gynvael | abraxas:: INBOX

[ Geralt studies her for a moment longer. Does he believe her? No. Not necessarily. His expression doesn't hide that; they both know there's something she isn't saying. But he can sense now isn't the time to push.

He's worried, that's all. The way she seems more, not less, tired after the bullshit with the Horizon was over. ]

You can talk to me, Julie. [ Just an offer. He reaches behind her to pluck the floating glass of wind, handing it to her. ] Come to bed.

[ They can drink there. And he is not unaware she prefers to have him nearby when she can. He isn't needed anywhere else tonight. He can stay. ]

I know.

[ Her voice is soft. She does know. What she also knows is that he will try to take it on as his responsibility to fix, despite the insanity of that idea and how much he has already put on his own shoulders. But even more than that, she is afraid. Afraid of what's happening to her, afraid of what measures people might want to take to help her, afraid that their hosts might learn what she can do if she tries to get assistance. She's spoken to Wanda, who promised to try and help. Julie doesn't know anyone else she thinks can.

She shifts her head slightly, kisses his palm, and then takes the wine when he hands it to her. Rising from his lap, she kisses his cheek lightly before she pads away down the hall, taking a quick detour into the bathroom with a "Be there in a sec". When she makes it to the bedroom a few moments later, her hair has been brushed out and her face washed. The circles under her eyes are darker without makeup, like she hasn't slept for a few nights. On the windowsill, there are two wine bottles and several of the little glass vials Nadine puts her sleeping tonics in, all empty.

When she climbs into bed, she's frowning absently, although all she's doing is thinking to herself. The noise makes it harder to focus internally, becomes overwhelming as she tries to concentrate. She sinks into the pillows, which feel almost excessively soft compared to what's inside her head. ]

I think the Singularity is wakin' back up. [ It's abrupt, like she's been weighing what to say, and then just spoke on impulse instead. ] It's... loud. In my head. The noise. Like how it was before the Dimmin', if I tried to get close to the Singularity.

[ He lets her go, remembering to take a moment to gather up his shirt and anything else left scattered—in case Nadine returns later. He sheds his trousers along the way; by the time Julie returns, he's on the other side of the bed, half under the covers.

His brows knit together, studying her. She looks fucking exhausted, though he can't say it's the first time. For either of them.

He rolls over onto his side. The what? He sets the opened wine bottle on the nearest surface. ]

You hear it even now? [ Out here, away from the Singularity? ] Has it been getting worse?

[ She's right. His first instinct is to fix it. But he doesn't know where to begin. He's starting to think the only answers, if they want them, lie at the Singularity itself. Out in the crater. A place he hasn't set foot in since they were first brought there months ago. ]

Always. I always hear it. [ Her voice is still quiet. She takes another deep quaff from her glass and then sets it on the bedside table before she turns to face him directly. ] Sometimes it's quieter than others.

[ She doesn't have a clue how to determine what that means. All she's discerned is that, if she can either be distracted or drunk enough, it becomes dull enough to actually think, to find a bit of peace, but even those reprieves seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Rarely can she get more than a few hours of sleep before the roar starts to grow again. ] Like I said, it was better before, when we were on the ship.

[ Her forehead slowly wrinkles as she thinks about that. The night that Rhy asked to meet in the Horizon, she'd been woken by a particularly strong wave of noise. Stronger than it had been in several days. That was the night that they'd -- ]

They sent a casket to the Singularity, Thorne. [ Her eyes widen. She's still not sure exactly how it all connects other than the timeline. ] They did it while everyone was distracted at the banquet. Opened a portal and sent some Summoned to the crater, then smuggled 'em back before anyone noticed. It was before they signed the ceasefire agreement. [ So just a little light treachery. ] That was the night the noise started to get loud again.

[ On the ship. As they approached the Dimming? It confirms the Singularity truly does hibernate, if its slumber affects Julie. She's the only one of the Summoned who seems touched by the Singularity's hibernation and its return to power afterwards. Her and now—Rhy. ]

I spoke to Rhy. [ The casket this time, he isn't certain affected much. Hasn't Thorne been sending one as a tradition for decades? But the year prior. That was when things changed, when so many of the damn things changed hands, were tossed into the crater. Not to mention magic expended by those not of this world. He can't help but wonder if the Singularity then was irrevocably transformed. But Rhy had told him something he found worth noting. ] He said last year, during the Dimming, the Singularity felt...hungry.

[ And he is well aware what Thorne believes the Singularity is doing. Consuming spheres. Or absorbing them, perhaps. He can't say if that means the realms themselves, if true, are being absorbed in their entirety or simply the magic in it. Leave behind worlds devoid of any Chaos. ]

Julie. [ He studies her. As much as he wants to help, this is out of his depth. He knows she's careful who she speaks to, but he also knows that isn't always an option. Like with Ciri, it's a fine line. ] Something like this...you need someone well-versed in magic.

[ The slumber didn't affect her last year -- in fact, she'd spent the entirety of the Dimming in the Horizon, with no ill effects to speak of. Everything had seemed completely normal to her at the time, although it was also before she understood exactly how different she is from the others. It's possible that, for them, they felt the hibernation in a way she couldn't. Now, she can only tell because of the noise's volume changing.

Her nose wrinkles a little. ] Yeah, he said that once. Hungry, grumpy, horny. Like fuckin' rock PMS. Weird. I mean, I guess if I was gonna sleep for a week solid, I'd feel like that too.

[ Julie agrees, she doesn't think a single casket hurts anything; it's more the whole "breaking a truce to leave it alone" that doesn't settle well with her. ] I didn't... last year, I didn't know anythin' was different at all. That was when I was fightin' with everyone in Nott, I was in the Horizon the whole time. It seemed the same as it always did, to me. I don't know if everyone else, the other Summoned, felt it go to sleep.

[ Her eyes meet his, and for a moment, she's quiet. Then she looks away, lays her head on his shoulder and curls up closer. ] I talked to Wanda. She heard it. The noise. When she touched my hands. She's gonna try to fix it.

[ And honestly, she's probably the only person that Julie trusts to actually be able to do it. Wanda is so powerful that it's frightening. If she can't help, then Julie doubts anyone can. ]

[ He makes a soft noise. He's not certain what he thinks of the idea of the Singularity as having thoughts and feelings. It suggests an entity that stirs within the chaos which flows through all of them. If something has slumbered inside all this time, what does it mean?

He considers. No. He doesn't know what's different, either. But like he told Rhy—something is shifting. Not only for Julie, but for all of them. He was here from the start. The Horizon was stable. Didn't start fucking up until several months ago. Now it's as though it can't stop.

Still, he seems to relax a hint when Julie mentions Wanda. They aren't close—Wanda seems reluctant around him, hesitant—and Geralt is hardly one to pursue a friendship even with people who do like him. But if Julie trusts her, then that's good enough.

He releases a breath, lifting up his arm to make room for her. If only monsters were the biggest problems they had. ]

Let me know you're all right after?

[ Unfortunately for Geralt, it isn't just an idea. It's reality. And while Julie wouldn't say that it has thoughts and feelings in the same way a human does, there's no other words she knows to describe them.

He raises his arm and she tucks herself under it, tangling her legs with his. One of her arms drapes over his waist, and with the other, folded underneath herself, she absently clutches the tooth, running her thumb over the carved symbols. ]

I will. I don't know when she can do it. She said she has to create a spell.

[ It actually won't be the first time Wanda enters Julie's mind -- she'd been there for a memory, had reached in and gently shifted things after, just enough to keep Julie from having some kind of full-blown psychological break while stuck in the Horizon. But Julie gets the impression that when Wanda goes deep into people's heads, it's generally not a process designed to keep them safe.

Sighing, Julie closes her eyes for a moment. She can feel his heartbeat through his skin, against her cheek. Slow but steady. It joins the noise in her head, but as an undercurrent that makes her feel less adrift in the racket. ]

Just... if I'm not all right, just promise you'll keep Nadine safe.

[ For a moment, he's silent. None of this sits well with him. Not in the sense that he doesn't trust what's being planned. More that he'd rather not it'd not come to this at all.

But here they are.

His brows furrow. More and more, he finds it impossible to reconcile the side of him that's always accepted what simply is and what he's not willing to acknowledge if he needn't. Like the fact that he has, time and again, outlived the people most important in his life. And isn't that the greatest irony for someone whose path is only ever mere steps ahead of death's shadow? ]

You will be. [ He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. Perhaps she will find the words hollow. He doesn't know. He only knows he doesn't want to think about her not being all right. ] We'll find a way.

[ His words don't exactly ring hollow, but Julie more than anyone how quickly things can go to complete shit, through no fault of one's own. She has somehow, miraculously, managed to stumble through everything to this point, but all that has done is fully cement the idea that survival is mostly luck. Pure, dumb luck. As much as she desperately wishes love was really enough to conquer all, that having people mean so much can save her, she knows it's not true.

Of course, none of that takes away from the soothing feeling she gets from his words. She knows it's dumb, that he is no more able to guarantee that than she is, but she trusts him so deeply that she believes it simply because he says it. She can't help it. She doesn't even really know why she feels like that, questions whether she should.

That's all something she can ignore for now, to just let herself be enveloped in that sense of security instead. The feeling has been fleeting for so long now, all she wants is a little bit of it. ]

I know. [ She agrees softly, running her fingers along his side. Her limbs feel heavy; her body is tired, but she knows that no matter how long she keeps her eyes shut, the noise she hears will remain too loud to let her do more than doze when her body gives out and forces her to rest. ] Do all Witchers sleep as little as you do? Or is that just like, a bad habit of yours?

[ He doesn't quite relax, but he lets himself settle into the quiet night. At least this year, there's been no bloodshed for the Dimming. All in all, surprisingly calm. But that's how it often is, isn't it? Even in the midst of war, some days the sun shines bright, the waters are still; he's learned to take what he can when it comes.

His lips twitch. ] Never met a Witcher who didn't sleep like shit.

[ Bad habit of all of theirs. It's reached the point where he can no longer tell if they don't require much sleep or he just. Adapted. He supposes the difference is negligible.

He slept easier inside the walls of Kaer Morhen. The real one. And he can admit he sleeps a little easier here with her, too. He doesn't know why. Perhaps his thoughts just wander less towards its dark corners. ]

[ She wishes she could say it feels like more than the calm before a storm, but frankly, most of the easy days feel like that to her now. Like she's always waiting for a disaster, for the next emotional gut punch. After everything she's been through, she doesn't know how else to look at the world. Reveling in the easy times has failed her twice now. ]

Guess it's harder when you're the most likely one to actually find the monster under the bed. [ It's a dry joke. Obviously, Witchers have reason to sleep terribly, as a collective group. She can relate, although her own issue trends more toward the dreams she has when she does sleep. ] What do you do instead? When it's four in the mornin' and everyone else is out like a light?

[ She has a feeling she knows, but Geralt's ability to sit with his own thoughts remains astounding to her. Not that her tolerance for silent meditation was ever very high, but her period of forced isolation has left her with more than a slight aversion to just thinking. ]

[ One day, he'll tell her about the monster he really did find under his fucking bed.

He hums. ] Beyond sitting in the dark?

[ She's right; he does do a lot of that. Only during the rarest moments is he unable to retreat inside his head. It's something he was taught since he was a child. They didn't all take to it—fuck knows Lambert hated it—but Geralt was quick to. ]

There's a cliff. Past the walls. You can watch the sunrise over the city.

[ It's simple. He likes it. He's scaled the face of that cliff so often now it's second nature. If he vanishes from Cadens before dawn and returns shortly after, that's probably where he's been. ]

[ The least surprising story ever. She's pretty sure she could leave him in the housewares department of a JCPenney for fifteen minutes and he would somehow end up fighting a monster. (She thinks it's endearing.) ]

I know it's hard to beat that level of excitement. [ Sitting in the dark, that is. Although she suspects that it's also a very slightly less boring activity when one can also see in the dark.

She makes a soft noise in response. That does sound very nice, even if she's positive she would probably break her neck trying to get up there. ] When I was younger, I used to sneak outta my room at night to go party. We'd drive to the nearest city -- took almost an hour -- and stay out all night. When we were drivin' back, usually the sun would be comin' up behind us, and sometimes we'd stop and sit in the fields to watch.

[ Sometimes there would be a few of them, sometimes it would just be her, sitting on the hood of a car or in the truckbed of a pickup parked in the middle of someone's field. As long as you were gone before the field hands made it out there, there was no downside.

She thinks she preferred the times that she was alone for it.

Her fingers stop stroking his side when she moves her hand to his chest; her nails run through the hair there. The flickering light of one of her fireball jars throws shadows on the wall. ] When's the last time you went?

Extraordinarily. [ He smiles. Her preference to be around people and noise remains equally a mystery to him. The rare times he appears at Sam's frequent gatherings, he arrives at the end when most have gone home.

That, though. It sounds pleasant. Geralt can imagine some of what she tells him easier these days. He's been in a car now—more than once—and he remembers seeing the fields behind old abandoned homes in her memories. ]

Were you ever caught?

[ He sure as hell had, but when your guardian is a trained Witcher, it's a miracle they ever got away with it. Sometimes Geralt suspects Vesemir heard them and just couldn't be arsed to get out of bed. ]

Mm. Few weeks. [ He lifts an eyebrow. ] You wanted to come?

By the farmers? Nah. Couple close calls, though. [ People don't exactly love it when you drive a two ton machine over their viable crops. It's just that tractors are much slower than cars. ] My parents caught me plenty of times. But by then, I was too big to be taken over a knee, and it wasn't like they were usually home to make sure I stuck to a punishment. We'd just scream at each other for a few hours, I'd go to someone else's house for a few days and then it was like it was over.

[ Her tone is cynical. Julie didn't come from a "good" family where dinner was on the table at 7pm and everyone played board games together afterward. Once she was old enough go to school, she was essentially left on her own to raise herself -- her parents would work their second jobs until late, sometimes hours past the time she should have been in bed. A variety of relatives and other people watched out for her until she was considered old enough to be on her own, and that age came earlier for Julie than it probably did for most girls. By the time she was actively sneaking out, she was well past being affected by normal discipline.

She knows her parents loved her. She just also knows they weren't very good at being parents. ]

I don't know that I'm cut out to climb up a cliff in the dark. [ She has to laugh a little. She's no slouch (give her any tree and she can make it to the top), but she can't say she's ever been rock-climbing. ] How do you feel 'bout paralyzed women?

[ He hums. He's aware Julie isn't close with her family, that she hasn't got a particularly fond childhood, and in that he can understand. They've all been made to fend for themselves young. Perhaps he was simply fortunate he eventually had someone to at least teach him how.

There's a startled chuckle. That isn't quite what he meant, though now he's recalling her precarious adventure with the stepladder. Less precarious in the Horizon, he supposes. ]

You don't trust me to catch you? [ His amusement fades into sincerity. ] It's got another path. Around the back. You can walk up.

[ He just enjoys climbing. And it's faster. Though were Julie to ever want, he'd show her how in a heartbeat. If Ciri learned after spending her life as a princess, he's certain Julie could. ]

[ If he thinks she wouldn't climb a ladder that tall in the real world, he is very wrong. But free climbing a cliff face just feels a bit more perilous, in the grand scheme.

She laughs, twisting her neck to look at his face. ] Sure I do, but walkin' does seem a lot easier. Less chance of droppin' the wine straight to the ground. [ Honestly, she can visualize the smashed bottle.

Shifting a bit, she settles more heavily against his side, reaching for his hand. With the arm bent underneath herself, she wraps her fingers around her necklace. ] We can go the day after tomorrow. Day after Christmas is for lazin' around and eatin' too much.

[ He lets her take his hand. His fingers intertwine with hers, and his eyes are soft. He thinks he can grow used to holidays done without the dinners and crowds. ]

Is that right? You need to show me how to laze.

[ He's only half-joking, though it's true he can't say he's ever lazed for a full day simply eating and doing nothing. Perhaps he'll try it. Just the once.

In the meanwhile, he does end up sleeping, eyes falling shut not long after she finally dozes. ]

[ Well, in theory, there probably would have been a dinner if they hadn't all just been shanghai'd onto a cruise. But if she organizes next year, it'll only be people that Geralt will actually want to be around -- their Cadens family. (She won't let Sam invite all his randoms that crowd up the place. He can have his own dinner for that.)

This is a pretty ideal Christmas, though, she thinks. ]

It's pretty complicated, but I think you'll pick it up quick. [ She squeezes his hand as she teases him, then settles into the easy silence. He is warm and solid next to her, and the ache in her head ebbs back some, the noise becoming muffled as it does. His breathing is a steady rhythm that makes her eyelids heavy, and it's maybe the greatest Christmas miracle that she sleeps for more than an hour or two at a time. ]

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