Chapter Text
Alys hadn’t seen her brother in. Years. Fuck. Longer than she should have, probably. He was just so bloody hard to track down -- the bastard refused to stay in one place for longer than approximately eight seconds and it had only gotten worse since he’d apparently gone and shacked up with a Witcher.
And not even any ordinary Witcher (not that Witchers were ordinary), Julien had gone and made friends(?) with Geralt of Rivia -- The Butcher of Blaviken! The White Wolf!
Like the idiot needed any help getting himself murdered; he just needed to open his damn mouth most days and everyone in the general vicinity wanted to stab him, shag him, or most often: both.
He had written several pretty decent ballads in the meantime, though. Which was great for him and terrible for her because once again she was regulated to just Julien’s goddamn sister. Nevermind her own merits.
Whatever; it got her gigs. Amaryllis ! The twin sister of Jaskier! She’s so amazing! Ah! Fuck, and she could not stress this enough, all of the way off with that horseshit.
She was absolutely going to punch the little shit in the face the next time she saw him.
Well.
That had been the plan , except somewhere between her stupid brother’s delighted “ Tuney! ” and her formidable right hook, a large, leather gloved hand had caught her wrist before it could commence with the bruising of the tanned, freckle smattered cheek.
“Jaskier,” and wow, ok, that was a growl. The White Wolf was holding her arm in the air and he was growling in her direction, she was absolutely not a fan. Fuck that whole thing right up the ass with a fiddle and bow, “a friend of yours?”
The way he said ‘friend’, like he thought she was yet another of Julien’s jilted lovers activated her gag-reflex at the same time it made her bark out a laugh -- the resulting sound was anything but attractive and had her sounding more like a braying donkey with a head cold than anything else.
“ Disgusting ,” she gasped out, trying to yank her arm away to exactly zero avail because Witchers were stupidly, stupidly, insanely strong, “I’m his sister!”
Bashful smiling had always been Julien’s specialty; he’d widen his eyes and look up through his eyelashes, chew on the inside of his lip just so and immediately get out of any trouble he found himself in.
It often left Alys stuck in the middle, usually covered in mud, and always getting lectured on how to be more ‘ladylike’. Which; gross. She showed them ladylike; she’d been caught necking in the stables with the mayor’s daughter; gotten arrested several times; done a small jaunt as a vigilante; and now, apparently, frowned at Witchers until they let her the fuck go with a vaguely disapproving grunt.
To be fair, however, if their mother had wanted perfect children maybe she shouldn’t have buggered a fae.
Just a thought.
“Sister,” Geralt said, eyebrows rising towards his hairline, “You never mentioned a sister.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Alys rolled her eyes, “I don’t tell people about him either. They always seem to connect the damn dots, though. ‘Oh are you Jaskier’s baby sister? How darling!’ Nevermind the part where I am actually five minutes older than you, you stupid bastard bard.”
Julien’s charming smile melted into an honestly delighted grin and Alys was pulled into a hug that crushed the air from her lungs, smelt of several days on the road (and something that might have been monster guts), and felt like coming home and sinking into a warm bath at the end of the day.
“Missed you, Tuney,” he whispered into her hair.
“Shut the fuck up,” Alys snapped, bringing her arms up to clutch her brother just as tightly as he had her, “Don’t call me that. I cannot fucking stand you.”
Never leave me again , stupid .
“Sorry, sorry, Amaryllis . Bit of a mouthful, don’t you think?”
Oh, when compared to Jaskier --
“Just call me Alys,” she rolled her eyes and pulled away, brushing imaginary dust from her vest and pants like just being in his proximity could have damaged her clothes, “Have you spoken to our parents recently?”
“Absolutely not,” Julien answered immediately, “have you?”
“Briefly,” it took so much effort, but she managed to school her face into something serious and solemn, “Father is dying.”
One, two, three beats of silence; with Julien staring at Alys in shock and Alys trying valiantly to keep her lips from twitching, then they both broke.
“ Finally ,” Julien gasped through his laughter, “fuck, I thought that old bastard was going to live forever.”
Alys led him to the bar, the Witcher following close behind looking bemused, “Mother is devastated, obviously. So devastated, in fact, that she’s been sleeping in one of the guest rooms. With her aide.”
“Of course,” Julien agreed, settling into a tall stool between two identical, empty ones; Geralt took the one on his right, leaving the left for Alys.
She couldn’t help but notice that the Witcher had pointedly settled himself on her brother’s non-dominant side, “I don’t suppose you’re going to return home and be Lord Pankratz ?”
“Absolutely not,” Julien repeated, with feeling, waving down the barkeep to order them all a round of ale, “And it’s no less intention than you have of assuming your role of Lady .”
Pulling a face, Alys had to hand it to him. He wasn’t wrong, “Neither of us were meant for that life, Jules,” she said, so softly even she could barely hear herself.
Her brother did, though. And so did his companion.
“You two are surprisingly… gauche… about your father’s imminent passing,” Geralt pointed out, “especially considering you ,” he pointed an accusing finger at Julien, “cried when I killed a deer for dinner last week.”
“That deer had never done anything untoward to anyone,” Julien defended, lifting his newly acquired mug for emphasis, “our father, however, is a bigger bastard than just about anyone I’ve ever met.”
“And that’s including us,” Alys added, sipping idly on her own ale, content to watch the two of them do… whatever it was they were doing, “considering that he’s not actually our father and Julien here did, in fact, inherit his tendency to sleep around through honest genetics.”
Blinking shrewd, golden eyes slowly, Geralt sat back with a grunt, “Why couldn’t I have run into her first,” he asked despairingly, though there was a tilt to his mouth and a warmness to Julien’s eyes that let Alys in on the fact that he didn’t mean it, “ She’s tolerable.”
And hell, she could toast to that.
And so she did, while Julien, predictably, squawked indignantly in the background.
Flirting is what, apparently, she had been privy to watching Geralt and Jaskier (because he’d refused, point blank, to call her anything but ‘Tunie’ if she kept referring to him as Julien and fair is fair, she supposed) engage in, back in that dimly lit bar a hundred miles from nowhere.
Terrible, no good flirting that she really thought Jaskier would have turned his nose up at because he had standards, last she checked. But Geralt was… different. Than the other lovers her brother had taken over the years.
For one, he seemed to have been around for more than a decade -- which spanned back to the last several times Alys had actually seen Jaskier and he had said nothing about being romantically attached, earning himself a solid wallop to the side of his big, stupid head-- without Jas ever becoming bored of him.
For another, he called her brother Jas so often that she’d started picking up on it.
He never put anise in the stew, even if it was plentiful in the area they made camp in, because Jas hated the stuff with the fury of a thousand dragons fighting over one goat. He kept lute oil and strings in his own pack because, if there was one thing Jaskier definitely was, he was a disaster and he always forgot to stock up on his own.
Though, to his own credit, Jas seemed to be the only person in the entire goddamn world to have cracked the enigma that was Geralt of Rivia. To Alys, even after nearly a year of traveling together, every stilted ‘Hmm’ from the Witcher sounded exactly the same.
He rarely tried it with her anymore, since the resemblance between her and her brother was never more apparent than when they were being a stubborn jackass about something and she’d taken to raising a single eyebrow and staring at him until he used his words like an adult , fucking Pan help us all, Geralt.
Jaskier had, on more than a few dozen occasions, had full conversations with Geralt in which the other man only responded with a single hum every time it was his turn to speak. It made Alys want to pull her hair right out of her head and use it to strangle them both .
Then there was Cirilla; the Lion Cub of Cintra, grandaughter of Queen fuckin Calanthe and apparently Geralt’s child surprise . She was small, with a head of wild silver hair and an even wilder grin as she leapt from a tall branch in an even taller tree to tackle the Witcher when they’d gotten close to ‘their destination’; which Geralt refused to comment on and Jas simply called ‘home’.
Turns out, it was a small, coastal town, with sand the color of midnight and a comfortable cottage on a cliff where, hands down, the most beautiful woman Alys had ever seen emerged from the front door looking decidedly unimpressed with the lot of them.
It was nearly winter and the chill bit through Alys’ cloak, but the scarily resplendent woman simply leant against the door jam in a thin, dark dress that had the half-fae’s thoughts taking a sharp turn away from the family friendly.
Jaskier broke away from the group, where Geralt was weighed down with Cirilla (“Call me Ciri.) on his shoulders, batting at the drooping branches around them like an overgrown, very contented house cat as she chatted amiably with the veritable mountain of a man, and Alys was hanging back because she had no idea what the fuck was going on, to bound up to the woman and sweep her off of her feet and around in a circle.
“Yennefer!” He hadn’t set her down, instead grinning up at her like she was the whole sun, “You’re early!”
“Actually,” said Yennefer, settling her hands delicately on Jaskier’s shoulders, “you’re late. As always.” Jaskier pouted as he set her back on her feet, but she paid him no mind, turning instead to the other three, “And you brought a friend.”
Oh fuck, Alys was supposed to talk to her, wasn’t she? Pretty women had always thrown her off; she could charm the pants off of any man she needed to, for fun or for profit, but there was something about a beautiful woman that made all of the blood rush to her cheeks and her voice emerge in a squeak like a church mouse.
“I’m Amaryllis,” she managed, swallowing past the lump in her throat, “you can call me Alys, if you like.”
“Our bard,” Geralt supplied from a few feet in front of her, “neglected to mention the fact that he’s a twin .”
Yennefer’s eyebrows rose; Jaskier had the decency to look a little sheepish.
“It never came up?” He tried, earning four disgusted scoffs in return.
Tentatively, Alys held her hand up for a high five, which Ciri returned with a delighted grin.
Sending Geralt and Jaskier to collect firewood -- more to get rid of them than an actual need for it -- Yennefer and Ciri filled Alys in on all of the things Geralt and Jaskier had left out over warm cups of tea and a strange, complicated card game at which Ciri was almost certainly cheating.
Yennefer, Jaskier, and Geralt were all together. Like, together-together. Yen had just laughed at her surprise.
“I didn’t see it coming either,” she admitted, “in fact, I couldn’t stand your brother for a solid decade. And the feeling was absolutely mutual.”
“He’s useless around any woman immune to his ‘boyish charm’,” Alys agreed, frowning at her cards, “which is why he avoided me for so long.” After much consideration, she set down a red four.
“That makes sense,” Ciri said sagely, dropping a blue four onto the pile and changing the color --fuck, Alys was out of blues-- “he never knows what to say around Yen. She’s threatened to turn him into an eel, before.”
“You’re a sorceress? How the fuck -- you are so out of my brother’s league.”
Yennefer laughed, loud and free, throwing her head back, the inky tumble of her hair fluttered with motion.
When Jaskier and Geralt returned with the firewood that was absolutely, totally necessary, thank you boys! They found the card game abandoned and Yennefer performing increasingly elaborate magic tricks to the cheering of Ciri and Alys.
Looking over her shoulder and grinning toothily at her brother and his Witcher, Alys had the distinct feeling that she’d just been adopted into a super weird family. And after so long being on her own, it felt pretty fucking good.
Because nothing gold can stay, things went to shit in the spectacular fashion that could only befall a group that consisted of two bards, a Witcher, a sorceress, and a child of destiny.
That is to say, everything went from casual Sunday stroll to completely tits up in less than a minute.
It was pure luck and excellent hearing on the side of her mother’s indiscretion that had Jaskier and Alys looking up at the notching of an arrow and Alys being close enough to Ciri to throw herself in front of her and take said arrow to her shoulder rather than the girl getting pegged directly in her eye.
“Fuck!” It was her fucking good arm. She was fairly ambidextrous, but she would be useless with her own bow if she couldn’t pull the string.
“Alys!” Ciri’s hands were reaching for her shoulder, swears that no child should ever have occasion to use falling from her lips as she took in the damage, “It went straight through,” she said; Alys could only just hear her over the clamor of Geralt’s swords and Yen slinging spells, “that’s good.”
“It doesn’t feel good,” Alys hissed petulantly through gritted teeth; her jaw was clenched so tightly she was surprised her bones didn’t just shatter to escape the pressure, “just get it out, Ciri.”
“There’s too many of them!” That was Jaskier; then his warmth was at Alys’ other side. She was flanked between them, Jas and Ciri.
Fuck. She should be protecting them .
“Take it out, ” she said again, “Cirilla! Now!”
Hands quick and deft, even as her fingers trembled, Ciri snapped feathered end of the arrow off as close to the wound as she could gain the leverage, “On three okay?” She asked, and when Alys nodded she said, “Three!” And yanked .
Alys cried out in surprise, eyes snapping open as the few tears that had managed to squeeze themselves from the corners of her eyes trailed down her cheeks, “ Fuck! ”
“If I counted you would have tensed up,” Ciri explained, inserting herself gingerly under Alys’ injured arm while Jas took her right, urging her insistently to her feet, “it’s easier when you’re relaxed.”
While Alys wouldn’t exactly call herself relaxed , at least the arrow was out of her fucking shoulder, “Where are Geralt and Yen?”
“Here,” Yen said at her back, “I’m opening a portal. Geralt is picking off the ones close enough to try and jump with us.”
Things went a little murky for a moment; Alys’ head felt heavy. Too heavy to keep up; like someone had attached weights to her ears. She kept nodding forward; Jas and
Ciri struggling to keep her upright as her knees liquified inside her skin.
“S’mthings wr’ng,” she slurred; distantly she knew there must have been something on the arrow; but words were very hard and her tongue was suddenly too large inside of her mouth. Speaking felt clumsy. “C’ri, s’mthing’s--”
“Shit,” she was hefted up higher on her right side, Jaskier getting with the goddamn program like a champ, “Ciri, look in Geralt’s bag. There should be a vial marked with a small ‘x’; it’ll have light purple liquid in it.”
“What is it?” Ciri asked, but she was already moving -- bless the child, as curious as she was about absolutely everything, she seemed to have mastered the art of multitasking.
“General antidote -- the arrow was poisoned. Even on the off chance it was a specialized formula, this targets the key toxins and neutralizes the effects. Alys invented it herself -- she’s always been a little chemist.” Jaskier was rambling; that wasn’t a good sign.
“Yen, hurry up, we have to--” Geralt broke off, “what happened to Amaryllis?”
Managing to shift her eyes just enough to peek up at him with her head lolling as it was on her brother’s shoulder, Alys tried to tilt at least one side of her mouth upwards. It probably came out more like a grimace than a smile, but it was the thought that counted.
And she always made sure to smile at him, when his eyes went dark and inky veins spread across his forehead -- he thought he was a monster and she had decided to make it a point to prove that she, at least, didn’t think so, despite how concerned she’d been about Jaskier’s relationship with him at the beginning.
It was very quickly apparent that her brother was in love love with both Geralt and Yen and fuck it all if she wasn’t thrilled. At least one of them got a happy ending.
“G’r’lt,” she said around a mouth full of cotton, “‘m ‘kay.”
“Poison,” Ciri answered quickly, and then the soft pop of a cork being pulled from a glass vial and the mouth of the bottle of antidote was pressed to her lips.
“Open,” Jas ordered.
Even under the threat of death, there was the moment of obstinate refusal to do what her sibling told her to do before she gave in and let him pour the bitter liquid down her throat.
The initial headrush was stronger than the dizziness from the poison had been and her knees finally gave up the ghost.
Geralt lurched forward and caught her as she pitched forward, hauling her up and against his chest with one arm, “ Yennefer !”
“I’m going ,” Yen shouted back.
Oh, she sounded mad. Geralt was sleeping on the couch.
The light from the portal was so bright Alys had to squint her eyes against it with a hiss. Oh, fuck , she hated traveling by portal.
“I might throw up on you,” she warned weakly, but hey, at least she could get words out again; the next time someone asked her who she was she was going to respond that she was one hell of a chemist and leave it at that.
Geralt grunted in acknowledgement and Alys decided to take it as ‘ Don’t worry about it, oh, favorite sister in law of mine. I’ve definitely dealt with worse and anything would be worth it to keep you safe. I love you very much and extremely platonically.”
As much as she hated it, Alys had traveled via portal several handfuls of times and as such, when something went wrong, she immediately noticed. It wasn’t anything apparent so much as it was the energy that was off.
Something in the air that rushed around them tasted like old blood -- her skin tingled and her hair stuck up like she’d been struck by lightning.
On instinct, she thrashed, throwing herself from Geralt’s hold the second the magic overtook them.
Someone yelled -- maybe it was Yen, maybe it was Jas, hell, it could have even been her for all of the awareness she could muster
The wind whipped her hair, pulled back in a thick horsetail, around her face and then she was landing, crashing, really, onto something hard like stone, but too rough.
The world around her smelled like fire and metal; people were yelling; she opened her eyes to a blue sky stained by smoke and people dressed in dark blue, matching uniforms gathered around her.
“Jas…?” She rasped, blinking slowly; she turned her head.
She was alone.
She was alone.
She was--
Nothing.