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They’re somewhere in Velen. Ciri really doesn’t care exactly where—it’s been far too many weeks on the road, her and Geralt and Yennefer and Jaskier, and while she knows that the Path they walk isn’t an easy one, does it really have to be this miserable?
She huffs and turns over in the bedroll she shares with Yennefer. Normally her warm embrace is all Ciri needs to fall asleep, but there’s a strange energy running through her, urging her to get up, walk around a little. Geralt always says that it’s too dangerous to leave camp, but then again, he and Jaskier do it all the time to go make out. At least it means she doesn’t have to see them do it, because gross.
So surely it’s alright if she gets some of her restless energy out. Besides, she doesn’t want to keep disturbing Yennefer with her tossing and turning—all four of them need whatever sleep they can get, with how often her nightmares wake them. Giving them a few minutes of peace is the least she can do to make up for it.
Carefully, she extracts herself from the bedroll and walks out of the camp, moonlight guiding her steps. There’s a strange tugging behind her breastbone, calling to her like Brokilon had, and she follows the urge until she comes across a clearing, completely empty except for a ring of mushrooms growing in the center.
It’s calling to her—it promises rest, and peace, and a break from all her troubles. And the fizzing energy has suddenly left her body all at once, leaving her swaying, dangerously close to falling asleep upright. As if in a trance, she walks over to the mushroom circle.
As soon as her foot crosses the line, she knows no more.
Geralt snaps awake. Something is wrong.
He jolts upright, heedless of the way it makes Jaskier slide off of his chest, grumbling incoherently at the disturbance to his sleep. He doesn’t actually wake, though, not until Geralt reaches down a hand and shakes him awake. “Get up. Ciri’s gone.”
“Wha?” Jaskier asks, face pinched in confusion, and then dread takes over. “Oh, fuck.”
Across the almost-dead fire, Yennefer is already standing, violet eyes set in determination, and Geralt knows that she would do anything to get their daughter back. Including storming off into the woods, skirts hiked up, like she is now.
“Yen, wait. Let me track her,” Geralt calls, and Yen’s hands curl into fists, but she takes a deep breath and nods.
Geralt walks over to the bedroll and finds footprints set lightly into the earth. They’re not deep nor irregular, like they would be if Ciri had fought, or ran, or been in any sort of distress. It allays his worries somewhat, but the tight grip of fear is still clenched around his heart.
“She went into the woods,” Geralt explains, following her tracks to the edge of camp.
“Any chance she’s just answering nature’s call?” Jaskier asks hopefully.
Geralt shakes his head. “Got a bad feeling about this.”
“You always do,” Yennefer sighs, but heads out into the woods after Geralt, as does Jaskier. Together, the three of them follow Ciri’s trail all the way to a clearing, only to stop short when they see Ciri lying on the ground, a formless figure hunched over her.
Geralt gets the impression of red hair and wings and teeth, and curses himself for not bringing his silver sword. He knew that the fae liked to wander this area, luring in unsuspecting travelers, but he always thought that he’d be able to protect their party should any threat arise.
He’s regretting that thought now, because Ciri is deeply asleep, and remains so even after Yennefer calls her name, a wretched, desperate plea.
“An endless sleep the girl does seek. Weariness makes her so weak.”
Riddles. Geralt hates riddles. Luckily, Jaskier has no such hesitations, and launches into verse in response. “Oh blessed fae, we beg you say. What want you with our daughter? We seek to know where you have brought her.”
“She shall stay and be ours, frolicking among the flowers.”
“My dearest, mighty, revered friend, we beg you Ciri’s sleep to end,” Jaskier replies easily, and the fae straightens. Geralt gets the distinct sense of unhappy-keep-ours, and readies himself for a battle, Yennefer doing the same beside him.
Except the fae’s form blurs, and shifts, and solidifies into a redheaded woman holding six unlit candles. It begins to chant once more. “Six candles, six fears. Light them all and they appear. Face your fears and she will wake; else her soul the fae will take.”
The fae vanishes into thin air, as if it were never there at all, the only evidence of its presence the six candles now ringed around Ciri, who remains deathly still.
“Well. That sounds delightful,” Jaskier comments, when nobody says anything. “What are the chances that by ‘fears’ she meant ‘mild dislikes’?”
“The fae are cruel. That won’t be nearly enough for them,” Yennefer says, drawing closer to the fairy ring.
“Don’t cross it,” Geralt warns, and Yennefer shoots him a look.
“I know,” she says acidly. Her stress is evident, though she looks scarily composed when she sits down next to the circle. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
“What, we’re just going to do what the scary demon woman in the woods told us?” Jaskier asks incredulously. “Do your—your magic, or your witchering, or something.” He waves a hand vaguely.
“Fae rules are incredibly strict,” Geralt tells him. “It’s often wiser to play along, lest you risk unforeseen consequences.” He joins Yennefer around the circle, taking her hand where she’s held it out to him, and doing the same for Jaskier.
Jaskier sighs, but comes to join them, completing the circle of linked hands. “So how do we do this? ‘Light them all, and they’ll appear’?”
Geralt releases Jaskier’s hand to form the sign of Igni, but it doesn’t take. Frowning, he tries again, and again, but every time, the candles fail to light.
“What’s wrong?” Yennefer asks.
“They won’t light.”
“Well that’s bullshit! How the fuck are we supposed to light them?” Jaskier cries, voice heavy with dismay.
“’Six candles, six fears,’” Yennefer repeats. “Face your fear… Jaskier, what’s your greatest fear?”
“Spiders,” Jaskier answers immediately, but the candles still don’t light.
“Are they really?” Yennefer asks, giving him an intense look.
“Yes! Remember that arachnomorph contract? Nightmares for weeks, after that.” Geralt and Yennefer stare flatly at him. “Oh, alright then. I suppose…” He trails off.
“It’s important, Jaskier. For Ciri,” Geralt prods him.
Jaskier takes a steadying breath and nods. “I know. I know.” There’s a pause, and then he continues. “Just… would someone else go first?”
Geralt stares at Ciri, alone and so small in the middle of the circle. “The trials,” he says softly, and with a small woosh, the first candle lights up. “I fear the trials… I imagine Ciri going through them, and it makes me…”
He can’t finish the thought. It’s something he only thinks about during the darkest nights, something he can’t help but worry at like a tongue prodding relentlessly at a sore tooth. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, the clearing is gone, and the three of them are standing around a young ashen-haired child, strapped to a table and screaming, writhing in pain.
Yennefer gasps. Jaskier looks like he’s going to be sick. Geralt can’t summon the words to explain, but they come tumbling out of him anyway. “They injected us with the mutagens that gave us out mutations. All I can remember is… pain, burning, blinding pain. Only three of us survived.”
The scene fades, and Geralt finds himself back in the clearing, with the sound of screams still echoing in his ears. One candle is still burning steadily, though—five to go.
“Geralt…” Jaskier says, sounding anguished, and it’s too much for Geralt’s raw, open heart to bear.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Later. We need to focus on Ciri right now.”
Jaskier swallows. “Yes, you’re right. Well then. My greatest fear is…”
Before he can even finish, the scene around them changes again, this time to an elegant dining room, where three people are seated around the table. Two adults, one child—and the woman has Jaskier’s eyes, while the man has Jaskier’s chin and nose.
“Julian, how many times must I tell you, no music at the dinner table!” Jaskier’s mother says sharply, and the young boy—Julian, Jaskier—looks up guiltily from where he’d been drumming his fingers on the top of the table.
“But I wasn’t--!” he argues, only to quail when his father pushes back his chair.
“Don’t you contradict your mother! You will listen to us when we speak!” He strides over to where Julian is sitting, terrified.
“I wasn’t—” Julian tries again, only for his father to grab him roughly by the arm and drag him away from the table.
“Go to the stables. I’ll deal with you soon,” his father orders, voice cold, and Julian slinks out of the room, unbuttoning his doublet as he goes. Geralt is confused, until he sees Jaskier’s father grab a riding crop before exiting the dining room. Jaskier’s mother continues to eat her meal, even as the sound of leather on skin echoes through the scene.
When it fades away, Jaskier’s face is carefully blank, the way it is when he’s hiding his emotions but is too tired to project a jovial front over them.
“Bastard,” Yennefer says, her face dark with fury. “I know a thing or two about shite fathers, and trust me, you definitely qualify.”
Jaskier smiles, a small thing, but it’s there. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “It’s all in the past now, though. I don’t know why it’s still…”
“The past can be hard to escape,” Geralt rumbles, Butcher of Blaviken echoing in his head. “All we can do is live in the present as best we can, taking strength in those we love.”
“Hm. Suppose you’re right, even if that sounds rather poetic of you,” Jaskier responds. He looks then at the candles—two are lit. “I guess… Yennefer?” he asks, though he looks as if he’s braced for her to hex him.
But he needn’t worry—Yennefer grimaces, but closes her eyes, and a stone room fades into view. “Aretuza,” she explains, voice tightly controlled. “Where I was trained. Absolutely cutthroat—it was the only way to survive.”
A chair appears in the middle of the room—and Yennefer, younger, her spine twisted and her mouth set in vicious determination—is strapped into it.
“Cruel. Unpredictable. You enter, you survive, you die. Those who didn’t adapt well—they were cast aside like rubbish.”
A moat, glittering with an otherworldly light, appears, ringing around the room, casting ethereal shadows. There are eels swimming in it—Geralt knows they used to be Yennefer’s classmates. She’d told him, once, of a friend she’d lost. Anica.
“I adapted. I made myself what they wanted me to be—a court mage of the highest order, ascendant, no matter how much it cost.”
The Yennefer in the chair screams, writhes, snaps her bonds and falls to the floor. Her body reforms, grotesque, bones snapping into place.
“They took everything from me. They made me think I had a choice—but what choice is it, to change yourself to fit someone else’s idea of success, or to be forgotten? Powerless, at the mercy of others?”
The Yennefer from the past stills, panting, and then fades, as does the room around them. Yennefer opens her eyes, and Geralt catches a glimpse of pain within them, before she buries it beneath her usual cool exterior.
“That was… horrific,” Jaskier finally says, grimacing.
“That’s life,” Yennefer responds, and then turns her attention to the remaining candles. Halfway there. “Geralt?”
Geralt wracks his brain to think of another fear—but between one breath and the next, Yennefer, Jaskier and Ciri are suddenly gone. He’s been plunged into another scene—only he’s alone this time, and dread makes his heart clench.
He stands up and finds himself on a hillside, the smell of smoke heavy in the air. And in the distance—Cintra.
Cintra is burning. Geralt is frozen in place, feet stilled with horror, as he watches flames consume the city. Beetle-backed soldiers swarm the streets, killing and pillaging all they come across. But Ciri isn’t there. Despite the horrors that razed the city, he knows that she escaped, that she made it out before Cintra burned to ash—except he catches a glimpse of ash-blonde hair, buried beneath the rubble, just before another building collapses on top.
Ciri is dead.
“Ciri!” he yells, and blinks, and then she’s standing beside him, tears filling her emerald eyes. “Ciri,” he whispers, trying to pull her into a hug, but his arms pass through her like a wraith.
Her sorrow turns to fear as she looks straight through him—Geralt turns and sees a Nilfgaardian soldier, a feather upon his helmet, reaching out. Geralt dodges instinctively, heart hammering, and the soldier grabs Ciri, tackling her to the ground. “Got you,” he says viciously, pinning her down despite how she screams and struggles.
Geralt feels sick—he doesn’t know what the Nilfgaardians want with her, but it can’t be anything good. Except she escaped, he knows she did—she evaded him as he tracked her through the forest, enduring hunger and cold—
And the scene shifts again—
And Ciri is curled up in the frozen leaf litter deep in the woods, her blue cloak wrapped tightly around her, but she’s not moving. She’s not breathing, and her eyelashes are frosted closed, and her skin has gone grey—
No, she didn’t, she didn’t—
She didn’t die in Cintra, she wasn’t captured by Cahir, she didn’t freeze to death in the woods. Geralt knows, because he can so clearly recall the moment when Destiny slotted into place like a key into a lock, the way she fit so perfectly into his arms as he swayed in exhaustion, both of them having gone through hell, but finally together.
He knows it, but stuck in the fae’s nightmare illusion, Geralt feels fear curdling in his stomach. It’s the swooping feeling he gets whenever he dives off of a particular high drop, the gnawing anxiety that makes his palms itch with the urge to run go get away that was supposed to have been beaten out of him during training.
Ciri, Ciri, Ciri, his mind chants, a frantic drumbeat warning him to protect, to save, to fight. But there’s nothing he can do.
He’s failed her.
Yennefer is suddenly alone—except she’s not alone, because soon after words leave her mouth, she blinks and finds herself alone in the camp with Ciri. The fire is crackling merrily along, and it’s exactly like it is during the evenings, when Geralt and Jaskier sneak off into the woods to ‘hunt’ and Yennefer teaches Ciri how to do magic.
“It’s not working,” Ciri complains. “You said portalling was the first thing you ever did. I should be able to get this.”
“It’s your job to control Chaos,” Yennefer hears herself say, an echo of Tissaia so long ago. “I cannot make you do it. Harness your Chaos, like lightning in a bottle.”
Except no, that’s wrong, that’s not how Yennefer wants to teach Ciri—bottling it up only leads to an explosion later. She knows exactly how destructive it can be from Sodden, and never wants Ciri to get the same kind of training she did. Yennefer can do better. Ciri can be better.
“Again,” Yennefer orders, and Ciri reaches out, clumsily, inexpertly. Yennefer feels the spell slip away again.
Ciri growls in frustration. It’s almost cute—the Lion Cub imitating her father, the snarling White Wolf—except this is the kind of frustration that can lead to accidents happening.
Lightning in a bottle, and anger, jealousy so hot she feels as if she might burst with it, and before she knows it she’s bringing her arms up and wishing to hurt.
Yennefer shakes the memory off, well-practiced by now at pretending Aretuza never existed. “I know you’re frustrated. Good. Use that, use it to harness your Chaos—” Yennefer instructs, and Ciri rounds on her.
“I am,” Ciri snarls, grasping for her power once more, but it’s like trying to lasso an eel. The spell fizzles out, and Yennefer finds herself growing impatient.
“You’re not trying hard enough,” she says shortly, every word clipped and cool. “You need to be stronger. You’re better than this. Control your Chaos,” piglet, her mind adds on, so reminiscent of the way Tissaia used to speak to her.
Ciri yells, a wordless thing, and reaches for her Chaos—but it’s a mad, scrambled attempt, sloppy and reckless. Yennefer feels it twist and flip and suddenly Ciri is screaming, the power of her Elder blood flaring to life, consuming her from the inside out.
Yennefer throws everything she has into fighting past it, knowing that she has to put a stop to it, before Ciri’s own Chaos burns her up like parchment thrown onto a roaring fire.
But she’s not strong enough—every spell Yennefer tries fizzles out before it reaches Ciri. Desperate, Yennefer throws more and more power into it, dangerously low herself, but she knows she has to fix this. It’s her fault for not teaching Ciri well enough, for not teaching her how to control her powers, and now Ciri is going to be devoured from the inside out by them.
Yennefer’s well of power runs empty, and she falls into blackness, Ciri’s unearthly scream echoing in her ears.
Geralt and Yennefer are unconscious.
Jaskier doesn’t even know how it happened—he slept through the initial attack, like the stupid, useless human that he is. He's not Geralt, wakes at slightest disturbance, or Yennefer, who can set wards and be up in an instant should they be disturbed. No, he stupidly slept while bandits snuck into their camp, and only woke in time for Geralt to be bashed over the head with an axe and Yennefer to collapse from magical exhaustion after throwing spell after spell at the bandits.
“Pretty little bard with a pretty little princess,” one of the bandits says, rounding on where Jaskier has been bodily protecting Ciri, shielding her from them. But what good is he as a line of defense?
“Stay away from her,” Jaskier snaps, but the bandits keep converging on them. Jaskier herds her backwards, until his boots scuff against tree roots, and there’s nowhere else to go.
“What’s a puny little bard going to do against us?” the same bandit says, a wicked smirk on his face. He tilts his chin to the other bandits, who dart forward and grab Jaskier by the arms, wrenching him forwards and leaving Ciri unprotected.
“No! Leave her alone!” Jaskier screams, struggling in their grip, except they’re too strong. He doesn’t gain an inch, even as he grows more frantic as two other bandits pounce on Ciri.
If he were a witcher, he could overpower them and save her. If he were a mage, he could bespell them and save her. But he’s only human, and he’s powerless to do anything but scream and fight as the bandits tear off Ciri’s cloak.
She fights back—good girl, using techniques that Geralt taught her—until they bring out their swords, and hold one to Jaskier’s pale, quivering neck.
“No—Ciri—” Jaskier gasps out, even as the steel nicks his throat and line of blood starts running down his neck. Ciri stills immediately, eyes wide with fear.
“Don’t hurt him!” she begs, not fighting as the bandits once again subdue her.
“No, Ciri, you can’t—you have to fight—” Jaskier pleads, even as the bandit holding him presses his sword ever closer.
“She’s ours now, bard, you pathetic, weak thing,” he crows, and Jaskier knows it. He’s too slow, too weak, too human to be anything but a liability. Jaskier, always a coward, closes his eyes as the sound of her clothing tearing fills the air.
He’s worse than useless.
Ciri awakens with a gasp. She was having the most horrible dream—she’d left camp, following something in the woods that called to her, and came across a faerie.
And then she sits up and finds herself living that nightmare, in the middle of a mushroom circle, ringed by burnt-out candles—and just beyond the circle, Geralt, Yennefer and Jaskier are lying slumped, unconscious.
“Geralt!” she yells first, crawling over to the man who’s tied to her by Destiny. “Geralt, wake up,” she pleads, a sick feeling within her growing as he doesn’t wake. This is her fault, all her fault—if she’d stayed in camp like she was meant to, if she hadn’t wandered off, if she hadn’t gotten them all into trouble again…
She buries her face in Geralt’s broad chest, tears rising in her eyes. Please wake up, she thinks, please.
It’s Yennefer who gasps awake first. Ciri’s head shoots up just in time to see Yennefer pushing to her feet, magic crackling at her fingertips, teeth bared in a snarl. “Lady Yennefer!” Ciri shouts, scrambling to her feet and then crashing into the sorceress’ side, gripping her in a tight hug. Yennefer hugs back, her hands coming to clutch Ciri, holding her tight.
“Ciri,” Yennefer replies, “you’re alright?”
Ciri nods. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—I was just—I—” Ciri stammers, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.
“Shh, darling. You’re alright, you’re fine, and we’re fine too. Just a nasty scare, is all,” Yennefer soothes, instantly quelling Ciri’s fears. “And the boys will be waking up any minutes, I imagine.”
Sure enough, Geralt groans and rises next, scrubbing his hands over his face. Ciri abandons Yennefer’s warm embrace to rush over to him, dropping to her knees and pulling him into a hug. He returns it instinctively, even as he looks around in confusion. He relaxes as Yennefer joins them, though, kneeling beside them and resting a hand lightly on Ciri’s back.
And then Jaskier wakes with a highly undignified snort, rolling around a little bit before he sits up, eyes darting wildly about until he sees the three of them gathered around each other. “Oh, thank the gods, you’re all alright,” he sighs, and then inches closer, throwing himself haphazardly around them in an approximation of a hug.
Ciri loves them all so much, so much it hurts, sometimes. They’re her family, or better than, sometimes, a prosthetic limb to replace one she’d lost when Cintra fell—she relies on them, and needs them, and she’d almost lost them tonight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, tears once again rising as Geralt shushes her and strokes a hand down her back.
“No, Ciri, it’s not your fault,” he reassures her. “The calls of the fae are powerful. I should have scouted the area more carefully.”
“And I should have set better wards,” Yennefer adds.
“And I should have bargained better with the fae, made her wake you up sooner,” Jaskier finishes. “You poor dear, you must have been so scared.”
Ciri shakes her head. “No.”
“It’s alright if you were,” Geralt murmurs, hugging her tighter. “It’s not a weakness to admit that.”
“No, I wasn’t scared,” Ciri repeats, and finds that it’s true. “I knew you would save me. All of you.” She pulls back from where her head is buried in Geralt’s chest. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Yennefer replies. “We’d do anything for you, little lion cub.”
“I know,” Ciri says, her heart warming. “I love you.”
“We love you too,” Jaskier answers, for all of them. “Now, I, for one, have had quite enough scares for the night. Shall we get back to camp?” he asks, rising to his feet and holding out a hand to help Ciri up. She takes it, and it turns into him pulling her over his shoulders in a piggyback ride—it’s been ages since she last had one, and she’s probably too old for it, but she clings to him tightly anyway.
They make their way back to camp, and bed down for the rest of the night. Without her even needing to ask, they drag both bedrolls together so that they can all sleep in a pile—Ciri warm and protected in the center, heart filled with love, even as Jaskier complains that Yennefer’s feet are too cold and she responds by threatening to curse his bits off if he doesn’t shut up and Geralt growls until everyone is quiet and still.
She loves her family, makeshift and strange as it is, and wouldn’t change them for the world. And she knows they feel the same.