abraxaslogs | March Catchall

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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