Wild Rabbit

A/N: Akela is 16.


Summary: Akela meets her mother—the mother who, as the stories go, left her to the monsters in the woods. Fortunately, she was found by Geralt before they could get her, but it's safe to say she's not happy to see this woman… and neither is Geralt.


She had always said it.

She had always said that, if ever she was to come face-to-face with her parents, she wouldn't care. She would turn her back on them and leave without sparing them a second glance.

It was, after all, the least they deserved. They had left her out in the woods, alone, only hours old, not even a scrap of material to cover her naked body in the wicker basket on that cold night. That told her everything she needed to know. Who needed details when she had that much?

Of course, she knew that the chances of actually meeting them one day were slim. They'd left her as a new-born, and that had been sixteen years ago. She doubted they'd looked at her before they'd thrown her away. They'd missed the childhood aspects Geralt noticed in her today—the fact her eyes had never changed colour, and she had the same blonde hair, and the same smile he'd first seen when she was two months old.

To them, she would look like any village girl. She was sure of it. Which only became uncertain after a shadow fell over her while she waited for Geralt, sat on a fence, rubbing Roach's nose. She would have looked up, but she'd been trained to notice the smallest signs of danger, and this shadow was full of it. So, she kept her head down, discreetly moving one hand to grip the sword at her side. "What do you want?" she asked quietly.

The response came slow. "Are you—do you… you travel with the white-haired witcher?"

It was a voice of genuine curiosity, and yet Akela still detected the tension. It sounded as though it came from a way off. Possible chance of attacking. He said they did that. Waited until the right moment.

She lifted her head to look properly. "I'm sorry?"

"The witcher… the White Wolf… do you travel with him?"

A woman. She didn't sound dangerous, but he said they never did. When Akela focused on her, she had to blink in slight surprise. The woman did, too, before she opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. "You're pretty," she said after a short while of miming a goldfish.

"What?"

"You're pretty." So was she, Akela decided, though she didn't want to make it obvious that she'd been subtly looking her up and down. She was young, with long blonde hair and bright eyes—like… no—and she wore tattered clothing.

"And…" She stepped forward and Akela tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword. "Your eyes. They're mine."

What? "I don't—"

"I'm your mother," she blurted out.

Akela's heart skipped a beat and words clogged up her throat. She could feel her hands get clammy and she fumbled beside her to grasp the side of Roach's bridle for support. She steeled herself. "You can't be."

The woman stepped forward again and Akela held a hand up, a warning. The woman halted, but her face contorted into one of pain and she blinked, an innocence veiling her. Roach fidgeted beside Akela, nosing into her hair.

"What do you mean?" the woman asked, clasping her hands in front of her.

"You don't…" Akela shook her head. "You don't look like the type of person to abandon their baby." It was rather blunt, she could admit, but she'd never said something truer. The woman had a kind face, however nervous she also seemed, and perhaps in another life, Akela would have looked upon it with something other than contempt, but here and now, in this world, in this life, she felt uncomfortable. She felt like she needed to get away. So, she averted her eyes and glanced quickly around. No sign. How long did collecting money for a striga hunt take?

"No, no—that wasn't my fault, child—"

Akela's face darkened. "Don't call me child."

The woman turned desperate. "But… you are my child."

"No, I'm no—"

"Is this her? The girl?" An old man came hobbling with a stick, silver hair and the smell of ale on both his clothes and breath. He paused next to the woman, giving Akela the chance to quickly study him. Butterflies began to swarm in her chest. She'd been trained by the best, but the best was usually there with her. There weren't many instances in which she was forced to deal with danger without it.

The woman nodded, hands fidgeting once more. She ducked her head slightly when he turned to look at her. "Yes, Father."

He limped forward, grunting under his breath, eyes roving over Akela. "Mm. You'll do," he grumbled.

Akela stared at him, knuckles white from their grip on her sword and Roach's bridle. "I'll do? For what?" She glanced between the two of them. "Who are you people?"

The old man nodded to his daughter.

"Sixteen years ago, I gave birth to a baby girl and-and was forced to give her up," the woman told her. Akela felt a swell of anger in her chest, and she shifted from one foot to the other, reining in the plethora of emotions coursing through her brain.

"Why?"

The woman opened her mouth to answer but was swiftly interrupted by her father, who stepped forward once again, entirely too close for Akela's liking. "Because the boy who'd knocked her up died… tragically… and she couldn't very well do work on the farm with a little fucker on her breast, could she?" He reached up and grasped Akela's chin, turning it this way and that while he analysed her disgusted face. "But," he continued, "now you're older, you'll do perfectly as an extra stable hand."

Akela quickly wrenched her chin from his calloused hands, moving backwards enough for Roach's massive head to be stuck between them. "Get off me!" she hissed. She readied herself to fight as he snarled and lifted his stick to aim at her, but a moment later he was stumbling back, hand clutching his bloody nose, stick laying on the floor. Akela's panicked eyes snapped over to the one who'd punched him.

"Lay another finger on her and I cut it off," Geralt told him, a fire in his amber eyes. Akela swallowed her fear and stood directly behind him.

Geralt glared at both the man and the woman, alternating between the both of them, obviously attempting to figure out the situation at hand. "Who are you?" One hand subconsciously reached behind him, stopping once his fingers brushed against the girl, and he drew it back after, sliding out the dagger at his belt as he did so and stepping a foot forward when the man didn't answer immediately.

He flinched and lifted his chin to stare up at Geralt, who looked nothing less than pissed. "This girl's grandfather." He jerked his head in the woman's direction. "And she's the mother."

Geralt's head spun around to face Akela. His dark eyebrows furrowed, frown lines creasing his forehead while she looked at him with an expression of as many questions as were racing through his own mind. She shrugged, and he hummed before he moved back around again to face both the man and the woman.

"This girl," he said, "has a name. I gave it to her. Because her own mother—" Here, he turned his attention to the woman. She was the mother, no doubt about it. Something about the eyes— "didn't have the guts to keep her."

The woman rapidly shook her head. "I wanted to!"

"You made her give her up?" he asked the man. It was usually the fathers. Fathers who thought they owned their daughters and could make them do whatever they wished because it was their right.

The man scoffed. "She was seventeen and her little boyfriend was dead. It was either that or she could leave with the brat."

Geralt's jaw tensed, but he grabbed hold of his temper and looked back at the woman. "Did he give you that option?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Then you should have taken it. What kind of parent chooses anything over their child's life? You could have taken her away somewhere else and given the both of you a chance, but you didn't." He stared into her eyes, Akela's eyes, blue like the sky during its stormiest of days, though older and dimmer. He despised it.

He turned and steered Akela, still quite shell-shocked, towards Roach.

"Please, Sir! I want to take her back."

"Take her back? You have no claim over her."

"She's my daughter—"

"No, she's mine." He turned suddenly and took several large steps towards her. She scurried backwards as his eyes bore into hers, daring her to challenge him, and she had the good sense to shut her mouth and dip her head in defeat. Geralt's eyes locked onto her, grounding her there until he turned his attention to the old man, still nursing his bloody nose. "How long have you been following us?"

His drooping eyes looked gratingly up to Geralt. "A week."

"How did you know it was her?"

"Everyone knows the stories. We took a chance. Pretty heroic thing, that was, taking the baby. Not too emotionless after all, are you, Witcher?"

"How do you know she's yours?"

The woman nodded towards Akela. She was leaning against Roach, gripping onto the saddle in the only support she had now that Geralt had moved away. "She has my eyes."

"That's the closest you will ever get to her," Geralt told her. He glanced down at his dagger and twirling it in his fingers before returning it to his belt. "I'm sorry for what your father made you do, but you were old enough to know that your child comes first. You should have left."

The old man chuckled and straightened his crooked back. "Look at that, Missy. Left her to the wolves but instead, she got a witcher."

Anger bubbled up inside Akela—she took after Geralt in that—and she pushed past the witcher and punched her grandfather's nose in the exact place Geralt's fist had met only minutes ago. From behind her, a dark eyebrow rose, and a tiny smirk graced Geralt's lips.

"And I'm happier than I would have ever been with you, you pig!"

The woman smiled. "Your father's spirit."

"Don't try that crap with me," Akela jibed in the woman's direction. "My mother's eyes, my father's spirit… you're not my parents. Geralt is. Both of them. One man, and he's doing a better job than you and your boyfriend would have done together." She was surprised to find tears welling in her eyes. But she'd never had to deal with something like this. What even was 'this'? A damn right mess. "Please, just—just leave me alone. I don't want to see you again." For a moment she felt lost, but when she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder, she regained her composure and walked back to Roach. Geralt helped her up and leaned forward to speak.

"Ride on ahead," he said, "and I'll catch up with you. Don't go further than the crossroads." She nodded and, without a second glance to the woman who called herself her mother, turned Roach towards the path ahead.

"I-I only wished to make amends," came the soft voice not a second later. Geralt didn't turn around.

"You shouldn't have to make amends with your own child. You made the decision to give her up, and that's something unchangeable and unforgiveable." He faced her. "If you wanted your child back that much, then you should have come for her earlier."

Her bright eyes blinked, and she stepped back, an acceptance Geralt could acknowledge. He looked at the old man.

"Follow us again and you won't make it back home," he told him, and he only turned and began to walk off in the direction Akela and Roach had taken after he saw a flicker of subjugation shining on the old man's bloodied face.

"A shame, really," he called back as he walked. "You missed out on a lot. The both of you. And, a bit of advice—" He allowed himself a smirk— "perhaps you should get your nose looked at."

The moment he disappeared from sight the old man cursed. "That fucking witcher!" he all but screamed.

The woman shook her head. "Don't, Father. We should never have come for her. She's happy with him."

"We need workers for the damn farm!"

"We'll find some," she assured him, "but not her. Leave her be. He's giving her the life I was too much of a coward to."


Geralt found Akela waiting where he'd told her to, sat on Roach in the middle of the crossroads. She was staring at her hands where they wrapped loosely around the leather reins, face a troubled mess of thoughts. She didn't even notice him as he walked up to her. He stared for a moment, then hummed, pat Roach's neck, and grasped her bridle, turning towards the forest path.

There was a gentle quietude between them, the only sound the gentle crunching of leaves as Roach's hooves walked over them. After a short while, Geralt stopped at a small clearing. He dropped his hands and walked to Roach's flanks. Akela glanced—strangely self-consciously—down at him. His face softened. "Are you alright?"

She swallowed thickly and looked back to her fidgeting hands. A half-hearted shrug followed not long after. "Is it okay not to be?"

"Come here," he said, reaching his arms up, and no hesitation came when Akela turned and gripped them. He lifted her down, but her feet had barely touched the forest floor before they wrapped themselves around his waist, arms entwined around his neck and head resting on his shoulder. He was surprised, but he didn't jump to remove the leech suddenly attached to him, instead leading Roach one-handedly to a sturdy looking tree branch and expertly tying her to it before walking a short way off and lowering the both of them to the ground. Even sat down, Akela didn't move to pull away from him, only lifting her head when he tapped the back of it. "Are you hurt?" he asked, and she shook her head, reaching up to wipe at her eyes.

"But I hurt him," she told him, a teary smile on her lips, and he mirrored it.

"Hmm. My wild rabbit." The nickname hadn't been brought up since she'd been a child, something the witchers at Kaer Morhen had taken to calling her, but he found himself coming back to it now more than ever. A wild rabbit: sweet, but untameable, with a nasty bite she wasn't afraid to use.

"Are they going to follow us?"

Geralt shook his head, rearranging her on his lap. Gods forbid she ever believe that she was too big to fit—which, she was, but who was judging? "Not if that old man wants his nose to remain attached to his face."

She leaned against him, head finding its place under his own, and stared ahead. Her eyes followed an autumn leaf swirling down from a tree. "I don't want to talk about it again. Can we do that? Pretend it didn't happen?"

He looked down at her, studying her. He'd truthfully never wondered about the possibility her parents may find her one day. Perhaps it'd always been somewhere in the back of his mind, but he hadn't unsettled himself over it. He certainly hadn't expected it. He also hadn't had any idea how she'd react to it, but if she wanted to ignore it, then he'd comply with that. As long as she knew he was always ready to talk about it, if she ever wished to in the future.

"Alright," he agreed, "what's done is done and what's said is said. We won't talk on it anymore."

As far as everyone was aware, Geralt was the only family Akela had and needed, and that was beyond perfect. The old man had told her she'd been left to the wolves, but instead, she'd received a witcher. He couldn't have been more wrong. A wolf had taken her in. A wolf had kept her alive. A wolf had introduced her to his pack, and they'd helped raised her, and protected her, and loved her with a ferocity only a loyal animal could.

It took a good man to be father, mother and grandfather all at once, and Geralt was just brilliant.