[pfsb] "wind's howling..."

[bialy_wilk]

The door opens, and a predator walks inside.

He is tall, broad-shouldered. Every movement is accompanied by the creak of leather and clink of chain; his boots sound steadily on the worn wood floor. Each of the two swords strapped to his back stretches thirty-eight inches from pommel to point, and a deep scar runs across his craggy face. His hair is snow-white. He has a cat's golden eyes, the slit, vertical pupils dilating as they adjust to this new, dimmer light.

This inn looked a lot smaller from the outside.

Smaller and dingier. And less...impossible.

"Hrm," says Geralt of Rivia, and drops his shoulders in a sigh.

Comments

[bialy_wilk]

"She wouldn't," he says, lifting a hand to forestall any defensiveness. "I've never known Ciri to actively prophesy. It's always been under the influence of something else. To my knowledge she never even knows when it happens."

He shakes his head. "We found out when she was just a girl, at Kaer Morhen. She drank a potion thinking it was water, but –

"She fell into a trance. Prophesied Coen's death." Wryly: "And mine. Then woke up like nothing happened."

[lightamidchaos]

The fact that Geralt is alive, sitting across from him, sends a rush of relief through him that he does his best not to let show. He will have to tell Wei Ying.

For now, he nods. "She was tired, and had been wounded. I was playing Tranquility for her - musical cultivation," he explains. "There is spiritual power in it. It was meant to relax and soothe, to calm. We think that it allowed her gift to surface, unintended."

[bialy_wilk]

There's a flash of something in the younger man's face that makes the witcher feel more than a little uncomfortable and wonder to himself if he should expand on what he said, let him know that Coen did die just as Ciri had predicted, and so had he, himself...

But what Lan Wangji says next removes all thought of her first prophecy from his mind, and he nods. "Can see how that would happen," he says, and looks at the younger man closely.

"...You couldn't have known."

[lightamidchaos]

"No," he agrees. "I could not. Did not. But you can see why I do not blame her. She did not intend it; could not control it. If there is blame or fault to be laid, it is mine to bear."

[bialy_wilk]

"Don't see how there's any fault to hand around here at all," Geralt tells him, shaking his head. "Sometimes things just go wrong, even when you're just trying to help. Believe me, I know."

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn."

It has the sound of acquiescence. He gives Geralt a slight nod, then takes another sip of tea.

[bialy_wilk]

Geralt, no stranger to monosyllabic conversation, nods back and focuses for a short while on his stew and bread.

"Anyway," he says, once he's made his way through about half of each, "like I said. I don't trust Avallac'h. He may try to keep Ciri from returning here, or he may try to accompany her. If he does –"

He watches Lan Wangji intently. "Would you be able to get her a message without him seeing?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Yes."

He says it without hesitation. There are a few options he can think of. If nothing else, he can enlist Wei Ying's help through use of a paperman, while he himself serves to distract Avallac'h.

[bialy_wilk]

He nods. "Tell her..."

His fingers tap on the table as he thinks it over. "Tell her, if she can't find me, to go to Dandelion."

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji nods, memorizing it.

"I will."

[bialy_wilk]

"Thanks."

He digs in his belt and comes up with a few coins to leave on the table, quaffs the rest of his ale and picks up the hunk of bread. "Then it's time for me to get going. Got a lead on Ciri from an old friend. Trail's cool, but might find something."

He stands and nods slightly to the younger man. "Lan Wangji. Thanks for the information. And – thank you, for being a friend to Ciri. She needs as many as she can get."

[lightamidchaos]

He stands as well, in order to offer a proper bow.

"You are welcome, Geralt-qianbei. I am very glad to have met you."

[bialy_wilk]

Something wry touches the corner of his mouth at the bow and the honorific.

(Respect for a witcher. Hell. What a strange place this is.)

"Same here," he says. "I hope we meet again."

It's all he has in him before he turns for the door. It opens for a moment onto a gloomy, rain-soaked world of green grass and trees before he steps through and the door closes again behind him.