The Pup and the Cub

A/N: The make-up (or is it?) we've been waiting for! And the debut of one of Jaskier's famed songs about the White Wolf and his Pup. Set a little after the last episode, so Akela is about 18. Enjoy.


Summary: Geralt leaves Akela and Ciri to finally sort out their differences.


Two weeks is a painfully long time to be in the company of two girls who will not look at each other. Granted, the majority of it was Akela's fault—Ciri hadn't started anything—but though the princess had done well at ignoring any snide looks or remarks from his kid for the first two weeks, she seemed to have found her roar in the third.

He'd had to warn Akela innumerable times, threatening to leave her on the side of the road if she continued to be a bitch, but the moment Ciri had first clapped back, he'd well and truly given up. He could parent Akela, he was experienced in that, but telling Ciri what to do and what not to do, after everything she'd been through, didn't seem right. He wasn't her father.

So, he let them be. And it was agonising.

They'd remained at the farmhouse for some time with the elderly couple, letting his leg heal and allowing the princess to recuperate before they left, and they'd been on the road since. He was eager to make it to Kaer Morhen in the hopes that Eskel could provide a punching bag for Akela and use his power of words to help her find the right path again.

It had been snowing for the past two days. An incessant, harsh snowfall that'd soured everyone's moods even further. Ciri had fallen in a snowdrift twice, Akela was getting a cold, and he was tired, both mentally and physically. And so, when they reached the next village, he rented a room at an inn, one with two beds and an extra blanket so he could sleep on the floor.

As if that would help.

Sometimes, he missed the feeling of travelling alone. Alone being without either Ciri and Akela, back when he hadn't yet come across the basket, and his heart was still encased in ice.

"Please stop moving, Ciri. I'm trying to sleep."

"I'm not moving."

"You are. I can hear the covers rustling."

"Oh, gods."

"My name's actually Akela, but that was a nice compliment."

Geralt closed his eyes from his place on the floor and dragged both hands down his face. A moment of silence was all he needed. He would give anything for it. He would sell his soul for it. The sporadic words the girls had been tossing at each other from their separate beds were hammering into his brain, causing a throb he knew wouldn't subside unless they fell silent. He'd thought the comfort of the beds would help them fall into deep sleeps and catch up on what they'd missed while on the road, but apparently even the soft mattresses were no match for the unexplainable aversion they stupidly felt for each other—one more than the other.

"I wish I were somewhere else," Ciri said, that characteristic gentleness still in her tone. She may have found her roar, but she was still no more than a cub. And Akela, his infuriating Akela, was no more than an upset pup.

"I wish you were somewhere else, too."

"Perhaps I'll leave, then."

"Do you need any help?"

"None from you."

"Fuck! Enough! Both of you!" A low growl came from Geralt's throat as he shot up, turning towards the beds. The room was shrouded in darkness, but he could see them clearly, two blonde heads facing him, mouths shut tight against anything they might have wanted to say. "I have had it with your fucking arguing. I get that you don't like each other, I don't give a shit whether you do or not, but all I'm asking is for you to ignore each other, pretend the other doesn't exist, for all I care. Just shut. The fuck. Up!"

Anger built up over two weeks coursed through his veins like blood, and his fists clenched by his side. Both Akela and Ciri were quiet, but he did not currently have enough trust in them to believe they'd continue in their silence the moment he lay back down again. So, with a defining nod to himself, he stood to his feet and grabbed his cloak.

Akela sat up. "Where're you going?"

"Out."

"You're leaving us here?"

"To sort out your shit, yes." He tugged his boots on and stepped over the makeshift bed. "When I get back, I want you to be at peace with each other. Do you understand, Akela?"

"It's not just me!"

He walked to the door and pulled up his hood to cover his hair. Ciri's eyes were peeking at him from under her covers, Akela was still staring in disbelief, and he was more than ready to drink himself into a solitude that reality wasn't equipped to give him. "You started it," he bit out, pointing at Akela. "And if you don't finish it, I'll pass you onto Lambert for training once we reach the Keep, I can promise you that." She grimaced. "Do we understand each other?"

Before he could witness her meek nod, he spun around and strode through the door, shutting it behind him with a click.

The silence was deafening.

"Did he just... lock it?" Ciri asked quietly.

Akela visibly deflated, her jaw tense. "Probably." Her tone was monotonous. She flopped back down on her back and stared up at the ceiling while Ciri bit at her bottom lip.

Since Geralt had found her, she'd never been left alone with Akela. Not once. She'd figured Geralt was too scared to; perhaps he thought he'd return to a puddle of blood and a satisfied grin on the older girl's face. Ciri wondered briefly what the witcher's response to that would be. Would he gasp and reprimand and wonder what on the Continent had turned his child into the devil, or would he thank her for getting rid of a mistake he'd made once upon a time?

She blinked. No. Akela may not want her around, but she was sure Geralt was more inclined to let her live. He'd protect her.

For a month that had been majorly defined by a snowstorm, tonight was disturbingly lacking in it. It felt as though the world was teetering on the edge, biting its tongue as it looked on with bated breath and keen eyes, waiting for one of them to say something.

Ciri curled her hands around the blanket before asking softly, "Who is Lambert?"

Akela thought about ignoring her but realised with a stab in her heart that considering Geralt's words, ignorance would get her nowhere. Besides, it was a tiring thing, hating someone and not knowing why, though those feelings were still currently present.

"A witcher," she responded dully.

"Is he nice?"

She snorted. "Not really." There was the silence again, and the discomfort of the situation sparked through her. Akela ran her tongue over her lips. "Eskel is, though. And Coen. They're witchers, too. And Vesemir takes some time to get used to, but he's kind underneath it all."

"You know a lot of witchers."

Akela shrugged lightly. "I know of a lot of witchers, I suppose. There aren't many left, but Geralt tells me about the ones they've lost. Eskel, Coen, and Lambert are… they can be difficult, but they helped raise me. And Vesemir… don't ever call him Grandfather, but that's what he is, you know?"

She realised she wasn't sure if Ciri knew. She didn't know much about the princess at all, other than the fact she'd fled Cintra and had been hunted since. It was a petty couple facts to base an entire opinion off, she knew that, though they hadn't exactly been the cause of… whatever she was feeling.

"I won't call him that, then."

"If you want to live."

"Would he really kill me?"

"Maybe." She flicked her eyes over and noticed the slightly horrified glint in Ciri's eye. Five minutes ago, she might have revelled in that. "No," she corrected herself. "Vesemir's not like that. None of them are. They won't kill you."

"Oh." Silence again. Funny thing, silence. You either love it or you hate it. "I know you hate me, Akela—" Akela shut her eyes. Not this. Please, not this— "but I'd really like it if we could just… I don't know… do what Geralt suggested and ignore each other? Arguing is pointless." She sighed, and Akela knew that despite the younger girl's words, ignoring each other was the last thing she wanted. For some foolishly contradictory reason.

Akela clenched her jaw and drew in a sharp breath. She sat up and turned in her bed, the light of the withering candle on the wooden table between them highlighting her face as she looked across at Ciri. Ciri waited patiently, blinking in the illumination of the dancing flame.

"Do you know how Geralt and I came to be? Have you… heard any songs?" Akela's words were slow and pronounced.

Ciri shook her head. "No."

Akela took a second to marvel at that; it was rare she and Geralt came across someone who hadn't heard the songs and stories. For as much as she loved Jaskier, she sometimes missed the times before his songs became fable, when nobody knew the extent of the relationship between the infamous witcher and the girl that shadowed him, and nobody knew that Geralt of Rivia was capable of a beating heart. It'd been better, quieter, when they were the only person in each other's world, strangers travelling the Continent, masked from the outsiders.

Though she couldn't have expected less from the bard, to be perfectly honest.

Eyes dropping to her hands, she heaved a sigh and began to relay the story she'd never once had to say out loud.

"He found me in the woods when I was a few days old. No blankets, no clothes… just at the bottom of a basket." Ciri sat up, turning to face Akela. She crossed her legs in front of her and listened with an obviously keen interest. "I was crying," Akela continued, "and he heard me, and he found me. He saved my life that day. My parents—birth parents—had left me to die, to be eaten, and he saved my life." She swallowed an uncommon lump in her throat and frowned at the dark wall ahead, missing Ciri entirely. "He told me once he'd never intended to keep me, but something changed, and he did."

Ciri was clearly processing it. What she'd said had been true; she'd heard whispers of songs, snippets of verses containing a white wolf and a pup, but her grandmother had always steered her away from the bards and their instruments and troublesome tongues, instead pushing her in the direction of ballads and stories of famed warriors. It was only after she'd discovered her destiny that the reasonings for those steers and pushes became clear. Calanthe had kept Geralt a secret from her for so long, and though fate had been drawing Ciri in with those songs, the queen had been well-equipped in ensuring the names Geralt and Akela were not heard of until they had to be.

That had worked out splendidly.

She worried at her bottom lip and stared at Akela. Akela looked deep in thought, fingers clasped and still in her lap, but she seemed to shake herself from her reverie a few seconds later. Her blue eyes glanced up and locked onto Ciri's.

"I love other people," Akela stated, a firmness to her voice that hadn't been there before. "I love Eskel, and I love Lambert, and Coen, and Vesemir, don't get me wrong." The firmness grew tenfold, and her eyes seemed to bore into Ciri's. "But Geralt means more to me than all the worlds and all the universes combined. He saved my life, and then he became my life. Do you understand? I can't lose him. I can't have him taken from me. It's always been just us and Roach. And then he ended up asking for a child of surprise. You. And it wasn't just us anymore. Even in the years before now, the months before you were even born… I was young, but not young enough to not notice a change. It wasn't just us. And it isn't just us anymore. That's…" She swallowed again, but the lump didn't move. "Hard. A hard thing to… get used to."

Somehow, a flicker of something different appeared in Akela's eyes, and the desperation Ciri had noticed earlier died down. Akela opened her mouth to speak but found that the right words wouldn't leave her tongue. She shut her eyes and released the tension in her shoulders. "I know you lost everyone," she said, quieter than Ciri had ever heard her, "I'm sorry for that. I know what it feels like. I know he's really all you have too. But please…" She opened her eyes and glanced up. "Don't take my life away from me, Ciri."

Ciri wasn't too sure what to say in response to the revelation she'd been searching for. It really hadn't been what she'd expected. Yes, she'd noticed Akela's glare darken whenever Geralt had paid her more attention, and she'd seen the way Akela seemed to cling onto the witcher more than she probably needed to. But she'd never labelled that as… what even was it? She couldn't call it jealousy because it seemed unfair.

By all rights, Geralt was Akela's. Ciri wouldn't say she'd had the most social upbringing, but she'd had more than one constant in her life. When her grandmother was out fighting, she had Eist at home, and Mousesack and her friends from the village. Akela, though it seemed she'd had in-and-out visitations from a few people, and the occasional presence of other witchers, had never had anyone more than Geralt. At least when it mattered most. When she needed it most.

When Geralt was away fighting, Akela couldn't have been anything but alone, waiting in trepidation for her guardian to return. Even accompanied by other people, Ciri knew enough to know that Akela still would have felt deserted until she saw him again.

So, she could understand better now, why Akela had reacted so harshly to her from the moment they'd met. It wasn't because she was a princess, or because she came from a different lifestyle to hers… it was simple fear, ruling as it always did. Fear that Ciri, now alone herself, would take Geralt away from Akela and leave her with nothing.

She shook her head. "That… that was never my intention, Akela," she promised, sincerity clear in her voice. "You believe I would take him from you?"

Akela put her head in her hands. "I don't know. I don't know you. I was…" She groaned, searching for the words. "I don't hate you, Ciri, I never have. I was just…"

"Afraid?"

Akela laughed under her breath at Ciri's cautious suggestion. She shrugged and pushed her hair away from her face. "You could say so," she agreed. "I'm not… good at making friends. I don't have any my age. Everyone I know is either a mutant, magic, or an idiotic bard."

Ciri laughed. "I don't have many friends either. My grandmother kept me very sheltered."

"That must have been difficult."

"Sometimes. But I snuck out a lot… dressed as a boy."

Akela looked impressed. "Really? The Princess of Cintra disguised herself as a commoner? And a boy, no less?" She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the bed. "Did you ever get caught?"

Ciri twisted her face in contemplation. "A couple times. Once by Mousesack, but he let me stay and didn't tell my grandmother."

"It's a weird name, don't you think?"

"Mousesack?" She tucked some hair behind her ear and smiled at the memory of her old friend. "I'm not sure it's his real name. Whatever it is, he never told me. It doesn't really matter anymore."

"My friend, the bard, his name is Jaskier," Akela started in an attempt to steer clear of the morbid subject, "but I found out some time ago that his name is actually Julian."

Ciri snorted, hand flying up to cover her mouth. "Julian?"

"It gets worse. His middle name is Alfred."

The girls stared at each other for a moment. Ciri broke first, laughter bursting from her throat, and Akela followed not long after. She moved to lie back down on her bed, smiling giddily up at the ceiling. "I suppose you'll meet him one day," she said. "You'll like him. He'll probably write a song about you." Then, a moment later, "But he's mine, too, just so we're clear."

Despite the teasing inclination of her voice, they were clear. Ciri lay down and sighed, blinking against the darkness in the dwindling candlelight. "I won't take your family from you. All I want is safety, and… and people. So that I'm not alone. That's all. The last thing I want is to take Geralt from you. I didn't—I didn't…" She took a deep breath. "I didn't ask for this either. I want everything to go back to how it was, too."

"You miss your grandmother."

"Unlike anyone I've missed before."

Akela chewed at the inside of her cheek. "Geralt used to sing to me when I was younger," she said quietly. "I can sing for you, if you like."

Ciri's mother had sung to her. Her voice was one of the only things she remembered. Calanthe had never picked up the night-time ritual of lullabies before bed after Pavetta had died, so yes, Ciri decided, it would be nice to hear the lilt of a song again.

"That would be nice. Thank you."

Akela shut her eyes, the words of Jaskier's song swirling around her head. He'd told her once it'd been his favourite song he'd written, slaving over his lute for nights, and she found herself humming it sometimes to put her to sleep, the words a constant comfort.

"Starless sky, he walks beneath, the lone wolf stalking the night.

Accompanied by solitude, he hears a cry, and he grasps it tight.

A shadow in his shape, armed with his heart, he's bonded his life with her own.

Daughter of the wolf, child of the witcher, both no longer alone…"

She opened her eyes. "For the heart of the wolf is the pup, and the heart of the pup is the wolf."

Ciri was asleep before the final word of the song left Akela's lips. Akela squinted in the darkness and leaned over to blow out the remainders of the candle.

She was still for a while—how long, she wasn't sure—simply thinking to herself as she stared aimlessly upwards. There was a newfound ease encircling her now, a relief she hadn't known she'd needed. No longer was the princess a threat; well, not as much as before. She was something else now, something she couldn't quite wrap her head around yet, and though her concerns were very much still alive, she wouldn't pin them on Ciri. Geralt was still her guardian, still her best friend, and she was his. Ciri was a tag-along, for now at least.

She was blinking to stay awake by the time she heard the lock turn and the door creak open. Muted light flooded the room and then disappeared as the door was shut. Akela half-expected Geralt to return to his makeshift bed on the ground, but she was pleased when she felt the bed dip slightly as he sat on the edge. She listened to the thump of his boots as he shoved them to the floor and the slight whoosh of air as he took his cloak from around his shoulders. He stretched his legs out across the bed and lay down beside her, clasping his hands together on his lap.

"Is she asleep or dead?"

Akela rolled her eyes and turned on her side away from him. He smelled like ale and woodsmoke, with the tinge of familiar forestry. It was a comforting scent, always had been.

"Dead," she mumbled, just to spite him, then she relaxed. "We talked."

"About good things?"

"Mostly. I don't hate her so much anymore."

Geralt felt a wave of the reprieve he'd been searching for wash over him. Perhaps he'd enjoy the ride to Kaer Morhen from now on, though that would be asking for a lot more patience than he was currently capable of, even with the apparent final truce between the girls. The drinks he'd indulged himself in down at the tavern had just about eased the headache, but there weren't many hours left until dawn, and he was sure the pounding would return.

"I'm glad you think so."

"It doesn't mean we're best friends."

"Hmm."

"But she doesn't want to take you away from me."

"Surprise, surprise. The traumatised princess's master plan to kidnap me and leave you alone is no more."

Akela breathed a laugh before she rolled back to face him, and he cracked an eye open to glance down at her. "What is it?" he asked.

Akela reached for the medallion around his neck. "Nothing."

Geralt watched her a moment longer. He doubted it was nothing, but he wouldn't question her on it. Instead, he shut his eyes, feeling her move closer to him. "I told you you'd see things differently if you gave her the chance."

"You didn't give her a chance before deciding she was good."

"She's little more than a child, Akela. Of course I decided that. Assuming someone's good before you've met them is better than assuming they're not. You taught me that." He felt the warmth of her sigh against his neck. "I thought you didn't hate her so much anymore."

"I don't. But I wish it was still just us. Like before. I liked it better before."

He opened his eyes again as she settled beside him, her hand on his chest, clasped over his medallion, moving with the rise and fall of his breaths. Her own breaths evened out eventually, free hand somehow wrapped around his own, like she was holding tightly onto him for fear of losing him. Like he was her possession, her lifeline, something she simply couldn't afford to have taken from her.

One thing was for certain, he thought to himself as he felt the tension of the past weeks finally dissipate into the silence of the room, he doubted it would last long. Akela was a firecracker, but she was his firecracker, and though he hadn't said it, he was proud of her for supposedly sorting things out with the princess. Of course, she could have been telling the truth, and Ciri really could be dead in the bed beside them…

His eyes cracked open at that thought, his face instantly melding into a frown. He peered down at Akela, sleeping innocently against him, and wrapped one arm around her, dispelling those thoughts from his mind. She wasn't that much of a firecracker.

Still, he wouldn't bet on the fact that she'd leave Ciri alone for good now, and vice versa. There'd undoubtedly be spurts of newfound irritation shot at each other in the form of words and moody glares, but he was ninety-percent sure that for now, everything was okay. Akela didn't totally hate Ciri, and she hopefully held no residual feelings of abhorrence for him either, if her grip on his arm had anything to say for it.

He hummed as he settled again. The moment they got to Kaer Morhen, Akela would hopefully settle more. He hated seeing her so out-of-sorts, but he was optimistic Vesemir would be able to help him on that account. He usually could. Or Eskel. Or anyone, really; it seemed as though he wasn't working as well as he was sure he once had.

He wondered how Ciri would get on with his brothers and old mentor. As long as she didn't call him Grandfather, she'd be fine with Vesemir. And Eskel and Lambert… he sighed drearily to himself, moments away from sleep. Those two could be difficult, but with Akela's—perhaps, or perhaps not, reluctant help—hopefully she wouldn't find it too overwhelming.

Sleep took over his body quickly, and he eventually drifted off in the hazy safety of knowledge that though his and Akela's 'normal' would not be returning, this, the girl in the other bed, had the possibility of becoming a new normal that he could be able to live with.

He only hoped Akela could learn to do the same.

For the heart of the wolf is the pup, after all, and the heart of the pup is the wolf.