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Chapter Text

They linger in Kaer Morhen only three days after the battle with the Deathless Mother. It's long enough to observe the funerary rites of the witchers, to prepare food and pack for the road, to clean up what can be salvaged of the great hall, and to rest, if they can. Early morning of the fourth day finds them ready to leave, before the sun has even emerged over the mountains. The light is faded, the colours of the world muted, and the broken fortress looms overhead like ancient bones protruding from the earth.

Ciri is both sad and relieved to leave it. Kaer Morhen seemed at first to be the greatest sanctuary she'd had since Cintra, a place that might become home. Now that sense of belonging is bathed in the blood of the witchers who died here by her hand. They did not die by her will, but they are dead because she was here. Men she ate with, laughed with, men who'd helped her. Who she might have called family. Those who remain have not levied any accusations at her, but she can see them in Lambert's eyes, in the distance Coen keeps. She has brought only danger and death here, and more will come for her.

Vesemir is the only witcher who follows them out into the yard for the farewell. Geralt is parting from the others with quiet words and embraces in the hall, and Ciri had slipped out while they weren't looking. Vesemir comes to her while she's fastening the last of her luggage to her horse's saddle.

(There are more horses in the stables than there are witchers in the keep, now. She doesn't ask who her new steed used to belong to.)

"Goodbye, cub," Vesemir says, gruff and raw.

Cub. Not a wolf yet, but still part of the pack. Guilt rises swift enough to choke Ciri. His boys are dead because of her. And she can see the same regret and unspoken words on his face - he is so wounded by his losses and how close he came to giving her the mutagens that he seems diminished. No one seems to care that she wanted it at the time; it has shaken the bedrock between him and Geralt, and that's another thing for her to regret.

How many decades has Vesemir seen, she wonders, and yet Ciri feels in that moment that they understand one another utterly, twinned by too much grief to give voice to.

Instead she flings herself at him, burying her face in his armour as if for a moment it can shield her from the world, and he holds her with hands that are strong and old and as gentle as if she is a creature of glass.

When they part, Geralt has emerged, and Vesemir grips Ciri's shoulder a moment, nods as if in answer to some unspoken question, and goes to speak to his Wolf.

Ciri allows herself a moment to feel small and lost. Then she clenches her fists and turns to mount.

"Let me help you, princess?"

Jaskier has turned from his own horse, and is offering his hand.

Alongside everything else that's happened in the past few days, there is the mystery of Jaskier. Ciri still doesn't understand who he is, let alone why he's here - though truth be told she's barely spared a moment to care, and certainly never thought to ask Geralt about him. She's spent as much of the last three days alone as she could manage, either in her room or running the trail endlessly, not sure if she was trying to exhaust herself enough to sleep or avoid sleep altogether, for these last few days it has brought only terrible nightmares.

She's seen Jaskier around the place though, at meals and odd times. He's hard to miss. He's loud. Ciri never thought she'd find anyone who made too much conversation in Kaer Morhen - that the other witchers were far more talkative than Geralt, and that he was more talkative here too, had been welcome surprises - but Jaskier seems always to be making noise. He talks to everyone, even when they would clearly prefer quiet, and when that fails or there's no one immediately around he sings or hums to himself. She's gathered that he's a bard - it's one of the many things he seems not to shut up about - and he's human. He possesses not a drop of magic, and it's obvious (from Lambert's jibes if nothing else) that he also lacks any real experience with a sword.

He is, in short, a very strange companion for a witcher, let alone one presumably selected by Geralt during their recent perils, and Ciri doesn't understand why he's been given a horse and equipment and seems to be joining them. Perhaps he's going only as far as the first town they pass. It's not like he'd stay in Kaer Morhen without them, when Geralt seems to be the only witcher he knows.

"I don't need your help," Ciri snaps, pushing past to settle one foot in the stirrup and use the horn of the saddle to swing herself onto the horse. From the corner of her eye, she sees Jaskier retract his hand, but she moves too fast to see his expression.

Not that she cares. Soon it'll just be her, Geralt and Yennefer. No point wondering about Jaskier, not when he'll be gone soon. Everyone leaves before long, one way or another.

It's strange enough to have Yennefer coming with them. Ciri was so ready to like her before, fascinated by the sorceress herself and by the effect she had on Geralt, but the betrayal with the Deathless Mother had stabbed right through that. She understands now that Yennefer was not entirely free in her choices, influenced by the same evil that pierced Ciri's will, but the hurt and anger she felt on the outskirts of her own city, almost handed over to Nilfgard by someone she'd trusted, have not entirely left her - though she does believe Yennefer is genuine, now, in her desire to help. Yennefer can teach her magic, has access to knowledge and spells that might be instrumental in figuring out why Nilfgaard has been after Ciri for so long and in keeping them one step ahead of those who might pursue them.

At least Geralt will be with her. That is the one thing Ciri doesn't think she could endure without, now. He's the only one who hasn't allowed her to avoid him, though he's not pressed her to speak - merely been present, so that she could if she wanted to.

Ciri loves him fiercely, this strange man who has taken her as his own, who fights for her against anything. The father she's chosen, now, the only choice strong enough to tear her from the illusory memory of her own parents.

Frankly, it would feel less weird to go off into the wild with just Geralt.

And yet... there's something about it being the four of them. Like maybe it means something that she could interpret if she stared it in the face, but she won't, she refuses to. Geralt is here because he is bound to her, she can't be sure why Yennefer is with them, if it's just guilt or something more, and she doesn't know the first thing about what Jaskier is doing. She can't let any of it mean more than that, or she's just setting herself up for a fall.

"Ready?" Geralt has arrived. He strokes a hand down the neck of Ciri's horse, awaits her answer like he'll follow or wait on her word.

"Ready," Ciri says, because it's true, when he's with her.

Geralt leads them out, but Ciri lingers a moment in the gateway. Vesemir is standing before the open doors to the keep, and he raises a hand in farewell. Ciri waves back, once, and then turns away.

The path weaves and winds down the mountain. It's a good time to make the trip; though there is snow on the ground, none is falling and the visibility is good. It's warmer than many of the times Ciri's trained around the fortress, not that that's not saying much - she's glad of her furs, still.

There is not, as far as Ciri knows, much of a plan yet. Geralt said they would start out by heading west, following the line of the mountains, but lose themselves in the plains and forests in the northernmost parts of Kaedwen. From there... Well, it's not escaped Ciri's notice that they're making this up as they go along.

As such, there's no reason to push the horses, so their pace is slow and careful. It's gone midday by the time they reach the foothills of the mountain range, and it's only when the path becomes a more gentle descent with the slope rising to their left and falling away into a valley on their right that they pause for lunch - and Ciri realises how quiet it's been all morning.

This wouldn't have been remotely significant on her previous travels with Geralt, who tended to maintain his silence unless she talked to him first or he was concerned about something. Yennefer is still something of an unknown quality; they talked more on their frantic ride to Cintra, but it was all focused, and she seems lost in thought today, as Ciri has been herself. No, what's strange is the quiet from Jaskier, who's been at the back of their group - never lagging or slowing them down, but far quieter than Ciri has already begun to expect from him.

They dismount in a spot where the landscape is dotted with enough trees and bushes to give them cover, while still affording a good view of the surround. They've left the snow behind them at the higher altitudes, thankfully, since this means they can sit on the ground to rest limbs already sore from the morning's ride.

Before Ciri can sit down beside Geralt, however, Yennefer snags her by the arm.

"Come and join me, Ciri," she says, a touch louder than needed. "There's a spell I want to teach you."

"I'd rather just eat," Ciri says, but it's half-hearted; it's hard to resist the lure of magic, even if she can't recreate what Yenn can do. And besides, she's just noticed the pointed look Yennefer is giving her, and lets herself be tugged a few yards away to sit in a patch of heather.

Lean in close to me. It's Yennefer's voice, but it makes her jump - the sound has come from inside Ciri's head, and she looks round with wide eyes. Yennefer is looking at her with a tiny smile. Look like we're talking about something, but keep quiet. I want to listen.

Listen to what? Ciri looks around, wondering what Yennefer's up to. Surely she's not sensed a threat, or she'd tell them openly.

But Geralt has settled himself down next to his horse, and he barely seems to have noticed Yennefer and Ciri departing, because Jaskier has sat down beside him and is unwrapping a parcel of food to place between them.

Ciri looks back to Yennefer, who nods, and discretely places a finger to her lips. Ciri digs into her own lunch as quietly as she can, ears straining hard.

"So, that was Kaer Morhen," Jaskier begins.

No reply, save for a gentle hum.

"Impressive. Bit smaller than I'd expected."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"Eh, I got a tale or two out of it."

Silence falls, and even from here it seems like an awkward one. Ciri sneaks a glance. They're not looking at each other, but neither of them are eating either.

"What now?" Jaskier asks.

"We keep moving. West, for now. Get away from Kaer Morhen, from anywhere anyone knows to look for us, and figure it out from there. There are wild lands out that way, not many settlements."

Would've got away quicker if he'd let me portal us somewhere, Yennefer says - or thinks - to Ciri, clearly amused. He said they might be tracked, but the chances are so low - really, he just hates using them. They make him feel sick.

Ciri smiles to herself, hidden behind the curtain of her hair. It's odd to think of Geralt, who's faced so many perils, being put off by something like that.

There's a prolonged silence from the other half of their party, and oddly it's Geralt who breaks it.

"I know it's not much to go on, but it's all I've got." There's something almost... well, if he was any other man, Ciri might have said he sounded fractionally vulnerable.

"No, no, it's a good plan," Jaskier says hurriedly. "Whatever it takes to protect her. I meant, though, where do I fit into this?"

"What do you mean?"

"It hasn't escaped my notice that the track becomes more of a road, down there in the valley. There's a settlement out that way somewhere. I suppose I could see if they've any coin to spare for entertainment, start my way back to Oxenfurt from there."

"You're leaving?"

"Do you want me to?"

There is backstory here that Ciri needs. She has, in the space of about two minutes, become entranced. Something has happened here, between them, something big and weighty and unresolved, and she needs to know more. It's like watching the dramas of court play out from the high table in Cintra's hall, only even more fascinating, because this is Geralt. There's an easy familiarity between him and Jaskier, or at least the ghost of it - they seem both at ease and very uncomfortable with each other at the same time.

And Ciri, despite herself, wants to beg Geralt to answer because it's a terrible question to leave hanging but he's back to being silent. Yennefer swears very, very quietly, so quietly that Ciri suspects not even witcher hearing will let Geralt hear her - not when he's so distracted he's still not noticed there is no lesson taking place over here.

"Geralt," Jaskier says, and despite her general indifference to him so far Ciri can't help but feel a pang at the strained note in his voice. "I really do need an answer from you. I know much of our early acquaintance - perhaps all the years we've known each other - has been me following you regardless of your professed feelings on the matter, but I can take a hint when it's literally yelled in my face. You asked me to come back, and I did. If you want me to stay, I need you to tell me. I deserve that much."

Seconds drag by, and somehow last eternities. Ciri's fingers are growing cold clenched unmoving around a piece of bread, but she doesn't dare twitch.

Finally, finally, Geralt speaks. "It won't be safe."

"It is literally never safe, Geralt, I got an axe thrown at me while I was trying to take a godsforsaken bath last week, and that kind of thing doesn't happen when you're not around. It's been years, you colossal dolt, I am aware of the danger."

"You're not bound to this. You could go back to Oxenfurt, to a quiet life."

"Clearly you've never been to Oxenfurt."

"Jaskier."

"Geralt."

Ciri really might have to revise her previous assessment of Jaskier; this is fun.

Eventually, Geralt sighs, managing to sound like Jaskier has aged him a decade in weariness over the conversation. Yennefer is incredibly tense at Ciri's side, like she's on the edge of battle.

"If you're sure. Yes, Jaskier. Come with us."

The tension pops like a soap bubble. Yennefer relaxes all of a sudden, takes a bite of cheese with a smug smile and kicks her feet out in front of her. Ciri chances another look across, and sees that Geralt has finally looked away from the view to examine his own lunch, and Jaskier - Jaskier is wearing only a small smile, but it blazes in his eyes, something brighter than she quite knows how to name.

"I knew it," he says, and his voice has transformed - the serious, cautious note is gone, replaced with something loose and free and teasing. "See, it was always there, ever since Posada, you never gave voice to it but I could always hear the words - 'Jaskier, you improve my life just by being here, I hope you never leave my side'-"

"Your last impression was better," Geralt says, dry as sun-baked earth, but there is a smile creeping at the corners of his lips that he does nothing to hide.

As they descend into bickering - mostly one-sided, but Geralt does give a few devastating retorts - Ciri turns to Yennefer with her eyebrows raised.

"Don't give me that look," Yennefer says. The satisfied grin is still there. "Left to their own devices, Geralt never would've said anything until the bard felt he had to leave, and we'd be stuck with that grump moping about the place in self-flagellation until the end of time."

"You like Jaskier," Ciri says, grinning.

Yennefer affects a look of disgust. "What a horrifying accusation," she says, but her eyes twinkle, and Ciri returns to her lunch feeling unexpectedly cheered.

Maybe this travelling party makes more sense than she first thought.

It becomes immediately apparent that this uncertainty between Jaskier and Geralt was the entire reason for the former's silence all morning, because that's the last they know of it. For the most part he keeps his voice passably quiet, in deference to the fact that they're meant to be in hiding, but their path leads them off the road into landscapes as remote as the mountains and the sun is high, meaning that Jaskier's spirits clearly are too. And - as he declares - the spirit of a poet cannot be contained.

He sings as they head down into the valley. He has a lovely voice, now that Ciri's in a better mood to listen, and it's a long time since she could enjoy music.

More entertaining than the music itself, though, is the reaction the songs get from Geralt.

Jaskier is evidently a font of knowledge, and his songs seem to draw both from his own life and works of fiction. It is, however, hard to tell exactly where the line is between the two - except when the song involves Geralt.

"That is not how it happened," Geralt growls, while Jaskier is still drawing out the last syllable of a song in which Geralt apparently bested a nest of bruxa single-handedly and Jaskier spent a night with three beautiful young women profoundly grateful for his part in their rescue.

"Yes, surely the women fled from the mere smell of you, Jaskier?" Yennefer chimes in, and Jaskier flips a rude hand gesture at her.

"You two have no appreciation for art," he says haughtily. "I shan't perform for so unappreciative an audience as you heathens. Not when we have a person of actual discernment in our midst. Cirilla, what did you think?"

Honestly, the music could have been atrocious and Ciri would have asked him to continue just for the way Geralt's jaw has been clenching tighter and tighter over the last three songs.

"I thought it was delightful, master bard," she says, as sweet as she can manage, and Jaskier gives her a beaming smile and the wink of one conspirator to another.

Yennefer sighs theatrically, but she's grinning too. If Geralt was the type, he'd probably be banging his head against a tree in despair.

And yet he must have known this would come, and still invited Jaskier to join them. Yes, there's definitely something going on here, and Ciri is going to find out what.

The next song is a bouncing, jovial tune about Geralt getting stuck in a putrid bog, and Ciri's not had this much fun in weeks.

Finally free of the mountains, late afternoon sees them walking through a forest of pine trees, dismounted so that they can more easily guide the horses over the uneven ground. They need to keep moving, but there's no excessive urgency, or they really would have portalled somewhere.

And Ciri finds herself genuinely impressed by Jaskier's capacity to find things to talk about. He complains about the difficulty of the road and the unsuitability of his clothes, though by the sounds of it he's known his boots were bad for hiking for some time and done nothing about it. Somehow this leads into a rant about another bard he knows in Oxenfurt, who compares unfavourably to a kikimore, which leads into a song about Geralt fighting a pair of kikimora, which inexplicably segues into a critique of Yennefer's dress sense. There's no particular logic that Ciri can discern to any of it, but she finds herself engaged anyway, asking questions or picking up an easy chorus to sing along.

It's... it's nice, is the thing. Jaskier steers clear of anything genuinely sensitive or serious or remotely current, which means Ciri doesn't have to be constantly thinking how much she wants to say or worried about what barely scabbed over wounds might be reopened. She can just talk, until the long miles of the day don't feel so long after all.

And it's fun, too, to watch the way Jaskier and Yennefer interact. They don't really talk, they bicker, almost every sentence barbed in some way. On the face of it, if she'd not seen Yennefer deliberately help him and Geralt out with their emotional constipation earlier, it would seem like they hated each other - and by the sounds of it, maybe they did, once. But now they both seem to be enjoying it, like the verbal equivalent of two witchers having a fight to keep their skills sharp. And Jaskier seems to time his opening gambits deliberately - more than once Ciri sees Yennefer begin to slip into a mood more melancholy than thoughtful, and it's only moments later that Jaskier tosses an insult her way.

Jaskier's familiarity with Geralt is more in what goes unspoken. Ciri's still trying to place how long they've known each other for, though Jaskier had alluded to it being measured in years earlier - and it certainly seems to have been a long time. When they stop in the evening to set up camp, in a place where the pine forest is broken up by a cliff that juts out from the trees and grants good shelter at its base, it's clear that Geralt and Jaskier have done this a thousand times before.

They settle the horses first, loosely tethering the reins to trees but removing saddles and packs. Ciri volunteers to brush them all down, and uses the vantage point to watch the others as she works. It's notable that Geralt and Jaskier seem to have an unspoken understanding of which tasks fall to each of them, but Yennefer has to ask what would be most helpful for her to do.

Geralt disappears quickly to go hunting, wanting to stretch the rations they've brought from the keep as long as possible. Yennefer and Jaskier collect wood and stones to build up a fireplace in the lee of the cliff, with a spit from which they hang an iron pot. Water is collected from a nearby stream and set to heat. Yennefer keeps offering to do things by magic, and Jaskier playfully slaps her hands away and tells her she's living like the mortals tonight.

When Geralt returns with a brace of rabbits, Ciri's taking her time with the last of the horses. Geralt prepares the meat and Jaskier cooks it, dropping chunks into a stew with some of the root vegetables that grow at the keep, and bread to mop it up with. The food is plain - witchers not apparently keeping any seasonings on hand except salt, which Jaskier complains about repeatedly and at some length - but it's warm and filling, and there's plenty for all of them.

And Ciri finds herself relaxing more than she'd expected to on the road, especially after everything that's happened. It's interesting to watch the rest of this strange group, and the natural ebb and flow of Geralt and Jaskier. By the time Geralt's reached over to take Ciri's empty bowl, Jaskier's already standing to go and wash them in the stream. Geralt cleans Jaskier's knife while he's gone, and when he returns Jaskier takes it from his extended hand without even looking. Jaskier chooses the springiest patches of earth to lay out the bedrolls around the fire, while Geralt builds a pile of spare wood to see them through the night.

It's strange that they work so easily together, without having to talk anything through, and yet Geralt never mentioned Jaskier to her before they met. This isn't just like his friendship with Nivellen, where they'd known each other for a time then parted ways, or even Nenneke, who has seen Geralt sporadically since he was a child. Geralt has lived with Jaskier on the road, which he hasn't even done with Yennefer.

As the evening grows darker, Ciri curls up next to the fire to read. She's got one of the smaller bestiaries on her lap - leant to her by Vesemir, with promises extracted that she'll do her best to return it in its present condition. Geralt studied from them himself, and the original text is almost obscured in some places by the generations of witchers who've made corrections, comments about their experiences with the creatures, or rude indictments on the intelligence and parentage of the original author. She's trying to work out if any of the handwriting might be his.

Geralt is working on his armour, which he's already thoroughly checked over since the battle, but no doubt if Ciri pointed this out she'd get a lecture about how the only careless witcher is a dead witcher, or something of the sort. Yennefer has a set of bottles and a mortar and pestle in front of her, though for all Ciri can tell she might be making either a magic potion or a better dinner seasoning.

Jaskier, meanwhile, is lying flat on his back on his bedroll. He's not asleep, though, but is humming again, quiet and thoughtful. He seems barely to be aware of the music, lost in staring up at the stars. His face is half-lit by the flickering flames and half in shadow.

As Ciri turns another page, an old, forgotten memory stirs. She pauses to listen and finds that the soft notes are familiar to her. It's a distant echo of something she knows, a feeling she can almost grasp - but there should be words with the melody... The warrior queen and the princess fair, with joy in her smile and gold in her hair-

"I know that tune," she says suddenly. The memory takes form; she's small, small enough to sit in her grandmother's lap in her new dress while people dance and laugh, and the scene is wistful and strange like it's from another life. "That's The Lioness's Cub. They used to perform it for my birthday."

She sees, on the edge of her awareness, Yennefer look up and Geralt's hands still at his work. But she's still watching Jaskier, who sits up and beams at her in genuine excitement. "It worked!"

Ciri falters, bemused. "What worked?"

"You heard my song!"

"It wasn't you that sang it. I'm pretty sure it was a woman."

"Ah, but the song itself was me," Jaskier replies in a confidential tone. "I wanted to come and perform for you myself, on your birthdays, but I was rebuffed more than once, you know, rather rudely, if you'll forgive me for saying it. Can't say I was surprised, but I never got a second invitation to Calanthe's court after what happened the first time. Another bard was summoned from Oxenfurt for your fourth birthday - we are quite the best bards on the continent, you understand, highly sought after, with certain exceptions. And I thought, well, if you can't have a Jaskier performance you ought at least to have a Jaskier song, for I knew even then that you would be quite outstanding and deserved the very best, and I wanted you to know that there were who people held you dear, even though you didn't know me at all. The bard who was invited wasn't someone I knew well, unfortunately, so it took something of a negotiation, but she agreed to sing the song each year that she went for your birthday. And I'm still on the hook for a lifetime's supply of new lute strings."

They really are a study in contrasts, Jaskier and Geralt - the same prompt would have got a five word answer from Geralt at best, not a speech. Ciri finds that she's smiling even before he's finished. She hasn't thought of that song in a long time, but it's easy now to recall how delighted she'd felt back then that there was a song written about her, and how long she'd sung it to herself for even when she was so young that she got all the words wrong.

Perhaps it's a frivolous part of that pampered, far away life.

But the song only exists because Jaskier was thinking about her, because even without knowing her at all there was this man somewhere in the world who wanted to make a child smile. Jaskier talks a lot while managing to talk right around the point, sometimes, but Ciri can hear this plainly. He'd wanted to make her happy - for her own sake, perhaps, and presumably also because she was someone important to Geralt, or would be one day.

It makes her feel surprisingly warm.

"I didn't know you did that." Geralt's voice is a gentle rumble. He's set a little back from the fire, armour and tools spread across his lap. His face is shadowed, but his eyes remain bright and piercing.

"I am a man of multitudes, Geralt, you don't know everything about me." Jaskier meets his eyes. There's a twinkling sort of humour in his voice, but it falls away into something weightier as they look at each other - for rather longer, in Ciri's opinion, than is strictly normal in regular conversation.

"Why did you get kicked out of Cintra?" she asks, and Jaskier starts as though she'd woken him from sleep.

"Ah," he says, and a smile steals over his face. "Has Geralt not told you about your parents' wedding feast?"

"A little."

"Yennefer?"

"Of course not," Yennefer says, and she sets down her bottles, comes to sit closer to Ciri. "You know what he's like."

"Indeed. Knowing the way our good friend here tells stories, I shudder to think of what horrendously scant details he's given even dear Cirilla. Settle in, both of you, and hear the story of the love between a princess and an enchanted knight from a professional."

And Ciri does. She lets the fire and Yennefer's closeness work the cold from her bones and shuts her eyes to let the story take shape in her mind, of a grand feast and a battle in the throne room and the might of her mother's power - and how much her parents loved each other.

And when she opens her eyes again, Geralt is watching them all with a fondness so gentle that it's almost painful.

It's only the next day, when she awakes beside the ash of the fire and finds Geralt's cloak over her, that she realises she fell asleep to the sound of Jaskier's voice and slept, for once, without a nightmare.

Chapter Text

The next day goes on much the same, except that Ciri feels more rested - and the next day, and those after it. It seems like the whole world is made of trees; even when they seem to emerge from the forest for a time, another half day's riding has them plunging back into shadowed paths.

But it's pleasant. They don't pass another person in an entire week from Kaer Morhen, or signs of people - there are no roads, no farmlands. The only animals are wild ones, goats and rabbits and sometimes deer, though these are generally seen as no more than a flash of movement before they're gone. Birdsong is their constant companion, and Ciri spots birds she's never seen before and doesn't know names for.

Geralt knows their names, and the names of the trees and the uses of the plants they pass. He explains many things to her when she asks, and they often stop to collect samples that they grind up and mix together in the evenings, creating various soaps and medicines that they store in spare little glass bottles that Yennefer gives her.

Yennefer talks to her as they ride about the nature of chaos, its give and take, the risks and the benefits. The dangers of those who covet too much power, the overconfidence of kings and the bloated self-importance of the Brotherhood. She tells Ciri, too, about things a young woman needs to know, things the witchers couldn't have begun to tell her. And in the mornings and at night, sometimes, she teaches Ciri small spells that don't always work for her as they should, but Yennefer never gets cross or frustrated, but tells her that Ciri is something new and unique, that she is not failing but rather that there are new things for the world of magical study to understand.

There is much that Ciri needs to learn, and it's all interesting, but it threatens to overwhelm her at times - but it does not, because there is a fourth member balancing their company.

Jaskier sings to entertain (himself as well as the rest of them), but also to make a point when he feels one is needed. He quite often sings about food when they've been riding a long time with Geralt or Yennefer deep in conversation with Ciri, and she only then realises that her stomach is rumbling. When Ciri asks him to, he sings her songs about Cintra and is kinder than perhaps is deserved, for she suspects he has no more love for her grandmother than the rest of the continent but he never lets on in his songs. When she's too sad to think of what she's lost, he sings silly little ditties to make her laugh or grand ballads to distract her.

When she's continuing her training with the sword at dawn or at night, Jaskier is the only one who can persuade Ciri to stop. At first she's not really sure why she listens, but maybe it's because he's the only one who understands what it is to be a human surrounded by witchers and sorceresses. Not that Ciri is entirely human, apparently, but her magic is so uncontrolled that she prefers to prepare herself as if it isn't there, for she can't rely on it - and Jaskier, too, must survive this world they are not really matched for with only such skills as he can develop through hard work and practice.

And he brings a warmth to the group that would be missing otherwise. After a few days he convinces Ciri to let him braid her hair, when she's wrestling to take out a tangled bit of leather she was using as a tie. She sits down in front of him, trusting him with her back, and over the next half an hour he brushes it out, slow and gentle, and then weaves it steadily into a complex braid that twists down around the side of her head, singing softly all the while. It stays in for days, and Ciri runs her fingers over it sometimes and smiles.

He sings best in the evenings, when they have stopped for the night. He makes a show of it some days, like he's on the grandest stage - and she learns that he has won contests and played for royalty across the continent. Other nights he sits by the fire and sings quiet songs of love and tragedy and the way the world used to be.

Yennefer watches him with a sadness in her eyes, occasionally. Jaskier's hands twitch as if he's searching for something out of reach, and Geralt looks like he's waiting for something that never comes.

They all seem so sad at times. She's seen Jaskier riding with a faraway look on his face, like he's seeing more of the past than the present. He flinches, once or twice, when their campfire flares and spits on a chunk of sap in a log, and looks haunted, though she doesn't know why.

Then there is a distance between Yennefer and Geralt that is quite unlike how they were at the Temple of Melitele. They are perfectly friendly, and many conversations speak to an old familiarity, but they stumble over simple interactions and rarely sit or sleep close to each other. It occurs to Ciri one day that Geralt rarely turns his back entirely to Yennefer; she is often in his peripheral vision, at least. It doesn't strike her as a romantic focus, or on the other hand like an intentional effort to keep an eye on her, but more like something almost subconscious that has him aware of her movements. She doesn't think Geralt is actually expecting Yennefer to do anything, but more that there is perhaps a level of trust that is no longer there.

It's this thought that makes her draw a comparison to Jaskier. Jaskier regularly rides or walks behind Geralt. Granted, it's often obvious from sound alone where Jaskier is, but on colder days when they sleep close to the fire or when they are tucked into some small cave, it's Jaskier who is at Geralt's back.

The greatest clue occurs to Ciri later, when Geralt sends her on a simple errand down to a river to collect water with Jaskier. He's never sent her off like that alone with Yennefer, though he doesn't actually stop them when they sit separately to have a lesson. But it makes her remember the day outside Cintra. Geralt, still reeling from Yennefer's betrayal and the danger she had posed to Ciri, immediately entrusted her to Jaskier's care to reach Kaer Morhen. Jaskier didn't even know the way, and couldn't have protected her from Nilfgaard or a passing monster, but could have been a threat to her in many ways if he'd chosen. Geralt had sent him with Ciri without a second thought.

Loyalty. That's the thing. They bicker like - well, they bicker a bit like Calanthe and Eist, actually, and that's an interesting comparison that Ciri settles into the back of her mind to mull over. They seem to drive each other up the wall (definitely intentionally on Jaskier's part), but their loyalty to each other, understated as it is, is beyond question.

Which is why Ciri feels free to laugh at them without any hesitation when they're being ridiculous.

"Shut up, Jaskier," Geralt groans, voice muffled by the hand he rubs over his face.

It's mid-morning and they're crossing a large plain under a low winter sun. They and their horses cast elongated shadows over the wild, waving grasses, making their way towards the next outcropping of forest that reaches towards the mountains like a grasping hand. It's cold, still, but warmer than it was further north, and the crisp air is actually quite pleasant.

Jaskier has been entertaining himself so far this morning making up increasingly silly poems, usually on the spur of the moment in response to Geralt's efforts to make him stop.

"You can't silence genius, Geralt," Ciri says primly, and doesn't bother to hide her giggle at the look of despair he gives her.

The thing is, though, not even Ciri is taking him seriously any more. She can see what Yennefer clearly could already, and what Jaskier seems ever more sure of: Geralt is only telling him to shut up because he knows Jaskier won't.

It must be a special feeling, to have a friend you know that well - and to be known so well yourself.

And Jaskier is in entirely irrepressible form today.

"There once was a witcher from Kaedwen," he says, launching into the cadence of a limerick with a mischievous grin, "Who grumbled at innocent young men. But the princess so fair, gave that bore such a scare, he ran all the way back to Kaedwen."

Even Yennefer snorts at that, and Geralt looks so pained he might as well be constipated.

"We're still in Kaedwen," he mutters, rather aggrieved.

This was not the right thing to say - though in fairness, there was probably no way he could have made Jaskier stop.

"There once was a witcher from Kaer Morhen, who thought the wise bard was a moron." He has to raise his voice at this point, because Geralt has dug his heels into his horse's flanks to send it trotting off ahead. "The bard sung a song, that proved him quite wrong, and the witcher slunk back to Kaer Morhen!"

Ciri laughs at that, truly laughs, deep and helpless. It's only made worse by Geralt's attempt to escape and the way he refuses to look back round, and both Yennefer and Jaskier are laughing too.

Jaskier leans over to hold out a hand to Ciri, who gives him a high five readily.

And then Geralt, now some hundred yards ahead, reins his horse to a sudden stop. Ciri sobers instinctively, gaze sharp, and hears a shrill cry like that of a bird, but far too loud.

Geralt has turned round, yelling something, and is cantering back towards them with one hand raised to make a sign. But he's too far away.

Maybe it's a shadow, or movement of air, or some other sense, but Ciri ducks suddenly low over the neck of her horse.

A huge shape swoops down, so low that something brushes over the back of Ciri's neck - something that feels like a feather.

Jaskier yells, and Yennefer lets out a curse that's suddenly cut off by a thump and the whinny of a horse.

Ciri spins round in the saddle, sharp terror slicing through her.

With huge wingbeats, the beast is rising up again into the sky. Yennefer has been knocked onto the ground, but she's already scrambling to her feet. Her horse is unhurt but terrified, and Jaskier's mount seems close to bucking; Ciri pats her own soothingly, even as she twists to look up at...

It's a griffin. She's seen pictures in the bestiary. Part lion, part bird of prey; it has a dark furred mane around an avian face with a huge curved beak; vast, powerful wings and savage claws. Ciri races through the bestiary entry in her mind's eye. No special conditions needed to kill it - but it's strong.

Geralt is upon them, casting aard in a blast of power that the griffin is too far away to be affected by. "Are you hurt? Yenn?"

"I'm fine," she says shortly. "But I'm pissed."

"Ciri, Jaskier, get to the trees!"

For a frozen instant, Ciri almost protests. She's been training, she's got her sword, she can fight!

But Jaskier is next to her, unarmed and vulnerable, and Ciri makes a snap decision.

She catches Jaskier's eye, nods, and they ride hard. The horses need little urging to gallop, and they race for the tree line ahead while the shrieks of the griffin sound behind them, forming an unpleasant chorus with blasts of air and the crackle of flames.

As soon as they're a dozen metres into the forest, protected by the strong old branches above, Ciri dismounts, tosses her reins at Jaskier, and draws her sword.

But there's no need. Not even a beast as strong as a griffin stands a chance against Yennefer and Geralt together.

Each time it tries to dive at them, with talons and beak ready to gouge and wings sweeping into mighty blows, Yennefer somehow redirects the energy of the attacks and repulses the beast instead; grass shrivels around her feet as she channels chaos. Geralt then hits with an aard or igni that forces it low enough to deal powerful strikes with his sword.

Once, the injured creature gains enough height that it has the chance to escape. It circles the plain - and then turns sharp eyes to where Jaskier and Ciri are sheltering.

Maybe it wants them, maybe the horses, likely both. It never gets close.

No sooner has it begun to narrow its wings into a dive aimed at the tree line than Yennefer screams out a spell, shoving her arms out, and the griffin is flung to the ground. Geralt, face twisted in a rare show of rage, slices through its neck in a single clean blow and the beast goes still.

Ciri's breathing hard, even though she wasn't involved in the fighting.

"You alright?" Jaskier places a hand on her shoulder, warm and whole, and Ciri finds herself able to draw a deeper breath.

"I'm good. You?"

"Unhurt but for my wounded pride. Were the limericks really that bad?"

Laughter bubbles out of her, entirely unexpected, and she accepts her reins back so they can walk the horses back out to the others.

Later, after Geralt's satisfied himself that no one's injured, and shown Ciri the messy business of extracting useful body matter from the griffin, Geralt lets the other two go on ahead and draws back to walk beside her. Yennefer is trying various spells to get mud from the fall out of her dress, helped or hindered by Jaskier's feedback.

"I wasn't sure you were going to run," he says mildly, echoing back to those early days when they'd first met.

"Nor was I," Ciri says honestly.

"What changed your mind?"

She breathes out slowly, looking between the witcher pacing slowly beside her and the light-footed bard up ahead. "Jaskier. I wasn't sure he'd go for cover without me. And even if he had, if the griffin had gone for him alone, he wouldn't have been able to defend himself. If none of us reached him in time..."

Geralt doesn't reply, and Ciri watches his face rather than the path ahead. He can be a hard man to read at times, but there's something tense in the lines around his eyes, a battle-readiness still in the set of his jaw.

"Aren't you afraid for him?" she asks suddenly. "You've done this before, haven't you, taken jobs and travelled while he's with you. He's not a fighter. Aren't you worried what will happen to him?"

Geralt's eyes are fixed ahead, and Ciri doesn't need to follow his line of sight to know he's watching Jaskier. He doesn't want to answer the question, but he doesn't often refuse her.

"Yes," he says finally, so quiet she scarcely hears it, and so solemn it might be a confession spoken to a divinity. "Constantly."

"But you let him come."

It's clearly a struggle for him to find the words. Ciri wonders if it's something he's pondered at length himself before, and whether even he really knows the truth of why he does it.

"It's hard to make him stay behind," Geralt says, half-hearted. He pauses. She senses he's not really finished, but several minutes pass before he says anything else. "It's his choice to come. I don't think he understood the choice he was making at first - he was very young."

Older than Ciri is, she thinks, but nothing short of a pack of drowners would have made her interrupt him now.

"He does know now, better than most, and still he makes the choice. It's not for me to take that away from him. And. It's possible that I like the company. Hm. His company."

And Ciri is struck with an epiphany like a spell to the head.

Holy gods were they -

No, they couldn't be. Geralt and Yennefer -

But there is something strained and broken between Geralt and Yennefer, that isn't there in the unbroken bond between him and Jaskier -

And then there was the way they'd reminded her of her grandmother and Eist -

What the fuck.

Ciri bites down on her lip, hard, before she can blurt out something possibly very, very stupid.

Maybe she's getting ahead of herself. Even Geralt has friends, and it stands to reason that some of them would be close ones. It was already clear that he cared about Jaskier because there was no other reason to let him come along; Jaskier had explained the thing about being his barker, albeit without really accounting for why he got started in the role, but she can't imagine Geralt letting the guy stick around for years for that reason alone. They were friends.

But.

But.

What if there's more to it - or could be? What if there's a chance for them to be the kind of happy that comes along so rarely? Her grandmother had such a weight of responsibility upon her, and Geralt has much the same in a different way. True joy may have been sparse for Calanthe, but it was there when she had precious moments with Ciri - and in moments where she could just be herself with Eist.

Geralt doesn't seem to have noticed anything odd about her silence - indeed, he still seems mired in thought. "We're a - team. All of us, now. I protect him. We all protect each other. In our own ways."

Some more obvious than others, for Yenn has her magic, Geralt his blades, and Ciri a bit of both... But she thinks of restful nights' sleep and ready smiles on all their faces, and thinks she understands what Geralt means.

There's more to life than surviving.

Three days later, with no more signs of attacks, they part ways for a time.

"That does it," Yennefer says one morning, after a night where a light drizzling rain lasted all night and they all woke up cold, wet and stinking of damp leather to a breakfast of dried meat. "I need to sleep in a real bed and eat real food. I know you want to avoid any hint of civilisation, Geralt, but there's no reason to live like animals while we do it. I'm going to go and get a decent tent and supplies, and do some research into Nilfgaard while I'm at it."

They settle a place to reconvene two days' ride to the west, Geralt exercising great wisdom in not even protesting her plan. Yennefer can't go back to Aretuza, but she apparently has bolt-holes across the continent, especially in Aedirn, and contacts not associated with the Brotherhood who might be able to help. In other circumstances, Ciri might have wanted to go with Yennefer; she was sure to know interesting people and places Ciri had never been - plus have access to hot baths and clean clothes.

Obviously it's Ciri in particular who is safest staying away from anyone who might see her, but in truth she finds she really doesn't mind. For someone on the run, she's having a surprisingly good time.

"Keep a low profile, Yenn," Geralt says, both concerned and teasing.

"I am the very model of discretion, Geralt," she says, and it makes Ciri's heart light to see the easy joy in the face of someone who's been sad for too long.

"I shan't miss you in the least, of course," Jaskier declares, even as he darts in to wrap Yennefer in a quick hug. "My witch-wife."

Ciri snickers. Jaskier has more nerve than men twice his size with infinitely more fighting skill.

"Bastard bard," Yennefer fires back, and they wear matching smirks as they part. Geralt looks mildly concerned.

Yennefer turns to Ciri and hesitates, but it's Ciri who closes the distance between them and embraces her.

"I'm sorry to leave you with these brutes, child," she says softly into Ciri's hair. "Don't forget that you're in charge, whatever they might think."

"Come back to us," Ciri whispers, and Yennefer holds her tighter.

She leaves in a portal with a whirl of that familiar lilac and gooseberry scent, and the rest of them carry on.

Life goes on like this for the next fortnight. Yennefer comes and goes, following leads on Nilfgaard that take her across the continent, but always returning with stories and provisions and even a tent, which looks small - albeit pleasant enough - on the outside, but contain multitudes. Ciri is singularly delighted by the tent. It covers a space at least fifteen yards across despite its outwardly small footprint, and holds four modest beds with fur rugs on the floor, and other wonders like two trunks of clothes and hairbrushes and mirrors and such forgotten comforts. They generally sleep in shifts, one sitting outside to keep watch, but it's a wonderful treat to have something so pleasant to retreat to.

On the occasions Yennefer is away, Geralt and Jaskier don't really act any differently - not during the day, or when they sit outside the tent to cook dinner in the evenings. There's only once that Ciri really thinks anything of it - when she awakes in the middle of the night, startled by a dream that begins quickly to fade, and realises she's alone in the tent. She rolls out of bed to get a drink of water from her pack by the door, which is unfastened and swaying gently in the wind.

Peering outside, she sees Geralt and Jaskier with their backs to the low-burning fire, looking out into the forest. She can't tell from here if they're talking or not, but they're sitting so close that their arms are pressed together.

The strange thought comes to her then, in that way of night-time musings, that perhaps the thing about Jaskier is that he stays. And even when Geralt sent him away, he came back.

Ciri has her drink and goes silently back to bed.

She watches them closely the next day. They're talking about the journey ahead, as apparently there will come a point where a line of mountains cuts down to the south, and they need to either take a pass through them or veer south to skirt around their edge. Jaskier is mostly prompting Geralt gently to help him think the issue through rather than having any strong opinion himself; he clearly trusts Geralt's judgement, and knows he'll make the choice that keeps them all safe.

Ciri thinks of those two dark figures pressed close in the night, and wonders. Perhaps love, for a witcher like anyone else, might be a passion that burns bright and fierce and all-consuming. And perhaps it can be steady and patient and ever-green, stalwart and unshakeable. Both real, but one, maybe, more able to endure, if less easy to recognise.

By late afternoon, they've found what might once have been a road through the forest. There's an avenue wide enough for all three of them to ride abreast, better lit because there are gaps in the canopy above. It's long overgrown, though - there are none of the really old trees within it, the ones with the gnarled trunks too wide by far for Ciri to reach her arms around, but it's full of younger trees and saplings trying in vain to grow tall enough to fight for sunlight. Bracken and other low plants spread and tangle around their horses' feet. They dismount, picking their way along more carefully.

The sign of the man-made trail, however old and disused, makes Ciri think they might be nearing the edge of the forest. They've been going for a week without sight of open land now, and she'd like a glimpse of freedom; plus Yennefer is meant to meet them at some hill at the edge of the forest, which they need to find by the day after tomorrow to reconvene.

She volunteers to scout ahead, and Geralt hesitates.

"She knows what she's doing," Jaskier offers gently, and Geralt hums.

"No more than half a mile ahead," he concedes. "And if anything happens, don't be afraid to scream. We'll deal with the consequences after."

Ciri beams at him. She leaves her horse with them; she's been riding too much lately, anyway, and delights in the strength of her own feet beneath her. She storms ahead, running where she can and tearing through the undergrowth where she can't.

Nothing much changes, though, in the course of that half mile. She stops when she thinks she's reached that point, and tilts her head back. The air is still but cool against her skin, and but for her breath and the birdsong and the shuffle of some small animal through dead leaves, she might be the only creature here. Totally, beautifully free.

She turns to head back, but mischief occurs to her on the way. How close might she be able to get to Geralt without him noticing her? She'd have to be very quiet, and perhaps he would have to be quite distracted... Making it a good challenge for her skills, and also an interesting experiment in her ongoing musings about Geralt and Jaskier.

Both turn out to be quite successful.

When she is most of the way back, Ciri leaves the path. She dodges from tree to tree, keeping low and moving slowly, settling her feet with caution on the softest patches of earth, avoiding dry leaves and fallen twigs. Closer and closer, until she can see them clearly but neither seems to have spotted her; they're walking very slowly.

They're not speaking, perhaps haven't since she left. Jaskier is humming idly - the now very familiar tune of Toss A Coin, if Ciri's any judge.

Geralt keeps shooting him looks that are decreasing in subtlety, though if Jaskier's noticed he gives no sign of it.

Geralt cracks first.

"Where's your lute, Jaskier?" The question bursts out like he's been waiting ages to ask it.

Jaskier stops humming to squint round at Geralt. "What, Yennefer's not told you that in one of your heart to hearts?"

"No. She hasn't."

"Oh." Something shifts in Jaskier's face. The idle contentment ebbs away and his face seems to get a touch paler, eyes widening slightly like he's made an unwelcome realisation. He seems suddenly bleak, in a way Ciri's only seen on him once or twice, and it makes her stomach twist.

They fall into silence for a time, just walking slowing, drawing a little closer to Ciri's hiding place. She ought, probably, to reveal herself or leave - but she doesn't want to risk interrupting this conversation, sensing that there is something significant afoot here... and truthfully, she wants to listen, or this will become another of the things they never tell her about.

Geralt clearly finds the silence troubling. He recommences shooting Jaskier deep looks like he's trying to activate some dormant mutation that would let him see into Jaskier's soul. For a while she worries that he's going to let it go, and glares at him; this matters, there's something wrong with Jaskier, and it's not something he's going to talk to anyone about if he can't talk to Geralt.

"Talk to me, Jaskier."

This is the most obvious opening for one of Jaskier's speeches that she's ever heard - you're asking me to talk, Geralt, wonder of wonders, never thought I'd see the day, it must foretell the end of times - but Jaskier doesn't take it, and Ciri wonders how Geralt hasn't heard the pounding in her chest.

Instead, he does exactly what Geralt asked him to, which may be the most unsettling thing yet.

"Fire fucker. He broke it, when he grabbed me."

There's grief in his voice. Maybe once she would have thought it strange to be so sad over a lost possession, back when she had so many, but then she fled for her life and kept her cloak, however distinctive, and now still keeps her grandmother's sash safely in a saddlebag, holds it close when she's sad. He's an artist; if he had a treasured lute, it must have been his livelihood and his life. Perhaps this is why he's not spoken of its absence; it may be too great a hurt.

Geralt lets out a soft sigh.

"I'm sorry."

"All those years without a single apology, and now you can't help yourself," Jaskier says, but the humour falls flat. He shrugs. "There'll be other lutes." His voice is not as light as his words.

"What happened? With the fire fucker?" When Jaskier doesn't reply, Geralt prompts him again. "Yenn said he was after information on me and Ciri."

Ciri's stomach drops like she's swallowed stone. Why does it always come back to her? Why is it always her fault? Suddenly she does want to flee but her feet feel like lead. Why must it be because of her that these shadows haunt Jaskier?

Jaskier clears his throat. He diligently and pointlessly sets about straightening his coat cuffs and rebuttoning his waistcoat, as if to do anything to avoid Geralt's searching eyes, and then he settles for staring at his own hands. "Feels so gauche to say torture, doesn't it?"

Geralt stops so suddenly that Jaskier takes another couple of steps before noticing. Geralt is as still as carved stone. Jaskier doesn't look at him.

"Stupid thing was, there wasn't a useful word I could tell him. I had no idea where you were after the mountain, and I'd never seen the princess. I didn't even know where Kaer Morhen was. All those years I'd wished you'd invite me to join you for the winter, and turns out it was a good thing you didn't. He was so convinced I was holding back on him, when the truth is that if I'd known anything useful-"

"You wouldn't have told him."

Geralt looks like - like a thunderstorm contained in a bottle, to borrow a concept from Yennefer. He's perfectly still but simmering, muscles tight and tense, weight on the balls of his feet. It's like he's braced for Jaskier's assailant to appear from behind a tree for Geralt to rip his throat out. And yet there is also something that is the mirror to Jaskier's fragility in this moment - holding fear and guilt and worry, and behind all of that, something that runs very, very deep.

"You don't-"

"You wouldn't. But you should. If you're in danger, Jaskier, you save yourself. I'll deal with whatever comes of it. You save yourself."

Jaskier is wide-eyed and desperate, finally staring Geralt in the face. "That's not a promise I can make. Not if you're on the line - not if Ciri..."

"I know." He's regretful, fond, proud. "That's how I know you wouldn't have given him anything. You're too loyal for your own good."

"Well, that's probably true," Jaskier says with a sniff, looking away again to poke at the dirt with the toe of his boot.

"Jaskier." It's no wonder Jaskier's head twists up so quickly; there is more pain in Geralt's voice than Ciri's ever heard. And his emotions are always contained, so accustomed to concealment, that this is a choice, to let Jaskier see this.

"Geralt," Jaskier breathes.

"I am truly sorry. For what I said to you on the mountain. It wasn't true, and it wasn't fair. You are my friend - perhaps the best I've ever had."

"Geralt-"

"And I'm sorry I wasn't there; I'm sorry I didn't stop this happening to you. I'm sorry it only happened because you know me."

Ciri's not entirely sure she's breathing.

There is a silence so absolute that she could almost swear she's witcher enough to hear their heartbeats.

"I forgive you for the mountain," Jaskier says. His voice drops into something so soft it's almost intimate. "You hurt me deeply, Geralt, and I think you meant to. But only in the heat of the moment, on the back of heartbreak, and I know you regret it. As for the rest - I'll admit I would have been glad of you rushing in for a daring rescue, but it must be said Yennefer comported herself rather well through the whole thing, and the pain was not your doing. If these are dangers I must face to be your friend, it's still worth it."

In the fading evening light, Geralt's eyes are like tiny suns, fixed on Jaskier. "You can't mean that."

Jaskier, finally, smiles. It's small but real, and agonisingly tender. "You can't tell me not to mean it, Geralt. It's decidedly too late for that."

"I-"

Whatever Geralt might have said in that moment, no one but him will ever know - which is maddening once Ciri has time to think about it again, because she's sure it was going to be good.

But Geralt goes very still, head tilted slightly, and then he gives a very deliberate sniff.

Ciri looks away from them sharply, twisting to look round into the growing dark, which seems far more threatening than a mere moment before.

"What is it?" Jaskier asks, also now alert. His voice seems loud, though just because Ciri is now realising that she can only hear his voice.

There's no birdsong, or small wildlife scrabbling on the ground, nor even the sound of leaves stirring in the wind.

"I can smell something dead."

"No chance it's a nice deer that's helpfully keeled over in time for supper?"

"No. Old. Rotten. The smell is strong."

"Strong. Good. Great. That's fantastic. I'm sorry, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm not sure. Ciri!"

Already moving before he calls, Ciri thunders out of the undergrowth. They'll realise she overheard them or they won't; it's not worth risking any danger to pretend she's further away than she is.

"What is it?" she says, adrenaline thrumming under her skin. She's already got one hand on the hilt of the short sword at her waist; Lambert had called it a letter opener, but it's a real sword, her sword, made of silver. A single sword, for she didn't yet have the strength to carry two, and Geralt was insistent that she shouldn't be fighting humans anyway so a monster killing blade was all she needed.

It's the one she might need tonight, so she's grateful for it now.

"I don't know. What did you see?"

Right, the scouting mission she'd been on before things proved way more interesting here.

"The forest goes on for more than another half mile. I didn't see anything strange."

"Do you know of anything near here?" Jaskier asks him, carefully quiet.

"No," Geralt says, though it clearly bothers him to admit it. "I don't know these lands." He looks up at the sky. What they can see of it is now a dusky grey. Geralt will still be able to see anything that comes up on them, but soon she and Jaskier will be stumbling in the dark. "We should keep moving."

Neither of them protests. They're a silent party as they take up the walk again; even the horses stay quiet, though they are clearly uneasy. They don't ride, which slows them down, but Ciri knows speed is often not enough against monsters. A horse reduces their manoeuvrability too much, lacking a witcher's instincts, and the seconds it takes to dismount in an attack could be the difference between life and death.

They pass the point Ciri reached before she turned back, and still there is no sign of anything - no sign except that Geralt still hasn't relaxed.

"Can you still smell it?" she asks.

What little light remains catches on Geralt's pale hair and his eyes as he gives a single nod.

That can't be good. If it was merely old carrion, they should be out of range by now. Besides, what mere carrion would last long enough to rot in the forest in winter, when any number of beasts need to feed?

It turns out to be another mile to the edge of the forest, at a guess, and they cover it quickly, but the light is not on their side. Breaking free from the trees grants them less improvement than she'd hoped; what dull grey light remains is fading fast, though she can still make shapes out as they pause just beyond the trees.

There's nothing remarkable out there, to her eyes. No signs of civilisation, not so much as a farmhouse, and indeed no evidence that the earth has ever been farmed. It looks like a huge plain, dotted with darker swatches that must be bushes or trees, with very distant silhouettes of mountains far off. Closer by, the terrain rises and falls in a series of gentle hills, which seem too small and numerous to be their meeting point with Yennefer, so they must have veered too far north or south.

Geralt and Jaskier stop either side of her, and Jaskier pats her back for a quick, reassuring moment.

She looks to the other side, and what she sees is less comforting.

Geralt's eyes are fixed on something, and he's reaching up. With a powerful, sweeping movement, he draws his silver sword from his back.

"Geralt?" she breathes.

"Those are barrows." She follows his gaze and looks again at what she had taken to be hills, and finds them more sinister now. No one was buried in barrow mounds in Cintra, and as far as she knows it isn't the custom anywhere on the continent these days, but she's read stories about early warlords and kings being shut up in the earth with all their splendour.

"Oh, fuck." Jaskier seems to have caught onto Geralt's meaning, and he sounds horrified.

"What is it?"

Geralt's dropped the reins, and he roots around in his potion pouch without looking down. "It's a draugr. A barrow-dweller. The smell is stronger here."

"What the fuck's a draugr?" Dread renders her voice an impatient snap.

"The living dead. Whoever was buried in those mounds, at least one of them's woken up. But there's nothing human left in it, it just wants to kill."

"And they're fucking strong, if there's any truth in the stories," Jaskier says, faintly panicked. "Do we run?"

"No good," Geralt replies grimly. "It's too fast, we can't outrun it."

Ciri releases her horse too, pushes it back towards the trees for whatever shelter they might offer. The horse goes willingly, and the others follow; they're all nervous, beginning to whinny and scrabble at the ground as if they might run.

"Firewood, Jaskier. Gather as much as you can."

"On it."

Geralt casts igni as soon as Jaskier's tossed the first chunks of fallen wood their way, and Ciri turns sharply away from the fire to avoid ruining her night vision.

"It's like a beacon," she murmurs, while Jaskier moves surprisingly quietly about behind them.

"Doesn't matter," Geralt says. "It already knows we're here."

"That's comforting."

Geralt steps fractionally closer to her as he pulls the cork out of a small bottle with his teeth and downs the potion. In the firelight, Ciri can see the moment of transformation, the veins that pulse black as it takes effect.

Ciri draws her sword, senses straining. Even she can smell it now - something foul, decayed, like meat left to spoil for years. This isn't a monster she knows yet from the bestiary.

"How do we kill it?"

"Beheading. And burn the body before it can reform."

It can reform? Ciri opens her mouth to protest, but there's a sudden breath of wind that isn't wind, because the trees aren't moving, and the stench grows so strong she almost gags on it.

"Fuck. Ciri, be careful, it's got a form close to human but it's much more powerful. Jaskier!"

"I'm here."

"Stay by the fire. Don't run, you can't outpace it. Get some branches burning, defend yourself with the flames. Keep the fire going."

And then something slams into Ciri from behind, smashing the breath out from her as it strikes. She flies forward helplessly, crashing into the ground on her chest and stomach, barely managing to catch part of her weight on her arms. For a split second she's frozen there, trying to draw a breath that won't come.

But hard-won instinct has her rolling over, wrenching herself up because it could be right on top of her - but it's not.

Framed against the fire, Geralt is launching furious blows towards... something. There is a form there, tall and hulking, which is saying something when Geralt is the comparison. Its arms are too long for its body, and seem to end in claws more than fingers. But she has only a second to take it in, for even as Geralt's sword strikes where it was just standing, it's gone, leaving just the impression of jerky movement behind.

"Ciri!"

She brings her sword up, twisting instinctively, and the blade slices through something. The draugr shrieks, a terrible noise that rings right through her skull, and it lashes out faster than thought, faster than she expects. It tears at her side and Ciri leaps back too late, and Jaskier shouts and Geralt roars out a terrible denial. Her hand goes to her side, heart pounding, but all she can feel is a sting; her armour has caught the worst of it, four deep gouges and only a trace of blood. In turn, she's carved a line up the draugr's torso, through eerie necrotic flesh, but it doesn't bleed or seem remotely slowed by the wound, though it clearly registered some kind of pain.

She lunges forward, ready now for its speed and guarding herself better, but it's like trying to catch smoke. The creature is gone, and then it's behind her, betrayed only by the sound of its footfalls; Ciri twists again, sword lashing out, only in time to see a flicker of movement and then empty darkness. She's too far from the fire, vulnerable out here.

She begins to retreat, but Geralt has already come for her. He's wielding his sword in one hand and a burning stick almost the same size in the other; he thrusts this across to her and casts another igni as soon as she's taken it, a burst of flame that sears out into the night. In its light she just catches another glimpse of movement, no more clear than a shadow.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She grips her weapons tight, and they return to the fire, where Jaskier is crouched, clutching another firebrand tightly.

Seconds trickle by. Every crackle of the fire seems deafening as she strains to listen; Jaskier's breaths are loud and quick, and Geralt's armour creaks as he shifts.

Another breath of that unnatural wind, and she and Geralt both turn; then something dives past Ciri, too fast for the blow she sends after it, too fast for Geralt's igni, and in the next instant Geralt has been flung onto his back, and that terrible form is on top of him, screaming, clawed hands slicing at his head, his chest.

Geralt snarls, and there's pain in it; his sword has been knocked out of his hand. Ciri lunges forward, thrusts her torch and her sword both at its back in one movement. Before either can contact, it twists impossibly round, one hand digging into Geralt's chest, the other slashing backwards. It slices right through the wood of the flaming torch and doesn't seem to care when her sword cuts right through its fingers, and no wonder; even as she watches, horrified, the fingers begin to grow back.

But it's enough to let Geralt send a burst of flame right into its chest, and as that sends it reeling backwards, he follows it up with a slash from a dagger pulled from his belt. It's a chance, and Ciri seizes it; she slashes forward, aiming for its exposed neck.

Before her blade can impact, a wave of darkness crashes into her.

It spills out of the creature, a darkness that seems almost to have physical form; it forces her backwards, stumbling, and feeling like the life has been sucked right out of her chest. It's a dark cloud that billows outwards; it creeps towards Geralt, towards Jaskier, and then she can't see them any more, can't even see the fire.

Ciri is in total darkness. There's nothing, nothing around her at all, and her breaths grow loud and panicked in her ears. "Geralt?" Her voice sounds fragile, young, but she can't help it. Fear is coiling into her lungs, leaving no room for air. She twists round, her bearings lost, sword out before her, wants to swing it wildly in case the creature is near but she doesn't dare - what if she hit one of the others? "Jaskier?"

There's a roar, from behind her; Ciri knows that voice, and she orients herself to it like a guiding star. Then Jaskier yells something almost like a battle cry, and there's a burst of fire so bright it sears her eyes, before that too is swallowed up by the darkness.

Then there's a cry, a thud, and an eerie silence.

Into that silence explodes a shout that is almost a scream, a wild thing of fear and fury and a terrible, heart-rending grief that shatters open a chasm in Ciri's chest.

"JASKIER!"

Chapter Text

"Geralt!"

Ciri calls for him, and her voice is swallowed up by the darkness.

"Geralt, please, where are you?"

She's so cold. Empty, like there's nothing inside her at all, like something has scooped out everything except fear, this terror that shakes her until her bones tremble.

Something's happened to Jaskier. And Geralt would never ignore her crying out for him like this, never, so something must have happened to him too; what if Ciri is alone, the only person here at all, the only living creature in an eternal night ruled by the dead? At some point her sword has fallen from her numb fingers; she can't even draw enough breath to scream. She's stumbling around, reaching, always searching, but she never finds anyone. She trips, falls, and can hardly feel the ground underneath her, only a sense of damp and cold beneath her fingertips.

"Yennefer," she mouths, no sound behind it, and then digs deep into her own mind.

Yennefer. Yennefer, I need you.

She reaches for Yennefer like she reached for Geralt once, when he heard her and he came. She follows the thread in her mind that tastes of the raw, wild energy of chaos and pulls on it.

Yennefer, please, I need you, now, Yennefer, please.

Yennefer, Yennefer, YenneferYenneferYENNEFER-

I can hear you! Ciri, I can hear you, where are you?

Yennefer?

I've tracked the tent and portalled in, I've found the horses, but where are you?

The edge of the forest. There are barrows - a draugr - Yennefer I can't find the others, I don't know what happened, I can't-

I'm coming, Ciri, I'm coming. Hold on.

Ciri digs her fingers into the earth like she can anchor herself to it, though even the feel of it is muted, like she's perceiving everything through water. She bows her head forward and clings to the ghost of Yennefer's thoughts in her mind, and either seconds pass or hours do.

And then there is a voice, an actual voice, chanting words in Elder speech, bleeding power into the world. Ciri looks up, desperate. There comes a moment when the darkness seems less deep, a feeling that there is a faint glow beginning, and then light blazes so bright and blinding that she cries out, covers her eyes with her hands, as the glare sears across her vision.

"Ciri!"

Yennefer.

She scrambles to her feet, filthy and breathless. The light shrinks into something more manageable - a glowing ball in one of Yennefer's hands, like she's cradling a star.

Yennefer is at the edge of the forest, and seems only a small figure to Ciri, who has wandered much further than she realised. She's more than halfway to the nearest barrow. She's been stumbling towards it, not away.

That realisation twists into her like a cold, icy touch. She staggers back and breaks into a run, heading for Yennefer.

All else is still dark, but it's the normal dark of twilight, poorly lit by an almost clouded-over moon. The fire Jaskier was tending has gone out.

Ciri slams into Yennefer without hesitation, wraps her arms around her and clings. It feels like she hasn't seen another living soul in weeks, like she's forgotten how warm people can be. Yennefer's arms are a comfort beyond expression, but she only allows herself a few seconds.

"Geralt," she's saying hoarsely, even before she pulls herself away. "Jaskier - Yennefer, something happened, I think he's hurt-"

She twists round. The ground is scattered with ashes and half-burned wood. Where the fuck are they?

Yennefer raises the hand that still cups the magic spell so that the light spills further out across the grass. It's withered, blackened, not only around the scattered fire but across the whole area where they'd been fighting. Maybe it's from Geralt's signs, or maybe the draugr itself corrupts the earth.

Geralt is lying slumped on his front twenty yards from the fire.

The sight of him makes Ciri's heart lurch and she sprints, Yennefer quick on her heels.

"Geralt," she says urgently, dropping to the earth beside him and grabbing his shoulder. "Geralt, wake up." It's more of a plea than the command she intends. A terrified sob builds in her throat as she pulls, putting all her strength into it, but he's so heavy and it's only when Yennefer joins her that they roll Geralt onto his back together.

He's bleeding at his temple and his chest just above the armour, but he's breathing. When Ciri grabs his hand she can feel his heartbeat at the wrist, witcher-slow but steady. The wound on his chest doesn't look bad, nor is the one to his head bleeding more than sluggishly, but there is panic building in Ciri's chest because she knows that if he's unconscious from the head wound and not woken by now then even a witcher might be in real danger from such a blow.

She looks up at Yennefer with her heart in her throat, unable to voice the questions pressing at her, but Yennefer meets her eyes steadily and holds out a hand over Geralt's head.

"It's a spell," she says, her voice tight with more anger than worry, furious at whatever has dared challenge them more than she is afraid for Geralt, and that more than anything helps steady Ciri's nerves. "However it conjured that fucking darkness, it's used something similar to knock Geralt out."

"You can fix this too?" Ciri pleads, because it has to be possible, it has to, because there is simply not a world in which Ciri can go on without Geralt. She needs him with a desperation that terrifies her, because he might be stronger than most people but he's not invulnerable. She knows all too well that witchers can be killed.

Not Geralt. Not him.

Yennefer whispers a low chant and touches her fingers to Geralt's forehead. The bleeding near his collarbone stops, the cut on his temple heals, and a second later Geralt springs into a crouch so suddenly that Ciri tumbles backwards.

The potion he took has worn off, but Geralt's eyes flash with something manic as he swivels round to look at them. "Ciri," he breathes, studying her, then he looks over Yennefer with a flash of confusion that morphs into gratitude.

Even just hearing her name from him again is enough to make Ciri buckle. She's so relieved that for a moment all she can do is breathe and try not to cry, and she's seconds away from throwing herself at him and never letting go when Geralt shoots to his feet and yells for Jaskier. He's looking all round, sniffing and tilting his head as he listens, gaze piercing the night better than Ciri's ever could, but there's something off about it. When he turns back to Ciri and Yennefer with wild eyes, she knows for certain: Geralt already knows Jaskier isn't here.

"What happened?" Ciri asks, and it comes out as a whisper.

Geralt stoops and picks up his sword before he answers. His grip around it is so tight that the leather of his glove creaks against the hilt.

"It had me on my back," Geralt says, and every inch of him is as taut as a bowstring. "It sent out that darkness, and we lost you, Ciri. I had the signs, and Jaskier had the fire; your distraction gave me time to get up, but it came at me again, got a hit on my head. I fell down, I was dazed... And Jaskier rushed at it, with nothing but a couple of sticks of fire."

"Fucking idiot," Yennefer says, and despite the words it's not cruel at all, it's fond and proud and tight with fear.

"It - it fucking slashed at him and he-" Geralt breaks off, sets his jaw. "It started to drag him and I charged it, but - I don't know, I just woke up."

Dread and terror sound a quickening drumbeat in Ciri's chest.

"Which way?" Yennefer says. She clearly already knows the answer.

Geralt lifts his sword to point towards the barrows.

Ciri gets to her feet, raises her chin to look him in the eye. "Then we get him back," she says, with all the authority she ever saw her grandmother wield.

"We get him back," Geralt agrees, and she thinks there is a touch of pride in his smile.

They don't take long about preparing, because they can all feel that they don't have the time to lose. Geralt directs Yennefer to check over the wound on Ciri's side from the draugr's strike; it really is only a scratch, for all that the armour might be a completely lost cause, but Yennefer heals it anyway, quick and almost painless. Geralt goes to take another potion but getting slammed around by the draugr has smashed all the ones at his belt, and he refuses to take the time to catch his horse to restock from his saddlebags. Ciri peels away from the others to find her sword, abandoned in the grass partway towards the barrows, and feels better as soon as it's in her hand again.

They plan as they walk, and don't stop walking until they're in amongst the barrows. Fighting the draugr inside its barrow will be next to impossible; in such a confined space it will be hard to swing a sword and dangerous to cast flames, especially when Jaskier is likely hurt and unable to get out quickly. So they need to lure it out into the open, to fight or at least trap it while someone hides to avoid its attention and then gets Jaskier.

None of the jobs are safe, so Ciri knows Geralt isn't just pandering to her when he looks at her seriously and asks if she can handle being the one to search for him.

"There might be more than one barrow-dweller," he says, in that way of his that's careful and patient but doesn't shy away from the truth. "You'll need to be careful, and call for us if anything happens."

"I can do it," Ciri says firmly, and means it. Going inside a single one of those barrows sounds like a waking nightmare, and there are at least twelve to search, but she'll do it.

"Hold out your hand," Yennefer says, and she tips the globe of light into Ciri's palm. It's bizarre - no bigger than an apple and not exactly physical, for it has no weight and gives no warmth, but it hovers in her hand and radiates as much light as a roaring fire.

Geralt, meanwhile, is looking at the nearest barrow. With the benefit of her new light, Ciri stares too - and sees that an opening has been carved into the side of the little hill. It looks like a small explosion went off there; the barrow has been torn open, soil and clumps of grass littering the ground.

It's impossible to tell if the opening was made by something digging its way in, or something inside bursting out.

Before they part, Geralt grips her shoulder. With the echo of her fear to lose him still thrumming under her skin, that touch does more to settle her than anything else could. "Don't touch the treasure. The creation of a draugr is linked to the treasure they're buried with somehow. I don't know whether it will summon the draugr or harm you if you touch it, but there will be an enchantment on it."

Ciri nods, resolute, and when Geralt releases her she runs to the far side of the barrow, hidden from the view of anything emerging from any of the hills, and cradles the globe of light under her armour to conceal it.

Only when she's there does Yennefer raise her hands and summon another flash of blinding light, and this time Ciri ducks her head and closes her eyes. Yennefer yells something then, more words Ciri doesn't understand but they don't have the cadence of a spell, more like a challenge.

The still air hangs heavy about them, and Ciri counts the seconds.

And then that foul unnatural wind shakes the air, and Geralt shoots a line of fire that just misses that horrible, too-swift shadow.

Ciri runs for the barrow entrance.

As soon as she steps inside, she's swallowed up by an unnatural quiet, too aware of the tonnes of packed earth over her head.

The interior is made from stone, and it's freezing cold. She pulls out the globe of light to let it shine, and finds herself in a small antechamber. The ground is scattered with broken pottery. There's a doorway to the next chamber; if it ever had a door, it's long rotted or been torn away. She steps through, trying to quiet her breaths, heart pounding.

There's nothing inside but bones. A stone slab lies in the centre of the chamber, embedded into the floor. It's scattered with bones and a skull tumbled with a few pieces of armour, but that's it. It strikes Ciri as strange - weren't they all meant to have burial goods? - but her light pierces into each corner and there's no sign of Jaskier, so nothing else matters.

She's glad to leave it behind her - the whole place gives her the eerie sensation of being watched - but this only means she has to try another one.

Ciri dashes across from barrow to barrow while Yennefer and Geralt distract the draugr. Two, three, four barrows searched to find nothing but bones and dust, and her panic grows with each one, much as she tries to beat it back. She's a witcher, she shouldn't fear monsters, but the two most powerful people she knows haven't managed to kill this one yet and she can hear their grunts and shouts of exertion and pain.

Something feels different the moment she steps foot into the fifth barrow.

It's hard to pin down. Nothing concrete, just a feeling in the back of her mind, or like icy water trickling down her spine.

I am a witcher, Ciri says to herself, sword clenched in fingers so tight she has to remind herself to loosen her wrist. I am a witcher and I will not be afraid.

Maybe it doesn't work, for there is a core of her that trembles, still, but it is enough. A rattling scream sounds from outside but Ciri pushes on, Yennefer's orb a cold but steady light in her hand.

Imagination or some genuine magic makes the antechamber of this one feel darker than the others, more oppressive. She steps slowly, and her breath clouds in front of her face with each exhale. There are pots here too, unbroken, and chests stacked against the walls.

The entrance to the main chamber is before her.

I am a witcher and I will not be afraid.

Jaskier needs me.

Ciri steps through.

Something shifts, and Ciri jumps, spins round, sword poised. But there's no movement - no, it was a reflection, light and shifting shadows. Something sparkles, and she holds her light closer.

Gold. Plates and cups and jewellery and coins in gold and silver, piled high, set on pedestals and spilled carelessly across the ground. Precious stones sparkle alongside rusted swords, spears, armour. There's so much of it, heaped around the edge of the chamber, and perhaps this is where the treasure from the other barrows has gone; all of it coveted and stolen by the draugr to increase its own hoard.

Geralt's warning was unnecessary. If Ciri had been penniless and alone and a single coin could have saved her from starvation, she would not have touched a piece of this treasure. The curse lies so heavy on it she can practically taste it on the back of her teeth.

There's a stone slab set into the ground in the centre of the chamber, like the others. For a second Ciri thinks it's empty, and feels a clutch of both triumph and dread because this is indeed the draugr's chamber, for there are no bones this time, no skull and bones and forsaken helmet.

But then she steps closer, and sees there is a body.

Jaskier lies strewn across the stone and the dirt. His body is crumpled, as though he fell from standing - or was dropped. There's blood on his head, and one of his arms lies in an unnatural twist. There are gouges in his coat that mirror those in Ciri's side, but his coat isn't as thick as Ciri's armour. His shirt is darker than it ought to be.

He's so still. So terribly still.

A scream is caught in Ciri's throat, but she pushes it back down; it's like swallowing rocks. She forces herself to move, stiff and reluctant, and she crouches down beside him and sets down her sword. Reaching out a hand takes all the strength she has.

His skin is cold.

"No," Ciri breathes, more like a sob than a word.

This can't be happening.

Not Jaskier, who should be so full of movement and humour, whose body never stills, nor does his quick mind. Not Jaskier, with his warm smiles and crude songs and unfailing patience with those whose tempers are far less forgiving. Not Jaskier who she thinks might love Geralt, and might have loved her as Geralt loves her, who might have been - they all might have been a -

- why does the world keep giving Ciri this and taking it away -

- why does she ever let herself care when it hurts this much, why does she drag people down with her -

- why couldn't she have kept this one thing, what they had begun to build together, this - this -

- even in her thoughts the word chokes her and Ciri collapses to the floor, dimly aware that she's crying.

His pulse, she hasn't checked his pulse, but the living are never that cold, and she thinks if she touches him again and feels that lifeless, icy skin it might shatter her apart.

There's noise, close at hand, and Ciri looks up, reaching towards her sword, because if it's the draugr then she's going to tear its head off herself.

"Ciri! Is he there? Yennefer's got it trapped but we don't have long."

Oh gods.

There's nothing she can do, no way to make this anything but the nightmare it is; maybe she should get up, warn him, try to hold him back, but there's no strength in her and he's too fast and she'd never be able to stop him anyway.

She feels like she might throw up.

The light still in Ciri's hand feels sickly and poisoned but it's still enough to see Geralt when he enters the chamber. Enough to see the amber flash of his eyes as he scans the room, settling first on Ciri, then moving horribly, inexorably down.

"Jaskier."

It's - it's awful. He says it like he's relieved, because there's a single split second where he either doesn't realise or doesn't let himself realise, and it must be the latter because what witcher can't recognise death on sight? And that's one of the very worst moments of Ciri's life, kneeling there on the hard, freezing earth and seeing Geralt start to smile because he thinks they've saved him, and the way that his face falls when he realises that they haven't.

Because then he does see, and he tilts his head like he's listening, and Ciri witnesses something she's never seen before and wishes she'd never had to.

It's like all Geralt's strength leaves him. This man who has never been anything but a pillar of strength to Ciri, even wounded or weary, loses himself in an instant. He staggers closer, as though he wants to pull away but is drawn by something he cannot fight, and he collapses on Jaskier's other side like crumbling stone, shattered down a fault line.

"No," he says, and it isn't a roar of defiance against the gods and destiny; it's a broken groan, a whispered plea, a dawning horror he can't look in the eye.

And he does what Ciri could not; he tears off a glove, reaches out his hand and lays it on Jaskier's chest, fingers splayed, and his hand seems so big resting there, and it doesn't move, because there is no rise and fall to move it.

Perhaps the worst of it is that Geralt doesn't do anything. He doesn't try to rouse Jaskier or patch his wounds and the only reason for him not to do that is if he can't feel breath, he can't hear a heartbeat, there's nothing there to save, and Ciri wants to scream until the entire world is as tattered as her heart.

The keening that rips from Geralt's throat sounds how Ciri felt when they told her Eist was dead, when she saw her grandmother's wound and knew it was fatal, when she heard 'we killed Mousesack'. It's how she feels now, with Jaskier lying so pale and still on the hard-packed earth of a grave. It's a terrible noise, like the death throes of joy and light and hope, and Ciri hears in it something that she is sure of now, far too late - love. Unspoken, perhaps unacknowledged, even unrealised, but love all the same, and now something that ought to have been beautiful as a flower is a blade pressing into his chest.

Geralt bows forward, sagging until even the lines of his body seem wrought from pain, and his hands twist in the fabric of Jaskier's clothes, like by his grip alone he can drag him back into life.

There's another clattering at the entrance, heeled boots against stone, quick breaths.

"Geralt, we're nearly out of time, the spell's weakening and I can't hold it on my own - no." Yennefer halts two paces back, and Ciri can't bring herself to look into the face of more grief; she draws her knees up, hugs them into her chest and hides herself from the world behind the curtain of her hair.

"Fuck. No! Geralt?"

He doesn't answer, maybe can't, and then Yennefer's moving, a burst of energy and speed.

"Fuck that, I won't have it. Get back, Geralt - dammit, let me pass!" There's a moment where the air seems almost static, like it's charged with lightning, and then it passes and Yennefer's skirts rustle as she moves round them.

Ciri, despite her misery, peeks up.

Yennefer is kneeling between them with her hands on either side of Jaskier's head, fingers splayed wide. Her eyes roll closed as she speaks Elder words Ciri's never heard before, words that roll into a chant that crackles with power.

Geralt is - fuck, Geralt is crying, silent tears streaming down an unmoving face. He's still got his hand on Jaskier's chest, like he can't bear to break that last connection. Every second is an eternity and all of them hurt.

Yennefer's eyes snap open, and they're blazing.

"We need to kill the draugr."

Ciri doesn't move, and neither does Geralt; he doesn't even look up from Jaskier's face.

Yennefer releases Jaskier's head and seizes Geralt bodily by the shoulders, forcing him to look at her; he snarls, moves like he's going to shove her away, but Yennefer shakes him."Geralt! He isn't dead. The draugr's stealing his life force, that's why it was growing more powerful as we fought it. There's an enchantment on him, and I think it will break if we kill the draugr. But we need to be fast, Geralt, before the transference is complete, or it will be too late. It nearly is already."

Ciri's bruised, broken heart leaps. "He's not dead?" she whispers, clinging to that gossamer frail thread of hope like a lifeline.

Yennefer looks at her with compassion and gentleness and a quiet relief of her own softening the urgency on her face. She takes the glowing ball from Ciri's lax grip and breathes a word that sends it to hover above them, brighter than before. "He's alive, Ciri."

And Geralt comes back to life too. His hand leaves Jaskier's chest, clenches for one brief second around Jaskier's fingers, and then he releases him with gentle care and surges to his feet. There is - there is danger about him, a focus in his eyes that troubles her; the sense that something hangs by a thread. She understands, mostly, but there is a depth to it she cannot grasp. His face is still wet with tears.

"Yenn," he says, but Yennefer is already standing, danger coiled in her movements. Geralt looks to Ciri. "I need you to stay with him. Guard him. Wait for - be ready when-"

"I'll look after him," Ciri says, and she feels as if there is fire in her chest, as if her spine is made from steel. There's strength in her again, and she moves into a crouch to take up her sword in her right hand and lay her left on Jaskier's chest in place of Geralt's. It's still eerily immobile, but she ignores that now; she is waiting, and she will wait as long as it takes.

She holds Geralt's gaze and nods firmly, a silent promise that he can trust her, that she will hold to this duty no matter what. He nods too, and then the two of them are gone, answering the scream that reverberates through the cavern as the draugr breaks free of whatever trap they'd caught it in.

Ciri waits, and refuses to think that she is alone.

The draugr is strong, but so are Geralt and Yennefer; it's hard to think of a more powerful pair to fight any monster. Kings and queens might think they have power, but - as Ciri has learned - they really have nothing without people like those two, and now all that might is focused on a single monster, and driven by the need to save the life of someone they love.

It cannot win, Ciri tells herself, and pretends she doesn't flinch at every shriek and shout and thump.

And then there is a roar of flame that catches on something, for she hears the crackle even from here as it consumes and devours, and a gasping, heaving breath rocks the chest beneath Ciri's hand.

Jaskier's eyes snap open and he jerks like he's trying to sit up, but his next breath catches and he's gasping, shaking, gaze roving unfocused.

There's a second where Ciri is just frozen, staring, because maybe she didn't really think this was going to work, because the world seemed only to take from her, seemed to kill good people simply because they were close to her, and why would it spare someone who was so much closer than most? But hope and joy so profound that she might be crying again send her scrambling forwards, sword clattering to the earth as she presses down on Jaskier's shoulders, trying to be firm without causing any pain.

"Jaskier! Jaskier, it's alright, calm down, just breathe. You're going to be alright."

And he is, it isn't a lie, and Ciri's chest is filling with something so warm and full that she could sing, as Jaskier's gaze settles on her.

His lips move soundlessly at first, but he settles enough that she reaches up to stroke the hair back from his face, where it lies in sweaty strands. His skin is flooding with warmth - beautiful, brilliant warmth.

"Ciri," he manages, and his eyes widen with alarm. "You - alright? Where - what -"

Even so few words sap his strength, and he's gasping again, face twisted in pain; agony, even, and he's terribly pale even as warmth returns. There's blood on Ciri's hand where it's been stroking through his hair, and she remembers - remembers what she'd seen when she first entered the chamber.

"Fuck!" She brushes through his hair, searching, but he's alert and head wounds often bleed disproportionately, so maybe that's not the worst of their problems. Instead she rips his coat open and pulls up his shirt, not stopping to worry about propriety or to apologise for startling him; there are four gouges in his side, and the bleeding has started up again, and it pulses warm and awful over her fingers as she presses down.

"Fuck!" she cries again, then yells as loud as she can, with mind and voice both. "YENNEFER!"

Because this isn't something mortal medicine can fix fast enough, there is too much blood, too much damage, and she is not losing him again.

"Ciri," Jaskier says again, more urgently. There's blood on his teeth. Somehow he's managing to move his good arm, just to brush it against her cheek, to hold her arm, before his weak grip fails again; she doesn't know how he found the strength at all. "Alright?"

It might be a laugh or a sob that escapes her, she doesn't even know. "I'm fine, Jask," she promises him, because she can't deny him the answer when he's spending so much to ask, but how the fuck can how she is possibly matter to him right now?

And then they're both there, Yennefer charging in with Geralt behind her, both sweaty and breathless and scattered with ash. Yennefer doesn't hesitate, just kneels down once more, lifts Jaskier's head gently to lay it in her lap, and with one hand on his forehead and one on his side she begins to chant again.

Slowly - slower than usual, which is strange - but steadily and wonderfully, the wounds beneath Ciri's hands begin to close, until the skin is smooth and whole beneath the smeared blood. His bare chest heaves, stuttering as his broken arm straightens out, and she's willing to bet the wound on his head has closed too.

And all the while Jaskier's eyes are locked on Geralt's, who is kneeling beside him again, and when Jaskier reaches out with his good hand, Geralt grabs the trembling fingers and holds them between both of his own hands.

Eventually Yennefer's chant stops and she wavers, beginning to fall, and Ciri scrambles to catch her. It's only when she's supporting Yennefer that she realises her hands are still covered in blood that's now staining Yennefer's dress too, but somehow she doesn't think she'll mind.

"That's all I can do for now," Yennefer says, breathless and weak. "The fire magic - he's out of danger, but not fully healed; I can't replenish all his blood yet."

Fire magic? Ciri had thought that Yennefer's magic had fully returned with her sacrifice against the Deathless Mother - and then she pieces it together belatedly. To defeat the draugr it had to be beheaded and burned, and igni wouldn't have half as much power as the raw chaos of Yennefer's fire magic. It wouldn't have taken anywhere near as much chaos as she used to defeat Nilfgaard's army at Sodden, but even touching that magic again was a risk Ciri had not though Yennefer would ever take.

Maybe Ciri is not the only one who feels that she is gaining something precious here.

"Jaskier?" Geralt's voice is hoarse. He squeezes Jaskier's hand, gaze locked onto his face with naked desperation.

Jaskier is still breathing hard, face drawn and pale, with tear tracks and sweat that cut through bloody streaks. He doesn't speak right away, and it's just a moment, but that's long enough for fear to claw at Ciri's heart again.

"Why," he says, in a breathless, pained, but somehow brilliantly wry voice, "do I feel like I've been chewed on by a pair of teething baby dragons?"

And it's not that funny but a laugh bursts out of Ciri that's one part amusement and three parts desperate relief, because he's okay, he's going to be okay, and for the first time in this awful, hellish night they're all safe and mostly whole.

"Your voice still works, then," Yennefer says, and she doesn't even feign any of her usual affected snark; her relief is as evident as Ciri's. Jaskier meets her eyes where he's still lying with his head on her lap and he doesn't say anything at all, just gives her this smile that's completely stripped bare of antagonism or teasing and is just the warm, grateful smile of a friend.

He begins to shift then, like he means to sit up, and it's Geralt who surges forward and Jaskier looks at him again, his gaze bouncing back like it was never away. Geralt helps him up, and when even that slight movement makes Jaskier wobble alarmingly, dizzy with blood loss, he keeps one arm behind Jaskier's back and the other anchors him at his shoulder, and Jaskier leans his full weight into Geralt with the certain trust that Geralt won't let him fall.

Geralt, indeed, looks like he'd stay there until the end of time if Jaskier asked it. "Are you alright?" he says, raw and aching. He looks more fragile than Ciri thought he could.

"Not entirely," Jaskier says frankly, "but I seem to be an awful lot better than I was. Thank you, by the way," he adds, twisting round slightly to look at Yennefer.

Yennefer probably has a lot of thanks coming her way, once Geralt has regained some greater measure of coherence. Right now he doesn't seem to be able to look away from Jaskier.

"Fuck," he says, and pulls Jaskier the rest of the way into a hug.

And it's a hug almost too tender to watch. Geralt draws them together and cradles the back of Jaskier's head, his face pressed into Jaskier's hair; this man capable of tearing monsters apart with his bare hands holds Jaskier as something precious, his touch so very gentle. He looks like a man given a second chance he didn't dare hope for, or like one who has found the answer to a question he's been asking all his life.

"Oh," Jaskier says, a whisper of surprise or understanding, and embraces Geralt back with all the strength he has.

When they draw back a little, eventually, Geralt looks round for Ciri and something in his face crumples at whatever he sees in her. He shifts enough that she can fling herself at Jaskier, pulling back at the last moment only enough that she doesn't lean any of her weight on him. She hugs him carefully but fists her hands in the back of his coat as if she's a child, and she doesn't even care because his blood is still wet and tacky on her skin but he's alive, alive to hold her back and press a kiss to the crown of her head, light and cautious as though there's a chance in hell the affection might be unwanted.

Geralt, one arm still supporting Jaskier's back, wraps his other around Ciri, and she buries her face in the dark safe space between the two men. She feels Yennefer draw in close against her back, one hand on Ciri and the other perhaps reaching round Jaskier.

And then they are all holding her, the witch and the witcher and the bard, Ciri's...

Fuck it.

Ciri's family, small and strange and impossible as it is.

And right there, inside the grave of a long dead king who became a monster, in the middle of nowhere while half the continent hunts for her, Ciri has all she needs.

Chapter Text

The first thing they do is get out of the barrow.

None of them want to linger there. It's disconcerting to watch the way Jaskier's eyes track round the chamber with dawning comprehension and belated dread. He must have been unconscious already when the draugr got him inside, but he's quick to understand. His face can't get much paler - his colour hasn't recovered yet despite Yennefer's efforts - but his breathing quickens, and Geralt's supporting grip tightens.

"We're in a barrow, aren't we," Jaskier says flatly, not bothering with a question he already knows the answer to, but his voice is pitched too high to feign calm. His good hand grasps at one of Geralt's where it still holds steadily to his shoulder.

"The draugr's dead," Geralt tells him firmly - because of course Jaskier doesn't yet know that was the prerequisite to saving him.

Ciri slumps back on her heels, feeling suddenly unbearably weary. So much fighting and terror and grief - she feels like she's lived a year in the space of one night, and all that after a day's riding and walking. She's not sure what time it is - this night is both brief and eternal - but she could happily sleep for a day straight.

If, that is, they were anywhere but where they are.

Digging deep for strength, Ciri hauls herself to her feet. "Let's get out of here."

The others look up at her, and she sees weary agreement in their eyes.

When the act of merely trying to stand makes Yennefer tremble, Ciri darts forward so that she can brace herself on her shoulders. Yennefer shoots her a grateful look, though Ciri half thinks she'll end up leaning on Yennefer just as much before the night is through.

There is, at any rate, no question of who Geralt will be assisting.

"Can you stand?" he says quietly, head bent in close to Jaskier's. For all that Geralt is still acutely alert to his surroundings - he shifts slightly as Ciri moves, responding to either the sound or some awareness in his peripheral vision - he never actually looks away from Jaskier.

"With some reluctance." Jaskier tosses the words lightly, but there's a tension that still clings to them, revealing them to be more truth than jest.

Geralt is more solicitous than Ciri's ever seen him. He helps Jaskier into a crouch, pausing there with steadying hands to let him brace himself, then rising slowly. Jaskier wavers, but Geralt is quick to get his good arm across his own shoulders. One hand anchors it there and the other goes across Jaskier's back to hold his waist. Jaskier's right arm is clearly still tender; he holds it gingerly across his stomach and doesn't move it more than he can help. He's unnaturally quiet as they begin to shuffle outside, but Geralt takes much of his weight.

Ciri steers Yennefer carefully around the heaping piles of treasure. Her steps feel lighter and the air warmer the closer they get to outside. Scrambling back through the rough hole into the dim night, where the stench lessens and there's life in the ground beneath her, she finds her breath comes more deeply and freely and the tightness in her chest loosens.

Behind them, Geralt and Jaskier make their staggering escape too. The light inside the barrow flickers, falters, and goes out.

It's hard to see with clarity in the feeble moonlight that makes an appearance through the clouds, and Yennefer makes no move to conjure another light. Nonetheless, after a few seconds, Ciri can make out forms in the washed out, grey world; a huge swathe of the ground around them is flattened and dark, and there is the shape of a body between the barrows. A figure close enough to human to be unsettling, but contorted and now burned beyond recognition.

They walk fifty yards or so before Geralt stops them. "Wait here?" he says, meeting Ciri's eyes; perhaps she's the most cognisant of the three of them for now, and the thought makes her stand straighter.

When she nods, Geralt murmurs something quietly to Jaskier and gently unslings his arm, helping him sit down again. Ciri mirrors him, lowering Yennefer down too. She remains upright herself. Powered now by a restless sort of energy, she knows sleep will dig its claws into her as soon as she sits down, and they need her strong right now.

So Jaskier and Yennefer lean against each other and Ciri stands guard over them while Geralt returns to the barrows. He vanishes into each one in turn.

The burst of orange light that flashes into the night makes Ciri jump the first time, but she understands even before Geralt re-emerges. The remains in the other mounds might only be bones, but he's making entirely sure none of them will rise as another draugr.

Once the remains are burned, he also forms the sign of aard, collapsing each entrance in a flurry of soil and stone. By the time he's finished, kicking deliberately through the ashes of the draugr on the way back, all twelve barrows are resealed, the remains and the cursed treasure once again consigned to the earth.

When he rejoins them to restart their slow shuffle towards the forest, Ciri turns her back on the mounds and does not look that way again.

It takes a little while to retrieve the horses. Even Geralt is growing tired, drained by the long fight, grief, and the overuse of signs. Nonetheless he manages to point them towards the horses by smell alone, and darts off alone into the woods, returning a short time later with the first two before tracking down the others.

By mutual agreement, they walk on as far as they can manage. Which isn't far at all, really, but they strike out back into the forest, well off of the old path, putting at least a little distance between them and the barrows. The draugr is dead, the smell dissipated and the sound of wildlife returned to the trees, but Ciri feels better the further away they get, and she knows the others feel the same.

But whatever time it is, it must be well into the small hours of the morning. Jaskier is weak, Yennefer is drained, and Ciri and Geralt are weary enough as it is. They never even had dinner, which can't be helping, much as Ciri feels nauseous at the very thought of food.

Ciri only realises Geralt is steering them towards the sound of running water when she almost walks into it. It's only a narrow stream, but it burbles fast and pleasantly and Ciri blinks at it for a few long moments before she realises this must be where they're to set up camp.

It's mostly left to her and Geralt to do. Yennefer makes an effort to help, but she's rendered clumsy by exhaustion. Ciri doesn't feel much better; she's practically dead on her feet as she and Geralt haul the baggage off the horses and tether them loosely to trees. She murmurs an apology to her steed that anything more than checking it has food and water will have to wait until morning; she's so tired she can hardly make her fingers work. Setting up the tent is harder without Yennefer to simply point a hand at it, but fortunately the enchantment on its interior is permanent and not dependent on reapplied magic, or they'd be sleeping under the stars.

Ciri doesn't care about a fire or food. She almost staggers directly to her bed, prepared to fall face down on it and sleep forever, but she's halfway there when she realises her hands are still crusted with blood, now dried and flaking.

She has to fight the earth to throw up, and runs to the stream.

The water is freezing. Her fingers ache down to the bone from the cold but she scrubs and scrubs until her skin feels clean, and the stream carries away the pink stained water. There's still blood under her nails that she can't get out.

Yennefer has made it to her bed and is already asleep by the time Ciri gets back. Geralt has brought all their things into the tent and lit the many candles inside. He's settling Jaskier into a bed, though he looks up as Ciri ducks inside.

"Are you alright?"

Ciri doesn't quite trust herself to speak. She nods, instead, and there's compassion in Geralt's tired eyes, a deep-rooted understanding.

"You should eat something before you sleep."

"Can't."

"Hmm."

Ciri lies down and draws the blankets and furs over herself. She's still wearing the same clothes and even her boots; it feels unpleasant but the idea of changing is beyond her.

Time drifts strangely, but she doesn't quite fall asleep. A water skin is pressed into her hands, full of cold fresh water.

"Drink, Ciri," Geralt says softly, and waits until she's swallowed a few mouthfuls before he pulls the blankets up higher around her. He pauses there for a moment, crouched down at her bedside. "I'm proud of you," he says, and she studies his face, its lines and angles softened in the candlelight. "You did so well."

Ciri can't find any words to answer, just finds his hand and squeezes it, hugs it to her chest, and he leans forward and kisses her forehead.

Time shifts again, and he's sitting on the edge of Jaskier's bed. There's a cloth in his hand, a basin of water on his lap, and he's wiping the cloth in gentle motions over Jaskier's face, his chest, his hands. Jaskier seems half-asleep, though he shifts sometimes, blinking his eyes open, and speaks - just Geralt's name, usually, but plaintive and aching. Geralt hushes him, rinses the cloth, and continues to wash away the blood.

Ciri blinks and the candles are mostly out; Jaskier is snoring softly, Yennefer rolling over in her sleep, and Geralt sits on a chair between them and the door, eyes glinting in the faint light, watching over them.

Ciri closes her eyes again, and sleeps for hours.

When she wakes next, the tent is full of daylight.

Ciri lies staring up at the canvas ceiling for a moment, breathing hard and not sure why - but there's a whisper of a dream in the back of her mind, and a sense of panic. She rolls onto her side, and her breath hitches.

Yennefer is still asleep across the room. Closer by, Jaskier's eyes are also closed. He's sprawled out on his back, his forehead creased even in sleep, but his chest rises and falls and rises in a rhythm she finds herself watching as though enchanted by it.

Her nightmare fades, but the reality of last night is too near at hand.

The tent is nudged open, even more light streaming in, and Geralt catches her eye. He must have heard her move, or her racing heartbeat; he tilts his head, inviting her outside. Ciri frees herself from the tangle of blankets, though as an afterthought decides to take one with her, wrapping it around her shoulders.

"What time is it?" she asks, keeping her voice soft even when they're outside.

"A little after midday."

Geralt's got a fire burning, some kind of stew gently bubbling. The smell goes straight to Ciri's stomach, which grumbles quietly. Geralt gives her a wry look, and rummages in one of his bags. He sets out a cloth bag of nuts and a few apples between them, and Ciri falls on the small feast eagerly.

When she's filled the immediate hole in her stomach and settled back to sit on a bedroll Geralt's laid out by the fire, she eyes him more critically. "Did you sleep at all?" she asks between bites of her second apple.

"Some," Geralt says. Even with her ever growing skill at interpreting his expressions, Ciri can't decide whether she believes him or not. He looks tired - and wounded, in a strange way. Not physically, or at least she's not aware that he took any substantial hits after Yennefer's healing, but like he's recovering from another type of hurt altogether. He's watchful, keeping a sharp gaze on the forest but always returning to the tent, and perhaps it's no wonder that he heard her wake. She just doubts it was her he was listening for.

"Hmm," she hums, and rolls her eyes when he doesn't even seem to notice the bait.

Yennefer joins them soon after. She goes down to the stream to freshen up and then changes into one of the dresses from the chests in the tent; there's no sign of Jaskier's blood left, after that, which makes things easier to bear.

And, presumably summoned by the demands of his own stomach, Jaskier stumbles out of the tent just as Geralt has judged the stew ready to eat. He's still paler than he ought to be, but less grey than he was last night, which is comforting. He, too, is in fresh clothes, or at least a fresh shirt, though from the way he's yawning and the wild state of his hair she doesn't think he's changed it himself.

Ciri squints at the shirt for a minute. She knows for a fact that Jaskier had a spare shirt or two in his pack when they left Kaer Morhen, because he'd mentioned that Vesemir had been generous in supplying him. And Yennefer chucked some clothes at him the first time she returned with the tent, telling him that he was starting to smell. This doesn't look like any of them; it's darker than he'd choose, a little too big for him in the shoulders, and hangs loosely on him.

Ciri squints at the shirt, then turns her head very slowly to Geralt.

She could almost swear that he's deliberately avoiding looking at her, but maybe it's mere coincidence, because he's watching Jaskier carefully.

Jaskier, for his part, moves fairly well for a man who seemed to have died the night before. Stiffly and carefully, certainly, but he's completely clean of blood and grave dirt, and though he groans a little as he sits down, he smiles warmly at them once he's settled.

"I feel like shit," he says cheerfully. "Let's never do that again."

All three of them stare at him.

"You are such an idiot," Yennefer says, kicking him gently in the leg, and Ciri snorts. It's the most Jaskier way of breaking the ice, but any strange solemnity of the moment is gone, normality reasserting itself as Jaskier clutches at his leg and dramatically objects to this mistreatment.

Ciri is sitting closest to Geralt, and that's why she sees the way he relaxes incrementally, tension drifting away bit by bit, and in the bickering that follows he seems to ground himself again.

She understands it. She knew that Jaskier was going to survive, that he was mostly healed and would be fine - but that's nothing to seeing it in the light of day, to having the proof in his presence and his voice and his still bright smile.

There are so many things Ciri wants to say, so many things she should say. She wants him to know how glad she is that he's alright, how much she cares about him, how bloody sorry she is for all of it. She wants them all to know how much she loves them.

Maybe it's the words that fail her, or maybe it's courage. It's so much easier to sit there and accept the bowl of food Geralt gives her and watch Jaskier eat, to observe how he's quieter than usual but in good spirits, to watch Yennefer and Geralt behave so near to normal around him but smile more than they usually do.

They take their time eating, polishing off the stew with seconds all round over the course of a long and lazy hour. The afternoon is getting on when they agree to walk on a little further before the light fades.

"It would be better to rest longer," Geralt says, his gaze flashing over all of them. "But we might have drawn attention last night, if there's anything else near here. We should move on a little further."

It's a good distraction from the thoughts swimming through her mind. They pack up easily enough, and saddle the horses - all of them have been brushed down, and Ciri is more sure than ever that Geralt didn't sleep at all. They ride, this time, since Yennefer is physically recovered and Jaskier seems more or less steady in the saddle. Geralt rides close beside him, in case that proves not to hold.

Although he seems to be making a real effort, Jaskier tires visibly and quickly. He winces whenever his horse's gait shifts, and seems to be bracing himself on the saddle with his uninjured arm.

They've been following the stream north for a little while when he finally breaks the silence. "I hate to seem ungrateful-"

"First time for everything," Yennefer cuts in, and gives Jaskier a smile far too saccharine to be sincere when he huffs at her.

"But," he continues pointedly, "could you not just portal us a hundred miles away, or something? I know it might be a bit uncomfortable, but it seems a lot easier than this."

Yennefer draws back slightly. She looks startled, confused, and after a moment her face closes off. She sends her horse trotting off ahead a little and doesn't answer.

Ciri is confused enough herself. "Her chaos, Jaskier," she reminds him. "It's not replenished yet from the fire magic."

The way Jaskier's face freezes and then his eyes widen is almost comical, except that it makes Ciri realise he must not have heard what Yennefer said after she healed him, or was too out of it to process what she meant. He stares now at Yennefer's back, face slack with surprise.

"You used fire magic last night?"

When Yennefer appears to be ignoring the question, Ciri chimes in instead. "They had to kill the draugr to wake you up. It was draining your life."

"Beheading," Jaskier says, recalling what Geralt said yesterday, and glances at Geralt - who must, of course, have been the one to strike that blow. "And... burning." He frowns hard at Yennefer, like he can will her into turning round. "That's how you lost your power at Sodden," he says, then shakes his head. "You healed me, though. I remember that."

"Yes."

"Yennefer..."

"It's not gone," she says, and her voice is threaded through with the echo of pain. "I can still feel my chaos. But the fire burned through my reserves, and I used the rest on your wounds. It'll recover, but I need a few days. So no portals to spare your soft feet, I'm afraid."

"You risked that for me?" Jaskier's eyes are bright in the way of the sky after a summer rainfall, clear and shining. There's none of the artifice of the way he teases and prods at her, all the grandiosity of his normal speech swept away by something vulnerable and awed.

Perhaps it's that sincerity that keeps Yennefer from a flippant reply. "I suppose I did," she says instead, and finally looks back at him with a steady gaze that doesn't hide. "Turns out I do actually give a shit what happens to you."

"That is literally the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Jaskier says, a spark of that bantering humour back in his eyes - though he sobers quickly. "Thank you, Yennefer. For everything."

The smile she gives him in return makes her look younger. Not that she looks at all old, but for a moment she seems less burdened, happy without reservations. And Ciri wonders if Yennefer - like Geralt, and like Ciri herself - has precious few people she counts as friends, but would do basically anything for the ones she's found.

And yet from the way she'd reacted at first, Ciri wonders if she would have told Jaskier what she'd done if Ciri hadn't revealed it first. She'd figured he already knew, but when it emerged that he didn't, she seemed strangely reticent to tell him. Which was strange, because it was a brave and selfless act, and one Jaskier clearly appreciated the weight of.

Surely she couldn't be that afraid to show that she cared? But perhaps she could. There is much to Yennefer that Ciri doesn't know yet, and no doubt there is bitter experience at the foundation of the walls she's built around herself, but the end result is that she is cautious to show people her heart.

And Yennefer is still more open than Geralt, which bodes very ill for Ciri's hope that he would have a frank conversation with Jaskier once the immediate crisis was over.

"I'm going to write you a song!" Jaskier declares suddenly, his entire countenance brightening.

"Please don't," Yennefer says hastily.

"Too late." For all that Jaskier's now leaning even more heavily on the saddle for support, he seems to have gained a second wind. "It will be an epic - the beautiful sorceress with the heart of gold. Ciri, would you join me? I need help choosing some good rhymes for 'heroic'."

And Ciri does, because she delights in the mischief she can make with Jaskier - and wants to be near him, to have the proof that he's here, safe and mostly well. But as Jaskier starts to toss out ideas, Ciri chiming in with her own and Yennefer frequently heckling them, she sees Geralt look over with something both fond and sad in his face. She could swear he looks wistful, even longing, though the expression never lasts and is always hidden away whenever Jaskier looks towards him.

Ciri's heart is feeling distinctly fragile at the moment, and it threatens to break again. But she is full of resolve now. One of the things she's learned from Yennefer, after all, is the value of a well-placed nudge.

Or, failing that, a hearty shove.

They stop to camp well before nightfall. They've made far less progress than they would normally, but Jaskier has fallen quiet and begun to list slightly to the side, and after riding as close as he can get his horse for a while, Geralt calls a halt.

"We can keep going," Jaskier tries, clearly acutely aware they're only stopping for him, but Geralt shakes his head and dismounts first, reaching up to help Jaskier down.

"This will do. I doubt anything will track us this far."

Jaskier moves slowly, and doesn't object to Geralt's help as they get him sitting down leaning against a tree. It seems to help, but he's quiet for a while. He doesn't show any outward signs of frustration, but he's also not hamming it up the way she suspects he would if he felt better. He just sits there and smiles faintly whenever one of them looks his way, and when there's a fire going he peers into it, breaking twigs and idly feeding them to the flames.

Ciri considers him from afar as she unbuckles the last of the saddles. His colour is getting healthier all the time, but he's so tired out and hurt from even that short distance travelled. Once Yennefer's magic recovers, there's probably more she can do to heal him, but for now it's amply clear that Jaskier needs to recuperate. She resolves to talk to Geralt about staying here longer. They've got supplies to last a while, and no shortage of game animals in the forest. If they're far enough away that no one or nothing drawn to the site of the barrow fight will find them, then this seems a comfortable enough spot to stay, with space for the horses and the stream for fresh water. Rest is surely the best thing for Jaskier, to get him back on his feet as soon as possible.

She's been staring too long, and Jaskier catches her at it. He grins at her, tired but warm. Ciri reflexively looks away, cheeks flushing, and focuses back on the saddle. She's blinking hard, suddenly, and doesn't know why.

"Ciri, can I borrow you a moment? I think I'd like to lie down a little before dinner, and I could use a hand getting to the tent."

Geralt's tending to the horses while Yennefer refills their water skins; Ciri feels both eager and strangely reluctant, but she goes over to Jaskier anyway.

"Help me up?" he says with that calm smile, and between them they get him to his feet and make their way into the newly assembled tent.

Jaskier gets slower the further they go, but he sinks onto the bed with a sigh of contentment. Ciri makes herself busy with fluffing up his pillows so that he can sit back, but once he's settled Jaskier tugs very gently on her braid.

"What's the matter, Ciri?"

She blinks hard again. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"You've been looking at me strangely all day. Yes, like that, just there. What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" She shakes her head, and her eyes feel hot and prickly; she feels the sudden need to flee, but holds her ground. "How can you even ask? Jaskier, I was so afraid. I found you in the barrow and I thought you were dead."

His face crumples. At first she thinks maybe he's alarmed by the reminder of how close he came to death - but no, of course it's not that, because it never is, none of this family of hers ever worry as much about themselves as they should. The compassion in his eyes is all for her, and it strikes right at her heart.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he says softly.

"I'm sorry," she says, and it comes out more desperate than she intends. "Jaskier, I'm so sorry."

He pulls gently on the front of her jacket, smoothing out the wrinkles like he's tidying her up - as if there's any point when she's been wearing the same clothes for several days and is more mud than human. "What could you need to be sorry for?"

He genuinely seems to mean the question, like he can't think of anything, and his eyes are so kind and his voice so patient, as if he truly doesn't understand that it's Ciri who nearly robbed the world of all he brings to it.

In the face of all that undeserved kindness, the dam across her emotions breaks.

"It's my fault," she bursts out, fierce and miserable. "It's my fault you were here, none of this would have happened if it wasn't for me. You got hurt, you nearly died, and you were only out here for me, I'm the reason we have to stay where it's not safe, I'm so sorry-"

"Oh, no," Jaskier says, cutting across her, and it's the surprise of him interrupting her that stops her more than anything else, for he never normally would. "Darling girl, no."

He reaches out and cups her face, and his thumbs sweep beneath her eyes; she needs to stop crying, but then again, she knows now that even witchers cry. Free of the blurring tears, she can see that he's looking at her with a tender sweetness she's not sure she's ever seen before. For all that her grandmother loved her, such tenderness was not in her nature; nor could Mousesack ever be described as sweet. Geralt is far gentler than he pretends, and there is a softness in him he reserves for a few that she is glad to be among, but he is not quite this open and free with his feelings either. Jaskier looks like he would give Ciri anything he had just to stop her tears.

"Sweet witcher," he murmurs, a fleeting smile in the corner of his mouth and the sparkle of his eyes. "You know, there is such a thing as being too like your father, even a man as magnificent as Geralt. You cannot blame yourself for all the cruelties of the world, and the evil things that others do."

"But you nearly died!"

"And if I had, I would be very sorry to leave you - to leave all of you. But it is my choice to be here. I won't live forever, but I intend to live as long as I possibly can, and to do so with the people I love. There is no greater joy in life than that. I could find no better purpose if I travelled the continent for a thousand years. Ask Yennefer, she's already tried that."

Ciri makes a sound that's only partly a laugh, still mostly a sob, and Jaskier wipes her cheeks again.

"No tears. You saved me. All of you. I daresay I'm the best defended man on the continent."

"People keep dying because of me." She doesn't really mean to say it, but she's got no walls left, no defences against the tenderness of the way Jaskier is looking at her, the open care that she's not sure she deserves. The words burst out and carry the terrible confession with them. "Grandmother, Eist, Mousesack. The witchers. Zola's family. Even Roach, she was only in danger because I was there, all of them were only hurt because of me. And you - I can't, Jaskier, I can't-"

"No. Ciri, no." He almost falls forward in his haste to embrace her, and she doesn't even pretend not to need the affection; she collides into him, wraps her arms around him as tight as she can and buries her face in his good shoulder. The embrace is still strong from his left arm, weaker in the right, but both hold her close. "Oh, darling. That people and monsters will do terrible things to get to you is not your fault. You never feel guilty for what they do to you, you understand? They're not coming for you because of anything you've done, but simply because you exist, and that is not something you ever bow to. And I know the losses hurt, Ciri, but I promise you none of them would have blamed you for what happened. If they'd had a choice, they would have chosen to defend you. We all would."

"Why?" she bursts out, shaking her head against Jaskier's neck. "People keep saying I'm special, but I'm not. I've got power I can't even use safely, I can't help anyone. Why am I so worth protecting?"

The voice that answers isn't Jaskier's.

"It's not your power that makes you special, Cirilla."

Geralt. She didn't know he'd entered the tent. Ciri screws her eyes closed, doesn't move away from the illusion of hiding against Jaskier.

"You are remarkable, your heart and your spirit and the choices you make. But so what if you weren't? We love you. Your family loved you. That's enough."

"I don't deserve-"

"Love doesn't have to be deserved," Jaskier says, and she feels him move slightly, like he might be looking up. "It isn't something you have to earn. It's given to you."

Geralt's hand comes to rest on her back, large and strong and warm. Ciri's still not sure how it can be hers so freely, this vast and selfless love they offer her, but she finds, curled up there between them, that she can at least believe it's true.

When Ciri leaves some time later, wiping her nose on her sleeve and muttering her intention to go and look after whatever food Geralt and Yennefer had started to cook, she stops just outside the tent to tilt her head up and let the sun shine on her face for a moment. She feels... lighter, perhaps. Like the conversation with Jaskier has... not lifted a burden, exactly, but shared it. She doesn't know if she entirely accepts what he told her yet, but knowing that he's heard her and that neither he nor Geralt think any of it's her fault - it helps.

She doesn't realise she's close enough to still hear inside the tent until Jaskier's voice cuts through her thoughts.

"I'm sorry for all you've lost, Geralt." His voice is pained, like he feels Geralt's hurt as his own. "I wondered about Roach, but I wasn't sure."

"We were attacked. I... There was nothing I could do for her."

"You'd have saved her if you could. She knew that."

"She deserved better."

"And your brothers... I'm so sorry."

"So many gone." His voice is tightly controlled, but then it wavers. "You never even met Eskel." Something cracks in his resolve, and she hears Jaskier murmur something, but Ciri knows she's lingered too long.

She cannot be the one to comfort Geralt in his grief. He will not show it to her, for he feels he must always be strong for her, and she will always feel responsible for this pain. She doesn't even think he would trust it to Yennefer.

But it's alright, because he has Jaskier, and Ciri leaves them to their remembrance.

They stay many days there, on a patch of flat ground beside the stream where the trees are thin enough to let sunlight filter through. Geralt agrees they can afford the time to rest, and they settle in. It's almost like a strange sort of holiday; there is nothing they must do except the daily tasks of hunting and cooking food and washing clothes in the cold stream.

Geralt and Yennefer work on various concoctions which they give to Jaskier - not healing potions in the strictest sense, which would require more ingredients than they have, but various herbal drinks they can forage the ingredients for which are meant to have robust health properties. Jaskier has a dim view of the taste of these drinks, but accepts them with fair grace, clearly appreciating the sentiment behind them if nothing else.

Geralt takes the lead on hunting, though Ciri comes with him often, determined to learn all the skills needed for the wild. She also reads more, and quizzes all three of them on the various things they've seen and done; Yennefer has a delightful repertoire of stories, not all of which Geralt approves of. She also gets more of their shared adventures out of him and Jaskier; Jaskier tells the stories better by far, but Geralt is a useful fact checker to make sure Ciri is actually learning accurate lessons.

(Jaskier points out that he is teaching lessons himself, albeit not necessarily how to correctly kill a monster; he declares that he's teaching Ciri to think for herself, not to accept what she is told but to ask why this person is telling it to her, and to know that there is power in the way you choose to say things. There is nuance to this she still needs to grasp, but she thinks he has a point. It won't help her kill a monster, but it might help her to know which ones need killing.)

In the early evening of the second day at this camp, Ciri is sitting a little way apart from the tent, beside the cheerfully burbling stream. The bestiary is open in her lap, but she's been ignoring it for some time in favour of propping her head on her hands and watching the scene by the fire.

Geralt and Jaskier have been arguing for at least half an hour about the appropriate way to cook the venison from the deer Geralt brought back that afternoon. The argument has so far lasted the entire time Geralt's been preparing the meat, and it's like a particularly ridiculous bit of theatre. The funniest thing is that Geralt is actually arguing back, and visibly growing increasingly frustrated with Jaskier, who Ciri is pretty sure is now making suggestions that not even he thinks are a good idea.

One or other of them is going to get something thrown in his face in a minute, and Ciri's waiting to see how it pans out.

Yennefer, evidently deciding to evade the drama, steps over the stream and comes to sit beside her. They watch in silence for a moment, and then Ciri gestures over at the pair of them.

"I think they're in love."

Yennefer hums an agreement. "So do I," she says, just as quietly.

Ciri thinks of that day in the Temple of Melitele, and the mingled love and hurt and betrayal that followed. She studies Yennefer's face. "Does it make you sad?"

"Perhaps a little," Yennefer says frankly. "I do love Geralt, and in a way I always will. In a way, he loves me too. But it has limits. Complications. Qualifications. That..." She nods to where Jaskier is now attempting to bodily shove Geralt away from the fire, and ends up pushing himself over instead. "That doesn't." She lets out a long breath, looks up at the sky. "I've always wanted to matter to someone. I've always wanted love. But the strongest bonds don't have to be romantic."

"Family," Ciri says, and a pleased warmth fills her chest. "Family matters just as much."

Yennefer looks to her with a smile that is fond, loving and proud. "Yes," she says. "Family."

Ciri shuffles closer, and - as she'd hoped - Yennefer puts an arm around her, drawing her in close.

"And I want them to be happy," Yennefer admits, even more quietly now. "Which is not something I thought I'd find myself saying, but... Geralt and I have been many things, but never content. He's at peace when he's with Jaskier, though you wouldn't guess it from the way they behave, and he deserves that. And, gods help me, Jaskier deserves it too. I didn't realise until recently that he loves Geralt, but now I think he always has. I'm glad for him. For all that he can be a complete idiot, he's a good man, and they deserve to find happiness in each other."

Ciri grabs hold of Yennefer's hand. It feels safe, being tucked into her side like this, like she's sitting beside her grandmother in the great hall of Cintra again. Not indestructible, as she might have thought it then, but it's not a family's job to make her invulnerable. Her family will make her as safe as they can, and help her be strong enough to fight, and when she's older it will be the place she can come home to, wherever they are.

Geralt tosses a bit of bone at Jaskier's head, and the swearing that follows is genuinely impressive.

"Will you stay with us? Even if they do become something more to each other?"

Yennefer presses a kiss into Ciri's hair. "My Ciri," she murmurs, soft but full of fire, "the world could not tear me away."

With Yennefer's blessing, and the certainty on both their parts that Ciri's theory is correct, she gets to work.

She starts with Jaskier, on the basis that he might give her a quicker victory.

The first challenge is getting him on his own. Geralt's attentiveness to him has been very endearing up to this point, but she abruptly finds it very irritating when she's trying to have a private conversation without him. No doubt Yennefer could divert his attention with some excuse, but despite her assurance that she's happy for them to get together, it seems a bit much to ask for her help with the execution.

Perhaps a direct approach is the best way to go. Ciri has been deliberately avoiding commenting on how Geralt's behaving, and she's noticed Yennefer and Jaskier have been quiet on the subject too despite what a change in his normal attitude this is. For her part, Ciri has been worried that drawing attention to it might cause Geralt to stop; now, this would temporarily work in her favour.

She does wait long into the evening, that day, before she cracks. They've finished eating, though only just; Geralt plied Jaskier with a second helping of the venison (which was cooked beautifully, not that Ciri's going to comment on it, because it will only set them off) and tried to get him to eat a third, and only unwillingly let himself be batted away. He's now stacked Jaskier's plate on his own, and Ciri gets her hopes up briefly that he's going to disappear to wash them, but he simply sets them down and reaches for his whetstone like he intends to simply sit next to Jaskier until either he goes to bed or the world ends. He begins to sharpen his steel sword, except that Ciri knows for a fact it's already sharp because he did the same thing this morning, and he's looking at Jaskier more than the sword anyway.

"He's not going to disappear if you take your eyes off him, you know," Ciri says loudly.

It's like she's dropped a boulder into a still pool. Geralt looks up so sharply she might have hit him, his face still and shuttered. Jaskier looks more like a hunted rabbit; he'd been leaning back on his hands with his eyes closed, humming the occasional note with a peaceful look on his face, and now looks at Ciri with wide, startled eyes. Yennefer makes a strangled sound that might be a cut off laugh, and Ciri has to force herself not to look round.

"What?" Jaskier says, bemused, but Geralt gets to his feet and sheaths his sword.

"I'm going to..." He trails off, stooping to grab all the bowls, and then he flees without a glance back. Ciri is pretty sure he would be blushing if he had the capacity, or perhaps a less iron will. The stream is only just beside them, but he heads off into the forest with determination.

Jaskier watches him go, open mouthed, then turns to the others. "That was weird, right?"

"Hmm," Ciri muses, and then - because Jaskier's eyes narrow on her a touch too shrewdly at the noise she's definitely picked up from Geralt - hastily carries on, "he's been very worried about you."

It's a good diversion. Jaskier's expression softens, but there's melancholy there, poorly hidden. "He cares more than the world thinks he does," he says, and then, voice softening, "more than he wants to admit."

Ciri's heart leaps. Can it be that Jaskier already knows? Even that Ciri has misread things completely, and they might already be together, and hiding it surprisingly well?

"I can't deny it's nice to know he cares about me," Jaskier goes on, but then the sorrow grows stronger, edging into self-deprecation. "Give him a day or two and he'll be back to wishing I'd shut up, I can assure you."

Well, that brings her hope crashing directly back down into the earth. If it had been more clearly a joke, Ciri would have chalked this up to the usual combative nature of Geralt and Jaskier's relationship, but he actually seems to mean it. There's no way he's right, Ciri's seen the proof of it for herself. How, then, can Jaskier possibly believe what he's saying?

This seems deeper than Jaskier not realising Geralt loves him. She remembers what she overheard just before before the draugr attack. Geralt had hurt Jaskier - something to do with a mountain - and in making amends had had to reassure Jaskier that they were friends. It must have been a deep wound, perhaps cutting at an insecurity Jaskier already had, to merit such an assurance.

"He was devastated, Jaskier," she says gently. "We thought we'd lost you. I've never..." Perhaps she shouldn't say, but it's not like he asked her to keep it secret, and Jaskier needs to know. "I've never seen him cry before."

Jaskier flounders. "He - I – what?"

"He does care about you. A lot. You should talk to him."

Jaskier still looks flummoxed and disbelieving. But, as he twists to look into the trees where Geralt disappeared, she's pretty sure there's a spark of hope in his eyes.

The good thing about Geralt's reticence is that when Ciri corners him that night, he makes no reference to her earlier comment or his own disappearance. Jaskier has already gone to bed, and Yennefer followed him after catching onto the look of determination in Ciri's eyes. This leaves the pair of them sitting close to each other around the fire, watching as it burns itself down into embers.

Geralt's frowning, and although Ciri is entirely convinced that her endeavours are going to work out in a way that makes him a lot happier, she doesn't like to see the grave look on his face.

Well, graver than usual. The man's baseline is always grumpy.

And she wants him to know the other realisation she came to, that night in the barrow.

"We are the weirdest family I've ever met," she announces, and smiles to herself. It feels good to say the word aloud, to claim it for herself and for all of them.

Geralt looks over at her. It strikes her then that this is like those first days together, on the way to Kaer Morhen - just her and Geralt, sitting beside a fire together at night, warming themselves against the winter. So much has changed, and yet this core is still the same, that she and Geralt are here together.

He won't leave her. That is the bedrock on which Ciri stands, now, and she wouldn't trade it for anything.

"Yeah?" His smile is like a sunrise, though far rarer and more precious. He looks almost cautious, but pleased. "A good one though, I think."

Ciri beams at him. He thinks we're a family too. She tucks the feeling away inside her heart, so that she never needs to doubt that she has somewhere she belongs.

"Yeah, pretty good." Ciri pokes at the fire with a stick, and the remains of a log crumble, bark flaking away into ashes. The embers still glow orange and warm. "I'm really glad Jaskier's going to be okay."

"So am I." His eyes look nearly the same colour as the fire, in the fading light.

Ciri prods his boot with the stick. "I like him, you know."

Geralt tilts his head, looking amused. "I figured."

"I just wanted you to know, if you're holding back on telling him how you feel because of me, you don't need to."

See, the thing is, Ciri has worked this out. She's pretty sure Jaskier has loved Geralt silently for a long time, and she's equally sure that Jaskier knows this about himself. His songs are pretty self aware, if you know what you're listening for. The harder nut to crack is Geralt. He clearly loves Jaskier back, but she's not entirely sure he knows it himself, or if he does, he certainly doesn't want to own to it, no doubt thinking it will only ruin what he already has.

But equally, if this is going to go anywhere, it's going to have to come from Geralt. Jaskier's is a quiet, steadfast sort of love, for all that he's so loud and vibrant and sometimes has the attention span of a kitten. He won't think it could ever be reciprocated, hasn't ever seen the kind of devotion from Geralt that would give him cause to think it is.

Geralt is, not for the first time, doing a great impression of being a statue. He simply stares at Ciri, a faint line drawn between his eyebrows, and appears to be waiting for her to start making sense.

Perhaps the only way to approach this is to be blunt to a degree that even Geralt cannot ignore.

"You love him, don't you?"

That, finally, gets a reaction, though it's one Ciri can't quite interpret. The look that passes over his face might be confused, or pained, or uncertain.

"Ciri..."

"You don't have to say anything to me," she says, shrugging. She tosses the stick down, leaving it on the pile of wood already collected for tomorrow, and brushes her hands against her trousers as she stands. "I'm not the one you should talk to about it. But I want you to be happy, Geralt." She stands in front of him, placing her hands either side of his face. He looks up at her, that quizzical look still in place. "And I think he makes you happy." She ducks in to kiss his cheek. "Good night, Father."

She leaves him there looking stunned, and darts into the tent.

She's not sure how much later it is when she wakes, briefly, to a kiss on her brow and a deep voice that whispers, "Good night, daughter."

Ciri smiles as she drifts back to sleep.

Absolutely nothing changes over the course of the next day. Ciri conspires to leave Geralt and Jaskier on their own multiple times, and returns to find them exactly as she left them. They behave as normal, more or less, though Jaskier sneaks glances at Geralt frequently and Geralt seems to be avoiding looking at him.

There's only so much a girl can nudge, Ciri laments the following morning. Yennefer's in the tent seeing if she can summon some chaos, and Ciri's gone for a walk - not with any real expectation of results back at camp, this time, but just because she thinks she might just yell that they're both in love with each other if she doesn't get some space.

She follows the stream until her fingers start to hurt from the cold air, and then turns back. And then, when she's close to camp but not yet there, she hears voices.

Moving before she even has time to think, Ciri ducks into the best available cover, which is the stream itself - the ditch it's carved through the forest is nearly a metre deep here and thick with foliage on the banks. She drops into a crouch, hand on the hilt of her sword, and breathes as quietly as she can. The water rises nearly to the top of her boots.

"Maybe we should turn back."

"I'm not going to regain my strength by lying in bed all day."

"You need to rest. You were hurt-"

"Yes, because that's what you always do when you're injured, isn't it?"

It's Geralt and Jaskier. Ciri almost laughs at herself, but at least she knows her reflexes are sharp. Jaskier might think it's funny, but Geralt will probably be quite pleased with her, she thinks, as she makes to clamber back out of the stream.

"Jaskier, while we're here. I... want to talk to you."

"Fairly sure we're already tal-"

"Jaskier."

"Right, yes, shutting up."

Oh gods. Ciri freezes in horrified indecision. If Geralt is about to do what she thinks he might be, she can't be here to listen, it's not meant for her - the stream must be masking the sound of her heartbeat and breath, he genuinely doesn't know she's here. But if she moves now and reveals herself, who knows if he'll get the courage to start the conversation again?

Dammit.

Geralt seems to be struggling to marshal the words, because he's silent the whole time Ciri has this agonising argument with herself.

"I think that in all the time I've known you, I haven't ever really said enough to you. I suppose I thought you already knew that... That we were friends. It's hard for me to..."

"I know, Geralt. I do know. And I know it's hard for you to say these things, you don't need to."

"But I do. There are some things that have to be said, because it would be unfair to think you could guess them, and leave you never knowing for sure. We have always been friends. And..."

Geralt clears his throat. Their voices are a little louder now as they come closer, but she hears their footsteps stop.

"Geralt?"

"It's not only that. When we were in the barrow, I thought you were dead, and it broke me. I don't want to be without you, Jaskier."

"You won't, Geralt," Jaskier says, and his voice shakes, though it's also full of wonder. "I've never wanted to leave you, you know. I'll stay as long as you'll have me."

"Stay forever, then," Geralt says, part question and part plea, impossibly fragile.

"Oh." Jaskier sounds dazed. "You - really?"

"Yes."

"Geralt..." His voice cracks. "Geralt, you should know... Gods, I never actually thought I'd tell you this, but I think half the continent might know by now from the songs - actually, no, never mind, ignore the songs. Look, Geralt, I'll gladly stay forever and a day but you should know I think I - well, I know I'm..."

"I love you."

Jaskier makes a sound that's sort of a squeak. It's a very undignified noise that he would probably deny at all costs, but Ciri will never call him on it because no one will ever know she was here.

"I just thought you should know."

"You just thought I should - Geralt, you can't just drop that on a man, I think I'm going to have a heart attack."

"Your heart's fine. Quick, but fine."

"Of course it's fucking quick!" Jaskier's voice rises sharply. "You ridiculous, impossible man, I've loved you for twenty fucking years, of course my heart's beating fucking fast!"

Silence, for a moment. Then -

"You love me?" It's gentle, almost shy. A breathless sort of hope.

Jaskier softens, like snow melting before the first sunrise of spring. "Always, Geralt. I always will."

There must be some shared signal between them, some look or gesture, because there's not another word spoken but they both begin to walk at the same time. Their footsteps grow dangerously close and then move on, away down the stream, and by the time she hears their voices again they're too far away to make out the words over the rushing of the water.

When she judges it's safe, Ciri pokes her head above the bank. She can just see them through the trees, walking along the line of the stream, and if she's not mistaken, it rather looks like their hands are clasped together.

Luckily for Ciri's very limited capacity to pretend she's not buzzing with excitement, Geralt and Jaskier return to camp hours later still holding hands. Ciri and Yennefer are huddled close together outside, gossiping tirelessly as they have been all morning; there was no way Ciri could contain her delight at the success of her venture, and Yennefer had seen the answer in her face the second she'd burst into the tent. They've made a passing effort to look like they might have been studying some kind of spell book, but it could be upside down for all Ciri knows.

The moment the pair of them appear, Ciri lets out a shriek that might, judging by Geralt's wince, have been a bit on the shrill side.

"I knew it!"

Jaskier raises his eyebrows at her, but there's no way to hide the open delight on his face. Every shadow she's ever seen there is a mere memory; even still weak and a little pale, he looks more alive than she's ever seen him and younger, brighter, completely carefree.

"Geralt, have we been conspired against?" he says, turning shining eyes on his companion.

"Hmm," is Geralt's ever-loquacious answer, but his face is smoothed clear of any frown. His eyes, too, are bright, and a smile plays constantly at the corners of his mouth. It is a very sweet smile. Fond. Joyful, without hurt, like he's finally found something unequivocally good.

"Oh, gods," Yennefer says suddenly, and they all turn; she's wearing a look of exaggerated horror. "The songs. He's going to write so many songs."

Jaskier's smile, impossibly, gets even wider. "My dear lady, you have no idea."

At turns, during that day, they disappear off together. Jaskier draws Yennefer aside, for a while, and they speak quietly with serious faces, but the conversation ends in Yennefer first smacking him in the shoulder and then pulling him into a hug, so Ciri figures they're okay. Geralt and Yennefer go for a walk, a while later, and when they return there is something lighter about both of them. When those two are gone, Ciri pesters Jaskier with endless questions, though he never quite gives a full account of the conversation by the stream and Ciri vows silently that she will take the truth of her being there to her grave.

And when they're all there together, Jaskier and Geralt sit close together, pressed beside each other or Geralt leaning against a tree with Jaskier between his legs, leaning back against his chest. That's the most noticeable change; they don't talk differently to each other at all, really. Which just goes to show, to Ciri's mind, that they've really just figured out something that's been there all along.

Yennefer retreats back in the tent, later, when Jaskier stands to declaim the beginnings of a love ballad he's writing apparently solely about Geralt's hair. Ciri can't blame her; the song is not one of Jaskier's best, though it's certainly enthusiastic. Geralt squints at him when he finally sits back down.

"You should wear armour."

Jaskier huffs out a sigh. "Geralt, I know you're not good at giving music reviews, but generally they have something to do with the music."

"The song was shit. You should wear armour."

Jaskier looks up to the heavens as though seeking strength. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing heavy. Just reinforced leather, like Ciri's. It would keep you safer."

"Absolutely not."

"It would have protected you from some of the damage the draugr did, look at Ciri's-"

"Geralt, if I want people to know I have chiselled muscles, I'll take my shirt off. I don't need to carve them into leather to make the point."

Laughter bursts out from the tent; from the way Geralt starts and glares towards it, he didn't realise Yennefer could hear them. Ciri snickers too, amused both by Jaskier's dig and by Geralt's outrage, and Geralt only looks more indignant as he turns to her.

Naturally, the laughter only spurs Jaskier on.

"No, but really Geralt, we do need to talk about this. Do the abs make the armour stronger? Or is it more about striking awe and intimidation into your opponents? Or, and this is my personal theory, are you thinking that they'll be so overcome with lust that they won't be able to fight?"

At this, Ciri is treated to the rare sight of Geralt being speechless. Choosing to maintain his silence is a common reaction for Geralt, of course, but this is a new nuance: he stares at Jaskier, mouth ever so slightly agape, and looks like all language has entirely escaped his grasp.

Ciri can hardly breathe for laughing; it's starting to hurt her ribs. Jaskier looks extremely pleased with himself.

"Definitely the last one," Yennefer calls, voice full of mirth.

Geralt makes a visible and monumental effort to recover the situation. "It's not about what it looks like," he says stiffly. "It could save your-"

"Oh, don't take offence, love," Jaskier says, beaming. "I personally can only thank you for the reminder of what you have concealed under that armour, and I daresay the rest of the continent does too." He pats the armour in question fondly.

And Geralt...

Geralt has no retort ready, but nor does he look annoyed or despairing or embarrassed. Instead, he looks at Jaskier and his face softens. His eyes seem to gentle and his lips quirk up. It can't be a reaction to Jaskier's half serious, half teasing compliment; Jaskier pours out such niceties like wine, and Geralt only ever looks like he wants him to stop.

No, Ciri realises, as she watches Geralt watch Jaskier. No, this gentle softness, this fond smile, is because of the casual, easy way Jaskier called him love. Like it was second nature, something he didn't even have to think about, a moniker that belongs entirely to Geralt, for Ciri's not heard him use it before.

Witcher. Butcher. Monster. How many titles have people given him unasked for over the years, and how many of them have been cruel? And now this. Love. Freely given without expectation or demand; for no purpose except the expression of affection.

Ciri's heart is so full for Geralt - and for herself, that they all have this.

It was true, what she said to Geralt. They really are the strangest family Ciri's ever encountered, but what she's learned in the last week is that she wouldn't trade them for anything. She's got a father - perhaps two fathers, now, and she can just imagine the look that would put on Jaskier's face - and a mother, and a grandfather and maybe a few uncles, if it turns out they still care about her, like Geralt's promised her they do. It doesn't make her parents, her grandmother, Mousesack and Eist any less her family, and she'll always love them and grieve them. But she's found a new start here, a family that's chosen each other and continues to make that choice every day, even when it's hard or brings pain.

Because trust, loyalty, constancy and love are enough.

They have so much still to do, so many battles and dangers to face, but this is enough.

There are downsides to the success of Ciri's scheming, and she is introduced to them rather rudely.

One morning, when Yennefer's gone for a walk and Ciri's been so deeply occupied with the bestiary that she's barely aware what's going on around her, she grows confused by one of the entries she's reading and looks up to ask Geralt a question only to find that he's not there. She blinks, confused, because he was sitting opposite her when she started reading.

He's not in the clearing, or by the stream, so she pushes her way into the tent - and the question dies on her lips.

Well, she's found Geralt.

He's sitting on Jaskier's bed. Or, more precisely, he's half-kneeling on the bed, one knee between Jaskier's legs, the other foot planted on the floor, to brace him or give him a good angle or something, Ciri doesn't really want to know. Because Geralt isn't wearing a shirt, and Jaskier, sitting up against the headboard, isn't either, and they're touching each other and kissing with a great deal of enthusiasm.

"Oh," she says, drawing the vowel out, and she didn't exactly mean to make a sound but it's sort of punched out of her with shock. It's only then that the kissing stops, and it's actually kind of striking that Geralt, who usually seems to be able to hear a mouse sneeze at a hundred paces, has been so caught up in Jaskier that he didn't hear her coming at all. She's pretty sure she'll find that adorable later; right now the whole thing is a delicate combination of hilarious and mentally scarring.

Geralt twists round without actually moving back from Jaskier at all; one of his hands is still on Jaskier's neck. Jaskier swears and drops his hands which were very definitely on Geralt's chest a moment before. They're both wearing exactly the same expression, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and vaguely like they've just been hit round the head with a blunt object.

Ciri can only imagine what her own face is doing.

"Okay, no," she says, spins on her heel, and practically runs out of the tent.

How the fuck has this now happened to her twice?

No, really, how has she now walked in on her own adoptive father kissing the other two members of her new core family on two separate occasions, the latter of which really seemed to be on its way to being distinctly more than kissing, and never a locked door in sight?

Ciri pauses on the metaphorical threshold, looking out at the safety of the outdoors, and sighs.

This time she shoves open the tent flap with her eyes screwed tightly shut.

"Actually, you know what," she says loudly, "this is a shared tent, can you at least put a sign on the door?"

"Ciri," Geralt groans, and she flees again, giggling, chased by the sound of Geralt's protests and Jaskier's bright, embarrassed laughter.

Yes, Ciri thinks, as she decides now might be a great time to go for a run. They're weird, but they're hers, and she wouldn't change them for the world.

But she might also ask Yennefer to get them a second tent.