#contrabends

the witcher, the last wish // selectively accepting // @st4ysoft @contrabends

Solas cannot stop himself from snorting at the comment, one hand holding onto his staff, shifting the stance softly as they waited for the Inquisitor to finish their dealings with Fairbanks.

Was this place not built upon a dream too? What was there in acting and fight without first the dream of a better life? Without the notion appearing before you that things could be better and that the pain they would wrought would one day be worth it? Human posturing never ceased to amaze him.

   "Perhaps you are correct, Varric." he starts, softly at first with narrowing eyes with an unknown type of mirth in their glint "It must truly be a human characteristic:"

He hums, amused, light eyes glancing down towards Varric as he stands a few steps away. Not truly talking to Tess but at her. His head tilted to the side, though his eyes returning once more to Tess though his posture barely changes "To pick up a grand goal and run head first into it with the confidence and naivety of a child."

This is the fifth town they’ve been to on this bare bones planet, and it’s easily the meanest. Every person is hard eyed and hard spirited, and looking out at the badlands that surround the place—and the Imperial equipment and soldiers beginning to take shape on the outskirts—Orin finds it easy to believe why. Even the children are hard; she never hears them laugh. 

They manage to get a room at the single inn, though it’s crowded with migrant workers readying themselves for the harvest of some rare plant that grows out in these unforgiving foothills. Orin can’t remember the name. She can’t remember much lately it seems. 

But Tess remembers for her. Puts down food in front of her, and drink too. Reminds her to keep her head covered and hands gloved; Awoken skin with its coruscating light is rare enough in the inner worlds, let alone this bleak place on the outer rim. When they make it up to their room they move a heavy piece of furniture in front of the door, shutter the window. Orin pulls off her shawl and goggles and breathes deep, her eyes settling on the single bed. They both stare at it for a minute that stretches on a little too long. And then Tess breaks it by sitting on the end and unlacing her boots. Orin does the same after she pulls off her gloves. In the dim light cast through the cracks in the shutters they undress to their underclothes and slip beneath the coverlet, back to back. 

prompts for those with a reputation.

Ciri is alseep within moments of curling up beside him. Even on the musty couch in a whole room faint with damp and the stinking smell of the wet heat of the city, she is too tired to stay awake. When he is certain that she's out, Geralt shifts himself out from under her, cradling the side of her head in his palm to lower it to the bundle of his jacket that he has left behind for her pillow. The girl shifts, and murmurs, but doesn't wake. Geralt goes across the room soundlessly and lights a cigarette.

Tess is watching him. She is always watching, critical. Critical of everything. The flat, the building, the street below. Critical even when her face is cool and impassive. Even sometimes when she smiles.

"i… i thought you’d be taller, for some reason."

The Witcher huffs a laugh. She is not the first person to say that to him. He is not very tall, nor is he very handsome. Not in a way that's pleasent to look at.

Tall children are not considered ideal, after all, and beauty is irrelevant. This had all been explained to him when he was a boy. Tall children react less immediately than short children due to minimal differences in cognitive communication caused by necessary elongation and tapering of nerves within their bodies. Long limbs can be advantageous, but this advantage is offset by their lag, just as short children's speed is offset by a lack of mechanical potential. Children of average height have the greatest advantage between the two. Any advantage, no matter how apparently insignificant, contributes dramatically to a Witcher's survival. None of his brothers are tall. Not short, and not tall. An unlucky or orchestrated medium.

Perhaps they might have been tall if allowed to grow to their full heights without modification. Eskel, perhaps. Of all of them, he has the presence of a tall man. Stupid to wonder, though Geralt likes to think of him. They will never know.

Geralt looks at his hand that is braced against the windowframe. It is almost unrecognizable to him. Older, and worn, with the faintest tremor that he can see beneath the skin of his straining fingers when he tries to loosen them with a coordinated stretch. His wrist aches from being tucked beneath Ciri's head as she slept several hours on the train. It is possible that he might have been many things if he hadn't been this, but it's useless to think about it. There is no other life but this one. There will not be any other life but this, until it is time to bury his own corpse or leave it lying in the street.

Across the room, still asleep, Ciri is a tall child. Even sometimes underfed, and always under-rested, she may eventually grow to be taller than him. The thought almost makes Geralt smile. He watches the her still frame tucked into the couch in the low light, undisturbed by the sound of the rain and the traffic passing on the road under the open window. She is breathing softly, audibly. Peacefully. The sight of her is soothing to him. The people who made him did not consider a tall child ideal for their purposes, but there is no one here to stop her from becoming whatever she will.

He does not tell Tess any of this—it's not her business. Geralt also doesn't rebuff her criticism. His body is her business because it is a variable contributing to the likelihood of his ability to hold up his end of the bargain when the three of them need to work in tandem to ensure they get out of any given situation alive. Geralt is used to being evaluated in this way. Measured, like a weapon or a tool. It's in line with his expectations, and does nothing to dampen his mood.

He doubts Tess would appreciate it if he made similar unprovoked observations of her body, but he's not a stupid man. Some things even he understands.

“hey.” tess is good in that tess is professional, and does what she does. smugglers aren’t usually the kinds of people that yeon-soo would ever think of as trustworthy, but maybe tess is as close to that as anyone can get. reliability, maybe, is the more accurate term. “... i’ve got a request. i can pay, and it shouldn’t be that difficult. you can always tell me otherwise.”

𝚅𝙸𝙾𝙻𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽. / accepting!

First impressions had never been his strong suit. Corvo had a way of starting off on the wrong foot, something Jessamine had found the irony of amusing. One of the greatest swordsmen to come out of Karnaca, getting his footing wrong in social settings. You’re not quiet and mysterious, she’d teased him once, when they were young, drinking from the fresh spring of love. You just don’t want to say the wrong thing.

They’d laughed and Corvo had crowded her against the door that closed them off from the fine party outside and kissed her.

Now he finds himself crowded against a door, albeit in a much less comforting manner. The King in her court (the kind of court Corvo’s always been more comfortable in) keeps her knives sharp and ready; he can feel a bead of blood slipping down his throat where the edge just barely touched his throat.

“You should get better guards,” the Lord Protector says, and his voice is gravel over sandpaper. “Ones closer to your skill, preferably.”

She doesn’t move the knife, but the expression on her face seems to waver. Amusement maybe? Hard to tell. But it makes him smile beneath his ugly mask, a crooked, cool smirk.

He has a feeling if she wanted him dead he'd be dead already.

𝙲𝙰𝙻𝙲𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳 𝙵𝚁𝙰𝙶𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃𝚂. / accepting!

Gloves are off, mask discarded, trench coat shrugged from his shoulders. He sits on the floor with his back propped against the water-stained couch and feels his age starting to twist through his bones. A lifetime of working, fighting, leaping landing.

And the cool touch of the void, numbing that dull ache at the edges.

He eyes the mark on the back of his hand briefly before lifting the spliff between his fingers back to his lips. The smoke bites its way through his lungs and he holds its acrid sting in his throat until he can't anymore, until it streams out through his nostrils. Tess does the same opposite him, and he wonders what she's thinking about. Her eyes are distant, staring up at the painting over their head. A half rotten thing, torn, covered in soot. The face that peers out of it is a familiar one: a pale man with a gaunt face, eyes pools of deepest black.

"Their golden age was a cancer," she murmurs half to herself. Corvo watches her for a while through the soft haze of smoke, letting the silence settle.

"That what your girlfriend tell you?" he asks quietly.

Her eyes slide to meet his, a single brow quirking. He finds the expression endearing, in a way. The way she can look angry without betraying the depth of it. He's touched a nerve. She's never talked to him about Orin. Never mentioned her once. Which means he'd been asking around.

YOU ARE EATING AN ORANGE // accepting . @st4ysoft . @contrabends (and a pinch of @fairb4nks mention)

   "Dearest, I do not think there has been a single time you were not sick of me since I first walked in this room and acknowledged your existence." she hums more to herself in half a snort than to the other. Still, the other's feelings aside "Which is fine." it was certainly a choice. Daphné smile twists, her brow arches. There weren't many people that had been quite so outright hostile towards her but she supposed that might be what she should have expected when outside of the circus that was court.

And further away from the capital. Truthfully, it was more entertaining than she'd expected. Even if the physical threats silently hanging the air and in her eyes weren't welcome "Though it does make me curious as to the why."

And she had had some time to think about it. Turning on her seat, Daphné pulls the red dress as to allow her to cross her legs, allowing but a glimpse of the white slipper to peer through the many skirts. Leaning on her knee, her hand touches her own chin.

   "At first I considered, is it my way of talking?... And while it could certainly be the case, you would not be the first, I don't think it is the only reason. Now, is it the way that I dress? Perhaps, I've had more than a handful of people feel threatened by the wealth on display. Some people also are very uncomfortable with having someone... well, like me" pausing, she gives the other a significant look to the other. What the 'like me' could mean, stays up to interpretation of her expression.

Like her. Someone designed to the shape and details of the 'other woman', the shape of a married man's desires. The form of someone who could fulfill a void of any kind. Of a bird that sang as ordered "around their loved ones. I would find it frankly... well, disappointing if that were the case."

Shrugging, Daphné hums to herself and deep green eyes move to focus on Tess. Wondering if she should stop talking "But I have been disappointed by people before. I'm a big girl, I can handle disappointment."

The answer is yes, she should. And yet her smile curled further against the hand that is cupped under her chin, her eyes narrowing as her voice grows into a husky whisper. She supposed if anyone deserved a small shadow of honesty and sincerity in this place, it should perhaps be Tess, after all, she had offered Daphné little else.

   "If you ask what I think is the main reason? I think you are afraid." you are constantly afraid. And she knew because she herself was constantly afraid. Even being there for the amount of time she had dared was likely something she would need to work around and find ways of smoothing over. But those things are not visible, as the fear isn't.

Sometimes fear revealed itself in the shape of anger and protectiveness. That would have been a better trait, Daphné considered, hers was often in the shape of the bottom of a bottle and in a warm hand against her lower back "Afraid for yourself maybe, but certainly afraid that any new person that comes in will destroy this little operation you both have going."

Daphné wasn't even sure if it was necessarily to do with the operation. Or something more personal. Truthfully, apart from the fact that it was useful information to discover and the deep entertainment potential, Daphné did not care.

Tess was painfully transparent. That was the main issue, perhaps. And it wasn't an issue that only she had. The bleeding hearts would bleed not only on floors but on walls, on anything they touched. They would leave a trail all the way back to her. And so, back to Daphné, this was also the reason why she hadn't been involved with any of the sort of activities that Marius often got himself involved in. It was dangerous work, passionate work, foolish work. Hard. Hard to the heart and heart to his loved ones.

If Daphné cared, and if she weren't afraid to further antagonise the other, she would have said it plain as day: Tess wouldn't need anyone from the outside to come in and destroy all that she had worked for. Her untempered and wild temper would do it for her. She would destroy herself and all that she loved all by herself, she would never need Daphné. Plus, the mage refused to be seen like a catalytic just because she existed.

In the end, beyond the fear of physical harm, Daphné cared little if she annoyed the other. Or made her feel insecure. Truthfully, Daphné cared little unless she got what she needed out of this. Whatever issues she had, were hers and had been hers long before Daphné ever walked in.

   "Feel free to deny it" Daphné hums, shrugging and giving the other one final look over before walking to the side - never turning her back towards the other "though I'd suggest keeping the threats off the table, I can assure you I have little to no power or interest in meddling in... whatever you both have going on," she waves her hand dismissively "even Fairbanks will tell you I am a useful person to have as a friend."

And someone that would be terrible to piss off. Not because she held much power, she didn't, but they didn't know that. And while there would not be much she would be able to do if Tess truly decided to hurt her, Daphné had survived so far. The way that her eyes look at Tess tells her this: she would survive this too. And there would be hell to pay. Perhaps not now, but with enough time? Well, Daphné had a way of outliving people that hurt her, she was planning on continuing the trend.