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[ Geralt stops, and turns. Stares at her. ]

Why are you crying?

[ ??? What's going on ??? He's the one that's gonna explode, not her. ]

[ She sucks in her lips, not even wincing when her fangs jab bloody holes in them, and starts up the head-shaking eye-avoiding again. What an awful question in that it indicates how much he doesn’t believe she gives a shit about him, if the other stuff being said didn’t already. Her heart might have a few more major and slow-healing fissures in it now than ten minutes ago. ]

That just happens, doesn’t matter. [ God, she’s gonna hiccup. ] What’s your daughter like?

[ It's not that he thinks she doesn't care. He's not out here because he's depressed. He just doesn't understand why she's so upset about it.

People die. People die all the fucking time.

Geralt shakes his head. ]

She's better than I am.

[ Well Maybe the problem is that Paloma is the world’s worst undead blood-guzzling parasite and gets too attached to mortal types, missing them like she would miss an arm, or a leg.

This diversion isn’t going spectacularly. ‘Better than I am’ is vague and self-deprecating. (Now that they’ve started, the tears get fatter and roll down her face with abandon.) What can she do with her hands? The canvas and food already fell when she did. They should twist her skirt to pieces. There we go. ]

Would she agree? Does she love you?

What the fuck kind of question is that?

[ Not accusing, just irritable. It's a foolish question; he's not in her head, he doesn't know. And if he had to guess - sure, probably, but he's said she'd look for him, and isn't that enough of an answer already? Why press? Is she trying to trap him? Is she trying to make him feel like an idiot, because he's too inhuman to understand the finer nuances of emotion? ]

Why do people do this shit. If you told me you wanted to be alone, I'd leave you alone. I respect you enough for that. If I don't want to be bonded, that's my choice, and it doesn't have anything to do with anyone here.

[ When not even Paloma knows where her point was going or what it was in the first place, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it pisses him off and accomplishes a whole lot of nothing. Time’s up. Really? warbles a pathetic voice in her head, wondering if he does respect her, trying to remember if she did anything to warrant being respected. Their history is short enough to flip through like a novel, everything there cast in doubt, in sharp relief. ]

Choosing to die. [ Geralt is a white blob at this point. The ground is a smear, but it’s a smear she’ll look at. ] That’s what your choice is. More than being left alone, left to die. Could you say what it is about bonding that’s so freaking disgusting to you that you’d rather fuck off and die?

[ Geralt moves over to her, still confused about why the fuck she's crying, but made angry by her assertions-- he grabs her shoulders, like he did when they met in that inferno of the dream. ]

I've been bonded. Before this place. At home. I can't go through it with anyone but her, I can't have it treated like this, I can't--

[ Saying a bit much, there. Geralt abruptly lets go of Paloma and staggers back. ]

[ Her shoulders hike to her ears and lock, fingers hooking into claws in an instinctive and violent flinch. Paloma doesn’t believe he would hit her, but it’s not that kind of retaliation she’s afraid of. After he lets go, everything stays in alarmed lockdown.

At least she’s looking at him now. ]

Treated how? [ Thin, reedy, weak, weak, weak. ] Means something different to everyone.

It was everything to me.

[ That's what he says, but it sounds a lot like She was everything to me.

The bond defined him. It shaped every step of his life from the moment he made the wish. It dictated how he traveled on the Path, how he raised Ciri, it taught him how to feel. Without it, without her, he'd never believe that he could be capable of love.

And people here treat bonds like tools. They obscure things and they lie and they put in the bare minimum to survive and that's fine. That makes perfect fucking sense. It's sensible and logical and respectable, and every time Geralt thinks of it, he remembers what he's lost, and it makes him sick. ]

[ Paloma has obscured and Paloma has lied, in relationships, friendships, that have had more impact and meaning in her life than almost anything else.

But these connections are the world to her. Precious. Worth honoring. Hopelessness clouds her eyes and her throat, but she’s not yet at the point of feeling like reaching out again is guaranteed hurting. (Like a fox who thinks maybe this time the trap won’t hurt if they pull their leg out fast enough.) ]

Mine are... I-I don’t have the vocabulary. For someone having and knowing pieces of my soul. I dunno how to describe the fear and... and, and then the acceptance. It wasn’t easy to get right.

Nothing that's worth it is easy. [ That much he can agree with, even through the haze. Geralt paces restlessly, trying to cut through the buzzing in his head but being unable to find his footing in the strange lack of gravity. He feels like he's spinning. ]

Yennefer...

[ He stops, staring at the ground. ]

I just don't want anyone but her that way. She broke it. And I wanted it back before I ever got here.

[ Cool, they can each goggle at the forest floor, Geralt dizzy and Paloma blinder than a rabid dog. The tears are fucking freezing on her cheeks and nostrils and mouth; she must’ve forgotten the warming charm keeping her unnatural body at a more natural temperature.

She can’t say a word against that. That part is no business of hers, and she would injure them both trying to pursue it. Her finger-claws spasm in the air at her sides. ]

What if it, uhhm– [ Dead lungs need to inflate for speech and to cry with stuttering desperation. This is futility and she knows it on some level. ] if you had one, but not the same way? I would, in a heartbeat. You- you wouldn’t have to keep it, though I would like to, you could, you know, until you have a better solution...

[ Silence for a while.

Geralt turns towards her again, and moves close. Understanding that she's crying but only distantly caring; people cry for the craziest reasons. Sometimes for no reason at all, just neurons firing in the brain, forcing an outlet for something intangible. ]

Why would you... why would you present me with something you already know the answer to, just to hear me say something you know is going to be hurtful?

[ Wow, look at these feet. Mud-caked. They're just so interesting, why should she look at anything else? Paloma argues and argues with herself until she drags her eyes up, meeting his properly even if she's not seeing them very well. ]

'Cause you're worth it, and- and so I know I tried. [ Imagine beating the shit out of yourself later and realizing you never once explicitly offered. Like, the beating's still gonna happen, but... ]

Edited 2019-12-02 06:57 (UTC)

Tried to push me into something you know I don't want, [ he says dully. ] So you can what? Lie to me, cover shit up, even when I might be able to feel it happening?

[ Unlike most mirrorbound objections to bonding, Geralt doesn't actually mind the notion of someone invading all his privacy. He grumbles about having his mind read, but when you boil right down to it, there's nothing so sacred about him that's worth protecting.

But he hates being jerked around. More than anything. ]

Go back to the city, Paloma.

[ Geralt doesn't need to push her again. Ice lances down her throat, spiking through her heart's center and hollowing out her belly. Even after the worst of it passes, she still feels it bleeding there and out between each rib. Like hot tar, flashing hot, going cold, then hot.

She thinks need to get out and botches the shift into bat shape, tossing and keening under the weight of these massive human clothes, a shawl and a blouse and a skirt and shoes that are far too big anymore. A fuzzy brown fox-thing crawls out of what was her shirt, squeaking in difficulty or else pain or both, and takes off. Paloma can fly, at least. ]

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