Nighttime was when Ciri felt like the world had finally eased to a stop and she could actually hear herself think for the first time all day.
Sometimes, though, her thoughts felt as loud as echoes in a cave and were quite difficult to organize; tonight was one of those nights, where her thoughts were so noisy that she couldn't sleep even when she closed her eyes and tried to force it. She couldn't help but envy Avallac'h, who had fallen asleep on his bedroll hours ago, whereas she was still wide awake and no closer to falling asleep even though it was already past midnight.
There weren't any inns in the area and they had been forced to make camp under the stars but such was life as a Witcher and Ciri wasn't one to complain. She could only hope that they would come across an inn or tavern in the next day or two so that they could sleep in a real bed.
Travel didn't always afford them the most comfortable sleeping arrangements and camping under a starry sky reminded Ciri of their time on the run, where their day-to-day arrangements had changed so frequently that there was no telling whether they would be sleeping around a campfire in the open or even under a noisy bridge like they had on their very first evening in Night City.
Ciri remembered doing so many odd jobs with lousy, under-the-table pay for weeks on end and had only started making decent money when Avallac'h managed to obtain a brain chip - illegally, of course - off a dead man named Goblin.
Despite the struggles they endured, Ciri still held a fondness for Night City, where the only concerns she had were figuring out how to put food on the table and navigating the intricacies of a world covered in metal instead of having to find another hole to hide in from Eredin.
She remembered the genuinely stunned look on Avallac'h's face when they first arrived in the city, which answered the question that Ciri had always secretly wondered about him: did he really know everything and how far did his knowledge extend?
Well, the answer to that question was that even Avallac'h was capable of learning new things and expanding his knowledge, thought what had been even more interesting how how the elven sage had… mellowed out over the course of six months that they had spent living alongside the humans from that world.
Being forced to interact with humans while he had been in the minority as the only elf in all of Night City had, dare she say, humbled him, even just a little.
Enough, Ciri! You're getting distracted! she silently scolded herself when she realized that she had spent far too much time daydreaming about her previous escapades.
Ciri forced out all thoughts of her time in Night City with Avallac'h and cracked open Magnificent Monsters and Where To Discover Them to the first chapter, feeling that she had enough energy to read through at least one chapter before bed. She knew that, if she didn't start on it now, she would always find some kind of excuse to get out of it later and then never end up reading it and that would have been a shame, especially since the book's subject matter was definitely right up her alley.
Nearly all of the pages featured detailed etchings of monsters she had never seen before, not even in her lessons with Vesemir, and one of the drawings that caught her eye was that of an ogre-like, bipedal monster called an Ośniak, which tended to congregate in groups of four to five members and was curiously immune to silver but could be taken down with a steel sword; however, there was also one particular description of its behaviors that truly made her cringe in disgust:
If a Nekker is nearby, Ośniaks have been observed to eat them before flinging the dead corpse at other Ośniaks or an intruder, if an unfortunate soul happens to stumble upon their territory.
"Gross..."
"You ought to rest."
"I can't sleep," Ciri admitted as she looked up from her book to lock eyes with him, though she couldn't see much of his features in spite of the glow from the crackling fire.
"Do try, Zireael. We've got a long day ahead of us."
Despite his prods, the witcher insisted on staying up a while longer but at some point, fell asleep despite her best efforts to stay awake, eyelids falling over her eyes like curtains as she laid down on her own bedroll and fell asleep within moments.
The elven sage, who had already been half-awake because he knew it was his turn to take a shift keeping watch, crossed the short distance over to where Ciri slept on her bedroll, earmarked the page she was on before sliding the book into her satchel for safekeeping and then proceeded to keep an eye out for danger while she slept.
This arrangement wasn't exactly the most ideal situation - he preferred sleeping at the same time as Ciri and didn't like sleeping in shifts because it left both of them feeling tired, grumpy, and reticent - but it was something that they simply had to deal with.
It reminded Avallac'h of being on the run, which felt as if it had only been yesterday that they had been fleeing from the Wild Hunt despite that not being the case. He was sure that it felt like a lifetime ago to Ciri and felt a twinge of frustration at how different they were, with him being a centuries-old elf and Ciri being a human with a lifespan that was a mere fraction of his own.
He didn't like thinking about how fragile she was despite her strengths and the Elder Blood but the truth of the matter was that Ciri could die quite easily if she overtaxed herself or wound up fighting too many monsters at once.
She was no longer his pupil but he still worried for her like she was because there was still so much she had to learn and even then, she might never come to harness full control over her powers.
Ciri likely thought that he was only traveling with her to ensure that the last source of Elder Blood didn't perish at the hands of bandits at some crossroad in the middle of nowhere, in spite of his claim that he was traveling with her to keep her out of trouble, but even Avallac'h was not sure if that was the case anymore.
He had left Tir ná Lia and all the comforts he knew of his world to walk alongside a witcher in the world of the Aen Seidhe and not just any witcher but the only witcher in the whole world who carried the Elder Blood in her veins.
The lines had become blurred long ago, back in a time when the Wild Hunt was still terrorizing worlds and chasing after Ciri with the intention of forcing her to use her powers to rip open the gate between worlds and move the Aen Elle to the safety of another world not yet touched by the White Frost.
Had they gotten their hands on Ciri, the ordeal would have killed her, Avallac'h thought grimly but of course, none of the Aen Elle felt an inkling of concern for a girl they only saw as a thief for possessing powers that she had never been asked to be born with. The only thing that had mattered was saving their own hides, and the thought made him sick.
Zireael deserves better, he thought, and decided to leave it at that before his thoughts became tangled up like a bag of snakes.
Avallac'h stood watch until morning and then they set out for the road, eventually coming across a large and bustling village whose main moneymaker appeared to be apple cider, for it was the very first thing the innkeep offered them.
Ciri ended up buying some for the road and asked the innkeeper what else he was selling. They had only plans to only stay for a day, long enough to restock their supplies and spend the night in a relatively comfortable bed before continuing onward with their journey but then they were approached by a man who recognized Ciri for her white hair and asked her if she had a moment to speak.
"Witcher, you must find my daughter! She went missing hours ago and I fear she'll be ripped alive by Nekkers!"
The farmer explained that his daughter had gone mushroom picking and directed her towards the caves where she was likely to be found, hopefully alive.
After agreeing on the amount she would be paid upon her return with his daughter, Ciri set out with Avallac'h on her heels - she insisted that he take advantage of the time they had to rest but he came along anyways - and eventually came across evidence of the daughter's presence in the form of prints in the dirt.
"Something's not right," Ciri quickly came to note.
The boot prints on the ground were indeed fresh but they were far too big to belong to a young girl, unless, of course, she had feet as big as that of a grown man's and weighed enough to make deep indentations in the ground, which Ciri doubted.
She had to see it through, though, and proceeded to follow the tracks until she and Avallac'h found themselves near the mouth of a cave, where the footsteps had suddenly turned around before disappearing into the grass west of where they stood. Ciri was about to make her way through the forest in search of the girl, only to stop when she heard a strange, metallic noise in the distance that reminded her of marching soldiers.
"Something's coming…"
Ciri and Avallac'h heard the clanking of metal before they saw the Nilfgaardian patrol and leading the soldiers was none other than the man who had asked him to find his daughter. It was when Ciri realized that the contract had been a ruse all along.
She quickly drew her sword and assumed a battle stance, eyes hardening as she balanced her weight on her feet and found herself teetering between holding back long enough to find out what a Nilfgaardian wanted with her or just flat-out attack them before they got the upper hand.
"Sheathe your sword!" the 'farmer' begged, holding up his hands in surrender. "We come in peace!"
"Right. If you're so peaceful, why did you corner me in the woods?" Ciri scoffed.
"Do you feel cornered? You could leave if you wanted to."
"Enough of the mind games! What do you want?"
The man passed her an envelope stamped with an ornate royal seal that she did not recognize but, not one to be intimidated, Ciri broke the seal and read the letter right in front of him, only to feel her heart drop into her stomach.
Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon,
I am writing to you to discuss an important matter, one that I would have preferred to discuss in person.
However, I am aware that it is not easy to get you to come to Vizima for an audience, given your… field of work, which is why I dispatched an emissary to deliver this letter to you by any means necessary.
Emhyr will be abdicating the throne to me. It is only a matter of time before he does, now that the War against Redania has been won.
I won't mince words when I say that your profession as a Witcher has completely removed you from the royal court but you stand to inherit the entirety of the Northern Kingdoms, should you agree to enter into a marriage with me. It is your birthright, after all, and there won't be any opposition from any of the nobility if you ascend the throne as Empress.
Please take the time to consider my proposal, for accepting it could prove to be beneficial to both of us.
Sincerely,
Morvran Voorhis
"You can tell him that I'm not interested," Ciri spat contemptuously as she looked up from the letter once she finished reading it.
"He asked that you take some time to consider his proposal before coming to a decision," the captain informed her, almost like he was pleading with her to reconsider, and it took all of Ciri's willpower not to roll her eyes.
"Then tell him to find some noblewoman to bed because I certainly won't! And if you bother me again, I won't be so nice next time!"
She gruffly told Avallac'h "let's go!" before storming past the Nilfgaardian patrol and back towards the village.
Avallac'h sensed Ciri was furious about the letter and decided to give her some time to stew. They parted ways, with the sage heading back to the inn on his own to bide his time and the witcher storming off into the forest. When Ciri still didn't return a few hours later, he departed the tavern in search of her and found her sitting on a rock in the woods with her head in her hands.
"Are you alright, Zireael?" he asked gently.
His question, however, was enough to make Ciri leap off the rock she had been sitting on and go off on a tirade as she paced back and forth, though Avallac'h couldn't blame her for her anger, not one bit. He only hoped she could keep her emotions in check to a degree, and not suffer a complete loss of control but even if it proved to be too much, he could easily rein her back in.
"I didn't survive the Wild Hunt just to marry some pompous Nilfgaardian! It's… it's like he thinks that I'm having second thoughts regarding my decision to become a Witcher! Shouldn't he be pleased that Emhyr is abdicating the throne to him? Isn't that enough?"
"Are you going to consider his proposal?"
"I would rather die to drowners in a Novigrad sewer!"
To her surprise, Avallac'h did not respond in anger and had a calm look on his face when she looked up at him to gauge his reaction, almost as if he had been completely unaffected by the notion of the Elder Blood perishing with her, and it made her feel uneasy when she should have felt comforted or, at the very least, reassured that the elven sage wasn't only concerned about her powers. It was odd seeing Avallac'h so calm, especially in a situation where she had mentioned the hypothetical end to the Elder Blood.
Would she have felt better if Avallac'h had snapped at her?
No, it would have made her feel worse but at the same time, such a reaction would have prevented her from feeling like she'd spoken out of line.
"Remember that nobody is forcing you to do anything, Zireael."
"Well, Voorhis clearly expects a certain answer from me!" she snapped.
In anger, she grabbed a nearby rock and flung it as hard as she could, sending it bouncing off a nearby tree trunk and rolling through the dirt until it finally came to a stop as it crashed straight into a moss-covered log. It didn't help her feel better at all and instead, made her feel foolish for acting so angry and childish.
"Eredin was dangerous but at least we knew how dangerous he was! Voorhis is… so much more dangerous than Eredin could have ever hoped to be and that is what scares me the most: that there is no telling how far he will go to get what he wants!"
Ciri winced as her voice cracked and as she bowed her head to hide her tears, she brought her arms around herself in an attempt to keep herself calm and steady right when she wanted nothing more than to release her emotions and scream to the high heavens. She was sorely tempted to teleport to Vizima and level the palace with Morvran Voorhis still in it, if only so she could get him off her back once and for all.
Instead, she was going to have to endure what was going to be a frustrating back-and-forth for the rest of her life and that was no exaggeration. Even if Voorhis eventually gave up his chase, there would always be someone else, some other opportunistic prince or king who would try to ensnare her in a loveless marriage whose only purpose would have been to gain control of the Elder Blood in her children and use it to control the world.
"Allow yourself to feel but do not allow your anger and frustration to consume you," Avallac'h advised gently despite knowing that there was a chance of Ciri snapping at him in anger but all she did was shake her head and scoff.
He sat himself down on the same rock Ciri had been sitting on and allowed her to cry as long as she felt she needed to, sensing that she needed to get it all out of her system before they could go back to the inn.
I can't do it, Ciri thought miserably. I can't marry him, not after everything that's happened.
There was no way she could become wife to the incoming Nilfgaardian emperor, certainly not after everything Emhyr and the Black Ones had done to everyone she'd loved at one point or another. At the top of the mountain of corpses lay the bodies of her mother and grandmother as well as her lost childhood, killed by Nilfgaardian soldiers under Emhyr's orders.
She was still picking up the pieces of her life and there wasn't a day that didn't go by where she didn't miss Pavetta and even more so Calanthe, in spite of having the best parents she could have ever asked for in Geralt and Yennefer.
Marrying Morvran Voorhis would have been a fate worse than death and the last nail in the coffin on her life as she knew it. After everything, she didn't want Emhyr getting the last laugh by catching a glimpse of her on the Nilfgaardian throne but she wasn't confident in her ability to keep her sword on her back and the crown off her head.
"Come, let us leave this place," Avallac'h gently suggested when he sensed that Ciri had managed to calm down. "Forget about him."
Ciri managed to clean herself up in the river so her eyeshadow wasn't running in dark streaks down her cheeks and then followed Avallac'h back to the inn, where they gathered their things, checked out of their room, and departed the village they had been staying at. The Nilfgaardian captain was nowhere to be seen, no longer sitting in the tavern where he had been posing as a villager worried for his missing daughter.
She didn't dare say it aloud but Ciri secretly wanted to avoid contracts for the near future, fearful that she'd run into more Nilfgaardians, but she forced the fear away and steeled herself as best she could, telling herself that it was irrational to be afraid to that degree. She couldn't allow Nilfgaard - or anyone, for that matter - to get in the way of her work.
In the end, nobody can force you to do anything you don't want, she reminded herself as she climbed into Kelpie's saddle, but even Ciri wasn't sure if she believed the lie she was trying to get herself to believe.