Even before Estinien opens his mouth, Geralt feels it coming. Feels that snap in the air that tells him he's about to hear something he can't walk away from—and it's exactly this he's been trying to avoid. He doesn't even know what Estinien thinks explaining this will do. To tell him about his noble cause? As though it matters? As though it'll change his mind and he'll suddenly agree that there's a right side to be found, that he'll talk to Yennefer, that there is something to work out?
There isn't. Maybe if Estinien had been talking to someone else, his speech might've been worthwhile. For Geralt, it only raises a wariness he hadn't felt before. He knows men hungry with power, he knows men who are cruel and violent. Men too weak to be anything else. But there is nothing that makes him step further away from it all than a man who has the conviction that he is fighting for something bigger. Nilfgaard has marched through half the north on this conviction. It is the same conviction that Ambrose holds. It is the same conviction that has the Continent, the Red Riders, pursuing Cirilla across worlds.
He wants nothing to do with it.
If his expression had been steady before, it's now entirely shuttered. There's an unnatural stillness to him, a faint hum to the medallions that hang.
"I don't care about your oaths." He's quiet, as always, and a careful calm has settled beneath the steel in his words. "I've heard it all before. Believe in what let's you sleep easiest at night, when you wash the blood off your blade. It means fuck all to me. But I am not asking you to leave me out of it. I'm telling you that you'll want to."
no subject
There isn't. Maybe if Estinien had been talking to someone else, his speech might've been worthwhile. For Geralt, it only raises a wariness he hadn't felt before. He knows men hungry with power, he knows men who are cruel and violent. Men too weak to be anything else. But there is nothing that makes him step further away from it all than a man who has the conviction that he is fighting for something bigger. Nilfgaard has marched through half the north on this conviction. It is the same conviction that Ambrose holds. It is the same conviction that has the Continent, the Red Riders, pursuing Cirilla across worlds.
He wants nothing to do with it.
If his expression had been steady before, it's now entirely shuttered. There's an unnatural stillness to him, a faint hum to the medallions that hang.
"I don't care about your oaths." He's quiet, as always, and a careful calm has settled beneath the steel in his words. "I've heard it all before. Believe in what let's you sleep easiest at night, when you wash the blood off your blade. It means fuck all to me. But I am not asking you to leave me out of it. I'm telling you that you'll want to."