Archive of Our Own

A few months after Ciri reclaims her royal title, Geralt goes to see her in Vizima.

It’s not that he fears the enemies she most definitely will inherit at court. Ciri has proven capable of protecting herself to him, tenfold. Not only so, it was her choice to go take up her imperial mantle, and he would never undermine her decisions. Politics is not, and never will be, his forte. 

Geralt is just lonely. 

Walking the path with no one at his side to share in the stories, the good moments and the bad welcomes wanes his spirits. Her absence, after so short a time spent catching up on the years they missed each other, is a cold ghost brushing through him. 

So he goes to Vizima. No plan in mind really, just to know how she’s doing. They promised their last goodbye was not a farewell, and he will do his best to keep his word.

The guards at the palace gates let him through without asking too many questions. After his many visits the previous year, he’s earned a bit of confidence from the palace staff. That should really worry more people. It worries him. With a strong enough masking spell, or by the work of a good doppler, anyone could impersonate him and breach the sentinels that protect their imperial majesties. It's something to tell Ciri when he sees her.

But informing her of the oversight will take a while, as a noble crowd full of stoic faces stands at the throne’s grand hall. 

Whatever the audience is for, Geralt doesn’t care to listen. At the dais is his daughter.

Ciri looks resplendent. Her golden crown circlet glows in the light that filters through the stained glass windows. She wears a simple dress of black and gold thread—simple compared to some of the ladies of the audience—but it is somehow the most regal in the room. 

Beside her stands Emhyr. He looks...better than when they’d last spoken, actually. Maybe it’s the end of the war, but the harsh severity that used to live in his eyes has lightened considerably.

Geralt likes to think that’s just the effect Ciri has on people. 

A horn announces an unusually dressed guest to the center—a dignitary of some city, Geralt didn’t catch from where. As the man begins his address, Ciri turns her sharp gaze to the crowd. Her eyes gloss over him at first, but a blink and a slight shake of her head later, they meet Geralt’s over the feather-brimmed hat of a stout man. 

Her face pinches from holding back a smile. He, of course, doesn’t need to. He can beam at her unrestricted. He hopes she can read the swelling pride in his eyes. His daughter, a crown princess again. A crown empress-to-be.

She will bring good change to this fragmented world. It’s a formidable task to undertake, but she is so capable, of that and much more. 

And then the guest dignitary pulls something from his sleeve and it all goes wrong.

One of the guards sees the suspicious movement and throws himself between the attack and the majesties on pure drilled instinct. The artifact thrown—something like a polished stone ball—bounces off his armor to explode on the floor of the grand hall.

It’s a smoke bomb not so different from the ones Geralt uses to distract a monster’s sight. Immediately he pushes through the panicking crowd to be at the forefront, his sword drawn and ready.

But it’s not an assassin witcher like he assumes, but a sorcerer. 

His medallion hums and shakes at a forming spell, the air snapping as a flash of blue static wraps around the sorcerer's arm. With the twist of his hand, the imperial guard standing in his way stumbles onto another, as if his feet had been pulled by a rope. They stay stuck together on the floor.

“The Kingdom of Kovir will not bow to the Black Sun. Not even for a northern-born empress!”

The announcement is received with screams. Geralt charges forward. That’s a threat in the sorcerer’s lips, and he answers threats to his family with steel. 

His medallion hums intensely. Suddenly, his muscles slow to react. The guards protecting the dais freeze where they stand. Geralt curses. Pushing through the spell takes tremendous effort. The only one seemingly unaffected is Ciri, unarmed, but that's never stopped her from facing danger before. 

“Ci-ri,” Geralt hisses, at the same time he hears a strained, “Cirilla.” The sorcerer begins chanting.

“Feainnewedd, esse marw—ch—” 

Before the spell is finished, Ciri blinks out of existence, and reappears right in the sorcerer's face to punch her fist into his teeth.

It is not enough to stop the magic summoned into being, manifesting as a blinding web of lightning. When the spiderwebbed shockwave hits Ciri, Geralt roars like his own skin’s been struck.

The invisible weights over his body lift. His sword lifts.

He spares no mercy for the sorcerer, splitting him in two halves. 

The magic enveloping the throne room dies. Geralt rushes to catch Ciri—

His fingers grasp at an empty black dress. It is like she's blinked out of existence again, but a second passes. Then two. Three, and she's not back. The dress slips to the floor.

She's just—gone.

His breath leaves him completely. He can’t lose her again. It can’t be that after everything they’ve been through, it ends to a rogue's spell. A goodbye can't still be the last words spoken between them.

“Witcher.”

Emhyr’s voice demands his attention, which serves to ignite the anger yet struggling to piece together what he could have done differently. Does Emhyr not care that his flesh and blood daughter has been injured? Killed, even? He orders his guards to clear the throne room with unaffected gravitas, ever the imperial majesty in control, while the witcher can barely think two words beyond why, and how. 

“Geralt, stand up.”

He hadn't noticed when he fell to a knee. Only that the dress lies before him, an ordinary lump of fabric to his eyes. 

The lump moves.

Geralt startles to his feet then, as a child emerges from the folded heap. 

It’s a girl with a golden circlet, her hair the color of ash.

“Ciri...?”

The boulder sitting in his throat dissolves. She's not gone. She's...small.

He comes to kneel in front of her again, but seeing him approaching, the girl wraps her little arms around herself and bolts behind Emhyr’s legs, much to Emhyr’s own surprise. 

Wide green eyes stare at him. There is no trace of recognition in them. 

“Ciri,” he tries, hesitating to read the signs for what they appear, “it’s Geralt. Don’t you remember me?”

She shakes her head quickly and stays where she’s huddled under the emperor’s hesitant touch. When he looks up, Emhyr looks as bewildered as Geralt feels.

Carefully, he bows his head and tries again, with his gentlest voice, “We’re family. It’s alright, you can trust me.”

Her tiny whimpers stop him from reaching out for her. Geralt’s heart plummets.

She’s frightened, of him.  

She doesn’t remember him at all.

Desperation must be written over his face, as Emhyr takes over his failed efforts to calm the girl. “Let me,” he says, kneeling to meet Ciri’s height.

The world comes into sharp focus. He never thought he’d see Emhyr kneel for anyone. 

“Cirilla.” At his voice, Ciri’s lip starts to tremble. “Do you know who I am?”

“Pap-papa?” 

“That’s right, that’s good.” He threads his fingers through the top of her head, and the motion seems to comfort her. “Do you know anything else?”

“We—where’re we? Who’s him?”

“That is Geralt of Rivia.” At her blank reaction, he continues, “He’s a witcher bound to you by destiny.”

Her nose crinkles in confusion. “What’s that mean?”

“You can trust him. He would never hurt you.”

By her father’s words, she looks at Geralt again, this time with the scrutinous frown of a child born to royalty. “I see.”

I see, she says, like his world hasn’t just shattered to pieces.

Further questioning reveals what they feared most. Cirilla does not recall anything beyond what is expected of her young age—that being her name, her unquestioning reliance on her parent, and that she hates baths. 

That last one comes as a bit of a surprise, as Mererid informs them with an exasperated sigh. 

“Her imperial highness refuses the maids’ help in bathing.”

Emhyr thumbs his temples as if delaying a headache. A rebellious child in his care is the least of what he needs. Kovir must answer for the sorcerer's attack. They have people waiting on news of the princess' health. The empire will not rest a day while they scramble to fix a spell they do not yet understand. Cirilla refusing to bathe should hardly be the calamity Mererid describes.

He sees Geralt rub his mouth more to hide an involuntary smile. “Has she now?”

Mererid bows minutely. His personal chamberlain is visibly stressed. “What should we do, your majesty?”

“I will speak with her,” Emhyr sighs.

There is a hesitant tone to Geralt’s answering, “Alright.”

“You do not trust that I can convince my daughter to listen to me?”

“You don’t exactly have a good record of it.”

Emhyr narrows his eyes in offense. “As she is now, she will.” As if he does not know his own daughter. “You will wait here.”

“Sure, your sunny illuminance. Not like I have anywhere else to be.”

Complain though he might, Emhyr knows the witcher will not leave. Not while Cirilla remains extremely vulnerable to further attempts on her life.

Emhyr walks the simple, straight path to Cirilla’s room. Their chambers, renovated for Nilfgaardian standards, are separated only by a hallway and the imperial antechambers. No one who is not a member of the imperial guard may trot the distance, staff excluded. 

Of course even the staff seems to be prohibited inside Cirilla’s room. One such maid lingers at the door, lost as to what he is supposed to do with the crown princess’ denial.

“Leave us,” he instructs with an unquestionable tone. The servant almost looks relieved to be given permission to disappear.

At the door, his knock is answered with a firm, “Good-bye!”

“Cirilla.”

He hears the thudding of feet approach on the other side, before the door clicks open.

“Papa,” his daughter tells him shyly through the gap. 

“May I come in?”

His daughter does not bother to answer so much as leave the door open for him while she runs back to her object of attention—a fistful of flowers picked from the garden. Her hands are speckled with dirt, showing that she earned her floral prize recently. She must have sneaked them in from outside her window. 

He crosses his arms behind himself. The dirt is smudging the carpet. “Young ladies should take care of staying clean.”

“I don’t care.” 

Her boldness is a bit shockingly petulant, and hard to judge. He hasn’t dealt with a child since—well, since Cirilla herself was a child, which is a long enough time to unbalance him.

“You’ve evaded the servants at the baths. Care to explain why?”

“I don’t like them. The misses are nice, but their accent is hard to understand. I don’t like it here! I want to go...home.”

She sounds uncertain of what ‘home’ is. Her memory is so scattered and unreliable, by what Mererid relayed. She seems to remember him, but she does not realize that at her current age, he had already faked his death and left her orphan with her mother’s unfortunate loss. 

“We cannot. You are safer here, with me.” Truthfully, she is no more safer here than anywhere else in the world. A sorcerer proved that. But home in Cintra would only bring her more pain and distress. “I’m...sorry, it is out of my hands.”

Ciri frowns into her shoulder, looking away to her bent flowers.

For the second time in a single day, Emhyr kneels. He sits beside her on the carpet. 

“Would you not feel better after a warm bath? You’ve dirtied your hair as well.”

Her little fingers come up to twist the ends of her messy hair. “I, um,” she stutters shyly, “I will if papa comes with. I don’t want to be alone.”

She wouldn't have been alone with the servants, but he understands she means with people she does not trust. 

His gaze softens on her dirt-speckled hair.

“If it would please you.”

It’s been an hour since Emhyr left him with a half-finished bottle of Toussaintois red. Geralt for one is tired of waiting, and drinking. Wine isn’t his favorite choice. He prefers a strong stout, Kaedweni style. But all the drinking’s done is drive him nervous. 

They had been sitting in serious conversation, him and the emperor, about what the spell could have been, and why it affected Cirilla the way it did. 

The sorcerer have been interrupted mid-chant, and as the witcher did his best to analyze, words carry the purpose of magic. He’s seen spells fall apart into unpredictable messes because of bad pronunciation. But he's no expert in the art. Ciri would have known more. 

Surprisingly, Emhyr had better recollection than him with what had been said. The words may have been barely spoken and cut off, but to his testament, he’d mastered the art of reading lips, overhearing murmurs, and how to memorize such words for later recital. A useful trick in times like these.

“‘Feainnewedd’,” Emhyr had recounted, “Child of the Sun. The sorcerer intended for his spell to attack us both.”

Geralt admitted it was smart to have phrased it that way. It’s just the rest that doesn’t make sense.

Esse marw. 

‘Will die’. 

It should have killed her. He is relieved it didn’t, but the spell could have ended successfully with just those two words uttered.

Except his mouth had been punched at the last syllable, and it could have easily been muddled into march. ‘March’ isn’t Elder, though. 

“... ‘merch’?” Geralt murmurs as a test, over and over while Emhyr’s off speaking with his daughter. Many Elder words have double meaning, or a double sense. Curses take advantage of this lexical flexibility, between semantics and intent. 

An idea half-forms in his head. Geralt abandons his chair and goes looking for Emhyr, against his explicit orders to wait. The bottle’s empty now anyways. There is nothing to distract himself with.

And maybe he’s got something figured out. 

The halls of the imperial wing are devoid of life, save twin guards doing their rounds. Their winged helmets shine in the sconce light. Neither of them break from their silent patrol when he asks after the imperial majesties. If it had been Mererid, at least he would have gotten an eye roll. These guys don't even acknowledge his presence.

But they don't kick him outside quoting trespassing laws either, so there is that boon. Likewise a hazard. Again, he is reminded of how dangerous his freedom could be in anyone else's hands. 

He finds Emhyr at a turn, carrying Ciri to what he assumes to be her room. She’s freshly changed and nearly nodding off on a shoulder, her long, ashen hair made into a single braid.

Emhyr stops, seeing him. His face pulls into a tight frown. It’s made ineffective by the sleepy child in his arms.

Geralt laughs softly to himself. Before he's chastised for going against orders, he says, “So the princess minded your word.”

“Not so loud.”

He waves in apology. “You good yourself?”

He means for the damp state of Emhyr's clothes, and having to carry a person, small as she may be now, from room to room.

But that is not what Emhyr assumed.

“She is not so heavy like this.” For a second, Geralt thinks Emhyr did not mean to say that out loud. His voice, there was something wistful in it, but in the next instant it’s gone. “I can take care of her.”

“Alright. Got something to talk about with you though. Mind if I tag along?” 

Emhyr does not immediately shoo him away, so he trails after them, past an ornate door and a warm room decorated with furs.

He realizes it’s Ciri’s. It feels like stepping into her old room in Kaer Morhen. She must have done it on purpose, to remind herself of her roots. A smile, lopsided, climbs onto Geralt’s face. Good. Even if she might never see Kaer Morhen again, there’s a piece of it with her, wherever she goes. 

After Emhyr tucks her into the poster bed and all the curtains are drawn, they head to the antechamber, a private room away from prying ears.

“I think I understand what happened,” Geralt starts.

Emhyr stares at him. It prompts him to explain. 

“Feainnewedd. Esse merch.” 

To the tuned Elder ear, it sounds like ‘you will be daughter.’ Or, ‘you will be girl.’ Double meanings and senses.

That’s enough for magic to take root. 

Emhyr nods in understanding. “I will have this matter resolved. We have Nilfgaardian mages stationed elsewhere. An encrypted letter will bring them to Vizima in the next couple of days.”

“Thanks. Uh, I guess keep me posted? She's my daughter too, you know.”

With a curious tilt of his head, Emhyr tells him, “Do you plan on leaving in the middle of this after all? Mererid has been instructed to make accommodations for you. Speak to him if you have further questions.”

And just like that, Emhyr departs, citing duties yet unfulfilled for the day. Geralt gapes for a long minute. Accommodations. In Vizima's palace. 

Another security detail to warn Ciri about when she's better.

In the days after, Ciri glues herself to Emhyr, and Emhyr returns her attachment wholly. Wherever Geralt searches for one, he finds them both. Once, he’d gone looking for Emhyr at night to let him know some of his mages had arrived, but found the imperial chambers cold and empty. It turned out he fell asleep on the divan of Ciri’s room, though the guards at her door made his night watch rather redundant. 

“She’s afraid of sleeping alone,” Emhyr tells him in the morning before opening up with the Kingdom of Kovir's unsatisfactory replies.

Other days it’s the other way around, with Ciri sleeping in Emhyr’s private rooms, undisturbed until late in the morning. She is a child, so there's nothing she really needs to be doing. Those of the palace had been informed of her current amnesiac predicament, and ordered not to bother the princess with imperial duties. The mages will restore her swiftly, is the story. On threat of a hanging.

Emhyr calls it 'incentive'. The way his heart beats twice as fast saying it, Geralt reckons he's just anxious the more days pass and nothing changes.

And the days are passing.

Today, Ciri is awake and in the office while Emhyr works at his desk reading mage reports.

“Oh, hello Ciri.”

“Hello Geralt.”

She’s currently working very hard to climb the bookcase, which, strangely does not seem to concern Emhyr all that much.

“Uh,” he expresses in concern.

Without looking up from his desk, Emhyr calls, “Cirilla.”

“Sorry,” then she runs back to Emhyr’s arm and looks at his many papers, surely not understanding a single thing in them but still nosy about everything at her eye level.

At her insistent grip over his arm, Emhyr lifts it away, and immediately Ciri takes possession of the open spot, sitting herself half on her father’s lap, half over the armrest. 

It does not look comfortable at all, but she’s perched happily there anyway.

Geralt nods. He remembers her first few weeks in Kaer Morhen and how she would fit herself into the most awkward and tightest places to huddle for warmth. Frequently, it was wherever Geralt himself sat. 

It’s not really as cold in the palace as in the far northern mountains, but it must be a comfort anyway to perform.

Eventually, Emhyr sets his sights on his interrupting visitor. “What have you come for, witcher?”

“Just wondering how you two are doing.” He means to ask how his efforts to return Ciri to her old self are going, but with Ciri present, it’s rather awkward to talk about her over her head, and it’s not very kind to her.

He knows everyone is working to the best of their abilities, but Geralt would like to do something. Anything.

Meanwhile Ciri, child that she is, is very honest with her words.

“Ugh, do you really have to write all morning? That's so boring! All the letters look the same...”

“Ruling is most often a boring job, my child. It involves quite a lot of paperwork.” 

She makes a face as if falling asleep. Paperwork is incredibly boring, Geralt agrees. He wonders if Ciri ever regretted accepting her title as heiress to the empire if just for the sheer amount of droll day-to-day reports.

Emhyr stops reading to regard Ciri directly. She continues to pretend at sleep until he suggests, “Geralt can keep you company while I work.”

“But, um.”

Sensing her nerves, Geralt gives her an easy shake of his head. “We can stay right here, just let me bring a game of jacks.”

“Jacks?”

“Yep, jacks. You throw a ball down and grab as many jacks as you can and try to catch the ball while it’s still midair. I can show you how it works.”

She looks to Emhyr for guidance, and it makes Geralt's heart ache, knowing that his daughter no longer seeks him out first for help.

“No putting any in your mouth,” is Emhyr's only retort. 

It is enough to warm her to Geralt's side. At least while they play.

Teaching her goes neither smooth nor rocky. She's still a quick study, but the jacks are too big for her palms, so they make adjustments per rounds, changing the game rules to something easy for her and challenging for him. His quick reflexes as a witcher startle a giggle out of her, so Geralt makes it into a show in the end, catching all the jacks but one between two fingers. When she tries to copy him, they both share a laugh.

At one point, Ciri manages to get a jack tangled in her hair. Something that amuses her even more, as Geralt struggles to free it.

Whatever work Emhyr is carrying out could probably go faster by how many times he glances at them over yellow-worn pages.

“I have been informed by the court mages that the spell may be temporary in nature.”

“Yeah?”

Emhyr nods solemnly. The 'temporary in nature' begs the question of when could they possibly see Ciri returned to herself, which concerns Geralt a lot. It's hard to keep a serious face though, when Ciri is napping on Emhyr's chest as they walk down the palace corridors.

They’ve become so completely inseparable that he wonders how Emhyr is getting any work done, or even any sleep. He’s been looking dead tired lately, the deep circles that had vanished from under his eyes returning a deeper shade. Most of it could be due to the stalemate correspondence with Kovir—they insist the Koviri sorcerer acted on his own, to exempt themselves of responsibility, Geralt can guess—or because of the arduous task of looking after a child with more energy stored in her bones than there is in a lightning storm. 

Honestly, Geralt doesn't have to pretend to sound worried when he says, “Hey. Let yourself rest. She’s not going to disappear the second you close your eyes.”

It's early evening. The gardens are beautiful this time of year. As they pass a blooming orchard, Emhyr's frown deepens. “Anyone could take advantage of her. I am not allowing her out of my sight.”

“She’ll be fine, your arch-splendor. I can watch her too. She’s warmed up to me. Better than the staff.”

Recently, Ciri has included Geralt into what she mysteriously calls 'bumblebee hunting.' Mysterious because there's no bees involved, only the plucking and pressing of whatever flowers Ciri deems worthy of her new book—a gift from Emhyr, originally intended for drawing, and not this self-determined quest.

She says she's saving them for spring, for when bumblebees greet the gardens. Geralt doesn't have the heart to tell her that the flowers will be useless after they've been pressed. He simply takes one of each species in the garden, and even some from around Vizima, and listens to her explain why she thinks they're good or how they are not. Sometimes Emhyr interjects for them not to trek dirt on the Ofieri carpets, but otherwise he lets Ciri get away with everything else, to the gardener's despair.

In those moments, Geralt can almost see the kind of father Emhyr could have been, had he never called Law of Surprise. Ruthless, yes. With anyone questioning Ciri's chaotic logic.

After prodding him a minute more, Emhyr stops and sighs like he's cornered himself into dealing in a hopeless, irremediable negotiation. His own fault for allowing the witcher verbal liberties. Geralt can't even remember the last time he called Emhyr by a non-fake title. It's part of an inside joke, by now. 

“Ciri,” Emhyr shakes her awake, and Geralt startles at that, because he’s never heard Emhyr call her by anything other than her full name. “Wake up, luned.” 

She rubs her eyes. A tangle of ashen hair immediately covers them. “Hmm?”

“Geralt will look after you for a moment. Will that be alright?”

“Mhm.”

“Tell me clearly.”

“'s alright.”

Satisfied with that, Emhyr carefully hands her over, aided by her cooperation. It's actually really touching, how after letting go, his hands still hover to catch her on a violent wiggle. But Geralt knows how to carry her. He rolls with her pouty grip until she settles over his hip, his arm tucked securely around her.

“See? We're good,” he says, to Emhyr's tense brow. “Just nap for a few hours, we'll keep up the bumblebee hunt.”

That gets Ciri wiggling again in excitement. “But we already saw all the plants in the garden!”

“Yeah, but what if you find one you like better than the ones you rejected? You have to be thorough when you work...”

The three of them move to a more secluded gazebo in the garden, where a chaise for evening leisure sits under a cool shade. Geralt keeps Ciri entertained, and without looking back, they leave Emhyr behind in the late winter sun, with a dozen guards on watch. 

He spends a good hour or more picking around bushes, showing Ciri his knowledge of botany—which flowers are good for stomach aches, the bright and beautiful ones that go well with tea. He also tells her about the ones not in the garden, but common around Vizima, dangerous to touch. He wouldn't ever risk bringing any, but it's important she know their description.

It's familiar, like a faded memory. He probably did the same with her all those years ago, when they first traveled together to Kaer Morhen. So many poisonous plants bloomed along the path—wolfsbane, foxglove, deadly nightshade, lily of the valley. He doesn't recall if she ever wanted to collect them. Maybe she did, but she was older then, and slower to open up. 

Somewhere between a speech about the medicinal properties of hemlock, a servant comes to their little grassy spot in the garden.

“Master witcher, the sorcerers ask for you.”

“Can it be later?”

“They say it is urgent. It pertains to...”

The servant glances over little Ciri’s head and trails off, not knowing whether to continue.

“Ciri.” Geralt pets through her braided hair. “I need to see some important people. Can you promise to stay right here and wait for me?”

She raises her pinky to him and nods her head solemnly.

“Promise!”

To the servant he says almost casually, definitely out of Ciri's earshot, “If anything happens to her, it won't be the emperor making you beg for mercy.”

The poor servant drains of color, head nodding jerkily in yes. 

For the first time ever, Ciri is alone.

Papa is sleeping. Geralt is gone doing adult things. Sure, there's a servant watching her flip through her bumblebee book, but it's hardly any fun when no one is telling her stories about them. 

The evening grows dark. Ciri is alone, and it is sort of exciting. 

“Excuse me,” she says, very properly like papa taught her, “I'm hungry.”

“My lady, I can call for someone to fetch—”

“Please, I would like you to to get it for me please.”

Saying please twice will certainly grant her wishes. When you want to have something soon, be polite but firm—papa says—and what she wants is to not be watched over like a baby. She can watch herself! And wait for Geralt to come back with more stories.

“M-my lady, you should not be left unsupervised...”

When the servant doesn't follow as she'd ordered, Ciri falls back to her second best strategy, something that never fails.

She starts to cry. 

The first time she'd cried, it was to yell at all the maids urging her to take a bath. They'd all been nice, honestly, but none of them she knew from before the...from before. Having so many people push and coax her into cleaning up scared her to the brink of tears. And when she did, they left her alone, and papa came to settle everything. 

So she wails a little warble and the servant stutters to comply with her wishes. “My lady, please! Aen Ard Feainn, give me a moment. The kitchens are not far.”

Ciri sniffs a little and calms. “I can, um, wait.”

The servant practically sprints out of the gardens.

Now Ciri is alone. Utterly, wonderfully alone. With her book of flowers and her dirt speckled skirt.

She hates wearing the frilly thing. The pants underneath make it tolerable. Dirtying it worse grants her special joy. So she runs around the garden and cuts it up in the rose bushes, without cutting herself at all. 

Of course she shouldn't go too far from where Geralt and the servant left her. She just wants to laugh and spin a few times, for once in charge of herself. No one is telling her how to walk or dress or curtsey. 

And then, something whizzes over her head and she gasps, covering her ears. It had sounded so loud. So close. 

When she looks, a swallow perches on the ground. It peers at her with curious eyes, chirps twice. 

She returns its gaze in awe.

“Hello, you,” Ciri salutes with a small bow. Reaching out to touch it, the bird actually lets her pet its little head. Softly, she whispers, “You are so pretty,” so as not to startle it.

But withdrawing her hand, the bird takes off, and Ciri gasps again. “No wait!”

It flies out through the halls.

Without thinking, she chases after it.

Ciri promised she’d stay, but the bird! It’s a swallow! There used to be so many at home...with papa and mama to tell her how they are her namesake. Zirael—swallow. Such a lithe and elegant creature. Harbinger of spring, and life.

She goes running down the hall and into the outer garden. No one spots her. Between the garden's trees and the grand pavilion, hardly anyone would. The bird has its nest up there, on the pavilion's roof, so she starts to climb the trellis at its side, thickly covered in vines.

Her foot slips on the edge but she catches herself with a grunt, and pushes herself up the rest of the way. The skirt is all but tatters now. Even her pants are starting to get dirty.

There, on a small alcove, Ciri finds the swallow again, picking at twigs. Seeing her, it hops on its legs, chittering an upset tune.

“I'm sorry,” Ciri starts, but the bird ignores her and dives off the side, to the neighboring trees. It arcs beautifully through the treetops. A wild animal with changing whims. She sees that now. Their moment in the garden had been just that, a moment.

And now, atop a pavilion, Ciri starts to shiver from the wind. She’s so far from the ground. Putting a foot to the trellis to climb down, it groans frighteningly from her weight.

She clammers to the center, stuck. 

This time when she starts to cry, it's from fear.

Damn mages. Giving him dimeritium shackles to try on a child, to see if their magic suppressing qualities would cancel the effects of the spell. He’s not putting them on Ciri. And he bets it’s more to do with disgruntled politics again—now that Ciri is a child and can't tell them apart from her actual allies.

Emhyr was right, Geralt secretly admits. Anyone walking past him inside the palace walls could be a vulture waiting to strike, to take down the future empress while she’s defenseless.

Geralt goes back to the gardens. The servant, weirdly, screams seeing his silhouette.

And then he notices the missing shadow of his daughter.

“Ciri!” He stomps around the surrounding bushes, heart in his throat, “Ciri, where is she? What did you do to her?”

“N-nothing, master witcher! She'd...requested a meal...I...I wasn't gone for more than a minute, I swear, sir—”

She can't be gone. Not like this. He growls, “You better start praying to your sun—”

Emhyr marching straight for him shuts them both up.

“What is this commotion,” he demands, sounding for all the world like the last couple of hours of rest did nothing to improve his mood, “What happened. Where...where is Cirilla?”

A pit of dread replaces Geralt's stomach.

“Someone called for me. Court mages. Wanted to test something dangerous on Ciri.” It’s his fault. Emhyr’s dropping expression carves the dread pit a little wider. “She promised to wait for me—”

“Has someone taken her?”

“I don’t—know.” Ciri’s just as likely to have run off finding interest elsewhere, than to have been snatched up. She’s a child. Curious, bored. Whimsical. He shouldn’t have left her alone. “If anyone dared to, she’d have caused a loud ruckus.”

“You were to watch her, and the second you look away, you lose her?”

“I’m sorry.”

The vivid anger in Emhyr’s face is like a slap across the face. “I don’t care that you’re sorry, witcher. I will not spare you if she’s in danger—”

“Your majesty?” Another servant nervously steps forward.

There is a child screaming on the garden’s pavilion.

The gardeners take notice first and alert the guards to the danger. It leads to quite the entourage of maids and servants, and the people that haul the emperor and him to the site. 

“Cirilla!”

The crying stops at the name, though no one replies. Just as someone suggests the use of a ladder, Emhyr climbs the trellis side.

Geralt shouts after him, “Hey, wait! That doesn’t look stable!” 

The glare he receives is actually impressive, considering Emhyr doesn’t stop in his tracks at all, despite the creaking protest of wood.

Quickly, Geralt holds the trellis against the pavilion wall, just in case it gives. He curses under his breath when his dark silhouette disappears over the lip of the roof.

“Is everything good up there?”

“Yes,” comes the curt reply, “it is now. Ciri.” Geralt is fortunate to have keen hearing and the sense of space to figure the minute groaning of the roof is Ciri scrambling to where Emhyr is. He is probably the only one who can hear the low-spoken, “Never run away like that again. Something could have happened to you.”

“I’m—I’m sorry. I-I saw, a swallow. And I climbed up—really high, I couldn’t get down—”

“I’m not mad. Shh, I’m not mad, my child...”

“Is she hurt?” Geralt yells from below. He can’t scent any blood from down on the ground, but the trellis has rough points, hidden by some of the vines over it.

To Ciri, Emhyr says, “Come here. Let me see you. Your skirt is in tatters.” 

“I’m sorry I ruined it.”

“It’s alright. Just a small scratch on her knee,” he assesses. Then the wood groans again. Not in break, but in movement.

Emhyr reappears at the lip.

Some of the servants start running around frantically to get their imperial majesties safely down the pavilion, but Emhyr is not patient enough it seems, and neither is Ciri by her mumbled, “I wanna go down.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait for someone to bring the ladder,” Geralt warns.

Emhyr put a foot through a hole in the trellis. “We are going down now.”

In times like these, Geralt is painfully reminded that Ciri is very much her father’s daughter. Never backing down from a decision, even when it’s dumb. 

“Alright,” Geralt groans, grabbing hold of the vines once again, “Just, if you fall I can’t catch you both.”

“Then catch her first.”

It might have been comical, under different circumstances. An emperor with minute cuts in his sleeves, as the fine cloth snags in vines. Watching Ciri cling onto Emhyr’s back, like a monkey, with the most intense frown on her little face. They’re a ridiculous pair. 

Neither of them falls.

Once they are both safely on the ground, the world kicks back into motion. The three of them get swept in a tide of servants. Someone checks the princess’ scratch, and applies herbs and a short wrap of bandages. The torn royal clothes get changed for fresh ones. Mererid thankfully shows up within the first minute to make order out of the chaos. 

Geralt just, kind of stands in the middle of it. 

No one tells him to go.

Somehow, they end up in Ciri’s room. The curtains are drawn, hiding the dusk light. Food is laid on a table in the antechamber. Most of it disappears into Ciri’s mouth. 

Emhyr clears his throat. 

Geralt turns to him, eyebrows high and expectant.

“I...apologize, for my temper before.”

He shakes his head before Emhyr’s finished. “Don’t. I don’t blame you.”

It was for Ciri. Geralt doesn’t say it, but he would never forgive himself if something happened to her. He always, always worries for her, and to have her come to harm under his guard? He would have accepted Emhyr’s anger fully. 

“Actually,” Geralt adds, scratching his nose, “it was kind of...comforting.”

“You found the verbal berating comforting? I dread meeting any of your friends then.”

“No, no, just. It’s just a little easier not to panic when there’s someone else to share in the worry with.”

 Emhyr’s shoulders sag a little lower in relief. Which is weird, that Geralt can read that of his body language. Since when have they gotten so familiar with each other?

Come to think of it, it’s weird that he’s allowed to stay here, to come and go to either of the royal suites in the palace, the guards at the doors blankly staring past his head. Even the servants have to bow and state their affairs. 

“I do agree with the sentiment. I was,” Emhyr pauses, considering his words, “I am grateful that you watched for Cirilla. Despite the oversight.”

“You really need to talk to your mages about their clever ideas, by the way. They wanted to test dimeritium.”

“I will. Later. Right now I wish to be with my daughter.” 

“You mean our daughter, right?”

He says it humorously, expecting Emhyr to roll his eyes. 

Emhyr doesn’t. Instead his lips twitch to one side, into an odd smile that flips Geralt’s stomach into a ribbon. “Yes,” he says, and nothing more.

As if sensing his momentary lapse of insight and his spiraling confusion, Ciri comes hobbling over to hold her arms out in the universal sign for ‘upsies’. Only this time, she’s gesturing at Geralt.

Of course he bends down to pick her up. 

“Hey, kid, it’s almost bedtime for you.” Her expression remains downcast. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry for breaking my promise.”

“Had me real scared, I’ll admit, but you’re safe now. If you promise not to do it again, all’s forgiven.”

Big, green eyes look up at him. “I promise, dad,” she says with the severity of a princess swearing fealty. Then, she winds her arms around his neck in a hug.

A single word could ruin him. 

“That’s good,” he smiles. It’s like meeting her for the first time all over again. His child of surprise. His daughter. Even lost, they’ll find a way to reach each other.

“Ciri,” Emhyr says, touching her back gently. He doesn’t look bothered at all by her proclamation. If anything, he seems amused. “You must be tired from today.”

“Um,” her face scrunches up again, “Don’t go please.”

“We’ll be right here.” As simple as that. Emhyr raises his brow at him to speak his part.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

Per her wishes, they all settle for the night in Ciri’s bed, which is far too big for a child her stature. Geralt begins to understand why she doesn’t like to sleep alone. Though, when she starts kicking and tossing the blanket off of herself, and accidentally smacking Geralt in the ribs twice, he also understands why Emhyr would more often than not take the divan. Girl’s something wild.

“Love you, papa,” Ciri calls after successfully tangling herself in the quilt.

“I love you too, my child.” He kisses the top of her head.

There was a time when Geralt would doubt that. That of all the things Emhyr is capable of, love could never be one of them.

He knows better now.

Somehow Ciri turns around on her side, the quilt dragging with her efforts. “Goodnight, dad,” she muffles out.

Geralt chuckles. “You too, kid. Goodnight.”

The candles extinguish with a flick of his fingers. It takes him longer to sleep. Longer still after the day they’ve had. He is happy to breathe in the cool air of the room, and meditate to the slowed beating of his heart. 

He is not yet asleep to miss the wistful sort of stare Emhyr casts over the top of Ciri’s head.

“She’s alright now,” Geralt croaks low, so as not to wake her.

Pen-callused hands carefully fix the quilt over Ciri’s one exposed shoulder. She barely twitches. “I never had her at this age. She was still an infant when I disappeared from her life. I had forgotten...how her world used to revolve around mine.”

It looks more like the opposite to Geralt—his world shrinking to hers—but he’ll keep that to himself. Let Emhyr have his pretense. 

“Emhyr.”

Emhyr lifts his eyes to him, and the sliver of moon shining over his temples splays gold streaks inside his eyes. There’s something intent in them. 

A smile he can’t quite control climbs up Geralt’s face. “Goodnight to you too.”

They look away from each other. In Emhyr’s, “goodnight,” he hears withheld sincerity.

When Emhyr wakes, he meets ashen hair.

It is not the same ashen hair he has grown familiar with in the last weeks. This one is longer, and unbraided. It curls with more volume. 

The head turns, and he sees the Cirilla that came to him all those months ago. Grown and world-weary.

And mistrustful.

“Father,” she says, sitting up with a startle. Then, “Geralt?”

“Hmh,” murmurs the quilt on her other side. “Oh, Ciri? Ciri, you’re—” In an instant Geralt awakens to take Cirilla’s face in his hands, hold her in a tight hug. “You’re back to yourself.”

“I’m back?” 

It is so easy, the way they fall back to old habits. Cirilla twisting her hair behind her ear into a semblance of style, her stuttered laugh when Geralt prods her to make sure she’s really alright. Like the father Emhyr never could be for her. Familiar. Warm. 

Not until a spell reverted her to a child’s forgiveness.

“What...happened? Why, uh,” still tangled in the quilt, Cirilla grunts to escape her child-made prison, “why are you both here?”

“You don’t remember? It’s a long story,” Geralt says, rubbing his face. 

It is perceptibly clear she does not remember.

In the blink of an eye, he’s lost his daughter for a second time.

Cirilla does an awkward fix of her too-small clothes. “Well, I’m not going to have it here. If you don’t mind. I need to change first. Could I have some privacy?”

Emhyr stands up to leave with a tame but apologetic, “Of course. I would not want to disturb you further.”

“Emhyr,” Geralt calls after him. He is followed into the antechamber. “Hey, give her some time. Magic is weird.”

“There need not be any concern. What we had strived to accomplish is finally achieved.”

Truthfully, part of him hadn't wanted for Cirilla to return to her old self. In the long run, it would have been disastrous for the empire. But every time she laughed in his presence, and sought him out for simple comfort, he forgot why it had been so important to negate the spell. 

Magic is indeed weird. It always comes with a catch. 

“Emhyr,” he hears again. Through the brisk walk down the halls to his personal chambers, Geralt continued his pursuit.

It is not his fault that only Emhyr suffers the consequence of losing a daughter, but he cannot help the embittered snap, “I do not wish my morning to be interrupted.”

The guards at his door cross their lances after he enters.

Ciri cannot avoid the unpleasant conversation waiting in Geralt’s stern frown.

Not for a lack of trying, hiding behind breakfast. Geralt is just really damn stubborn when he wants to be. And apparently he’s been kicked out of the other half of the royal chambers, whatever that means. Mererid is very vague about details.

“Should your imperial majesty desire seconds—”

“Please and thank you, Mererid.”

“If I may be forward,” comes the unexpected chamberlain’s retort, “the master witcher expresses his heartfelt concerns, and wishes for a private audience with you.”

She sighs. There’s no beating around it any more. Having no recollection of anything past the mage that crashed the throne room sits uneasy in her mind. “Alright. But whatever excuse he’s got in the works, it better be no longer than ten minutes.”

As it turns out, all Geralt really has is a book of flowers and a couple minute’s worth of an explanation, given in Emhyr’s stead.

She almost can’t believe it. The man he describes sounds nothing like the cold and distant emperor she's met, her father by blood. But the book has his signature, with the annotation Aen luned.

“He took care of you, worried over you. Gave you everything you asked for and, I think, got a couple new gray hairs in return.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, check his temples next time you see him.”

Ciri slaps his arm and Geralt smiles, just a smidge. A serious flint in his eye still remains despite the lighthearted tease.

“I know it might sound absurd, but he genuinely loves you. Might not show it now after the way things went, but he does.”

It’s hard to take his word for granted. Harder still to distrust Geralt. He would never lie to her, and she could always have hope that not all bridges need be burned. 

“Tell me what happened? From the beginning.”

It’s a long evening just listening to Geralt explain what she’d missed.

She finds him at his desk of endless correspondence, a trusted location two-thirds of the time.

Emhyr looks up at her unannounced entrance. “Cirilla. I take it you spoke with Geralt and he answered your questions.”

“He did.”

He returns to his reading. “You did not miss much, though your absence was felt. Your tutors will want to review your lessons to refresh your memory.”

“Yeah, I imagined. I,” her voice drawls on. It’s so hard to speak with him. Why is it always so hard? “Could you help me with something?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“I asked Geralt if he could help braid my hair for today’s meetings, but he can’t. He knows how to make knots, he said, which might work on yarn but not hair. He also pointed out you could. That you’d been doing it for me?”

At that, her father blinks. Paper flutters a few times under his bending fingers. “I...have.”

Ciri shoves wild locks back behind an ear, both marginally relieved, and more nervous in spirit. It’s silly. It doesn’t have to mean anything. So Emhyr braided her hair when she’d been magicked into a child. Surely things are different now that she’s an adult.

“Come here,” Emhyr calls, pushing back his chair a ways and gesturing at a cushioned footrest. 

Because it is easier to follow commands than stand there bewildered by her own request, Ciri sits. 

“Do you have a brush?”

She lifts hers silently. She may be out of her mind, but not completely as to forget to bring one. Like an offering.

About a minute passes, with neither of them really doing anything. She shifts on the cushion. Her heavy black dress pinches around her waist. The pants underneath make it awkwardly hot. 

Years of witcher training help to stifle the jump in her bones at the first touch of the brush on her scalp.

It goes slower than she’d anticipated. Starting at the tangled ends—always tangled, she swears. By the time her father works up to the roots, she’s used to the motions. No memory emerges from the depths of her consciousness. Whatever spell hit her, it is utterly gone, along with the time spent under its influence. 

That’s fine as well. Ciri can focus on this moment instead, the slight tug at her scalp, as locks are pulled into small divisions. The beginnings of a braid. Then, steady fingers wind it into a circle behind her head, and pin it in place by the natural tension in her hair. 

He hands her a mirror from his drawer. She sees his softened gaze reflected for a second.

“That looks...nice. Thank you.”

“You could have asked for a servant girl. They know how to do Nilfgaardian braids.”

“Yeah, I could have.“ She turns around in her little makeshift stool. “It’s really frustrating. I don’t remember anything.” 

It’s like a dream that’s slipped from her fingers. She came back whole, but that girl who took her place will never return. She could almost mourn for her.

“I don't remember. But,” Ciri thinks aloud, “maybe we can make new memories.”

Her father regards her long, and it’s strange, how he says, “Perhaps,” and she can tell he means to say, please.

He’s mourning for that girl too.

Light threads of ashen hair fall over her eyes, and his face immediately crinkles to a frown.

“There it goes,” she sighs, “I knew it wouldn’t last.”

Before she stands to take advantage of the braided look while it still endures, Emhyr undoes the entire thing.

“What—are you really going to redo it?”

“I can fix it better. Do you think I do not know how to?” 

She shrugs. “I guess you can try.”

Glass clinks together inside another drawer, to her ever-growing confusion. At the splash of almond scent, she hears him say, “You do not think my own hair begs the help of stronger agents?” as his hands flatten back the hairs from falling over her eyes. “You may have inherited your mother’s color, but this is certainly the var Emreis’ bane.” 

He then tucks the loose ends and pins them with a different style of braid that gathers strands as it moves down her head to pin it close to her scalp. “There.” The mirror returns to her hand for a final inspection. 

He did fix it.

Now, Ciri climbs to her feet. The back of her hair forms an intricate bun, patterned like overlapping petals. It's beautiful.

She hugs him. When he doesn’t immediately return it, she thinks she’s done something wrong, but it’s just as the thought pops up that his arm circles her back, and the other covers her shoulder, his thumb pressed where ash blond hairs stick out wildly from her nape. The one part he couldn’t fix into her braid.

She smiles to herself.

“There’s just one thing I didn’t get, by the way. I think Geralt’s a little paranoid, but. He said something about ‘dangerous freedoms’...?”

Her father hums cryptically.