I get so into a game that if my character looks uncomfortable in the environment I have to change his clothes to fit better. Which is why Geralt has spent a lot of time swimming shirtless. Last time I had him in the water I noticed freckles all over his shoulders and back, which just completely delighted me.

"Geralt?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you aware of how many freckles you have? I cannot believe I never noticed them until now."

Geralt lifted his head from where it had been resting on his arms. He was laying on his stomach in the grass beside Yennefer's couch, and she'd set aside her wine to join him. He had been wearing a shirt, but when she'd started tracing runes in his back and then begun running her fingers along the delicate nerve paths lighting his spine he'd gotten up briefly to disrobe and then lay back down so she could continue more effectively. She'd alternated between scratching lightly, kneading away painful knots, and threading her fingers in his hair and then tracing the invisible paths from the base of his skull all the way down his spine. It felt like ecstasy.

"I know I have some on my shoulders. Never bothered to look much at my back though—figured there's pretty much just scar tissue left."

"Mmmm, not just that," she said, demonstrating her point by smoothing her fingers back over his spine and tracing them along the nerve paths lacing his ribs. He groaned in approval and turned over in her arms, resting against her so he was on his side and she had one arm draped over him. She bent and kissed his temple, running her fingers along his lowest rib and delighting in the way he leaned his head back to her touch, completely vulnerable and trusting to her.

She rest her hand against his chest and tucked his hair behind his ear. She traced the shell of his ear and down the back of his jaw, stroking along the carotid artery pulsing strong in his throat. She rubbed her fingers together and they sparked a harmless hum of electricity. She smoothed that power into his skin, following the branching path of his vegus nerve, feeling the way his already slow heart calmed even further at her command. He sighed in utter contentment, the endorphins she'd released in his blood almost making him high.

He knew exactly what she was doing to him, and through his fog he raised an eyebrow. He'd studied anatomy intimately because he'd been raised to take it apart. Sorceresses didn't need quite the same level of knowledge unless they specialized in healing.

"Since when did you become an anatomy expert? I know you're intentionally using my nervous system—I can feel it." A Witcher's nervous system was hyper sensitive to stimuli. Though he was somewhat resistant to magic he could feel the humming power she was using to work deep into his body.

"Since I discovered yours is so very rewarding to manipulate," she teased lightly. "Besides, it's more beautiful than tracing meaningless runes. Runes were made up symbols we assigned to mean something else. Your nerve paths, the lines that create your body have always had meaning."

He cracked one eye open to glance at her. "You've been around Dandelion too much, haven't you?"

She smiled and tugged playfully at his hair before resuming stroking it. "Perhaps he's been stealing lines from me all this time."

He snorted. "Yeah, you're quite the poet, Yen." After a while: "Why do you ask? About my freckles? Didn't think they were anything special."

"Only curious. You really do have quite a lot, especially across your upper back. It's only making me wonder how prominent they were before, to have survived the loss of pigment your body underwent." She stroked his silky hair, contemplating. "I must admit I have wondered what you may have looked like now had you not gone through the trials. I am starting to suspect you were a ginger," she teased.

"Well..."

She sat up, her violet eyes wide with amusement. "You were, weren't you?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "Don't remember much what I looked like anymore. I've been staring at white hair and yellow eyes for so many years and most of my childhood memories are overcast by the trials. But my mother does have very red hair. Whether or not that's because she's a sorceress I will probably never know."

Yennefer tapped her lip thoughtfully, looking intently at him.

He squirmed a little, turning fully onto his back. "Yen?" he asked warily.

"Oh come, have you never wondered what you would have looked like?"

"A few times," he admitted. "But I have no interest in dying my hair if that's what you're getting at."

She waved a hand. "Nothing half so crude. I could cast an illusion spell on you though, see just for curiosity's sake."

He sat up and so did she, waiting as he turned around to rest back on his hands and sigh, looking at her fondly. "You really want to know that badly? Getting tired of people thinking you're with an old man?"

"Please, Geralt," she scoffed. "The only thing old about you is your sense of humor. I wouldn't trade my white wolf for anything, but my curiosity's been piqued." She raised an eyebrow and her hand. "May I?"

He shrugged and sat forward, resting his hands on his knees. "Why not."

"Do you remember what color your eyes were?"

"Blue," he said. "That much I do remember because it was such a shock when they finally healed and I saw the yellow for the first time."

"Come, a little more detail," Yennefer chided. "Your hair I can do without description since I've seen your mother from time to time in your thoughts."

Geralt looked away for a moment at that, but Yennefer cupped his jaw. "It was an accident. You were feverish and I touched your mind to help calm you. You recalled her and I knew who she was only because I felt the intense pain that accompanied the memory," she said gently. "We do not have to do this if you don't want to."

He shook his head. "No, go on Yen. I'm fine."

She eyed him for a moment longer before leaning in to kiss his lips. "Very well. So long as you know this is only for fun."

"They were something like that," he said, confusing her for a moment before he leaned over and picked up her wine goblet. It was one of many gifts from the duchess and ornately cast, glittering, pale blue stones set around the base. "All I can remember about them."

She took the glass and examined it closely, glancing at his eyes and then back. "I can manage that," she said, picturing the two colors carefully in her mind before opening her eyes and casting a glamour spell over him with a few choice words and a gesture. The change was jarring and Yennefer sat staring for several long seconds before Geralt blinked.

"Well? Is it that bad?"

She shook her head. "No...not at all."

Freckles previously hidden across his shoulders and chest by his mutations dusted skin that was only a shade warmer. His beard and hair were a deep, russet ginger, a handsome contrast to his light skin and very pale eyes. They were so light they were almost silvery, and every bit as arresting as his gold cat eyes. Where his gaze as a witcher was fiery and intimidating at times, his human eyes were icier than skellige mountains and nearly as sharp.

"You're actually quite arresting like this as well," she said, running her fingers through his hair and brushing it to the side, fascinated.

"Don't sound so surprised," he teased. "I'd be hurt if you were only attracted to me for my mutations."

She smiled and kissed him. "No, my love. Though I admit your heartbeat charmed me from our first meeting."

"Not my striking physique?" he ribbed. "I was, after all, completely naked as you so delicately pointed out."

She shrugged impishly. "I said it charmed me, not that it did so alone."

He chuckled.

"Do you want to see before I allow the spell to fade?" she asked, hand poised to conjure a mirror.

He looked down at his arms and chest where he could see the smattering of freckles without her help. "Yeah, what'll it hurt?"

She held up a mirror between her palms and he looked. He blinked, the sight shocking him much more deeply than he'd expected. Slowly, he turned his head this way and that, running his fingers through his hair as though to make sure it was actually his head he was touching. It was bittersweet to see the color of his mother's hair framing his face and falling in strands around his eyes. It was only in that moment that he realized Visenna hadn't really changed her appearance much at all, because there, looking himself in the mirror he could see that he got his nose and cheekbones from her.

He blinked again, finding it almost uncomfortably strange that his pupils constricted into small points in the Toussant sunshine, rather than the slits he'd grown so used to. His vision wasn't changed of course, since this was just an illusion, but it was almost a different man looking at him.

"Wow, that's—not what I expected."

"Nor I, though I don't know what I was picturing," Yennefer said, letting the spell fade. Geralt watched his own reflection as the red bled out of his hair and the freckles faded, his eyes coming through like fire melting winter's ice. Though the similarities between himself and Visenna didn't exactly hurt, he found himself relaxing more to see the white and gold that tied him forever to Vesimir and his brothers. When he was back to normal Yennefer let the mirror spell fade.

"Curiosity sated?" he asked, shaking off mental cobwebs that he knew Yennefer had glimpsed. She chose not to say anything about them.

"Yes, and I've decided that while you make a handsome ginger, I much prefer my freckled white wolf."