“sleep now,” she pleads
hello my loves, i’ve decided to start posting my ongoing dadskier songfic (that’s rapidly turning into The Kaer Morhen Therapy Time Jamboree) here on tumblr instead of just AO3, so please enjoy!
Chapter 1 (2) (3) (4) (AO3)
Ciri was weak.
She knew this; she could feel it in the way she woke up shaking, tear tracks on her face, afraid she was still locked in the nightmare of everyone she loved turning to ash as she failed to save them, afraid the violence inside her was being used against her will to destroy the last shreds of home she had left. She could see it in the way the witchers looked at her now, somewhere between pitying and wary, like they couldn’t quite trust that she was safe to have around, but they felt bad for her anyway. She could hear it in the way Geralt and Yennefer would stop whispering to each other when she entered the room, heads jerking apart like she wouldn’t notice they had obviously been discussing her behind her back.
She was weak, and being weak was not an option. Not anymore, and certainly not at Kaer Morhen. Her grandmother wouldn’t have stood for this weakness, and she knew the witchers wouldn’t either. Not for much longer. Geralt was holding back their disdain, she knew, out of whatever paternal obligation he felt due to the Law of Surprise, but he wasn’t one for weakness either, so she knew he would only allow her so much leeway before he, too, had to give up on her. She could see the way he looked at Yennefer, the strange mixture of anger and grief and longing she knew must come from the failure the sorceress had shown in giving in to Voleth Meir, even as she slowly gained back his esteem now that she had power again. Now that she was worth something again. Now that she wasn’t weak.
Mostly, she could see the way everyone treated Jaskier. She still wasn’t quite sure why Jaskier was here, how he fit into this life of violence and endurance that was, apparently, her birthright. He didn’t have any power- no magic, no mutations, no skill with weapons or combat. He hardly spoke to anyone, or maybe it was that hardly anyone spoke to him, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure it mattered. The only person he interacted with on any kind of regular basis was Yennefer, who was something of an outcast at the keep herself, so Ciri thought she was probably just glad for someone to order around the stillroom where she holed herself up most days, mixing potions and testing out the edges of her newly-restored Chaos. It wasn’t anything to do with him, specifically, as far as she could tell.
She knew from listening to the witchers gossip (and no, overhearing was not eavesdropping, whatever Mousesack would say) that Jaskier and Geralt were friends (or used to be friends, it wasn’t clear), but she honestly couldn’t imagine why. They didn’t seem to have anything in common. Jaskier was just a human, not even a magical human or a warrior, just a man. There was nothing special about him at all, that she could see. Everyone called him a bard, but he didn’t even have an instrument, and she never heard him singing, plus she’d never even heard of him at court, so how good of a bard could he really be, anyway? Besides, he and Geralt barely even spoke, mostly since Jaskier seemed to all but bolt from any room Geralt entered before the witcher could think of something to say. He did his share of the chores without complaint, but he was always slower than everyone else, and she saw him wincing sometimes when he had to lift things or hold tools, like the very idea of working was painful. And it wasn’t like he had been much use on the trip back to Kaer Morhen, for all that Geralt had trusted him enough to get her home safely from Cintra. Which he had, incidentally, failed to do, since she didn’t even remember the second half of the trip after being possessed, but she knew he didn’t notice anything was wrong until it was too late.
Still, obvious weakness and uselessness aside, Jaskier was, inexplicably, still here, and part of Ciri was glad for it. Jaskier being here meant that she wasn’t the frailest person in the keep, and she hoped the witchers’ contempt would remain focused on the bard rather than on her, uncharitable though those thoughts may have been. It probably wasn’t kind of her to be grateful to have a target to throw under the proverbial wagon, but for all that she was the most magical person on the mountain and basically a grown woman now (she was thirteen, she would be getting her courses any day probably, and she was, for all intents and purposes, the rightful queen of Cintra- she was not a child, Lambert), she still felt impossibly small next to the ancient warriors and experienced magic users surrounding her. So yes, it was nice to be able to point at Jaskier and say, ‘Look, at least I’m not as pathetic as him.’ If this meant that she perhaps participated a little more loudly and enthusiastically in the mocking taunts Lambert and some of the other witchers directed his way, she could hardly be blamed for wanting to be part of their camaraderie. They were, after all, basically her family now.
She pretended very hard that Jaskier’s downcast eyes and slumped shoulders the few times he tried and failed to start a conversation with her didn’t make her feel anything at all.
She could feel Geralt’s disapproving eyes on her once or twice, but he couldn’t possibly understand feeling so powerless and alone, so why should he get to judge her? If he cared so much, maybe he should speak to Jaskier himself once in a while, or train him to use a sword, so at least he would maybe be good for something. She did feel a little guilty when Vesemir called them out in his own gruff way- scowling as he smacked Tolbert upside the head after a particularly mean joke about bards and brothel workers and assigning everyone who laughed extra chores- but not enough to stop. Yennefer was obviously unhappy with them, but just as clearly didn’t feel like she had the standing in the keep to demand changes to anyone’s behavior, so she made her displeasure known by pointedly avoiding everyone but Geralt, Vesemir, and Jaskier, and refusing to heal any training injuries or contribute to meals for anyone else. (This did perturb Ciri, since the only reason Yennefer was even here at all was to teach her magic. Ciri was still a princess at heart, and she didn’t appreciate being ignored, but she let it go for now, since she hadn’t quite forgiven the witch for nearly selling her out to Voleth Meir yet anyway. She would demand her due respect once she felt like she could be in a room with the sorceress without yelling at her, until then she was mature enough to let it lie.)
Still, even with the handy distraction of a droopy human minstrel, she knew she was still unacceptably weak, and she needed to hide that weakness at all costs. She found herself training longer hours than even any of the witchers, starting at dawn and not stopping until the sun had long set and Geralt or Vesemir forced her inside to eat and bathe, no matter how her muscles shook or her vision greyed at the edges. She wouldn’t fail. She was the Lion Cub of Cintra, the blood of Calanthe, she was Ilthilinne’s Prophesied, she was the daughter of the White Wolf, she refused to show weakness.
Even though she pushed herself to the point of collapse, even though she woke up every morning covered in bruises and scrapes and feeling like her muscles would seize up and lock her in place with pain, it was never enough to escape the nightmares. There were so many, now. She dreamed of Cintra burning. She dreamed of Mousesack’s face turned ashen and cruel, sizzling under her knife. She dreamed of her grandmother and Eist and Lazlo and Dara and Geralt and her parents all crumbling to dust, begging her to save them, begging her not to let them die again. She dreamed of looking out through her own eyes like looking out a tower window, unable to move or speak or scream, watching as her hands slit the throats of her friends, as her voice rent the air and tore her family to pieces. She dreamed of being left behind, of Geralt realizing how useless she really was, how impotent she would always be, and giving up on her in disgust. Sometimes she dreamed them all at once. No matter what the dream, she always woke after only a few hours sleep, drenched in sweat and tears, a scream caught in her throat and a sprinkling of dust from the stone walls of her room still shaking to the ground in the wake of her power.
She never got back to sleep after a nightmare, not right away, so she took to wandering the halls at night. She stayed away from the common areas and the bedrooms, choosing instead to explore the more deserted wings of the crumbling fortress. She ghosted through underground corridors overgrown with mold and rot, reeking of decay, with stains on the walls and floors that she couldn’t identify in the scant torchlight but hoped against hope weren’t blood. She picked her way carefully across partially collapsed battlements, hundreds of feet in the air, balanced precariously on fallen stones and rickety steps. She climbed tower after tower, turret after turret, marking the doors to the ones she had seen already but somehow always finding more. Those were her favorites. She would spend whole nights propped against a merlon, staring at the stars and wondering if everyone she’d lost was looking back at her. Those were the nights she was most likely to fail to make it back to bed, and Geralt would come find her in the morning, shivering in her sleep, and carry her back down to set her in front of a hearth until breakfast.
It was one of these nights when she first stumbled across Jaskier. She was climbing the steps to her favorite tower- the one with the view of the lake in the valley below the keep that reflected the stars so perfectly, facing east so she could watch the sun rise over the mountains if she stayed awake that long- when she heard noises coming from above her. No, not noises, music.
Yennefer had regained enough power the week before to portal out of the keep and back, and she had taken Jaskier with her and returned with bags of shopping for both of them (and only them, which Ciri found unspeakably rude. She might not have a kingdom anymore in the strictest sense, but she was still of royal blood- if anyone deserved nice things in this place it was her, surely?)- clothes and bathing oils and, to Ciri’s irritation, a lute. She told herself the annoyance was because now he would be playing at all hours, distracting everyone from their work, and her from her training, but the truth was she worried that if he became useful again as a bard, everyone might then notice how purposeless she was. Her fears had proved unfounded so far, as the bard hardly left his room since their return, only playing when no one was around to hear.
Or, apparently, when he thought no one was around, on account of it being the middle of the night and him being up a tower.
She thought about storming up the stairs and demanding he leave and give her back her spot, but she had to admit she was curious about his music. Geralt had to have kept him around for something; from what she could gather, they had traveled together longer than she had even been alive, and she couldn’t imagine what else he could have been good for. Maybe Geralt just really liked his music? She decided to wait here at the bottom of the staircase, just for a moment. Just to see what the fuss was about.
The strumming sounded a little...faltering? Or maybe just simplistic. It was just the same couple of chords over and over, she thought, if she was remembering correctly from her music lessons in Cintra. She’d never been particularly interested in music, so admittedly she had never paid much attention in those lessons, but she was fairly certain he was only playing two chords, and relatively simple ones at that. So much for the famed bard of the White Wolf, she snickered silently to herself. Then again, she thought magnanimously, he was several weeks out of practice, and she remembered how hard it had been to build up enough calluses that her harp lessons didn’t end in blood. She supposed she could sympathize with that, at least a little.
A voice filtered down to where she stood in the corridor, echoing slightly off the stones of the tower walls on its way. She had to admit, his singing was...pleasant. Soft and melodic, almost haunting in a way. He obviously wasn’t playing for an audience, and she found the gentleness of his voice at once compelling and uncomfortably intimate. She didn’t think she should be listening to this, but she found she didn’t want to leave.
“You are in the earth of me.
My head’s not yours, it’s mine,
‘Cos you are in the earth of me.”
Something about this song- the words? The melody? The obvious pain in his voice?- tugged uncomfortably at something in her chest. It felt a little like she wanted to cry, but she didn’t know what about. Part of her wanted to run back to her room and never think about this song or this pathetic little man ever again, but she found herself rooted to the spot, straining to hear more.
As she stood here at the base of the tower, the strumming picked up speed suddenly, the melody becoming more complex. It even sounded like he was playing a drum at the same time, maybe he was drumming on the body of the lute in between chords? It must take a lot of coordination and practice to do it so smoothly, to make it sound like there really were two musicians up there. Maybe he was as good as he was supposed to be.
“Who’s left me, he’s left me at last,
And I laugh, and I laugh,
‘Cos laughing right now,
It’s all, it’s all that I have.”
His voice had taken on a whole new quality. He was no longer soft and grief-stricken. There was still something jagged and painful in his voice, but now it was harsh, angry, and there was a bitter laughter in it to match the lyrics. As she listened, the song continued to swell, volume increasing as Jaskier vented more and more anger and fear into his song. The words were more passionate, almost a conversation.
“I can’t do this!
You can!
I can’t do this!
You can!
I can’t do this!
You can!
I can’t do this, you don’t understand!”
The wanting-to-cry feeling was back, stronger this time. She felt like his song was coming straight from her, like he reached into her nightmares and pulled it out wholecloth. For a moment she was furious, thinking he must have written this about her, mocking her. Revenge for all the jokes and taunts she and the witchers had sent his way in recent weeks. But as she listened, it was clear that however much of her own truth she found in it, this song was being pulled out of Jaskier’s soul, not hers. No one could sing something like this, with so much feeling, unless they had experienced it themselves. She wondered what had happened to him, to make him feel this way.
“You’re not a coward ‘cos you cower,
you’re brave because they broke you,
yet broken, still you breathe.”
Her breath caught, hitching uncontrollably over the start of a sob. She didn’t know anyone else felt like that. She thought she was the only one who knew what it felt like to be so scared of being weak, of not being enough, of being too broken to matter to anyone anymore. It felt like he was singing just to her, like he was looking for exactly the words she needed to hear. She didn’t notice when her feet started to carry her up the stairs, needing to be closer to the music.
Jaskier was sitting on the edge of the wall, leaning against a merlon with one leg dangling off the outside. He was facing mostly away from her, eyes closed as he growled his pain to the night sky. She could see his face in profile, the lines around his eyes and his mouth twisted to display the same anguish she could hear in his voice. She leaned silently against the wall, hoping he didn’t look up and notice her before he finished. She wanted him to finish the song. She needed to hear how it ended.
“Where you see weakness,
I see wit,
Sometimes I fall to pieces
Just to see what bits of me don’t fit.”
Slowly, as quietly as she could, she lowered herself to the floor to sit against the wall. She covered her mouth with her hand as she leaned her elbows on her knees, desperately holding in a sob. She couldn’t stop the tears running down her cheeks.
It couldn’t be that simple, could it? Weakness was weakness, she knew that. She had seen it. Her grandmother was strong- she did what she wanted and anyone who tried to stop her she ran through with her sword. That was strength. Strength was taking what was yours, weakness was not being able to stop others from taking from you. Right? That was true here at Kaer Morhen, too. The witchers were strong. They had muscles and magic and swords, and nothing could hurt them as long as they were strong enough to fight it off. Yennefer was strong, or at least she was now that she had her Chaos back. Before, she couldn’t stop people from taking things from her, from forcing her to go where she didn’t want to, from locking her up. Now she had power. Now she had strength, the strength to simply make sure anyone who tried to hurt her got hurt back. That’s what strength looked like. Not, not words. Not wit. Not letting yourself be broken on purpose. Jaskier was weak. Right? He had to be. He had to be, because if he wasn’t, then what was she?
But, Eist had been strong. And he could fight, when he had to, but he hated it. He liked words, and music, and art, and laughing. He liked games. He was nothing like Grandmother, but he was strong anyway, Ciri knew that much. And...and Dara had been strong. He didn’t like fighting either, and he hadn’t wanted to be around her when she brought violence and danger, and he had wanted to give up fighting and forget everything to stay with the dryads, and he had been afraid when he followed her into the forest and again when he followed her out of it, but those things didn’t make him weak. He was one of the strongest people she had ever met. He saved her life more than once. So maybe...maybe strength wasn’t all about fighting. Maybe there were more ways to be strong than just hurting people who tried to hurt you. But what did that make her, then? Was she weak because she was afraid of Voleth Meir, or of the man in the black winged helmet? Of losing control of herself and hurting people she loved? Was it weakness that she missed her family, that she wished Cintra had never fallen and she was still a princess? She was so confused, nothing made sense. Everything hurt so much.
She didn’t realize she had started sobbing until the music stopped suddenly and Jaskier’s shocked and worried voice snapped her out of her thoughts.
“Ciri? Princess, are you alright? What are you doing up here? What’s wrong?” He knelt in front of her, lute discarded on the ground beside him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I couldn’t sleep, and this is my favorite tower, and then you were singing and I wanted to listen and I’m sorry it won’t happen again I’m sorry I’m leaving-” She was scrambling to stand, ready to bolt down the stairs, abashed at having been caught invading his privacy so blatantly. Even if she made a point of being rude to him, this was out of line.
“Dear heart, it’s all right, I don’t mind. Sit, love, you’re going to slip and hurt yourself. Sit down and breathe with me, can you do that? Can you follow my breathing?” She hadn’t noticed that her breathing had gone rapid and shallow and she was struggling to take in air until right now. She looked up at him in a panic, shaking her head frantically.
His blue eyes were soft and kind, his expression open. “It’s alright, Ciri, I’m going to take your hand, alright? Can I touch you?” He waited for her to nod before taking her hand and placing it on his chest. “I’m going to count to four, I want you to breathe in for four and out for four. Feel my breathing under your hand, try to match that, ok? Here we go, that’s it.” He counted slowly, evenly, chest rising and falling smoothly under her hand. Her first few attempts were shaky but slowly the silver spots started fading from her vision and her racing heart gradually slowed. “Good, darling, you’re doing so well. Just keep breathing. Are you feeling a bit better?”
She nodded, feeling even more embarrassed now that she had been so pitiful as to break down in front of him. Especially since he had so readily helped her, been so unflinchingly kind, despite all the unkindness she had shown him since their arrival. She lowered her head in shame, hand falling back into her lap.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but he was still only inches from her, so she knew he heard.
“You’ve nothing to apologize for, Ciri. Anxiety attacks happen to the best of us. They’re perfectly normal, and entirely to be expected given everything you’ve been through. Frankly I’d be more concerned if you weren’t having nightmares and anxiety, at this point. I promise, you have nothing to be ashamed of, alright?” She stared at him, caught somewhere between baffled and indignant.
“Why are you being so nice to me? I’m rude to you all the time, you should hate me.”
He smiled a little ruefully. “I can see why you might think that. But I was thirteen once, too, much more recently than anyone else in this place. I remember what it’s like. How confusing, how chaotic. How important it is to fit in, to be what it feels like everyone wants you to be. Most of the people here don’t think very much of me, it’s only natural you would pick up on that. You’re a clever girl, after all. Besides, you’ve been through gods know how many unspeakable horrors in the last year, of course you need someone to vent it on. I’m the obvious choice. I’m not angry, I promise.”
Somehow this was worse than anything else he could have said. She felt like a monster. How could he be so kind to her? So understanding? How could he just accept that his lot was to be the victim of everyone else’s senseless cruelty and directionless anger? How was that fair?
“That’s not fair! You haven’t done anything except be here and not be a witcher or a mage, that’s no reason to just- just- let everyone hate you! Why don’t you fight back? Why aren’t you angry at Lambert and everyone else at least?”
He huffed a laugh, another wry little smile on his face. “I would say you’ll understand when you’re older, but something tells me you won’t accept that bullshit from anyone, least of all me.”
“Fucking right I won’t. That’s what grownups say when they think you’re too stupid to know better, or when they don’t know the real answer. I’m basically a woman, I’m thirteen! It isn’t fair for everyone to keep treating me like a child!”
“Oh, Princess, I wish I could convince you not to be so quick to grow up. You’ve had so much taken from you, your childhood shouldn’t be added to the list. But you’re right, you deserve a real answer.” He heaved a great sigh and spun around until he was sitting next to her, back against the wall. “The truth is, Ciri, I don’t really think I belong here, either. So I suppose it doesn’t feel worth the trouble to stop everyone else from thinking it, too.”
“Why not? I thought you and Geralt were like, best friends, or something.”
“So did I, once. Now I’m not really sure what we are, or if we were ever really anything at all. But he said he needs me here, so here I shall stay until he changes his mind.” He wasn’t looking at her, instead staring out at the nearly-full moon, but she could still see the sadness etched on his face.
“But what about you? What do you want to do?” He barked a laugh for reasons she didn’t really understand, a harsh, angry thing. It reminded her of his song.
“You’re the only one who’s asked me that, dear heart, did you know? Well, except Yen, but against all odds and possibly my better judgement, she is, unfathomably, my best friend these days, so that barely counts, it’s basically her job.” He sighed again, propping his chin on his hand, arms braced on his knees. “I don’t rightly know what I want, Princess. Truthfully I haven’t been thinking about it much.”
“Because you’ve been writing that song instead?” That hadn’t been the question she’d meant to ask, but she really did want to know about the song, so that was alright probably.
He looked at her sharply, eyebrows raised. “I...I suppose it is. How much of the song did you hear, Ciri?”
She looked at the floor between her feet, unable to meet his eyes when confessing such a greivous violation of his privacy. “I’m not sure, it was very soft and quiet when I got here though, and it only started getting louder after I started listening. How did you make it sound like you had drums at the same time?”
He grinned, which was...not the reaction she was expecting, and stretched across the tower floor to grab his lute. “That’s a trick I taught myself when I was a student, mostly to show up one of my classmates who insisted that real music needed to be played by a full quartet at least. I told him if you couldn’t make good music with the instrument in front of you, then you couldn’t make good music at all. And then I proved I could imitate the sound of multiple musicians by myself anyway, and it made him fucking furious! It was brilliant. Putting Valdo in his place was always my favorite part of school. And honestly, I think it can be very evocative to have more than one sound going, but I’m certainly never going to tell him that. Besides, I was right, music is about the musician, not the instrument. Instruments are tools. I loved my old lute more than I love my own leg, but I’m perfectly capable of making music without it, any good bard is. Why, Geralt can tell you, when he picked me up from jail before we found you in Cintra, I was playing a pair of spoons! And quite brilliantly if I do say so myself. Music is about the feeling. The sound is a means to an end. A very important means, but the real trick is to be able to use the sound to tell a story or create a feeling. You can use any kind of sound, you know? A good musician can make you cry using nothing but a whistle! Some of the most honest music I’ve ever heard comes from ordinary people, peasants, no training, no instruments, just their voices, their hands, singing to themselves as they go about their lives, and it’s- Ciri it’s beautiful! It’s not trying to be anything it isn’t. There’s no pretension, no vanity, just music for the joy of music. That’s what it’s about, you know? That’s why I love it. My classmates didn’t understand why I wanted to be a traveling bard instead of securing a court position, but out there, in the world, that’s the only place music has any soul! At court it’s all just- sound. Noise. Empty, you know? My parents didn’t understand. They’d have disowned me for disgracing the family by playing for “filthy common tavern-goers” except I’ve only got sisters, so they’ll have to give the estate to my cousin Ferrant if they do, and they hate Ferrant. Even more than they hate me, which is saying something. It doesn’t matter though, I’ll never go back. I’d rather be penniless and sleeping in the woods, as long as I have the music, you know?” He looked at her expectantly, his eyes clear and glittering, a bright smile on his face.
She blinked at him. That was...so many words. So very many words. More words than she’d heard anyone say since she got here, combined. Lambert had made a few cracks about Jaskier never shutting up, which hadn’t made any sense to her until this moment.
His eyes went wide, and a flush rose rapidly to fill his whole face. “Oh, oh no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to talk so much at you. I do that sometimes, I ramble. It drives- drove Geralt crazy. I’m so sorry!” He looked genuinely upset, like he was worried he’d offended her somehow. She wasn’t sure why, but she sort of hated that he looked like that. Sure, it was a little overwhelming to suddenly have all of that information dumped on her, but it was sort of nice, too. She liked hearing someone be so passionate about something other than monsters and killing and the balance and order of Chaos, Ciri, you’ll have to understand these concepts when we start our lessons so I expect you to have read these texts in full by then. It was nice to hear someone just be...happy about something. To be excited about the world, instead of telling her all the reasons she should be afraid of it. She wanted to communicate this to Jaskier, but she wasn’t sure how.
“Don’t be sorry, I don’t mind. It was kind of a lot, but it’s nice that you’re passionate about something. No one here is happy about things, they talk about what to expect in the world, on the Path, but it’s all warnings and training, and ‘don’t do this, Ciri, don’t say that, Ciri, never lose sight of your sword, Ciri, don’t talk to strangers unless you have to, Ciri, they probably want to sell you to Nilfgaard.’ It’s exhausting. It’s nice to hear someone be excited about traveling and meeting people. I don’t really understand music at all, I was never very good at my lessons and Grandmother decided they were a waste of time, but I really liked the song you were playing. It was pretty, but also, it sort of...hurt? But in a good way. I don’t really know.” She flushed, embarrassed. That was so much more than she meant to say. He probably thought she was an idiot, now.
“Thank you, dear heart. That’s very nice to hear.” When she looked up, he was smiling at her softly. “And the song...that’s how it’s supposed to feel, so I’m glad you connected with it. I wrote it about- well, never mind what I wrote it about, what matters is that you enjoyed it. You’ve had a very hard year, I’m glad I could offer some catharsis.” He was fidgeting with his hands, running his thumb in circles around the pads of his fingers, when he flinched suddenly and hissed.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Is it calluses? My fingers hurt so much when I had to learn how to play the harp, and I know you haven’t played since you got here, did you lose all your calluses?”
“Uh, no, it’s not- um. It’s not my calluses, although that’s an excellent guess, and I can definitely relate to the pain of learning the harp, I hated the harp in school, could never get the hang of the elbows, but, uh. It’s nothing. Not to worry, nothing worth fretting over. I’ll be just fine.” He didn’t look just fine. He looked flustered, and a little scared, though why he would he scared she couldn’t imagine.
“That’s silly, the others are just going to notice at breakfast anyway, they can always smell when I’m in pain. It’s so annoying. I don’t know how they expect me to get stronger if I don’t train harder, and I have to get hurt in training if I want to get better. I wish they wouldn’t fuss. But you might as well let me look now. I’m pretty good at field medicine, Geralt said so. He let me help him sometimes while we were on the road from Sodden the first time. I’m good, I promise!” She made a grab for his hand but he yanked it back before she could reach it. He looked…he looked crushed, for some reason. What had she said to make him look so sad?
“It’s, uh. You know what, don’t worry about it, Princess. I’m sure you’re an excellent medic, I’ve dressed enough of Geralt’s wounds to know how much skill that takes, but I promise they won’t notice. Or at least, they won’t be too worried. They haven’t the whole time we’ve been here, so it really is fine.”
“Why wouldn’t they care? Geralt at least will, and I think Vesemir likes you. Wait, what do you mean, the whole time? Have you been hurt since we got here? Was it…,” she quieted a little, shame sweeping through her. “Was it the battle? Did you get injured while I was...when I…,”
His eyes go wide, and he grabs her hand, tilting her chin up to look at him with the other hand. His skin feels strange where his fingers rest on her cheek, smooth and rough at the same time somehow.
“Darling girl, do not apologize for anything that happened that day. You are not responsible for what Voleth Meir did with your body, you are every bit as much a victim of her violence as the rest of us. You did nothing wrong, do you understand me? Please do not think that any of that was your fault, please promise me.” His blue eyes were so big and round and earnest, swimming with tears. How strange to think those tears were for her. She didn’t understand this man at all.
“It was my body, though. And...and I could hear Geralt calling, but I didn’t want to leave. She made me think I was back in Cintra, and my family was alive, and I knew it wasn’t real, but I still wanted to stay. I let her hurt all those witchers, just because I wanted to stay. I was selfish, and childish, and weak, and it was my fault if you got hurt.” He still had a hand on her face, so she closed her eyes to escape his scrutiny instead. This man had been nothing but kind to her when she didn’t deserve it, but this was surely the last straw. She didn’t want to see the concern in his eyes turn to disgust. There was a reason she hadn’t told anyone the truth about the dream world Voleth Meir locked her in.
“Oh, Ciri. Sweet child. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I’m so sorry she forced you to lose them twice, that wasn’t fair. That must have hurt so much. Have you been carrying around that guilt, all this time?” She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, feeling tears leaking out between her lashes, and nodded slightly. “Oh, love, you poor thing. It was not your fault, do you understand? Please hear me now, even if you don’t believe anything else I say. You are not to blame, alright? She was a monster, and she hurt you, and she hurt your family, and you sent her away. You saved us all, darling. It was not your fault.”
There were strong arms around her, holding her tight to a deceptively broad chest, and she realized she was shaking. “Shh, darling, it’s alright. That’s it, it’s ok. It’s all going to be ok. I’m so sorry, love, it will be alright.” He murmured more reassuring nonsense to her as he rocked her gently back and forth, just like Grandmother used to when she was very small. Eventually he started humming softly. She was distantly startled to realize that she recognized the tune, an old Skelliger lullabye. Eist used to sing it to her when she couldn’t sleep. The sound made her cry some more, but luckily he seemed to understand and he didn’t stop, just gathered her closer to his chest and kept humming.
Eventually her sobs tapered off and she found herself on the edge of sleep.
“Come on dear heart, up we come. There we go. Let’s get you back to bed, shall we?” She should maybe have been surprised when he stood with her still in his arms, one behind her back and one under her legs, easy as anything, but she was too tired and comfortable to care. She was vaguely aware of a faint twanging sound as he slung his lute across his shoulder without even shifting her weight, and then of the moonlight disappearing as they descended the stairs, but she was so soothed by the rocking motion of his steps and the steady beating of his heart that she didn’t remember dropping into a dreamless sleep before they even reached the bottom.
For once, she had no more nightmares that night.
