![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abraxas:: INBOX
Inbox
» action
» text
» Horizon
To talk to him in person, you'll need to be in Cadens or go to his domain, a snowy mountain fortress. Yard is open; doors are locked. If he isn't around, leave a delivery with the white wolf.
To talk to him in person, you'll need to be in Cadens or go to his domain, a snowy mountain fortress. Yard is open; doors are locked. If he isn't around, leave a delivery with the white wolf.
no subject
Ellya has been meeting with her uncle in Borrel- confirming the military's support to her decisions, most likely, but I doubt she would attempt something as outwardly offensive after the crops have been set ablaze. The people in Thorne are worried about the winter.
[ yennefer does not find herself as concerned as many of the other members of court appear to be. though, then again, this is hardly her first time within city walls under siege.
she moves, slowly and as if she can't quite shake the soreness of her exhausted body in her bed, towards a chair on the other side of the table. pauses, briefly, as if considering once again if the question is worth raising, but this time she seems to decide it is. ]
Did you know of the machine? Whatever it was the Cities let loose in the lake?
no subject
He should be more concerned about Thorne. He's aware many are. But somehow, the Free Cities still feels like the biggest threat to him. Perhaps because they hold shades of Nilfgaard. Elections have just been dismissed; Marlo edges ever closer to crowning herself emperor in light of an encroaching war. And though most of the Summoned in Cadens hold no loyalty to the Cities itself, they do hold loyalty to each other. Sometimes that matters more than any pride of state.
Geralt watches her carefully. Knows better than to ask if she's all right, but the question lingers in his eyes nonetheless. After a second, he pours the liquor. Tries not to consider what it means that the two times they have met since after the Summit have been to discuss strategy. It's fine. They're speaking, they aren't fighting or hurting each other, and if that's what they have, then it's doable. (A start, he nearly thinks, but a start towards what? What is it he wants? Not wishes for, but wants, truly? He doesn't know.)
He doesn't need to let his personal feelings get tangled up in this. (It is always personal with her.)
There's a long exhale. Yeah. The machine. Marlo's decision was tactical for more than one reason. She looks restrained on the surface compared to the Queen's outburst, attacking supplies instead of civilians. But when the winter strikes, how many children will starve? ]
I've never seen it. Constructed underground possibly. [ He presumes. If it was anywhere on the surface, he'd have noticed. But there are dozens of mines, tunnels, more, hollowed into the hills, the mountains, the caves, perhaps beneath the wasteland itself. He'd be surprised if her army hadn't built a few facilities under the earth. ] It's capable of crossing both land and water. If they've been holding something of that nature, they must have other weapons in wait.
no subject
she settles in the chair, definitely still feeling sore, but when she sets herself up and looks back to him, she finds him looking right back. whether she means to or not, yennefer can see the question in them. a question that he does not ask, and she knows he won't, so yennefer just watches him back. when he pours them both a glass, she reaches over to take her own.
( it is almost easy, to have something to talk about. to have something to strategize over. it doesn't feel like she's tripping over any misconceptions, doesn't feel like she keeps trying for something she won't find.
it's easier, because at least she feels as though her expectations are right this time. that the distance here isn't new. ) ]
Is it entirely machine? Or is she making more of those- partially machine, partially chaos? [ her tone is more curious than strategic, as she takes a breath and then drinks nearly half the glass in one go. she needs one second, just one, to swallow it back before she is speaking again. ] What is she like? Your- what's her name? Reiner? Will she raze the rest of the farmland before focusing on the cities themselves?
no subject
[ Or both. He knows it is possible to make machines without Chaos at all. He's been shown by those from worlds with so little magic, it may as well not exist for them at all. Great flying machines, complicated engines fueled by chemical compounds they have not created on the Continent or in spheres like Abraxas. But those are inventions of many centuries in the making, from people who didn't have magic to fall back on.
As for Marlo...
A complicated question. He tips back his drink and pours another. ]
Shrewd. [ Cold. Calculating. They all apply. ] Ellya may have connections to the military, but Marlo led soldiers of her own, and she won their votes.
[ And if he knows anything about soldiers—that isn't easy to do. It's a fickle thing; monarchies only stand as firm as their armies, which is in part why the Queen's familial ties to Thorne's military is a point of concern. With Marlo, though, it's more. She isn't attached by bloodline or name. She served—and if he isn't mistaken, many of the soldiers who are serving now must've fought alongside her. She isn't only their leader. She's a comrade. The kind of loyalty and kinship that can't be bought. There's plenty of dissent and criticism amongst the citizens, but nothing that speaks of her reign weakening.
Certainly nothing that seems to bother Marlo. She's moved to suppress none of it.
He's no general. But— ] You ask me? She'll wait to see how the winter treats you. Then make her move when the Singularity wanes once more.
[ The Dimming, as they call it. He knows it affects Thorne the most—to the point where they try to feed the monolith to sustain it. It's a predictable time to strike, but also the most ideal. If Marlo decides Thorne is weakened enough that they won't need the element of surprise, then she's likely to gather her forces. ]
no subject
but the rest...is not good. yennefer feels herself frown at the reality of it, knowing - just like geralt does, though from a different perspective, perhaps - at how dangerous it is that marlo does have the loyalty of the army. monarchies topple, in no small part due to their distance from the people and soldiers they are said to rule. but someone who has the trust, the loyalty of those same people... it gives her a stronger staying power, more likely to be able to motivate those who look to her for leadership.
yennefer sighs and takes another sip from her glass, because she does agree with him. the dimming had been on her mind since she learned of the queen's attack, just mere months from now, when the mages of thorne are most vulnerable. ]
Ellya's most likely to pull forces from Borrel to build up the borders, but it's hard to say if she'll bring them to the castle itself, or station them along the lakeside. [ another sip of her drink, a shake of her head. ] With most of the Summoned at the Singularity, it's likely to leave the entire southern border against Solvunn open. Unless you think she'll have machines that could help an army traverse the mountains.
[ a beat, and then yennefer sighs. some part of her should recognize the weight of this, how easily it is for her to just tell geralt these things, but she chooses not to think on that. ]
We're to receive supplies from Solvunn, but it's hard to say if it will be enough.
no subject
As are we. [ Healing and medicine. He imagines it isn't exactly coming from the heart.
A silence falls. The real reason he's discussing the potential invasion is not about the war itself. Strategy and tactics—what does he give a fuck? Armies will always do what they do best, and that is march and conquer and leave destruction in their wake. There are no winners when the smoke clears. But. ]
Your proximity to the Queen is well-known. [ His fingers curl tightly around the bottle's neck. He'd never liked Yennefer's plan, and by the time he realized what she was doing, he was already in the throne room with his fucking back flayed open. And he isn't upset with her for it, not like that. Not anymore. It's more complicated. Yennefer sees it as strategic, not reckless; he wants to agree—objectively, they do need someone close to the Queen's secrets—but there's a part of him that can't solely because it places her in—
—In danger. She's been tested once. With war coming, how long before that happens again? What if he isn't there this time to pay the price Ellya would demand? More than that, what does Yennefer's position by the Queen's side mean should Thorne fall to the Free Cities?
After a moment, he drops his gaze. ] I don't know if...
[ If I can protect you. It's on the tip of his tongue. Has been this entire time. He looks at Yennefer and he sees it, her wrists dripping with blood, a blackened field of corpses where he cannot find her. If only the anger he felt in those moments, when he understood what she'd done with Ciri, meant he could cease to care what happened to her. But that isn't so. Deep down, he knows it will never be so. Maybe that's why it leaves such a hollow in his heart. Because she matters still. ]
no subject
it is only now, really, that it stands out to her. that she doesn't really know - beyond the desert - exists over in the cities territory. it itches at something in the back of her head, something that feels like failure, like a mistake, like she should have known better. it's his voice that pulls her back, a short, graveled as are we and she nods because yes, that is the card solvunn's decided to play. neutrality.
yennefer sits up a bit, finishes off the rest of her glass before setting it back on the table. sliding it towards him in request for him to refill it, though he doesn't quite yet. instead, his fingers wrap around the neck of it. instead, he says the queen, and yennefer feels herself frown. feels, not for the first time, that geralt is trying to say something to her that she needs to parse out. her proximity to the queen has always been well known - since before even the summit, but perhaps even more now after the events of nocwich. geralt had paid the price of that decision early on, and that is something yennefer still - to this very moment - hasn't been able to forget.
but the fact he brings it up now is what confuses her. yes? her furrowed brow seems to say when she catches his eyes, confused in her own right. but then geralt continues, drops his gaze, doesn't quite look at her, and-
oh.
he does not say the words, so yennefer isn't certain she hears them, but she can put enough of it together. can see - or thinks she may see - the words he does not say. yennefer's furrowed brow melts away in those moments of silence that follows, a kind of surprised realization settling in its place. like him, she still remembers that dream, that nightmare, and all that had happened. every decision that she had made, and realized upon her waking, that she would make again. but it does not matter, in the end, when geralt has already made his choice. and while it is not the same choice as he remembers of her, yennefer had made her own. at the summit. at the portals.
her gaze drops to her hands on the table, mirroring geralt's, in that way. ]
I can take care of myself. [ she finally says, though her words are soft. though they do not carry with them the same weight and edge they had on that mountainside. though some part of her doesn't have the same faith in them as she might have, before. because what had nocwich proven to her, if not that she can't protect herself? because she had seen what happened to grigory, what could have been her own fate.
( and she does hate, really and truly hate, just how much it does still hurt. hates how much she wants, hates that even here there is that young, naive part of her that thinks maybe, maybe, because geralt is here and there is something he isn't giving voice to, and if she is right about what he's not saying- )
yennefer takes another, steeling breath. shakes her head with what she had intended to be a laugh, but didn't quite have the edge to it she'd wanted. if anything, it was tired, a bit frayed, like the rest of her. ] At the very least I do have some experience outrunning an army through the woods.
no subject
Yennefer.
And now here in this new world, that circle has only grown. To the point where he isn't certain what it means, what to make of it. All he knows is that it's...it leads nowhere good, to be alone.
He takes a drink, then carefully sets the bottle down. His eyes turn to her. In the woods. ]
After Sodden. [ He's mentioned long ago that he was near Sodden. At the time, he held no memory of actually going there. Now he does.
A long silence. Then he exhales. ] I went there. With Ciri. I hoped...
[ To find you. ]
The fields were full of the dead. That's all there was. Bodies.
[ So he'd left. Didn't look back. Her betrayal hurt. Believing she died hurt. So much between them hurts. Perhaps that's simply who they are. A lifetime dragging their pain with them. ]
no subject
it's what has her fingers curling around the glass. it's what has her wishing, really and truly wishing, she could get over this. that she could just get drunk and not be so so aware that none of this is real, that she isn't really here with geralt.
when he speaks, her eyes jerk back to him - partially because she hadn't, actually, expected him to speak. and partially because if he had, she hadn't expected it to be about sodden, and for a moment yennefer is just still. he had mentioned being near sodden, and while that conversation feels lifetimes ago, she can still feel it. the battlefield, the smoke, the fire, tissaia. tissaia. it has been months since then, and then months more since she'd had those dreams at all, but the tension that shoots through yennefer at the memories feel fresh. the realization of what geralt is saying making it all the fresher.
he doesn't say it, but this time she knows the words hang in the air. to find you. but yennefer doesn't know what to do with that - that geralt had come looking for her, that he saw the carnage she had done. tissaia had known yennefer was the only one who could, had urged her to do the only thing they had left, and it had worked.
for vilgefortz's glory, perhaps, but it had worked. ]
The Nilfgaardian army had broken through. Sodden was going to fall, had fallen, honestly, and we'd all be dead if something wasn't done. If we- [ we, the sorceresses of aretuza. her sisters, falling one by one. she knows now that triss survives, that sabrina survives. that fringilla- ] If I didn't do something. So I did.
[ does she have to say it? or can geralt put it together? the fire, the burned bodies, the skeletons of fifty thousand soldiers, most of whom died at her hands. the fire that came from her hands. yennefer looks to them now, pulling her palms from the cup to her lap, before she curls them into fists under the table. ]
Fire magic is forbidden, for good reason. If if not contained exactly it consumes you as its source. It should have consumed me, but- [ a shrug - geralt knows about her chaos, about what her decisions at sodden left behind. ] Fringilla and the few remaining Nilfgaardian soldiers found me instead. They were marching me to- honestly, it doesn't fucking matter. We barely made it two nights out from Sodden before the elves found us.
no subject
The fire. It would have burned through her magic. Consumed it. A cost, always, to every decision. (Their shared dream with flames devouring the forest. Ciri.) ]
There was a woman. She said you bought them time.
[ With her life, had been the unspoken implication. And fuck, how that had torn at him. The understanding she was gone, that they never got the chance to speak after the mountain. Then they had. She was here and he could say all the things he wanted to say to her, and where did that leave them in the end?
He wants to ask about the elves, how she went from their captive to Aretuza to fleeing the Brotherhood. When did the Deathless Mother find her? Does it matter? What will it change? ]
I didn't know. All those weeks at Kaer Morhen. When I first saw you at the temple in Ellander, I thought I was dreaming. [ You were gone. His voice is at once soft and full of crooked edges. Not angry, just tired. Why is he even saying it? Why now? Maybe he held it in for so long that it's come tumbling out in that way his words often do when he's around Yennefer. ] She was keen to meet you. Ciri.
[ She doesn't recall. He knows. He's also never said, exactly, what happened. The circumstances in which they united and broke apart just as quickly. You knew what she meant to me. That's the only thing he's said of it until now. ]
no subject
for a moment, it makes yennefer feel transparent. vulnerable. like geralt has already seen too much of her. but then again - that is hardly new.
( because while he thinks of the fire, of the forest, she thinks of kaer morhen. of the bed, in his room. the wolf. )
she frowns, more confused than anything, when he mentions a woman. it wouldn’t have been triss, or sabrina, but then…? when yennefer realizes, the frown fades, realizing the events. ] Tissaia. The woman- Tissaia de Vries. She’s the Rectoress of Aretuza. [ yennefer doesn’t know why she says that, either. why it matters that geralt has that information. perhaps yennefer just wants to tell someone, between her conversation with istredd and all the things she and jaskier don’t have to say. she hasn’t felt like she and geralt have been in line since the night she woke up with those visions, and maybe…
except there’s no way for that to really happen, is there? because geralt says i didn’t know and yennefer is looking back to him, not feeling guilty, exactly, but like she should say something. that is when he continues, and that feeling of possibly catching up fades away again. ]
The Temple? [ the question slips out of her before she can stop it, a genuine confusion before she realizes what it means - where her visions have stopped, maybe.
they meet at the temple in ellander. she finds him again. perhaps it isn’t fair, that the thought gives her some…not relief, exactly, but there is something specific that she feels behind her rib cage. something she doesn’t mind feeling.
when geralt mentions ciri, yennefer still again. just for a brief second. ]
I still have not… [ yennefer isn’t exact sure how to say it - the different times, the different ages, the fact that ciri, here, has years worth of memories and yennefer has none. ] The only memories I have of Ciri are of this sphere. [ a beat, and then yennefer puts something together, her brow arching gently. ]
Did you…mention me to her?
no subject
Yennefer is not a part of that. Neither is Jaskier. They both occupy a place in his heart that should not belong to a Witcher like him. ]
I know. [ He knows where her visions stopped. That is, as always, one of the aching gulfs that lie between them. That Yennefer does not recall exactly what happened at the temple. Or the reason behind her decision to go there in the first place—though it won't be difficult to piece that together.
He makes a soft noise. He knows that look. And, well. It isn't really a secret nor a surprise, is it? That she mattered to him in their year apart, that after he thought he lost her he had grieved her? Yennefer may not remember saying it, but he does. When they walked the corridors together and she said, I thought of you. ]
She saw you. In a dream. [ He's been hesitant to tell Yennefer too much of Ciri's nature. It's not out of mistrust. Originally, perhaps, but...he imagines if Yennefer Ciri truly felt Yennefer needed to know, Ciri would say so herself. Given what happened, given that he is not the only one Yennefer betrayed, it feels like a decision best left in Ciri's hands. ] But yes. I spoke of you. I forewent the most mortifying tales.
no subject
except she doesn't regret it. they are small details, things that geralt probably already knows, but she says them anyway. feels like perhaps there isn't much else for her to offer.
i know he says, and she doesn't want that ugly curl in her chest. doesn't like how angry the feeling makes her - of being a step behind. of being reminded that even the things she thinks she knows, she is the last to know them at all. it floods through her in an instant, her eyes turning to the cup, before she blinks and lets the feeling (hopefully) pass her by.
yennefer would rather focus on the noise, on the look, on the brief, fragile thing that almost feels like something. and yes, when he says she saw you in a dream, yennefer doesn't find that surprising. her understanding of ciri's abilities are still rocky, but ciri does know these things, and that's not exactly what she meant, either.
it is not yennefer's turn to make a soft noise, for her lips to turn up in a small smile, to nod. ]
That is perhaps best. I will tell her those myself.
[ in the moments that follow, yennefer feels herself searching for a reason - to remain sitting, to stay, to hold onto this for just a few seconds more. but in realizing that is what she's doing, it feels forced, and in the end she does push herself to her feet.
if she appears unsteady, it has more to do with the exhaustion from her actual body than anything - pain that filters through, despite the meditation. she sets her hands down on the table and pushes herself up to stand. ]
Istredd knows, by the way. Of my chaos, and of Ciri. I assume you know that, considering your prior meeting. But I did not tell him she is here.
no subject
And by the time he decided he wanted to stay, just because, it was her turn to leave every time. Perhaps that's how it's always fated to go for them. Those small, missed moments.
(What if he had insisted she come with him to the Free Cities? What if he had stayed with her in Thorne? Would anything change?
No. The answer to that, he already understands. Not with the choice she will make, that she does not yet remember. It is not like him, anyhow, to wish for what-ifs. But where Yennefer is concerned, he so often falls into thoughts, feelings, that are not like him at all.) ]
Keep an eye on him. [ Istredd is not yet a threat, but he has the potentially to rapidly become one. Of course, Yennefer already knows that, but it is not why he says it. It's the first time since they felt the memories return, that he has asked her to do anything where protecting Ciri is concerned. He wants to trust her again. He does. And he is still angry, some part of him, still hurt, but—
—he'd told her once he will not wait for her while she lives in the past. And in a sense, he realizes he cannot demand she let go of what is lost, of what can no longer be changed, when he will not move on, either.
He rises, then pauses. ] I know you do not need my help. But you do have it, Yen. Should you ever want it.
wrapping!
and just as it is like her to do, she misses it, but does not let her reach for it. she offers the only things she can, the information to keep ciri safe, and swallows back all the rest. she is on her feet when geralt tells her to keep an eye on her, and she huffs, once, trying to bring that height back to her spine. that edge to her tone that is so her, and yet also unlike her when she's around geralt. ] Obviously.
[ it does not dawn on her at first, but instead in the moments following - of what has just been offered. of what geralt has done. whatever tone she'd been attempting to build back up drops as she blinks and turns back to him, realizing, and letting it settle.
it lasts all of a portion of a tick, until the look on her face passes and geralt is also standing - and perhaps that is just one more missed moment between them. before now yennefer is straightening the fabric of her blouse, is pressing against the front of her trousers, is about to begin to turn to the stairs when geralt speaks again and the words cause her to still.
it feels like another kind of offering, whether or not geralt means it as such. yennefer catches his eyes and does hold them, and he can probably see the way she wrestles with more than one reaction to what he says. how she doesn't need the help (as he stated), how much she'll never admit that a part of her is surprised that he would give it at all. what wins, in the end, is a small, tired, somewhat broken upturn to her lips. ]
And whether or not you believe me- you have mine, too.
[ yennefer does not wait for his answer, instead turning to the stairs and disappearing from the horizon, just as her foot would have made contact with the first step. ]