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There’s war brewing at the pits of the Continent; smoke rises to the sky in a cloud of black, and the air tastes of ash and death. Dara’s heart hammers against his ribcage as another platoon of soldiers dressed in black and gold passes him by. They are searching for someone, a princess named Cirilla, and while Dara might not know her, he hopes they don’t catch her. Still, he stays, frozen, feet firmly rooted on the ground and stays silent till the very last soldier is but a point in the horizon.
Dara wishes he weren’t alone, stranded in a foreign forest, so close to Cintra – the kingdom of the great cleansing. He wishes he had a good reason for being here at this moment, amidst war and pain. If he were a spy or an informant for the elves, anything really that would give him purpose.
But no, he’s not a spy, nor someone useful for his brethren; he’s just a kid that got separated from his merchant parents. A kid unfortunate enough to be travelling through hostile territory – he’s heard what they do to elves here, how they cut off their ears to keep them as trophies, how they burn them alive and watch as the flames claim them.
He shouldn’t be here, he should have convinced his parents that crossing through goddamn Cintra, through Calanthe the Elvenslayer’s land, was glorified suicide. He should have done something, anything, when the humans toppled his parents’ wagon- he should have-
He should have-
But he didn’t, and he’s all alone in a forest far away from home.
Dara tugs at his hat, nails digging into the rough woven fabric as the world around him blurs and his chest heaves with ugly undignified sobs.
He doesn’t know how long he spends crying his eyes out, cursing at the cruel world, curled up, knees on his chest in the dense undershrub of the forest. The growling of his stomach and the hollow feeling in his guts is the thing that shakes him from mourning his luck, that makes him dry his tears on the sleeve of his tunic and get up in search of something to eat.
In his search for food, he finds two things: a rat and a human girl, dirty and beaten from war, cheeks hollow from hunger, crouched in front of a very poisonous berry bush. Without a second thought, he throws a pebble at the dangerous plant and reluctantly steps out from behind the thick tree trunk that was hiding him. He shakes his head, eyes wide, and gestures to her that she will die if she eats them.
Don’t, he wants to say, poison. But he can’t, not when the danger of being recognised as an elf is very real, not when he’s unable to hide the accent he was raised with. That’s why he doesn’t speak and instead, he shows the girl the rat he caught beckoning her to join him in cooking and eating it.
“Uh, no thank you...” she says, “I don’t eat rat.”
He shrugs in response. Her loss, really.
“Uhm, wait!”
The small fire crackles as whatever little fat the rat has on it melts and drips into the flames. The girl looks at the small game cooking, licking her lips. Dara absently wonders what happened to the girl, how she came to be all by herself in the very same forest he’s been hiding in.
“Wh- Where in Cintra did you live?” she asks, her voice reluctant. Gods, he can’t answer that. A Cintran girl raised believing that his kind is the enemy, scum upon earth deserving only of death, can’t- shouldn’t. A cold shiver runs down his spine.
He says nothing.
“Where are your parents,” she asks next, and he busies himself in cleaning the mean off the rat’s brittle bones.
“Why don’t you talk?” she frowns.
Because you would never understand. Because the moment you find an adult of your kind you’re going to sell me out to die.
“I haven’t spoken to anybody in three days,” she says, fiddling with the seams of her cloak, “I guess… I’m on the run. I’m supposed to be going towards someone, but instead, I’m running from someone else.” She releases a shaky breath, her eyes downcast. It’s – Dara is – They’re the same. So very different but the same nonetheless. Two children stranded in the middle of a war started by others.
“He has this...” she continues, filling the silence, “-this big bird on his head,” she pauses, “I don’t know what he wants from me,” she shakes her head, and takes a deep breath, “We should smother the fire. I can’t be caught by him. I can’t.” Her green eyes are wide with fear, her voice quivering.
To a degree, he understands what she’s saying. He too, can’t be caught by anyone. There isn’t someone specific after him, no soldier or general with a winged helmet chasing him for gods know what reason, and he can’t even begin to imagine how that must feel, how much stress the girl is under – how long she’s fled from one place to the next.
He locks eyes with the girl and silently offers her the remaining rat to eat.
It’s cold, winter is fast approaching, and they’ve been walking for hours in that dreary forest that smells of ash and death. Dara rubs his hands together in a futile attempt to produce some warmth, to get the blood running to his digits.
The girl stops and wordlessly offers him one of her gloves.
Maybe, Dara thinks, maybe the girl can be trusted. Maybe the girl won’t judge him for what he is. Maybe-
“Look!” the girl says, pointing to the distance, a smile of relief and hope painted on her lips, “It’s the Cintran flag! Come on, we’re saved!”
Dara’s stomach twists as anxiety and fear fester inside it.
He turns quickly and runs in the opposite direction of the girl.
“Rat boy?” is the last thing he hears as he vanishes behind tall trees and bushes.
He knows he should leave the girl alone, he knows that she should be with her people as he should be with his. He should forget about her, about how scared and helpless she looked when she said that man with the helmet donning a bird is after her. He should forget her kindness – after all, she didn’t know who she was helping. She thought he was another Cintran child, separated from his loved ones. He should just leave, maybe make it to Brokilon, ask the mythical dryads for help. He should-
Should. Should. Should.
He has an awful feeling when another platoon of soldiers dressed in black and gold pass him by when amidst them a man wearing a helmet with a bird on it orders them to scan the forest for her, orders them to kill anyone who crosses their path .
He runs as fast as his legs can take him and finds the Cintran refugee encampment under attack. With his knife firm in hand, his hat secured, covering the pointy tips of his ears, he dashes through the camp, slashing the tents until he finds the girl and takes her to safety.
Dara gets lucky in his fifth try as she’s backed to the wall of the tent, breathing heavily, erratically as the screams of a woman echo from within the tent.
He grabs the girl’s arm and they run through fire and death. They run to safety.
They run till the sun rests high in the sky. They are both tired, and thirsty and when they encounter a small stream running through the low vegetation they stop to drink.
Dara makes a cup with his hands and leans down eagerly, quenching his thirst with the clear water.
“You’re an elf,” the girl says, and his heart jumps to his throat when he sees his hat lying on the ground beside him. Shit! It must have fallen off when- “Thank you,” the girl cuts off his panicked thoughts, “for saving me,” she smiles.
Oh.
Dara clenches his hat with both hands, “I’m Dara.”
“I’m Ciri,” she responds.
Ciri.
Cirilla, the men in black and gold had called in that forest.
Oh.
Dara wakes up in a mix of ash and snow. The cold seeps deep inside his bones, his lungs ache as the frosty air enters them. Ciri is nowhere to be seen, and his heart jumps to his throat.
He leaps to his feet and looks around. A sigh of relief leaves his lips as he locates Ciri a few hundred metres away from their camp.
“Ciri!” he calls.
No response.
“Ciri! Where are you going? Ciri!” he jogs towards her when she doesn’t answer. Panic runs through his veins as he watches her cross a barren field strewn with bleached bones – human bones – her footing swaying as chaos thrums through the air.
“Ciri!” he shouts and runs, “ Ciri! ”
A sharp pain blooms on his shoulder and he falls to the ground.
Dara opens his eyes in an unfamiliar place. It smells of ancient bark and moss, of moisture and decomposing leaves. His shoulder aches terribly; an arrow is embedded on it and he cries out loud in pain and fear.
“Stay still,” a woman – a dryad – commands giving him a piece of wood to bite on as she yanks the arrow off his shoulder. Shit, it hurts so much! Ciri, rushes beside him and grabs his hand on her own and the dryad pours a liquid of some sort on the open oozing wound and it sizzles and burns until-
Until the pain is gone as if it never existed in the first place.
The dryad leader Eithne tells them that Dara must drink the waters of Brokilon to determine if he’s pure of heart- if he bears no ill intent towards their forest or themselves. If the waters decide that he’s good, that he won’t harm them he may then stay in Brokilon forever, drink from its water and lessen his pain. It doesn’t sound bad, in theory, but he doesn’t want to stay cooped up in a foreign forest, away from his family, from his friends. He wonders if the dryads will ever let him go; if he’ll drink the waters and forget his previous life.
Will he be able to remember his mothers? His older sister?
There’s no need for Ciri to drink the waters, Eithne tells them, as she’s been in Brokilon once in the past, as a six-year-old child and the magic in the water had revealed her Elder blood lineage. Eithne calls Ciri a princess and tells her that she’s free to stay or to go, though the forest is dangerous and this time she has no witcher to escort her out.
A princess. This doesn’t sit well with Dara. Cirilla. Princess. Princess Ciri.
When Dara asks Ciri about this Elder blood about her royal lineage, she swallows a lump in her throat and is unable to meet his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she says, tears pooling in her eyes, “I’m sorry about what my grandma did to your people, Dara.”
He wants to scream, he wants to curse for all of elvenkind slayed by Calanthe’s injustice. For all the families lost, for all the friends his mothers had to bury. He was so little back when- when they lost everything, when the fires took their cities, their forests and fields.
But Ciri- Ciri did nothing to deserve his harsh words. She wasn’t even born back then. And if the brief days they shared showed Dara something, is that she’s capable of good, of compassion. She didn’t scream bloody murder when his hat fell off. She didn’t withdraw herself, she didn’t judge him. If anything she opened up, she shared with him her true name, when she could have easily forged an alias. When she could have lied through her teeth about everything her family did to his, she told him the truth. And she apologised.
He wants to hate her, he really does. But that would hardly be just, would it?
He groans into his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” Ciri repeats, her voice breaking as sobs escape her throat.
“Where do you want to go?” he changes the subject, shoving all these conflicted feeling deep in the furthest corners of his mind. “You said something, that first day...”
“That I’m running towards someone.”
He nods.
“The witcher, lady Eithne mentioned before. Geralt is his name,” Ciri says, “He’s my destiny. I need to find him.”
“Let’s find him, this witcher.” Dara finds himself saying, unsure why he’s offering to assist princess Cirilla of Cintra with such a hard task. What does he have to gain apart from escaping the uncertain future that awaits him if he stays with the dryads? Will this witcher even want to help a lost young elf find his family?
Screams. A turned over cart. Blood.
He shakes his head.
“But the waters,” Ciri stammers, “They won’t let you leave if you don’t pass this test.”
“I don’t want to forget,” my parents, my family, what happened to them , he doesn’t add.
“I didn’t forget back then,” she says, “But another human that drank from it did.” She confirms his fears.
“Let’s leave,” he urges, now more anxiously than before, “I can find my way around a forest, my mums taught me how.”
“A-alright,” Cir whispers and takes his hand.
Brokilon is ancient and vast. Tall trees reach the sky, their branches forming a canopy thick enough so very little light reaches the ground.
It takes hours of running – and honestly, that’s all they ever do these past few days; run – but they finally reach the edge of the forest. Dara doesn’t know why no dryad seemed to follow them; maybe it has to do with Ciri’s Elder blood, maybe they just don’t care about two lost children fleeing from the war. In any case, he’s not one to look a horse gift in the mouth, so he keeps his head low, and zigzags their way out of the woods, praying that no stray arrow embeds itself on his body again.
A man dressed in dark gold fine clothes, appearance attended to as if he were to roam palaces and royal banquets, stands at the treeline, a smile of relief painted on his face. “Your highness,” he says.
Ciri gasps in surprise and runs to hug the stranger man. “ Dara, this is Mousesack. He’s known me since I was borne. He’s like…”
“Like family,” Dara finds himself saying, the look of affection and joy on Ciri’s face tells him that she’s found herself an anchor, a person she can trust. And yet, there’s this ugly feeling that festers in Dara’s guts, this repulsion and this ache when he sees the girl’s happy face. It feels like jealousy, like a certain type of anxiety – but not quite.
It feels like the calm before the storm.
“What happened to you? Where did you go on that street?” she asks the man- Mousesack.
“What matters is I’ve found my way back to you. I’ve come to take you to your rightful place,” Mousesack says and there’s something about these words, something about the way he talks that doesn’t sit well with Dara. Rightful place? Where would that be when Cintra is but a pile of ashes by now? “It was your grandmother’s dying wish that I would take you to Geralt of Rivia. I know where to find him.”
Ah. The witcher Ciri told him about. The man claims to know where he is. Quite convenient.
Ciri turns to Dara, a smile of relief painted on her face, “You can come with us,” she offers.
“Keep walking, The Nilfgaardians could be anywhere,” Mousesack leads them between the frozen thicket, “We’re not safe yet.”
“How did you escape the attack, Mousesack?” Dara asks him, not quite convinced that this Mousesack isn’t hiding something from them. After all, Ciri did say she lost him in the middle of Nilfgaards invasion in the Cintran citadel. Must have been quite the luck to come out of it completely unscathed.
“Dara, please,” Ciri huffs.
“Ciri says you vanished into thin air,” Dara continues, “Why did you abandon your princess?” He doesn’t care if he feels accusatory, no sane person would abandon a child during a brutal attack.
“We were...” Mousesack stammers, never slowing down the pace of his walk, “I was pulled through a portal by Nilfgaard, kidnapped and held prisoner for days.”
Not the look someone sports after being imprisoned for days. Hm. Not that Dara knows much about prisoners but he’s seen his fair share of drunkards and thieves locked up in cages while his family passed through villages throughout the continent. And not a single one of those people, those criminals looked like this; they were all filthy and beaten, and miserable.
“And how did you escape them?”
“Geralt,” Mousesack responds, way too quickly, “He sent me to get Ciri.” The man turns to look at them, his teeth bared in a mockery of a smile.
“The witcher? Trained to fight and bound to Ciri. And he rescued you so you could rescue her?” Now that’s a bunch of bullshit and a complete leap in logic. “Alone?”
“Ask him yourself,” Mousesack stops and leans onto a tree, “He’s in a town, just past this thicket of trees. We must find him. To safety.”
“Something’s off about this, Ciri,” Dara whispers, hopefully out of the hearing range of the man.
“That’s not – You’re not – It can’t be-” she stutters weakly.
“Do you know what happens to people who escape a siege? Because they don’t just vanish, ” he gestures, “They get captured and they get turned. Ask him,” he says, “Ask him the right questions.”
If Mousesack is indeed a man they can trust he will give them straight answers, none of these vague “I know where Geralt is” or “He’s waiting nearby, I came here to save you” for no good reason. A witcher would surely be a better asset in a search party than a goddamn noble.
Ciri stares at Dara, her eyes calculating and her eyebrows knit together in worry. Good, it seems she’s thinking things through.
“It’s not just your life, Ciri,” Dara urges, “It’s mine too.”
“Princess,” Mousesack calls in a light singing tone, “I forgot,” he reaches for something, “I brought this for you,” he presents a sash or a cloth, in brilliant blue embroidered in gold patterns.
“My grandmother’s sash,” Ciri gasps and runs towards the very suspicious man, taking the sash in her hands.
Fuck. Dara really hopes that Ciri realises how incredibly off Mousesack’s behaviour is.
“He’s waiting for us,” Mousesack says, a tone of urgency colouring his voice. He wraps an arm around Ciri and beckons her to walk faster.
“Did you ever stop missing Skellige?” Ciri asks, and Dara arches a brow in interest.
“What?” the man asks.
“It’s just that I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing Cintra, but… you left your home to come raise me. How did you feel about that?”
“I was… very homesick.”
“Remember when we’d visit? Ice skating with Crach an Craite? He always said he’d let me win but I was just faster,” Ciri pauses, breathing some heat into her hands, the snow around them glistening in the morning sun, “Did you miss the cold too?”
“Yes, very much.”
Ciri stops walking, gaining some distance from the man. The next thing she says surprises Dara, “Except you have arthritis!” she accuses Mousesack, “You hate the cold! And you always said Skellige was where you came from, but Cintra was your home, with us!”
Mousesack bares his teeth in a snarl and grabs Ciri by the arm before Dara can react, “I’ve had enough of you!” he growls while Ciri protests to let her go calling his name, “Our name is not Mousesack!” he spits, “We killed Mousesack and took his disgusting form… to find you!”
That’s -
Gods!
Dara grabs his pocket knife and leaps towards the not-Mousesack, the doppler he realises, and in a mix of fear and anger, he thrusts the knife on the creature’s arm.
A deep guttural “Fuck” echoes down the snowed hill and before Dara can understand what’s happening a flash of silver and black is upon him and Dara tumbles away from the doppler, away from Ciri, face-first onto the freezing ground.
Sobs sound, sobs he can place as Ciri, and he stumbles to his feet disoriented ready to jump back into the fight, to get the girl – his friend – away from danger. He hesitates when he sees a tall man with short snowy hair, a sword held firmly in his grasp, black blood dripping from the blade and the motionless corpse of the doppler lying beside him. Ciri is tucked protectively under the man’s free arm sobbing softly.
“Geralt,” she breathes out, “Where were you?”
The man hums and rubs small soothing circles on her back, “You’re safe now, Ciri. I got you. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”
Ciri’s shoulders heave as another sob escapes her lips.
“A-Are you alright, Ciri?” Dara’s voice quivers, “Is that-”
“Geralt of Rivia. My destiny,” she responds.
The man glances up to him, beastly gold eyes meet Dara’s dark brown. “Thank you for leaping to the little one’s rescue,” the witcher says, “I’m sorry for shoving you out of the way-”
“Dara. My name’s Dara.”
Geralt hums. “Don’t wanna make assumptions, Dara,” the witcher says, “but I’ve got the feeling you need a safe place, much like Ciri does.”
Safe place.
Dara’s mothers smiling to one another, humming songs as they lead their cart through well-trotted roads, his sister weaving a wreath with winter plants she found ‘pretty’.
Gallops sounding. Metal singing through the air.
Screams.
Run-run-run.
Dara shakes his head.
“My partners and I own some land, hidden from the prying eyes of the human kings,” Geralt explains, “I’m going to take Ciri there, where she’ll be safe from the war. Would you like to come with us? You’re welcome to stay for as long as you wish.”
Ciri’s gaze drifts from Geralt to Dara and then again to Geralt, the small smile on her tear-drenched face, the look of complete trust – so unlike the careful, hesitant trust she had shown to the doppler – tells Dara that this time, this person, will not double-cross them. One can never be too careful, of course, the danger of the war is still very real, very close to them both, so he decides to follow the witcher to this safe place , partly because he’s tired of running and partly to see for himself if this man can be trusted.
“Show the way, Vatt’ghern,” Dara says, playing with the small knife in his hand, “But know that I won’t hesitate to take Ciri from you if you betray us.”
The witcher laughs softly, “You got guts, Dara, I’ll give you that. I swear on my life, on my trade, that no ill will befall you on my watch. Either of you.”
The witcher ends up taking them to a large stone house, an inn, if the sign above the door depicting a wreath of flowers enveloping a quite badly drawn chicken, is any indication.
“It’s warded,” he tells them, “My wife, Yennefer, put the spell into place. No human can enter without invitation.”
“Hey, I helped too,” a man – an elf – clad in colourful silks steps out of the door, arms crossed against his chest.
“You did shit all, Jaskier,” a woman dressed in a long black dress, follows behind him, laughing at the offended noises Jaskier makes.
“Did too!” He shrieks, “Who went out of his way to search that godsforsaken bog for ingredients? Hm, Yenny? Who?”
Geralt snorts a laugh and shakes his head, “Ciri, Dara, meet Yennefer, my wife-”
“Our wife!” Jaskier intervenes.
“Our wife,” Geralt looks like he’s trying really hard to suppress laughing out loud, “-And Jaskier, our husband.”
“Welcome to our home, little ones,” the elf coos while the woman smiles fondly at him.
“Come in, you must be starving,” Yennefer ushers them inside the building.
Time flies quickly in the inn. Soon, heavy snows settle and even if Dara wanted to leave he couldn’t without risking his life. The witcher, the elf and the sorceress are interesting people to say, and every day is an experience with them. Usually, Yennefer and Jaskier bicker endlessly while Geralt watches them amused until they take it too far and he has to intervene. But Dara can see that they all care for each other, they care for Ciri and treat her like their own child.
Which leaves him feeling sort of empty.
He knows that Ciri is Geralt’s daughter via the Law of Surprise, and by extension Yennefer’s and Jaskier’s child as well. They are all bound to one another through Destiny. And Dara- he’s still just a lost child, hiding away from the war.
He can’t complain, for they treat him as they treat Ciri but still- Still, they aren’t his family, they aren’t his parents.
And it hurts. It hurts because he misses his mothers, he misses his sister and he misses their home, far away in Beauclair.
But he’s – he can’t return to that life, can he?
Yennefer is the one that approaches him one morning while he’s helping out with the chores, sweeping the floors of the inn.
“You know we want you here,” she starts saying, “You know that you’re welcome to stay for as long as you like.”
“But?” he huffs irritated, his mind concocting all sorts of possible scenarios.
“No but,” Yennefer shakes her head, “I just want you to know that I can help you find your family if you wish. I can locate them. Whenever you want, if you want.”
Dara swallows the lump in his throat.
Slash, screams, blood, slash.
Tears pool in his eyes.
“They’ve passed haven’t they?” Yennefer asks softly and Dara’s shoulders shake as a sob escapes him.
They’ve passed, she says and Dara can’t deny the ugly truth any longer. They’ve passed and he saw it with his own eyes. He saw the soldiers toppling their cart, he saw their swords shining red with blood in the midday sun. He saw it and he ran.
Run-run-run.
Like a coward.
“I’m sorry,” Yennefer says, “I’m so sorry, Dara. Loss is never easy. I’m here – we’re here, all of us if you want to talk. We’re here for you, alright?”
He nods weakly, as the sobs come faster and the tears spill.
“Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be here,” she doesn’t push any longer.
For the first time in months he cries his eyes out that morning, he cries and mourns and properly thinks of what happened that day – the day that Cintra fell, the day he lost his family, his home. He cries until there are no more tears to spill. They are tears of guilt and pain and also of relief, relief that he’s not alone in this, that he’s among people that accept him, that are not pushing him away.
Some day, perhaps, he’ll talk to those people, this family of four that accepted him no questions asked. Not now, not soon.
Some day.