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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.
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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.
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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. ]
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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. ]