terriblepurpose | Deer Country Contact

[She should tell Paul sometime, she thinks to herself in the quiet that follows, while she sits in the low light of the archive shelves and looks at the words glowing candle-bright on the glass face of her Omni — someday, she'll have to tell him more of the things she doesn't say. How sometimes the words that leave his mouth are an echo of Geralt's and it brings her to a standstill, when it doesn't make her want to knock his front teeth out. How he has his own brand of honesty and it lies in the flames of his anger, in those moments where he forgets himself and burns hot instead of ice-cold, and says all the right things without thinking.

It's been a long time since she's wanted anything except to bloody her sword with the life of one single man. Then that too was taken away, and she'd thought she'd all but forgotten how to want anything at all. And then she'd thought she could find it again by knocking together whims like flints, throwing aimless sparks in the hopes that just one might land on something dry and right for kindling.

Now it feels like a thin wisp of smoke rising. I want to turn over seashells and see if there are crabs. I want to look at the ocean and believe in something friendly in its depths.

It isn't much, but it's something. And it'd be such a shame to let it burn out.]

I should learn to ask you for help more often.

[And then, shortly thereafter: ]

Do you want to tell me about it? Why you know what it's like?

[A tension in Paul unwinds when he receives Renfri's answer, a settling like the last breathy exhales of a passing storm that left the earth scoured behind it.

She brings things out of him that he didn't know he had in him to begin with. Paul thinks he understands why nine men were willing to die for her; he understands better how heavy those weights hang around a neck, the gravitational guilt of having been worth fighting for, worth dying for.

He did dream about being with the other creatures like him. Maybe he's found one, after all.]

I do, but not today. Another time. Are you going to be all right?

I think so. For now, at least. I'm all right now.

[Once, the answer would've been of course I am, I always am. And that would be dancing out of the way of the point, like she always does. Just not today.]

You're right, though. Let's do this again sometime. I like it when you tell me stories, and listen to mine in return.

If you ever aren't, you know where to find me. We will. I like listening to you. I'm glad you don't mind listening to me.

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