ximilialog | semi-open.

[It's been days since the frantic urgency of the mission. Of watching through narrowing eyes as the sky burned around them and the people they were trying to save. Since he'd seen Yennfer out of the corner of his eye, her hands splayed and chaos rising up around her as the portals materialized out of the thin air. The spark of something not quite magic against her fingertips.

The heavy thump back to the station wasn't as tinged with tragedy as it could be; some had been saved. Some would live on. For now.

He goes through the motions, unpacking what little he had on him, settling back in to the daily life on a station floating in space and to the low hum of the life support system that seemed ever-present here.

And Aleksander packs a bag, gently placing foods (and cookies) and a bottle of wine from the storeroom inside of it. A blanket he found in the common room (was it really stealing when it was left out like this?) and he heads for the sunlight room. A quite corner of it, under the shade of a large tree and he arranges it all around him before laying down with a book.

Sometimes it hits him, the sounds that are missing. There is no sounds of insects buzzing here, no birds flying overhead and none of the noises he expects. More noticeable after the mission, when the sounds had been prevalent for all ten days.]

[ The return to the station is a welcome one — but only because the weight of it, the impact of channeling that much chaos in a very brief length of time, had threatened to burn her out entirely. Only by drawing on Ciri's power, by using someone stronger to bolster her own reserves, had she been able to prevent a repeat of what had happened after Sodden — when no chaos at all had flowed from her in months, leaving her desperate enough to resort to extreme measures she'd only just pulled back from by the end.

There is more than one place that she can use to restore her strength — the hot springs of the simulation room, for instance — but the sunlight room has proven more than once to bring her back to herself, and she doesn't hesitate before wrapping herself in a soft shawl and making her way quietly to that part of the station.

A dark shadow nestled beneath a tree is ultimately what draws her gaze, a shape that isn't naturally cast by the sun's rays, and then her eyes focus around the sight of someone lounging with book in hand, looking for all the world as if the last several days may never have happened. ]

Is that opened yet? [ She's talking about the wine, first and foremost, as she proceeds to seat herself next to him on the blanket, not reaching for the bottle but allowing him to be the one to serve. ]

[He's not reading so much as looking at the diagrams of stars, the systems and the theories about how the universe worlds. How worlds revolve around suns, the moons and what makes a system a, well, system. And he notices her as soon as she comes close enough for him to catch the scent of her through the balmy air.

Looking over, book falling to the side, Aleksander smiles.]

Not yet.

[Unscrewing the lid (it felt wrong, to open it without a cork but it was easier), he pours two glasses.]

I really hope you want one of these. [He holds it out, deep red and glistening] But if you would rather not, can you hold it and I will feel less like I'm drinking alone.

No hoping necessary.

[ She reaches to take the glass from his hand with a corresponding skimming of fingers, securing it in her own hold only moments before lifting it to her lips for an initial sip. There's usually some nonsense attached about letting the contents of any wine bottle breathe, but she has never truly noticed the difference in all her years of drinking any varietal in the first place.

She hums unconsciously, tongue sweeping between her lips, and then glances out across their surroundings — which are surprisingly peaceful, for now, though that might not remain the case as others continue to trickle through the room in search of their own retreat. ]

It all seems so quiet, now. [ In comparison to the last several days, that is, driven by frantic pursuit and experimentation while those around them had tried to determine the best possible world to relocate the Hivawei to. ] Certainly fewer debating voices, at any rate.

Yes.

[To what part is up to her - to his hope, even if it isn't necessary. To the quiet. To the calm after a storm of emotions as everyone had tried to both get the orb and save a people.

He is agreeing to all of it, sipping his wine before falling back on to his elbows, glass settled on the grass beside his hip.]

It's lovely here. Better, now that you're here.

Flatterer.

[ But she smiles, in a way that could almost be considered as fond for how soft it becomes, the gentle expression that crosses over her face — if she were less tired, those emotions would not hovering so close to the surface, easy to summon and just as easy to experience without caveat.

Her gaze returns to him, one of her hands tucking an exposed strand of hair behind her ear, and then she shifts to better mimic his position, lounging on her side with her glass carefully grasped to keep its contents from spilling. ]

Dare I ask you about the outcome of the mission?

You didn't see?

[He tries to remember where she might have been, as he stood, arms outstretched and shadows pouring in to another. The exchange of power to fuel the portals and the desperate efforts to save a people who might only exist because of the orb.]

I saw people still trying to fit through a portal when we were pulled back.

[The abrupt stop to the exhausting drain on him half a second before he landed on stiff legs on the platform floor.]

It wasn't the worst ending. A lot were saved, and we got what we came for.

[Mirroring her, he rolls over until they're side by side, facing each other across the colorful fabric.] Flattery? Honesty. It was an intense week and a half, just being here [the 'with you' is implied, almost shouting from his smile and the way his eyes seek hers] is better. Calmer. A chance to take a breath before we are sent out again.

I did. I suppose I was more curious about your feelings on it, rather than the outcome itself.

[ To his credit, she had been somewhat preoccupied at the time, especially as things had begun operating with a need for significant haste. Portalling in and of itself is not a taxing power to channel, but creating so many and maintaining them over a certain duration can prove more draining, and perhaps he'll even notice the exhaustion in her gaze now, the softer quality of her eyes now that she hasn't the energy to swipe any dramatic color over their lids.

Truth be told, she'd all but faceplanted directly into her bed as soon as they'd been returned, to sleep for an untold number of hours, and still believes she could sleep for days more if her mind was not so occupied with lingering thoughts. ]

It seems that it's practically all we have time for, now, before the next mission begins. A breath, a fleeting opportunity to gather ourselves together and try again. [ She takes a sip of wine, a more thoughtful gesture than anything that necessarily demands its effects. ]

You seem calmer. Would it be a stretch to say at peace, even?

As a group we meddled. Again. With the affairs of a world we didn't understand, trying to bring our definition of order and fairness to a situation we cannot possibly see the full scope of.

[He had helped, certainly. Had scraped himself raw with supplying power to the spells that needed it.

Saving a people that might never have existed, had it not been for the orb. How much chaos could they bring to their new world? How much suffering would follow them?]

What I feel? Indifferent, mostly. Curious. So many worlds and we have yet to find one where what we did made it better.

[Letting the thoughts of the mushroom people go, he turns slightly, smile growing wider.]

I wouldn't call it calmer. Or at peace. Perhaps I've merely stopped trying to scream about the unfairness of it all. We are here, what we do matters only now. Only here. Would it be so bad to enjoy it for a little while?

[He would leave this place, forgetting every lesson learned here and he would face Ravka largely alone.

Again.

Always.

But his people would be safe, at last.]

And I do enjoy your company, Yennefer. How are you feeling, now that we are back and not moored in oversized plants and sweet dewdrops?

Curious that you would call it meddling, when most seemed to be under the impression that it was interference for the good of others.

[ She's being sarcastic, of course — among those who had been the most vocal about lending their abilities to assist in evacuating the planet, she had been one of the few who had been extremely reluctant to even pursue anything that would divert them away from locating the orb.

Hearing her own sentiments, instincts she's had to subdue because she's been shouted over by the nobler among them, declared so definitively back at her — it draws her gaze back to him, lingering this time. ]

Indifferent? Hardly. Having different priorities is somehow seen as callous when we've simply accepted the harsh reality of a situation rather than trying to change the course of others' fates.

[ But she knows better than to voice that opinion too loudly and within clear earshot of everyone else on this station — it's why she largely avoids any greater debates that might take place about how best to proceed. ]

More conscious of the dewdrops now, that's for certain. [ She glances down into the contents of her cup, for a moment. ] A little tired. If I'm not called upon to dispense magic for the next five missions at least, it will be a change of pace.

Ah- [the long-suffering sigh of someone who has had this conversation too many times, and been viewed as cruel and callous for it.] but then you would meet the argument of how we are trying to change fate simply by being here. That by agreeing to undo our regrets, we too are guilty of-- meddling.

[What would this group think of Ravka? Of the persecution and the unbending tsar. Or, unbending until there was enough gold involved to make it worth his while.

The brute force tactics of the orbers, to take out despots and tyrants without a care to how the world would look with that type of vacuum. Power flows like water, always finding a way and always filling up emptiness.]

They- we saved lives, and if those lives turn out to be an invading species that will end up strangling the world they were put on-- well, that's not our problem, is it. We did a good thing.

[Said flatly] You can sleep here. There is nowhere else to go, and I would appreciate the company.

If someone else is so eager to point that out, it would seem only appropriate to remind them that they'd made the same bargain in the first place. [ For isn't that why they're all here — a contract made to undo a previous regret, something they wish they had never committed into existence to begin with?

It is in conversations like these that she feels the gulf of her years, the divide that living as long as she has establishes between herself and some of the younger orbers who have not yet had the experience of facing down something they have no power to change. Perhaps she's been shaped, too, by the reality that Ciri is here, that the source of her greatest regret exists right here on this station. ]

The destiny of others is something we have little say in. [ Of course, by training Ciri and helping her to hone her power, perhaps she is also attempting to guide the girl towards the right path for herself, but there's little that can be done when they are both so far removed from the Continent, other than continue as they have been.

The offer he extends to her elicits a brief arch of one eyebrow. ]

And what will you do, then, while I take this proposed sleep?

[The clippy edge to her voice, makes him smile, because who else could possibly understand? See the bigger picture and how in the grander scheme of things, everything looked grey.

That the only judge of good or bad actions were history, and by that time, it all became twisted anyway. A pale imitation of the truth, told and retold until it only carries a passing likeness to what really happened.]

Watch you.

[Finish his wine and join her? There was a time to fight, and a time to place it all in the back of the mind and simply... be. With the scent from grass and new flowers in the air, with Yennefer lounging on the blanket next to him and almost close enough to touch.

A different kind of dare, this time. Not rooted in getting naked, or the uncomfortable truths of their lives, but of 'see me'. To stay.]

Or sleep with you. It has been-- a very long day.

[ There's a weariness even to those words that might not have been present before, as she lets some of it seep through the facade that she always dons whenever she's in his presence. It has been easier, in the past, to keep him at something of a remove, to not let him bear witness to any intricacies that she would prefer he not see.

So there is a precipice on which they stand now, one that's entirely established by what he proposes to her, and she finds that she has a decision to make — one that would leave her more vulnerable than she's ever been before him, or withdraw.

Then again, she thinks, he'd also be placing himself in that same state. Quietly, she finishes off the remnants of her own glass, then sets it down a short distance away. The ground is comfortable enough, the blanket soft beneath her, that she doesn't require much time to settle in, reaching out with one hand and silently patting the space adjacent to where she lounges. ]

Regardless of which choice you make, you'll have to be closer for it.

I don't sleep much. [Or at all on some nights] I believe I am capable of doing both.

[Choices, even ones as seemingly simple as this one - sleep or watch her face slacked with dreams - are just... too much. There has been chaos and choices enough for the next little while, and the smile he sends her as he drains his own glass, slowly moving containers and plates aside, is a boyish, lopsided one.

And rare, if only because he doesn't hide from her at this very moment.

The blanket is soft as feathers underneath his face when he lies down, face towards her and close enough to touch.]

Am i close enough?

We'll see about that.

[ A playful, intimate upward curving at the edges of her mouth when he's close enough to see it, close enough for his exhales to flutter across her skin, but she doesn't move to reach for him, reclined along her side with one hand resting out in the space between their bodies. ]

Plenty, I think. [ The brief brushing of her fingers against the side of his face is there and gone in another instant, and then she's returned to her original pose, maintaining his face in her line of sight for a few more lingering seconds before her eyes begin to droop and then ultimately shutter.

It doesn't take long, between the wine and the bone-deep exhaustion she's possessed recently, and the sounds of the sunlight room, the dappled warmth slipping through the tree overhead, succeed in prompting her to drift off, breath slowing and evening out until she's fast asleep. ]

[There is a log in Yennefer's path.

Or wait, no, that's not a log, is it. Logs don't snore. They also don't tend to take up hallways in the common lounge area, having apparently slid off of a couch. One could, possibly, step around him, but that seems like kind of a hassle, doesn't it?

...Ah. That's an arm that just wrapped around your leg like a teddy bear, huh. Maybe there really is no choice but to wake him.]

[ If there is anyone who has absolutely no problem stepping over, around, or on another orber in order to get to where she intends on going, it's the woman who's encountered him now, violet eyes narrowing as she peers down at this shape that eventually coalesces into a person in her view.

Normally, she wouldn't even be in the common room at this hour, doing her best to avoid most others on the station in the wake of a mission in the effort to prioritize her own rest, but she's misplaced something and can't remember where she left it — and scouring the sunlight room has produced nothing.

Trying to leave proves more difficult than she predicted, but at least Yennefer's foot is only clad in a slipper when she lifts it to prod at his midsection — trying to free herself without necessarily waking him up, although that may be easier thought of than done.

semi-open.

Sunlight room

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lmk if this works!

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