Disclaimer: I do not own any part of any of The Witcher worlds, at any given time.
His study wasn't half as organised as the self-image he presented in public. Everything had its place, but nothing about those places was orderly. Underneath his wall hanging of Uroboros, there was an open, stained-glass cabinet housing many different varieties of absinthe. By his desk were dangerously piled tomes, stacked in the order he had perused them. If they had been another's work, he would have shown them more respect, but it was fine, because he had written them. On the walnut desk itself was another volume's worth of handwritten notes, which he had only just refined and consolidated and had no intention of ever publishing.
Opposite the desk and the vast window that hung over it, Avallac'h stood facing his latest painting. It had taken him weeks to complete, and just then he was adding the final textures with a heavily stained brush. Although the avant-garde artists of his generation were pursuing more abstract, geometrical endeavours, he still had a weakness for impressionist forms.
Currently unnamed, his canvas depicted a stormy heath at dusk. With the ghostly, rising moon came apparitions in the sky. Riders on horseback. Another rider raced across the opposite corner of the canvas, on a horse of her own, the blackest thing in the painting. Yet she herself was one of the palest, especially her hair.
It was an incredibly narcissistic painting, he would be the first to admit it. Just like his notes, however, Avallac'h had no intention of showing it to anyone. On the left edge of the canvas stood yet another figure on a white horse. He was slightly more material than the riders in the sky, but not as central to the image as the girl on the black mount.
Avallac'h thoroughly cleaned his brushes, his palette and then his hands. He left the painting to dry naturally.
Turning back to his notes, he skimmed through them again with an uneasy satisfaction. It had taken him a lot to formulate his plan. He had forced himself to swallow the largest and bitterest pill of all - his pride. When Zireael had agreed to return her bloodline to the Aen Elle, nothing had fulfilled his purpose more. Fleeing Tir Ná Lia had been personally offensive to him, even though the death of his former King had made the question of the sire of Zireael's child rather unanswerable. Eredin wouldn't listen to the idea of fulfilling the role himself.
The King's intentions for the girl were distasteful even to Avallac'h, perhaps the most desperate of all to reclaim the Hen Ichaer. For a long time, he had waged a war inside himself. Zireael was human, her imperfect body was worth less to him than that of a horse, or one of the fourth-century vases he had adorning his mantelpiece. Yet she was still, ultimately, Lara's daughter.
Lara...Lara, who had never expected anything from him, who would have turned away all he offered. He would never admit it, never, but Avallac'h saw just as much of her in Zireael as he did of her abhorrent...father.
Yet still, Avallac'h would do this service for her. He would sacrifice any standing he had with his new court and ruler, for the sake of Lara's illegitimate daughter. How much did that matter to him, knowing the King was a liar, a traitor and a murderer? He had made an enemy of Avallac'h the moment Auberon died, but Avallac'h had never let him suspect.
Questioning his sanity for the umpteenth time, he prepared himself for a very long ride.
It had been his knowledge that allowed Eredin to follow Zireael. The rifts she opened left a residual trace, which both Eredin and Caranthir tried to locate before they dissipated. It was also Avallac'h's knowledge that would save Zireael from a fate arguably worse than death. Again, it had wounded him terribly to admit it, but his alternative solution was a theory in which she didn't even need to reproduce. Instead of her son moving whole civilisations in an attempt to escape the White Frost, she could simply alter the fabric of reality itself.
It was simple in concept, yet far from easy in practice. It was a big theory. It was complex. His notes weren't on it directly, but on how to teach it to Zireael, as uneducated as she was. It would take the best mentoring on his part to enable her to accomplish what she needed to. Aside from that, if he had been any kind of inter-species behaviourist, Avallac'h would've needed to write another thesis just to figure out how to earn her trust.
This was all he had. He hated it, he loathed himself and felt like he had betrayed all he had believed in for the last few centuries, but at present no other solution presented itself.
When he was informed that Eredin and Caranthir had located another trace, Avallac'h left the airy whiteness of his study. With a sigh that exhaled none of the burden he felt, he went to collect his horse. The stallion was not, in truth, any shade of white. He was a brown, with glossy shades ranging from dark to warm.
Trotting towards the palace, Avallac'h met the King and his riders in a courtyard made of marble mosaics, with a malachite fountain shimmering at its centre. The sculpted lady pouring water from a vessel in her hands, Avallac'h had heard, was meant to be Lara Dorren. The image didn't move him in the slightest, given that he'd never thought it even remotely resembled her. Why any artist thought it tasteful to portray her as if drawing a bath, he couldn't comprehend.
"Ah, Avallac'h, I see you wish to join us again," said Eredin, with a veneer of mockery that no one else used to address him.
"I do...Your Majesty," said Avallac'h blandly. He felt the weight of the notes he carried in his satchel. He felt the weight of Eredin's pale green gaze.
"As you please," the King sighed. "We ride now. Caranthir, take point."
Avallac'h remembered a distant phase in his life, back when he could pass through space and time like the tiniest spec of water merging with an ocean's surface. Now, only when passing through specific points was that simile still accurate. Having seen the messy rifts that Zireael opened for herself, he knew that she was more like a droplet causing ripples in a puddle. That was due solely to her lack of experience, and even without his mentorship the ripples were slowly becoming less intense and dispersing faster. Since losing the Ard Gaeth, Eredin's attempts, along with his own, were more like plunging a large, jagged stone into a very calm sea. It was almost a tragedy to behold. Eredin, however, had developed a method whereby the minute fragment of ocean they passed through was isolated and choppy, and they themselves were not a solid stone but fine grains of sand. Hence why the Dearg Ruadhri were seen as spectres, arriving in a stormy rift of lightning and freezing fog.
When he was feeling particularly melodramatic, and navigating the waters of Zireael's world, Eredin would project the imposing image of a ship made from human bones, teeth and nails. The King hadn't owned a warship like that for well over a century.
Instead of the blank nothingness that Avallac'h remembered from his youth, travelling through the fabric of reality was now an almost maddening affair. There were colours and shapes that he couldn't even describe in his own language. It was the most disjointed out-of-body experience.
And then the Dearg Ruadhri spilt through a rift into a foreign world.
Caranthir, with the energy at the head of his staff crackling blue-white, immediately began to prepare for their next venture. The invisible ripples were weak around them, but with each passage their guide claimed he felt the traces strengthen.
Finally, in a world made from barren rock and bottomless canyons, Avallac'h saw her. She was making a gentle trot through the bleak landscape.
"I'll see if I can cut her off," Avallac'h muttered on Eredin's left. The King nodded in response.
Avallac'h broke from the riders and forced his mount into a run. He knew how fast Zireael's own was. The immaterial hooves beneath him made no noise if he didn't want them to.
Zireael must have been tired, for it took her some time to feel the presence of her pursuers. When she caught a glimpse of him racing towards her, her mare took off like a bird in flight. He had been approaching her at an angle to intercept her, however, and he was almost certain he could reach her. From behind came the harsh stampede of Eredin and his riders, attempting to frighten her.
Avallac'h reached Zireael just before the land split into a narrow canyon. He saw the shadows beneath her eyes, she was that close. Her face was drawn and pale, but there was a fierce determination in her vivid green eyes. He was sure she could leap over both himself on horseback and the canyon, but he wasn't so sure she would.
"Have mercy, Ciri," called Avallac'h in common speech. An eyebrow flickered upwards on her childishly expressive face. "I came to help."
Zireael reined in her horse so hard it reared rather impressively, hooves lashing the air as if they could tear open another rift in reality.
"Speak. Fast!" Zireael demanded, panting.
"We both know what kind of person Eredin is. I want him even further from you than you yourself do," said Avallac'h. He could still see the Dearg Ruadhri galloping towards them over her shoulder. "Pull me into this realm entirely. Take me with you. I can help disguise the rifts you create. When safe, listen to what I have to say. If you still don't trust me, well, you have the power to leave me anywhere you choose and flee. Trust me, and I can put an end to all this. For you." For Lara.
Zireael checked her rear. The riders were close.
"Ciri. Bring me through. Take us away now and you have my word-"
"Fuck your word!" Zireael all but spat. Despite the anger, she sounded spent. Avallac'h knew if she could have teleported without straining herself, she would have done so by now.
For the first time, Avallac'h let all his desperation, all his anxiety, the last of his fragile hope play out across his face.
Eredin was seconds from being able to touch her.
"Ciri, don't make me beg you," Avallac'h extended his ghostly hand.
He saw the startled expression grace her corrupted, elfin features. He saw Lara in her eyes and the rest of Zireael's face faded into someone else's.
Zireael spurred her horse and closed the distance between them.
For the briefest instant, Avallac'h thought he had failed.
Then he felt a pressure on his wrist, felt every fibre of Zireael's being strain as she tore an inelegant hole in time and space. A greater sense of physicality hit him. He was no longer a spectre capable of destruction, but a material being, falling into the blankness of the incomprehensible fourth dimension.
Together, with Zireael pouring them into the void and himself stabilising her untamed power, they passed through the surface of the ocean like twin specs of water.
"Again," said Avallac'h, as soon as he could catch his breath. Zireael glared at him, but she felt the urgency just as much as he did.
Never losing her hold on him, she bent time and space into a shape even she couldn't imagine, and broke through the dimensional barrier. She did it again, and again, and on the last attempt Avallac'h had to try more than ever to help her maintain control.
They appeared on a beach of pink sand. The waves were just rough enough to create white horses, but the majority of the water captured the orange sunrise. The cirrus clouds were like wreaths in the sky.
Avallac'h saw Zireael gasping for breath, the sweat dripping from her face into her mare's black mane.
Just as she began to fall from her saddle, Avallac'h leapt from his own to her horse's flank. The mare turned to bare her teeth at him, but he managed to catch Zireael and avoid getting kicked or bitten.
The girl's body trembled against his. She struggled to stand, so he took up her legs and carried her along the beach. Zireael grumbled in protest. Avallac'h chose to ignore her. Ahead of them was the mouth of small river and, hopefully, a little shelter from the intermittent breeze. To their right was a gentle slope, dotted with clusters of tall, straight trees with sprouting foliage at their tops. The slope led to an apparently dormant volcano.
Zireael's mare promptly followed Avallac'h towards the inlet, fixing him with a gaze that he could only interpret as a warning. His stallion walked along eagerly behind the other horse. Momentarily, Avallac'h concerned himself with his horse's youthful, narrow-minded instincts. Judging by the mare's snorts, however, she appeared to have the same attitude towards reproduction as her master.
Avallac'h reached the inlet and found a rocky overhang, before laying Zireael down on the cool, dry sand. Stomaching the revulsion he felt, he soaked a handkerchief in the nearby river and wiped her face, neck and hands. As soon as he had done so, the black mare lay herself next to her master.
Watching his horse drink from the river, Avallac'h sat at Zireael's feet and decided to meditate. As if she was an infant, he felt the need to rest while she did. He refused to sleep, because the landscape was too open and he didn't know who or what occupied it.
Zireael was only asleep for half an hour, yet when she awoke she was noticeably more refreshed. It was her shuffling in the sand that brought Avallac'h from his meditation. The sun was now almost clear of the horizon, but a hazy mist had come in off the ocean. Both the water and the air alike were suffused with a rich golden colour. Zireael's hard expression was perfectly clear to him, despite this.
"Say what you have to say," she said harshly, while propped up on her elbows.
"You understand why the Aen Elle needed you to have a son?" he asked.
"A terrible start, Avallac'h," Zireael narrowed her venomous eyes. "I understand why you wanted a child, yes. A son? Not so much. You felt you needed a powerful half-blood, probably as an attempt to prove that your Aen Elle genes are so superior, but mostly to save your civilisation from the White Frost. You wanted to groom this child into being the heir to the throne. I don't doubt you intended to teach it to despise humanity, and encourage it to conquer whole worlds and enslave us humans. Or would that role fall to my hypothetical grandchild? Do I assume too much?"
Avallac'h said nothing. His gaze was ice cold.
"I'm not always as stupid as you treat me," said Zireael.
"Evidently," he then said. Turning to his satchel, Avallac'h brought out his first bundle of notes. "Except, you missed my use of the past tense. Needed. I hoped someone such as yourself would be more attentive to time."
"You're the one who taught me it's all connected. The past is still happening now, right alongside the future," Zireael argued, but he knew he had her interest.
"I do love it when you try and use what I've taught you against me," Avallac'h said sarcastically. "It's made this last year or so highly entertaining. You are, however, somewhat mistaken in at least one of your previous assumptions. There is no need for the Aen Elle to prove our superiority. The elven genes in your body, as diluted as they are, are the only things that enable your power."
"The general trend through my ancestors suggests otherwise. You thought the power lost, until it emerged generations away from Lara," said Zireael.
"Biological variables don't always react in such predictable ways," said Avallac'h. "May I continue explaining myself, or do you wish to vent the anger you've been bottling up all these months?"
"We can agree to disagree, then," Zireael shrugged as she sat up. "Carry on."
"You don't necessarily need to have a child," Avallac'h told her.
"No, that can't be right. Are you telling me...you were wrong? No, no, I don't believe it," said Zireael in mock astonishment. Avallac'h gritted his teeth for a fraction of a second.
"Having a child would be infinitely easier for you, trust me," he said.
"I find that rather difficult to do, but I can't quite remember why."
"In order to do this, you will need to strengthen your power to an extent you can't even comprehend right now."
"Stop underestimating my mind."
"Stop interrupting."
Zireael waited in moody silence while he summarised his theory. She held his gaze and, for once, listened intently. When he finished, she turned her face away. Her anger was gone.
"Will that honestly work?" she asked.
"It's a theory, my dear. It's a sound one, but it requires you to trust me, and to allow me to teach you," said Avallac'h.
"Why doesn't Eredin like this theory, if it's so sound?" Zireael wanted to know.
"His ambitions are more selfish. He wants to claim your power for himself," said Avallac'h, hoping he wouldn't be urged to elaborate. He wasn't. In the silence that followed, he stood up and, with a flick of his hand, separated himself from any lingering sand particles.
"Can I trust you?" Zireael asked, looking up at him. "Say I can, and I'll treat the past like the linear concept it is. I'll put it behind us, or at least try."
"That would, quite possibly, be the wisest thing you've ever done," said Avallac'h, offering his hand. "I have the best interests of both of us at heart. You can trust me."
Zireael stared at him for the longest moment. Then she grasped his hand and stood.
He could see the hesitance in her eyes, framed as they were with greasepaint. It would take more than words to convince her, he knew that, but as of that instant, she had taken her first step towards him.
With the same flick of his hand, Avallac'h removed the sand from her clothes and hair.
"Let's move on from this place," he said in Ellylon.
"Ah, but it's so pretty here," said Zireael, strolling towards the shoreline. Surrounded by the fine mist, she appeared more like the miraculous being she was than before.
Wishing the slope of her shoulders reminded him less of Lara, and suppressing the bitterness that stirred within him, Avallac'h followed her.
Their two horses could be seen galloping in the surf, the black mare in front.
"You need to get your stallion to stop harassing Kelpie," Zireael sighed with irritation.
"I think your Kelpie can hold her own," Avallac'h stated dryly.
"Yes, because she has to," said Zireael, before whistling to her mare. Immediately, the horse turned and bounded towards her. She caught the bridle as her mount was still moving, and began to run circles around the elf. "Tell me about the most beautiful place you've ever been."
"Why does that matter?" asked Avallac'h, as he observed his stallion's approach. He too pulled himself into the saddle.
"Because I always have to dash through places. I know beauty when I see it, but I don't really have the chance to appreciate it. I want to. Maybe you'll tell me that my power isn't to be used for fun, but maybe you enjoyed dancing through time and space, back when you could," said Zireael. The two of them were now trotting along the pink sand of the beach.
Avallac'h cast his thoughts back to when he had mastered the power of Ard Gaeth. Indeed, it had been rare for him not to view it in an almost academic manner. It was, ultimately, a unique tool meant to aid the survival and prosperity of his entire civilisation. Yet he was wise enough to know that was but one, limited perspective.
"There is too much out there, I couldn't tell you the most beautiful place," he said eventually. "It'd be a subjective opinion, besides."
"Fine. We'll go somewhere new," Zireael decided.
Avallac'h approached her, trotting so close that their knees almost touched. Zireael shot him a stony glance, but he placed a hand on her shoulder anyway.
"Touching me stops me leaving you behind, sure, but you know the Red Riders don't need to hold each other when they all travel," she told him. "Trust works both ways, Avallac'h."
"That's true, but I sense a few obstacles in both our ways," he said mildly.
"Your intelligence never fails to impress me," Zireael rolled her eyes.
"I'm flattered, and so glad you actually place some value on intelligence," Avallac'h replied in his most withering tone.
Zireael's gaze matched his once again. He knew he couldn't be too nice to her. She wouldn't ever trust him.
Then the two of them disappeared from the pink beach. In the blink of an eye, they had passed through the ocean of reality, like two tiny specs of water.
But there were still ripples, and not even Avallac'h could stop them all from spreading outwards.
Author's Note: Had a flurry of inspiration for Witcher oneshots recently, hope you enjoyed this one. Feel free to make my day by dropping a review, all comments and ideas welcome! Ta.