"She cares for you, you have feelings for her. Don't overthink it. Surrender to spontaneous honesty - nothing more beautiful in human relationships." -Gaunter O'Dimm

yall already know wtf going on

also just wanted to acknowledge real quick that yes, this is the shortest chapter in the thanedd arc (and possibly the whole fic, though i'd have to check) but also the most important, so don't let the word count fool you, shit goes down here –bel

A Wolf Among Lilacs
Part Two: Hope/Fear
Chapter Twenty-Four: A Surrender to Spontaneous Honesty

The door, it turned out, led into a rather spacious courtyard, one he didn't think would've been able to fit in the space between the hallway he'd just been in and the next one, though he supposed in a school of magic anything was possible. The sky overhead was dark and clear, and a few lamps illuminated the space—paved with cobblestones, except for a small grassy area in the middle. There were benches around the courtyard's perimeter, and he suspected that if Yennefer were here, he'd find her on one of them, but it was something at the foot of the tree that held his interest. Two somethings, shaped oddly like headstones. He took a step forward.

"Geralt?" He stopped and looked to the side and there she was, on one of the benches as he'd thought, and looking just as breathtaking as the last time he'd seen her—even more so, if that was possible, now that she was on her own. But the worry and fear that had been in her expression earlier hadn't gone away; in fact, it looked stronger now than ever. And it seemed to be aimed squarely at him. "I—how did you—?"

"Get in?" he finished for her, only realizing a moment later when she pressed her lips together that this probably wasn't the time to be doing such a thing. "Through the door. Which I'm assuming is how you also got in."

"Yes, I'd surmised that much." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her legs, hands clasped in front of her, twisting at the rings on her fingers. "But you shouldn't be here."

He had expected the words. Anticipated that she might want to be left alone—that she most likely did, considering she'd gone all the way across the school for a chance at solitude. But they stung all the same. "Right." He hesitated slightly, starting to turn back towards the door. He knew this would be a mistake. There was no one to blame but himself.

"You—" Yennefer looked surprised she'd even spoken, locking eyes with him directly. "You don't have to leave," she said softly. "It's just that you shouldn't have even been able to see the door. There are…wards in place."

He understood, then, why Philippa had thought he'd be able to find her when no one else would. He was, after all, the one able to bypass the wards around her study, even using a key that wasn't his own. How exactly that worked, he couldn't say, but it meant something. It had to.

"I want you to stay," she said, barely audible this time. She wouldn't look at him for too long now; her eyes flicked to the tree and back again, and he took the opportunity to turn back there himself, walking close enough to tell that the things he'd seen when he came in were, in fact, headstones. They were relatively small, but still looked out of place compared to everything else in the courtyard, and especially compared to Yennefer herself. He would freely admit he didn't know her as well as everyone seemed to think he did, but she had never seemed the type to dwell on death. Not when she herself was still very much alive, and would remain so for a long time.

"I don't…" He cleared his throat, shoving his hands in his pockets. The way she watched him from the corners of her eyes made him nervous. "I don't suppose you'd answer if I asked about those?" He tilted his head in the direction of the headstones. "Or are they just here, and you don't know their origin?"

"I do." She spoke at normal volume this time, but there was something tense about it—about her whole being—and he instantly regretted asking. "I knew them both personally."

He turned and walked over to them, kneeling down to inspect them more closely and steadying himself with a hand on the ground. If he got dirt on his suit, he'd never hear the end of it from Triss. The first one, on the left, looked slightly older, though not by much, and had significantly more engraved in it.

"Dea Westheimer," Yennefer said. He didn't look back at her. He was afraid of what he would see. "A roommate of mine. After Keira, but before Triss."

"Didn't know you had a third roommate." He realized, after saying it, that it didn't mean much. He knew almost nothing about her life before teaching Ciri, besides what he'd found in the file in Vengerberg—which he'd promised himself he wasn't going to think about. Whatever had happened then, no matter what it was, he couldn't let it affect what was going on now, not when it felt like he was so close to something with her.

"She—" Yennefer stopped, cleared her throat softly. He could almost picture her, sitting there, staring at his back so intensely he was glad he didn't look. "Sometimes, a person shows an aptitude for magic early on, but when they've studied it enough and lived with it enough that it starts to change them, their bodies reject those changes."

Geralt had heard of such cases before, though he'd been under the impression that they were rare enough it wasn't considered a serious issue. But the dates on the headstone would put her at seventeen when she died, which was a common age for mages to still be in school. People like Yennefer were the outliers. "That's what happened to her?"

"Yes. Halfway through the year."

There was something in her voice he hadn't heard there before, something almost bordering on pain, and he focused his attention on the inscription under the dates, wondering if it would distract her. "This is in Elder Speech?"

"It is." He looked back at her, and she was grinning slightly. "Dearme, baeg cerbin. Esseath me evellien."

"You gonna tell me what that means?"

The smile widened. She shook her head. "You should've studied foreign languages." A small pause. He stood before she said anything, turning to face her fully, though not before he got a good look at the other headstone, which was blank except for the initials D.R.V. "That was the last thing she said to me."

"I…" He took a hesitant step towards her. This was the most he'd heard her say about herself since they met—at least, in terms of things that mattered. He'd gotten so used to the silence that surrounded her that sometimes he forgot how much weight was in every word she spoke. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." The only thing in the smile now was regret, as he closed the rest of the distance to sit down next to her. There was still a foot or so between them, an unbreachable wall she'd built around herself. "It was a long time ago. It doesn't matter now."

That sounded to him like something of a boldfaced lie, especially since she'd crossed the school to be alone here, but he let it go. "And the other one?"

He knew immediately that it had been the wrong question to ask; he didn't look over fully, but he saw her stiffen. She crossed her arms over her torso loosely, but he noticed how her fingertips dug into her sides. "A long story," she said. "And a very depressing one at that."

"Right." For a few moments, they were both silent. He watched her out of the corners of his eyes as the grip of her arms tightened, almost as if she were cold. It would be cold here, he realized, for anyone except him, especially since they were outside. That was so easy to forget in a place like this.

He reached up to unbutton his suit jacket and she watched him curiously, tilting her head to the side as he shrugged out of it and draped it around her shoulders. Her sudden stillness made him wonder if he should've done something else, but she looked…grateful. Or amused, at least. He wasn't sure which one would be better.

"I'm not sure," she said quietly, "whether I should thank you or ask if you were just dying to take that off. You looked quite uncomfortable in the main hall."

"Damn thing was chafing my armpits," he muttered, and she laughed quietly. "And it feels like they sewed wires into the thing."

"When was the last time you'd worn a suit, Geralt?"

He was quiet as he thought about it, trying as hard as possible to call up an answer that sounded even remotely plausible when she was sitting there, looking at him like that. "I don't know."

She laughed again, wrapping her fingers around the edges of the jacket. "That doesn't surprise me. It's not the first time you've done this, though." She looked at the space between them, at his hands, nervously still at his sides. "Why is that?"

There were a million reasons, caught in the back of his throat along with his voice, but he didn't want to say them. Because she was important to Ciri, because he'd seen firsthand the shit she had to go through, because he desperately wanted to kiss her again but didn't know how to tell her, though it would shock him if that had somehow slipped by her. "I don't know."

"Of course you don't." Before he could even begin to consider what that might mean, she followed up with "I heard Vilgefortz was looking for you. Wanted to talk to you."

Geralt cleared his throat, shifted so he was angled towards her, watching one of her hands drop to the stone bench, fingers skimming the surface. "He did. Pulled me into one of the portrait halls. We had…an interesting conversation."

She raised an eyebrow in a manner that he assumed was meant to be nonchalant, but he saw how her hand stilled. "Really? I don't suppose you'd tell me what about?"

"I wasn't able to make too much sense of it." That was true, for the most part. He did have his suspicions about who, exactly, Vilgefortz had been referring to when he told his story, but he wouldn't voice them. It wouldn't help his chances of staying on good terms with her if it sounded like he was accusing her of anything—and he wasn't, anyway. He was skeptical as to whether even half of what Vilgefortz had said was true. "He more or less dumped his entire life story on me. Spent a lot of time talking about some mystery sorceress who broke his heart."

Her expression didn't change, nor did her posture, but the attention that she paid his words, and the care with which she chose her own, told him he'd been right. "What exactly did he say about this mystery sorceress?"

"Not much other than that she broke it off." He paused, trying to recall anything he could about the conversation. It was difficult, considering he'd already begun the process of trying to block it out. "I believe the exact words he used to describe her were promiscuous, arrogant, spiteful, unfeeling and cold."

"Unfeeling. That's a new one." A wry smile played at the edge of her lips, and she moved her hand over her skirt, laying it across the other one. "The description gets more and more detailed every time. It's incredible, how he keeps managing to come up with new adjectives."

He couldn't help but chuckle, though he didn't say anything else for the time being. If he was silent, he thought, more would come from her, and he was right. "Did he happen to mention the fact that she was sixteen when this happened?"

He shouldn't have been shocked by that, but he was. For some reason, the two facts, even though he knew both of them, hadn't connected in his mind. He shook his head.

"Unsurprising. That would change the story a bit too much for his purposes, I'm sure."

The time to stop pressing further would've been then. He was fully aware of that. But he couldn't stop himself from asking all the same. "Yennefer, I—I mean, if it wouldn't be too prying—"

"It would." There was nothing but sharp edges in her voice, broken glass that he could cut himself on if he wasn't careful, though none of her anger seemed to be directed at him. "But yes, he's talking about me. He likes to think he's subtle."

It made everything make sense, in ways that Geralt wished it didn't—the fear in her eyes when she'd first found out about the chapter nomination, her apparent eagerness to escape the hall after. The way Vilgefortz had spoken about it made it clear that these weren't just the feelings of a scorned ex-lover. There was something far deeper at play. "Why did you…"

"Leave? I suspect that talking to him one-on-one sorted most of that out for you. But the short version is that he wanted to go a different direction than I did. And he…complicated things. Immeasurably."

She was wearing the bracelet that Geralt had given her—he'd noticed it briefly earlier, but now he was focused on it, on the way she twisted it around her wrist. She was almost always fidgeting in some way. Always on edge.

"He never stopped calling," she said, looking not at him but straight ahead, at the tree, at the headstones. "But eventually, I stopped picking up."

"Even now?"

She let out a sharp exhale—maybe a laugh, maybe a sound of pain, maybe both. "Even now."

There wasn't going to be getting any more out of her, then; she said the words with an air of finality about them, as if she were determined to stop speaking or even thinking about it. So they sat there. By now he was used to the silence that seemed to envelop them whenever they were alone, but it was strained now. He never should've brought it up, never should've asked about the stones or even followed her down here in the first place—

"Don't say that." He looked over at her as she pulled his jacket off her shoulders, folding it neatly in the space between them. She left her hand on it, something like an invitation, one he wasn't sure he should take. "Or think it, I suppose." After a moment's brief hesitation, he reached over and covered her hand with his. He thought he heard her heartbeat quicken, thought he heard her draw a deep breath. He was probably imagining things. "I'm glad you're here. Truly."

The knowledge of her being so close, of her skin, cool under his fingertips, made him wonder how she could even get anything comprehensible out of his thoughts. She had to know what he wanted, could probably feel the desire rolling off of him in waves. There was no way it had slipped past her. He stroked his thumb along the back of her hand, watched as her lips parted slightly before she looked up to meet his eyes.

"Geralt," she said, barely a whisper, full of something he couldn't name. "We can't."

"Why not?"

Another soft breath. "Do you really want to do this again?"

He knew what the answer was already, and he didn't doubt that she did too. He moved his other hand up slowly, keeping an eye on her reaction as he brought it to the back of her neck, threading his fingers through her hair. Her eyes fluttered shut. "Yes."

There it was—out in the open, and she had every chance to refuse him, tell him to leave. She didn't. She stayed perfectly still. This time, he was the one to lean in.

He was—gods, it was almost ridiculous how nervous he was as he closed the distance between them, barely even brushing her lips at first, testing the waters to see how she'd react. He felt her fingers tense up under his, and then all of a sudden her other hand was tracing lightly over his jawline and she was kissing him back. It was different than the last time—slower, calmer, but no less insistent, and all he could do was hope that this would be it, the breaking point where they would finally have to face whatever was going on between them.

Like the last time, he should have known better.

When her hand slid down to his chest and pushed lightly he drew back, just far enough that he would be able to open his eyes and look at her. She kept hers closed for a moment longer. "We can't," she repeated, softer now.

"Any particular reason?"

A laugh that sounded almost genuine escaped her as she opened her eyes, though she seemed reluctant to look at him. "Geralt, I…" She bit her lip and leaned back. He let his hand fall back to his side, and she did the same. "If you were anyone else—if we were anywhere else—I wouldn't give it a second thought." Her gaze left him, but only for the few brief seconds it took her to look around the courtyard. "But we're here. And you're you. And that…"

"Complicates things immeasurably?"

The wrong words. It seemed as though everything he said to her was wrong. She turned away, slim fingers gripping her leg through her dress. "I think you should go."

"Yennefer—"

"I think," she insisted, quite loudly, "you should go. Please."

He nearly couldn't believe it for a moment, though it was no different, in essence, from what had happened before, and besides, he couldn't help thinking it would've been better not to get involved at all. He tried to think it loudly, not even sure how to go about such a thing, as he put the suit jacket back on and stood. When he paused once at the door, looking back, she hadn't moved.

But that was fine, he tried to convince himself. They were better off like this anyway.

~oOo~

"Yenna, could you please explain where we're—?"

"I will." She sounded more than a little annoyed, and her grip on Val's hand tightened as she led him through the hallways. "In a moment."

She'd slipped out of the banquet early—early enough for people to take notice, and right after she'd told him not to do the very same thing. And it hadn't been just for a moment, either. She was gone for at least an hour, maybe even more. He would freely admit he hadn't been keeping an eye on the time. But as everyone was starting to leave, to get enough sleep for the first actual day of the conference, she had shown up, looking rather agitated, and dragged him out of the room without so much as a greeting, not to mention an explanation. They were nearly across the school now and she still hadn't told him what was going on.

Just know that it's important to me, she'd said the first time he asked, and all the rest had been met with the same types of non-answers. But when she stopped in the middle of one of the hallways, he looked at her expectantly, relieved that he would finally get some real ones.

She pointed at a spot on the wall and looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "What do you see here?"

"I—Yenna, what's going on? It's just a wall."

Her expression faltered for a moment, before she pressed a hand to her forehead and let out a barely-audible string of curses, most in Elder Speech. "That's exactly what I was afraid you'd say."

ok so idk exactly when the next chapter will be up but it won't be for a couple weeks; i do still have a rough schedule plan and i'd like to stick to it if i can. hopefully there won't be nothing at all in the meantime because i'm working on the second one-shot and maybe i'll even actually finish it soon lol