Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When you wake, it’s no longer in a soft, warm bed, covered by well-loved blankets and quilts worn by heels and toes. 

Cheek pressed to leaves on the verge of rotting; clad in nothing but a too-big t-shirt and old sweatpants to shield yourself from the strange, biting cold drifting through the forest. You jerk awake and your head snaps wildly from side to side.

Trees surround you from all sides, closing you in like a mother’s embrace. Sunlight filters pale green through the thick leaves, blinking off stray raindrops that pearls at the tip of the branches. From a distance, you can hear the coarse crashing of a river.

You wish this was a dream. You’re sure this is a dream. 

But the frigid chill rippling through your skin and the noises —the hiss of beasts, the click and crawl of life underneath the foliage—

It’s too real.

Where am I ? You repeat the question out loud but the forest does not respond.

You can feel your heartbeat in your throat now, a steadily increasing pound that runs cold sweat down your armpits and the curve of your spine. You bury your head in your hands and fight to push the panic down. 

Every breath is a battle. You close your eyes and shudder.

An hour in the cold silence of the forest is enough for you to move past the denial. You wobble to your feet and push yourself to move. 

Where am I? The question is a constant reverberation in your head as you trek, barefoot, through decaying leaves and past trees three men could not touch hands around. You weren’t important enough to be kidnapped—no one would have interest in another tired, overworked resident struggling under heaps of student loans. 

You didn’t really have any exes to speak of, so the ‘psychotic-ex-boyfriend’ trope was out, too.

The increasingly dimming rays of sunshine stoked further the flames of your panic. You had two options—die alone, or risk a potentially dangerous encounter with a stranger by seeking out help. That is, if you could find help.

Weighing the two options for a moment, you stare at the sun that grew smaller and smaller by the minute.

“Help!” you finally scream out. “Is anyone out there?”

“Help! Please, help!”

“Help!”

—

Geralt snaps to attention the same moment Roach’s ears prick up at the faint but distinctly feminine cry. 

Wrapping his fingers around the hilt of his silver sword, he dismounts the mare and silently creeps towards the cry.

“... please, help!”

The thick branches conceals his presence as a young woman finally appears into his vision. Clad in strange clothes and barefoot, it’s clear she’s shivering violently from the winter chill. 

“Please!” He can hear the chatter in her voice.

She smells human—more specifically, of crushed mandarin and slightly of something akin to alcohol, but much stronger.

Certainly not a bruxa, contrary to his initial suspicions—after all, he could not think of how anyone, much less a vulnerable girl, could even end up in this great forest.

He lets go of his silver and instead turns his attention to his steel. She could be an assassin, foolish and desperate enough for gold, sent on yet another suicide mission of extinguishing his kind. But what kind of shitty assassin takes on the act of a lost girl? 

Worse yet, she was not far from Kaer Morhen—too close to his comfort. Drawing his sword, he steps out of the shadows.

She’s startled by his presence, fear spiking her scent and heartbeat rushing into an abrupt staccato.

“I’m,” she hesitates, “I’m lost, I fell asleep and woke up here. Could I borrow your phone, if there’s any cellular service here?”

He blinks slowly at the strange words tumbling from her mouth. 

“If you don’t have a phone on you,” her voice begins trembling, eyes flickering to the sword in his grip, “could you at least point me to the nearest payphone, please?”

“A… phone?” he rolls the word on his tongue.

The dread tainting her scent is almost palpable in the air. “A…,” she swallows. “What year is it?”

A frown settles over his brows as he contemplates the question for a moment. “1270s, I believe.”

His brow quirks as he watches her eyes roll back into her head. The girl collapses on a heap of wet leaves.

—

Your fingers tangle into coarse, thick fur, rubbing your cheeks into the dense hide. Warmth flickers at your back, keeping the chill away in conjunction with the thick fur covering your skin. 

Fur?

You gasp, sitting up with a wild jerk of your body. Blinking once, twice, thrice until the memory comes back to you, visions of a dark forest and a man with hair as bright as a doctor’s gown.

The man in question sits beside the crackling fire, leather-clad legs spread wide as his elbows rest on his knees. He stares at you with bright amber eyes, the irises filled with a quiet curiosity.

A man. A man you do not know. Your hands fly down to your body, relief flooding you when you find all your clothes intact and the junction of your thighs free of bruises or aches.

“Relax,” he rumbles, his voice a deep bass against the high-pitched whine of the breeze. “I have no interest in unconscious girls.”

A lie. He’d felt a shameful twitch of desire in his gut as he watched your sleeping face, one that he buried as quickly as it had come. You’d looked so peaceful, so out of place in this grim forest—a voice in his head called for him to ruin it, a voice that he’d kept muffled outside of brothels and slick-stained beds.

You swallow, closing your eyes. “Sorry,” you whisper, your voice tinged with the gravel of sleep. 

Wrapping the animal hide around your skin, you tuck your legs under you and pull yourself up. A quick glance at the sky tells you its well past dusk, perhaps even on the brink of midnight. 

“Where am I?” you finally ask meekly, training your eyes on the dancing flame.

“The kingdom of Kaedwen. You’re in a forest in Hertch.” 

You swallow back a choked sob. Your knowledge of geography and the medieval ages—although limited and rusty from the years of unuse—told you, very clearly, Kaedwen definitely did not exist in your world. Not even in the late 1200s in what seemed like Europe.

“Oh,” you make out, knuckles whitening around the fur. “Oh.”

You don’t even have the luxury to feel humiliation as you feel hot tears drip from your unblinking eyes, slipping slowly down your cheeks. 

He lets you cry, waiting patiently as you sob quietly, the only indication of your tears being the nearly-silent sniffles, the slight tremor in your back, and the smell of salt tinging the air. Almost unconsciously, he rules out assassin from his list of suspicions.

He watches as you finally rub your palms against the tracks on your cheek, unthinkingly reaching for the hide before you pause and wipe your nose on the sleeve of your shirt instead. 

“Thank you,” you sniffle, offering the stoic man a weary smile. “For helping me. I wish I could pay you back somehow, but,” you pause, fighting back another fresh wave of tears, “I don’t have anything.”

He hums. “No.”

No?

For a split second, you’re afraid he means something else, a sinister dread seeping down your spine. 

“Answer my questions. You can pay me back that way,” he says simply, placating the roiling fear in your gut. 

You almost feel guilty about your suspicions. “Of course,” you nod quickly.

“Who are you?”

You pause for a moment, thinking. “My name—I’m—” You inhale.

“I’m a surgeon starting my second year of residency, specializing in trauma surgery. 25 years old. First-gen immigrant, only child, two parents. I live alone with my cat. My name is—my name is—”

You realize you don’t want to say your name. It feels like desecration, to tie a part of your identity to this strange world. 

So you make one up. “My name is Vali.”

He nods slowly. “How did you come here?”

You curl further into the hide. “I came home after work, fell asleep on my bed. I woke up here. You found me after about an hour.”

“Know anything about this place?”

You shake your head. “I don’t… I don’t think I come from this world.”

He stays silent for a while, stoking the fire every now and then. 

Finally, he speaks up. “You have nowhere to go.”

An assumption, not a question, but a correct one. You nod.

“Come with me.”

You crane your head up at him, this stranger. A man with white hair and amber eyes, coiled in hard muscle and wrapped in leather and armor. The high set of his cheekbones, the sharp lines of his jaw, the deep set of his eyes and the half-tied hair brushing his features made him physically attractive—he would have no trouble finding willing women to warm his bed.

You tried to find solace in this fact, hoping to whatever higher powers were out there that he would not become a figure in the night, taking what he pleased and leaving you a cadaver on the sheets. 

Besides, you had no choice. He was right, you had nowhere to go. If he was kind enough to wrap you in fur and warm your back with fire… You wanted to trust in his humanity.

“Okay,” you whispered. 

“Sleep. We leave at dawn.”

——

When you woke, it was on top of a snorting horse, strong arms wrapped around you to hold her reins. You’d been slumped against his chest, nuzzling into his shoulders with your mouth slightly open.

You fumble in the saddle, sleep leaving you in an instant. 

“Sorry,” you mumble, pink tinging your cheeks.

You think you see a ghost of a smirk lift the corners of his lips, but its gone before you can blink. 

Geralt couldn’t remember the last time he’d ridden with someone so openly unafraid of him , trusting enough to sleep like a babe in his arms. He’d smelt her fear yesterday, but it was the fear of men that tainted the crisp mandarin of her scent, not the fear of Witchers. Even Ciri had been wary at first.

He hides his amusement as he watches her hurriedly wipe a speck of drool from her chin, growing mortified as she glanced at the small wet patch on his shoulder. 

Oh god. Embarrassment flushes your cheeks as you fight the urge to bury your head in your hands. You squirm in the saddle, wishing you could at least brush your teeth. Did this world even have toothpaste? You grow sallow at the thought.

And then you find your hand clutched around a plastic toothbrush and toothpaste. Plastic and undeniably modern.

?

You glance quickly at the man behind you, but he’d been busy staring at the forest that he’d failed to notice the objects in your hands.

Shit, he’d probably think they were witchcraft. How did they even get in your hands? You had to get rid of them, now.

Then you find your fingers clutched around nothing but air. 

You blink slowly, opening your hands then closing them. The cotton in your mouth a growing reminder. 

Hell, maybe you wanted them back.

You couldn’t hide the astonished laugh this time. The man hums his surprise when he sees the products in your hands. 

“You know magic?” he asks, surprised. He hadn’t felt his medallion vibrate.

“Apparently,” you raise your brows, weighing them in your hands. 

Soon enough, you were brushing your teeth happily, spitting into a cup that disappeared along with its contents.

“What are you doing?” He stares at the girl in his arms, trying not to focus on the way the white foam dribbled down her chin.

“Brushing my teeth,” you reply before gargling with a cup of water that appeared out of nowhere. 

Silence pauses between you and the man as you wipe your mouth with a splash of water. Nothing remains of your morning routine except for the smell of mint in your mouth.

It was similar to the ones he used, except instead of straw and wood, it was made out of a strange, opaque material. And his paste definitely did not make foam.

“Guess I can pay you back,” you grin lightly, a new pair appearing in your fingers. “Do you have these here?”

“Something similar,” he grunts.

You held the reins as you passed him plastic cups, water, then a damp towel. All disappeared and reappeared under your beck and call. Hope blooms in your chest, the prospect of journeying with this man growing brighter by the moment.

He wished that the paste was not so strong—the peppermint nearly blinded his nose. But he had to admit, the mint made her scent crisper, more pleasant. 

Geralt watches as new clothes bloomed on the girl’s skin and unabashed excitement brighten her eyes. She stares back at him, clad in a black, sleeved cloak of sorts covering a thick, white shirt with a collar that encircled her neck and brushed the underside of her jaw. A quick glance down told him she wore new trousers as well, a tight, black piece made of a fabric that felt almost like malleable cardstock against his legs.

“Want new clothes?” you smile widely.

He exhaled, his lips tugging up. Geralt could smell the hope in your scent, the heady warmth trying to cover the underlying panic ever present within you. Making the best out of the situation, choosing to hold on to the better side of things—he could almost relate to that. 

“Is magic common here?” you ask, rubbing the sleeves of your turtleneck.

He nods. “Although, people using it is not common.” 

You heard the unspoken warning in his voice. “Mm.”

The rest of the ride was spent in comfortable silence, one that you weren’t used to. You knew silence filled with stress and urgency, silence only interrupted by the whine of machines and the clicking of tools. 

But this was different. The call of birds and the rustle of leaves tickled by the breeze filled the air around you; peace you had not known for the past few years. The steady, too-slow pound of his heartbeat—you reminded yourself to ask him about that later—and the rhythm of hooves on wet grass and mud.

Geralt snorted when the girl fell asleep again. 

—

A gentle shake pulls you out of sleep. “We’re here.”

You blink and rub your eyes, yawning widely before turning your attention to the sight before you.

A large, derelict castle stood against the frigid snap of the winter wind, the stones cracked and smoothed out by the passing years. A hole gaped in one of the walls, the crumble of bricks and wood still heaped against the ruin. There was a quiet dignity to the building—you thought of an old man clad in uniforms he wore as a young soldier, straightening his bent body in a well-practiced salute.

He helps you off the horse and guides you past the creaking gate, leaving you for a moment to lead his mare into a stable.

When he returns, he finds you with your gaze wandering across the buildings, curiosity blooming in each of your observations.

You trail behind him as he walks towards a particularly large building and pushes open its great doors.

A sparse crowd of men populates the large dining hall. You see a rugged smile warming their faces.

“Geralt!” a red-haired man crows. “Welcome home, brother.”

“Lambert,” he grins.

“And who might be the lady hiding behind you?” Lambert chuckles, leaning back on his chair. “Found a stray whore to share?”

Your lips peel back as the comment registers, and you step out from behind his back to glare at him.

“A feisty one!” he laughs. You suddenly find yourself the center of the attention of a dozen leering men that could easily snap you in half. Rage gives way to alarm, but you hold your back straight and school your expression into a cold sneer.

Little did you know you were surrounded by men who could smell fear better than a pack of bloodthirsty hounds. Geralt hides a wince as your scent turns musky and rich with your agitation—impossibly enticing.

“She’s not a whore,” Geralt growls, “and you will not touch her.”

Lambert sighs heavily, downing a cup of ale. “Fine, fine. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Geralt ignores him. “Where’s Vesemir?”

“In his study, though he should be coming out any moment,” Lambert stand up, handing him a jug of ale. “Come, sit.”

Geralt follows his friend, leaving you standing awkwardly in the middle of the hall. 

Your eyes land on an empty table and you shuffle over to the wooden furniture, taking your seat on the cold bench.

You stay like that for a while, shrewdly observing the men that now crowded around Geralt in rowdy laughter and hearty greetings.

“Didn’t think Geralt would find another lover so quick after Yennefer,” a voice comments, and you turn to face the source.

A tall man—well, all of them were quite tall—with rich, dark skin approaches you, taking the seat directly across from yours. He has an air of quiet strength to him, a wisdom that comes only with long decades; he looked barely over 30 at most.

“We’re not in a relationship,” you glance at the pale-haired man. “I met him only yesterday.”

“Hm,” he raises his eyebrows, taking a sip from his mug. “Then why did he bring you here?”

You shrug. “Dunno. He found me lost in the woods, and offered to bring me here.”

“And why were you lost in the woods?”

You sigh wearily. “I have no idea, really. Wish I knew why, too.”

His head suddenly snaps up as silence falls in the hall. There’s a thick tension hanging in the air, all conversations trailing short as the men curl, their bodies tensing like a cat ready to pounce.

Then a burst of noise echoes behind the door and it busts open, revealing a slender, fair-haired woman with a bloody man leaning on her side.

“Get Vesemir!” she cries.

Chapter Text

You snap into attention, eyes trailing hurriedly across the injured man’s body. Over the shocked silence, your ears pick up the unbalanced breathing and the wheezing. Blood covers his shirt, but its clear they’re from minor cuts.

The hall erupts into action. It was all wrong , they were treating him too roughly, touching him with grimy hands that could have been in god-knows- where , and before you know it, you’re at your feet.

“Wait!” you cry out. “I’m a trained surgeon. Let me,” you swallow back your hesitation, “let me look at him.”

Before any of them can respond, you dart over to the injured man’s side.

Your eyes focus on the tracheal deviation and the distension of the veins in his neck. A steady tap on his chest wall reveals what you’d been fearing.

Hyperresonance to percussion. This was tension pneumothorax, and you didn’t even know if you had the right equipment to treat it.

“Ciri,” the man wheezes faintly, “it hurts.”

“You’re going to be alright,” you draw the man’s attention to you. 

“You’re not Ciri,” he mumbles plaintively.

No shit . “Don’t talk, just focus on breathing.” Your attention snaps back to the men surrounding you. “Where do you treat your patients?”

Geralt had seen it before; normally timid men or women suddenly develop undefiable authority. It had stubborn witchers grow obedient, well, obedient enough to assist her to the medic room.

It didn’t stop their mouths from running, however.

“How do we know you’re good?” Lambert spits out. “Geralt barely knows you. For all I know, you could be just a broad that thinks stitching torn stockings is enough medical training.”

You hear him but the words don’t really register; all your focus is on how treat pneumothorax with limited equipment. You needed a clean and disinfected surface to operate on, properly sterilized equipment for a needle and a tube thoracostomy afterwards. You didn’t know the extent of your little quirk of pulling things out of midair, but you hoped to high heavens it would be enough.

“Has this been cleaned recently?” you ask, pointing to the large metal table in the center. There’s a hinge in the middle and a latch to the side, and an experimental pull allows you to raise the top half slightly. 

“Yes, this morning,” he replies reflexively before he sputters. “Wait, did you hear a word I said?”

Your coat disappears and you rush over to the basin of water off to the side, scrubbing your hands as fast as you could.

You barely notice that your entire outfit had already changed; the shift in your wear reminds Geralt of a colorful chameleon. Hell, even your new outfit was green to match.

It seems the others don’t think it as amusing as he does. “You brought in a mage?” Coën hisses.

Before Geralt could reply, an acrid scent fills the air and the few gathered witchers all cringe, hiding their noses under their sleeves. The girl methodically scrubs the table with a strange liquid that burns his nose. 

“What the fuck is that smell?” Lambert coughs, stepping away from you.

“Help him up, please,” you order.

When nobody moves, your eyes flash with fire. “Quickly!”

No one wants to argue with a woman holding equipment that looks very much like torture devices. Once the patient is on the table, you cut away the fabric of his shirt, pursing your lips at the huge, ugly bruise purpling his chest.

The man moans in pain, shifting precariously from side to side.

“I’m going to ask you to stay still, alright?” you soothe him before gently lifting his right arm up, sandwiching his hand underneath the weight of his head. “Don’t worry, it’s not going to hurt.”

“Bull…shit,” he wheezes out.

“I promise,” you murmur, “and please don’t talk.”

Eventually, the overpowering smell of liquid you were spreading across the man and injecting into him forces the rest of the witchers leave, save for Geralt, Lambert and Coën. Ciri stands off to the side, worry etched across her face. You seem to notice none of them, however; you’re caught in a bubble, attention tunneling on the man before you. It reminds Geralt of a feral cat, honing in on her prey. A cat with needles and knives instead of whiskers and claws.

“This man isn’t a witcher, so if she messes up,” Coën hisses, “he’ll die. We should get Vesemir.”

“By all means then, go ahead,” Geralt shrugs. It was irrational for him to trust this stranger. Completely illogical and even dangerous. The rational part of his mind urged him to call for a mage and stop the girl, but the sparking intensity in her eyes holds his arms by his side.

Then the girl stabs Jaskier.

“What are you doing?” Lambert roars, lurching forward to stop you.

Geralt grabs his arms before he could make contact. “Lambert, if you move, you’ll hurt the man worse than he already is.”

“She’s killing the bard!” he bellows back, anger igniting in his eyes.

“I am not killing this man,” you hiss, eyes never leaving your patient. “His right lung has collapsed and his chest is filling with air that will kill him unless I let it out. If you shut up for a moment and listened ,” you spat venomously, “you’d hear the sound of air leaving the pleural space.”

The witchers fall silent for a moment, and true to your words, their ears pick up the sound of hissing air.

If the situation wasn’t so dire, Geralt would have laughed.

“She’s right,” Coën says. “I’ve seen this done before, but with different equipment.”

“Hey, it doesn’t hurt,” the man mumbles. “There’s a fucking stick in my chest, why does it not hurt? Oh my god, is that Geralt?”

“Hush,” you order. 

After a tense hour, you have the tube inserted and attached to the drainage system and your patient is no longer in critical danger.

“Don’t,” you warn, pointing at the water seal, “knock that over. Take deep breaths, slowly. Good, good. Can you cough for me?”

When the prime level fluid bubbles, you relax. Soon enough, you see the man fall asleep, tired from the stressful event.

“I’m going to keep him here for a couple of days. We’ll need someone to watch over him the first 24 hours,” you turn finally to the small group of people gathered around you.

You finally look down on yourself and realize two things: you’re in your garb and you’d been breathing through a mask for a while. Jesus, you must’ve looked like a freak to these people.

As if on cue, your garb disappears and you’re back in your turtleneck and jeans. You felt like one of those magical girls, except you didn’t have a 7 second long cutscene that involved music and glittering wands. 

“You wanna explain what’s going on?” Lambert scowls.

Oh, right. You collapse on a nearby chair and sigh. “I’m a trained surgeon—”

“That much I can gather. Are some sort of a fucking mage? What the fuck is all of,” he gestures at your equipment, most of them already gone, “that?”

“Lambert,” a gruff voice speaks from behind you, “watch your language.”

An older man with white hair and wrinkles lining his tanned face steps forward. 

“Vesemir,” Geralt nods.

He grunts. “Young lady,” you scowl unconsciously at the words, “you don’t come from this world, do you?”

You shake your head. “No. How did you know?”

As soon as the question leaves your mouth, you feel a bit stupid. Of course. The equipment. The scalpels and nylon thread appearing out of thin air.

“Vesemir, I’d wanted to ask you about that. Ciri, you as well,” he turns to the fair-haired woman.

“You think—”

“It’s the—”

They both speak at the same time before pausing. “Go ahead,” Geralt gestures.

“It’s the spheres, isn’t it?” she frowns, rubbing her chin. “I must’ve upset it somehow.”

“We don’t know if it’s your doing, Ciri. There would’ve been more than just one traveler if this was similar to the Conjunction.” You could hear the capital C in the word, even in Vesemir’s gruff voice.

“You think she has Elder blood?” Geralt crosses his arms.

“Most likely not; she comes from a different world. Tell me, young lady, does your world have descendents with Elder blood?” Vesemir turns to you.

“Huh?” is your intelligent response.

“Not one with the blood, then,” he turns back.

Your mind whirs at all the strange vernacular whizzing past you, and you finally understand how Lambert felt when he saw you waving your scalpels and catheters, ranting about ‘pleural space’ and ‘thoracostomies’. 

“Sorry I yelled at you,” you turn to Lambert suddenly.

Lambert looks down with surprise, his brows nearly touching his flaming hair.

You shrug.

“I guess you seem to know what you’re doing,” he replies gruffly, looking away, and you know that this was his version of an apology. 

“Yeah,” you sigh, scrubbing your face. “I’m a resident, I’m pretty used to having people question my abilities.”

“A resident?”

Before you can answer his question, the conversing trio suddenly turns to you. 

“What?” you recoil. Did I say something wrong?

“Would you be opposed to staying with us? Your appearance raises some interesting questions I would very much like to explore,” the older gentleman—Vesemir, right—offers.

“Well, I have nowhere else to go,” you scratch your neck. “Yeah, I guess.”

“My name is Ciri,” the white-haired woman sticks out her hand.

You reach out and shake it. “Uh,” what was my name again? “Right. Vali.”

“Thank you for saving him, Vali,” she smiles graciously, pearly white teeth sparkling against her coral lips. “He’s a good friend, I-I didn’t know if he would make it.”

“What happened?” 

“I don’t know. He said he wasn’t breathing too well, and we thought it was just something minor, but it got worse and worse. The cuts are just from him falling over because he was panicking,” Ciri sighs. You suppress a snicker. “I would’ve healed him, but I’m still not sure of my powers, and I—I was afraid I might do more harm than good.”

“Does he smoke often?” you ask, tilting your head.

Ciri frowns for a moment. “Yes, I think so," she murmurs. Suddenly, she perks up and asks, "I was watching you work, and I wanted to ask if you could explain to me what happened,” she said softly, tilting her head.

“Well,” you scratch your head, not knowing how far medical knowledge had progressed in this strange world. “How familiar are you with human anatomy?”

She contemplates the question for a moment. “I’m familiar with most of the generalities.”

“Well, simply put, air filled the space between his chest wall and his lungs, and the building pressure made his lungs collapse. I stuck a needle in the space between the second and third ribs and allowed that air to escape, then a tube in him to allow the rest of the air to escape slowly. It’s pretty rare to see pneumothorax—thats what we call this injury—become this severe without a traumatic injury to the chest, like a stab wound. Your guy is just really unlucky.”

A dry chuckle draws your attention to the left. “Sounds like Jaskier.”

“He should lay off the smoking,” you glance at the sleeping man. “Might’ve been the cause behind this.”

“He won’t like that,” Ciri grumbles. You offer her an apologetic grimace.

You sigh and stretch, leaning your head against the wooden walls. Now that the stress and tension—you snort dryly—of the moment had disappeared, the fatigue was starting to settle upon your body in a fast-approaching wave. 

You weren’t normally this tired after a surgery, and a tube thoracostomy wasn’t that complicated a procedure. Rubbing your brows, you chalked it up to your newfound ability to pull shit from midair. Conjuration, you remembered from a class on esotericism. 

You found yourself wishing you’d had this ability back home. 

A wide yawn stretched your lips, eyelids drifting shut to the sound of the rumbling voices and a deeply breathing patient.

When you wake, you find that someone had draped a thick blanket on top of you. Shrugging the fabric off, you set it on your chair and approach your patient.

His pulse seemed fine, and it seemed your touch had roused him as well.

“Am I gonna be okay?” he croaks out.

You nod. “Take slow, deep breaths and cough gently often.” You fish around for a bell and find it lying in your hands. “Uh, ring this if you’re experiencing any trouble. Are you hungry?”

He thinks for a moment and then shakes his head. 

“I’ll get you a glass of water,” you say, bending to check the tubes and the drain.

“Thank you, beautiful stranger. I will make sure the world will know of your kindness—perhaps a song to praise your gentle hands and your, um,” he casts a glance at the tubes sticking out of his chest, “graceful tentacles?”

You snort. “No singing until I give you the clear, or this might come loose,” you point at the tube.

“Oh sweet Melitele, there’s a tentacle coming out of my body,” he sobs, as if the reality of the situation was catching up to him now.

“It’s not a tentacle,” you sigh, walking out of the room. “It’s a tube that saved your life. Be a little more forgiving on the thing, or else she’ll really turn into a tentacle.”

You trudge back into the large hall, finding Geralt and Ciri. Geralt notices first--far too quickly, you notice--and Ciri reacts half a second later.

“How long did I sleep?” you ask, standing beside their table.

“About an hour and a half; the sun’s about to set,” Ciri replies, patting the seat beside her. “Sit and eat, you must be famished.”

She pushes a basket of steaming loaves towards you and leaves the table for a moment, coming back with a warm bowl of soup.

“Oh, I-I’m supposed to be bringing the patient some water,” you protest weakly, but the grumbling in your stomach makes your words sound all the more unconvincing.

“Hush, I can do that. Sit and eat, Vali.” Ciri disappears, leaving you alone with the silent man.

You were experienced in the awkward silence of eating meals with a near stranger. At least the soup was a bit better than the ones served at the hospitals. 

As usual, you’re the one to break it. “Geralt is your name?”

He nods. 

“I see,” you mumble, washing down the bread with a sip of the liquid before you.

Immediately, you scowl, forcing down a sputter. “Oh god, that’s fucking foul.” After a pause, you add apologetically, “No offense.”

For the first time, he cracks a small grin. “None taken.”

“So,” you swallow with a grimace, “are you guys military?”

“No, we’re Witchers.”

“Witcher? Like a wizard?” you cock your head, polishing the last piece of bread.

“No. We hunt monsters and get paid for it,” he pauses, “sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” you blink. 

“People don’t like us,” he replies curtly.

Oh, you must’ve touched on something sensitive. Guess racism—witcherism?—was a thing here too. “Shouldn’t have brought it up. Sorry to hear that.”

He merely shrugs.

Another silence falls between the two of you, and you don’t know what to say or ask without having him get angry at you. He had been fairly kind so far, but you weren’t naive enough to believe that kindness—especially a man ’s kindness—was limitless.

You take the time to observe him—now that you weren’t plagued by the possibility of death, rape, or something worse, you could finally appreciate that the man sitting before you was striking.

His biceps were probably thicker than your waist.

“Do I scare you?” he asks, and you’re surprised to hear an almost imperceptible hint of melancholy in his voice.

“Oh, uh,” you falter. “No, you don’t scare me. Well, not specifically you—it would be stupid of me not to be scared of a strange man, especially when I’m in a strange fucking place.”

He snorts. “Smart of you.”

You preen. “Yeah, I know.”

Your unabashed gloating finally elicits a quiet laugh from him. It’s a deep, baritone rumble that warms your insides, and the slight crinkle of his amber eyes makes your heart flutter.

“Little sage!” a voice bellows from the entrance.

It’s Lambert, his cheeks as ruddy as his hair. It’s clear that he’s been drinking lightly. Plus, little sage ?

He’s by your side before you can blink, clapping your back with so much force that you lurch into the table. “The sleeping beauty awakens,” he guffaws.

You crinkle your nose delicately at the smell of that god forsaken ale in his breath. It tasted like shit, how did Lambert like it so much? “Sleeping beauty slept for a 100 years, not an a hour an a half.”

“What? No, she slept for 10 years,” he slumps besides you. “Whoever you heard that story from is a shitty orator.”

"Dunno if Disney counts as an orator," you mumbled under your breath.

“The fuck is Disney? Some sort of run down bard?” Lambert slams down his cup. “Probably still better than Jaskier over there. Toss a coin to your Witcher —”

“Shut the fuck up, Lambert,” Geralt groans, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“ O valley of plenty ,” he bellows. 

You can’t help it—you snicker, partly at Geralt’s obvious misery and partly at Lambert’s god-awful singing. 

“See, even our little sage likes it! Now that Jaskier’s in Kaer Morhen, we’ll get the whole School singing this every night,” Lambert roars. 

Geralt is gone before you can heave out another peal of laughter.

When your mirth dies down, Lambert tilts his head at you. “So, you guys fucking yet?”

You raise your brows at the crass question. “What? No, I barely know him.” Lambert reminds you of the hulking frat boys your roommate would bring in; at least, the ones who’d only laugh good-naturedly when you kicked them both out. 

“Why not? Geralt too intimidating for you?”

You roll your eyes. “I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment, as you can tell. Dropped in a completely different world and all that.”

Now it’s Lambert’s turn to roll his eyes. “Didn’t know you were such a prude, sage.”

The two of you laugh, and you can almost pretend you’re at a bar with your colleagues. 

Lambert’s tone turns serious. “I know that you did all,” he gestures, “that to save the idiot bard over there, but people these days don’t treat magic kindly. Don’t show others that you’re a mage, or whatever you are.”

“Thanks for the advice,” you sigh. “I’ve never had these powers before. Christ knows what would’ve happened if I had them back in my home.”

“Who’s Christ?”

“Complicated,” you wave it off. 

Ciri appears at the mouth of the hallway, smiling faintly at Lambert. 

“How’s uh, Jaskier?” you roll his name on your tongue, testing the syllables.

Ciri takes her seat before you, leaning her elbows on the table. “He thinks Lambert is disgracing his song.”

Lambert scowls. “Well he’s an idiot.”

You can almost hear Ciri’s unspoken so are you , but you decide not to comment. 

“While you were sleeping, Geralt and I talked with Vesemir. We think that you have something to do with the Conjunction of Spheres,” Ciri begins.

At your confused expression, she explains, “The Conjunction of Spheres is when our world collided with many others, resulting in the influx of various monsters and what we call Chaos, or magic. Only few have the ability to travel between the various worlds, with me being one of them.”

“And you think I have the ability to do that,” you conclude. “To travel across the… Spheres.”

Ciri nods. 

“But magic doesn’t exist in our world. I never could do this,” you pluck out an pen from midair, “before I came here.”

You let the pen go and it disappears before it can collide with the table. 

“Can you do anything else?”

“Don’t think so,” you reply with a shrug. “Otherwise I probably would’ve done it by now.”

Ciri hums, toying with a stray strand of her hair. “It’s quite complicated. But for now, I think you should rest. We can teach you the best we can about this world, and we’ll go from there.”

“We? I didn’t agree to this,” Lambert sputters.

“Oh, shut up, Lambert. We all know you’re going to butt in anyways and chatter on about your ‘conquests’.”

You smile at the jab, gratitude sprouting a warm blossom within you. “Thank you. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I didn’t-” you pause, swallowing up a fresh bubble of fear. “Thank you. Really.”

Ciri scratches the back of her neck, an apologetic smile. “About that, Vesemir and I were hoping that for, you know, taking you in, you could act as a medic here. We could really appreciate all the help we need, and you seem well versed in medicine.”

“Of course,” you respond quickly. “I would love to.” 

True to her promise, Ciri spends the rest of the evening explaining in detail about her world as you listen with growing astonishment. You’d wondered for a moment if you’d been somehow transported to Game of Thrones before realizing none of the people around you had ever been in that particular piece of media. 

By the time you’re done, the sun had already slipped across the horizon and the large clock on the wall struck close to midnight.

You retire to a room of your choice, sobbing internally at the lack of a heater, and spend the next hour cleaning the place up the best you could. 

It was true that your situation was far from ideal. But at least you had a roof over your head and the promise of a warm meal, as well as access to some of the modern appliances you couldn’t dream of living without.

Weariness and fatigue pulls you under, and you dream something anxious and pale.