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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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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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He's right. It is the question he's afraid to answer. He sits up, arms resting on his knees as he stares ahead. He can see where the candle holder is turned not quite where he'd left it, the flame flickering. Which Yennefer is this coming from? The one who can't remember enough of him to be angry with him or the one that's somewhere in there, with that lingering knowledge they all have? If only it were as simple as her not recalling a thing at all. If she looked at him without recognition. But in the same way he'd fallen into old patterns with Jaskier, the two of them weaving in and out of each other's days as if they'd been friends for all the years they held no memory of, he can tell she feels. A pull. Familiar, tugging and sitting perfectly right inside. Perhaps it's the wish, gripping them even here. Or it's more.
He wants to say, he's not second-guessing. He wants to tell her she's wrong; that he hasn't got a problem with good things. It's only that he's aware they won't last. A matter of reality. But what comes out is not what he means to admit. ] I don't know how to keep it.
[ It makes no difference, whether it's here in the Horizon, outside in Cadens, far off back on the Continent: whatever he finds that is good, he will not keep it. The only thing it ever serves to do is haunt him. And yet. He craves them, anyway. These moments. These moments that he knows he will break before they can break him. There is an ache, curling around his heart.
He wants to give her something good. Not just for her, but also because, selfishly, he's so rarely able to. He's never learned how, has never really expected that he could, but there'd been times with her, times where he could believe he had. Where he could tell himself that he had something important to give that did not involve blood on his hands and corpses at his feet. Maybe it was never about the wish, what broke between them. Maybe it was always a case of him grasping at luxuries not meant for those like him. Like he's doing now. (One day, he'll learn how to stop.) ]
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he sits, resting his arms on his knees, and yennefer's eyes follow him. scan across the expanse of his shoulders, his back. she can see the part of him that had closed, the version of this man who had left her in this room just hours before. who had said no, but who had also said i want you in the same breath. she is so curious as to what all this is supposed to be, what it is supposed to mean, what he wants, in truth, out of it.
he says i don't know how to keep it and yennefer slowly pushes herself up to sit. she knows that what he says something important, something about them and this that she does not remember. it aches, inside her chest, not to know what he expects of her - but in that same breath, she wonders if that is the problem at all. that maybe he this, them, is something beyond that. and while she is not her - the woman who knows, the woman who remembers, the woman that doesn't need to ask those questions because the answers are so, so obvious - she reaches for him all the same. ]
Don't you?
[ her palm presses to his shoulder blade, her fingers splaying out across the fabric. the urge to touch him hasn't gone away, even if she had been the one to pull away from him, and in the next following moments she shifts to lean closer to him. to shift her body towards him, to set her chin atop his shoulder. as if she can feel the chill that has rocked through him, and she hopes to warm him through it.
what is it he's thinking? what is it that circles behind his eyes that keeps pushing this distance, building this wall. there is something in her chest that screams to burn it down, to crawl her way through it and set herself amidst the ashes, and while part of her wonders why there is such a reaction in herself to do it, it feels comfortable. like something she should be used to feeling, where it concerns him.
yennefer turns her face to press a cheek against his shoulder, her hand sliding across his upper back, fingers wishing to walk their way down his spine. she will keep this contact with him, for as long as he will let her. ]
You won't keep anything you push away.
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For awhile, he is still. Her hair brushes his cheek, her scent wraps around him. He could drown in it. He wants to. He nearly does. Then she says. That. And he finds himself catching her wandering hand. He holds it in his. It’s warm. Soft. He remembers them too much.
(He should’ve been here alone. In this new sphere. They should’ve taken him alone. He understands how to be alone.)
Gently, but firmly, he pushes her back. She has no memory. She means what she’s saying. He hears it, anyway, the irony in her sincerity, in her telling him not to push things away. Her, of all people. Hasn’t she realized? That she’s the only person he tried to hold onto? The first, in a long time, he’d not kept at a distance? And where the fuck has that gotten him?
Here. With a need he never wanted to acknowledge, one he buried decades ago. And now that it’s been unearthed, he doesn’t know how to put it back.
His eyes lift towards hers. He curls his fingers into his palm, before he can reach for her. ] You did it first.
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his hand catches her's, and it is - momentarily - softer than she imagined it would be. warm, yes. familiar. she considers how that is possible, considers how well it is she might know him. how well they might know each other. she turns her face and presses her lips to his shoulder, barely a brush, before he is gently pushing her back.
yennefer lets out a huff of air, indignant, in a way. annoyed. she has tried, she supposes. she has felt the pull and said what she wanted to say. his reaction, his pushing of her away from him - she supposes that is his answer. for her, for whoever she is supposed to be. ]
As I recall, [ she meets his eyes - her jaw temporarily tight. her body reacts before she catches up to it, her chin high as she jerks her hand away from him. shifts back to the bed, once more. gwiazda has lifted his head to watch them, as yennefer leans back into the pillows. to the same place she had been, just moments before. ] it was you, who left first.
[ she means through the door, of course. the way he had come inside to greet her, and then turned to leave her there in return. she had waited - whether it was for him, or something else. but what is she to do now?
gwiazda exhales once, himself, setting his head back down to the bed as yennefer lays back down, sets a hand back into his fur once more. she watches him, just for a moment, before she turns to her side, all but curling around gwiazda where he lays. turning her back to him. ending the conversation there, as far as she is concerned. ]
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It makes no difference, questions of what isn’t real. Her rejection of him is, and he’s tired of how they can’t ever seem to rid of each other even when things are so clearly. Finished. How much he can’t stop thinking of their kiss before he left through that portal, as if it would change anything. (Why had she kissed him then?)
He should leave. He won’t, a stubborn part of him refusing to be ejected from his own damn room over her. He’d recreated Kaer Morhen for a reason: a place untouched by all the fucking complications of his life, where he goes to leave behind a world and all the people in it who do not want him. She shouldn’t be so much a part of it. And he can’t help feeling angry at her for disrupting the only refuge he’s ever known—but mostly, he hates that he allowed it to happen in the first place. That he knows, consciously or not, he invited her in. It is the only reason she could have ever made a portal past the gates, past the main doors, so deep in the heart of his home with the wolf guiding her in.
So he sits. He waits. For what, he isn’t sure. For this bullshit to end, perhaps, so he can finally get some sleep. He watches the flickering candles. He can hear both her and the wolf beside him. He’s afraid to look at her, afraid what he might say if he acknowledges her again. Afraid of what he might want, even knowing better. ]
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some part of her thinks that maybe, perhaps, that is better. that he is here, physically here, when she closes her eyes. she does not know why it would be that way, and isn't exactly sure she cares.
gwiazda lets out a huff of a breath, final and somehow annoyed, and yennefer feels a smile tug at the corners of her lips. feels similarly, as she runs her hand across his fur, and closes her eyes. he can probably hear her breathing, can probably feel her and the wolf's weight on the bed.
( she can feel his, still sitting at the edge of the mattress, close enough to touch if she did want to reach out to him. she does not. )
he can, until he doesn't, but even that - somehow - feels familiar. ]
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He needn’t look. Still, he turns. He wants to be wrong, to be surprised to find her still there, sleeping. She isn’t.
The hollow in his chest grows a little wider. It’s funny. Every time he expects what’s coming, every time he sees it from miles away, he thinks it’ll hurt less. And every time, he’s reminded it does not. He catches her scent for a few moments more before it fades entirely. The spot on the bed beside him is cold. As if she were never here. He supposes, in all the ways that count, she wasn’t.
He wonders what it’d be like, to turn around and for once find that he isn’t alone.
When he leaves, he shuts the door behind him. The torches are snuffed out through the keep, the candles unlit, the hearth only full of old ashes. He doesn’t look back a second time. He knows better. Those who leave him do not return for him. He’d hardly expect them to, either. ]