The one with Jane Oyster and a lot of denial
"So, what do you do for a living when you're not picking up unconscious strangers?" Kit asked with half a croissant in her mouth. Geralt toyed with a stubborn piece of sausage on his plate. The smell of freshly baked bread surrounded them. Marlene would always prepare dough in the evening in order to bake fresh bread for him every morning. For a moment Geralt lost himself in his thoughts. This was probably what he was going to miss most, if someone were to take Corvo Bianco away from him.
"I hunt monsters. Technically this vineyard belongs to me but apart from keeping it vermin free, I don't have much to do around here, at least until harvest-time. Barnabas-Basil is the one to organize and hire the people to do all the work. We will very likely run into him sooner or later." The majordomo would always appear out of nowhere when Geralt needed him. Who knew, maybe he had his own kind of magic. Geralt had long been having his suspicions.
"Sorry, I stopped listening after 'I hunt monsters'. Care to specify what type of monster you are talking about?" Her raised eyebrow clearly indicated that she did not believe a word of what he had said.
He chose to ignore that and instead explained: "In this area it's mostly lower vampires, necrophages or archespores."
"Yes, of course. I totally understand. Completely unrelated to that: Do you have a stash of garlic somewhere?"
"That won't help against vampires."
"Too bad. What about the other things?"
"Not a chance."
"Will it at least chase off unwanted company, if I eat enough of it?"
"That might work."
"Well, it's something." She grabbed another piece of bread. "If push comes to shove, I could still use the garlic as a projectile." Geralt smirked again.
"Do you have vampires where you are from?"
"Yes, tons of them. Safely banned to books and other forms of media containing fiction." She looked at him quizzically. "Do these vampires, by any chance, sparkle or something?"
Geralt went over this strange question in his head. "You could consider them sparkling if you set them on fire, I guess. But otherwise, no."
"Good. A world without shitty sparkling vampires is a good world." Geralt, again, did not bother to inquire about the background of her statement.
"Tell me more about this Jane Oyster and her park."
"Jane Austen," she emphasized the name, "was an author. She wrote romance novels that usually had some sort of class struggle at their core. Mostly of the sort 'rich man wants to marry less affluent girl and everybody has an opinion on that'. Okay, that was a truly terrible synopsis… But I swear the stories are quite good. She had a talent for characterization."
"And what about her park?" Geralt asked since romance novels did not interest him.
"It was not her park. It was… sort of an artificial world modeled on her books. Like a theater play that has been expanded beyond the stage. They'd recreate the buildings, the clothing and so on of that specific era. And there were lots of actors who'd talk the way they did back in the day. Anyone could pay to visit this place, pick a costume and immerse themselves in this recreated world. People generally perceive our world as very stressful compared to the good old times, when everything was supposedly simpler. It is a short-term escape from reality."
Geralt began to understand. "You think that this is what's happening here? That this is not a real place and everybody here is just acting out a part?" Now he could see why she was not afraid – or at least not of him.
"Exactly. The difference being that people went to Austenland voluntarily. And in the movie, because obviously it was a romance movie, she fell in love with one of the actors. And after a lot of this and that, drama, tears and such, it turned out that he loved her too. Happy end. Sounds cheesy of course, but I quite liked it."
"I wonder who I am supposed to be in this context." Geralt was genuinely curious to hear her explanations.
"Well, since it's been a few minutes and you haven't insulted my looks yet, probably not Mr. Darcy."
"Who is Mr. Darcy and why would I insult you?" This was exactly what Geralt feared. Every question lead to more questions and hardly any answers.
"He's an idiot who insulted the woman he later fell in love with. You know, after he actually got to know her and came to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, it's a bad idea to immediately judge people by their looks. Took him ages to win her back. What a tool."
"Well, I promise I will never insult your beauty." He spoke truthfully.
Kit smiled. "You better."
"And what would have to happen for you to stop believing that you are in a historical recreation?" he wondered, watching her reaction carefully.
"Well, I don't know. Because, if I was not in 'Austenland', then that would mean this was real. That monsters exist in reality and outside of books. That I'm having breakfast with someone whose eyes have actually been altered. That would also mean I am very far from home, probably in an entirely different world." She shivered. "Honestly, that would be scary and I might just go insane then."
Geralt sighed now that he had been informed of what was in the cards for him. He started to prod gently. Maybe it was better to get this over with fast.
"You said you don't believe that my eyes or my scars were real. But you already had to admit that you were wrong. How does that fit into your theory?"
She looked him straight in the eyes, not answering immediately. "I did not say that I believe they are real," she started. "I said that I don't know how you're doing it. That's not the same."
"So, denial it is?" He cocked his head.
"It's only denial if my theory is wrong. You have yet to prove me wrong though."
Geralt sighed. Apart from the fact that she did not want to accept reality, she seemed quite smart. He tried to imagine himself in her situation and wondered what it would take for him to be convinced of something that was seemingly utterly impossible. But he failed for he knew nothing was truly impossible. He had seen too many things to believe otherwise.
"This is probably the most outlandish conversation I ever had over breakfast," he murmured in frustration.
"Is it? How does it compare to your strangest lunch and dinner conversations?"
"I have a few strong contenders for dinner conversations."
"Well then, maybe we can come up with a good one for lunch."
Geralt smiled against his will as he had done so many times during the last few hours.
They went to the stable where Roach was eating away at the hay provided for her.
"This is Roach," Geralt said, patting the mare on the neck.
"Hi Roach, please don't kill me." Kit, he noted, kept a safe distance away from the horse. Roach, meanwhile, did not much care about the new visitor.
"You should come closer. I consider myself an experienced rider, but even for me it would be difficult to get on a horse's back from that distance." He grabbed saddle and saddlecloth to put on Roach's back. Roach, again, was indifferent and kept feeding.
"Do you know how to get into the saddle?" he asked while holding the bridle. Kit looked not quite confident.
"I guess I'll give it a try and we shall see." She held onto the pommel and put one foot into the stirrup. To Geralt's surprise, she managed to pull herself up in a swift and nearly graceful motion. Kit's face, meanwhile, continued to show doubt about whether or not this was a good idea. Nevertheless, she patted Roach's neck and ran her fingers through the dark brown fur.
"I forgot how warm horses were," she said, lost in thoughts.
"Come on Roach." Roach shot one last longing look at her hay, but followed obediently. Kit jerked a little in the saddle because of the unexpected movement.
"Geralt? You're not going to let go of the reins, are you?" Her shaking voice betrayed her calm demeanor.
"I won't, don't worry."
"Good, because if you do and this is getting me killed, I'll make sure to come back as a ghost and haunt you forever! Because ghosts probably exist?"
Geralt was about to list all the things, that were more likely to get her killed than a ride on gentle Roach, but after short consideration decided that it was not wise to do so. Instead he just answered that yes, indeed ghosts existed. But he spared her the list of things he could do to get rid of them and instead opted for: "I once shared my body with a ghost for a wedding. Cannot recommend that sort of experience."
After about a mile of her sitting on horseback, Geralt noticed that Kit's hands were not clinging to the pommel anymore to a degree that her knuckles turned white. He could not comprehend, despite the explanations already given, how being faced with a stranger whose face was full of scars, in a world abundant with monsters, did not seem to faze her the least but sitting on a horse seemed to scare her deeply. When he asked her about it, she assured him that there was no particular reason and she just had a lot of respect for the size of the animal.
The dust on the dry roads dampened the sound of the hooves. As was typical for a Toussaint summer, it had not rained in weeks. It was still early morning but it would not be long until the sun would start to beat down on them mercilessly.
"It's quite beautiful," Kit said, turning her head in all directions. "What a place to live!"
At least in this regard her reaction was the expected one. The magic and beauty of Toussaint always got to its visitors.
"What's it like where you are from?", Geralt asked curiously.
"It's much grayer. I live close to the city center, so there is an abundance of asphalt, a couple trees, some shrubs. The most colorful things are the signs of the supermarkets. But there are several cherry trees that look wonderful when they bloom. Obviously, it doesn't compare to fields of lavender and sunflowers." She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, smiling to herself. "It smells much better here."
"I assume the stink of the sewers is quite nasty?" he asked, remembering his time in Novigrad and the extensive network of sewers under the city that was mostly occupied by feces, cadavers and necrophages.
"Sewers? No, the drainage system is fine. It's rather the smell of exhaust of all the cars that's a little annoying. Especially in summer when the air seems to be completely still. And all the sounds. It's just never quiet. I swear I have the most horrible neighbors. Whenever I want to go to bed they start turning up their music or start chopping nuts or something equally ridiculous. That is, if they are not having screaming matches or throwing porcelain around."
"Mh, I can relate. I have sensitive ears." Geralt remarked.
"It's probably rather quiet around here?" she asked.
Geralt nodded. Unless someone is maimed by a monster that is, he added in his thoughts.
"What's Kit for a name anyway?"
She chuckled. "Actually, it's Kathrin. I got the name Kit at school. There was another Kathrin but everybody called her Kat. And because nobody can be bothered to pronounce two syllables when you can make do with just one, they called me Kit. We were good friends back in the day and whenever we showed up anywhere, people were calling us KitKat, like the chocolate bar. It stuck even after she moved away and I was the only Kathrin left."
"Kathrin, huh?"
"Yeah, but don't call me that. I hate that name." The tone of her voice did not allow for any discussion on that topic. Geralt made sure to remember this if he was ever in the mood to piss her off.
On the way back Geralt tried to force the reins into Kit's hands but she outright refused. Silly woman. She might have been the first person he had ever encountered who was a much better rider while being unconscious.
His head shaking, he walked them back to Corvo Bianco where Barnabas-Basil greeted them the moment they set foot (or hooves) on the property.
"Good morning Master Geralt." Barnabas-Basil bowed a little.
"Good morning BB! Let me guess, I missed something?" Geralt asked. Barnabas-Basil made a face that Geralt knew all too well. He had gotten fairly good at guessing roughly what was going on by just looking at Barnabas-Basil's face. There was the 'Papers need to be signed'-face, the slightly more distressed looking 'We have a problem with the harvest'-face or, his favorite, the 'You are needed urgently, don't bother getting off the horse, the monster is in the other direction'-face.
"Indeed, you just missed a messenger from the palace. You are kindly reminded that your presence is required at the annual wine festivities and that you are to be dressed, I quote, 'properly'." Barnabas-Basil cleared his throat and then looked at Kit through his small, round glasses. In his usual calm voice, which sounded dignified in every situation, he continued: "But it seems I too missed out on something. We do have a guest I presume?"
"BB, this is Kit. She will stay with us for a while." Kit waved a timid hello.
"Miss Kit, please let me know if there is anything you need." He, again, bowed slightly.
"I really just need to get off this horse but thank you," she replied sweetly with only a hint of despair.
"BB, please let them know I'll be arriving with a guest this time."
Kit descended from the horse in a much clumsier fashion than she had gotten onto it.
"Thank you Roach, that was lovely, let's never do that again." She hesitantly stretched out her hand to pet the soft skin at the muzzle. Roach pushed into her hand gently. They have probably gotten to some sort of agreement, Geralt thought.
"What's that festivity your… assistant just mentioned?" Kit asked, leaning against the wall of the stable.
"In this Duchy, they take their traditions and festivities very seriously. Every year at the end of August, they celebrate the start of the grape harvest. Don't ask me why, I don't know. The Duchess and I have an agreement where I don't pay taxes but I keep an eye on things during the party or any other larger festivities which take place at the palace. They've had some unpleasant incidents in the past and everybody feels safer with a witcher around."
"And what did he mean when he said 'dressed properly'? Suit of amour?" Kit asked curiously.
Geralt laughed. "I wish. More like itchy doublets and silly pants. You'll see."
"Will I?" Her eyes grew large.
"Well, yes, I just told BB that I would bring you too. Or don't you want to?" He eyed her curiously. The ladies usually never left out an opportunity for a ball or any other fancy occasion which demanded uncomfortable clothing.
"Oh, I would love to. But I hope my fairy godmother makes an appearance soon because, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm dressed appropriately for whatever this is. Actually, I'm not dressed appropriately for anything that's not a workout," she mused.
"Don't worry. We'll ride into town today and give one of the local tailors some work. You need spare clothes anyway and I don't happen to have any that would fit you."
"Unless you're secretly cross-dressing you're probably right. But even if you were, we don't exactly have the same size. I bet I could make a whole dress for myself out of one of your shirts."
"But I was wondering…" The question had been burning on Geralt's mind ever since he had found her. "What is it that you are wearing anyway? I've never seen anything like it. It's so… tight. How do you even get in there? There are no buttons or laces or anything. And your shoes. Why on earth are the soles white? It makes no sense! None of this makes any sense!" He supposed that Kit must have felt equally frustrated about her situation as he did about her appearance.
To answer his question, she hooked one thumb into the waistband of her pants and pulled. And the fabric expanded. "God bless the stretch. Makes your butt look good because it squeezes everything together but at the same time it's so comfortable. It's like your whole body is being hugged by hundreds of tiny arms." I would sure like to hug her, he thought and swallowed hard. "Those are my workout clothes. The material dries very quickly when you sweat, just as workout clothes should." Geralt started to involuntarily think of sweaty situations. "And the shoes have white soles because black soles often leave marks on the gym floors and nobody wants that."