Yennefer has been avoiding Geralt since before they returned from Lucifer's island. She knows she can't do it forever, and she hates to admit but Jaskier is right -- better it come from her willingly then waiting for hell to force it out of her. What she knows is she can't pretend and carry on like they were before, not with what she knows now. She respects Geralt too much for that. Hell, she loves Geralt too much for that, not that she would say it out loud. After all, the only time she said the L word at all hell had wrenched it out of her in that stupid tunnel of love that she swears she's going to burn down if she ever sees again.
She finds Geralt down near the stables. She knows the hell horses are no replacement for his beloved Roach but they all had to make due with what they can here. But when she approaches him she finds herself a loss of words. There's not exactly a guide for this kind of conversation. How to tell the man you're ambiguously involved with that you almost sacrificed his child surprise that he hasn't even technically met yet.
But she has to say something because he'll know she's hear. Her scent always gives her away, though she imagines he's familiar with the sound of her heartbeat and footsteps as well, among other thing.
"I owe you an explanation." There's no point in beating around the bush, is there?
He does hear her. Smell her. Hell, Geralt fancies sometimes he can tell Yennefer just from the weight of her on the ground near him, like water running toward the path of least resistance. She speaks up before he acknowledges her, though. Still waiting to see if she'll speak up, when she surprises him by doing just that.
He turns toward Yennefer.
"You don't owe me anything," Geralt tells her, gruffly uncertain. That she broached the topic so quickly is unexpected. That she starts like that, more so. "Though I won't stop you if you want to tell me what I've done to offend you this time."
Or nothing that wasn't warranted. It's not that it didn't hurt that he didn't trust her anymore, that he held her at swordpoint, but she had deserved it. She didn't go through with it, but she had kidnapped his daughter all the same.
Not that he knows any of that, he doesn't even know fully what Ciri will mean to him, it makes it so much more complicated.
"Have you heard of people waking up with new memories of home here?"
"I've heard of it." Her answer takes him off guard, taking some of the sourness out of his tone and he gives her a considering look. If he expects to look different, he's not satisfied. Yennefer's agelessness makes it difficult to say how much time has passed for her.
"Me, actually. I was the one who fucked up this time."
Soak it in Geralt, she's admitting she did something wrong willingly -- but the fact that she is willing probably speaks volumes in of itself. Would it even be worth mentioning if was something minor?
"And I'd rather have the choice to tell you then let hell choose for me."
She had just needed a few weeks to process and find the courage.
That doesn't bode well for what he's about to hear. In the years of their association, Geralt has to struggle to remember a time Yennefer has willingly admitted to being wrong. Even on those occasions when she's realized a mistake, she'd much rather move past the incident and not be reminded of it.
And in truth, Geralt has little interest in dragging admissions of guilt or apologies out of her. He'd generally prefer to see a change in her behavior than drag an awkward conversation out of her.
Not that he's even gotten that much often.
"Perhaps we should sit down."
He has the feeling this won't be a short explanation.
It says something to how her behavior has changed here, how things between them here went a different trajectory then they did back in their own world that she's even bothering trying to talk about it. It would be so much easier to just turn her heels and run. To keep hiding.
But he could wake up tomorrow and know. Or something like the tunnel of love could wrench the truth out of her. At least this way she has control over how things go. And control has always been important to Yennefer.
"Perhaps." She lets him lead her to someplace to sit, he knows the stables better than she does, after all. But once they're settled, she doesn't waste time. Nor does she avoid his gaze.
"After Sodden, I lost my chaos. I should have here too, by that logic, but I suppose hell intervened before I lost it. I don't know."
Geralt's expression is grave as he absorbs Yennefer's admission. He's seen here in Penance how she takes to losing her power, though he wouldn't have needed it to guess. Yennefer's chaos been the thing that makes her special for far longer than he's known her. The strength she's clung to when she couldn't find confidence.
The thing she's mistaken for her worth.
"That must have been difficult for you."
He waits to hear what she did as a result. Considering the lengths she's gone to looking for ways to restore her fertility, was to feel fulfilled when she couldn't, he can only imagine the extremes losing her chaos might drive her to.
She's not going to run down everything that happened to her, like being a prisoner of war or tortured by the hands of stragebor.
"An old monster, Voleth Meir, had reached out to Fringilla, myself, and an elven sorceresses. She made us promises. Of course, I tried to resist her sway. I know those deals always come from a cost. But things got worse and when my life was on the line -- I broke and I made a deal. The cost was a sacrifice."
And if it had been some random person, and not a child, and not Ciri especially, she probably would have had less trouble doing it. She's not a murderer generally speaking, but if it comes between her survival and someone else's....
She could leave it at that. She could make it vague and keep things okay. She can still remember the press of his sword against her neck. The desperation in which she slit her own wrists to try to fix things. But this Geralt doesn't know any of that yet.
But if he wakes up knowing and knows she kept it from him....she doesn't want him to have more reasons to hate her. Selfishly, she doesn't want that.
"The child surprise I never claimed?" Geralt asks. It's not as though he has some other child out there waiting for him, neglected while he never shows up to save the day. But the point isn't to clarify who, but rather what.
To prompt more of the story.
And how exactly it's led to her withdrawing from him so sharply.
"This isn't your way of confessing that you killed a child?"
"The child surprise you haven't claimed yet. Much as we both thought we died before arriving here, we didn't."
And she'll leave it at that. She doesn't want to burden him with more than she has to and on some level -- what can she say? How can she explain to him how important Ciri will become to him when he hasn't even met her yet? How can she articulate how special Ciri is? There aren't words for it.
"No, I didn't kill her, I couldn't go through with delivering her -- but that technicality didn't particularly matter to you then. And she ended up getting possessed anyways -- she's much more powerful than you and I are, Ciri, but she doesn't know how to control it. I tried to make things right. We saved her in the end, I got my chaos back, and you only let me stay because I was the only one who had had any success in helping her control her chaos."
She rubs the scars on her wrists subconsciously. She was healed after but the old scars feel new again considering everything that happened.
"You didn't forgive me. And I know none of this means the same thing to you now but if you woke up with new memories like I did I wouldn't want you thinking I was just pretending like things were the same when they weren't. And as a few people pointed out to me, better you hear it from me than it be revealed by hell or forced out of me."
"So, what? You've been avoiding me because I'll be mad at you in the future?" Geralt asks, trying to parse through Yennefer's logic. She doesn't strike him as angry or even bitter, which is something considering Yennefer's neutral state of existence trends angry and bitter.
And he has to admit at least to himself that the way she takes initiative to tell him might indicate growth on her side. Though her reasoning, that she wants to be the one in control, is pure Yennefer.
But the idea that she avoided him because of what—guilt? That doesn't settle right with him either.
"Whatever you've done, I haven't remembered it yet, and I don't know the girl. I'm glad to here you couldn't go through with murdering her, but... I'm still a little unclear why we couldn't talk this through before."
"You weren't just mad. You held a sword to my neck. And even after I slit my wrists to save the girl you made it clear you couldn't forgive me -- I'm sorry if I needed time to process that and every that came before it." And there it was, some of that venom she's so good at.
She wishes she was more angry and bitter. She's just.... so tired. And it had been easier to pull away than to give him a chance to turn her away again. And she hadn't just been avoiding him, she had avoided most people, save Jaskier and Tech. Jaskier because he already knew and had tried to help her even after she fucked up as royally as she did, and Tech because he doesn't ever seem to judge her, even when he should.
"I can read minds, Geralt, but I could not know how you would respond." And she had to gather herself for the worst case scenario again. And maybe a masochistic part of her had wanted to give him more reason to be angry at her. Because she deserves to be hated for the choices she's made.
He wants to be mad. To stay mad, really. The spite in her tone when she makes that sarcastic comment makes it tempting. He can feel the anger bubbling up in response, not so much born out of animosity as frustration. It should be so easy to snarl back at her. The urge builds in his chest, rising up like steam from a kettle.
But it deflates before he can vent it, collapsing into a knot of concern.
This princess must be very special if he would put a sword to Yennefer over her even after Yen had proven herself no longer a threat. He can almost picture himself doing it, but the image won't quite come into focus in his mind. There must be more to it than that? There's always more to it, isn't there.
"If you had asked me, I could have given you time," he says without must real heat, grousing. "I'm capable of giving you space, if space is what you need."
He's never been one to follow anyone around like a lovesick hound.
Yennefer wants him to be angry too. She wants him to storm off, to lash out, to let her know that no matter the universe she has crossed a line she can't come back from.
She can feel the swirl of emotions as she probes his thoughts. The anger that deflates into concern. But if he understood, if he knew how much he'd come to love the girl, he wouldn't care anymore. And he can wake up any day and understand and decide he doesn't want to talk to her anymore. Better for her to burn the bridge first, isn't it?
Except none of this feels easy.
"I know you are, but I chose the selfish route. Because I'm a selfish person. We both know it."
At his question she becomes a little more somber, a little more quiet. She's still not sure exactly what gave her her chaos back, but she has a theory:
"They say blood and love are the most powerful types of magic -- when it was all over my wrists had healed and I had my chaos back."
"Blood and love are the beginning and the end of more curses than I can count," he acknowledges. It doesn't always end as well as that—whole, but scared. Maybe don't survive that kind of magic.
His concern is, to say the least, undispelled.
The anger is still there, simmering sluggishly, but he can't conjure more of it. Doesn't really bring it to bear. It's more frustration.
It's easy to be frustrated with Yen.
It's hard to be furious when she's already clearly punishing herself.
"You are selfish," he agrees then without malice. "And vain. Prone to acting rashly. And suspicious of others' motives. None of that surprises me, and none of it has pushed me away before. You're so sure I won't forgive you this time?"
"Maybe now you will, not understanding the scope of things." It's not said condescendingly so much as a matter of facts -- hearing what happened and experiencing them, feeling them, are two different things. "But you could wake up another day and remember everything and decide that was the wrong course of action. That there are some things you won't forgive even me for."
But the honest truth? If she can even manage to get close to it? She tries, for him.
"There's not much I'm certain of, at the moment. I don't like that feeling."
"We never know how we'll wake up tomorrow," Geralt points out, not angry enough to raise his voice and not mollified enough to be comforting but uncomfortably situated somewhere in between. As annoyed with his own feelings as he is with her, at this point.
"I won't insult you by promising I won't be angry another day because I wake up with memories of this, or some other future. But I could also wake up tomorrow concussed because of a scuffle with a troll. There's only so much we can be sure of."
Ever, but especially here.
A part of Geralt is still processing the fact he survives. That's its own kind of surprise.
It is uncomfortable. It'd be easier if he was angry. It wouldn't make sense for him to comforting, nor does she deserve his comfort for a multitude of reasons, more than a few ones she made on purpose.
No one is Yennefer's worst enemy more than Yennefer herself. But anger is easier, safer than this unease, this weird in between that they seem to keep finding themselves in here.
"I should have told you I needed time, but I didn't pull away because I didn't trust you."
Well, not completely. How much does Yen ever trust anyone? And her recent memories did involve him holding a sword to her neck and telling her he didn't forgive her but it's just....fucking complicated like everything between them always is. Like he's said before, she trusts him with some things, she's tried here to trust him with more but it's a work in progress that has become only more tangled now.
"I was trying to find my footing again. Make sense of things." And strategize how she wanted to approach all of this with him. She knew that unlike herself, he never asked Jaskier if he survived or not, that he had continued to play off the idea that he didn't. But now he knows he does. That he finds his child surprise and finally claims her. And has that to go back to, someday.
It's all unsatisfying. At least a fight might have provided some catharsis, the sense that they'd cleared the air. A climax to the days of building tension. This, whatever it is, doesn't do that. Instead Geralt's frustrations seem lodged, like undigested food.
She's explained herself, and he can't fault her explanation, even if it doesn't make him happy. It all seems... it all seems so painfully like her.
And like them.
It's a minor irritation on top of it to note that Jaskier had been right. Of course, he had the benefit of remembering what, to Geralt, was still the future.
"I'm glad you've told me," he grumbles, not sounding glad at all. Maybe grateful would have been a better word, though too strong.
"No you're not, not completely. You wish I had told you sooner. You're disappointed. Frustrated, even."
Talking to him was something Jaskier had been encouraging her gently to do, which had helped her get to this point at all. Left to her own devices completely who knows how long she might have dodged the conversation.
And maybe she's pushing him to be angry for reasons other than feeling like she deserves it -- she wants a release as well. Some sort of catharsis, something beyond the sad, mournful feelings she's been wrestling with since she woke up with all these new memories.
"Not really. But I couldn't avoid you forever -- I didn't want to avoid you forever.
"I'm capable of being glad and frustrated at the same time." A fact which might have souned like a joke, but wasn't—rarely would have been. Contrary to popular lore, witchers weren't so immune to feelings.
Even contratictory ones.
"And disappointed," he admits. "After everything we've been together here, I might have hoped for better."
He surprises himself with the realization he had hoped for better. He'd thought here, after what they'd been through together, she would have come to him sooner. That they could have faced her new memories together.
"You weren't wrong to want better." Because what is hope if not desire in another name? And things had been getting better here and then she got these new memories and it felt like she lost her footing again. Even she would not have just pretended nothing happened. Not with him.
But this probably isn't much better.
"It wasn't anything because of you. It's me."
It always is, isn't it? Yennefer is easily spooked, never satisified with anything she has in her life. And if she is, she can't trust it to last. It's a rare, vulnerable confession from Yennefer. One she wouldn't have made to him back home.
There is something about Yennefer admitting fault that isn't as satisfying as he might have imagined, if he ever imagined it. It's evidence of the enormity of what she'd done, and the effect it's had on her.
It's also proof of the lengths of her desperation.
And perhaps it galls him because it's not something he can fix—not something he can accept the blame for whether or not he's especially remorseful. If it were his fault, then he would also have control. It's not a thought he likes about himself, and he doesn't sit with it easily.
She can't help but remember how the conversation went back home:
Some part of me can't help but hope we could begin with
I don't forgive you, Yennefer
That fight or flight instinct kicks in again. Don't tell him what you actually want, don't leave yourself open to being hurt again. Don't --
But she's tired, and he is right. They are not the same here as they were back home. They could try to be better. She could try, maybe.
"I don't want to lose what we have here."
Whatever that is, it's not like they've defined it much beyond admitting they love one another, but for people like them -- maybe that's enough. Even if her love admission only came out because of the damn tunnel of love.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
you could have it all, my empire of dirt, i will let you down, i will make you hurt
Yennefer has been avoiding Geralt since before they returned from Lucifer's island. She knows she can't do it forever, and she hates to admit but Jaskier is right -- better it come from her willingly then waiting for hell to force it out of her. What she knows is she can't pretend and carry on like they were before, not with what she knows now. She respects Geralt too much for that. Hell, she loves Geralt too much for that, not that she would say it out loud. After all, the only time she said the L word at all hell had wrenched it out of her in that stupid tunnel of love that she swears she's going to burn down if she ever sees again.
She finds Geralt down near the stables. She knows the hell horses are no replacement for his beloved Roach but they all had to make due with what they can here. But when she approaches him she finds herself a loss of words. There's not exactly a guide for this kind of conversation. How to tell the man you're ambiguously involved with that you almost sacrificed his child surprise that he hasn't even technically met yet.
But she has to say something because he'll know she's hear. Her scent always gives her away, though she imagines he's familiar with the sound of her heartbeat and footsteps as well, among other thing.
"I owe you an explanation." There's no point in beating around the bush, is there?
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He turns toward Yennefer.
"You don't owe me anything," Geralt tells her, gruffly uncertain. That she broached the topic so quickly is unexpected. That she starts like that, more so. "Though I won't stop you if you want to tell me what I've done to offend you this time."
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"For once, you didn't do anything."
Or nothing that wasn't warranted. It's not that it didn't hurt that he didn't trust her anymore, that he held her at swordpoint, but she had deserved it. She didn't go through with it, but she had kidnapped his daughter all the same.
Not that he knows any of that, he doesn't even know fully what Ciri will mean to him, it makes it so much more complicated.
"Have you heard of people waking up with new memories of home here?"
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He huffs, frowning.
"If not me, what?"
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"Me, actually. I was the one who fucked up this time."
Soak it in Geralt, she's admitting she did something wrong willingly -- but the fact that she is willing probably speaks volumes in of itself. Would it even be worth mentioning if was something minor?
"And I'd rather have the choice to tell you then let hell choose for me."
She had just needed a few weeks to process and find the courage.
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And in truth, Geralt has little interest in dragging admissions of guilt or apologies out of her. He'd generally prefer to see a change in her behavior than drag an awkward conversation out of her.
Not that he's even gotten that much often.
"Perhaps we should sit down."
He has the feeling this won't be a short explanation.
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It says something to how her behavior has changed here, how things between them here went a different trajectory then they did back in their own world that she's even bothering trying to talk about it. It would be so much easier to just turn her heels and run. To keep hiding.
But he could wake up tomorrow and know. Or something like the tunnel of love could wrench the truth out of her. At least this way she has control over how things go. And control has always been important to Yennefer.
"Perhaps." She lets him lead her to someplace to sit, he knows the stables better than she does, after all. But once they're settled, she doesn't waste time. Nor does she avoid his gaze.
"After Sodden, I lost my chaos. I should have here too, by that logic, but I suppose hell intervened before I lost it. I don't know."
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The thing she's mistaken for her worth.
"That must have been difficult for you."
He waits to hear what she did as a result. Considering the lengths she's gone to looking for ways to restore her fertility, was to feel fulfilled when she couldn't, he can only imagine the extremes losing her chaos might drive her to.
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"Not to mention dangerous."
She's not going to run down everything that happened to her, like being a prisoner of war or tortured by the hands of stragebor.
"An old monster, Voleth Meir, had reached out to Fringilla, myself, and an elven sorceresses. She made us promises. Of course, I tried to resist her sway. I know those deals always come from a cost. But things got worse and when my life was on the line -- I broke and I made a deal. The cost was a sacrifice."
And if it had been some random person, and not a child, and not Ciri especially, she probably would have had less trouble doing it. She's not a murderer generally speaking, but if it comes between her survival and someone else's....
She could leave it at that. She could make it vague and keep things okay. She can still remember the press of his sword against her neck. The desperation in which she slit her own wrists to try to fix things. But this Geralt doesn't know any of that yet.
But if he wakes up knowing and knows she kept it from him....she doesn't want him to have more reasons to hate her. Selfishly, she doesn't want that.
"She wanted your child surprise."
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To prompt more of the story.
And how exactly it's led to her withdrawing from him so sharply.
"This isn't your way of confessing that you killed a child?"
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"The child surprise you haven't claimed yet. Much as we both thought we died before arriving here, we didn't."
And she'll leave it at that. She doesn't want to burden him with more than she has to and on some level -- what can she say? How can she explain to him how important Ciri will become to him when he hasn't even met her yet? How can she articulate how special Ciri is? There aren't words for it.
"No, I didn't kill her, I couldn't go through with delivering her -- but that technicality didn't particularly matter to you then. And she ended up getting possessed anyways -- she's much more powerful than you and I are, Ciri, but she doesn't know how to control it. I tried to make things right. We saved her in the end, I got my chaos back, and you only let me stay because I was the only one who had had any success in helping her control her chaos."
She rubs the scars on her wrists subconsciously. She was healed after but the old scars feel new again considering everything that happened.
"You didn't forgive me. And I know none of this means the same thing to you now but if you woke up with new memories like I did I wouldn't want you thinking I was just pretending like things were the same when they weren't. And as a few people pointed out to me, better you hear it from me than it be revealed by hell or forced out of me."
no subject
And he has to admit at least to himself that the way she takes initiative to tell him might indicate growth on her side. Though her reasoning, that she wants to be the one in control, is pure Yennefer.
But the idea that she avoided him because of what—guilt? That doesn't settle right with him either.
"Whatever you've done, I haven't remembered it yet, and I don't know the girl. I'm glad to here you couldn't go through with murdering her, but... I'm still a little unclear why we couldn't talk this through before."
cw: references to suicidal self sacrifice
"You weren't just mad. You held a sword to my neck. And even after I slit my wrists to save the girl you made it clear you couldn't forgive me -- I'm sorry if I needed time to process that and every that came before it." And there it was, some of that venom she's so good at.
She wishes she was more angry and bitter. She's just.... so tired. And it had been easier to pull away than to give him a chance to turn her away again. And she hadn't just been avoiding him, she had avoided most people, save Jaskier and Tech. Jaskier because he already knew and had tried to help her even after she fucked up as royally as she did, and Tech because he doesn't ever seem to judge her, even when he should.
"I can read minds, Geralt, but I could not know how you would respond." And she had to gather herself for the worst case scenario again. And maybe a masochistic part of her had wanted to give him more reason to be angry at her. Because she deserves to be hated for the choices she's made.
no subject
But it deflates before he can vent it, collapsing into a knot of concern.
This princess must be very special if he would put a sword to Yennefer over her even after Yen had proven herself no longer a threat. He can almost picture himself doing it, but the image won't quite come into focus in his mind. There must be more to it than that? There's always more to it, isn't there.
"If you had asked me, I could have given you time," he says without must real heat, grousing. "I'm capable of giving you space, if space is what you need."
He's never been one to follow anyone around like a lovesick hound.
"Your injuries. What became of them?""
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Yennefer wants him to be angry too. She wants him to storm off, to lash out, to let her know that no matter the universe she has crossed a line she can't come back from.
She can feel the swirl of emotions as she probes his thoughts. The anger that deflates into concern. But if he understood, if he knew how much he'd come to love the girl, he wouldn't care anymore. And he can wake up any day and understand and decide he doesn't want to talk to her anymore. Better for her to burn the bridge first, isn't it?
Except none of this feels easy.
"I know you are, but I chose the selfish route. Because I'm a selfish person. We both know it."
At his question she becomes a little more somber, a little more quiet. She's still not sure exactly what gave her her chaos back, but she has a theory:
"They say blood and love are the most powerful types of magic -- when it was all over my wrists had healed and I had my chaos back."
no subject
His concern is, to say the least, undispelled.
The anger is still there, simmering sluggishly, but he can't conjure more of it. Doesn't really bring it to bear. It's more frustration.
It's easy to be frustrated with Yen.
It's hard to be furious when she's already clearly punishing herself.
"You are selfish," he agrees then without malice. "And vain. Prone to acting rashly. And suspicious of others' motives. None of that surprises me, and none of it has pushed me away before. You're so sure I won't forgive you this time?"
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"Maybe now you will, not understanding the scope of things." It's not said condescendingly so much as a matter of facts -- hearing what happened and experiencing them, feeling them, are two different things. "But you could wake up another day and remember everything and decide that was the wrong course of action. That there are some things you won't forgive even me for."
But the honest truth? If she can even manage to get close to it? She tries, for him.
"There's not much I'm certain of, at the moment. I don't like that feeling."
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"I won't insult you by promising I won't be angry another day because I wake up with memories of this, or some other future. But I could also wake up tomorrow concussed because of a scuffle with a troll. There's only so much we can be sure of."
Ever, but especially here.
A part of Geralt is still processing the fact he survives. That's its own kind of surprise.
no subject
It is uncomfortable. It'd be easier if he was angry. It wouldn't make sense for him to comforting, nor does she deserve his comfort for a multitude of reasons, more than a few ones she made on purpose.
No one is Yennefer's worst enemy more than Yennefer herself. But anger is easier, safer than this unease, this weird in between that they seem to keep finding themselves in here.
"I should have told you I needed time, but I didn't pull away because I didn't trust you."
Well, not completely. How much does Yen ever trust anyone? And her recent memories did involve him holding a sword to her neck and telling her he didn't forgive her but it's just....fucking complicated like everything between them always is. Like he's said before, she trusts him with some things, she's tried here to trust him with more but it's a work in progress that has become only more tangled now.
"I was trying to find my footing again. Make sense of things." And strategize how she wanted to approach all of this with him. She knew that unlike herself, he never asked Jaskier if he survived or not, that he had continued to play off the idea that he didn't. But now he knows he does. That he finds his child surprise and finally claims her. And has that to go back to, someday.
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She's explained herself, and he can't fault her explanation, even if it doesn't make him happy. It all seems... it all seems so painfully like her.
And like them.
It's a minor irritation on top of it to note that Jaskier had been right. Of course, he had the benefit of remembering what, to Geralt, was still the future.
"I'm glad you've told me," he grumbles, not sounding glad at all. Maybe grateful would have been a better word, though too strong.
"Did you make sense of things?"
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"No you're not, not completely. You wish I had told you sooner. You're disappointed. Frustrated, even."
Talking to him was something Jaskier had been encouraging her gently to do, which had helped her get to this point at all. Left to her own devices completely who knows how long she might have dodged the conversation.
And maybe she's pushing him to be angry for reasons other than feeling like she deserves it -- she wants a release as well. Some sort of catharsis, something beyond the sad, mournful feelings she's been wrestling with since she woke up with all these new memories.
"Not really. But I couldn't avoid you forever -- I didn't want to avoid you forever.
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Even contratictory ones.
"And disappointed," he admits. "After everything we've been together here, I might have hoped for better."
He surprises himself with the realization he had hoped for better. He'd thought here, after what they'd been through together, she would have come to him sooner. That they could have faced her new memories together.
"I know what hope comes to mot times."
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"You weren't wrong to want better." Because what is hope if not desire in another name? And things had been getting better here and then she got these new memories and it felt like she lost her footing again. Even she would not have just pretended nothing happened. Not with him.
But this probably isn't much better.
"It wasn't anything because of you. It's me."
It always is, isn't it? Yennefer is easily spooked, never satisified with anything she has in her life. And if she is, she can't trust it to last. It's a rare, vulnerable confession from Yennefer. One she wouldn't have made to him back home.
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It's also proof of the lengths of her desperation.
And perhaps it galls him because it's not something he can fix—not something he can accept the blame for whether or not he's especially remorseful. If it were his fault, then he would also have control. It's not a thought he likes about himself, and he doesn't sit with it easily.
"And where does that leave us?"
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"It depends on what you want."
She can't help but remember how the conversation went back home:
Some part of me can't help but hope we could begin with
I don't forgive you, Yennefer
That fight or flight instinct kicks in again. Don't tell him what you actually want, don't leave yourself open to being hurt again. Don't --
But she's tired, and he is right. They are not the same here as they were back home. They could try to be better. She could try, maybe.
"I don't want to lose what we have here."
Whatever that is, it's not like they've defined it much beyond admitting they love one another, but for people like them -- maybe that's enough. Even if her love admission only came out because of the damn tunnel of love.
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OH MY GOD I thought I'd replied to this!
no worries, notifs were so wonky, it happens
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end?