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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.
yenloss. c:
and in direct relation to that, she feels herself collect into something a bit less shifting. a bit less shadowed. she feels more herself, though she's not exactly certain who that is supposed to be. not exactly certain why it's this place, above the others, that pulls that from her.
she chooses not to worry too intensely about it, and as she opens up the next portal because she knows she can, because the wolf has taught her to, and as the wolf guides her through into a hallway, somewhere dark and cold, she pulls her coat more firmly around her as she continues on, up a set of stairs and then to a single door down a hall. the door itself is nothing particularly special, but yennefer can't help but be drawn further towards it, reaching for the handle and finding it...
well. finding it unlocked.
when she steps inside, she is met with a smell. it's the first thing she notices about the place, and as the door falls shut behind her, she lets herself be wrapped up in it. it's warm, comforting, familiar again in that way she's not sure she understands. she has no memories of it, of leather and of a horse she knows and of something else. something that seeps into her skin, calming her in a way she hadn't realized she had been tense. relaxing, where she hadn't realized she'd been stressed. she smells a faint hint of lilac and gooseberries and yennefer closes her eyes and settles into the warmth of the room, of the feeling of it. why am i here? she wants to ask the wolf, but she doesn't need to open her eyes to know he's left her, and so she gives in to the feeling. let's herself settle in it, for now.
it feels comforting. it feels safe, somehow, too. it feels different than all of those things as well, but yennefer isn't sure what to name those feelings quite yet.
she hopes she has the time to. hopes that she won't have to leave. hopes that somewhere in this room is an answer to all the questions she feels building up in her, even now. ]
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Perhaps that's what's happening now. Conscious or not, it's difficult to say. What can be said is that Geralt steps into the Horizon, sees the wolf is not outside the keep or within its halls, and tells himself it must've wandered off somewhere as it occasionally does. A whisper that it could mean the wolf's left to find Yennefer hovers in his mind for a second, then vanishes like smoke. Geralt doesn't leave Kaer Morhen for a reason. Until he's certain Yen has made her way in and back out again, he has no plans to walk the Horizon, in case he places himself in her path. He shuts the heavy doors, lingers by the hearth with a mug of ale he knows isn't real but that's good enough for while he's here.
Then he hears it: footsteps, a heartbeat, a familiar scent. Upstairs, where no one should have the ability to breach. Certainly not without the wolf attacking, and it hasn't. He can hear it, walking calmly to the other end of the keep. If she's made a portal in, then she must know where to find him. It's been...two, three weeks? Not out of the question, that she'd have found herself in this place already. Is coming to talk to him. And they do need to talk.
He will never know if he's lying to himself or not. If he's ignoring some instinct that says he should leave, right now. What matters is that he chooses to go upstairs, rounding the corner towards his chambers. Like most of his domain, his room contains little by way of a personal touch. His swords are sheathed, laid out atop a dresser. His gear is next to it; a worn cloak rolled up without much care. A coin or two beside some flickering candles. Beyond that, there's nothing. No paintings, no mementos.
He expects her. When he opens the door, he's aware she's there. But despite what has quietly begun to stir in the back of his mind, long before he mounted those stairs, he is not prepared to for this Yennefer. The one that stands before him. He knows as soon as he sees her. It's in the way she holds herself, the look in her eyes. A chill coils around his heart, snagging his breath. Fuck.
It isn't too late to walk away. Except, somehow, it is. ] Yen.
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but this room. this room is different. she finally opens her eyes to look around, but can't seem to find what she's looking for. it's a strange feeling, like there is supposed to be something here that she can't place or name, but knows is missing. something that belongs in this space, that should be here, but isn't. she wants to step further inside, to run her hands along the wood and cloth, the leather and cloak, but it is right as she is about to make that step that the door opens.
it does not startle her, nor does it surprise her, though as she turns towards it her eyes do not reflect any sign of recognition. or at least - nothing so simple. that feeling, in her chest, does fall into place.
oh, it seems to say. it was you who i was looking for.
but she does not know this man, or at least, she does not have memories of him. as she turns to face him, her eyes narrow ever so slightly, like he's a puzzle she's trying to make out without all of the pieces. ]
You know who I am?
[ he is not the first, if that is true. she has run into others who have recognized her. but this, something about this, feels very very different from those other times. yennefer continues to watch him, though she has the sinking suspicion that she will not get the answers she seeks from his face alone. ]
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(For the same reason, he thinks, that Jaskier found his way up the mountain, too, without obstacle. That the frost invariably melted every time Jaskier arrived. That Cirilla appeared. Some part of her was looking for him, or some part of him wanted the wolf to lead her here—whichever it is, he hates the thought, hates what it says about them, because once this is over, it will mean nothing. It can mean nothing. Neither of them will allow it to—Yennefer because she refuses to and Geralt because he understands there's no point.)
He swallows a breath. ] We've met.
[ That's all. They've met. A dozen times, a hundred times. They've met. His gaze roams over her, settling on her face. She looks younger. Or...not younger. It's—he's only seen this look on her when she's sleeping. Something that edges as close to contentment as it ever can with them. Except she's awake. Watching him. What's he supposed to say if she asks him what he is, how he knows her? He can't explain. This was never supposed to happen. She isn't supposed to find him. He's afraid to let her linger; equally afraid to make her leave.
Something tells him he won't be able to, unless he hurts her, drives her away. He isn't sure he can. ]
You shouldn't be here. [ It's said softly, but there's a roughness (a desperation) underneath he can't hide. Carefully, he releases his grasp on the wood. He's missed her. Worried about her, even as he knows full well she can take care of herself. And now she's here, smelling of lilacs and gooseberries, and he can still taste her on his lips. ] Where's your wolf?
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we've met.
yes, she supposes they have. she doesn't question him, because regardless of if she has memories of the matter, she knows it to be true. they have met. something in her says they have met more than once. more than that, even.
it is his next set of words that has her blinking, that searching, curious look from her pulling back to something a bit more confused. not only from what he says - you shouldn't be here - but the sound of his voice. what is it he's hiding? why does that roughness sound so familiar, not necessarily because she has heard it before, but because she knows (somewhere in her) what causes it. ] My wolf? [ is it her wolf? that thought loosens the expression on her face. where did her wolf go? ] He led me here, to this room. It was unlocked, when I checked, and when I came inside... [ she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, looking content again. calm. like she belongs. when her eyes open back up again, they are clear. all of her feels a little more clear. ]
It's warmer in here than the rest of this place. [ her eyes go to the door behind him, then back to his face. she likes the cut of his jaw, the gold of his eyes. it is somehow not at all strange to her, that his eyes are such a brilliant gold. they are his. ] Is this your room?
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He fits here, between these broken walls, amongst wolves who are equally scarred. Here, where she should not be, appearing so much at home in his presence when he knows, once she's found herself again, she will feel anything but. ]
Yennefer— [ Is this his room. It is his room. Something says he needn't confirm that. Or he just doesn't want to acknowledge it aloud, what it stirs inside him to see her stand within it. How is it, that even without her memories, she still makes him feel so fucking unsteady? (Fragile.) It'd be so much simpler if he could hate her for it. If his last memory of her was not her watching him leave as though it mattered. As though he meant something to her, still. If he had some anger inside him he could draw on. There isn't. There's only a sinking sensation, the beat of her heart in his ears. How is he supposed to make her go? He wants to just do it. To end this as he should before they say too much. Maybe she'll even appreciate it once she wakes up and realizes he saved them both the headache. (The heartache.) ]
You can't be here. [ He wants to reach for her. His fingers curl into his palm. What's sunk itself into his chest is not apprehension or caution. He's just afraid. Because Ciri might exist, out there, but the girl that shadowed him inside this plane remains a part of his memories. It isn't even about the girl that never was, not exactly. It's everything she stood for. A constant reminder of what he can't have.
It's happening again, now. And it tears through a wound that's been reopened too many times.
He ignores her questions, her confusion, digs stubbornly into the part of him that looked a princess in the eyes and split open her throat. His gaze is as hard as it is brittle. ] I do not want you here. You need to leave.
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yennefer does now know where her wolf has been leading her - if it is home, if it is somewhere else entirely - but she has followed. and each stop along the way has been worth the journey, even if she's still not sure its end. perhaps this is her end, if the wolf has disappeared. perhaps all this time, it's been leading her right here, right to him. he says his name again and something in his voice is all the confirmation she needs. yes, this is his room. yes, this is his place. his space. his.
but then what is that smell? and why does it make her feel like it's something that is her's? ]
I don't believe you. [ is what yennefer says, after it all. after he claims not to want her here, after a kind of tension settles through him. yennefer senses a shift in the air that she recognizes as cold, that is not warm and not inviting and not something that she could perhaps settle into. but it is somehow, despite all of that, familiar; in the same way that an old, trodden path is still familiar under an inch or so of snow. the same way that a room, empty, turned into a study space, that had once been a bedroom, can feel familiar even still. she does not know why these images come to mind, doesn't know why she suddenly feels this urge to push back against him, but the feeling is there.
even as her tone is stubborn, her eyes are searching, hungry to know what he is thinking, because she knows it is not what he is saying. she knows there is more going on, behind those golden eyes, just as surely as she had known her own name.
she takes a step towards him, then, feeling a sudden urge to reach out for him that she does not act on quite yet. ]
This is your room. But that smell isn't yours, is it?
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He watches her step closer. Close enough to touch. He can feel the heat from her body. The tension in him remains, but he can't completely hold the coldness in his eyes against her for long. If he ever really could in the first place. ]
No. It isn't. [ It's yours. Her scent. He'd noticed it awhile ago, how it sometimes faded or grew stronger, but never disappears altogether. Whether or not she can read the answer behind how he shifts, how he breathes her in, he does not say it. That it's hers, that beyond the lilacs and gooseberries there is something that's even more distinctly hers to him. Something that can't be bottled. Instead, he says, ] It isn't real.
[ Like she's told him. It isn't real. Not her scent, not this encounter, not this Kaer Morhen constructed from his memories. It's happened, it is happening, but it isn't real. He thinks about putting distance between them. Somehow, what he does is the opposite, until they're nearly toe to toe. He can't tell if he's challenging her or not. If he needs her to be the one to walk away, so he can tell himself that it's as he expected, that stripped down to who she is at her core, she will not want to stay with him once her natural curiosity has run its course. (He doesn't know what to do with the idea that the contrary might be true.) ]
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so she steps closer to him, close enough to touch, close enough to get a much better look at that cold edge in his eyes that she seems to watch melt before her. curious. interesting. somehow, even now, expected.
no, it isn't he says, and something in those words confirm what she had already been thinking. that maybe, just as she has no recollection of ever meeting him before but she knows she has, she also knows that the smell in his room. the smell that is wrapped around them even now, lingering softly somewhere in the warm air, is her's. it could be that she does notice the way he shifts, the way he breathes it in, or perhaps she's just grown used to accepting knowledge that she somehow knows, even if she's not sure why, or how.
it is that next part that has yennefer curious. he means something much greater behind those words, something that she also has that strange, complicated familiarity associated with, and something about them tightens at her chest. a drop in her stomach that should remind her of...of...what? that this isn't real? that none of this is happening? because there's another part of her that doesn't agree, that is now seeing him step even closer, so that she has to crane her neck up to keep the eye contact. he is so close to her, now, so close that she could reach out and set a hand on his chest if she chose to - and her hand lifts, then, as if thinking about it. her eyes go from his chest, to the medallion set right before her. she reaches out to run her fingers across the face of it, along the design that - too - is familiar and yet not. then her eyes flit back up to his eyes again.
it isn't real he says. ]
Do you want it to be?
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His brows furrow. He catches her wandering hand in his. His thumb brushes over the familiar bumps of the scar on her wrist. He can't tell if she expects him to hesitate or think about it. Maybe he should. But the answer comes out flatly, almost immediately. As if he hates that she's even asked in the first place. ] No.
[ He does not live his life by what could be. He lives his life by what is. Does he want it to be real? No. He doesn't. He wants her with him as much as he doesn't, he wants what they had out there to be real (it is real) as much as he doesn't, but whatever his thoughts are on that—none of what's happening now has got a fucking thing to do with it. She is not the Yennefer he knows. Not really, not wholly. She is not the Yennefer he ever looks for. Nor the Yennefer he wants to get to know now, with all of her jagged edges blunted. It opens too many questions, too many doors that can't be closed. The world has made them as they are. They've both buried the people they once were, the people they once could be. Beyond that, it doesn't matter. It can't matter.
He doesn't want to let it matter. He wants— ]
I want you. [ The words slip out quietly. A confession he hadn't meant to make. His eyes cut to the side and he pushes her hand away. It makes no difference. He wants her as he knows her, as she is when she remembers him. And that isn't something he can have. ]
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he says no and something inside her tenses, reacting to the flatness of his voice. what rises in her is a kind of defensiveness, a sudden urge to step back away from him again even when she was the one to close the distance in the first place. it's a hard feeling to place, and as that uncertainty around what it is supposed to mean fills her, she can feel her features start to shift again, another flicker of what was, what she might still be, perhaps what she should be without her memories.
because that's the problem, isn't it? she doesn't know who she is supposed to be. she is lost, both in this realm and otherwise, and she hates the feeling of it. of not knowing where to turn. of what to do. there is a strange distortion to it - to knowing she should know, to having the bodily sense to know that she always knows what she is doing, but here? with this man, who looks at her like he wants to say one thing, and then says something different?
he won't have the chance to push her hand away, not really, because she pulls it away from him at the almost exact same moment. in the following second, her expression settles as does her features, her brow furrowed as she stares at him. she nearly steps away from him, but stops herself as he cuts his eyes away from her face. he doesn't look at her, after that confession, but what for? ]
No, you don't. [ she says simply, and though there is still some anger to her eyes, her voice is smooth. cool, as if chilled. he looks away from her, and so yennefer refuses to budge, waiting for his eyes to return again. because they will - even if she doesn't know from where she came, or even to where she will go, she knows that. ] Not as I am.
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Except this is a part of her, still. It has to be, if it's followed her here. He'd appeared no different in the Horizon than he did outside it. Had kept the same eyes, the same hair. But she is...
He doesn't know what it means. (He knows.)
The tension from her is palpable. Her hackles rising. It's familiar. It steadies him more than her soft curiosity had. When she firmly declares, No you don't—the same tension runs through him. She's right, in a manner of speaking. He doesn't want her as she is right now. She isn't herself. She doesn't know him, doesn't know the life she led. But some part of him can't help reading more into it. Maybe it's not so much what she's said as how she's saying it: detached, unaffected. Cold. The sharpness in his eyes rises to match hers. He isn't being fair. She doesn't know in this state, but it still feels like she should. It feels like she fucking should, when she's watching him as if she's waiting for him to give in first. As if she understands he will. (Now this is the Yennefer he knows.) ]
You don't remember me. [ His voice is quiet. Already, some of the sharpness has dulled. He's just tired. He reaches for the door, forces himself to pull away and leave. He wants this over with; if she's too stubborn to end it, then he will. ] When you do, you'll understand why it doesn't matter what I want.
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truthfully, she isn't sure exactly what she wants. she wants him to stay, but upon seeing him turn away, some part of her wants him to go, that wants her to have the chance to be alone in this room that she feels so intricately attached to. without her realizing it, she had begun to hope something in here may tell her who she is, who she was, if she had the time to find it. especially now that he won't give her any of that insight.
except that he does rise to meet her, does match that tension, and she can't help but be drawn to that. to the way he comes to meet her. the way he rises and falls like the tide. it's a bit addicting, in a way - to know that she can shift and he will shift with her. that, given the right words or wrong tension, she can pull a reaction from a man she is certain (though she's not exactly sure how) doesn't usually react to much. ]
I don't remember anything. [ she says, just as coolly as before. like some part of her wants to say it isn't special, that he isn't special, just because she doesn't remember him. (or maybe she means to say that she didn't mean to forget him at all, that more than anything she wants to remember him). because even while his voice is quiet, her's is still firm. still tense.
when you do he says, and yennefer feels that defensiveness rise in her again. this time, she's not confident from where - if it's the idea that he knows better and the tone at which he says it in, the fact that before anything she wants to say don't patronize me though a good part of her somehow knows he isn't. he reaches for the door to leave and yennefer watches him go, feeling some odd combination of vindication - that he is the one to leave, rather than her - and loss. always loss. why does the view of his back draw such a visceral feeling of it in her gut? if anything, she's glad he's got his back turned to her, so he won't have to see the way that feeling pulls an actual, visible reaction from her.
she won't say don't go. she won't. no matter how much she might feel the urge to. ]
I think I find martyrs quite boring, actually. [ she will say, either to his back, or to the closing door. whatever it is she finds meeting her.
yennefer has no intention of leaving this room, so if he will leave instead, it will give her time to investigate. to turn back to the few items, the limited furniture, the smell. she has things she wants to look into, things she needs to touch, to feel, to hopefully use to spark something. anything. because her memories are what is important, here, and this is the closest thing she's found to something familiar. ]
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Maybe she'll have gone by the time he returns. He can't decide if that's what he'd prefer or not.
He stays close, outside in the snow where the cold is biting but familiar. Roach is in her stable—and though she isn't in need of care in the Horizon, he tends to her, anyway. For something to do. It's hard to tell how much his subconscious continues to manifest: occasionally, he finds a crack in her hoof, knots in her tail. Small things, not uncommon out there, but which shouldn't appear in a world of no physical consequence.
You aren't real, either, he tells her. Roach stares back at him, chewing, content. Must be nice, he thinks, to have complete unawareness of all this bullshit.
The sun begins to sink behind the mountains. The sky glows orange. Geralt goes back inside. Of course he does. And he already knows, as he opens the doors, that she is still here. She's not left. Still in his room. Maybe she's destroyed it, maybe she's changed it into something else completely—he doesn't care, but he does find he wonders what he'll see at the top of the stairs.
Her in his bed, somehow, is not what he expects. He pauses. The door shuts quietly behind him. Her dark hair is splayed over the pillows, the wolf curled up beside her. His chest tightens. When he walks further inside, his steps are silent, or nearly so. She's been through his room—no surprises—but nothing has been taken, only moved. Moved deliberately, he can tell. It shouldn't make him feel anything, but it does. It does, and it brings the smallest smile to his lips: this notion that, beneath it all, she still wants him to notice her.
After awhile, he sits. On the bed, beside her, careful not to disturb her if he can help it. He leans back against the headboard. Carefully, lightly, he gives a butterfly brush through her hair. They've been here so many damn times. He misses it. It isn't the same—he knows it isn't. But while she's asleep, while the sun sets outside, he can pretend. For a moment. Because this is what he wants: just her, here, next to him. The two of them untouched by the world, for the few hours they can manage to keep it at bay. ]
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it pulls anger out of her, though she can’t quite figure out why. she doesn’t like the feeling, doesn’t like feeling angry with him, but he disappears through the doorway and she turns back to the room and with a flick off her wrist, a bout of energy pushes through the room. not enough to destroy anything, not even enough to move anything from their places. just a jump, a push, off-setting what had felt so pristine and so him.
the wolf is at her side, then. she hadn’t heard him walk in, hadn’t heard the door open or close. she glances down to see the gold eyes looking back to her, and that anger dissipates, leaving her a bit tired no a bit lost and a bit…lonely isn’t the word, necessarily, but it fits close enough that yennefer breathes out a quiet, defeated sigh. ]
I’m assuming you knew that would happen, hmm? [ she says to the wolf, letting her hand lower to run back along his head and neck. her eyes scan the room, at the shift she’s made, at the realization that the smell still lingers. her smell. in his room. and somewhere in that echo are words she doesn’t quite place, can’t quite decide if they are supposed to be her’s, or his, or someone else’s entirely. you’re important to me
when yennefer exhales this next time, it is with a decision having been made. she is still anger, and part of her is comfortable with that feeling, now. a familiar burning in her chest. she moves around to each piece of furniture, picking up everything she can and running her hands along the things she can’t. there is a distinct feeling of being to leave something behind, of there needing to be something she’s done, to this room, that will be remembered. without realizing if she’s done something or if it is instead the horizon coming to meet her, yennefer’s wrist adjusts and through her fingers is a pendant - or perhaps a coin - just smaller than the one she had run her fingers over moments prior. her eyes scan the image engraved onto its surface, noting its association. a lilac sprig and a branch of gooseberries, embedded with tiny amethysts. without meaning to, yennefer moves to settle on the bed, and without any thought to it (or perhaps to much thought, no one but the wolf, who jumps up to settle next to her on the bed, will know) she tucks the coin-shaped pendant under the candle stick on the bedside table.
he wants her, he had said, but not as she is. well- he will, remember her for how she is. whether he finds what she’s left for him or not, she will have been here. she will have made a mark.
yennefer supposes she could leave - this isn’t her room, and she is sure there are other places she must go to other places she must be, but the wolf at her side yawls, comfortably, and yennefer feels herself smile. feels the softness of his fur when she runs her fingers down his spine. ] That’s not such a bad idea. [ and so she curls up onto the bed, herself. kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet up under the skirts of her dress, setting her cheek down against the wolf and closing her eyes.
she does not recall falling asleep, isn’t even entirely sure she is sleeping at all, but when she finds herself blinking awake, when she is struck by an almost panic to turn and make sure - he is there. yennefer looks to him with softer eyes, the cut of his jaw in the burning candlelight, the disappearing sun. the wolf is still curled up next to her, his breathing even and undisturbed, and there is another feeling in this moment that she cannot quite place, of an immeasurable relief and release of tension, of recognizing his weight, on the bed next to her.
she does not sit up, but he must know she’s awake. must know that she still wants his fingers in her hair, no matter how light the touch. ]
You came back.
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When she stirs now, his hand pauses for only a second. She doesn't pull away, so he doesn't, either. Lets his fingers curl a few strands around. He can read the relief on her face. How calmed she looked when she saw him close by.
His own expression softens further. That's the problem, isn't it? None of this is strange. None of this is what she isn't. It is simply not what they have any longer. But they did have it, these quiet little moments, where he could believe that they had found an important piece together, rare and fragile. (He had it. And then he lost it. And it hurts a hell of a lot more to be faced with what he once had and could never have again, than to face something that'd not ever existed.) ]
I never left. [ A low murmur. In a way, that's true. The wolf had returned to her as soon as he'd gone. Some part of him can't quite leave her, no matter how much he might try to. Some part of him doesn't want to.
He lays down next to her, stretched out on the bed, boots and all. Turned on his side to face her. His fingers trail down to her shoulder. (Why is it every time he sees her, it always feels as though it might be the last time?)
His gaze drifts towards the slumbering wolf. They're here now. She won't leave and he can't bring himself to. In the morning, he will regret it. He'll regret it and still not know if he should've chosen differently. So he lets himself settle, into this moment. He lets go of what should be or what will be and says quietly, ] He hasn't got a name.
[ The wolf, that is. It's an offer; a suggestion that he is, perhaps, admitting he doesn't want her gone as much as he's been insisting. It's selfish. To want this, knowing it'll only hurt them both. But the two of them have never been anything but. Maybe that's why they always find themselves caught in the same whirlpool. ]
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thankfully, in those silent moments between them, it must be answer enough. because he softens, visibly and otherwise, and yennefer feels like it’s a sort of secret between them. that the eyes he looks at her with are something to be held close to her chest, not shared with anyone else. she doesn’t know why - they obviously mean something to each other, why wouldn’t he look at her with such an expression?
i never left he says, and yennefer smiles in the sort of sad, gentle way where they both know that isn’t true, that he has left. if not this time, then a time before. and that her greeting to him - some how, in some way that she doesn’t understand - still stands. you came back. she won’t say it again, but he moves to settle alongside her and she adjusts to face him in return, feels the movement of his hand down her shoulder. there is a deep-rooted need to shift closer to him, to close the distance and to line herself up along him, because she knows, in that distance, disconnected way, that she will fit.
yennefer does not move closer to him. does not tangle their legs. but she does let her cheek settle into the pillow and she does watch him with gentle eyes, that same feeling fighting something inside her. like she needs to memorize his face, every detail of him she can. like this might be the last time she will see it for herself.
his eyes glance to the wolf, who is still curled up against the back of her legs, still sleeping pressed against her, and the rhythm of his breathing keeps that tight fear that this time is running out at bay. white fur, warm where she’s been curled around him. but her eyes don’t leave this man’s, this face, this person who she has no real, no distinct, memory of knowing. yet who she feels she knows so deeply it almost scares her.
neither do you she doesn’t say. ]
Does he need one?
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(He wonders if Ciri feels the same way. Being bound to him by Destiny.)
He pushes the thoughts aside. He doesn't want them here. Not now. He focuses on her face instead: the curl of her lashes, the faint violet glow of her eyes. The curve of her lips. That flicker that even now's not entirely gone away if he looks close enough. He wants to ask as much as he doesn't, wants to pull at this thread he's now seen. There are still so many parts of her he hasn't been privy to. It's the same for him. Pieces of himself he's told no one, not even her. Sometimes he'd wanted to. He'd thought about it on occasion, before he held back, uncertain if he'd be bearing too much of his heart. Uncertain what would happen if he gave too much of himself away to another.
He wants to kiss her. He doesn't. Despite the distance between their bodies, this feels like the closest they've been in a long time.
The edges of his lips curl ever so slightly. It shouldn't matter. A name. The wolf isn't real, either. But it's kept Jaskier company and now it's led Yennefer safely around the Horizon. He doesn't know what it means, that he's grown fond of a creature manifested entirely out of another's imagination. An animal that'll never leave this plane. An animal that was always meant to be more than just any wild wolf, a fact he's avoided consciously acknowledging—even if he's confronted with it every time he lays eyes on the wolf and sees the same marks cutting jagged across its skin, its white fur.
He makes a vaguely thoughtful noise. ] Names are what separate us from common beasts.
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to be important to someone. to have someone like him, who thinks her important.
during her time in this room, her edges have felt fuzzy, like the image of who she is can be just out of focus. but he looks at her now with eyes that make her feel herself, whoever that is supposed to be. with those eyes in her, such an oddly warm, different and yet expected, tint to them. they are his, only his, and with everything she has forgotten and everything she doesn’t know, she is certain that is something she can never forget - that those eyes are his, and how it makes her felt, when they look to her like they are now.
the edges of his mouth turn up, and her chest both tightens and loosens at the sight. like the flick of a firefly, in the middle of summer, a brief spark of something special, something rare but her’s. yennefer feels herself smile back, not because she knows what he finds entertaining, but because she wants to encourage the smile to remain. ]
Is that all? [ and there is a hint of humor around the question, like it is some inside joke that even she wouldn’t know the background of. is that all that separates them? is that all it takes? her eyes flicker over his face for another, brief moment, before returning to his eyes. she feels it too - the closeness, despite their distance. the comfort it brings. ]
What would you name him?
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Is it as simple as him no longer pushing her away? (If only. He knows it can't be that. Nothing between them is ever so straightforward.)
The conversation settles between them like an old blanket. Comfortable. Effortless. A game they have lazily played, batting words back and forth until one of them confesses a little more than they mean to. And it doesn't matter so much, then, when the hour is late and he can tell himself what's spoken on the cusp of sleep, it doesn't always need to mean anything. Perhaps she might not have ever heard some of what he's spoken out loud with his eyes half-shut. (He knows she's heard.)
Is that all. When he answers, he is joking this time, even if it's hard to tell whether he was before or not. ] The lack of fangs helps.
[ A huff escapes him afterwards—not quite a laugh, but close. Does she realize who she's asking? (No. She wouldn't.) ] Yen. I'm the last person you want to ask for a name. [ His amusement softens around the edges. His curiosity is genuine. It feels important, suddenly, that she name this wolf. (That it means something to her, means something enough that she has a name she will give it.) ] Tell me. I want to know.
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considering how their conversation had gone earlier, perhaps she should be more surprised to feel a rhythm build. perhaps this should be so simple, so effortless. she wants to talk like this forever, perhaps. to share the glow of candlelight and this warm bed. she feels encased, but not trapped - the wolf at her back and those golden eyes at her front, chuckling, light, joking about fangs like anything could be as simple.
her smile grows, holding back what could probably be a laugh, some small part of her terrified that if she makes too abrupt a sound that it may shake them both out of sync. instead, he says yen with a kind of softness that she feels through her ribs, her own curiosity bubbling. ]
Why is that? [ that he’s the last person to ask, the last person she would want to ask. she doesn’t believe that, somehow, and it makes her deathly curious - but she doesn’t push it. instead, she leans back onto her back on the bed again, turning her face back to the wolf. to her companion, through this journey. to her guide, her friend, to the one reason she was brought here at all. she runs her fingers along his soft white fur, feeling it through her fingers, the gentle rhythm of his breath.
a name. what should she name it? what does a person, with no memories, no schooling, no idea of where her own name has come from - supposed to name her longest (active memory alone) companion?
yennefer is silent, for a few moments, lost in thought. ]
Gwiazda. [ she says, after a moment - turning her attention back to him, though her hand remains on the wolf. it is not so much that she’s waiting for approval so much that she’s curious if it fits what he had expect to hear. ]
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Except she's not a stranger. In fact, this is the first time he's seen the wolf sleep so soundly.
The name itself is not important. It's only that she'll name it at all. And she does, finally, turning to him. Gwiazda. He can't say what he was expecting to hear, only that it fits. The name. The wolf perks up, awake, fuzzy ears lifting. ]
He likes it. [ Of course he does. So it'll be his. It doesn't matter if she'll look back on this moment with disdain or not. Geralt plans to keep the name—for a reason he isn't entirely consciously aware of but which, deep down, is maybe about her having given him something she cannot take back.
How much longer will you stay? He's afraid to ask. Time had stretched for days when they'd stepped inside, but it'd been shorter the two times he'd brought someone else in. Too short, he thinks. And yet she's been here too long already. His eyes close, briefly, before opening again, heavy-lidded. He isn't sure what feels worse: that he might fall asleep here and wake to find her gone, or if she will simply vanish before his eyes. ]
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she may not have memories, to lead her. and even now, she has flashes of uncertainty about what it is she should be doing, who she should be, but she had never been uncertain about him. gwiazda, she says aloud, unsure of where it comes from. star. she feels the wolf under her hand stir, awoken by what she could even say is the sound of his own name, but she does not pay him much mind. instead, yennefer's eyes are on him, on the tired way his eyes fall closed. it pushes her up onto her elbow, drawing just a bit closer to him as his eyes fall shut.
gently, her fingers trace along the man's brow. across scars that she knows, but doesn't, down the side of his face, to his jaw. there is something inherently familiar about the feeling, of having him this close, of the barest touch under the pads of her fingers. she feels herself smiling, after a moment, as she watches him fight what is certainly sleep. ]
I think he does too.
[ the wolf, or him, yennefer doesn't specify. instead, she lets her finger brush back into the strands of silver-white hair at his temple. there's a kind of low tension in her, a worry that if she moves too quickly, if her touch is too firm, it might scare him into leaving again. again.
she doesn't know why her body reacts the way it does to that word, but the truth is - she does not want him to leave, and she doesn't want to either. her body is closer, now, it has to be for her fingers to so easily brush across his face, and her mind goes back to the thought. that she could be closer, if she wanted to. that they could be, if either of them did, and she watches him fight the heaviness in his own eyes. ]
Why do you do that?
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He is not content. But it's the closest he's allowed himself to get in a long while. (It will be, as it always has, his biggest mistake.)
He blinks at her, drawn out of his thoughts by her question. He thinks he understands what it is she's asking, but it feels dangerous to answer. Feels as if he'll remind them both that this is not real, that she will not be here the next day, that this is a memory that will only turn painful the moment she steps out of this room. He wants to see that small genuine smile on her face for a bit longer. Wants her hand in his hair for another minute more. He doesn't even fucking know why. Why he's grasping at something he knows will not remain his.
Maybe he's just tired of being the reason she looks heartbroken.
So instead, he only lets out a quiet breath, a smile of his own tilting his lips, the flash of a crooked canine. ] Do what?
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right now, yennefer does not mind the simplicity. in fact, part of her wonders if this is something she has looked for. yearned for. and yet still, even now, it feels as though it will not last.
he blinks at her, but she knows it is not in confusion. knows that somewhere, back behind those golden eyes, he knows what she means to ask. it's a strange sort of feeling, to know that he knows. to be seen and understood more fully by the person looking at her than she does herself. but between julian and ciri, and now him, yennefer sees no reason to push back against it. or, maybe, it is just because of him. just because this moment, with him looking up to her, with that crooked smile, a breath out through his nose - this is not something she would soon forget, memories or no. perhaps she never did.
yennefer smiles back to him, still quite soft around the edges, as her finger traces across his brow, down the arch of his nose. her eyes follow her fingers, follow the stretch of skin she runs across, trying to re-memorize something she is so sure he already knows. ]
Second guess yourself, when you have something nice. [ there is more she could say here, perhaps. about how she is referring to how much he obviously wishes to sleep. how, even earlier, when he'd looked at her and said no. perhaps her words could be taken to mean more, about this, about them, but that's not exactly what she means, either.
yennefer pulls her fingers from him, then, though with some reluctance. she shifts her body, too, to lay back into the spot she had been in. to set her cheek down against the pillow and to look at him without much expectation. she is curious, yes, but she is curious because it is him. and maybe the truth is that she is curious because she doesn't know. maybe all of these things she has been feeling are merely figments of her imagination. maybe they aren't because the man who lays across from her is her's, in any way at all.
but she wishes he was. hopes he is. wonders, briefly, who the woman is that he wants her to be. which is why, with her next words, there is a sort of tilt to them. fondness, but something more. distance, perhaps. she smiles again, though it is a bit heavier. ] You should be allowed something good, every now and then.
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