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."