Chapter Text
Ciri tried not to be a picky eater, she really did. Being raised the Princess of Cintra hadn’t exactly been conduicive to that, but on the road, she knew that she was lucky to get the warm meals she did. And stew in an inn was a treat, on top of that; it was far better than stringy rabbit caught in the middle of the woods.
So, she savored it, even when it had chunks of unidentifiable vegetables floating in it, and was that mold? Wrinkling her nose, she took another bite and tried not to wince, aware of Geralt’s eyes on her. She knew he’d never, but she couldn’t help but to worry that if she appeared ungrateful, he’d decide she was too much trouble and just dump her on the side of the road.
Jaskier, it seemed, didn’t have that same problem. He was loudly complaining about the quality of the stew, waving his spoon around for emphasis. It was a wonder he hadn’t spilled it everywhere yet.
“It has carrots ,” he repeated for the seventh time (she was counting). “What self-respecting cook puts carrots in a stew?”
“Eat your food, Jaskier,” Geralt didn’t even look up from his own rapidly disappearing meal.
Jaskier made an offended noise. “You cannot possibly expect me to eat carrots. There’s literally nothing good about them.”
“They’re good for your eyes,” Ciri volunteered, shoveling a dubiously orange chunk in her mouth. It didn’t not taste like carrot, she supposed. “I think. That’s what my grandmother used to tell me, anyway.”
Talking about her grandmother still sent a pang of pain through her chest, her last image of the formidable woman being her slowly bleeding out. Ciri tried to shake that thought out of her mind and think of her grandmother’s smile, instead. It almost worked.
Jaskier snorted loudly, clearly meant to draw her attention back to him from where she’d gone in her mind. He could be surprisingly perceptive when he wanted to be. “My eyesight is perfect, thank you very much,” he huffed. “I don’t need to eat disgusting vegetables for that.”
“Then why didn’t you see that kikimora before it tried to eat you?” Geralt asked dryly, leveling Jaskier with an unimpressed look.
“That’s irrelevant,” Jaskier said waspishly. “Also, you’re terrible. Is this kind of rudeness what you want the child to learn? She’s at the prime age to be copying the behavior of her role models, and this is what you’re teaching her?”
Ciri giggled and turned to Geralt. “Does this mean I get to be mean to Jaskier, too?”
He gave her one of his secret smiles, more a quirking of lips than anything else, and nodded subtly. “Might do his ego some good,” he whispered to her.
Jaskier-- and there was no other word for it-- squawked . Like a particularly angry goose. Ciri was pretty sure she snorted stew out her nose from laughing so hard. “Oi!” he scowled at them. “You--” he pointed at Geralt. “--are an absolute menace, and I will get you back for this. And you--” he glared at Ciri, but she could see the amusement dancing in her eyes. “--finish your stew. That’s punishment enough.”
Ciri groaned. “Do I have to?” she whined, well-aware that she sounded like a child, but okay with it if it worked. Jaskier looked like he was wavering (considering he wasn’t eating it, either).
But Geralt held firm. “Yes,” he said with finality. Even her pout didn’t move him. “You need to keep your strength up. Eat.”
The rest of the meal went the same: Jaskier complaining, Ciri laughing at him, and Geralt chiming in with the occasional grunt. It didn’t escape her notice, though, that Jaskier was picking at his stew, eating around the chunks of carrots and wrinkling his nose. She also noticed that when he was distracted on another rant, his eyes twinkling and hands flailing as he yammered on about some rival bard, Geralt swapped their bowls.
It was a quick movement, given Geralt’s Witcher speed, but Ciri saw the result: Geralt spooning carrots out of his bowl, even though he’d finished his stew in record time earlier in the evening. She was pretty sure Jaskier saw, too, as something like satisfaction passed over his face for a half-second. Still, neither of them acknowledged it, and neither of them offered to take her bowl, either.
Scowling to herself, Ciri finished her vegetables. At least Jaskier’s stories made it easier to ignore the taste.
Later, after Jaskier had gotten up and performed (and she had possibly, maybe, stolen several sips of his ale-- which, for the record, tasted horrible ), Ciri could feel her eyes starting to droop. She leaned against Geralt, who was still listening to Jaskier talk animatedly, and curled into his warmth.
Surprisingly, he let her. He even ran a calloused hand through her hair a couple of times. It tugged on the knots she hadn’t had time to brush out, but the gesture warmed her to her toes. She must’ve nodded off to the sound of Jaskier’s voice and the feeling of Geralt next to her, because the next time she stirred, it was because she was being lifted gently in someone’s arms.
“Careful,” Jaskier hissed as she was adjusted, ostensibly by Geralt.
Ciri could practically see the eyebrow Geralt must’ve raised at Jaskier. His arms were impossibly careful where they held her, and his steps were slow and barely jostled her at all. She started to drift off again.
“Did you get enough to eat?” asked Jaskier, his voice a low whisper, almost too quiet for her to hear.
Geralt hummed an affirmative, the rumble comforting where she was lying against his chest, cradled in his arms as he carried her up the stairs. “You don’t need to do that every time,” he said, sounding on the verge of exasperated, but there was something else in his tone that Ciri couldn’t quite decipher.
“I genuinely hate carrots, so you actually did me a favor,” Ciri could practically hear Jaskier’s shrug, but it wasn’t worth opening her tired eyes to see. “And you eating them is better than them going to waste, no?”
She felt Geralt reply, but she was too tired to focus on it. She was being laid in a bed, she knew, but she was already unconscious by the time her head hit the pillows, dreaming of carrots.
(The next inn they stopped in, it was radishes that Jaskier hated with a passion. This time, though, he was the one to initiate the bowl swap, sending Ciri a conspiratorial wink while she distracted the Witcher. Still, no one relieved
her
of her gross vegetables...)