#is my tag for her past in the Wilds of Deadwight

[offwilds]

Sometimes she dreams of deep, dark waters that drown her - of water, and that lakeside, when Aldric of Gradobor says you make me feel alive and come with me, and Nereinne of the wilds gasps, Nereinne, only maiden then, all these years past, Nereinne daughter of Chaos, scrabbles for space, for distance, for some semblance of objectivity, because—someone must, someone must be sensible, she must be sensible— for love does not warp the world around it, it is an accident of the heart in a world of knives, and she would not see him bloodied to ribbons in her name; she is water, she shapes herself to the stones she flows around, elven-kings and woodland princes and her own exile,  her own Mother hunting her down and she, her, only—

only he gives her shape, a promise-stone meant for his sister, long gone and cold beyond the ground (she will wear that moonstone as a necklace hang about her throat from that day until her last, not once removing it from her neck— ever); he sees her, as she is, calm and clear-eyed and true, and teases her irreverently despite her seriousness, despite her coldness, he pins her down, makes her stay, makes her real, and when he says I am not afraid it is because he is not, because she does not give an inch and so he will not either, will not apologize.

He is so young, she thinks, she is ancient, and he, a sapling that can not grow in the shadow of her, and he does not truly see any of the obstacles in their path, does not even really know how to see them but he looks up at her with starlight reflected in his amber eyes and sincerity enough to shatter a heart when he smiles, says come with me, and Nereinne gives it weight, thinks about kissing him again, about lowering her mouth to his and—

  She does not kiss him again until he is cold on a mountainside, until he cannot kiss her back and she cries unlovely, wracking tears because nothing has hurt as this does—they have known one another for such short a time, it feels to both of them, witcher and mage, a fleeting moment in their everflowing, timeless lifespans, and still, she was real to him, she was something true and piercing and he loved her, and she might have loved him, too, (and she had, achingly, terribly so) they might have built a home halfway between starlight and the earth, they might have been something, but he is cold in the snow, beyond her reaching, and not even her gods will comfort her.

Aldric of Gradobor dies with her name on his lips, this daughter of Chaos he had not meant to love except her hair shone like silk and there was starlight in her violet eyes and she had stayed, she had made him alive again, she had—she had made him feel as no other ever had, as though there was a purpose to reclaiming the Order, more than the dream of his kind, more than stories and songs and starlight, but—the thought of having a place near her, something akin to a home

She is cold as stone but she warms at his hand like stone too, and he refuses to see the obstacles in his way, cannot hear what his kind would say - mage, they would sneer the word all venom, cunning, joyless little cunt, sneaky, deceitful sorceress that would betray a witcher, any witcher, any ally, any friends in the name of her Chaos, in the name of her power, her greed, her pride.  She has hair like the moonsky and is water, is a weapon, she is all the fabled Witcher of Gradobor has ever wanted.

He dies for her, in the end, certain of his choice, without fear. She is his people too, he claims her, in the sight of any—let others worry over law, and custom and risk, he knows his own heart, and what it wants. 

He is gone and she is left a shadow of a woman, howling her grief into the sky. 

& @ofgradobor