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Paradise is much like a dream. It's almost exactly like he imagined it, in that Yennefer is there, and the house is there, and the trees are always blossoming, for all eternity. It's also nothing like he imagined. He never imagined the frogs that are always—eternal spring, so always—spawning in the lake and in the stream that feeds the smaller pond behind the house. They fill the air with a croaking that's sometimes idyllic and other times ear-rending. At sunsets, the mole crickets replace them.
He never imagined that there would be rainstorms that make half of the roof collapse. He'd never imagined Yennefer's face when the rackful of hanging herbs she's drying gets utterly soaked and ruined. And he'd only just convinced her to take up the hobby, too.
She helps with the roof, but mostly it's him fixing it. It's a big project, takes him days, and he works hard. He chops the wood, measures, places, thatches. At the end, it's mismatched from the rest of the house, but it's not bad. He's... proud. He's proud.
They have to do everything themselves here. There are no towns or cities, no other people that they can find. Without Yennefer's magic, they'd be completely lost; too many things break too easily. Yennefer can fix them. It also helps that this place has magic of its own. It's spring, but their fields are always full of food, even if they don't tend them. There's a donkey that lives in the small barn near the cottage and the hay they feed it never runs out.
Any book either of them wants appears in the bookshelf as soon as they think of it. One time Geralt sits on the porch and craves lamb and a ewe with twins trailing behind her wanders immediately out of the forest. He knows better than to wonder about a shepherd that might come looking for them. So now they have dinner and the donkey has two sheep for company.
He does have to cook himself, though. He never was good at that, and Yennefer even worse, but he can work a kitchen and she can supervise and advise him on spices and sauces. She looks lovely when she supervises. So lovely, in fact, that it distracts him rather handedly and he nearly forgets about the roast in the oven altogether.
They sit in the garden, like he always imagined. He figured it was unrealistic to picture her making a flower crown, but there it is, in front of him. Her dextrous fingers weave strands of long wild grass between forget-me-nots and apple blossoms.
They don't know most things about this place, still. It has a way of making you forget to wonder. The flower crown is a little too small for either of their heads. He blinks away tears, but she notices them.
"I miss her," he says by way of explanation.
"I know," Yennefer says. "So do I."
She conjures a flame on the point of her finger and sets the flower crown alight. She'd rather do that than think about it. Being here makes it easy not to think about it. That's what they've resolved to do. Because the alternative is impossible. The fact is, even if they knew how to leave, they wouldn't know where to go. They're together in paradise; that's the gift they were given. So they work to accept it. And the magic here makes it easy. The magic that makes the air feel like breathing in the sunlight that dances on the water's surface.
At night, the field is filled with fireflies. The two of them, they dance like children in the glow, swirling to music they can hear even thought it isn't playing. It's as if they're at some peasant wedding, a maiden and a boy who've seen nothing of the world. She laughs. He realises he's laughing, too. There was a time he forgot he knew how to do that. But it feels good. It feels good to laugh.
The night is dark blue, but the grass is lit up yellowgreen. Maybe it's Belleteyn.
When it's warm and dry, they open the windows to let in the breeze. It rustles the leaves and branches of the apple trees. Geralt bakes. He's never baked before. A book appeared in their shelf that helped him learn to. The smell of the fresh bread and sweet rolls wafts through their home.
"I could have conjured these," Yennefer comments as she plucks one from the tray. She presses it to her lips for a moment to test the heat before she takes a bite.
"Of course," he says and takes off his apron. He wore an apron. Can you believe that?
Yennefer shrugs. He supposes she didn't have a point with her comment except to remind him who she was—as if he could forget. But she knew he wanted to do this. That's why she let him. She's already halfway through her sweet roll.
"Is it good?" he asks, surprised that he wants to hear the answer.
"It's adequate," she replies and reaches for another. "I think some sheep's cheese and fig jam with the bread, don't you?"
"Sounds lovely," he asks, approaches. She hurries to swallow her mouthful of sweet roll before he dips in to kiss her. He can taste it in her mouth. It's really quite good. Perhaps he really will take up baking.
He pulls away, looks at her. The storm in her violet eyes is more like an overcast today. Tranquil. He places her palms on the sides of her face, steady and firm. The pads of his pointer fingers are on the bony spots behind her ears, so he can feel and not just hear her heartbeat. It thrums, bum-bump, bum-bump, bum-bump, beneath her skin. She watches his expression with her brows slightly quirked. Her tone is as stern as it is smug when she says, "What?"
He doesn't reply. Just keeps staring. It's self-indulgent.
There is very little they know. But there's one thing he thinks they do. He thinks they know that they died. Yennefer is more certain of it than he is. She remembers something he doesn't. And though he can hear her heartbeat, he does remember the pitchfork. It's difficult to call her wrong. She sometimes stares at him distantly, like she's seeing something horrible where he sits. One time he's brave enough to ask, and she shakes her head and says very quietly that no matter what she did, he wouldn't wake up, she was too late, she was too late... She doesn't push him away when he reaches out and holds her close.
When he woke up here, she promised she'd never leave his side again. That nothing that had come before mattered, that nothing mattered but the fact that they'd always be together. She promised. That was enough, for a time.
He doesn't doubt her. He never has and he never will. But she seems to doubt herself.
He finds her on the porch one morning when it's not quite raining. She steeples her gloved hands and stares severely at the blossoming apple trees.
"This can't be it," she says. "This can't be forever."
He hums his why not? as he comes to squat beside her. She gives him a quick kiss. It's not him she's upset with.
"It's just not possible," she says at the garden. She's caressing his bare arm. "It's too..."
She turns to look at him with a troubled expression.
"My love, have you ever fought a monster that warped your mind?" she asks. "That made you see things that weren't there?"
Yes, of course. Fiends. Aguaras. Certain insectoid species. "You don't think this is real?"
"I think you're real," she says wispily and squeezes his hand. "But something is wrong with this place."
He furrows his brow. He still has his pendant, the new one; it vibrates whenever she casts a spell. But he's not needed a sword. There have been no monsters here. He isn't sure how long it's been since they arrived. Time is very difficult. But he's seen nothing untoward. "Why do you think that?"
"I just know," she declares angrily. He backs off, sits slightly further away and doesn't say anything. It's easier than arguing, and it's all he can do, really. But it doesn't placate her, and her voice is shriller when she says, "It isn't possible. This can't be paradise. It must be a prison."
"I'd like it to be real," Geralt admits.
"I—" Her voice breaks on a sob. She stumbles to stand. "You're so foolish!"
Now she is a storm, a living hurricane. As though by her will, the wind blows harder, the raindrops fall faster. Her dress ripples at the hem.
"Why would you ever think we could have this?" she asks loudly and desperately. "Look at this place, Geralt! It's a child's fairy tale! Imagined and fanciful! After everything we've been through, you really think there's such a place for us? After everything we lost, everything they did to us, everything— it's so empty— my daughter— my daughter!"
She sobs. The wind swirls at her feet like it's trying to devour her. Geralt wants to stand, to reach for her. It's like he's in Rinde again.
"We can't have this!" She's not speaking to him. "Everything ends, everything! This is a dream or a nightmare, but in either case, the night will end and you will wake up and find your bed empty! Everything ends!"
She spins around and throws her arms out.
"So what is the point?"
A tidal wave of power rushes from her fingertips and he ducks and rolls as surely as if a forktail had lunged at him. There's a massive crash, the sound of wood collapsing. It's nearly deafening.
When he rises from the ground, he finds the house collapsed. Everything he fixed after the rainstorm is gone. And then some. All of his work.
Yennefer stands rubbing her gloved hands together, trembling visibly. She also seems on near to collapse. Rare, and very concerning.
"It was going to go to shit anyway," she says weakly. "It was going to..."
"Yen," Geralt says, wiping wood chips off his shoulders. "That isn't true."
"Don't lie to me," she says. "I hate this place."
"Yen," he tries, gentler.
She looks at him, gaze darting from one eye to the other. He walks slowly over and drapes an arm across her shoulders, pulls her close. In the second that passes, they both know what happened: she stopped not thinking about it for a little too long. She says, "Something is wrong."
He nods.
"With this place."
He nods.
"And with me."
He purses his lips and looks away. Then he hugs her tightly, her head tucked safely beneath his chin.
The wind has calmed down. The rain has steadied to a slow, calm pour that soaks them, and the floor of the house. She says something he used to believe her incapable of saying. She says, "I'm sorry."
He doesn't quite understand why she's fighting it so hard. He knows what it's like to fight it. He did it for so long it became second nature. But he thought they'd both realised it didn't need to be, anymore.
Then again, he thinks, she's right. They've been so happy here, but it hasn't been quite right. He had been so eager to believe it that he had ignored it all. They have only frogs and birds for company. The air is dizzying to breathe, sweet, pollenous and heady like molasses. And they had a daughter, and they don't know where she is. Isn't she what they'd been fighting for?
He puts his lips on the crown of her head and doesn't say anything.
"I'll fix the house," she says quietly. Her voice is a bit hoarse from screaming. He's heard it like that often, blown out from pleasure or frustration. "Your beautiful house. You must be upset with me."
"I am," he says with all of the courage he can muster. There stands the shattered husk of his dream. His voice is surprisingly small. "Our house."
"Well—" she goes to say, but stops herself. "Well, we'll just sleep in the barn for now."
He raises his brows. "You? Sleep in the barn?"
"Oh, I've managed in worse. With you for company, it's the animals I'm worried for," she replies curtly.
He sighs and hugs her. He says, "Why?"
She knows he's not talking about sleeping in the barn. She says, "You should know better than to ask."
"I think you could answer. I think you don't want to."
"Would you?" she asks, and it's a fair enough point. He tilts her head up to meet his eyes. That exchange of gazes means as much as a conversation all on its own, even though the sentiments exchanged aren't actionable. Nonetheless, they're there. Fear, disappointment, resignation, forgiveness, consolation, promise. She repeats, "I'll fix the house."
"I can do it."
"No, I'll do it. Help is welcome, though."
It's gone, it's over. But they can make it again. Maybe that's eternity.
They sleep in the barn. She conjures them soft pillows and blankets. The work will start tomorrow. Tonight, they make amends.
A few hours later, they lie naked in the darkness, amid the smells of hay and manure. It's not quiet. The frogs make sure of that. But it's as close at it gets here.
She's beneath him, tangled with him. He holds her by the waist and keeps her secure. She's so thin, so small. Her middle finger still draws nonsense patterns over his clavicle.
In the dark, he can only make out her face because of his mutant eyes. There's apprehension on her face as she stares, not at him, but away, into the distance. She wants something, he can feel it. And maybe he even knows what it is, on some deep level. A solution to the thing that is wrong with her. But he can't give her that, doesn't know how, not unless she asks.
She has no mutant eyes to help her through the night. He wonders if he's more than a shadowed shape to her. He wonders if that's what allows her to turn towards him and speak. "Do you still love me?"
His whole body goes lax, as though she'd knocked him out. Even his voice sounds bleary, but he has never been so certain of anything as he is when he says, "Yen, I love you so much it scares me. Yes. I love you."
It amazes him how easy it is to say it. It looks like it amazes her too. Her lashes flutter. He could swear there's a bit of wetness on them. "So much it scares you?"
"Yes."
"A witcher?"
"Yes."
"I must be some sorceress," she murmurs, burying her vulnerability in it. Her arms wind tightly around his neck. "Not just anyone could do that."
"And me?" he asks.
"And you're some witcher," she concedes, and he's managed to crack her open again, "to be able to discombobulate such a powerful mage so thoroughly."
He chuckles and kisses her. "Yen?"
She hums against his lips.
"I won't ever stop loving you," he says.
He feels her mouth twitch a bit. "You can't make such promises."
"I know," he says, "I know."
"I might hold you to it."
"I know," he repeats with a chuckle, too pleased to sound apologetic anymore. He's trying to say something, but it's stuck inside. Something like, It won't be a difficult promise to keep. Because it's true.
Yennefer shudders a little. Her lashes brush his cheeks. They're wet. "I hate this. I love you."
The air he breathes came from her. He inhales her exhales, and she inhales too, raggedly, bracing herself.
"Do you promise?" she asks. It's small.
"I promise," he says steadily. It's the answer. "I promise."
"Fine," she says.
Clutching. Never letting go.
"Fine," she says again. The wetness turns to droplets. "I believe you."
In a way, she was right: paradise doesn't last very long. It is, in hindsight, a remarkably short respite. Like a dream, as soon as you realise it's there, it disappears. He'll go on to think of it later and halfway miss it. But he doesn't have much time to think on it. He's busy. Things happen, things that pull them out of that place and to somewhere else, different now but still familiar. Things happen. Magic. Quests. Monsters. A daughter they almost lost.
They get separated again. It wouldn't be them otherwise.
It's a long while of searching, but then they find each other again. And they get to remind each other what 'forever' means.
It means skin to skin. It means Yennefer's hands clutching his head, their foreheads pressed together so hard it almost hurts. She burns with the magic of love and desperation, smiles with so much happiness and so much shame all at once. "I promised, Geralt, I— Geralt, I promised and I—"
"You didn't break it," he says. "You were with me. You were always with me."
She blinks hard, lashes dark, and looks at him like she's trying to store him away for another eternity, a stockpile in case she ever needs it. She knows she won't, though, and he knows too. Because they'll both keep their promises.
Forever feels like a dream. But it happens one day at a time.