn't without questions; they just don't need to be answered right this instant. Something tells him the more she lets herself settle, the more she will say on her own.

For the moment, he only offers her more wine and a small smile. She's right, that he doesn't acknowledge much else beyond this. The smell of herbs still fills the room, but the air is less heavy. ]

March Catchall

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