To Heal A Lonely Heart

Make This House a Home

***** mostly smut *****     ***** lil domestic fluff *****

The ride was quiet. After hours of silence, Geralt spoke up. "Something's bothering you, my love."

I turned towards him. "I... it's nothing." I smiled at him sadly.

"No, tell me. You know you can tell me everything," he pressed, gently though.

I sighed. "I know, minne. It's just... it's not important. It'll never happen."

He stopped Roach. The mare let out a huff. She was cold. Stopping would make her more cold. I, too, stopped Shadow, the same reaction came from her.

"No, tell me. The way you look... it is important... to me." he stared into my eyes and I finally caved in.

"It's just..." I huffed, "In the years we've been together, we have risked our lives constantly. Alone in the past three years, you've been in three situations that could have coasted your life. I... I want it to stop. To settle down. But I know you can't. The people need you. I've accepted that, the moment I realized I loved you; but I can't help but wish we would have never left my cottage."

Geralt was quiet for a moment, processing what I had confessed to him. I couldn't read his expression, not even his thoughts; his face gave less than nothing away. Then, slowly, a smile stretched out on his face.

"You know... it would be nice to have a place to look forward to return to," he said. "Did you have a place in mind?"

After a short moment of thinking, I nodded. "Sodden. It's quite central, and the people are more open-minded, at least more than in Aedirn," I told him.

"Then let us go there. Surely I can find a job there."

"First you'll need to heal. And then, you deserve a break. Let your wife pamper you, for once."

By the next morning, we reached a town in the outskirts of Temeria. We stayed at the inn until Geralt had healed completely, letting me bathe and massage him. He was tired. I mean, by now, he was eighty-three years old, he deserved some gods damn rest!

Once he was healed we travelled further south, through Sodden, looking for a perfect place to settle down. We found it after about a week. It was in the south of Sodden, close to the Cintran border.

The spot really was perfect. A field, between two small, friendly villages – yes we had visited both, and no one even glanced twice at my ears, or gave Geralt weird looks – a creek blubbering along the seam of a nice little forest. From behind the trees, I could hear the rushing of a small waterfall.

During the time we had searched for exactly this spot, we had talked a lot about how our house should look like, what we'd need: a barn and paddock for the horses, chicken-coop and fences for the animals we'd keep, a garden to grow herbs and vegetables, and much more.

It was adorable how exited Geralt was about all this. My heart grew a few sizes when he jumped off of Roach's back, ran over to me, pulled me from my trusty steed and, with joy written over his whole face, declared "This is the spot!" while spinning me around.

But we wouldn't build a house, oh no. I think, even though Geralt could almost do everything, having lived a huge part of his life alone, building a house probably wasn't one of them.

So, instead – even though it would cost a lot of strength – I would conjure it. This would take a few days, I couldn't do it in one sitting, but at least it would stand, and not collapse – at least that was how I like to tease Geralt.

So, on the first day, I conjured the foundation, the second the floors, roof and windows, third furniture, fourth the garden, fences, and all we'd need for the animals, and on the fifth all we'd need to make a home out of this house.