The little roadside inn seemed barely more than a waystation for couriers and tradesfolk, a solitary single-story building standing alone along the road nowhere near any town or village. To Ciri's eyes, it looked like any other Temerian inn she could afford on a witcher's pay.

But this was where Yennefer had directed her.

She dismounted and led Umbra to the small stable abutting the building. Three of the six stalls were empty; two were occupied by sturdy-looking horses of decent stock, one a bay and one a dun. And the third—

Her hand tightened on the reins at the sight of the magnificent white horse peering over the stall door at her. Tall, elegant lines, a proud neck, dark eyes, not a speck of dirt from the road to be seen on the coat…

She was in the right place.

Umbra patiently stood still as Ciri untacked her, and she went into the stall by the white horse without fuss. She stowed her tack in the trunk by the stall and rushed out, covering the distance between the stable and the inn's door at a near run.

Hesitance struck her as she set her hand on the door handle. It had only been a few months for her, but it had been over a quarter of a century for him. Would he even still remember her?

Would he want anything to do with her?

She steeled her nerves and opened the door. She'd come this far, waited out the winter in restless anticipation. However he reacted, however he felt, she needed to see him.

The inside of the inn's main room was smoky and dim, lit by candles on every table and a few small lanterns made of thick, uneven glass. A woman of indeterminate age sat behind the counter, and she looked up in interest at Ciri's entrance. Her eyes fell to the wolf's head medallion around her neck, and the interest turned wary.

"In need of a room?" she asked. "This is a decent inn; there'll be no trouble here."

"Just for the night," Ciri said, fishing an oren from her coin purse. "And I'm looking for a man. He's older, a redhead. Redanian—"

The woman pulled the oren from Ciri's fingers and pointed at the far end of the room. "Aye, he's been sitting there the past three nights. Drinking and whittling. Won't let no one join his table. Standoffish."

She rummaged beneath the counter and produced a key, which she handed to Ciri with a sharp look. "I'll have no violence in my inn. If you have a problem with that man, you'll take it outside."

"No—no, he's an old friend," Ciri reassured her.

"Hmph." The woman turned away. "Room four, down the hall and to your left. Breakfast is extra."

Ciri walked toward the end of the room past the other tables with their quietly talking occupants. Her feet slowed as she neared the figure seated at the farthest table, and her heart began to pound in her chest.

As broad shouldered as she remembered. The same deep red hair, no longer partially shaved but grown out and shaggy, the look of a man who'd ceased to care. No robe, but a sturdy leather jerkin. A short beard covering that sharp jawline. Large, scarred hands, absently holding a half-full tankard.

He seemed to have aged ten years since she'd seen him last—but he hardly looked like a man in his early sixties.

The candle's flame guttered and flared, and she held in a gasp at the scars thrown into sharp relief etched down Olgierd's cheek.

"The sight won't improve if you keep staring," he said without looking up from his ale. "Move on. I'm in no mood for company."

"I was told once there was no better company to be found," she said softly.

He went rigid at her voice. His hand clenched around his tankard. "I've enough ghosts in my life not to wish to suffer another. I'll not fall for this."

"Olgierd." Ciri took another step forward. "I'm real. I'm here."

With what seemed like an extraordinary amount of willpower, he slowly turned his gaze up at her and froze.

She nodded, her heart in her throat. "It's me."

"You're so young," he said hoarsely. He stood from the table and came to her, looking her up and down with an edge of fright in his eyes. "How? Was it O'Dimm? Did that whoreson get his claws into you? What did you wish for?"

"No, no," she rushed to say. She bit her lip as guilt squirmed in her stomach. "Nothing. This is… this is my time. It's only been a few months for me since we parted."

He took a step back, his breathing deliberate and even as he slowly calmed. Questions crossed his face and disappeared almost immediately, his mind answering them just as quickly as they came.

"Not O'Dimm," he said at last. His tone was unreadable. "But you recognized the name."

Ciri nodded cautiously.

He looked away with an expression she'd almost swear was shame. "I'll not ask how. Bastard gets around, I imagine."

"He certainly seems to," she agreed.

"Mm." He looked back at her. "Traveled in time."

"Yes."

"For a bloody book."

"We needed it badly." She shook her head. "It ended up being next to useless."

"A mercenary," he continued, his eyes narrowing on her medallion. "A former bandit. I imagine half the stories you told were outright fabrications."

"Not if I could help it," she insisted. "I did my best not to lie to you. You and Vlodimir were friends."

"My brother was a bit more than that," he said evenly. "I'd hate for him to have given his heart under false pretenses."

Ciri glared. "I went home and cried for a day when I learned what happened after I left. I meant all of it." She took a breath, her chest aching at the anger in his face, and demanded, "You're more upset about untruths than time travel?"

"I studied the occult some years after we parted ways," he said. "I know what's possible through magic. Only one way to manage that feat, to my knowledge." She took a wary step back, and his eyes went tired and sad. "And I've no interest in that sort of power."

"I came all this way to find you," Ciri said. She bit back a plea, an apology, a platitude. "I just needed to see that you were all right."

He sighed, the last of the tension leaving him, and reached out with a scarred hand to gently tuck her hair behind her ear.

"Still have the earrings," he said, his voice quiet. He took her hand in his and lifted it, and the wood and gray-blue stone bead bracelet shone in the low light. "And that little peasant bauble. Bloody hell. It really is you."

Strong arms wrapped around her as she was pulled into a swift, fierce hug. The faint scent of tobacco smoke and vodka filled her nose. His chest hitched, just once, and he let her go and stepped away, looking abashed and dry-eyed.

"Forgive me," he said. He inclined his head at the table. "Will you join me?"

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be," she said honestly.

For the first time since her arrival, he smiled—a small thing, but genuine, and tinged with the warmth she remembered. "You'd be welcome company."

They sat across from each other and stared in silence. Ciri let her eyes rove across his face, cataloguing each scar, each new line in his forehead, each small wrinkle by his eyes and on his cheeks, each bit of silver in his sideburns and beard.

Gods help her, he'd grown even more handsome.

His gaze dropped to the medallion around her neck, resting against her new leather armor, and he let out a huff of laughter. "Not from the Viper school after all."

"No," she admitted.

"Your witcher," he said. A slow, rueful amusement tugged at his lips. "Geralt of Rivia."

"He told me nothing about you before I went back." She let out a huff of irritation. "I didn't even know your names."

He shook his head. "Nay, it was obvious we were strangers to you." He sobered and gripped his tankard again. "I owe him more than I can say."

"He didn't tell me much when I returned, either," Ciri said. She ventured to reach across the table to touch his hand, and it twitched beneath her fingers. "He said it was your story to tell. Though I did hear about Vlodimir and Iris from Marta, at the Black Mare. I'm so sorry."

"As am I." He lifted his tankard to his lips and drank deeply. "That book you sought—what came of it?"

"We gave it to a bruxa," Ciri said dryly, and he snorted.

"I'd forgotten your cheek. Truly?"

"Truly," she insisted.

"All that work just to hand it off to a vampire. Fiona—" He broke off at Ciri's wince and raised his eyebrows. "That part not true, either?"

"It is my name," she hedged. "Just… not my first name. It's Ciri."

"Ciri," he echoed. He gave her a long look and nodded. "It suits you."

"That's good; I'd hate to have to change it."

"And do you have a family name, Ciri of Cintra?" he asked her, a smile playing around his mouth. A hint of recognition came to his eyes.

"Ciri of Vengerberg," she said firmly, and the recognition faded. "Daughter of Geralt of Rivia and Yennefer of Vengerberg, and witcher of the School of the Wolf."

He laughed softly again, shaking his head and setting his tankard down. "Look at you," he said. "Just like the morning we parted."

"And you…" she trailed off at his grimace. "What happened?"

"A long tale," he said. "One for another night, if you've the time."

"Of course," she said at once. Her eyes trailed up the scars crisscrossing his forearms to disappear beneath his shirtsleeves, and she blinked and looked away at the gentle clearing of his throat.

"I suppose we match now," he said with another rueful smile. He tapped the pair of scars on his cheek, right where she'd kissed him so long ago.

"Hm. You look roguish," she said, and he pressed his lips together to suppress a laugh. "What have you been doing these past few years? I heard that you—left Redania."

She left unsaid Marta's words about his fearsome reputation, his heartlessness, and her dark thoughts about Iris' death.

"Drinking, mostly," he said with a nod to his slowly emptying tankard. "I've taken to wandering. Money's of no concern, and I've no desire to see the homeland again any time soon. I lend a hand where I can, though Temerians are slow to trust an outsider."

Ciri sat there for a few seconds just watching him, trying to interpret the thoughts behind the melancholy that washed over his face. A sudden impulse grabbed her, and she reached out to set her hand on his again.

"Journey with me," she said. "Sword in hand, through rugged Temeria."

Dim remembrance flickered through his gaze.

"Days of seeking new thrills together," she continued. "Just us and the open road, with nothing to tie us back."

A sharp bark of laughter escaped him. His hand turned to grasp hers as he shut his eyes and leaned back against the wall.

"You said I only had to ask," she said softly.

"So I did," he agreed. His eyes held a suspicious sheen when he opened them again. "I'm not the company I used to be."

"That's fine." She squeezed his hand. "You were a moody bastard half the time back then anyway."

"Can't argue that," he said. He squeezed her hand back and gently pulled away. "It's a kind offer. But you needn't invite me along out of sentiment. We're near strangers now."

Ciri scoffed. "You are occasionally a clod, still, I see."

He slumped forward, burying his face in his hands as his shoulders shook with laughter. "Ah, hell—I haven't been called that since you left." He sighed and looked back up. "I'd forgotten what a shit he could be. Suppose the two of us are the only ones left who remember him fondly."

"Always," she said. "Always."

He looked at her for a long moment, shades of grief and understanding in his expression. "You and he—"

"We might have," she said, "if I'd stayed. If I'd been able to."

A little cottage on Miller's Lake in Brunwich, with one bedroom. Or two.

That inexplicable shame flickered across his face again. "I'm sorry."

"Come with me," she urged him. "He'd hate to see you like this. You can't just waste the rest of your life drinking in a corner. And you'll be able to help more people if you're on the Path with me." At his reluctance, she added, "Wouldn't it be nice to travel with someone who remembered better times?"

"Those were some of the worst times," he said dryly. His eyes warmed. "Though you and Vlodimir were bright spots."

"Those weeks in the past would have been so much emptier without the two of you," she said. "I can't ever repay that." She reached across the table again, and his hand curled around hers. "I get lonely out there on my own. You hardly look like you're enjoying your own company. Perhaps we can be a bit less lonely together."

"Just like Vlod," he said with a small, nostalgic smile. "Bloody relentless."

"You'd better believe it."

"If you truly wish my company on the Path—"

"I do."

"—then you have it. For a contract, at least," he amended. "You may tire of me, and I'll not hold you to your offer."

He got up from the table and came around the edge to stand at her side.

"I'll buy us some supper," he said at last. "And get you some ale. We'll toast my brother and get to know one another again."

His hand fell to her shoulder, and he rested it there for a second, warm and firm.

"When I could," he said quietly, "I did miss you."

He walked off before she could respond.

She watched a thin stream of tiny bubbles trail up to the surface of his ale, her mind whirling and her heart near to bursting with emotion. 'When he could'? And he was so scarred, too young…

Vlodimir's absence from Olgierd's side throbbed like a bone-deep bruise. To never see that smile again or hear those ridiculous endearments—the loss hurt. It had to be so much worse for Olgierd, losing both his brother and his wife.

Geralt's words from her first morning back in the present still sat cold and worrisome at the back of her mind. Whatever mess O'Dimm had ensnared him in, it had clearly had a terrible impact on him. She wouldn't let knowing his story take him from her, no matter what Geralt had said.

A broad hand set a full tankard in front of her, jolting her from her thoughts.

"Innkeep will come 'round with supper soon," he said as he settled across from her again. He raised his tankard. "To Vlod."

"To Vlodimir," she echoed. "And to reunions."

"And to reunions." He took a swig and leaned back against the wall, warmth in his eyes. "Now. Tell it in full. What brought you back to Oxenfurt in search of that book, truly?"

Ciri laughed. "Well, to understand that, first you have to know that Geralt has some very unusual friends..."

The world narrowed around them as she spoke, shrinking to a rough wooden table lit by a flickering tallow candle. The concerns of the Path grew small and unimportant, the pain in her heart fading to a quiet background ache. The sounds of the patrons around them could almost be Olgierd's band. Vlodimir was just away for a moment, fetching another bottle for them to share.

He smiled at her, and the young man he'd been smiled with him.

She had him back. Older, sadder, scarred—she had him back.

And damned if she'd leave him behind again.

The sequel, On Another Path, can be found on Archive of Our Own under the same username