Work Text:
There are certain things that Ciri knows to be true. They’re just simple facts of life. One: she was not meant to be a princess. She was meant for far greater and more dangerous things. Two: chaos runs in her blood. She can feel it, she’s always been able to feel it.
Three: her father and her mentor are hooking up.
Which is what shocks her so severely the day that Yennefer mentions her husband. Ciri did not know that Yennefer has a husband, but Geralt doesn’t look surprised even a little bit, so obviously he knew.
“And is your husband…” Ciri says tentatively. “Does he…”
“Spit it out,” Yennefer says, already looking like she doesn’t like where this is going.
“Does he know you’re cheating on him?” Ciri blurts out. Geralt goes a spectacular shade of red that she’s never seen on his face. Yennefer doesn’t look affected. Ciri doesn’t know how- it’s not like she’s privy to a lot of information about Yennefer’s private life. She just knows that Yennefer tutors her three days a week and Geralt is always present and three out of three nights Yennefer ends up spending the night in Geralt’s room. And it’s not like their apartment walls are soundproof, and Ciri is a teenager, and she’s certainly not stupid.
“I’m not cheating on him,” Yennefer says. “Now, when you’re setting a broken bone-”
“No, no, no,” Ciri says. Again- not privy to a lot of private information. But this is not okay . In the slightest. And she loves Yennefer, and she loves her father, but if they’re taking part in something that’s going to hurt another person, that’s also not okay. “I know you and Geralt hook up.”
If it’s possible, Geralt’s face gets an even deeper shade of red. Ciri plows on.
“So if you’re cheating on your husband, then he’s going to get hurt, and I don’t want someone to get hurt if I can help it. So you should probably divorce him if you love Geralt instead.”
Yennefer finally looks affected- like Ciri has just blasphemed, like she’s got a second head growing out of her neck.
“I love my husband,” she says slowly. “Very, very much. And I’m not cheating on him because he knows that I spend… intimate time with Geralt.”
“You can say sex,” Ciri says. “I’m not five.”
Geralt huffs out something that’s half a laugh, half still him trying to get over his embarrassment. She doesn’t know why. She’s said worse things.
“Well,” Yennefer says, clearly trying to keep her cool. “My husband knows I love him, and my husband knows I love Geralt. And Geralt knows about my husband. So-”
“So you’re polyamorous,” Ciri says. “Okay. Why didn’t you mention your husband before?”
Geralt looks very, very relieved that she’s moved on. She certainly hasn’t.
“He’s not attached to the kind of work that Geralt and I do,” Yennefer says. “So I prefer to keep him out of things that could get him hurt.”
And- Ciri knows what that means. Again, she’s not stupid. She knows that witchers and mages have loyalties to things that aren’t particularly perfect, and she knows they’ve both killed quite a lot of people, actually, when you think about it. And, yes, she thinks they’re both good people because she loves them, but good people can still do bad things. So she understands, and she drops the subject.
For now.
Yennefer’s husband comes up again when Yennefer takes Ciri on a call a few weeks later. They were in the middle of a lesson when Eskel got a hold of Geralt, something about a robbery gone wrong and there are monsters involved. Yennefer figured this was the perfect time to put Ciri’s new healing training to good use, if there are any injuries, and Geralt’s been itching for a fight so he doesn’t really argue.
“Oh,” Yennefer says softly as they approach the location. There are already police, and lots of civilians, and the situation has clearly escalated. But Yennefer isn’t looking at the people, she’s looking at the sign above the building door.
“Yennefer?” Ciri asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, it’s-” Yennefer starts, then stops. Geralt has that look on his face, the one he uses on Ciri when something is clearly wrong but she doesn’t want to say it. “It’s a tavern. My husband plays there once a week. But he’s- he’s not there today, he’s not feeling well, I made him stay home.”
They handle the situation easily. Ciri gets to set a broken bone, and she does it perfectly Yennefer still looks a bit shaken up by the end of it, and she doesn’t spend the night with Geralt. Geralt doesn’t look like he blames her.
The third time that Yennefer’s husband comes up, Ciri actually has the pleasure of meeting him. Well, not really meeting him, not when you count being tossed in the back of a van as meeting him. And not really meeting him when you’ve met him before.
“Jaskier?” Ciri says, squinting through the darkness. They grabbed her on her walk home from school, and the only reason she went quietly was because she had just said goodbye to Dara and she didn’t want to risk him getting hurt. “What are you doing here?”
“Being kidnapped, apparently,” Jaskier says, smiling at her. Jaskier is Geralt’s best friend, he comes over for dinner twice a week and he’s been teaching her to play both the electric guitar and the bass. She likes the bass better. “What are you doing here?”
“The same,” she says, grinning. “This is lovely. Why do you think we’ve been kidnapped? Geralt?”
Geralt and Yennefer are out of town, on a big mission that Ciri was not allowed to be a part of. She’s been staying with her grandparents; Calanthe is going to be so mad that she’s not going to make it home for dinner.
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Jaskier agrees. “Probably Yennefer, too.”
“You know Yennefer?” She supposes it makes sense, being that Yennefer and Geralt are close and Jaskier and Geralt are close, but she doesn’t think their paths have ever crossed. Not in her and Geralt’s apartment, at least.
Jaskier laughs. “Yes,” he says, after a moment. “I know Yennefer. Quite well, actually.”
“Oh,” Ciri says, and she’s a little busy with the whole kidnapping thing to put two and two together.
They’re in the van for a while; Jaskier tells her stories about his recent performances, about his agent who he’s thinking of firing and going solo, and about his wife. Ciri knows that Jaskier is married, he talks about his wife all the time. She sounds like a wonderful woman, the way Jaskier talks about her.
Again. She’s a little distracted, and therefore does not realize exactly who Jaskier is married to.
When they arrive at their destination, they’re ushered out of the van rather than dragged; the masked soldiers around them seem to be afraid to put their hands on them. Good, Ciri thinks, because Geralt will certainly throw an even larger fit if she’s harmed when he gets here. And, granted, she could probably get both her and Jaskier out of this position easily, but she’s kind of interested to see what’s going to happen.
“My dear,” Jaskier says quietly.
“Shut it,” one of the soldiers says.
“My dear,” Jaskier says again, louder. “I don’t suppose you could just-”
“Don’t you want to see what happens?” Ciri asks with a grin, and Jaskier chuckles.
“Do I want to see your father brutally murder these men, you mean?” he corrects her. The soldiers glance at each other nervously, but keep walking.
They’re led into a large warehouse (and honestly, Ciri thinks, what kind of basic kidnapping is this?) and tied to chairs next to each other in a small room. Jaskier continues telling Ciri stories while they both test the restraints. Ciri calls on her chaos and the little plant creeping up from between the cracks of the warehouse withers as the ropes around her fall away. She looks up at Jaskier, pleased. He’s grinning at her and nodding.
The soldiers don’t attempt to re-bind her, kind of getting the idea that she could kill them all if she wanted to. She wanders around the little room they’re in, and it’s only when the sound of screams begins to filter in that she sits back down.
The soldiers are moving around nervously, unsure of what to do. Jaskier is just grinning. There’s the sound of gunshots, of metal slicing through flesh, of magic . Of chaos.
“Tell me, gentlemen,” Jaskier says as soon as the noise level has gone down. “Have you had the pleasure of meeting my wife?”
And the door is thrown open, revealing Yennefer and Geralt, both covered in blood.
“Hi, Dad!” Ciri says cheerfully, and then her expression drops as she turns to Jaskier. “Yennefer is your wife ?” She looks at Yennefer. “ Jaskier is your husband ?”
“Yes,” Jaskier says, looking, for all intents and purposes, like a lovestruck puppy.
“Ha, ha,” Yennefer says dryly, and within moments the rest of the soldiers are dead. Ciri runs to hug Geralt as Yennefer unties Jaskier, who pulls her into a deep kiss. Ciri wrinkles her nose in mock disgust.
“So,” Ciri says as they wander out of the warehouse. There are bodies and blood everywhere. Ciri tries not to let it bother her; Jaskier is clearly doing the same. Yennefer and Geralt are monsters, too, when it comes to the people they love. “Does this mean we can start having family dinners?”
“Oh, most definitely,” Jaskier says excitedly, one arm looped through Yennefer’s. “Yen, darling, I don’t know why you didn’t tell her sooner.”
“You could have told her, too, you know,” Yennefer reminds him, and the two bicker all the way home. Like an old married couple, Ciri thinks, which she guesses they are. Geralt is looking at Jaskier with amusement and Yennefer with adoration, and yeah, Ciri thinks, this is another thing that she knows to be true: her family is pretty alright.