hello, sorry it's been two weeks since i updated lol; for those who aren't aware i kind of got unexpectedly sick on christmas, which was the worst, and i couldn't keep up the schedule i had wanted to. so that special thing didn't happen, but it's still going to, now that i've got things back on track. for now, here's this, featuring the One-Sentence Backstory RevealTM that i promised. hopefully y'all don't hate me when you realize what it is lol –Bel
A Wolf Among Lilacs
Part One: Longing/Regret
Chapter Fourteen: Twenty Thousand Miles to an Oasis
"Hang on—you're going to have to repeat that, because there's no way I heard you correctly. You're going where with who?"
"To Novigrad." Geralt sat on the couch with his head in his hands, rubbing his temples with his fingers. He had thought that Eskel would be the safer choice as a substitute. Lambert had too short of a temper to be teaching anyone anything, and he was far less likely to follow the plan Geralt had painstakingly laid out. Eskel would do that—but Geralt had also thought he would ask fewer questions. Clearly, he'd been wrong. "With Yennefer."
Eskel shook his head slowly. His eyes went from Geralt's defensive posture to the half-packed bag on the living room floor and back again. "You're going to Novigrad," he said. "With Yennefer of Vengerberg, who you met in person maybe three months ago at best. For some mysterious reason you're now refusing to tell me."
"For the thousandth time, yes." He'd been trying not to let his frustration at Eskel's probing show, but it felt as though he'd been answering the same questions for hours. "It's not exactly my reason to tell."
"Meaning you don't even know." When Geralt raised his eyes to glare, Eskel held his hands up defensively. "Come on. I've known you too long for that to work on me."
"And you should know that if this is truly as personal as she's making it out to be, I'm not going to ask. Not like there are plenty of things I haven't told her."
"If she's gotten you to drag her all over Redania in pursuit of this—whatever it is—then you've at least got the right to know what it is."
"Well." Geralt sighed heavily. The argument had been going on for the better part of an hour (though it felt like far longer), more or less since Eskel arrived in Oxenfurt. He hadn't asked any questions when Geralt had called and begged him to fill in for him, didn't complain about the expense of a last-minute plane ticket or make him feel guilty about all the other contracts he could be taking instead. But now that he'd arrived, questions and complaints seemed to be all he had. "She's also got the right to keep it from me, if that's what she wants. Not much I can do about that."
"You sure?" Eskel raised an eyebrow in a way that Geralt wasn't entirely sure he liked the implications of. "Seems as if she's taken a liking to you. If you're the one she asked."
"She didn't ask. I volunteered. And I'm certain the only reason she took me up on it is because no one else would or could."
Geralt stood, uncomfortably aware of the way Eskel was watching him, and walked into the kitchen for a bottle of water. He didn't want him to be able to see the uncertainty on his face, uncertainty that had only grown since the last time he'd seen her. They would leave the next morning—she'd somehow gotten ahold of his number (though Ciri insisted she'd had it the whole time) to give him the details. The whole thing had taken on a surreal quality, and there had been times over the past several days he'd almost forgotten, only to remember suddenly. But he no longer had space to forget. In less than eighteen hours, they would be on the way to Novigrad.
The drive would take several hours, and they'd have to leave fairly early to make the time she'd set up for the procedure, one that would keep her as far removed from the public eye as she could be. She had told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted to be in and out of the city as quickly as possible, to avoid unwanted attention. He agreed because of the apparent urgency he sensed from her, though in a place like Novigrad he doubted it would truly help. The city was far too large, and Yennefer was one of the most easily recognizable people he'd ever met. Unless she planned to cover her entire body, someone would recognize her.
"If no one else would go with her, it doesn't sound like something you should be involving yourself with. Sounds…dubious."
There was something off about Eskel. There had to be. Geralt couldn't see any other reason he would be so vocally against this. "I don't know what you're implying," he said through gritted teeth. "But I wouldn't have sent Ciri to her if I didn't trust her."
"You sent Ciri to her because you trust Triss, and Triss told you you could trust her. And I'll say now what I said then—have you ever considered the possibility that Triss is biased?"
Geralt paused with his hand loosely wrapped around the fridge's door handle. No, he'd never considered the possibility, though he didn't want to admit it to Eskel—but it seemed he already knew that. Geralt heard him stand, make his way over to the kitchen door and lean against it. "Guessing you didn't know," he said quietly, and Geralt reluctantly nodded. Suddenly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"There have been…some rumors. About the reason they decided to break one of the Brotherhood's more important rules. About why Yennefer sponsored Triss."
He didn't need him to say what the rumors were. He could guess. It was apparently common knowledge they'd lived together; it was easy enough to see what kind of gossip would stem from that. Geralt wasn't exactly sure why it mattered at this point. It was far too late to change his decisions—and besides, anyone who bothered to look would see how much Ciri and Yennefer cared for each other. All things considered, it had turned out fine.
"Even if they're true, I don't really care." Geralt didn't look over as he spoke. He opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. He would need to leave soon, to give his last lectures before they set off. That would be the end of that conversation. "Nothing any of us can do about it now, anyway. I've made my choice."
"I know." There was a sort of resignation in Eskel's voice, the same kind that had been there when Geralt had agreed to take this contract in the first place. He understood—Eskel's goal had always been to stay as far away from politics as possible—but it still grated on his last nerve. "Just don't expect me to feel sympathy for you when you finally realize you made the wrong one."
~oOo~
"You could've just told me," Triss said, pulling her legs up underneath her. She'd made herself comfortable on top of one of the dressers (or as comfortable as one could be sitting on a dresser) and was watching Yennefer, cross-legged on her bed, sort through a box of papers, looking for a copy of her birth certificate. Triss hadn't even been aware that she had any copies of it, though to hear Yenna tell it, the original was in a safe somewhere in her Vengerberg townhouse. It seemed there had been a lot of things lately that Triss hadn't been aware of. "If I'd known what was going on, I would've come with you."
"Would you have?" Yennefer looked up from the papers and raised an eyebrow, her hands stilling. "Or would you have come here to give me another lecture, much as you're doing now?"
"If you'd been honest with me, I wouldn't feel the need to lecture you in the first place."
Triss hated fighting with Yennefer, both because it always made them tense for days afterwards and because Yenna always won. It had been like that for as long as they'd known each other—she needed to have the last word, and not just with Triss. More often than not, she got it, too. "I didn't realize it was any of your business," she said icily, but their eyes didn't quite meet, and after a moment she looked back down at the box next to her.
"It's…it's not, I suppose," Triss conceded. It was the only thing she would give her. "But really, what did you think was going to happen if you just left without telling anyone? If you took off to Novigrad alone?"
"I won't be alone." It was painfully obvious how hard she was trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing. Triss watched in silence as she set the paper she'd been looking for aside and packed up the rest carefully. She stood and tucked the box away in the back of the closet. To say Triss had been surprised to see her take it out for any other reason than to hide it from Val would be an understatement—knowing what it was, she thought she'd never see the day that Yenna looked through it willingly. Everything in it had gone straight in when she'd left Aretuza and, to Triss's knowledge, hadn't come back out; if it had, now it was just one more item on the list of things Yenna was keeping from her.
Still—and she hated to admit it, even to herself—the idea that she wasn't the first person Yenna had gone to, like she would've been once, made her feel like she'd been punched in the gut.
"Really?" she said, mimicking her tone. "Who did you ask to go with you, then? If not me?"
She was being petty and they both knew it, but surprisingly, Yenna didn't immediately call her out on it. Instead she returned to the bed, sitting down next to her half-packed bag and pulling out a folder that she slid the paper into. Her fingers were a little paler than normal—she was gripping it tightly. "I didn't ask anyone." The edges of her words were sharp as knives; the question had struck a nerve, and Triss already regretted asking it. The whole thing was a sensitive subject, one everyone who knew about it also knew to broach with caution. She should've tried a gentler approach, but it felt as though the words were leaving her mouth without being filtered through her brain first.
"That doesn't answer the question, Yenna."
"It does." She put the folder back in the bag and zipped it up. The diamonds in her star were visibly pulsing—she was putting extra effort into making sure Triss couldn't read her mind, even though the star itself was already the strongest moveable barrier she'd ever seen. "You wanted to know who I asked, and I told you—no one. Can that be the end of this argument, please?"
"I don't know." Triss stood agitatedly, then sat back down. She had nowhere to go. "It's pretty clear you're keeping something from me. I'd rather not leave until I know what it is."
Her lips twisted in some vague approximation of a smile. She put the bag on the floor, ran her fingers over the black-and-white quilt, looked at it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. "You always were observant," she murmured. "Sometimes far too much so for my liking."
Triss exhaled a laugh. "Might not be as observant as you think. I mean, I didn't even know you were doing this until you told me earlier today."
"I didn't tell anyone—well, I told one person, I suppose. Or two people. But no one was intended to know. Aside from Val. I wanted him to go with me, originally. But I didn't even get a chance to actually ask before he refused."
"Well, what did you expect?" She laughed again, though she realized soon after how insensitive she was being. "He's never exactly been quiet on what he thinks about the idea of you having children. Gods, he doesn't even like the daughter you've already got!"
Yennefer sighed and looked up. There was a tenseness in the set of her shoulders, the way she laced her fingers together in an attempt to keep them still. It was better, Triss thought, than what she used to do to distract herself, but not by much. "I know," she said. "But theoretically, it would've been best to involve him now rather than later, especially if things go well. I've got to convince him somehow."
"Did you really think that involving him early would somehow make him change his mind?" Neither of them wanted to say it, but they both knew how it would end. He didn't want what she did, and if he wouldn't give it to her, she'd find someone who would. It was no wonder he was so strongly against it.
Yenna smiled faintly. "I suppose not."
Silence fell. The subject of Val had always been a sore one between them, ever since the two of them showed up at Triss's commencement and she saw how he hovered over her, protective, possessive. Yenna had slowly but steadily been pulling away from her ever since. Triss watched her worry her bottom lip and wondered when, exactly, they had stopped telling each other things. When the gap between them had grown so wide that they only ever dared to breach it physically. "Can I ask who is going with you, then?"
"You can." She tugged her sleeves down over her wrists in a manner that closed her off as much as the blankness in her words did. They would go their separate ways in the morning, she knew, and Yenna wouldn't speak of it again unless someone else had already brought it up. Maybe not even then. "But it's unlikely at best that I'll answer."
~oOo~
Geralt woke an hour before he and Yennefer were due to leave and cleaned out his truck more vigorously than he had in years. The sheer amount of time he spent on the Path meant he'd created a nest of sorts for himself in the backseat—easier to sleep there than try and find a hotel every night, not to mention more cost-effective. He pulled out all the blankets and dumped them in a pile on the living room floor. He'd wash them when they got back. There wasn't time for much else except gathering up the various food wrappers he'd let accumulate over the months and vacuuming. It would have to do. He got in the truck, bag stowed in the back, and started it so it would be warm when she got there. And he waited.
It didn't take long before he saw her in the rearview mirror, slipping outside and making her way across the lot with her head bowed low. The way she held herself made her reflection look off-puttingly small, and he realized belatedly that he probably should've done something to make it easier for her to get into his truck. When she pulled open the door and set her bag on the floor, he could only see her from the waist up. He was about to apologize and offer to help her, but before he could even open his mouth she had pulled herself up into the passenger seat in a surprising show of agility for someone of her stature. He tried not to let that thought show as she pushed her hair back from her face and turned to him.
"Please tell me," she said seriously, though there was something of laughter in her eyes, "that you're not one of those men who thinks having a big truck makes them manlier. I may have to rethink this whole venture if you are."
He shook his head, awkward under her penetrating gaze, and started to drive. "Easier to carry trophies," he explained as he guided them out of the parking lot. "Most people want proof I actually killed the thing they hired me to kill."
"Ah." She paused, scrunched her nose up. "Sounds…gruesome. I shouldn't ask what's back there, then, should I?"
"Right now there's nothing. Haven't taken on a contract like that in months." When he glanced over at her, she was looking out the window. She'd foregone wearing any makeup, and as a result the dark circles under her eyes were worryingly prominent. The black top she wore under her jacket had a high neck, so instead of the usual velvet ribbon, her star hung from a thin silver chain.
"Rough night?" He immediately regretted asking—gods know the ways she could take offense to it—but she didn't seem to mind the question. She shrugged, but didn't answer right away.
"Suppose you could say that. I didn't sleep much."
"Why? Nerves?"
She smirked, and her hand came up to rub the side of her neck. "Something like that."
They fell silent. Surprisingly, Yennefer turned out not to be one of those people that made him feel like he needed to fill every gap with idle chatter. She seemed perfectly comfortable in the silence, and after a while he began to relax as well. He could tell, though, that she was still tense—why wouldn't she be in this situation?—so he didn't try to force her into conversation. If she wanted to say something, she'd say it. And she did.
"Have you seen Ciri lately?" she asked, and behind the question was something that said he should already know what she meant, if he'd been paying any attention at all. He doubted she meant to guilt him, but he felt it anyway.
"Not really," he admitted sheepishly. "Considering how rarely she leaves the apartment."
"She leaves it more often than you think." She rested one hand lightly on the center console. The fingers of the other were tightly gripping her thigh. "You should ask her about it the next time you see her."
"…all right. Mind telling me what this is about?"
Yennefer frowned. "It's not really my place to tell. I just—well, I thought you already knew."
She didn't say any more on the subject, and he got the impression she regretted bringing it up. The minutes ticked by on the dashboard clock, and one hour without speaking became two, then three. At some point she started drumming her fingers softly on the console, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. The closer they got to Novigrad, the more visibly agitated she became.
He didn't know what possessed him to do it. Maybe he'd just gotten sick of the noise, or his needless worry over her had finally reached a boiling point. But the reason didn't matter—all he knew was that, for one of them or another, he felt compelled to reach over and cover her hand with his own. She froze; he sensed the sudden stiffness in her arm and debated pulling away—and then he felt her flip her hand over, lace her fingers with his. When he looked over she smiled, albeit tightly, and they stayed like that until the gates of the city came into view.
Yennefer had insisted they go the long way around the city instead of through it. The few opportunities people had to recognize her, the better. As they drove under the massive stone walls, he couldn't help but agree with her. The hospital was on the edge of town, and at the least, it cut back on the amount of traffic he had to drive through.
Vilmerius Hospital was not only very small, but in a neighborhood far from the opulent wealth at the center of Novigrad—exactly the opposite of what he'd expected from Yennefer. But it was the workplace of a specific man, she informed him as they parked in a dimly lit garage. A former lecturer at Oxenfurt that she had met through Regis. He had agreed to perform the procedure despite possible risks, but in doing so hadn't given her a choice in venue.
He followed her in silence through a series of sterile white hallways until they found a reception desk, from which they were led to a small, curtained-off room. It seemed that Yennefer already knew exactly what was going on, and Geralt tried not to listen too closely as a nurse came in and they went over a packet of papers, several of which she signed in a scrawling hand. The nurse left them for a few minutes and, after a moment, Yennefer sighed, looking around the room distastefully. She perched on the edge of the bed—it was almost as if she wanted to touch as little as possible—and pulled a small mirror out of her bag. A few whispered words had it hovering in the air, level with her face, and she began to slowly and methodically remove all the piercings from her ears.
"Nervous?" he said, watching as she dropped the earrings one by one into one of the bag's smaller pockets. Her rings came next, and then the star, which she took off incredibly reluctantly. The thing itself seemed like it didn't want to leave her body, and he wondered what enchantments were on it that attached it so strongly to her. She slid off her jacket, folded it neatly in the bag, and looked up at him.
"I think you asked me that already," she said dryly. If there had been any amusement in her voice before, it was certainly gone now. He wanted to say more, but the nurse returned, this time with a gown that Yennefer looked at with more disgust than she had anything else. The nurse nodded at it and stepped back outside. Geralt could feel her waiting only a few feet from the room, along with someone else; the surgeon, most likely.
"It appears," Yennefer said, "that we've reached the part where you have to leave." Her smile was wry but he could sense her discomfort, and he wished there was something he could do to ease it, though it would've been difficult without knowing what exactly she was nervous about, which he didn't. Instead he stepped forward wordlessly and took her hand again, squeezing gently for a moment before letting go. She blinked, startled, and looked up at him for a moment before she turned away, which he took as his cue to leave.
He pulled the curtain open only as much as he needed to slip out, then started to make his way back to what he assumed was the waiting room—but he was stopped by a hand on his arm. The hand belonged to a balding man with a grey moustache who introduced himself as Joachim von Gratz. Now that he'd heard the name, he wasn't as surprised; he was sure he'd heard Regis mention the man once or twice. He inclined his head in the direction of the room Geralt had just left.
"Pardon the intrusion," he said in a low voice, "but if you're here with Lady Yennefer, I must ask how the two of you are related."
Geralt must have looked confused, because after a moment he continued, a resigned look on his face. "We've a strict policy here, you see—generally, only family members are allowed to stay with the patient, especially with a procedure like this. I'm aware that Lady Yennefer has few living relatives and doesn't wish to see any of them. If you're a close friend of hers, I'm willing to make an exception, due to the circumstances, but that's something I need to know now in order to make sure you can be taken to the room where we usually have the family wait."
"I…" That had been one of his bigger reservations about this plan. He had no idea how to answer that question. He got the impression that Yennefer had let him closer than most people, but considering that he could count on one hand the number of people she would likely consider friends, that still wasn't very close. But he did have something that linked her to him, something that no one else could claim, and while he wasn't sure he wanted to reveal as much to a stranger, he had the feeling it was the only thing he could say that would convince von Gratz to let him stay. "I'm…her daughter's father."
The man raised his eyebrows for a moment before he schooled his face into a more neutral expression. "I see. She did mention that it had happened…after. Well, in that case, of course we'll let you stay." He dropped his voice even lower than before, though Geralt had no trouble hearing him. "My apologies. To be honest, we were expecting someone completely different. It seems the situation is a little more complicated than we thought, eh?"
He laughed casually. Geralt had no idea what he was talking about, and he didn't want to ask, either, so when von Gratz motioned a receptionist over to show him where he needed to go, he didn't say anything. "You'll likely be here several hours," she said, showing him into a room filled with the most uncomfortable-looking chairs he'd ever seen. "We'll have Lady Yennefer's things brought to you as soon as we can, for safekeeping. In the meantime, try not to think too hard about it. Things will be fine."
He nodded mutely, unsure of what, exactly, he'd gotten himself into. Yes, everything was going to be fine.
i'm hoping to do what i wanted to do last week next week, but i'm also starting classes back up, so i don't really know what's going to happen. i'll keep y'all updated on what i decide to do
