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Ciri could get awfully quiet when she was contemplating her past. Ves had noticed it before, and she wished that revelation could help her narrow Ciri’s thoughts down more, but there were almost as many things in Ciri’s past worth contemplating as there were towns in Temeria.
“Oren for your thoughts,” Ves said, and Ciri looked up from swirling the drink in her cup. It was like a game between them, and if either of them had to actually pay the orens wagered, they’d each lose and amass quite the fortune.
“It’s… nothing.” For a moment, Ciri considered Ves, then cast her eyes around the common room of the Blue Stripes’ barracks from where they sat on a padded bench. There were signs of life everywhere, whether they be in the form of a discarded piece of clothing, stains on the rugs and tabletops, or notches in one of the beams. “Actually… there is something. Your village was destroyed when you were a child, right? That’s why you’re here now.”
Ves shrugged. “I was sixteen, so hardly a child, but yes.”
Swallowing thickly, Ciri gave a few nods. Her eyes flickered over Ves’ face, and she found comfort in her attentive gaze. “Do you miss it?”
“I try not to think about it.”
“Can you stop trying for a minute? Please?”
There was desperation in Ciri’s voice, and Ves opened her mouth to speak, allowing all the memories she had of her childhood to spring forth. “I miss my parents,” she said, shaking the image of their last moments. “I miss them every day. I miss how peaceful it was to live there. It was boring, and it was hard work planting and harvesting crops, but it was predictable.”
Ciri nodded along.
“I do miss that. And if the village hadn’t been destroyed, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have to fight every day of my life, I wouldn’t have met Vernon or Hortensio or any of the Stripes. I probably never would’ve seen a city from the inside, and I never would’ve travelled to other countries. I never would’ve spent years being abused by the Scoia’tael, but I also never would’ve met you.” Once more, Ves shrugged. “My life would be completely different. I would be.”
“Do you never wish none of it had happened?”
“Course I do. Every time they pry an arrowhead out of me, I wish I were still a clueless farm girl. Every time I lose sleep over a report, I tell myself, ‘Screw Vernon, that bastard can do all this himself.’ I tell myself I’ll find out where my village was, buy a little cabin there and live out my days with nothing but crop rotation on my mind.”
“But you never actually do.”
“I never actually do,” Ves echoed. “Why would I? They’d all be strangers to me. And Vernon’s my family now. The Special Forces are my family. And these barracks are my home.”
Something hot and sticky constricted Ciri’s throat. “I’ve never gone back to Cintra,” she rasped and wiped at her eyes. “I miss my mother and grandmother. Every time I see a noblewoman in a green dress like hers, my head turns, and I’ve got ‘Grandmama!’ on my tongue. Sometimes I braid my hair like mama had it and run my fingers over the plaits. I remember playing in the courtyard with a group of boys. I remember the bed I almost drowned in with how large it was. It’s my home, but whenever I think of going back, I feel sick and can’t breathe.”
“So it’s not your home anymore.”
Deep down, Ciri had known that for a long time. “Kaer Morhen was home for a while, and I want it to be. I want it to be home so bad, but the other Wolves refuse to go back now that Vesemir is dead…”
“Don’t want to go there alone?”
“Well, what’s a home without people there?”
“Exactly.”
For a while, neither of them spoke. They took in the room around them, looked at the tables that sat vacant, the shelves of tattered books, half of which had dirty drawings shoved in between the pages. There was a faint smell of pork leftover from dinner, and the fireplace crackled with the remainder of a log. It was warm and dim, and alive with the anticipation of someone crossing the threshold at any moment.
“You can be at home here,” Ves said tentatively, prodding in the dark for the line she was afraid she might cross.
Ciri did feel comfortable here with Ves. She felt safe and unburdened with the casual atmosphere, but there was little tying her to the place. She shook her head and leaned her head against Ves’ shoulder.
“I’ll find back home one day.”
She left it at that, and Ves found herself pondering the implications of her words. Did she intend on revisiting Cintra after all? Would she make her home somewhere new? Had she found that place yet, or was it yet to be discovered?
The question that would begin unravelling the mystery that was Ciri prickled on her tongue anew.
Oren for your thoughts?