every_blossom_blooming | Sometime in December

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Sometime in December

After winter's first real bitter snap, Nina was pleased to find Geralt of Rivia spending more time in the city, either in his own apartment or hers. She'd made it clear that he was welcome to stay with her as often and as long as he wanted. She lived on the top floor, which meant no noise from above, and she kept a comfortable home these days. She gave him a key and left the invitation open.

She'd been looking for jobs for a few months; maybe she was being too picky. She helped Geralt when he had jobs that she could be useful for, and she'd started a small side business doing tailoring and "aura calming." She didn't have Genya's talent for it, but she had some skill, especially since Inej started helping her find things to include in her tailoring kit to make the things she needed.

She did most of her work out of her apartment, which meant that some days she had clients leaving or getting work done when Geralt came in from the woods.

"The effects will fade in a week," she warned the middle-aged man that had been sitting at her kitchen table. "Likely the hair first, then skin, then the eyes. If you want it to last longer, you'll have to come for touch-ups."

Nina ushered him to the door and winked at Geralt when she saw him come in.

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The man regarded Geralt -- and Geralt the man -- with dim curiosity s they passed one another. He moved into Nina's living room and set down a bag of takeout. It was Korean hybrid from a place nearby, pulled pork with steamee rice buns and fresh and pickled vegetables. The vinegar and spices made Geralt keen on it.

"Work?"

Edited 2018-05-07 00:54 (UTC)

Nina pulled her hair up into a loose bun and her entire demeanor relaxed once her client was safely in the hall. She smiled at Geralt and sidled close to kiss his cheek.

"You brought food, how did you know I was starving?" she cooed. "Yes, a client. He wanted to look younger for the sake of a woman he hasn't even talked to yet. Most Corporalki learn tailoring, and I got a lot of practice traveling with Zoya and working for the Dregs."

The cheek kiss was appreciated. Her lips were soft, her mouth warm.

Nina was nearly always hungry. Fortunately, he preferred her that way. It was rare that he wouldn't eat if food was in front of him. His metabolism ran hot.

"Like a glamour. Or a spell."

Triss had used spells. She was allergic to glamour.

Nina kissed his shoulder too, for good measure, before she plucked up the bag of food and brought it into the kitchen. It'd be easier to sort out food on the table. Then she realized her kit was still out.

She set the bag on one of the chairs so her hands were free to put away little glass vials and bottles into the black kit Inej helped her find. Almost like a doctor's bag.

"Something like that, but... not exactly. I'm manipulating their bodies - I might put color drops in their eyes, but I make their irises absorb it. I rarely think of what I do as magic," she admitted. She knew it probably looked like it, but it wasn't like she could sketch a run into the air and make fire, or block the wind.

"Besides, whatever I do will eventually fade. Genya could do permanent changes."

Edited 2018-05-07 03:07 (UTC)

Geralt watched Nina sweep her tools away with keen yellow eyes, memorizing powders and filings and dyes. He understood where Nina was coming from. He might use magic, but his abilities came from science, from genetics.

"Yen did that to me once. Said she always liked dark-haired men."

Nina lifted an eyebrow. "Did she ask you before she did it?"

Tailoring required time and cooperation, but she could force it on someone if they were restrained. Kaz had all but held Matthias down when she changed the Fjerden's appearance, but that had been necessity. Their mission might have failed otherwise.

Geralt gave a very soft sigh, brimming with tired acceptance.

"Yenn didn't have it in her to ask. Had some control issues."

Nina tried not to look judgemental and she knew she was probably failing. She liked Geralt, and she didn't like the idea of anyone subjecting him to anything he hadn't asked for.

But she didn't say that; instead she finished putting her kit away and set the bag aside on the kitchen counter.

"Well, I'd never attempt to tailor you without you asking me to. Shall we eat out of boxes or should I get bowls?"

Instead of answering, Geralt's mouth gave a moonbeam curve. He stepped toward Nina and pressed his hot mouth against hers. Slowly, gently, sweetly. But the kiss was long and deep, with a hand tangled in her thick, dark hair, the other curled over the edge of the table.

His smile should have warned her. Nina had time to lift her eyebrow at Geralt before he swept her up. Whatever she'd been thinking just a moment ago was gone as he kissed her - somehow sweet and utterly consuming at the same time. Without thinking, she curled her fingers over his shoulder and held him as she leaned into the embrace.

When they parted, when she had a moment to breathe through the sudden rush of warmth, a smile crept across her mouth. She tried to calm her heartbeat back down.

"I can't tell if you're trying to change the subject or just very excited about dinner."

"If it was the first, it worked. Now we're talking about dinner."

Geralt dropped another quick kiss to Nina's lips before rolling away. He reached into the cabinet for bowls, happy to put the subject of Yenn aside. Only she and Geralt understood, not Ciri, not Dandelion. Nina didn't need to.

"What should we do for dessert?"

Nina rolled her eyes and gave Geralt a light push, but there wasn't much fire behind it. She wasn't angry, there was no cause for it. Yenn - whoever, whatever she was - was a world away, and Geralt did not need Nina to worry about him.

Not as far as all that, anyway.

She took her hair down from the twisted bun she had put it in while she worked and watched him take plates down. Subject changed, but not forgotten.

"You know me, I always have something around for dessert. That last appointment took longer than I wanted it to, he's a talker. I didn't get to bake like I planned to."

While Geralt set down bowls, Nina found spoons, forks, whatever they'd need to serve themselves and eat.

"You ding that often now?"

In his voice there was a reluctant curiosity, but no distrust. Nina could do what she could do. If he could become comfortable with Ciri's Henn Ichaer he would have to be with this.

He dug a fork into his rice, happy for the easy carbohydrates in the weather.

Nina settled at the table and happily filled her bowl, mixing rice with other things.

"It's something to pass the time, more than anything," she admitted. "I could stand to be more selective in my clients, but I don't think I'm really very good at being a lady of leisure."

She realized, then, that she'd never mentioned to Geralt what had passed between her and Kaz. He'd been out in the woods, hunting or chasing a contract, when it had all transpired and by the time she'd seen him again, she'd put it out of her mind.

She pushed her food around thoughtfully. "Thanks to Darrow, money isn't really the concern anymore. It's boredom and getting rusty with any of my skills. Thank the saints you occasionally need my help or I'd waste away entirely."

"I think you'd make a wonderful lady of leisure," Geralt said, voice full of quiet fondness and humor and rice. He knew not to ask a woman of means about her money, mysterious and sudden or otherwise.

"Get old and fat and eccentric. Buy a weird pet and keep a witcher as a lover."

Nina laughed and covered her mouth to keep from being rude - she'd still been chewing, damnit. Once she was sure she wasn't in danger, she lowered her hand and gave Geralt a fond look.

"Sounds like a lovely future."

She was quiet a moment, considering. She had no reason to hide anything from Geralt; he'd been honest with her about things he was willing to talk about.

"Geralt, do you still want to build a house in the woods? You told me it was your little dream not long after we met. Do you still want it?"

As Nina went quiet, Geralt became intent, watchful as a housecat. What she finally said took him by surprise; there wasn't even full comprehension on the witcher's part.

People didn't offer him something for nothing, not even Triss. It was pulling teeth just to get his pay for drowners.

"I always will. That's beside the point. Boys have stupid dreams."

"I don't think it's stupid. And we're trapped here until Darrow decides it's done with us, so you might as well get to have something you really want." She paused, just a moment, and the rest just came out in a rush of breath: "Because I happen to have come into a ridiculous amount of money and I have no idea what to even do with it here."

She was trapped in Darrow; she couldn't use it to return home, she couldn't use it to help Ravkan refugees, she couldn't use it to help the Second Army. All it was doing was sitting in the bank in Darrow, with her earnings from tailoring and influencing people's moods adding to it.

Geralt risked death to make his living. She could offer him this.

He could hear her heart, her breath. Smell her hormones. She wasn't teasing or testing, but making a simple and honest, nearly desperate offer.

He sat speechless and humbled for some time, as Nina ate her meal.

Geralt had rarely had more than enough money to feed himself through the winter.

"I'm ... I accept."

Nina didn't quite realize she was holding her breath for his answer until she had it. Relief flooded her and she made a small show of slumping in her chair.

"Thank the saints," she breathed. Then she smiled across the table at him, because it felt-- She didn't know. She looked down, still faintly, strangely flustered. "I almost died for that haul, you know. I didn't even want it, not really. I wanted Kaz to free Matthias, to help him recover everything I had taken from him. And it meant going into the middle of a country full of people that wanted me dead. It meant going into the prisons in the Ice Court. It meant enduring being locked in a cell by Jarl Brum and thinking the man I loved had betrayed me after all and was going to leave me to be tortured and killed."

Nina looked up at Geralt. "I just wanted to free Matthias and go home. Girls have silly dreams too, you know."

Of course he knew. There were only two ways to come into money like that and the other was inheritance.

"That's about the least silly thing I've ever heard."

She gave him a smile and held her bowl close as she finished what she had in it.

"I won't be much use in the actual building of it," she admitted. "But I'll bring you food and lemonade and ease sore muscles or heal construction injuries."

For half a moment, a vaguely horrifying thought occurred to her and she met Geralt's gaze. "And this isn't me trying to kick you out, by the way. I hope you realize how much I-- I like having you here."

But this cabin, cottage, whatever it would be, was something that he wanted. Besides, summer would come again eventually and she knew he would prefer not to be in the city through the warm seasons.

"Nina, if you were planning on kicking me out, I assumed you'd go straight for defenestration."

Geralt liked being there. He wasn't planning on pissing her off. He reached out and covered one of her hands with his own, stroked it with his thumb.

"You've made up your mind. And I really want a proper horse stable."

"You're not wrong," she confessed. Nina relaxed again and she squeezed his hand.

"I expect there to be space for me," she said, trying to sound haughty, but her voice and her eyes were warm. She wanted to come see him, she wanted to spend the same kind of time with him, whether it was here in her apartment or out in the woods when the house (cabin, cottage, whatever) was finished. "Either in the barn or in the house."

She hoped he would want her there.

"Even Kaer Morhen had a well-appointed guest room. But ... maybe you'd prefer a canopy bed fit for a king and generous dresser drawers?"

Geralt's yellow eyes glinted, his phantom smile returned to play.

"I'll even leave the lab in the barn. There's a stench."

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her tools away with keen yellow eyes

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