Chapter Text
Cautiously stepping over the woman's cold unmoving frame, he closed the distance between the crying child and himself, until she became just a curled-up lump at his feet. He watched intrigued as her fingers clawed at the hem of his trousers, gently tugging at the material with a head cocked to the side. She had stopped crying but still sniffed and shivered on the cold ground. He knew he should reach down and pick her up but he just didn’t know how to. Well, he physically knew how to but just felt too awkward.
He took a deep breath and reached down, his gloved hands gripping under her armpits. He now noticed she was wearing a thin cotton dress, a completely inappropriate outfit for the cold weather at this time of the year. Her expectant look encouraged Geralt to lift her up, carefully holding her at arm's length.
“Hmmm” Geralt mumbled, wondering how to carry the child comfortably so she didn’t start crying again. Eventually deciding to wrap an arm around her waist bringing her against his chest and supporting her with his other arm, he started to walk back towards Roach. Even with his gloves on, he could feel how cold she was, her shivers vibrated into his chest with every step.
Roach snorted with their arrival. “I’m sorry girl” Geralt apologised, feeling guilty for leaving her sweaty for so long. “We have another traveller now” He said looking down at the child in his arms. The Witcher’s silver hair shone in the moonlight as he used one hand to untie a blanket from the side of Roach. “You must be freezing” He muttered to the little bundle nestled into his chest.
He started to lower the girl, so he could wrap her up in the blanket, but was surprised when her feet comfortably stood on the floor. He furrowed his brow, “So older?” Geralt questioned, not that he knew anything about children or when they could start to walk or talk or eat. This was completely new. Interested to find out the development stage of this being, he let her stand completely free, wondering whether she would topple over instantly. He was ready to catch her if she did though, he wasn’t going to risk her crying again (not when he didn’t know how to stop it). She stood happily, taking a few shaky steps forwards, reaching towards Geralt with every step. He was fascinated.
“Right, let’s wrap this round you before you freeze” he suggested, kneeling down and preparing to wrap the girl up. He put the blanket over her miniscule trembling shoulders before wrapping the rest of her up, restricting the movement of her arms and legs. He then lifted her back up to his chest, both arms hugging her swaddled body in the hope she would warm up.
It only took about half an hour to set up camp, this time in the clearing rather than the riverside where the mother was still lying dead. A fire blazed in front of the Witcher as he sat on the floor with the child who was babbling contently in front of him. The red light from the flames danced across the ginger’s face as she played with the grass between her fingers. Every so often she would say things which sounded like words but then they were followed by a series of inhuman gargling sounds. But then there were times when she actually did speak and mean words like ‘wa-wa’, which Geralt realised meant water. So, every time she asked for ‘wa-wa’ he lifted the mouth of the leather costrel to her lips and let her drink from the bottle. He had very little in the way of food, just some jerky and stale bread but he offered these to her, letting her smear the food over her hand and her face as she ate.
She seemed to settle into a tired haze after food and curled up into the floor surrounded by bags and sheep skins to stop her rolling into the fire. Geralt left her on the floor, turning his attention to the horse who was grazing at the ground making annoyed snorts and grunts with each chew. “I’m sorry girl” Geralt rubs Roached nose affectionately, “I’ll sort you out now”. Roach was covered in salty lines of sweat and Geralt knew he should have rubbed her down much earlier but now he had another being to care for, it became more complicated.
He knew it would be irresponsible to leave the child alone by the fire, what if she got up and wandered into the fire. Geralt wouldn’t be able to live with himself if that happened but he needed to wash Roach. It was undeniable that the girl needed a wash as well, she stank. But he couldn’t bare the idea of washing her with her dead mother across the bank, that was heartless. Even heartless to someone who claimed they didn’t have a heart.
Geralt sighed, running his fingers through Roach’s mane, “What should I do?”
The horse snorted a reply.
“Right, I’m leaving you in charge” He grunted, grabbing a bucket from the pile on the floor and marching across the clearing back to the river bank.
The thumping of the girl's heart had just become another drone with the forest but now Geralt listened to it intently, methodically stepping with every beat. He even clung to the pounds of her heart when they became little taps in the distance.
Geralt let his eyes drop to the body, now seeing the resemblance between the child he was now caring for and the mother. She was like a ghost, icy pale and blue lipped. Almost like death had finally started to consume her, unlike when he first saw her, the grip of death had only just got her then. Would she be grateful that he had taken her child in? Or would she rather her be dead than be with a Witcher? He wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter of the two, he had heard many people curse that before. The girl would be dead if it wasn’t for him, he kept telling himself.
He would bury her tomorrow, she shouldn’t have to die out here, waiting to be eaten by some animal or to decompose. He walked past her body, not managing to drag his eyes off her white face. Once he managed to draw his eyes away, the image of her was engrained into his mind. He saw it in the refection of the steam when he was filling the bucket with water, he saw her face as he walked through the thin shell of trees and she was there in the smoke rising from the fire.
Roach happily let Geralt wash him down, cleaning all the sweat from the day of riding away before lying down to sleep. Geralt moved back next to the sleeping girl, who had surprisingly not awoken for the most of the night. The crying must have worn her down. He rested his back on a pile of bags, moving them from beside the girl, and lay back, closing his eyes whilst listening to the wind sing through the trees and trying still to distract his mind from the image of the mother.
———
The golden sun danced across Ciri’s bed as the dawn came over Kaer Morhen, waking her up. She didn’t hesitate in ripping the cover off and hauling her bare feet over the side of the rickety bed. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she let her feet sleepily stumble over the cold wooden planks to the chair in the corner, which had some scratchy wool trousers and a leather waistcoat messily draped over the backrest. She tugged on the trousers, tucking in her nightdress into the material, lazily. If her grandmother was here now, her ears would bleed from the scolding she would have got. ‘Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon! I did not raise to dress like a street urchin!’ Calanthe’s voice echoed in her memory. She shook her head, shaking the voice away, and continued to lace the waistcoat before hastily yanking on some thick wool socks and her boots.
The keep was quiet at this time of day as most of the Witcher’s kept to their own rooms until the day’s tasks officially started. Ciri knew and relished in this information as it meant she could do whatever she wanted, especially today in fact. Usually, Geralt kept a sneaky eye on her if she was wandering around the keep this early, somehow knowing she had mischief on her mind. He would call it mischief, Ciri wasn’t so sure.
She knew exactly where she was headed, quietly sprinting down corridors and skipping down the stairs to the Kitchen. She didn’t hover in the kitchen, instead jumping up onto the counter to reach some cheese, which was stored on a high shelf along with the milk jug and eggs. Lowering one foot and then the other, she took the cheese to the chopping board where she drove a knife through it a couple times before tearing up some bread. She dashed out of the kitchen, food being shoved into her mouth as she ran, but not before she shoved an apple into her pocket.
She continued onwards, into the courtyard, basking in the gold sunlight as it caramelised the desolated stones of the fortress. Ciri ran towards the nearest ladder, climbed up the barricade and made her way towards the broken walls surrounding the keep.
The wall she eventually stopped at the base of was a staircase of crumbling stone leading all the way up to the abandoned tower. She first discovered the tower a few weeks ago and since then has used it as a haven to escape from the constant watch of the Witchers. Over the days she had carried stolen cushions and sheep skins from the library and carried them up into the tower to create a cosy den.
She started her assent, using her hands to balance before standing up straight, arms stretched out for balance. The drop off the wall was perilous, falling into an abyss of mountainous rock and trees. There was no survival from a tumble like that. The wind tugged at Ciri, making her wobble a bit as she scaled the wall closer to the shattered window of the tower. Bits of the rock crumbled under her boot with every step, sending dust-like particles tumbling down onto the mountain below.
She eventually reached the window ledge, which was at about her nose, and gripped it firmly with both hands. There wasn’t any glass in it anymore, likely that an attack had broken it. Like practiced many times before, she shoved her boot into a little cranny in the exterior of the tower, using it as a foot hole to help her get up. Her knuckles whitened as she heaved herself up, over the window sill and into the tower with a crash.
The top most part of the tower was airy, clear and clean, light cascaded in from a vaulted ceiling, the beams meeting to a cental point. The towers beams gleamed a deep brown hue into the room, making it homely and warm despite the wintery chill, which gushed through the tower. The chamber had a thick oak smell which only made the girl feel safer as she curled up on the pile of cushions she had made in the corner, by the destroyed spiral staircase which used to lead the way up. She pulled a sheepskin up to her neck and grabbed the book she had rested against the wall during her last visit. Her eyes fluttered to page after page until her eyelids got heavy and felt the need to close.
———
“Ciri!”
Ciri woke up to the view of the high sun through the tower window, casting bronze rays over the left side of her face. A distant voice was shouting at her, but not loud enough to ignite panic within her straight away. She stirred, stretching her arms before sitting up properly, and started to hone into her surroundings, slowly.
“Ciri” A male voice screamed over the wind.
“Oh shit” Ciri jumped up, sprawling her book and cover over the wooden floor, and leaned out of the window to see a distant figure, dressed in a red waistcoat and brown trousers, shouting in the middle of the courtyard, pacing back and forth.
She must have slept into Vesemir’s lesson and he must have sent Eskel looking for her. She didn’t know what to do, wait for Eskel to leave and then climb down so not to expose her hiding space or start to go down now so Vesemir won’t punish her too harshly. Eskel wouldn’t stop her from going up to her special place, surely. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice.
Ciri carefully dangled her leg over the window still, hastily trying to find the foothold to start the descent. Her toes found the gap in between the stones and tried to jam her foot in the gap to stabilise herself. Deciding to trust her foot placement, she looped her other leg over, dangling it dangerously over the edge. As she shifted her hips to lie her stomach flat against the tower’s exterior, the stone of her foot hole started to crumble, unknown to the young girl. Soon there was nothing supporting her foot.
Every muscle in her body tensed as the realisation flooded in, she was falling, most probably to her death. An animalistic wail escaped her lips as she twisted downwards, her hands slithered over the window’s frame despite her desperate clutching. The wind dashed through her clothes, scratching at her skin as gravity forced her body down. The jagged rocks of the stone wall below jabbed into her leg when she hit into it, jerking her outwards. Her body was now falling down towards the perilous mountains below Kaer Morhen. The wall slowed her drop as the stone tore into her stomach, ripping the clothes brutally. She reached her hands out, clutching, grasping for something to hold onto. They caught onto the top edge of the worn wall, her fingers digging into the unbreakable surface.
Muscles spasming with the effort, she clung, literally for life, to the wall, her feet dangling dangerously down towards the cliff-face below. A voice called to her, but it was blurred like everything else. A nebulous character came into view, lines blurred and colours smudged like careless ink stains. He was only identifiable by his red clothing, which stained Ciri’s vision. Two calloused hands griped at her wrists and yanked her over the wall and onto the rickety planks of the barricades.
Ciri’s feet were numb, her legs weaker, and collapsed when Eskel tried to stand her up. She knew it was the shock. He moved his arms, so that one was around her side and the other was holding her arm, and carefully lowered her to sit on the barricades splinter-carpeted surface.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Ciri blinked, her eyes settling onto the man’s torn face. She could feel her heart trying to rip out her chest with its beating and her head spin with the sudden rush.
Eskel knelt in front of Ciri, a concerned look masking his face, “Ciri?” he paused as the girl cocked her head and gave him a confused glare “Are you alright?”
Ciri nodded, slowly, and moved a hand to her abdomen, scarlet syrup from the gashes soaked between her fingers, tainting her skin. The corners of her lips tugged down and her forehead creased as waves of icy pain burned from her stomach. Tears swelled in her eyes, fogging her vision once again.
“P-pl-please don’t tell Geralt” Ciri whispered.
Eskel chuckled, the small outburst making the girl jump, “That’s the least of your worries” His eyes tailed down to her crimson stained hand.
She shook her head, “Vesemir is going to be so angry” Her head swarmed, she’s never going to be let out of the old Witcher’s sight again. Geralt wouldn’t trust her either. And Lambert! Lambert wouldn’t ever let her forget this, teasing her beyond hope.
A couple of tears slipped from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks slowly.
“Right, let's get you to Vesemir so he can fix you up” Eskel said, reaching his arms out, gripping onto her wrists and pulling her onto her feet. “Get on my back” He twisted round, keeping one hand firmly on her wrist to stop her from crumpling, and bent his knees so she could painfully grip onto his back.
Conscientiously, he climbed down the ladder, walked across the courtyard and walked into the kitchen, Ciri wincing with each step. She didn’t notice Lambert crouched in the corner, clearing out the cupboard, when Eskel lowered her to the ground.
“What the fuck’s happened to you?” The younger Witcher shouted, when he saw the blood-soaked girl in front of him.
“Nothing, I’m fine” She croaked.
“She decided it would be sensible to climb the outside walls” Eskel said, bluntly, taking Ciri’s torn up hand in his own. “Hmmm” he murmured, inspecting the grazes down her fingers and palm. “Lambert, can you get me some warm water and bandages?”
Usually, Lambert would make some rude comment and refuse but he seemed to see the severity of this accident and obediently darted around the kitchen, heating some water over the fire.
“Right, you,” Eskel turned to face Ciri, flashing her a kind smile, “Let’s go to Vesemir”
The girl grimaced at the thought, “Do we have to?”
“Yes, you fucking do!” Lambert scowled; toothy sneer directed towards her.