consistency? in MY posting schedule? it's less likely than you think
also i'm sorry that this is kind of short and also not a super-exciting chapter to come back to, but there's a LOT that's happening in the next one and i needed this one to set up some of that conflict so...it's what we've got lol
A Wolf Among Lilacs
Part Three: Beauty/Menace
Chapter Twenty-Nine: This Is Heaven In Hiding
"For the last time, Geralt, I'm perfectly fine."
"I'd have a much easier time believing that if you hadn't been unconscious when I got here."
Yennefer stared up at him, turning her head from where it had been resting on the lip of a bathtub large enough to fit several more people. Geralt was leaning up against the bathroom counter; she hadn't asked to be alone and even if she had, he would've been reluctant to leave her be. When he'd arrived at her house in Vengerberg, after what felt like the longest drive of his life, she had been laying on one of the pristine cream-colored couches in the sitting room, curled up on her side. It wouldn't have been a worrying sight, were it not for the patch of dry rust-red under her, from where too much magic use had caused her nose to bleed. He'd remembered quite suddenly watching her cough up blood in the inn and had roused her in a panic, only to have her brush off his concerns as she cleaned the bloodstain with an annoyed sigh and a wave of her fingers.
He'd followed her upstairs then, despite her halfhearted and slightly amused protests, and now he was standing there, having watched as she filled the tub and then dropped something in it that turned the water a deep purple (and that smelled, unsurprisingly, of lilac and gooseberries). She'd stripped without ceremony, ignoring the fact that he was watching with more than a little interest, tied her hair up so it wouldn't get wet, and laid down. It had been nearly an hour, and this turning of her head was the most he'd seen her move.
"You don't spend much time around mages, do you, Geralt?" she asked, and after a few seconds he reluctantly shook his head. He would concede to her on many things, but it felt off to admit that she might be right in this situation—that he should brush off any negative effects on her health as nothing to worry about. "This is a perfectly normal reaction to what we've just been through. I drew on more power than I should have. It's not the first time. Give me a couple of days and it will be as if none of this ever happened."
"None of this?" He raised an eyebrow, looking between the two of them. It earned him the slightest curl of her lips.
"Most of it, then."
She turned away from him, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. The star still glittered at her throat, the pale column of her neck encircled by the velvet ribbon. He had asked her if she was going to take it off, and her only response had been a light laugh. Whether it was force of habit or because it was accelerating her healing process, he couldn't be sure. He knew some of the stones were enchanted to ward against other mages getting into her mind, but he wasn't a mage. He couldn't do that. She had no reason to worry that he would even try.
"We are going to have to talk about what happened," he said after a moment, and she hummed in reply, keeping her eyes closed. A noncommittal answer. He wondered what it was she expected out of the whole thing; he doubted he'd get a real response if he asked. She seemed determined to keep her motivations, above all else, a secret.
The silence they fell into wasn't—uncomfortable, necessarily, but after a few minutes he found himself shifting restlessly, the need to be doing something creeping in on him. He wasn't accustomed to being so stationary, and it didn't help that she wasn't looking at him, either. "Have you heard from Ciri?"
This time, she didn't even bother opening her eyes. Her head stayed exactly where it was. "I haven't," she said, "though I also haven't been checking these past few hours. I'm sure she's tried to get in contact with me one way or another. Have you?"
"Yes." He didn't want to go into the details of the texts she'd sent or the more-than-slightly-annoyed voicemails she'd left him—there were four the last time he looked—but it seemed his tone was enough for her to understand what he meant. She smiled again, more openly. "We'll have to tell her at some point, you know."
"I know." The smile didn't fade, but it seemed—tighter, more strained. He worried that he'd overstepped some boundary he hadn't even known was there. "But I think it would be in everyone's best interest if we figured things out for ourselves first." Yennefer sat up slowly, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. The gesture would have looked self-conscious on anyone else, but on her, it appeared as though she were only deep in thought. The dark, clouded water still covered her almost entirely, and drops of it ran down her shoulders, leaving trails on her skin.
"What is there to figure out?"
She didn't answer right away. He knew the question was pointless; there was more to take into consideration than either of them wanted to acknowledge. Yennefer was well-known, in the public eye whether she wanted to be or not, and engaged on top of that. Geralt might have known the truth of that situation—or as much as she'd been willing to let him see, anyway—but he was one of the few who did, and he couldn't just cast those thoughts aside. Besides, he had a reputation of his own, one that wasn't nearly as stellar as hers. All of those things were bad enough on their own. Trying to think about them all at the same time made his head hurt.
"Too much," she finally said, glancing sideways up at him, her expression once more carefully guarded. "Far too much."
~oOo~
Regis had barely been back in his Oxenfurt apartment for five minutes when there was a loud and insistent knocking at the door. If he didn't know for a fact that she was in Vengerberg, he would have thought it was Yennefer, though she was normally quieter than that. He rarely had visitors otherwise; he preferred to visit other people, especially since Dettlaff seemed to loathe company so. But Regis was alone, for the moment, and the knocking wouldn't stop, and so with one last glance at his phone to check for messages, he opened it.
Ciri breezed past him and into the living room without even a proper greeting, immediately making herself at home on the couch. All things considered, Regis thought, he shouldn't be surprised. If she hadn't heard from Geralt or Yennefer—and he was assuming she hadn't—this would be the first place she'd think to check. Triss was in Novigrad, Philippa was at Montecalvo, and gods forbid she try to talk to Val about anything, not that he particularly blamed her for the last one; the man was insufferable. Besides, he had been one of the first people Yennefer went to with any problem since long before Ciri had entered the picture. There was no reason for now to be any different.
Except, of course, that he was fairly certain neither Geralt nor Yennefer would want her to know anything about what had just happened unless they were going to tell her themselves.
"Can someone," Ciri said, exasperated and sending a pointed look his way, "please tell me what's going on?"
Regis sighed as he sat down next to her, resting one hand on his knee. There was no way to brave the subject without telling her something she wasn't yet supposed to know, but if he refused to tell her outright, she would wonder at his uncharacteristic silence. And she was looking at him so expectantly, so sure that she would be able to get some answers out of him, that he found he didn't have it in him to remain completely silent. "Dandelion…discovered a djinn. Not far outside Rinde. It attacked him, and Yennefer healed his injuries. Additionally, it seems she and Geralt stopped half the town from being demolished by the djinn."
"I know that much." Ciri rolled her eyes. Despite the fact that there was no blood relation between them, she looked quite like Yennefer when she did so. "It's all over the news. People don't just not talk about it when a djinn shows up and knocks down an entire building in the middle of a major city. But no one's giving me any details." She sighed dramatically, unable, it seemed, to stop fidgeting. "When you didn't reply, I tried Triss and Philippa, but both of them said they didn't know anything either. It's becoming very frustrating."
"I'm sure it is." He hoped the sympathy he felt for her came through in the words, in his expression; it hurt to know that she was so worried, and that there was only so much he could do to reassure her. "But the situation is…complicated. And I think we would all rather you hear it from someone who knows the full story."
The halfhearted excuse sounded wrong to him even as it left his mouth. He could tell her—he knew more about it than anyone else, had known both Geralt and Yennefer long enough that they were easy to read. Ciri was worried, and she deserved to know. But even as he thought it, he knew that if he explained now, it would take a great deal of time before either of them might forgive him.
Ciri pulled her legs up underneath her on the couch, her arm resting on the back of it and the side of her head propped up by her hand. She looked uncharacteristically vulnerable. "I get that you want them to have their privacy and all that, and that's fine," she said, frowning and fixing her gaze on an empty spot on the wall. Another one of Yennefer's mannerisms she'd picked up—expertly avoiding eye contact during difficult conversations. "But is there really nothing you can tell me? Nothing at all?"
He thought about it for, perhaps, longer than he should have. The sensible thing to do would be to tell her know and send her out the door, despite how guilty he knew he would feel doing it. If she had gone to Philippa, or even Triss, it's likely what they would have told her. But she didn't. She'd come to him. And the barely-concealed panic simmering just under the surface of her annoyance broke down what little defense against these kinds of questions he'd managed to build up.
Geralt and Yennefer would understand. And if they didn't, they'd forgive him. Someday.
~oOo~
Yennefer had left through a portal for Rinde two days ago, and Val still hadn't heard from her.
It wasn't unusual for them to go days or even weeks without speaking to each other; they were both adults—academics, no less—with their own lives, and their individual research often kept them busy enough that they wouldn't interact often even when they stayed in the same place. But two days, after her unceremonious exit—that concerned him. Doubly so, when he knew that Geralt of Rivia was involved. No matter how many times she tried to reassure him otherwise, he still couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to their relationship than she was letting on, that there had been for months. The fact that she had disappeared with hardly ten minutes' advance notice, for him, all but confirmed the idea.
Still, he knew that approaching her directly about it, as he'd tried to before, was likely to end in yet another fight—and that was if he could even get ahold of her, considering her habit of refusing to answer his calls or messages when she was irritated with him, which seemed to be more often than not lately. He had been just as surprised as anyone when she'd shown up in Aedd Gynvael to spend the few weeks off she had with him, especially after whatever had happened at Thanedd. But she was gone again, and the voice of doubt whispered in his ear that he should have seen this coming, should have known that he wouldn't be able to hold her down for long if she didn't want to stay.
The fact that they often lived separately had never been a problem. She'd always been free to go where she pleased and do what she wanted. But lying to him—even if only by omission or deliberate vagueness—that was another matter altogether.
He tried to get in contact with Cirilla first, even though he knew that it wouldn't do any good. If there was even the slightest chance that she knew it was him—and she would know; the girl was many things, but stupid wasn't among them—she wouldn't answer. They had been doing this for years, acknowledging each other only when necessary. Still, if Yenna had tried to get in contact with any of those close to her, it would have been the girl. As suspected, he received no answer.
Next on the mental list of potential contacts that he ran through as he stood alone in his—their? He wasn't sure anymore—bedroom in Aedd Gynvael was Emiel Regis. The man numbered among his least favorite of Yenna's friends, mostly because he was so unfailingly polite. He had never so much as said a harsh word to Val during the time they had known each other; all of his insults were hidden behind compliments, and even after all these years he still found it difficult to tell, sometimes, whether or not he was being sincere. The two of them were alike in that way, and it was easy to see how they would get along so well, even though he didn't like it. But that call, too, went unanswered, and this time as he lowered the phone from his ear he left the bedroom and walked downstairs to stare out a window facing the front of the house.
He briefly entertained the thought that perhaps he was overreacting, and that at any moment a portal would open upstairs and she would be back, no worse for wear, though she would, as always, be reluctant to talk about whatever had happened. The events of the past few days would be just another secret to add to her list. But he also couldn't help but think that if that were the case, she would have at least let him know that she was okay, that she would be there soon. All he had gotten from her was silence.
There was nothing for it now; he was going to have to get in touch with one of her less palatable friends, though it would be difficult for him to decide which one. He despised them both equally, and had the feeling that the sentiment was reciprocated in them both. Even though it had been her idea to have Yenna stay with him in the first place, nearly eleven years ago, he and Philippa Eilhart had never liked each other. While Val had, for most of his life, been content to stay out of the politics of mages and focus on his academic work, Philippa was constantly looking to climb that ladder, always seeking more power. There was nothing else to be said for it—their personalities clashed. He had been worried, once, before he'd actually met her, that Yenna would turn out to be the same, and was more than a little relieved to discover that, much like himself, she only wanted to be left alone.
On the other hand, he still didn't know quite what to think of Triss Merigold. She wasn't as power-hungry as Philippa, nor was she as academically inclined as Yenna, and yet she seemed to have an even greater distaste of him. He'd heard the rumors, of course, had more or less figured them to be true, especially since neither of them had ever been particularly inclined to deny them when they were brought up. That alone would have been enough to make him hate her, but aside from that, she had an attitude around him, one that clearly said that she thought she knew Yenna better than he, and that he was overstating his place in her life. And there was so much, so much, that she hadn't told him…
No, he thought as he reached for his phone yet again, it would be better to call Philippa. She might irritate him beyond reason, but Triss made him angry.
Philippa picked up after only a few rings, and even though he didn't want to talk to her, he couldn't help but be grateful for it, because as much as he didn't want to talk to her, he wanted to resort to calling Triss less. All that reluctant joy slipped out of him the second he heard her speak, though. "I can't imagine why you would possibly be calling me now. Whatever's going on, you should be speaking to your fiancée about it."
The haughty tone of her voice irritated him more than he wanted to admit, though he supposed he ought to have gotten used to it by now. "Am I to assume that means you already know what's going on?"
"Actually, I don't." This fact didn't seem to bother her much. "And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."
For a moment he wasn't sure what to say in response. He had been expecting for her to brush him off; she'd been doing it for over a decade now—but to readily admit that she had just as much (or as little, as the case was) information as he did seemed out of character. He'd always gotten the sense that she was proud to know more than him, to be the one that was trusted with something as simple as where she was, when Val was left in the dark. When it came to it, though, Yenna would still tell her first. He assumed that was the reason for the lack of annoyance in her voice. It had to be.
"Might I suggest," she continued after a minute of prolonged silence, "that instead of talking to me about it, you contact her? Have you even tried?"
"Of course I've tried," he said, irritated, and it wasn't exactly a lie. He had messaged her, he had called and left voicemails, though perhaps not as many as he usually did when she went days or weeks without talking to him. More and more lately, it was starting to feel like a helpless cause. "She doesn't respond to any of the ways I've tried to contact her."
It took another long few moments for Philippa to respond; though he tried not to let that bother him—they'd never liked each other, and he was well aware of that when he decided to call her—it was hard to ignore it when he was so worried. "And you thought that I would be the best way to reach her?"
The undisguised amusement in her voice was almost more than he could handle, but he grit his teeth and forced himself to remain civil. "You're not the first person I've tried to get in contact with. None of the others are answering either."
"Ah." There was a burst of static on the other end; he recognized the sound as that of someone going through a portal. "There may be a reason for that."
"What reason could she possibly have?"
The static got louder, and he knew he had only a few seconds until she ended the call and, therefore, her involvement in the situation. He would just have to go find out what was happening for himself. "Perhaps she wants to be left alone."
as i say in literally every chapter's end notes, i make no promises, but god i'd love to be posting consistently again lol. it would be nice to get on some kind of schedule where every week or every other week i post something, whether it's a new chapter or an unrelated thing (i've got the first like four chapters of a dai thing done except for editing but thinking about posting it makes me Big Anxious so idk when that'll happen). i'm moving in like a week so i'm hoping that being in a better living situation will help me be a bit more productive
