abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] hide your love, don't be shy

[ Some part of him would honestly not be surprised if Geralt opted to keep moving, busy as they've all been in different ways. Instead he gets to ponder whether staying up over an impending statue invasion is a joke. And the comment after gets a fleeting smile, one that says he might be trying to not laugh though he doesn't, especially considering he humor in that is known to only him alone. Or, more accurately, something only Claude finds entertaining. ]

You know, I've lost track of how many people have said that to me. At least of those who also know what alchemy is though I can't claim to know much of it myself or to be an alchemist. But I am starting to wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something about missing my true calling.

[ All said lightly like it's yet another joke the two of them are in on. But seriously - Claude really is wondering just a bit. Still, that doesn't explain much of anything about why he's here so he can follow that up with a bit more. 'Bit' being a relative measurement. ]

I've never been good at being idle so this is more a way to keep myself occupied. Or was before Libertas, since now I'd like to make something of it. [ Eventually. For now there's solving puzzles about desert vegetation and what all it can do, so he gestures to the plant before him with one hand. ] You wouldn't happen to know what this one is, would you? I can't seem to locate anything in it about my notes, but mostly I'm interested in whether touching it has any negative effects. The rest of it I can work on later.

[ Apparently. How often is Claude out here that he's one of a long line of many to say it?

He steps around to examine the plant: white blossoms with an array of spikes like pins. Most of these he's never seen before until this world. Not quite the climate he's used to, the arid grasslands, and though he misses having access to the herbs he's long relied on, the desert isn't absent of useful things. ]

Just don't swallow it. [ He plucks the round brown core that grows alongside the white flowers. Small pods fall from it into his palm. ] Seeds are edible.

[ He's used the flowers for bait before. Works, on occasion. Depends on the creature. As for what Claude's doing if not alchemy? He isn't certain he cares enough to ask, though a mild curiosity lingers. ]

It's poisonous then, I presume. [ The flowers, petals, leaves: maybe he means all of it in what isn't quite a question and which doesn't supply much clarification as Geralt's response seems to do the same. At first, anyway; Claude watches with undisguised fascination as the flowers are bypassed for that core he'd missed in the cursory plant exam.

It's enough for him to crouch down instead of standing to use a gloved hand to delicately brush aside some stems to reveal more of the cores, glancing back up from that discovery as Geralt shuffles the seeds into view. That's all Claude needs to retrieve one for himself to mimic the motion to study his own set of seeds. Though the plant hadn't seemed familiar, the added description and a closer look at the petals helped place it. ]

Ah, this must be either the same plant or a different variety of it we passed on the way to Solvunn, but it was much closer to the forests. The soldiers mentioned it works as a last resort against starvation if one finds themselves in dire straits. The name they called it is on the tip of my tongue, but I suppose it'd be worth recognizing the ones growing here. Just in case.

[ Still - useful in more ways than one, so Claude retrieves a couple vials from his bag. The seeds go into one by themselves first and then with great care suggesting he may have done this a time or two beyond the desert here, the flower goes into the other. If it is poisonous, that only makes it all the more interesting. ]

Astute. [ Yes. It is toxic. He doesn't ask what Claude is doing with these if not alchemy. Not his business. Perhaps he's studying to become a botanist.

The seeds fall from Geralt's palm onto the dusty earth. ] Buttonbush.

[ They seem to have adapted. He's spotted them more often near the few streams that run through the hills, but a few will sprout further in the arid soil. Not surprised Claude's seen similar close to Solvunn's borders.

Although— ]

You were part of the escort?

[ Buttonbush: that does finally ring a bell fully, one that'll make it easier to remember to label these vials upon his return. Something Claude had overlooked in today's preparations, but it'll be easy enough to recall once seated back at his desk later on today.

As the vials get tucked away he nods his thanks, busy with slipping them into pockets to stay separate and prevent the glass from getting grand ideas about shattering inside his bag. The question which follows makes him pause in his organization since it feels unexpected in a way he can't place, even despite being the one to volunteer that information. ]

I was. [ Claude says this slowly while internally calculating if he's stumbled upon something of interest to Geralt. The question certainly seems to imply something like it, and he looks up with an eyebrow raised. ] Not out of any obligation to either the military or the Free Cities, just to make that part perfectly clear as said obligation is something I'd rather avoid. Supply runs are something I've done several times over.

[ Whatever smile's on his face shifts to a rueful one then, because - ] That part of war never changes no matter where we are, it seems.

[ There's a tilt of his head that passes for a shrug: he doesn't much care about how people feel towards the Free Cities—or the factions as a whole. Anyone who's tossed their loyalty into that pool has made their bed. And that's not his problem. But it's true he goes out of his way to avoid those who seem to keen on supporting the army. ]

So it seems. [ Can't run a war with a starving platoon. But that isn't why he asked. It's because Ciri had told him she was accompanied by three others. Geralt had not asked their names—he trusts she's discerning about who she does a job with.

But now that he's faced with one potential, he finds himself curious.

He straightens up. ] Heard one of the caravans came upon a rift in the earth.

[ Huh. The rift is quite clearly what their caravan ran into, though rather than only ("only") a rift it'd reminded him a bit more of the canyons he's seen, but Geralt's mentioning it is enough to pique Claude's curiosity even more. ]

Ours certainly did.

[ He peers up at Geralt while putting away the samples, and with the vials now secure stands once more to dust his gloves off to the side away from either of them. Better safe than sorry if the flowers' ability to poison extends to their pollen, and also better to avoid any cross-contamination of what he might offer the apothecaries or alchemists in town.

A simple process of elimination here: he'd really only told Petra and Sylvain about his travels so that leaves his other companions as potential links. Nothing about the journey was top secret from start to finish and he'd already assumed word would spread - if not by mouth then by horizon contact, convenient as it is - so it's more about the knowledge of connecting who knows who to each other through this that Claude's interested in. ]

I take it you know someone I was traveling with, though there's quite a few options there between the four of us who went and... well, the rest of the soldiers.

[ He leans a shoulder against one of the rare low hanging trees that dot the landscape. It's true he may have heard from the soldiers eventually, if not Ciri. He's not gone out of his way to make friends with them, but they patrol the desert and he's found it simpler to keep matters cordial.

Besides, soldiers will pay, too, for a monster killed. ]

Ciri. [ Had they met for the first time on this journey? Or were they familiar prior? It isn't technically relevant, but when it comes to Ciri, he tends to want to know more than he doesn't. ]

She mentioned it on her way home. An unusual disturbance.

[ There's something to it, perhaps, in how he says home instead of back. ] ]

[ Home instead of back, returning, Cadens, any number of other descriptions which could be used for the end of a journey is noted, and Claude contemplates that. Geralt's been here for a long time, he recalls, and Ciri mentioned a year. Perhaps with enough time it will feel like home. It's not a concept Claude's unfamiliar with, even if the execution of being here is much different than moving to somewhere else in his life before.

Something else also comes to mind with this new connection, but first what they found being described with neat brevity gets a short laugh from him. ]

Unusual is certainly a good word for it, considering it seemed to be nothing I've seen before. I'm starting to think that description counts for less and less given how much I've never seen before, [ a wave to the plant he's still standing by, as one more example of so very many, ] but the soldiers were surprised to see a ravine where the map didn't have one marked. That makes it all the more of an oddity, I should think.

But it's funny, I would've said Jesper if I had to guess who you knew since he seems to know just about everyone. Though now that I think about it, I've seen you and Ciri around together here and there. Have you both been here about the same amount of time?

[ Just curious. ]

[ No. It would not be on any map, because Geralt's travelled far enough he'd have noticed it, too, last time he was out that way. He had not. Which is foreboding to say the least, but bloodshed has often brought with it harbingers. Isn't that what they claim? Not that he believes in that shit, and yet. ]

We're familiar, too. [ Jesper does indeed know every fucking one. Can't keep his mouth shut. Jesper, Claude, Ciri. Who's the fourth? Hm. ] About. She's from my sphere.

[ It had been a thing. Ciri showing up after he'd thought her dead, after he'd believed he was too late to find her. He recalls not ever remembering having met her before, and now he has memories of raising her, and then their memories here together both before and after. Feels like it's been years and months at the same time.

He at least doesn't appear to mind speaking of Ciri; what hesitations he might've had lay in the past. Most know what she is to him now. Hard to hide when they share a home, when he trains her still, hunts with her on occasion, and after Nocwich? Half of them have seen him dance with her. ]

Edited 2022-10-05 22:56 (UTC)

[ Claude grins a bit at we're familiar, something he doesn't doubt for a second after - well, spending any amount of time around Jesper. He's not sure the teen knows the meaning of the word stranger. That suits him just fine considering he's much the same. ]

Is your home considered a sphere?

[ He's only slightly kidding about this since it's the first time he's heard someone use that term in regards to where they're from, but - if so, he'll be careful to use it from here on out.

Still: 'about' and 'from' are things more important his mind latches onto, a combination that draws it in. It could, if he bends it, fit to describe whatever it is that sums up the mismatches in his memory versus Petra's versus Sylvain's. The association is weak, but that's what's on his mind as Claude studies Geralt, very obviously weighing something back and forth while he debates on whether to say anything. It sounds odd enough to his own ears, not that he's really said it aloud; what will it sound like to someone else's?

In the end, a potential chance to learn something else wins out as it always does. Here comes a non-sequitur born out of this gamble. ]

Do you both... well, remember the same things about what you left before coming here?

[ One eyebrow lifts. ] Is yours a cube?

[ All worlds are spheres, as far as he's aware. He's yet to find anyone who comes from an irregularly shaped world. Perhaps one day. He's encountered stranger things as of late.

Claude seems to have something on his mind, though; Geralt watches, but does not interrupt. When it comes, he only nods. Mm. Sometimes he's been here so fucking long, he's forgotten that the discrepancy can be...a new experience. ]

No. [ A gulf of years exists between he and Ciri. He isn't the only one, either. How it works, he's not learned, but in some ways he isn't sure it makes a difference. Not for him. Not now that they have made their decision to stay here. They don't need to know if they've no intention of returning to their respective homes or places in time or however the fuck it's meant to be. If that's even possible. Nothing is ever so simple.

There's likely only one reason Claude is asking, though. ] You found friends.

[ For a second Claude does nothing but stare. A cube? Is that really a thing? Asking himself this then makes the unsaid context behind 'sphere' sink in very belatedly and, well. Nothing to do but laugh at that and himself. ]

Okay, you got me there. Ours is certainly also a sphere based on the globes used by researchers, but we don't usually refer to the world by the shape. More like by country or continent, if anything.

[ He'll shrug that off though not without another chuckle at his own expense first. It's a good thing to get some humor in since hearing Geralt and Ciri don't recall the same things is both a comfort and anything but. It leaves him with more questions, but he nods slowly in response. ]

I knew them from the same academy we all attended, but we ended up on different sides of the war. One of them comes from the morning of something I lived months ago, and the other knows of something that never happened for me. If it had, it would've changed everything about what happened. Nothing I did would've then been possible.

[ That's the least complicated explanation he knows how to give, especially given that he does consider them friends despite everything. Sometimes that's the hardest part to reconcile now, something increasingly weighing on his mind the longer they go without talking about it all. But - can't change the past if that's what it is, and they're here now to deal with it.

At some point Claude's gaze shifted to the desert out before them, but now he glances back at Geralt and adds dryly, ] Hopefully your situation is also that delightfully uncomplicated.

[ For all intents and purposes, to those who live upon it, the Continent on his world is the only continent which matters beyond sparse instances of trading. The others are small, located a long ways across two seas. Even he's never travelled there. What would be the point? Months-long journey, possibly more. Waste of his time.

But it isn't important, so he doesn't mention it. His attention is instead on what Claude is saying. A casual enough explanation—except the part where Claude says never happened for me. His head tilts. That's new. That's different. A gap of years, he's heard of that. A discrepancy is something else altogether. It isn't that the concept is foreign. Theories of...alternative versions, he's spoken to one or two about it. He's just never met anyone who's experienced it in Abraxas itself. ]

Mm. Just about as. [ How does one reconcile an event that never occurred to someone you knew? It would be as though he met Jaskier, but a Jaskier who did not know him to have gone to Rinde and met Yennefer. (A Yennefer who had not betrayed him.) ]

You're saying they know you to have made a different choice.

[ A choice. It'd be simple if it was just that. Wouldn't it? It's crossed his mind before since hearing what Sylvain told him, then what Petra told him. The latter of which is more concerning as it'd rewrite history, at least to Claude. But he also believes Petra, hence the complication. ]

Maybe. I suppose there's a chance it relies on choice for one of them, but the other? [ Where to even start. Claude has to think about that, strip away details that matter to him but require all kinds of added explanation. ] In what I lived of Fodlan's war, we marched on the Empire's capital and they never approached ours in the Alliance. But for one of my friends, it was the Empire who marched on our capital. Whatever happened there in Derdriu, they had the upper hand and I surrendered.

Which, in all honesty, sounds like something I'd do. Dying for an ideal's never been one of my dreams, not for me or for anyone else.

[ There's a good chance he's too nonchalant for that last part though it is the truth. Sounding lighthearted's how he approaches most things so this will get included into it to keep it on more of an even keel in his mind. What Petra described at Derdriu (and what Sylvain's lived so far) isn't the only difference, but he's not even sure he wants to get into how Teach does or doesn't factor into all of this. Not yet. ]

Maybe none of that matters now considering we're all here and can't change whatever happened for each of us. Especially if we... aren't the only ones this has happened to.

Dying is in few people's dreams.

[ The remark is dry. He starts back towards his horse, only a few paces away. Begins taking off her saddle. He's not keen on riding back in it heat, and here's a good place as any to wait for dusk. The sun's already low in the sky.

The multiverse is what a handful here call it. He's not unfamiliar with the term—the kind of writings scholars with too much time on their hands explore—but Claude's explanation sounds...an extreme version of the concept. Not small choices made or different realms existing. Rather, a shift in a world where the people, the places, remain the same but the events do not. ]

Ciri and I are a few years apart. But our memories align. She just knows more.

[ She was a child, in other words, when he last saw her. Young and headstrong. Now she's grown and equally headstrong so not too much has changed. He feels it now and then, that gulf between them. There are things she will not say to him that he knows she's keeping. He's just not asked. Doesn't seem the right time. ]

Maybe not dying in general, but when it comes to dying for an ideal you might be surprised at how popular that can be in Fodlan. Both as its own ideal and in reality.

[ Well. Another thing likely to not matter here, given the Fodlan contingent's collective feelings on this war back when it'd only been brewing. One more thing he should probably add to the list of things to discuss, really.

When Geralt steps back to his horse it gets a slight smile from Claude, if only because it's reminiscent of what he would've done with his own wyvern. Claude's attention turns to a different plant nearby but this one he recognizes thanks to Nadine's guidance, and he goes back to kneeling to collect what he can of the shell-leaves. Those will be earmarked for the clinic's supplies before anything for his own use, and as Geralt speaks again Claude glances up. ]

I'm only a year or so ahead of them in my case. But a few years between both of you, even if you share the same memories. [ A pause to focus on cutting a tough stem without injuring the leaves and while he does the math on what the other man's said. ] Doesn't sound any easier, not that any of this is. It also sounds like you and Ciri have known each other for a while.

[ Perhaps there are those like that here. He wonders. How many will die for a war that isn't theirs? What makes it theirs? Geralt hasn't any attachment to the land, the politics, but the people are another matter.

And they cannot exactly go home. ]

Long enough. [ Longer for Ciri. He doesn't get into the surge of memories that struck them, how he didn't remember her and then he did. Then they all did. But even with those memories, only months had passed. For Ciri, she's known him years.

Still seems to like having him around, though. So he must've done something right in those years. ] I took her in when she was a girl.

[ He's brushing Roach as he speaks, cleaning off the dust and ash and dirt. The air's not gotten much better since Libertas went up in flames, but the smoke's finally cleared out of the sky a little. More than ever, he misses the sharp clear air of the winter mountains. ]

[ Long enough doesn't tell him much by itself, an island of a sentence, but it does with the added context after. Ciri had mentioned training from a young age, and he has to wonder how that fits into this. Something else which could hold no weight in Abraxas, perhaps doesn't make much of a difference besides establishing relationships to those who are curious. (Like Claude.) ]

Are you someone who trained her? She'd said something about training and stubbornness, two things I can relate to well myself. That was back when we were using bows and arrows, though, and before I saw her in action with a sword. Much different.

[ An easier topic than war and what it might bring to them or what it's wrought upon their homes, given he still has questions wisely tucked away from their last conversation. For now, the leaves he's collected get secured in their own pouch. Claude retrieves a list tucked away in yet another satchel pocket to peruse through what he'd scribbled on with today's botany goals. It occurs to him during his reading his words possibly sounded ambiguous at best, and he taps a finger idly against the paper in his hand. ]

That was meant as a compliment if so, considering I thought her bow skills were quite good. But seeing her with a sword in hand was... something else entirely. Probably what my combat instructor hoped I'd be able to do back when he taught me, but swords never were my strongest suit.

[ Geralt doesn't answer at first. He runs the brush over Roach, letting Claude finish speaking. Half the time, he isn't sure if Claude is talking to him or if the man is musing all of the thoughts in between out loud.

He weighs what he wants to say in the meantime. Eventually settles on: ] I raised her.

[ He did more than train her. She is more than his student. It's not a thought he stumbles over anymore. His memories from home are firm in his mind; he's no longer missing those pieces that left him wondering just how they came together—not the grand scope of it, but the quiet little moments. The bits on her plate she'd always pick around at dinner, the treats she'd sneak his horse, that face she'd make at him when he sent her to bed.

And she should impress with her skill. He never taught her anything less. ]

I imagine one day, she'll best me. [ He's not serious, but it isn't wholly a joke. He's only getting older by the season. ]

Edited 2022-10-11 07:06 (UTC)

[ Somehow, even with the mention of years and his own fishing for whether that training looped in there among it, Claude isn't expecting Geralt to say he raised Ciri. During the silence he'd kept reviewing his notes, thought of something here and there to add to them once back at the inn, content to wait for whatever the other man opts to share.

So what finally comes out of his mouth after his own lack of immediate response is, ] Huh.

[ There's a lot to unpack there. Or, more accurately, it promptly drags a lot of things out of some corner of Claude's mind he'd been doing this best to not think about. A joke about children upstaging their parents gets discarded because now his thoughts are on Petra and Sylvain again even if said thoughts hadn't wandered far. What it means that they're here, why he knows what he does, why seeing them is far more complicated than he's been pretending that it's not. How he might feel if any of the Deer show up someday when that possibility comes with both relief and trepidation attached. Is it the same for Geralt? ]

Does it make it easier or harder that she's here too?

[ He asks this before he's fully aware he's going to, but there it is. For once he's not interested in the fine details of something. Any answer will do even if the answers he can think of to apply to himself are no less tangled, no easier to sift through. There's a chance that - aside from the general lack of words - Claude's telling on himself here by keeping his eyes his list even if it's also clear he's not really looking at it, not with his tone also decisively not light or teasing but tinged with something heavier. ]

[ That's a far more subdued response than usual. Geralt pauses a moment before resuming his work on his horse. There's obviously something on the man's mind. It's just a matter of how much he wants to pry. ]

It's not that simple. [ Both. Neither. Nothing about Ciri is easy, but it isn't right to say it's difficult, either. In a sense, he doesn't think of it in those terms. Whatever complications she does or does not bring into his life, she will always be worth it. ]

She's here. I wouldn't give her up for anything.

[ And she's the entire reason he's even attached to this world in the first place. If not for her, he'd be the first fighting through that doorway to return home. To find her. ]

Are you asking because of your new friends?

Partially.

[ That's the immediate answer he gives in his usual near-instant way of deflecting something he doesn't want to actually answer, but it's a little late for avoiding that. Even he's aware of this, so Claude frowns and looks up from the list that wasn't serving as a very good cover anyway. He can think about the intricacies of what's said in regards to Ciri a bit later even if it's all connected. ]

Not just them, but also what I... [ He trails off, pauses for a second, then shakes his head. That part's not worth finishing, so on to something else. ] Anyway. There's others I'd be glad to see here but also I don't know enough about here to be actually happy since everything could still go sideways in an instant. What happened after Nocwich proved that.

[ As if it really needs to be said again since it's still firmly lodged in recent history. But that does also circle back to something else that'd been on his mind, even if his initial fear about it was proven wrong. ]

Someone in Thorne told me they watched the attack on Libertas because the queen there made the Summoned there witness it. What they described with the fire coming from the sky... if it'd been replaced with light, that'd be far too close to something I've seen before during the war in Fodlan. Only other difference being we were given enough warning to narrowly avoid it striking us then, but it still leveled where it hit.

[ Hm. Geralt glances over his shoulder briefly. Then he sets the saddle down and simply sits under the tree. Starts stacking up a little campfire. ]

Every world finds a reason for war. [ That's life. Doesn't matter where you are; something's bound to go to shit one way or another. Multiple times. ] Before I was pulled here, half the Continent was burning. So nothing's changed.

[ Libertas is a pile of smouldering ruins; he imagines Nott looks much the same. Winter will hit Thorne harshly. More will die. No one in the castle, of course. But the fields? The farms?

He tosses some kindling on the fire pit and lights it with a burst of heat from his palm. The flame catches easily on the dry tinder. Yeah. He heard the same from Thancred and Yennefer. Doesn't surprise him Ellya made a show of it to her people. Dramatic fuckers, royalty. ]

Cities rebuild eventually. [ That's the thing. Everything falls. But they rise just the same. ] Libertas will, too.

[ He listens as Geralt speaks, and - it's not comfort, not really, to know someone else has seen variations of the same, in what they've lived at home and now here. But it is steadying somehow in a way Claude can't put a finger upon; maybe it's from growing up watching Almyra's relentless war with Fodlan, frustrated with how pointless it was but otherwise unafflicted unless it resulted in some other vitriol his way. Or from then being in Fodlan to understand the depths the cost of war could reach when it involved the entire land, and having to be the one pulling all the strings to prevent anything besides the least amount of damage possible.

Every world finds a reason. This, at least, he hears as a universal truth, and something to consider on his own later on.

Claude looks up in time to see Geralt light the fire in a method not entirely familiar. It doesn't resemble Reason and the flames he watched friends generate and control before, and that - well, and the fire - is enough for him to stand up and brush the desert off his trousers and approach. Reasonable enough to invite himself over in his mind so he takes a seat a comfortable distance off to Geralt's side, not one to encroach on another's personal space, and takes his gloves off with great care to set aside in case any of the poisonous plant lingers on them. ]

You come from somewhere that has magic as well. With the - [ there's a gesture here that's meant to mimic whatever it was Geralt had done with his hand, though it may or may not be accurate - ] Or something close to it?

[ For once he decides to wait for Geralt's response before adding his own, instead directing his attention to rummage around in his bag again to retrieve a packet of jerky. Claude takes one for himself, then holds the pack out as an offer for Geralt to do the same. ]

[ OPEN ] hide your love, don't be shy

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