Chapter Text
Jaskier had been against using the rooms where the original trial of grasses had been held, had refused to even enter them when Geralt had led him through the crumbling castle in search for eligible options. The room they had eventually chosen was one on the lowest levels of the building, small and blessedly empty, except for a ramshackle chair and a half-disintegrated shelf on the wall opposite the door. Now, as Jaskier raps his knuckles against the ancient wood that makes up said door and door frame and steps over its threshold when Ciri calls him in, both chair and shelf are gone. Instead of the former bedraggled furniture, the little room now holds a straight backed, wooden chair that seems to be in much better condition than its predecessor and a simple, wooden cot, pushed back into the far corner of the room, next to the freshly cleaned hearth.
“Hey”, Jaskier greets his daughter through a slightly strained smile, which melts into a more natural shape when he crosses over to her and goes on, “just wanted to check in on you on your big day. …how are you feeling, sweetheart?”
“I’m fine, I suppose”, Ciri replies with a half-hearted shrug, “bit nervous”
Her hair falls around her face in loose, pale ringlets, much like Geralt’s does when he undoes the tie that holds back his curls. The shorter strands fall into her eyes as she looks up at Jaskier from the cot.
“I can imagine”
And despite his best attempt to keep his voice neutral, Jaskier hears the worry bleed through the words himself and his teeth sink into his bottom lip as if that might slice the strain from his voice after the fact. All he wants to do, is rush to her side and reassure her, promise that everything is going to be alright and that there’s no need to fret at all – but he has been worrying about today for the better part of the last month, has spent countless, sleepless hours working himself into frenzies only Geralt had managed to dispel, and even that only partially, no matter what he did or said. Well, that or begging her not to go through with it.
“Let me tie up your hair, baby”, is what he says in the end, and now his voice comes out too cheery, too fake to be calming at all, “I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable with it out of the way”
“I lost my tie”, Ciri tells him in a small voice that barely makes it all the way from her lips to his ear in the silence, “I’m sorry”
Gods, Jaskier just wants to bundle her up in his and Geralt’s room upstairs and hold her close until the end of winter, never speak of today again in his life. He wants to do something that will make her feel better – but he’s never been good at putting on a show for the people he loved most of all, and both Geralt and Ciri know it.
“Good thing I got this then, isn’t it?”, he still announces and presents a piece of thin, black ribbon with the small, well-practiced flourish that usually produces sweets or the very kind of useless, pretty trinkets Geralt grumbles about but never throws out. It measures about the length of his forearm, curling in on itself around the edges even as he holds it up for Ciri’s inspection in the light of the candles that crowd the floor alongside the walls in groups of three or four.
“Will you turn around, darling?”
“Sure”, Ciri says and does as she’s bid, voice coming out just a tad stronger, “thanks”
Normally, they chat while Jaskier braids her hair or trims her split ends, normally there’s little silence between them no matter what time of day and no matter what they do. Today though, the usually unending stream of words and songs that snakes through Jaskier’s head as much as it flows through is very blood has dried up. Every sentence he tries to assemble in the back of his throat dissolves by the time the stream of air that was supposed to carry it passes through his teeth and only the bitter aftertaste of the awkward constructions remains along the length of his tongue. Ciri doesn’t seem to fare much better, and Jaskier doesn’t have to touch her to feel the tension radiate off he small, whip-thin body. Nervous like this, she looks even younger than her fourteen summers and Jaskier’s fingers itch to pull her into his arms even before he ties the end of her braid off with the ribbon and gently taps her shoulder to indicate that he she can turn back around.
Coming face to face once more doesn’t help their conversation along either, and in the end, Jaskier subpresses his sigh and leans down to touch her cheek before he turns to leave. If he can’t actually do anything to ease her worries, he might as well leave before he unsettles her even more with his own fretting. He has barely opened his mouth to say as much, when Ciri blurts out the plea she had kept down for the last fortnight.
“Can you stay with me?”, she asks, and her voice comes out breathless, even as she shifts on her cot and half reaches out for Jaskier with her right hand, “please? Please, I want you here”
I’m scared, she doesn’t add, doesn’t need to with either Jaskier or Geralt, the whole keep probably, I’m really, really scared and I want both my parents with me.
Gods, she can’t even remember a single time Jaskier had refused to sit with her, to comfort her, no matter how small and insignificant the thing that had upset her had been. Deep, deep inside, she doubts that there will ever be a time he would send her away or tell her to get lost and sort herself out – except that she knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that this, the mutations and what comes after it, is the last thing Jaskier wants for her. That he would gladly throw her over his shoulder and bodily carry her as far away from this room, from Kaer Morhen and its witchers, even Geralt as he could if that would keep her from going through with it. That he would do anything at all to keep her safe and spare her pain – if she would let him. If this weren’t exactly what she wanted, needed to do in order to face destiny, to become what she was meant to be.
Ciri can’t bring herself to look up at Jaskier as she waits for his answer, doesn’t move or say anything else, sure, that she would do what she had forbidden herself all along and cling to him as she begged him not to leave if she just opened her mouth.
“Of course, I’ll stay with you, baby”
Jaskier’s hands close around hers and gently squeeze her fingers between his own as he lowers himself onto the edge of her cot and slings both arms around her to tug her close, “I’ll always be there if you need me”
“I’m sorry”, she whispers, and her voice comes out tight as she strains to keep the tremor out of it, “I know you don’t want-“
“O, my sweet, it doesn’t really matter what I want here”, Jaskier cuts her off in a soft voice, “I spent most of my life going against pretty much everything my parents had planned for me, and I’ve spent a rather long time not talking to either of them because they tried to force me to become what they’d wanted me to be. I most certainly am not going to do that with you, I’m glad you know what you want – I’m just worried. I’m always scared you might get hurt and if it were up to me, I’d do anything to keep you out of harm’s way, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever refuse to come when you want me at your side. My love’s not contingent on you doing what I want you to do”
Instead of answering, Ciri merely returns his hug and buries her face in the soft fabric of his waistcoat and shirt, which is how Geralt finds them when he returns to the room a couple of minutes later. He doesn’t say a word as he crosses over to them, but he sits down on Ciri’s other side and wraps his arms around both of them while they wait for Yennefer to join them. Only when the door of the little to room opens, do they kiss Ciri’s hair and face and let go.
The vial between Yennefer’s fingers is smaller than the clear glass bottles that hold Geralt’s potions, and the light of the candles around them reflects off it when she presents it to Ciri, much like Jaskier had presented the ribbon. The concoction within it is green though, rather than black, so close to the colour of Ciri’s eyes that Jaskier almost laughs and tips back his head to shout up to the ceiling and the heavens behind it to ask whether the universe was at least enjoying fucking with his loved ones. He barely manages to keep his mouth shut, and even show his daughter a reassuring smile when her eyes flick to his.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jaskier can see the tense, unhappy lines around Geralt’s mouth, and he reaches around their daughter to squeeze his husband’s knee in lieu of the platitudes that crowd behind his teeth, one more cliché and meaningless than the other. They had talked about this, had talked to no end, or rather Jaskier had talked, and Geralt had shared as much as he could, nestled in his husband’s arms and not quite looking at him through his hair while Jaskier had held him, but Jaskier can still only imagine what watching Ciri hitch up the sleeve of her chemise so Yennefer can fit the tourniquet around her tiny upper arm must feel like for him.
It's not the traditional grasses, of course it’s not. The green liquid currently filling up the barrel of Yennefer’s syringe is the product of almost three years of her, Eskel’s, Geralt’s and Vesemir’s combined effort to blend several different potions that should give Ciri most of the abilities the grasses had bestowed on the witchers that had survived them in the first place without doing quite as much damage as the original.
“It won’t give her the witcher mutations in the classical sense”, Yennefer had explained when she had arrived at Kaer Morhen with the finished concoction, “but it will not put her through hell for days on end and maybe kill her in the end anyway. It’s as potent as it can be, whilst still being safe. Worst case, it won’t have any effects at all, and nothing will happen”
“Safe”, Jaskier had scoffed, despite himself and the lace edge of his sleeve had flopped through the air as he’d gestured towards the flask and potion in question, “it’s fucking glowing in the fucking dark”
But even that protest had been half-hearted in the face of Ciri’s resolve and Yennefer’s undeniable expertise, and Jaskier had swallowed down his protests alongside the pleas to just drop the whole thing, to just leave the whole idea behind if there was even the smallest chance that his and Geralt’s daughter of surprise might be harmed at all.
Now, he merely shifts back on the little cot until Ciri can lay down with her head on his thigh and links their fingers together while Geralt gently lifts her feet and lower legs onto his lap and curls his hand around her calf.
“You know the drill”, Yennefer tells Ciri when she leans over her and brushes back her ash grey curls, “you keep telling me how you feel, yes?”
“Yes”, Ciri agrees at once, forcing herself to stay perfectly still and not make a sound when the tip of the needle pierces her skin, “I’ll tell you if the pain gets too bad”
“Good girl”, Yennefer says, and before either Jaskier or Geralt can panic and snatch their girl up to carry her up to her room despite her protests, her thumb presses down against the plunger, “we’re all right her with you. You’ll be fine”
Her assurance almost drowns out the wince Ciri can’t quite keep in at the sting, but Jaskier’s free hand is in her hair at once, running soothingly through her curls, even as Yennefer slips the needle free and presses a swatch of clean fabric against the trickle of blood that succeeds it.
“Look at you, being all brave”, Jaskier croons, no trace of irony in his voice, “you’re doing so well already – isn’t she, love?”
“Braver than you at any rate”, Geralt agrees, one hand darting over to squeeze his husband’s elbow for a second to make it clear he’s merely joking, “gods know it’s much more of a hassle to keep you still when you get any shots or stitches”
“Excuse me”, Jaskier gasps, and his fingers twitch in their daughter’s hair as if straining to fly up to his chest in mock offense, “I’ll have you know that I hardly even flinch when-“
“When you watch someone else being injected”, Yennefer finishes and blows him a kiss as soon as she has tied off Ciri’s bandage and gently patted her arm, “unless of course it’s Geralt or anyone else you either know or think you could like in any way. Apart from that you’re a perfect model of stoicism”
Her gown rustles when she sinks into the wooden chair next to them, almost drowning out her voice, and for a long moment, its rustling is the only sound that fills the still air of the tiny room. Then Ciri quietly giggles, and Jaskier’s glare immediately softens as he trains his eyes on her face and moves his hand from her hair to cup her cheek in his palm.
“How are you feeling, baby?”
“Fine”, Ciri tells him, “I don’t really feel anything yet”
Let’s hope it stays that way, Jaskier doesn’t say, merely lifts Ciri’s hand up to his lips and kisses the back of her fingers, while Geralt squeezes his elbow again.