[ CLOSED ] the feeling never dies in your eyes

[gynvael]

Who: Geralt + Various
When: September
Where: Cadens; Horizon; Libertas
What: thisisfine.jpg
Warnings: Blanket for Witcher canon, destruction/war imagery and related topics, etc., references to child death, NSFW marked



(( starters in the comments below. find me at discontinued or at Noa#1979 to plot stuff! ))

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[princessvegas]

Uh-huh. Sittin' in front of it, mumbling like a crazy person to it.

[ There's an irony in the fact that Julie, who is in every other way a greedy, possessive brat, is very rarely jealous in a romantic sense. And while she can't say she likes the way that comes out of him, her hackles don't raise just over the idea of another woman.

She was there with the Queen, on the other hand, has an immediate effect. A sour, angry expression spreads over her face. She can feel hot fury settle behind her eyes. And she can't say whether she would feel this way if she hadn't recently relived that particular event, but it hits a terribly sore nerve.

Julie is almost never at a loss for words, but right now, the only ones that come to her are so hateful, so violent, and not meant for Geralt. So she doesn't say anything, just abruptly rises and exits the tent, which vanishes behind her.

On the plus side, she didn't set anything on fire. ]

[gynvael]

[ There's a sigh when she storms out. It's not that he can't understand. He felt the same anger from Ciri, too; doesn't begrudge it exactly.

Still. He made a choice in that room—the only one that mattered, the only one he felt he could. And he would make it again for Ciri. He would not have wanted anything less than Yennefer's trust he can handle some pain to protect what's important. What happened remains a deep scar for a different reason—not the capture, but the memory that violently resurfaced, compounded by her betrayal he remembered afterwards.

It's something he's told almost no one. He's mentioned it to one or two, a memory shook loose, but not the real reason behind it or the precise nature of it. Only Jaskier and Ciri to this day comprehend the full picture. He's not sure he'd have even told Jaskier had the bard not stumbled over the cellar that spawned in his domain. The truth is, he doesn't want to talk about it. He does not want to dig deep into his heartache to untangle why he feels how he does.

Eventually, he returns to the horses. Roach gives him a nudge, and he scratches her mane. ]

I don't wish to revisit old wounds. [ He is not referring to the physical marks left on him. He tugs on the straps of Roach's saddle. He's quiet, something open and raw he doesn't bother to mask. ] I've spent too many of my days healing them as it is.

[ Except sometimes he's not certain he's finished doing so. A stark reminder lurks in the Horizon each time he enters. ]

[princessvegas]

[ Her intention isn't to dredge up something and make it a problem, but for him, this is year-old information. It's new to her, and she just made a point of forcing herself to go through it all again to protect Stephen Strange. It's... a lot. And Julie isn't someone who forgives or excuses easily when it doesn't immediately behoove her to.

By the time he makes it to the horses, she is already mounted on hers, with the distinct aura that she had only barely restrained from riding off on her own. The truth is, she really wants to do that, wants to let Baron gallop to his heart's content so that she doesn't have to think about anything except how fast the wind rushes past her. When she was much younger, with even fewer anger management skills than she has now, it was something she used to do. But empty fields and dirt roads in rural Kansas don't have bandits or monsters lurking around, and they didn't have Geralt either.

Her fingers clench around the reins she holds, her knuckles white. She isn't trying to make him hurt. That's not what she wants. Baron impatiently paws the ground as she grinds her jaw, trying to pick her words carefully. ]

Wounds only heal once there's nothin' around to open 'em back up. [ And this Yennefer is clearly very much still in this world. That makes her a problem, in Julie's eyes. Someone who was willing to fuck you over once will always be willing to do it again.

It's all she says to him before she tightens her legs, lets Baron start heading back. But she mutters under her breath, to herself. Her mind is spiraling with anger. ] Better not get close to it again... birds of a fuckin' feather...

[gynvael]

[ He mounts without a word. It would be different were Yennefer not here. But she is. He's put it behind him, for himself, not because he's forgiven her but because he finds it exhausting to carry on mired in bitterness. And because Ciri has her reasons for believing in Yennefer, in those unknown years that span between them. He will not force Ciri's hand one way or another. She's more reluctant to lower her walls than even he is. When she does, it carries a certain weight to him. However he feels about Yennefer, Ciri deserves his trust. That is something he will afford her without fail.

But he does trust Julie, too, that she knows him, that at the end of the day he simply needs space and time and room to make his decisions. He has never considered himself a complicated man. More just one few have cared to understand, beyond the people closest to him.

He rides for a while without speaking, lets her work through her thoughts or feelings as she will. He is not, at all, aware that she has spoken to Stephen about what happened to him. ]

When I was in Nott, [ he breaks the silence at last, ] there were times I was loath to leave. I am glad I saw it with you. Circumstances aside.

[princessvegas]

[ She did not tell Stephen who it happened to. Made a point of not even indicating a gender for the victim. And when she showed him what it had looked like, she'd created a generic body to apply the wounds to. The truth was that she hadn't wanted to talk about it, had struggled with her own feeling that speaking of it at all would be a betrayal. But Stephen needed to know what he was up against, and Julie is the only had ever seen the wounds at their worst -- even Nadine only ever saw them after Julie had cleaned them out, wrapped them overnight.

It had worked, to make Stephen take the threat seriously. He's a doctor, knew the severity of what he was looking at when she showed him. Understood how deeply it had affected her just to be the one caught in the aftermath. At least it served the purpose she wanted.

Her trust in Geralt is not changed. She doesn't hold it against him to need time, to make these decisions. She only wishes he had been more open about some of the details; that it was not only one of their own but someone from his home world, someone who is still here. No matter what anyone feels or trusts, that is a threat, an active one that still, apparently, sits on the court.

Active and growing, as Istredd had been particularly emphatic about going to school with her. Julie grew up in a place where everyone knew everyone, and had since childhood. Old bonds are much stronger than new ones.

For a long time, she is lost in thought, diving into the depths of her own manipulative tendencies to better understand what might have happened to put all these pieces into place. Where they might go next. For a Summoned to come into this world and claw themselves up onto Thorne's court, win the queen's favor enough to necessitate testing, that takes ambition. Julie knows ambition. Knows that personality. She was that person, for so long, and might have been that person here had they not thrown her in the dungeon. It gives her insight. This kind of chess is one of the few things she truly excels at.

But he speaks and she looks over at him. There's something genuinely heartbroken in her eyes at the thought, not of Geralt in Nott, but of them not being in Nott now. She's never been tight-lipped about her desire to go back, live there, despite knowing the danger. Her smile is soft, a bit regretful. ]

I'm glad too. They don't deserve what happened. They don't care about any of this political bullshit, it ain't their war. They're just stuck in the middle.

[gynvael]

[ The irony is, even Geralt never saw the worst of it. He felt it, and it fucking hurt, but beyond that? He doesn't truly know how the scar appears. It's never crossed his mind to go out of his way to examine it. He's only glimpsed it now and again in mirrors angled just right.

He looks back. Mm. He knows. He feels better with her close by, but he can't blame her for missing Nott. In the little time he spent there, it'd suited him better: the climate, the people, the lakeside. If not for Ciri and Jaskier, he may have remained there. ]

So it often goes. [ Village and towns—razed for being in the way. ] You'd have liked Oxenfurt. Not too different. Bit larger.

[ He curls his fingers around the reins. A few minutes tick by. His mind has not entirely left the topic of Yennefer. He is not often one to explain—but he doesn't want Julie to feel as though he would forsake her, or even himself, solely because he has history with someone. No matter how complicated that history. If it comes down to it—he knows what he'll do. ]

I haven't got any easy answers about Yennefer. But I have made hard choices before, and I will again. Let me handle her.

[ He had not understood then. He does now. And he's never hesitated where it counts. If there's one thing he knows about himself, it's that. ]

[princessvegas]

[ Though she tries not to think about it, the truth is that Julie's mind is a veritable library of things no one else will ever see or know. The story of New Vegas, the lives of everyone she ever knew, her own entire history. The scar on his back doesn't bother her simply by virtue of being something that other people can see. It's memory of before it was a scar that haunts her if she lets it.

In her ideal Abraxas, they're all together in Nott, though she knows that for some of them, Cadens probably suits better. But Julie hates the desert (at least Vegas had air conditioning), hates the government, is wary of the people there. The sole upsides are the fashion and the access to Aquila, the only other place she thinks she might care to live in, but at the end of the day, she came to Cadens because who she was with mattered much more to her than anything else. She wanted to be with him, with Ciri and Jaskier and Sam, and if she had to live in Cadens to do it, then that was what she'd do.

Her smile grows a little. She chuckles. ] Sounds perfect. Nott is a little on the small side for my tastes. Bigger'n where I'm from, smaller than where I always wanted to be.

[ Biting the inside of her cheek, she tilts her head to the side, pushes a strand of hair out of her face. It's not a question of his choices or her trust in them. She knows herself well enough to know that it's something much more selfish and venomous. This Yennefer was a party to hurting someone important to Julie, and that's enough to drive white hot hatred for a very long time.

She's never been one to let things go easily. ]

You can handle her. I trust you. But she's got friends now, if it comes down to it again. You don't have to handle 'em all on your own.

wrapping!

[gynvael]

[ What he misses most is going where he pleases. An illusion of sorts exists in Cadens, but it isn't the same. Still, there's a kind of home now instead. Perhaps that isn't such a terrible exchange.

He hums. Vegas is where Julie wound up, but he's never asked where it is she had hoped to go before the world fell apart and a demon drew her forth. Doesn't ask now, either. One way or another, it's too late for lost dreams. Always has been. He finds himself thinking instead, more and more, of where they may be in the months, years, coming. Still in Cadens? Pushed elsewhere by the tides of war?

Difficult to say.

He watches her for a moment, before he answers softly. ] I know.

[ Yeah. He does. She's long become someone he can rely on. If he needs her, he knows she'll be there. ]

[princessvegas]

[ She has been expecting to move again since shortly after the peace summit. She doesn't know when or where or what will be the final straw, but she doesn't feel like Cadens will remain safe for any of the Summoned for much longer. She doesn't think anywhere in this world will be, except maybe right around the Singularity itself. And that's a different kind of dangerous. ]

Okay. [ Her voice is equally soft, and it's all she says. She doesn't often fight his inclinations to do things on his own. If that's what he wants, then that's his prerogative. But it can't hurt to occasionally remind him that he doesn't have to do everything that way.

The sun gradually gets lower as they return to the city gates. ]