Chapter Text
The air was hot and heavy; filled with the smell and flavour that only springtime can bring. All about the valley, the trees were alive with the courting songs of birds, and the buzzing of insects as they emerged from their winter cocoons and nests deep underground. The sun was radiant in the high noon sky; evening often fell early in the Morhen Valley due to the high peaks. So the residents did their best to enjoy the sunshine when it graced them with its presence.
As she took all this in, Ciri wished she could take a brief moment to rest and take it all in. This was her first spring in Kaer Morhen, and it was very different from the dreary, coastal springs of Cintra that she had grown up knowing. She loved it. The air was bright with energy, and new life. It felt vibrant, and the vibrancy transferred easily over to her mood. It had been a long time since the Cintran princess had been able to describe her mood as joyful or vibrant. There was an ache in her chest since the destruction of her home that never truly went away. Each pound of her heart reminded her of what she had lost. But now, enveloped by the beauty of the springtime in the mountains, of her new home, the new friendships and burgeoning relationships she had forged here, Ciri was reminded also of what she had gained. She breathed in the air and fingered her sword softly, and leapt gracefully down from the roof of the turret she had been sitting on. Her soft leather boots scuffed on the stoney floor of the balcony as she landed, and her breath exhaled gently through her lips, becoming one with the spring air around her. Several months ago, Ciri would never have dared attempt such a feat. But now, with hours of training and drilling behind her, she felt free and brave. Perhaps, she thought, this was what Geralt felt like all the time. He had so much raw energy at his disposal, though he rarely chose to show it. Ciri had tried not to question him about his past, about why he was so closed off, even around her. She knew everyone had scars to bear. Witchers more than most. Still, it ached that she struggled so much to get to know him. He told her that he cared for her, that he would go to the ends of the Earth to protect her. But Ciri had no family, not anymore. And more than anything, she hoped to find a way to show Geralt that she wanted and trusted him to fill that void.
Padding softly down the stairs, Ciri ran her hand along the rough stone walls. No one came up here much, she knew that. Geralt had shown her places where no one else would find her. He knew how much she valued solitude. It had been one of the first things he had done when they arrived at the Keep. Ciri was still incredibly grateful for his intuitive understanding of how she needed to understand her pain. It was so freeing to find one place where she was not hunted, after so many months of being treated like a rabbit running from a hound.
The air was softer and more humid inside the stairway. It lacked the vibrant, urgent energy of the springtime outside, but what it lacked in urgency it gained in mystery. Ciri could still taste the vague crackling aura of magic that hung about the whole Keep, even after months of living here. It felt like ozone on her tongue, and it made all the hairs on her arms stand on end. She hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to ask Geralt about that particular new sensation yet. In many ways, she felt as though he expected her to just intuitively understand all these new experiences and feelings. Geralt was old, older than Ciri could guess. Perhaps he was so unfamiliar with new experiences that he didn’t even have the words to express what it would be like. And, truth be told, Ciri didn’t want to disappoint him. Didn’t want him to think she was complaining about her wonderful new home, after all that it, and he, had given her. The uncomfortable tension and flavour of magic was a small price to pay for her safety and the kindness the Witchers of Kaer Morhen offered her. It was the first time since the sacking of Cintra that Ciri could truly dare to say she felt loved.
Licking her lips softly to try to remove the flavour, Ciri wandered the narrow halls, hoping to come to the library. After months, she had only just gained the ability to navigate the half-ruined Keep effectively. There were still some times that she found herself in an unexplored wing, rife with full chests and lost memories of long dead boys. The wind blew freely in those wings; in some places snowdrifts piled in amongst the shredded upholstery, even in springtime. Ciri tried to keep herself from thinking that a very similar thing was probably happening in her old home in Cintra. The thought always managed to creep in, though. It made her feel empty, like a vessel that had been poured out and forgotten on some dusty shelf. She shook herself. The halls here were large enough that only foolishness could cause her to get lost. Gently, she brushed a hand along the rough stone, feeling its coldness. The library was always warm; Geralt had found her furs to wrap herself in on the cold winter nights after discovering she was unable to regulate her temperature in the same way he could. And there was always a fire burning in the hearth. Ciri had wondered more than once if that had always been the way, or if it was a practice Geralt had forced the others to adopt to assuage her constant coldness. It seemed like an awful waste of firewood for the ever-practical Witchers.
The door to the library was open, as usual. Ciri slipped in as silently as possible. She had had one too many bad experiences waking Lambert while he was stretched out in front of the hearth. However, there was no one inside. Just the hearth crackling merrily. Someone had left a pile of books next to an armchair by the fire, and in the corner the small sofa that the various inhabitants of the Keep occasionally collapsed upon after drinking too much was piled high with scrolls.
“Eskel?” Ciri called out tentatively. He was always in the library, researching and reading. Usually he took his meals here as well. It made sense, she thought. The library was the centre of the Keep, the point of convergence. And Eskel was the point of convergence for the energy of the inhabitants, a bright spot in a grim place. His openness and light and gentleness was one of the first things Ciri remembered about her arrival at the Keep. Even now, his presence was a welcome balm to keep her thoughts from drifting back to darker times and things.
There was a shifting in some far-off nook of the library, followed by a distinct smell of musty parchment. Ciri perked up her nose a bit. The smell reminded her of home. She had spent many hours playing in her grandmother’s study while the Queen signed and sent off rolls and rolls of sweet-smelling paper.
“Ciri? Is that you? I have something to show you.”
Eskel, then. None of the other Witchers had much time for her during the days, when they all went about their various tasks and chores about the Keep. However, Eskel had been helping her discover more about her heritage and the possession of Chaos in her family during his spare time. As another individual born with uncontrollable Chaos, he had been sympathetic to her plight.
Wending her way back through the teetering towers of scrolls and books, Ciri found Eskel knee-deep in leather bound tomes. He was holding one in his hand, licking his fingers and flicking through the pages. Though he must have heard her coming, he didn’t look up until she was standing right next to him. Then, he leaned over so she could see what he was looking at.
“It’s a pedigree,” Eskel said excitedly, although he caught Ciri’s confused look and clarified quickly, “A family tree. Of the royal houses of Cintra. It goes back far further than any of the other ones I’ve been able to find. And I think this one may have some markers showing Chaotic ability.”
Eskel had already explained to Ciri that there had been a time in Cintra where magic had been outlawed, so she was surprised that any such document existed. Eskel ran a calloused, scarred finger over the spidery chart, drawing Ciri’s attention to small indentations in the paper at certain names. They were nearly impossible to see, and if Eskel hadn’t drawn her attention to them Ciri would have missed them entirely.
“I knew some of the people on here,” he explained, “Princess Rianna, here. She’s your great-great grandmother. And I know for a fact that she had well hidden Chaos. So, from that, as well as a few other examples, I can guess that these indents are denoting Chaotic potential. I can’t find a pattern, or where the Chaotic abilities were introduced into your lineage. But, two pairs of eyes are better than one.”
Eskel settled himself on top of a pile of scrolls and moved over, leaving room for Ciri to join him. She sat down, curling her legs underneath her, enjoying the sweet, peaceful smells and sounds of the library. Eskel handed her a stack of scrolls.
“See if you can find any records here of any of the people with indents,” he said, “Perhaps it will offer us some insight into whether they had a better understanding of their magical abilities.”
Settled comfortably, Ciri lit a small candle. Eskel didn’t need light to hunt through the dusty tomes of the library, but she couldn’t see without it. The candle wax was nearing the bottom of the tray; she had spent many nights over the last month reading here instead of sleeping. Eskel had pretended not to notice, but she could tell by the concerned tilt of his eyebrows that he was well aware of her sleepless need to gather information on her past. She hoped he would keep it a secret from Geralt. He had enough on his mind without worrying about her personal musing into her past.
Countless hours passed, and the candle had all but turned into a puddle when Ciri finally looked up, massaging a kink from her neck. Her search had been mostly fruitless, although she had managed to find some interesting records denoting Princess Rianna’s interest in the occult. Realizing what had disturbed her from her reading, Ciri looked up and saw Lambert at the door, waiting, fingers tapping impatiently on the wainscoting. Eskel had clearly already seen him; probably smelled him as he was making his way up the stairs, but had been waiting for Ciri to notice.
“You’re getting faster, Ciri.” He nodded with approval, although Lambert just rolled his eyes and leaned back languidly.
“Not fast enough. I could have killed you ten times before you even realized I was there. Soup’s in the kitchen, if you want to get your nose out of your books and come eat with us.”
Ciri knew the last comment was more directed at Eskel, but she still felt herself bristling. Knowing about her family and her abilities was important, deeply important to her. She scowled at Lambert and stood, dusting off her shirt and pants.
“Manage to catch something bigger than a rabbit tonight?” She quipped, feeling irritable. She had yet to see Geralt today, and she wished he had dropped in to talk to her. He was elusive, but she desperately wanted to come to know him better. Still, she supposed it was unfair to take out her frustrations on Lambert, no matter how much of a prick he was being. She swept past him as imperiously as possible and made her way down to the kitchen for dinner. It smelled strongly of onions and ale, and she followed her nose to where the other inhabitants of the Keep had already gathered. None but Geralt looked up as she entered, and he only offered her a small nod before going back to polishing a small blade, painfully indifferent. Ciri thought she saw a flicker of frustration cross his features, but dismissed it as a trick of the light and seated herself next to him, serving both of them some stew from the pot in the middle of the long wooden table.
“Thank you.” Geralt looked up at her and nodded, and Ciri couldn’t mistake the strange look in his eyes for anything other than confusion and frustration now, “I have something I want to talk to you about, later. That is, if you’d like. I know you’re busy with your research.”
Geralt’s hands were twisted into a tight ball in his lap. If Ciri hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was nervous. In an odd way, that gave her hope. Perhaps this was his way of trying to get to know her, of trying to find some way to connect with the daughter he barely knew.
“I’m not busy,” she returned, catching his eye and offering a small quirk of her lips, “Perhaps we could tend to the horses tonight? I know Roach needs brushing.”
Working off the assumption that Geralt was feeling nervous to speak to her was an odd position to come from, but from what little she knew about the Witcher, she knew he would be most comfortable around his horse. If she really wanted to get to know him properly, it was probably best to do it somewhere where he wasn’t completely out of his depth. Ciri was well aware that, while Geralt had spent years trying to find her, he had never planned for the eventuality of what he would do when he brought her home. Eskel had told her as much, with a wry smile on his lips. It was frustrating, though, to feel as though he was continually avoiding her due to the fact that he didn’t have a plan of attack. She wasn’t a kikimore. Although, she supposed, after a while of living your life according to one pattern, that pattern would come to encompass every interaction you experienced. Everyone Ciri had ever known had lived according to a mould, which was nigh on impossible to break. She hoped, though, just this once, that it would be possible for her to break it. She longed for something more than a distant sense of attachment with Geralt. There was no one else she had left.
The rest of the dinner passed in silence, although Eskel shot Ciri a sympathetic look. She had expressed her frustrations about Geralt to him more than once, and he had reassured her that she was not the only one who felt this way. It was little comfort. Ciri longed to be someone’s daughter. As much as she would have hated to admit it, it was important to her to have someone. Someone who was something more to her, for more reasons just than that destiny had ordained it.
Ciri slurped the last bit of stew off her spoon loudly, and felt a bit of satisfaction when Lambert glowered at her. She bit the spoon loudly between her teeth, and watched his eyes crinkle as they clattered together. He had been in a particularly foul mood the last few days, and the small, immature, vindictive part of her enjoyed returning the discomfort that he so often inflicted upon her. Eskel stomped on her foot under the bench. She ignored him, stood, vaulted over the bench gracefully, and exited the room. She needed a moment alone before she met Geralt. Her heart was pounding a little. With some surprise, she realized she and Geralt had not had a conversation alone together since their journey back to Kaer Morhen from the farm near Sodden. She swallowed and drummed her fingers anxiously on her leg. Her foot jerked up and down, an anxious habit that Eskel hated.
The main hallways were well lit; torches held proudly in iron brackets that looked as good as new. Ciri knew the remaining Witchers did their best to keep the well-used parts of the Keep in good working order. Taking a few carefully timed turns, she left this area, and returned to the colder, unkempt rooms. The rooms that echoed with loss and death; sometimes so loudly that Ciri could hear the voices of the dead boys who had lived here. She wondered if Geralt, or any of the other Witchers, heard them too. If it was a part of daily life at the Keep that, like so many aspects of life here, was an unspoken truth, an inescapable fact just so much as the blood that spilled over every inch of the castle’s floors. She sank to the floor in one of the abandoned rooms and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Meditation was another skill that she had yet to master. Another way in which she felt lesser than, inadequate almost, in a Keep full of men who were in complete, iron control of their minds. Her head slumped back against the stone wall and bounced uncomfortably. Incontrollable thoughts pushed against the inside of her skull, swirling and threatening to overwhelm her. What if she wasn’t enough? What if, as the closest thing Geralt would ever have to a daughter, she had already let him down? What if the reason he couldn’t formulate a way to engage with her was because she was simply too different, too human? She suppressed a groan, not wanting every Witcher in the Keep to know she was experiencing such turmoil. Outside, the stars in the sky began to wink down at her; the distant chattering of the birds growing fainter and fainter as the valley faded into a crepuscular evening glow.
----
Ciri must have fallen asleep like that, legs drawn up to ward against the springtime chill that sprinkled the air, arms wrapped around herself to protect from unseen foes. When she woke, her neck ached and cramped, and the lively evening glow had given away to the velvet blackness of a Kaer Morhen night. She felt cold, and shivered slightly as she looked around. Then, her heart clenched impossibly in her chest as she realized she had slept through when she had promised to meet Geralt in the stables. Frustrated and groggy, she slammed her head back into the stone wall, cursing under her breath. Her time with the Witchers had done wonders for her curse vocabulary. A sick feeling settled at the bottom of Ciri’s stomach, and her heart continued to squeeze painfully in her chest. To her eternal shame, as she stared out the broken window frame into the Morhen Valley, a small tear traced down her cheek, which was gritty with sweat from her sleep.
It didn’t look too late in the night, Ciri noted hopefully as she got a closer look at the sky outside of the window. And the Witchers often stayed up late, talking and sharing stories from the year on the Path. Odds were, Geralt was still awake. Perhaps, having seen how engrossed he got caring for Roach and the other horses of the Keep, there was even a chance he was still busy and waiting for her in the stables. The quickest way was down the outside of the wall of the Keep, and Ciri was nothing if not hurried. She swung herself over the edge, and began to wend her way down, fingers and toes carefully exploring the rough surface and fitting their way into the small handholds and footholds she fount there. The wall was startlingly similar to the walls she had used to scale back at home in Cintra, and, for a moment, Ciri closed her eyes and imagined she was at home. The chill nighttime wind whipped in her hair and her thin linen shirt. Goosebumps emerged on her arms, and she shivered a bit, but the cold was something she was well acquainted with ignoring, having grown up in a coastal city.
Lost in reveries about the walls of Cintra and climbing them with her friends as a child, Ciri barely noticed that she was moving closer and closer to a broken portion of the wall. The wall she was currently scaling was crumbling under her fingers, but she barely noticed. Suddenly, a voice sounded below her, and she jerked in surprise and nearly lost her hold on the mossy rocks. Ciri gasped a bit, realizing she had made a stupid mistake. The wall was completely crumbled and destroyed below her, and the hand and footholds she had used to get out to this point were gone, destroyed under her grip. She was trapped; the only way to climb down was through the broken bits of rubble piled up like corpses after a battle on the valley floor. A treacherous course, one that Ciri was a good enough climber to recognize as being beyond her skill level. She swore again, loudly, and looked for the origin point of the voice. The last thing she wanted right now was an audience as she fell and broke an ankle. Especially an audience of Witchers.
Below her, the sedgy ground that surrounded the Keep’s walls appeared barren in the dark of night. Ciri squinted while simultaneously trying not to lose her tenuous grip on the wall. In the distance, the pine trees swayed and birds flitted to and fro, but she could detect no other movement save the wind howling down the pass lodged between two mountain peaks that tower high above her. Perhaps the voice had been nothing but the wind. Relaxing a bit, Ciri tried to focus on the rock wall inches from her face, practically crumbling under her fingertips as she watched. Her heart hammered, and she couldn’t calm it. The only way to get down was to go through the unstable ruins. Ciri steeled herself for the journey, and hoped she wouldn’t break bones in any places that would be immediately obvious to Geralt. That was, if he was still waiting for her at the stables at all. The scent of morning was on the air.
Just as she was about to take the first step down the treacherous, the voice sounded again, distant and thready from the gale, which was quickly gaining strength. But there was no mistaking the shout as being Ciri’s name. She nearly lost her grip again, and craned her neck wildly over her shoulder to see who was calling. Bits of stray hair flew into her mouth and eyes, and she spat and cursed. Distantly, she could detect some movement coming from the far West portion of the wall, by where the horses were turned out to graze on the finer days. Someone scaling the wall with impressive speed, hurrying towards her with an urgency that frightened Ciri a bit.
“Fucking hell, Ciri, stay where you are!”
Ciri’s heart dropped down into her boots, which were scrambling for purchase on the rapidly crumbling stone underneath her. That was Geralt’s voice. He must have been turning the horses out and caught sight of her on the wall. Of all the inhabitants of the Keep Ciri could have chanced upon in such a position, he was the last one she wanted to see. She already felt like he thought she was a foolish little girl, incapable of using her instincts or following instructions. Angry, she rested her head on the mossy surface of the wall, trying to adjust her grip to stay in place. She was running out of handholds.
It took less than half the time it had taken Ciri to get from the window down to her current location for Geralt to scale the wall from the far West entrance. If she hadn’t been so embarrassed and frightened, Ciri would have been impressed. The wind whipped harshly against the stoney walls, but Geralt hardly seemed to feel it. Not for the first time, Ciri felt a sense of longing. She wished so much to be like him, to be someone he understood, and more importantly, someone who could keep up with him. A human daughter would never be enough for him, she feared.
When he got close enough that Ciri could make out his face, it only confirmed her worst suspicions. His dark brows were drawn together, and his eyes were darkened and angry. Part of her felt like simply letting go, broken bones be damned. It was better than dealing with the fact that she had disappointed him.
“Fuck, Ciri. What the hell were you thinking, climbing towards this part of the wall? Someone who’d never climbed so much as a tree could tell that this is unsafe. Here, take my hand and I’ll pull you over the worst of it.”
Shamefacedly, Ciri took the outstretched hand, noting with increasing guilt that it was bloodied, probably cut because Geralt had been in too much of a hurry to get to her to choose his handholds carefully. Barely sparing her a look, he swung her down and around the handholds she had broken on the climb out. Ciri clung on as hard as she could, feeling her grip slipping on Geralt’s bloodied palm. Halfway through, he jerked her grip up onto his wrist with a grunt. A few seconds later, she smacked into the wall next to him, exhaling as the blunt surface forced all the air out of her lungs. Geralt retained his grip on her hand until she had found her footing, though her hands were shaking from exhaustion as she clung to the windswept wall.
“Follow me down. We’ll discuss this when we’re somewhere safer. It would be exceptionally stupid to stay out here longer than we have to, in this wind.”
With a pointed look that made Ciri cringe, Geralt began picking his way carefully down the wall. The rocks were less crumbly here, and the two of them had no difficulty descending, barring the few times the wind almost blew Ciri off the face. She tried to follow Geralt’s path exactly, which was not difficult; he left bloodied handprints on the wall behind him. Ciri tried unsuccessfully to swallow her guilt.
Geralt climbed all the way to the bottom and stepped easily off, swinging his arms to return circulation and grimacing as he tested the grip on his bloodied hands a bit. Once he was free of the wall, Ciri simply let go and dropped the last few metres, landing in a trembling heap at the base of the wall. There was a soft crunching noise when she landed as several wildflowers met an untimely end. Geralt scowled down at her reproachfully.
“That little display tells me all I need to know about how you managed to get yourself into such a situation in the first place. Life is full of enough risks without you creating your own.”
Ciri pushed herself up on her trembling arms, stomach heaving and hair twisting in sweaty strands around her flushed cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she panted, not looking him in the eye, “My mind was somewhere else. I thought it would be the fastest way to get down, when I realized I missed meeting you in the stables. I fell asleep in one of the tower rooms.”
“I thought as much. You seemed tired at dinner.”
Geralt was also looking away now, flicking dried blood from his hands and spitting on them to stem the bleeding. Ciri was relieved to see that the blood had made it look far worse than it was; they were badly scraped at worst, and would likely be healed by nightfall. She picked herself up off the moss and stared back up at the wall.
“I can help you with the horses now, if there’s anything left to do. I shouldn’t have let myself fall asleep. It was irresponsible. I’m sorry.”
Ciri knew she was apologizing for far more than letting herself sleep. Geralt stopped examining his hands for a moment, and his jaw muscles worked like he was considering saying something. Then he shook his head distractedly and swallowed. Whatever he had been about to say, it was lost.
“Come on, the stables need cleaning now I’ve turned the horses out. And then you can go fetch some fresh hay from the loft.”
He turned away without so much as a backwards glance. After months of doggedly following him from Sodden all the way to Kaer Morhen, he had no reason to suspect Ciri would stop now. And nor would she. Jogging to catch up, she nodded concernedly at Geralt’s still bleeding hands.
“If you get shit on those they’ll get infected.”
“I’ll wear riding gloves.”
Ciri fell back into step behind him, trying to suppress her frustration. It was likely no one had ever offered Geralt help besides his brothers. And he had no reason to trust that Ciri would do a good job. After all their months of travelling together, he still barely knew her.
The wind calmed its tormented wailing through the valley as they traversed the base of the wall. As the sun began to let long tendrils of shadowed light flow through the valley, birds began their chirping again, bugs their humming. The air smelled of wildflowers, and the heat of spring mornings. Ciri breathed it in. Living in Cintra, the only smells she had associated with spring was the scent of decaying fish and freshly thawed shit. The peace of the high mountain air was all but unknown, and she wondered if there was more to the decision to place Kaer Morhen in such a beautiful place than practicality.
“It’s beautiful here in the spring,” she tried, wondering if Geralt would take her lead.
“Is it?”
“Yes. The birds sing, and the air smells of flowers. And the whole forest feels alive, full of movement. You can tell that the creatures that live there feel safe and undisturbed. I’ve never seen that before. Living in a city, no creature feels safe.”
Geralt stopped for a moment, so suddenly that Ciri almost smacked into his back. She heard him sniffing the air, testing its scent against her description.
“That’s a good thing. There’ll be better hunting in the fall.”
Resisting the urge to smack her forehead with the palm of her hand, Ciri fell back into step as they continued. Whatever beauty might or might not have been noted by the Witchers who had built this place, it seemed to be all but lost on Geralt. They fell back into silence as they approached the stables, and Ciri watched with fascination as the horses perked up the moment they caught Geralt’s scent, trotting in a group towards the fence to greet him. He moved forwards, reaching out a hand to stroke Roach’s delicate, velvety nose. Her nostrils flared a bit, and Geralt stopped his stroking and leaned over, gently breathing onto her nostrils. She snorted a bit, and bumped her head against his forehead, leaving a trail of green grass up his pale face, which he wiped away with what could only be described as an amused grimace.
Ciri left them for a moment longer, feeling as though she was intruding on something very private, very much not meant for her. When Geralt turned away and wiped horse slobber off his shoulder, she plucked up her courage.
“Why do you do that, with her nose?”
“Do what?”
“You breathe on her nostrils, when you greet her. Every time you left her in a stable all the way from Sodden, you would do that before you saddled her the following morning. What does it do?”
Geralt looked surprised, as though he hadn’t expected Ciri to be paying attention to his small habits.
“It’s a way of asking permission,” he scratched at the back of his neck uncomfortably, clearly unused to putting such things into words, “So she recognizes my scent and who I am before I ride her or spend time with her. Horses are prey animals, and they have bad eyesight. Scent is the way they perceive the world. To most horses, even the ones who know me, I move and act like a predator. So letting her recognize my scent and her letting me recognize hers in return shows that she trusts me, and she gives me permission to be close to her.”
Ciri had never heard Geralt talk so much in one sitting, except perhaps when he was telling stories in the library in the evening, which was a rare occurrence. She was unsure of what to say, and ended up twisting her hands awkwardly and staring at her feet for a long moment.
“That’s…thoughtful,” she finally settled on, “Many of the knights in Cintra were always so harsh with their horses. They treated them like they were disposable, like they were meat. And they always struggled to get them to obey commands, which was troublesome in battle. Perhaps it was because they didn’t trust one another?”
Geralt nodded, appraising her a bit. Then he turned and tossed her a shovel, which she caught deftly, narrowly missing being impaled by its sharp end.
“These stables won’t clean themselves, and I would like to eat breakfast before all the bread is gone. Eskel will be more than happy to eat our portions if we don’t arrive on time.”
Ciri took her shovel and entered the stable, starting with the stall closest to her. Geralt began cleaning the one opposite to her, efficiently clearing all the straw and wood shavings into a neat pile. Ciri tried to follow his lead; she was fairly new to mucking out her own stables, and she had yet to develop a proper technique.
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
Geralt paused from his cleaning and wiped a stray strand of curly silver hair off his sweaty face. Ciri noticed he was not wearing riding gloves to cover his lacerated hands, but she wasn’t about to burn the bridge she had just managed to build with him. She watched him shift a bit, wipe his still bloodied hands on his pants, where they left dark stains on the brown material. He dressed more softly at Kaer Morhen, Ciri had noticed. Less like he was about to leap up and drive his sword into something and more like he was trying to stay comfortable. It made Ciri feel less on edge.
“Yes…normally in the spring, we send a group out to hunt for a week or so, to bring back meat which we can dry and store to use through summer and fall. This year would be mine and Eskel’s turn to go, but I thought it might be beneficial if you came along, to learn to hunt properly. If you’re going to train to be a Witcher, you’ll need to be able to take down more than a rabbit.”
Ciri was taken aback. Of all the directions she had expected this conversation to go in, Geralt asking her to accompany him on a hunting trip was not one of them. The man was viciously introverted; the journey from Sodden to the Keep seemed to have taxed his mental energy almost to the brink. Although, Ciri supposed, he had still been recovering from a wound at the time.
She realized she had probably been gaping when Geralt turned back to his work with a grunt, perhaps seeing her astonished silence as a refusal.
“I would like that,” Ciri said tentatively, feeling rather overjoyed at the opportunity to perhaps find something to share with Geralt, “Thank you…for offering. I know you would probably rather go alone.”
Once again, Geralt’s jaw muscles worked for a moment as he leaned on his shovel, and he looked as though he was about to say something. Then he turned back to his work, and Ciri turned back to hers, feeling hopeful for the first time in weeks that perhaps they were making progress.
----
After they finished cleaning the stables in comfortable silence, they entered the Keep walking abreast to go find some breakfast. Ciri felt a bit taller than normal, knowing that Geralt actually, at some level, wanted to teach her, wanted to get to know her better. It had been a while since she had felt like anything other than prey. Even safe in the Keep, it was hard to shake the feeling. She kept feeling like, at any second, the man with the winged helmet would drop from the sky and take her. The thought made her shudder.
Instead of turning towards the kitchens, Geralt took the turn that led back to his rooms. Engrossed in her thoughts, Ciri almost turned to follow him before stopping short, unsure.
“Where are you going? Didn’t you say Eskel would take our food if we didn’t show up for breakfast?”
Geralt held up his bloodied hands by way of an answer, and turned to continue down towards his room. Ciri jogged to catch up, trying to resist catching his elbow. She knew he would not appreciate such a gesture, as harmless as it was.
“I can help you with that, you know. My grandmother was insistent I be good both at killing men and bandaging them up. She said they were too stupid to do the second part themselves.”
“I’m fine. I’ll meet you in the kitchens; we have supplies to prepare if we want to leave tonight.”
Ciri opened her mouth, but snapped it shut when he shot her a warning glare. From their time together on the road, she knew he struggled deeply with having his wounds touched. He had barely been healed when they had begun their journey, though he had not let on. Ciri had stumbled across him trembling in pain as he redid the sutures in his thigh one night by a small creek, dyed red with his blood. When she had offered to help, he had simply placed a hand on her shoulder and limped with her back to the fire, too exhausted to deny her but unable to accept her help. Just like her, the road had not been kind to him. Ciri knew all it took was one person with ill intent to break down a lifetime of trust. And Geralt didn’t strike Ciri as someone who had ever trusted anyone beyond his brothers at the Keep.
She watched his receding back and tried to swallow her disappointment. Perhaps once they left the Keep and were travelling, she could show him she was deserving of his trust. But, she supposed that began with him being able to trust her to gather and pack their supplies for the road. Ciri turned and headed back towards the kitchen, where she devoured a bowl of porridge while simultaneously piling jerky, hardtack, and some bread and cheese into their respective waterproof bags. With any luck, they would catch some rabbits and other small game now that springtime was bringing animals out of hibernation. But venturing into the wilderness without the necessary supplies would have been foolish, and Ciri knew Geralt was not one to tolerate foolishness.
The kitchens began to grow hot as the sun rose up from behind the mountains. It rose late here due to the height of the peaks; and Ciri realized with a start that if the kitchen was starting to heat up it was probably close to noon. Geralt still hadn’t reappeared, and she suspected he had gone off to complete some tasks around the Keep without bothering to find breakfast. Shaking her head at his disregard for his body’s needs (a trait she had witnessed and grown to hate on the road from Sodden), Ciri packed away the supplies she had gathered, and washed the bowls and pots left over from breakfast.
Eskel appeared when she was nearly done the dishes; taking up a rag and beginning the process of drying next to her. She offered him a small smile, which he returned. It pulled the scars on his face; most of his expressions were stunted because of his lost range of motion. Ciri found it a bit endearing. She noticed that what he couldn’t convey with his face he managed to get across with his eyes. They were warm and welcoming, less steely than Geralt’s, although just as piercing.
“Did he ask you?”
Ciri didn’t bother asking how Eskel knew about what Geralt had planned. She knew very little about the two beyond that they had completed their first round of mutations together. However, they shared more than Geralt was willing or able to share with anyone else.
“Yes. I’m trying to prepare supplies. He likes being prepared.”
Eskel snorted back a bit of a laugh as he dried out a clay bowl.
“Just noticing it now, are you? He prepares for things that the rest of us can’t even dream up. It’s probably why he’s survived so long. Likely why he survived long enough to find you.”
“I want…to be helpful.”
“I know,” Eskel’s eyes were soft, “I know it can feel like he doesn’t care for you, but he does. He just doesn’t understand how to show it. Asking you to come along with him, that’s one of the surest signs I can think of that he cares for you and values you. With time, he’ll learn to trust you, and you him. The world hasn’t been kind to either of you. Trust takes time to rebuild, especially when in the past involving himself has only hurt him.”
Ciri bit back the comment she wanted to make, about how she wished Geralt could summon the words and the courage to tell her this himself. It made her angry that all reassurances about their relationship came by way of Eskel. Not only did it put him in a difficult position, but it frustrated Ciri about Geralt’s inability to communicate. Although, having spent weeks on the road with him, she knew he was more than happy not to communicate at all. She hoped this trip would be different.
“We’ve had this conversation so many times, Eskel. It will be what it is.”
There was no chance that Eskel believed her nonchalant act, Ciri thought. The man was far too perceptive. But he didn’t question her further, and she turned back to her dishes, and he to his drying. When they were finished, Ciri followed the Witcher back to the library, where they continued their search into her family’s history as the sun waned in the West.
“You’ll set out anything interesting you find while I’m gone?”
“Of course. I have a few ideas of places where I could look to do some more extensive research, if you’d like. I can bring the books I think are relevant up to your room, so you can read them when you get back.”
Outside, a bird chittered loudly. Ciri recognized the sound of a robin and smiled softly. It comforted her that the sounds she had heard her entire life in Cintra were still present, reminding her of her home. As a little girl, she had often hurled heavy objects at the robins singing outside her bedroom window at first light.
“Thank you. Although I’m not sure we’ll find anything else. It feels like we’ve been through every book in this library.”
“Don’t get discouraged quite yet. There are other places we can look. I know you want answers.”
Ciri winced and jammed her index finger into her mouth as blood welled up on it from a paper cut. Eskel tossed her a spare piece of parchment to staunch the bleeding, and watched, fascinated, as she tried to get it to clot.
“I forget you’e human so often,” he said, almost to himself, “I keep expecting you to stop bleeding as quickly as we do, to be able to jump and fight as well as we can. It’s strange to have someone who isn’t a Witcher living in the Keep.”
Ciri fought back the urge to glare at him, knowing he hadn’t meant to make her feel like an outsider. Everywhere she went these days, she wasn’t quite right. Like a puzzle piece placed in the wrong box; too chaotic to be human, but not enough to be a Witcher. It made her head ache.
“Well, if my blood starts clotting faster, you’ll be the first to know,” she said, somewhat waspishly. Eskel shot her a look and went back to his reading, settling back in a winged armchair. Ciri took her own stack of books over to the fire, where she dragged a bear skin over herself despite the heat and curled up, frustrated. Her eyes skimmed the pages but didn’t really take anything in; it was mostly dull anyways. An account of the marriage between some King and Princess of Cintra long before her time. She didn’t know what she was expected to uncover about her abilities amidst an inventory of how many hams were consumed at a wedding feast three hundred years ago.
At some point, Eskel stood and left. Ciri was nodding off, and she felt someone take the book from her limp hands and tuck the skin closer around her shoulders. Snuggling up a bit, she curled her legs up to her chest, wincing when she felt bruises from her last fencing session with Vesemir. The fire crackled and popped in the background, each loud noise sounding especially grating on her tired ears. Someone stoked the fire and closed the windows to keep the spring heat from making the room stifling, but Ciri was too tired to see who it was. Eventually, her uneasy slumber drifted into a deeper sleep, plagued by dreams of the man with the feathered helmet, and a little girl with ashen hair and a dirty face. When the little girl turned, her hands were bloodied and filthy. With horror, Ciri realized she was digging a grave. And in that grave, face smooth and noble and unlined in a way she had never seen it in life, was Geralt.