dragonlady7

sitting

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lol every comment and reply and Discord message is like “MORVRAN BABY 😭” and I want you all to know I feel the exact same way.

(It’s really entertaining, canon absolutely very clearly had a particular archetype in mind for Morvran to be [the books gave us some entertaining hints but W3 was like “no he is old” for some reason], but I looked at canon and said “you are so boring” and instead of connecting the dots as I thought most plausible I thought how else can I connect these dots and this is what we have now, so.)

But I also want him to have a nice day, finally.

So here’s a chunk I wrote to keep myself motivated, and possibly to work toward. I don’t know if it’s going to fit in, either in this story or in a sequel, or if I’ll have to rework it, or if it’ll fit anywhere at all or just have to be discarded. But I wrote it like– right after I read a bit in the books, so it’s directly about events from the books.

Anyway. Just a bit I don’t know if I’ll be able to use, featuring some of the events of Tower of the Swallow, and Horse Girl Morvran.

“Tell you what,” Ciri said. Morvran was still sitting silently, shoulders stiff, miserable. She leaned over and very gently pressed her shoulder against his for a moment, a long count of three, then leaned back up. “I will let you ask one question of me, about anything you want to know, from my past or anything I have special knowledge of, and I’ll answer it truthfully.”

It took a moment, but that got him to respond. “One question?” he said.

“About anything,” she said. “One question.”

Luliana was regarding Morvran with a troubled expression, and glanced over at Ciri, frowning. Ciri winked at her.

“One question,” he said. He was clearly thinking it over. “I’m going to be very specific.” He was speaking with his no-person voice, flat and dull, with no gestures or facial expressions.

But she could tell it had worked; he was less distressed already, his face less frozen. “As specific as you like,” she said.

“Some eight years ago,” he said, “in a shitty little town in Ebbing, a young woman escaped from a bounty hunter and several Nilfgaardian agents, on the back of a horse described as a surpassingly fine black mare.”

Ciri sat up straighter. “Oh,” she said.

“You said any question,” he said, glancing over at her, and it was the first time he’d looked at her in quite some time.

“Yes,” she said. “What’s the question?”

“I’m getting to that,” he said. “As the girl fled on horseback, one of the Nilfgaardians threw a weapon at her, and cut her face quite badly, so that she nearly fell from the horse. But she did not fall.”

It wasn’t a question, so Ciri waited. Luliana had pricked up her ears as well, and was listening keenly.

“I went to this place, a couple of years ago now, and everyone was very eager there to show me this gate, and to explain to me that it settled in a rainstorm, but that at the time of this incident the gate measured seven feet two inches in height,” he said. “They measured it again for me and it was only seven feet, but everyone was very concerned that I should know that it had lost two inches in the intervening time.”

Ciri laughed. “Seven feet two inches,” she said. Well, it sounded plausible.

“So this horse, with this fainting girl on its back, leapt this seven foot two inch gate,” Morvran said.

“This isn’t a question,” Ciri pointed out.

“No,” he said, “I didn’t get to the question yet. Somehow, the horse made it over the gate, with the girl still seated on its back. Seven feet two inches.”

“Yes,” Ciri said, “so you say. What was the question, though?” Was he going to ask if she was the girl? But if so, why draw it out so? Likely, he wanted to ask about the horse, and to answer, she would have to confirm she was the girl. Well, it was worth it.

“I’m getting there,” he said, and there was even a twinkle of amusement in his expression, which was positive progress– one of his eyebrows had moved slightly, there’d been a little bit of inflection on the word getting. Good. “So once the pursuers had mustered themselves, they went out the gate, after the horse, and they followed its footprints, which showed it galloping off down the road a distance. But at the edge of the woods, the tracks vanished. In full flight, without hesitation, the horse simply… stopped touching the ground, and there were no more traces to be had.”

Ciri raised her eyebrows, tilting her head slightly, waiting for the question. Luliana made a startled noise. “Wait,” she said, “what happened to the horse?”

“My question,” Morvran said, holding up his hand, “is this.” Luliana covered her mouth, and waited; Ciri tilted her head even farther. Morvran let it draw out for a moment, and finally asked:

“Could the horse fly?”

Ciri laughed brightly. It was a clever question, really several in one. “No,” she said, “no, Kelpie can’t fly.”

“Can’t,” Morvran said, seizing on the present tense; he was interested now, sharp and attentive.

“Ah,” Luliana said, “but where is she now?”

“Ah, one question,” Morvran said ruefully to her, and shook his head. “Perhaps you can trade on your connections, but I have had my question answered, and I will not presume further.”

He looked much better, much more himself. Ciri leaned over again and pressed her shoulder against his. “Sometime,” she said, “I will take you to meet her.”

This time he had relaxed enough to lean back, just a little bit, and when she glanced over at him he was smiling, even if he couldn’t make eye contact with her yet– he was smiling down at his hands in his lap.

“I would like that,” he said. “Very much.” (Your picture was not posted)