but one still lies anxious, wide awake

[worstsin]

Geralt went to the beach to think.

He didn't necessarily want to think, but he couldn't stop himself, and it was important that he did, if he ever wanted to think his way out of the situation he'd found himself in. So, if it was going to happen regardless of his will, it may as well happen at the beach.

The water there was cold, if not as cold as it had been in the Gulf of Praxeda off the Koviri shores. The night sky seemed cleaner and clearer than it was inland here, though he still, even with his eyes, could not make out as many stars in the sky as he remembered, and they were not in the arrangements he was accustomed to.

But it was, mostly, peaceful. Ideal enough for meditation. And that was what he was looking for.

The gritty sand crunched under his feet as he approached the gentle lap of the waves. But he paused, frozen like a hunting fox. Something was off that night.

He could scent it in the air before he understood what he was seeing -- the unmistakable crispness of ice, of a chill in the air.

And there she was, in the near distance, a young woman with hair nearly as white as his own, silvery in the moonlight. She manipulated the cold with her hands. His medallion gave a leap.

Geralt sensed, somehow, or recognized something in her -- something that reminded him only too keenly of Ciri. She was not a sorceress, she didn't seem to use magic in the way a trained woman might. She was not a witch either, or a Source, though he sensed there was something terrible and powerful about her magic that had her here, alone, at night, trying to leash it and let it out at the same time.

"Averse to an audience?" he asked, hoping he wouldn't startle her. His voice was a low growl, although it was open enough. "I could move on down the shoreline."

Comments

[frozenfractals]

Elsa turns to look at the man who approaches, the ice she was playing with collapsing abruptly from its fanciful shapes to land at her feet. She is, in a way, accustomed to being startled. What she wants is to be less afraid when it happens, and sometimes she succeeds. Her heart beats a little too fast and she's aware of her pulse in her wrists, but she doesn't let the voice or the man panic her tonight. She turns and the ice falls, instead of flying through the air at him. It's been a slow process, but a necessary one, and she's learning.

"That's alright," she says, shaking her head. She doesn't want to trouble him and he doesn't seem bothered by what she was doing. "There's plenty of space here for two."

[worstsin]

"Is there?" Geralt wondered, to himself more than the girl. He was still very new to Darrow in the scheme of things, and he wasn't sure that it was room enough for one person in its entirety. But Geralt had never liked crowded cities, perhaps if only because he hadn't grown up in one and hadn't found them to be a kind place for a witcher, or anyone else that looked or seemed different.

"That's an interesting ability you have. Is it magic?"

He hadn't seen anything quite like it. Perhaps the magic of the Wild Hunt, but even then, this felt like something full of life, where the chill of the Red Riders had always felt like the cold of a sepulcher.

Geralt wondered what on earth she used it for, or maybe she simply wanted to better keep it to herself.

"Apologies if I'm prying. You could say I was raised by wolves."

[frozenfractals]

For a moment, Elsa is tempted to do one of two things: to hide or to make a wolf of snow. She doesn't want to risk bringing a snow-wolf to life, though, still not entirely sure she won't animate something on accident. She hadn't counted on Olaf being alive, after all. But then, she hadn't been paying much attention when she made him.

But the man doesn't seem frightened or alarmed, just curious. If she's slightly anxious at being caught out practicing, she's also not too worried that he's going to try to hurt her.

"Not at all," she says. "It's fine. It is magic, yes. The only kind I can do." Other people have all kinds of powers, and Lila can do all sorts of amazing things with elements. In a lot of ways, though, Elsa is grateful that she only has the one.

[worstsin]

Geralt nodded. That was enough to satisfy his curiosity and any concerns he might have. If it was magic, it was a very untrained kind, and it was a lovely kind. She was a lovely young lady; he suspected some kind of aristocracy, if not royalty. There was a difference between gentry and those that weren't. Geralt wasn't in the former group, so he had the eye of an outsider, but he had an eye for the distinctions nevertheless.

Though he'd found his old assumptions no longer always held so true in Darrow. He wasn't very fond of that fact.

"Don't mind if I watch?" He nodded to her, and then nodded toward a nearby surf-smooth and sun-bleached chunk of heavy deiftwood nearby.

Geralt tried not to meet her eyes too fully. He worried a good look at his face might disuade her from his company after all.

[frozenfractals]

Grand Pabbie once told her that fear would be her enemy, her undoing. it's something she's thought a great deal about over the years. For the longest time, she was certain he meant the fear others would feel when they knew what she could do. Though she knows better now, it still comes as a surprise every time someone accepts her ability for what it is. So often, they do so with little or no judgment, no apparent fright over what she can do. If anything, their interest seems to be piqued by her powers. It's her fear that's kept her in check for so long. Even now, it threatens, a beat of hesitation as she considers the man. But everything she's doing is small and harmless. If he isn't afraid yet, surely he won't be when he sees more? There's no reason for her to worry.

"Not at all," she says, smiling politely. "I like to come out here and practice to make sure I can control it well and fully." She bites her lip in thought, and then decides to spin a spiderweb from ice, hanging from the nearby rock. It's delicate, made up of many thin strands. She's trying to work on making things more finely, things that are delicate or finicky, in case they prove useful in a pinch. "I'm Elsa."

[worstsin]

"Geralt of Rivia," he said, and offered her what amounted to a smile, though the expression was muted. He didn't know why he kept the surname of Rivia in Darrow, except out of habit, and the amusement that he had, actually, been knighted by the Queen of Lyria and Rivia at one point.

He watched her make her delicate spiderweb with calm eyes. It made him miss Yennefer dearly to watch, which somehow only made him want to watch more. He didn't mind the cold, either. It had never bothered him.

[frozenfractals]

Sometimes Elsa tries practicing weapons, but she's found she doesn't like it. She doesn't want to strike anyone with her ice unless she's sure she has full control of what she's doing, no sharp edges. Snow is safer. It's good to know how to do in a pinch, but these days, it seems more useful to practice the finer details.

And sometimes she makes things just to make them. Now, for instance, she starts constructing a miniature ice castle on the sand, playing with the design.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Rivia," she says. "There are so many lands I don't know now that I'm in Darrow. I'm from Arendelle." She doubts he's heard of it, but she offers it up just in case.

[worstsin]

Geralt made a noise almost like a laugh. It was quiet and reserved, as much as his words were, and his expressions. He watched again, the way her little creation took shape. It was beautiful, and that set it apart from the magic of the Wild Hunt and the Naglfar, their ship of bones, which was the only other magic quite like it Geralt had known. It was beautiful, and Elsa put thought and heart into it.

"I'm not actually Rivian. Not that you, or anyone, would be familiar with it. I grew up in a country called Kaedwen. Deep valleys and ravines, bordered by mountains and pine forest."

He studied her for a moment more, the way a dog might.

"I'd like to guess Arendelle wasn't much different. You might have been pretty out of place, otherwise."

Geralt suspected she was out of place regardless, but if she wanted to broach that with him, it was up to her.

[frozenfractals]

Elsa has grown very fond of Darrow, not least because Jessica is here. She's made friends, too, and allies, people who know what she can do and respect rather than fearing it. Who love her anyway. It means more than she's ever been able to express to them that no one in Darrow seems to define her by her abilities, not even those who have helped her work with them. Judging by the brief while she spent at home after the thaw, she'd like to think it could be the same in Arendelle, but that's just a possibility. What she has here now is real, immediate, sure.

Still, she misses home. Geralt describes his home and she imagines Arendelle instead, nodding. "Yes, it sounds very like Arendelle," she says warmly. "We were right on the fjord, but there were mountains all around and great forests. I'm not sure I much fit in anyway, but I loved it dearly."

[worstsin]

He offers her a smile, because there's something kindred there. It's a small expression, barely there, like a ghost of something he might have once been able to become. But it's there.

Geralt wonders if that's the sin weighing on her shoulders that he senses. Not fitting in. It was not her fault, of course; it never is. But society doesn't suffer the different very kindly, too often.

Either way, he feels that he can open up, let out some of himself. Geralt spends too much of his time, being guarded, especially here.

"You might not feel you always belong to the people, but you'll always belong to the land you were born in. No matter how far you end up from it. Seems like this place is giving you somewhere to blossom, though? Away from the responsibilities of your birth."

He tilted his head to the side, dog-like.

"I have a daughter at home. She had big responsibilities on her head. We were separated for a long time. And I think while she was gone, she had some very hard experiences. But I also think it gave her opportunities. Just like you."

The thought was a comfort.

[frozenfractals]

Elsa quirks her head to the side, thoughtful. She's thought a great deal about the responsibilities she left in Arendelle, but only ever in the context of what she's left behind and what she owes. It hasn't occurred to her before that maybe leaving that behind has been good for her, even when she knows Darrow has been.

"Yes, I think so," she says, a note of surprise in her tone. "I've learned a lot here. Things I'm not sure I would ever have learned at home. I... I'm queen back home. I'll never stop carrying Arendelle in my heart, but I think... maybe I wouldn't have had as much time to learn."