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Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon is many things. A girl. A princess. An orphan. A child of surprise to a Witcher. A fiery little hellbeast who will wreak havoc on anyone or anything in her way (when she so chooses to be).
What she is not, however, is superhuman, no matter how much she wishes she were. This is a fact of her being that Geralt often forgets.
“I am freezing,” she mutters, more to herself than her unaware guardian, “It’s pouring rain. I’ve not eaten since yesterday. Which will take me first, the hypothermia or starvation? Or perhaps it’ll be the cold I’ll catch from the weather that does me in.”
She tries to remind herself that complaining only makes her seem weaker. Geralt shouldn’t see her as weak. Not if she ever wants him to stop treating her like a dainty pane of glass when it comes to what really matters: fighting. Sure, he’ll let her ride Roach in the pouring, freezing rain, tell her to wait to eat until he can start a fire and hunt, and let the few lingering scrapes and bruises from their travels go untreated. But will he teach her to defend herself? No. Not until they reach Kaer Morhen, which is at least another week of riding away. And even after they arrive, she’s fairly sure that he’ll just put it off in another way.
It’s all so utterly confounding and frustrating that she’d be complaining about that too, if she had the energy to spare. She’s trying to save it for when they do reach Kaer Morhen, in the hopes that one of the other Witchers will train her, if Geralt doesn’t.
“Hmm.” Her guardian so helpfully provides, as he’s walking next to her. She’s found that conversing with him is akin to speaking to a stone wall. Hopefully it’s not a universal problem for all Witchers, or she’ll be bored out of her mind at Kaer Morhen.
Cirilla wants to say that her grandmother wouldn’t stand for this treatment. She wants to complain and whine and bitch and moan until Geralt caves and allows them to stop somewhere dry and warm. In fact, it almost slips from her tongue once or twice, when she grows increasingly desperate for a break from these horrible conditions.
But she won’t. She refuses, knowing that the lovely Witcher will just use it as ammunition for the next time she pleads with him to let her help him fight monsters.
Fighting gives her a purpose. Combat, short and rare though it may be, keeps her mind occupied.
She will not let Geralt of Rivia “shield” her from the only thing that makes her feel alive.
They end up in a town a few hours later, just as the sun is setting behind the snow-capped mountains, and Cirilla feels like she could cry from relief. The lights peeking through the houses’ windows are warm and cozy and terribly inviting. There’s an actual road beneath their feet again (or hooves, in her and Roach’s case). Shingled rooves give her brief moments of respite from the torrent of rain that she’s fairly sure is slowly turning to hail.
But, of course, Geralt makes no indication of stopping. He has one goal, one destination in mind, and Ciri knows that he won’t stop until they get there.
It takes her asking in a full, direct sentence, if they can stop at an inn so that she can at least change her bandages before Geralt finally seems to realize that she’s human and requires breaks when travelling long distances. It’s almost like he’s been desensitized to the constant onslaught of whining and passive-aggressiveness that works on most adults. Who would be bold enough to complain to a Witcher so many times that he learnt to tune it out? She can only assume that it’s likely someone with no common sense.
Miraculously, Geralt acknowledges her problems with a nod and steers them towards what she figures to be an inn. The thought of fire and a warm meal almost makes up for the past five or more hours of suffering he’s unwittingly put her through. Almost.
“Go sit so that I can look at your injuries,” he instructs, depriving her of an uninterrupted moment of basking in the rain-free warmth. They haven’t even been inside for a minute yet!
It’s always a constant push with him, isn’t it? A continual “keep moving forwards”. Normally, she wouldn’t mind it, since it would keep her busy and hold her thoughts of the past at bay. But after hours of riding in a frigid, hellacious downpour, all she wants to do is tell him to stop for once and let her rest. Damn Witchers.
Since the choice is up to her, she picks a spot near the back of the inn, as close to the hearth as she can find. Her fingers almost start to thaw as she walks by it, and if she leans close enough once she’s sitting down, she starts regaining some sensation in her nose. It’s a blissful feeling, really, especially with the scents of spices and cooked meat wafting delicately through the air. So it’s no surprise when Geralt ruins it by rubbing some sort of ointment onto her scraped elbow. It stings worse than salt would, and it’s probably just as effective.
Biting her lip to keep the whimpers and hisses at bay, she lets him continue until he motions toward the gash on her calf (one she got from tripping over a tree root while trying to follow him into a fight with Drowners). That one hasn’t even scabbed over as of yet, and it probably needs to be cleaned better before he applies anything to it. Surprisingly, he notices as such, and tells her to stay put while he goes off to fetch whatever he needs to take care of it.
While he’s gone, she considers throwing the damned ointment tin out of the window or into the fire. It smells too strongly of cloves and alcohol for her liking, not to mention the stinging it causes. She’d probably be better off without it anyways.
Just as she makes a move to grab it, the door slams open. In walks a merry band of people, all seemingly oblivious to the miserable conditions outside. They laugh and chatter loudly as they claim a table near the bar, each of them drawing one instrument or another out of their packs. The promise of music and general happiness is enough to make Ciri forget about her hatred for ointments and injuries.
Geralt, however, does not seem to share this sentiment about live music when he returns. Not that Cirilla is especially upset over that, considering that the Witcher comes bearing two bowls of steaming soup and a few rolls of bread. When was the last time she even ate bread that hadn’t gone stale enough to turn it into a weapon? Weeks? Months?
However long ago it was, it had been too long. At this point, any food that wasn’t caught or rationed counts as a blessing to her.
She starts voraciously tearing into her meal the second Geralt sets it down in front of her, much to his obvious amusement. Bastard probably doesn’t even need to eat for another three days if he doesn’t want to. If that’s the case, she considers asking if she can have his share too.
“It’s been… a while since I’ve been in an inn,” Geralt comments, catching her completely off guard. She must look completely absurd, her cheeks stuffed with food and her eyes wide with the realization that her guardian has just said something out of desire and not necessity. A full sentence, too! Not humming or cursing or simple orders! Truly, an event like this is a rare miracle.
Once she swallows, she decides to venture out on a limb by asking, “Really? Why?”
Geralt shrugs, the hood of his cloak concealing his distinctive eyes and hair. “No time. I was too busy tracking you down to bother with stopping in a place like this.”
So she’d been right. Witchers really do have a one-track mind, it seems.
She’s about to ask more, possibly about the last time he went to an inn, but the strum of a lute drowns out her thoughts. It’s gentle, soft, and repeats a few more times as the player tunes it, before he seamlessly carries it into a song.
“I used to sing
of tossing coins
of adventures grim and daring,
But now I swear to sing
of nothing more
from these memories I carry.”
The infectiously catchy melody brings a smile to Ciri’s face, despite the sadness of the words spilling gracefully from the bard’s mouth. It’s been so long since she’s heard music she enjoyed that she’d almost forgotten how easily a good song can brighten her spirits.
Simultaneously, Geralt’s spoon clatters onto the table beside her, jarring in comparison to the gentle strumming. She frowns, knowing it’s unlike him to fumble something, and chances a look at his face. Finds him completely frozen, eyes fractionally widened, and his brows lifted like arches above them.
She’s… never really seen him shocked before. Not an expression she ever expected to see on a Witcher at all.
“You left me for
a poison witch
A killer that tasted of sherry,
Oh and I will laugh
when you wonder why
you’re dead and I am merry,”
Grim. Ciri likes it, in a way, but she’s more so occupied with the fact that Geralt has hardly breathed for the last minute. It’s only when she waves her hand in front of his face that he finally moves, clearing his throat and tilting his head down farther to hide his face behind his hood.
“Geralt?” she asks, “Are you… alright?”
“I’m fine,” he rasps, despite every bit of his tone indicating otherwise.
She chews her lip and debates pushing further, but decides that provoking Geralt when he’s practically exuding a toxic cloud of gloom is not a good idea. Instead, she turns her attention back to what the bard is singing, curious to hear more about the bitterness in his song and what caused it.
“Some nights I wish
we had never met
and that I’d never sung for you
But without it
I could never sing
or let these words ring true:
I.
hope.
you.
Regret me, regret me,
Regret me, regret me,
Now that I’m out of your hair!
I’m sure you act pleased that I’m gone
that you’re better alone
‘cause we all know that witch never cared!
Regret me! Regret me!
Regret me! Regret me!
Regret all the time that we shared!
Regret every light and each joy
regret never saying goodbye
and regret leaving me stranded up there!”
With each added verse, Cirilla becomes more and more convinced that the song is actually a spell of some sort, fabricated and cast with the intent to paralyze Geralt in particular. What the bard has against her guardian Witcher, she doesn’t know, but it doesn’t seem to fade, even as the song starts to close out. The solo performance is now over, it seems, though that just means that the rest of them get to join in on the next song, which has half of the inn clapping along.
She won’t deny that she also wants to join in. But Geralt’s done enough to ensure her safety that she wants to return the favor.
She considers dragging him out of the building or taking him upstairs, where it might be quieter. Unfortunately, Witchers as a whole tend to be rather heavy, thanks to the sheer amount of muscle mass. There is no way in all of the Continent that she’d be able to drag him anywhere. Not with her mournfully delicate princess arms.
So physical removal is off the table, but she’s hard pressed for any other ideas. She could try to talk his ear off to distract him, perhaps, but then she’d have to put up with a moody Geralt who is also annoyed with her and would likely have a headache from the noise. Or maybe he’d have an allergic reaction to socialization. That might be what this entire problem is: a form of instinctual defense against the abruptly happy, social atmosphere. Nothing would surprise her at this point.
“Geralt,” she murmurs, daring to shake his shoulder slightly, “Geralt, I’m fairly sure you’ve stopped breathing or blinking. Who will stop me from running headfirst into danger if you die?”
Shockingly, that snaps him back into reality. Go figure.
“Don’t do that,” he warns.
Ciri is tempted to snort. Geralt could be bleeding out on the floor and he would still be trying to coddle and/or protect her. Absolutely absurd.
“In that case, I’ll need you alive and mobile, so at least enlighten me as to why you’re just sitting there, stiller than a mushroom growing out of a tree stump. It’s concerning to see a Witcher like that, you know.”
Geralt sighs and takes a long swig of whatever drink he’s ordered. Ciri does not, nor does she want to, know what’s in that cup. Likely, it contains enough alcohol to disinfect her cuts and leave them burning for a good hour.
“It was the last song,” he admits quietly, much to Ciri’s surprise, “It… reminded me of someone. Several people.”
Geralt “I don’t need friends and I don’t feel emotions” of Rivia knows people? People worth regretting?
Now this she must hear.
“People who bring up certain bad memories?” she asks innocently.
“Mm. Some good. Some bad.”
So descriptive of him. Maybe soon they can graduate to adjectives longer than four letters. This is only their first true conversation, after all. She supposes that she must give him time to remember how to talk with people.
Geralt looks uncomfortable with her waiting silence and pointed looks. “…More good than bad, I suppose.”
“Like what?”
“Things that happened before you were walking. They’re of little consequence now.”
Dodgy as ever. Ciri has the frustrated urge to tug her hair out by the roots.
“Indulge me just this once,” she smiles, as politely and sweetly as she can muster. Years of sitting through courts, balls, and the despised lordly brunches in Cintra taught her a few valuable things about acting, but even her practiced patience has limits. “I’m concerned about you, Geralt. You were as frozen as an icicle for a while during that song. Whomever made you feel that way because of a song is surely worth talking about.”
The Witcher looks at her and blinks slowly. It’s very nearly a glare. Cirilla is quite proud of her ability to grate on every adult’s nerves when she must.
“If you must know, one of them happens to be the same bard who was singing that damned song.”
Ciri gasps. This story has far more layers to it than she had previously assumed. “Really? How do you know him?”
Geralt sighs. It seems she’s finally worn him down. “We were… something of friends once.”
Friends?! Geralt had friends? Impossible. Ciri must know more about this tale immediately.
In the background of noise and music, she hears the original singer start a new song on his own. Now that she’s watching close enough, she can see Geralt’s eyes follow him around the circle of chairs and tables that he’s made into his performance arena. The Witcher’s gaze is eerily similar to the one he uses while tracking animals or monsters, minus the hard, concentrated slant of his eyebrows that usually comes with that particular stare.
He looks… quite different that she’s used to. Still perpetually frowning, but the way he’s watching the bard makes him look softer, almost. Or perhaps she’s just so used to him being frustrated with her that any relaxation on his face looks foreign.
Geralt’s lucky that he has such a long hood, because his estranged “friend” coincidentally turns to face their table as he starts to sing.
“I… hear, you’re alive.”
The bard’s lip twitches upward and he rolls his eyes as if disgusted by the mere thought.
“How… disappointing.”
His tone is nothing short of acrid venom leeching into the air, and it shows on Geralt’s face. Cirilla feels a bit ridiculous, with her eyes having to dart between the two men like she’s watching a non-verbal screaming match where she’s the negotiator.
“I don’t think he realizes you’re here,” she assures her guardian, falling into actual concern as she sees his face display more and more hurt. The fact that he probably doesn’t even realize how long he’s been holding that back is only slightly more worrying than the fact that he’s actually showing any emotion at all. “He’s just putting on a show. It’s his job.”
“And yet he’s speaking about me directly,” he murmurs. Ciri’s not even sure that he meant to say it out loud.
“I’ve also survived, no thanks to you.”
Wounded. Geralt’s starting to look like he’s actually wounded. In the metaphorical sense, of course. He barely reacts to, say, being run through in the thigh by an arrow. Which she’s seen happen a few times.
Ciri was interested in the songs before. Now, she just wants to drown them out for her and Geralt both.
“Did I not bring you some glee, Mister “oh, look at me”?”
Now it’s both of them that seem slightly shattered. She’s going to get a headache from trying to understand what sort of possible connection these two could have. After all, it’s clear that Geralt won’t reveal much about it. Not without copious amounts of alcohol and convincing.
“We can leave,” she suggests softly, daring to rest a hand on his forearm.
The Witcher shakes his head. “No. I… it’s best if I hear him out. It’s the least I owe him.”
She can’t imagine what would leave Geralt indebted to anybody, but the past hour has surely shown her that maybe some of her assumptions about the man aren’t as accurate as she thought.
“Now I’ll
burn
all the memories
of
you.”
It may just be her mind playing tricks on her, but Ciri swears she can see the fire in the hearth double in size, hissing and crackling as it eats through the wooden logs inside. The added light reflects in Geralt’s eyes, which are still fixed on the bard and his lute, haunted by what are most likely memories of his own.
Desperate to change the subject (or to at least make Geralt look like he’s on the verge of either breaking or starting a fight), she forces a chuckle. “That reminds me, erm, where are we going to stay tonight? I’m fairly certain that this inn is fully occupied because of the storm.”
“Hmm.” Is all she gets in reply.
“We’ll have to camp then, I suppose,” she fruitlessly continues, “Which means we still have to make camp. And that’s— well, pretty hard in weather like this. Especially after dark. So why don’t we hurry up on that and get it started?”
No reply.
“Did you ever even care?
With your swords and your
stupid hair…”
“No shit he cared,” she mumbles under her breath.
Geralt makes a half-strangled sound that sounds suspiciously like a name. If only Cirilla spoke whatever unique language that Geralt’s trying to communicate in.
“What was that?” she asks.
Although she was sure that the Witcher had completely forgotten about her existence, he manages to reply in a cough of, “Jaskier.” Ciri congratulates herself for a job well done. Unlocking the secrets of Geralt’s past is proving to be a much more difficult task than it ought to be. At least now she has a name to go off of.
“Bards tend to exaggerate things,” she sighs, hoping that some words of hers get through to Geralt’s normal self, “I’m sure he’s overplaying it for the crowd.”
“I…”
She barrels on. “It’s alright. You don’t need to take any of it to heart. He could be singing about anyone under the sun—”
“…I miss him.”
“—really, maybe all this is just about some fling that he’s—”
Ciri blinks in awe, the words finally soaking into her brain.
“You…” she whispers incredulously, “you miss him?”
Geralt nods slowly. Cirilla’s eyebrows raise. “Huh. Thought Witchers couldn’t feel things like that.”
“We… can’t.” He sounds just as confused by the revelation as she is. Neither of them quite knows what to say.
“At the end of my days when I’m through,
no word that I’ve written will ring quite as true
as buurrrnnnnn,
Burn, Butcher, burnnnn!”
“Ah,” Ciri hums, a short-lived relief flooding over her, “See, Geralt? It’s not about you, it’s—”
Geralt’s face is far too pale when she remembers to glance over at him, his lips parted like somebody’s just inflicted the worst damage imaginable onto him. (Or at least that’s how she assumes he’d react to something like that. Cursing his name and bloodline barely gets a slightly deepened frown out of him.)
Suddenly, she remembers a story she heard from the boys she used to play games with in Cintra. A tale of a swordsman that came to be known as the Butcher of Blaviken, who killed an innocent girl in the view of a whole town. The story, although it had undoubtedly been changed beyond recognition as it was passed along, was supposedly about a Witcher who was later known as the White Wolf. As much as it pains her to think such a thing, it does sound remarkably like something Geralt would do.
“I’m sorry,” she offers.
It clearly does little to help.
The song and all of its anger winds down a few lines later, after an admittedly haunting repetition of the word “burn”. In between her constant glances at Geralt, she watches the light die in the bard’s eyes before it rekindles into bitterness and resentment, leaving behind smoke trails of longing and regret as the last note echoes off of the walls.
Not even an second after it’s over, Ciri finds herself being dragged out of the inn by Geralt, who practically plops her onto Roach’s back and starts leading them to a patch of woods just past the town’s borders. She barely has time to protest before he starts setting up camp, ignoring the downpour that only seems to have gotten impossibly worse in the time that they’ve been inside. Even the thunderclaps and crackles of lightning overhead do nothing to faze him.
The tents are up within the time that it takes for Cirilla’s nose to start dripping from the cold once more, without so much as a word shared between them.
She knows there’s no stopping Geralt when he gets like this, no matter how much pleading she puts into it. Mournfully, she resigns herself to her fate, following Geralt’s lead by taking out her bedroll and gingerly setting it up inside her tent.
It’s going to be a long while of waiting before Geralt falls asleep. Ciri already knows she isn’t going to get any.
Instead, she resorts to gazing up at the damp cloth ceiling. Naturally, she also plots and schemes a way to get her guardian Witcher to realize that he has the emotional depth of a saucer and that he needs to apologize to certain people from his mysterious past. It’s tough work, but she decides that she can at least plant that seed for him. Provided that she’s cautious enough not to be caught.
The inn surely has paper and ink, right?
<>o<>o<>o<>o<> <>o<>o<>o<>o<> <>o<>o<>o<>o<>
All Jaskier wants to do is bathe and pass the fuck out. Is that too much to ask for?
Apparently it is, because after he’s done with his extensive performance of the night and is finally able to retire to his room in the inn, he finds that his window has been blown open by the storm and that an entire tree branch (amongst countless other bits of debris) has found its way inside. A good section of the floor in his room is soaked, the covers on the bed are a wreck, and the entire space is too cold for his comfort.
He swears upon arriving at the scene and immediately closes the blasted window, but not before tossing the tree branch back to where it came from. He’ll… start on the other stuff later.
In the meantime, a note on the bed’s nightstand catches his eye. A simple piece of parchment folded over and held down at the corner by a knife that he’s sure was nicked from the kitchen below. Somehow, it’s not wet in the slightest. Go figure.
Curiously, he takes the knife out and unfolds the slip of paper, surprised to find only one line on it.
And yet that one sentence makes him feel far more things than it should.
“Geralt misses you far more than you think he does.
~Dearly, his child-surprise.”
It hurts. Physically hurts. It infuriates him and brings back the ugly resentment seated within his heart. But even then, there’s the sputtering spark of hope, the foolish longing for it to be true. A painful optimism whispering that only person he’s loved in a long time regrets abandoning him. Maybe even enough to…
No. If Geralt wanted that, it would have been easy for him to strike up a conversation earlier. Not send fucking Princess Cirilla of Cintra as a messenger bird.
Jaskier burns the paper without much of a second thought, bitterly wishing that his love would burn with it.