"I don't get it."
Dandelion stopped fingering the strings of his lute and stared at Geralt, perplexed. One of the butterflies mistook the plume on his hat for a flower and added to the décor investigating. The troubadour's attire was the brightest among the assortment of herbs presented on the field outside Novigrad's walls the pair of friends chose for a few lounging hours. The weather was outstandingly inviting.
Geralt looked up at him with a questioning rise of an eyebrow. "What?"
"You told me about all things Crach, the bloody druid and a whole bunch of bloody Skelligans I don't even know, then Ciri and all things Ciri… But what of her? Wasn't she with you two at all?"
Geralt frowned, reluctant to call out the name. "Why, she's been there. Enjoying the festivities just the same, more so with Ciri, for it's the time with her we have been robbed of most."
"Uh-huh," Dandelion hummed, eyeballing the Witcher ironically. "It's not like I expected some sultry details of how you two snuck away more than once to have a festivity of your own. It really never happens when you two are stuck at some royal feasts where the most exciting part would be some noisy drunk making winds and thundering laughter. Or have you been killing time with cards?" He squinted in mock doubt. "Highly unlikely the said lady would have let you out of her hand for longer than it takes to bring her refreshment."
Geralt rolled his eyes and lowered onto his back, put his hands beneath his head watching the cloudless sky.
"Geralt! We can do it the hard way – you know I will pester you until you can't hide it anymore – or it will be easy and you just tell me what happened?"
"So you would write another ballad to embarrass me all around the paths I travel?"
He heard the bard gasp. "How dare you! I would never embarrass you! My ballads are what makes people happy, Witcher. You wouldn't understand, your field of work is too brash and violent, but your trophies shall never outlive the stories people pass on to next generation."
He waited a beat or three and, seeing Geralt kept silent, shifted closer.
"Come on, Geralt, is it so… bad? I won't write a ballad, I swear, just… you're so… just tell me what's wrong? I know something is wrong, don't even try to deny it, you shall wound me. I know you and you cannot lie."
The Witcher sighed, wondering how he could tell about something he couldn't figure out himself.
"Ciri will tell me anyway," Dandelion put in. "So we better take care of covering your side of the story before I have to rely on someone else's ideas."
"Remember the djinn?"
Dandelion hesitated, attempting to think of how it mattered. "How could I not – the bastard almost stole my life, and more importantly, my voice! It would have been the greatest tragedy of the modern world. What of it? It found and attacked you?"
"No, of course not. It's… about that wish."
"Oh?" The perk of curiosity was back in his voice; he shifted even closer. "Don't do this to me, Geralt. Speak! You make me ache with all the suspense!"
Geralt sighed and opened his mouth and began to speak. The birds chirped, the cicadas chirred, and Dandelion's nimble fingers danced over the lute's strings as he listened intently.
Ciri woke while the hour was still early, to the sound of a rooster alerting the town to the rising of the sun. She turned to look at Yennefer who appeared to still be sleeping. It was good she had managed to get some rest. At least Ciri hoped that was the case.
Unwilling to wake her, Ciri slipped out of bed and haphazardly pulled on her boots. She stealthily made her way out of the room and into the main area of the inn, stepping over a few passed out farmers on her way to the counter.
"This always happens," the innkeeper's wife said as she brought a heap of freshly washed tankards out from the kitchens. "Always a few who don't make it back to their own beds."
"You don't mind?" Ciri asked, leaning her elbows on the counter.
The woman smiled. "I prefer 'em this way. Unconscious and quiet."
Ciri breathed a laugh and nodded her understanding. "Is there any food?"
"Aye. Just collected the eggs a few minutes ago and the bread is still hot out of the oven. I'll bring some to your room in a few."
Ciri gently tapped her hand on the wood and pushed away, heading back to Yennefer. "Thank you."
So unused to the likes of crying and the headache it induced, when Yennefer woke up the next morning, it was with a heavy head and an even heavier eyes.
When she did eventually manage to pry them open and saw the bed empty beside her, save for Geralt's pillow, sufficiently squeezed in the middle of the night, slightly melded from both sides.
For a time, her heart seemed to falter when she sat up and realized that she was completely alone.
"Ciri?" Yennefer asked, hopeful that maybe the girl had chosen to have a bath or had gone to relieve herself.
What if she'd left, though? What if what Yennefer had said the night before had worried her so that she fled?
Yennefer tried to remain calm, the exhaustion evaporating as she slid from beneath the sheets and got to her feet. Maybe Ciri had gone for breakfast?
Yennefer closed her eyes, scrubbed her hand against her face and slowly moved toward her vanity, moving to sit down in front of it, flinching as she studied the unfamiliar face. Her hair was in disarray, her make-up had streaked and there were dark circles beneath her eyes that were tinged with darkness. She was ugly, so ugly. She brought a hand to her face, scrubbing at the black streaks that imitated her tears, unconcerned that it had and the flesh had started to redden as she furiously scrubbed away the reminders.
"This is…" Dandelion, for the first time in ages that Geralt had known him, was lost for words. Utterly flabbergasted upon hearing the tale. "This is unbelievable… Impossible! Maybe it's some kind of a trick on that djinn's part? Maybe it tricked you both and did something to you to scorn Yennefer?"
"Why would it need that?"
"Because they're all mad to be summoned! They are ready to kill for it! It couldn't harm her, but you weren't his master at the time."
Geralt thought about it and shrugged. "Your idea makes sense, except for I have no clue what it could be that he's done to me. I didn't feel any different until she asked me… Well."
"Oh, Geralt, you don't understand! It can't be true, it's absolutely tragic! … However…" He stared at the ground in front of him, pensive and focused, fingering his lute. "Tragic ballads are so outrageously popular - but if the epic love still has even the slightest hint of hope to it. And I believe in what you have with her, Geralt. I always had. Your story just can't end like this. No, it's impossible. I refuse to believe it's how it ends."
"Believe what you will, Dandelion," Geralt said, closing his eyes for a moment, listening to the sounds of starting summer around him, intensified by his mutated senses. "It doesn't change what I don't feel."
"There must be a way to reverse it! We have to try! Look at yourself, Geralt, your cheeks are smooth! You shaved! Why? Not once in my long memory of travelling with you had you had any yearning to maintain such trait, nor had any of the fine vixens we met objected to your stubble. If you ask me, I'd say most of them loved it that way. So why would you do it now? I'll tell you why: because the certain famous sorceress has a taste too refined and finicky and you've just came back from being around her. And shaved this morning."
The Witcher reflected on his reason and didn't really like it. "I did because I wanted to."
"Pardon my dialect, but bollocks, Geralt. Darn bollocks. You did it out of habit. Because her opinion still flies high on your horizon."
Habit, he said. Geralt frowned, mulling it over.
What if the whole bond they had was also a sort of a morbid habit? He latched onto Yen out of some deeply rooted need to belong?
Unsettled, he tried to push the thought away.
"Do you have any new ballads, Dandelion? I could use anything at all to change the subject. Please."
The poet grumbled. "Ah well, all right. But this conversation is not over."
Geralt chuckled, despite himself. "Keep it for Ciri's return. With me, this discussion is closed. Go ahead, I know you want to brag about your new piece. Do me the honor."
"Before I do, allow me the last thing: answer my question. And then we're done discussing this. Deal?"
Geralt groaned. "Fine. What is it?"
"With all honesty, Geralt, tell me: would you truly want to never have made that wish to have nothing to lose now? Would you want to, maybe...never have known her?"
Geralt thought about this carefully. He thought about their fight with the first djinn, about her defiance and her tempting him with all the things he could have wished for. He thought of her fury when they met at the golden dragon hunt. He thought of how she stared at him with her daring cold eyes demanding he stopped pouting over finding out about her other lover who wanted Geralt out of the picture to propose to her – and how she refused to choose between them. He thought about Essi the Poet and how her desperate love horrified him to think of how Yennefer had been forced to tolerate his all those years.
('You know how it is. We're made for one another, but nothing would come out of it. … Kiss me and let me go.')
"I would," Geralt murmured his answer like a man in a dream.
Dandelion was completely quiet - so uncharacteristically silent Geralt thought he might have imagined the poet's presence.
Just like his bond with... with... Yennefer...
He blinked and raised his head to throw a look at Dandelion. "You promised a ballad."
"Oh... Yes," he shook his head to clear his mind like someone who had been consumed by a deep reverie. He flashed the Witcher a smile. "Just wait till you hear this, my friend, you will be humming it to yourself in the sleep for a week."
His fingers began their dance, pulling a beautiful melody, and he sang.
Geralt closed his eyes and let his mind drift off.
Ciri opened the door silently and entered the room. Though it turned out there was no need for caution. Yennefer was up, sitting at her vanity and studying herself.
Ciri wondered briefly if she'd somehow brought all this furniture with her from whatever base she had nowadays. They were too pretty to be the inn's own.
"Morning," Ciri said, offering a smile. "Breakfast is coming. How are you feeling?"
Relief flooded the sorceress as soon as the bedroom door opened.
She hadn't left.
Yennefer let her hands fall away from her face, away from the powder she had been applying and the added rouge.
"Tired," she added truthfully. "I haven't felt that way in over five or six decades. Did you sleep well?"
"Not too bad," Ciri fibbed, for sleep never truly came peacefully for her. Not since she was a child. Adulthood and all its woes. "What are you planning to do in Novigrad? Are you going after Geralt?"
Yennefer hadn't even considered going after him as an option. He'd fled from her for a reason and she was satisfied to give him that space, if only to protect herself while she tried to nurse his rejection.
"I thought I'd travel, go on to some other town and find my way back to Nilfgaard for a while. You're more than welcome to join me, unless you'd like to go to Novigrad?"
Ciri flinched subtly. "Nilfgaard?"
Taking a seat on the foot of the bed, she was silent a moment, trying to sort through her own thoughts.
"Have you any contact with the Emperor?"
Ciri's change in demeanor didn't go overlooked as her relation to Nilfgaard and her father had never been an easy one. Yennefer wished she could make it easier on her.
"As of this time? None. The last time I had contact with him was when Geralt and I had needed him in relation to finding you."
But that had been a little while ago.
"I thought I could make an ephemeral turn in Tarnhann."
One of the smaller cities, one of the few that although like most judged her, they were more open and tolerate of what she did and seeking her help.
"You know, just until— this passes."
This feeling of loss and helplessness that she was unused to.
"Will it pass?" Ciri asked, relieved to know the sorceress wasn't in close contact with her father at current. It wasn't that Ciri didn't ever want to see him again, or that she was even curious of what he wanted her for, but it was complicated. Even when she was hunted she had a certain freedom she'd never experience should she return to her place at court. "Geralt said he would come back for me. If I stayed here."
Maybe that would urge Yen to stay as well? Already Ciri felt as though she was supposed to choose. And she didn't want to.
Yennefer had no way in which to answer the girl and her own heart's rapid beat wasn't helping either. It seemed to mock her and the idea that she could ever run away from it – from him. Oh, she had tried, done it for many years and somehow they always found their way back.
"He said he was coming back?"
She knew he wouldn't abandon Ciri, he wouldn't have dreamt of it, but he'd fled so quickly she assumed that he was giving Yennefer time to make her escape as he knew she would.
"You want to stay?"
Ciri wasn't sure if she should tell her the truth. It would hurt her to be with Geralt now, she knew that. But wouldn't she hurt no matter what? "I want to stay with my family." She sounded more like a child than she had in a long time. "That's you and Geralt. Both of you. I don't know what to do now you can't be in the same town together."
As much as Yennefer hurt, the look on Ciri's face was enough to temporarily shut it down, to force the mage to see outside of herself, to accept that perhaps she deserved this nothing from him. She had taken it for granted before and here she was willing to run away again even after she knew she had pushed him to it.
What to do, though? Yennefer felt broken, she felt lost and she couldn't imagine a repair that would hold.
Aside from Ciri.
Maybe she'd keep Yennefer from falling apart and diving into her older habits? Ciri's pleading had surely reached her and she didn't want to leave the girl again – not after she'd been gone so long already.
"I'll stay. I'll stay with you."
Ciri's lips quirked in a hopeful smile. "Really? Even after he comes back?"
She knew he would. He wouldn't have said so otherwise.
"Even then."
Yennefer's heart even gave a hopeful thump at the prospect. Who knew that despite it all, despite the heartache and numbness and the window he'd given her to escape, that she'd still want to see him and be with him? Oh, it would hurt to know that the connection itself wasn't really there, but maybe, just maybe Yennefer could settle like he had for the scrapes that little she could manage?
"It's not as if he's the plague. He just doesn't love me anymore."
Ciri got to her feet and searched for her sword. Now that they had decided they weren't leaving at once, she'd have time to give it a proper cleaning after breakfast. "I don't believe it. That he doesn't love you, I mean. You don't just suddenly fall out of love with someone."
Yennefer turned back to the mirror, studying her reflection and the uncharacteristic horror she hadn't seen since before she even became a sorceress.
"He's a Witcher. He isn't meant to love."
The same way the sorceress wasn't and shouldn't be able to and now knew she did.
"Magic is a powerful source, you know that. The way it was cast, at the time, I was weakened and perhaps he was, too. It could have crept in and locked on. It was what it was meant to do."
At least it explained in part that particular connection they'd had or he'd had to her, even if it hadn't really changed in essence for her.
"If you say so." Ciri still didn't believe it. Not meant to love? That was something people who were afraid of their own emotions said. Never once had that been instilled in her during her Witcher training.
There was a knock on the door and the innkeeper's wife entered with a tray laden with the breakfast she had promised, as well as a pot of tea. She set it on the small circular table next to Yennefer's megascope, which she eyed curiously before excusing herself and exiting again.
Ciri put her sword aside and took a seat, always hungry. "What do you love about him?"
Yennefer had managed to untangle her unruly locks by the time the breakfast arrived, but no sooner the door had opened, had she whispered an incantation of invisibly and disappeared from sight.
She had a certain reputation to uphold and being unkempt wasn't one of them.
When the door closed, she reappeared again, finishing with the knot she'd been fighting with and looking a tad more like the self that she'd lost the day before.
She got to her feet, walked over to the bath and used the cold water to splash her face, wiping away the last rouge so she could reapply, all the while thinking of what it was she loved about Geralt.
There was a lot.
"What I most loved was that he always had this uncanny ability of knowing me even when I wasn't sure I knew myself. It's been that way since day one and so far, the only person to date I feel that has seen every bit of who I am and doesn't judge me for it. I never thought it possible to be loved like that, to be seen in my entirety and not have someone repelled by it."
Yennefer hadn't meant to add the last out loud, but it had been there, one of the many staples of her past that had driven her to that point of desperate disbelief where only the djinn had the true answers.
Ciri hadn't even noticed Yen's disappearing act until she re-emerged out of thin air.
Sorceresses – so vain.
She cracked an egg and rolled it along the table, picking the shell apart while Yennefer talked. "Love. Not loved," Ciri corrected her, only because she didn't want to find out the feelings had disappeared on Yen's end as well. How would they ever find their way back together if that was the case?
"And," Ciri paused with the egg, fixing her with a perplexed look, "who could ever be repelled by you?"
Yennefer arched a brow, lips quirking into a tickled smile at Ciri's question. She was sure Ciri wasn't deaf to what people said about Yennefer when she was around or not. Sure, superficially they appreciated a good thing, but it never went further than that. Geralt, on the other hand, extended both ways in equal measure and usually their passion appeared to be on the same level.
Even if at times it had been terrifying.
"Guess you'd be surprised."
She used the wrap she'd fallen asleep in to dab her face dry, walked to her clothing trunk and removed some clean undergarments, quickly stepping into them and dressing.
When she was done, she headed back over to the dresser and applied her face anew.
"Preparing to join the festivities again?"
Ciri eyed Yennerfer's undergarments with mild envy. Even as a child she'd thought the sorceress the most beautiful and powerful woman, and a part of her had wanted to be just like Yennefer. Ciri didn't necessarily understand all the hardships her powers or beauty could bring. She just saw the glamour. And loved the fact she didn't wear poofy dresses.
"No," Ciri said after a moment's contemplation, helping herself to a slice of bread to have with her egg. "I'm staying by your side."
Yennefer regarded her in the mirror with a smile, deciding she'd keep the last few touches for later and moved to join her with the breakfast.
Unlike Ciri, the mage didn't bother rolling and peeling her own egg, she simply waved another hand and cleared them all, helping herself to a neatly peeled one.
"Shall we play a hand of Gwent?"
"We need to get to Skellige," Dandelion announced as Geralt finished making a fire and settled at it next to him to boil the needed oil. A pack of harpies had been bothering a village a few miles from Novigrad, and he had all the evidence to pinpoint their nest's location.
"I have work to do," he argued, rummaging in the saddlebag for ingredients. "More people will get hurt unless I take care of it now. I wouldn't have returned otherwise."
"As if," Dandelion scoffed and fed the fire, blowing at it to get the flames brighter. "Nevertheless, Ciri must be awfully disappointed in you – abandoning her so soon after finding. You must be ashamed of yourself. And ready to rectify this monstrous choice of yours. I'm even going to be so generous as to go with you."
"No ships sail there now, nor would you tolerate their climate."
"See, that's the point: I hate, absolutely hate their cold and winds – it never compliments my complexion. But for you and Ciri I'm willing to get over it for the sake of a hearty reunion. What do you say? I know a sorceress who would help."
"Didn't they all flee the city?"
"I know people who know people."
"You'd even leave that cabaret of yours?"
"Priscilla would do just fine, she's very meticulous and I believe she's been born to manage a cabaret, more so than I could ever hope to learn. It will be fine. Just say you're in. I miss Ciri too much to sit here and wait, besides, your stories of the Skelligan feasts got to me. I'm sure Zoltan misses me bitterly."
"I need to do this job, Dandelion. Don't be a child."
"I'm not stopping you. I mean we should leave right after."
"I'll think about it. Now let me concentrate."
"I'm not playing you for money. You're too shrewd," Ciri said through a mouthful of bread and egg, pouring them both cups of tea before she rose to find her deck of cards. "But I will play for bragging rights."
"Probably for the best," Yennefer retorted, smilingly softly. "You're likely to lose."
Yennefer watched Ciri's every expression of concentration, the way her mouth ticked when she had a particularly good hand, the way she'd frowned when she didn't, it was all subtle, but it was all similar to the person who for all intents and purposes hadn't helped birth her. Mannerisms adopted from years of watching, learning and living in such close quarters.
You'd think that with all the time they'd been apart that would have changed, but it was all till there, all carefully etched into her blood and bones, fueling their family connection.
Once the game finished and Ciri lost interest in being beaten, Yennefer slid off the bed, returned to the vanity and added the final touched to her face.
"Perhaps we should go see Crach and The Queen?" Ciri suggested, sheathing her sword which she had been cleaning again. "They did invite us personally, after all. Would be rude to hide out here all day."
"You're probably right," Yennefer mused, rising from her chair, sufficiently put together and every bit the figure she had always been, as if last night and yesterday's break hadn't happened.
She'd always been good at carrying her mask.
"I was about to suggest the very same."
Yennefer sashayed across the room and headed for the door, assuming that Ciri'd follow.
Ciri strapped the sword to her back and followed, maneuvering through the rapidly growing crowd of patrons at the inn. Their cheeriness was infectious.
The chill winter wind swirled around them the moment they set foot outside. Ciri didn't mind. Unlike last night, the sun was out now and warming Skellige's inhabitants despite the snow on the ground.
They tracked through the village and started the climb for the castle, up a devastating number of steep stairs that she knew would soon enough turn her breathing from woman to walrus. "I think I would play with Queen Cerys when I was a child, you know? Once or twice. I believe we're the same age."
"Sparrowhawk looks older than you do."
Clearly the cold harsh weather, their lifestyle and battles had taken its toll. Like it did on most of them.
As soon as they entered the castle doors, the sentinels made a point of announcing them, ushering them to the newly crowded Queen as if for the first time.
Cerys rose from her chair, her cheeks pink from the mead most her court where sharing. They'd been making work of keeping to tradition now that the drama of their attack had faded.
Yennefer bowed respectfully, heard Cerys laugh as she approached and smiled while the sorceress straightened.
"I was just about to do some riding with my brothers. They challenged me earlier and managed to get a seconds head on me, but I feel my new crown might give me the boost I need for a win. Care to join us?'
She didn't look at the sorceress asking that question.
The sun was in its peak when Geralt found his way back to the camp where Dandelion was waiting. The troubadour refused to leave for the city, daring believe Geralt wasn't going to be long. The Witcher didn't count the time time it took him to clear out the mountain and the harpies nest, but he assumed it took hours.
Dandelion jumped up as he saw him and Roach. "Thank the gods, I was beginning to worry!"
"Never took you for a particularly religious type." Geralt didn't bother securing the reins to the tree and headed for the campfire.
"You've blood!" Dandelion pointed. Geralt looked down and saw crimson trickles on his leather pants seeping from beneath the jacket.
"It's just scratches. One of the harpies got me with the talons. There was a lot of them. If not for the bombs, I wouldn't have pulled it."
"You need it looked at. Can you ride?"
"Stop it, Dandelion, it's not the first nor the last time. I'm fine. Just a bit tired."
Riding was uncomfortable, but the potion Geralt had applied to the wounds helped kill some pain. The witch Dandelion's connections had led them to offered to help with the wound, but Geralt relied on Skellige and Ermion in case he needed assistance. She shrugged and opened the portal.
Geralt squeezed his eyes shut and stepped through after the troubadour…
… and out to what appeared to be the inner yard of the castle Geralt had left from before when it was the old druid to open the door.
"Oh bloody hell, how can anything survive in this wind?!" Dandelion was hugging his arms dancing from foot to foot, looking miserable.
The Witcher laughed. "Get inside, crybaby."
In Yennefer's wake, Ciri attempted an awkward curtsy in honor of the new queen. Cerys snickered approaching and Ciri took an instant liking to her. A monarch with a sense of humor? Her kind of girl.
Her offer of a race had Ciri grinning mischievously. "I never miss the opportunity to put boys in their place," she said, then paused, her smile dimming ever so slightly when she remembered Yennefer at her side. Ciri couldn't leave her when she was in pain. "Um, but perhaps now is not the best time."
The Hall filled with long tables and people hummed like a hive of disturbed bees. They drank and laughed and quarreled and bragged and argued and laughter thundered again.
"Not much warmer here, save the wind," Dandelion grumbled, his eyes scanning the crowds as they went in search of familiar faces.
"Geralt!"
Zoltan detached from the noisy group at a Gwent table and approached them.
"Oh gods, Dandelion! Didn't expect to see you here. Is Priscilla with you?"
"Someone has to take care of work," Dandelion said through clattering teeth.
Zoltan laughed, gave the bard's arm a friendly smack. "Indeed. Shame I won't hear her beautiful voice ring in this Hall. At least we have you now." He looked to the Witcher, his eyes narrowing. "You all right, Geralt?"
"Had a contract to finish. A bit tired."
"He's probably bleeding in his bandage, that stubborn bore," Dandelion put in, folding his arms.
"Told you, it's just a couple if scratches. Nothing serious. It's been awhile since our journeys and you've forgotten that it's what happens half the times."
"I miss our travels, but not that part," the bard smirked.
"Aye," Zoltan laughed. "You like the rich parties and invitations to such and crowds of girls fainting to your ballads."
"Nothing wrong with enjoying one's talents to the fullest," the bard said, grinning.
"It's the perfect time," Yennefer supplied, hardly skipping a beat.
Ciri had already spent so much time with Yennefer the night before and the morning, the sorceress didn't want to further bring her down with the festival was actually about having a good time.
And they had been having fun most the morning.
"Go on," Yennefer encouraged, deciding against the drink, bringing a hand to Ciri's shoulder with an encouraging squeeze, nudging her toward the Queen. "I'd like to watch."
"Well, if you're sure…" Ciri's grin back in place, she traipsed after the Queen who was sporting a mischievous smile of her own, moving towards the exit so they could get to the stables.
Ciri never even made it out of the main hall, however, before her heart skipped a beat in excitement and she threw herself at a white-haired man standing next to a colorful troubadour and a redheaded dwarf. "Geralt!" She had expected him back, of course, but not so soon and she found herself delighted and relieved of having him with her again. "You're back!"
Geralt barely managed to notice her ashen hair and familiar attire dashing to him before her arms were already around his neck. She moved so fast.
He grunted at the impact that jolted his side with pain but squeezed her to him in return.
"You just saw him last night!" Dandelion groaned. "And I came all this way to this horrible ice-covered hell valley and deserve no recognition? Oh, Ciri, I never thought you'd deal that blow!"
Ciri smirked at Dandelion over Geralt's shoulder, noticing how very uncomfortable he was. "Have you braved the cold to come see me? How valiant you are."
Yennefer waited until both women had swept past her and then turned on her heels, intending to follow at a few paces. They hadn't made it very far before Ciri threw herself at a familiar face. He'd come back sooner than Yennefer had anticipated, perhaps sooner than was needed to foster this ailing heartbreak that kept rearing and seemed to scream like a banshee.
Dandelion was the only figure to temporarily break the deadlock of emotion. She stepped into the fray as casually as she could muster, scarcely looking at the troubadour addressing Ciri.
"Looks like the business you had to take care of took a bit out of you. You all right?"
Ciri released Geralt when the sound of Yennefer's voice reached her and peered down between them to examine what Yennefer had noticed and she had not. "You're hurt," she murmured unnecessarily because apparently everyone knew.
"You need a healer, Geralt?" Cerys asked from behind Ciri, observing the Witcher with a shrewd gaze.
Geralt faintly regretted coming too soon - such attention was not something he ever enjoyed or was used to seeing.
He smiled for their comfort and shook his head. "Just a few scratches, nothing too bad. Usual consequence of the work I do."
"Nonsense," Yennefer retorted, scarcely letting her gaze shift from his face, feeling more possessive than she ever had and unwilling to let anyone else the court deal with him. "I'll take care of it."
She said it in such a way that Cerys had glanced at her, a small smile twitching onto the corner of her mouth, her shoulders lifting with an unconcerned shrug.
'That takes care of that.'
The possessiveness in Yen's tone didn't go amiss. Ciri tried not to smile at that, some small hope kindling that the two of them may find their way back to one another.
"Yes. You should probably go do that right away," she insisted, trying not to be too obvious. "Dandelion, we're going racing. It's the Queen's decree!"
Cerys, following Ciri's train of thought, nodded most severely. "It is. Let us go."
Ciri hooked her arm through Dandelion's and attempted to pull him away.
Zoltan laughed hard. "Dandelion and races around Skellige! That's something I would die to watch!"
Dandelion threw his hands up groaning dramatically. "Ciri! How can you wound me so! I will freeze alive! And then I won't be alive anymore! The world shall never recover from such loss."
Geralt chuckled and took his gaze to the raven-haired beauty, regarded her with interest. "You're a healer?"
Neither Dandelions dramatics or Ciri's enthusiasm went unnoticed. With a nudge from her magic, Yennefer forced the troubadour to take an instinctive step from his friend's side. He yelped in surprise, perhaps even a bit of pain as if he'd expected he'd been stung, regarding her as if she had betrayed him.
Oh, he should be used to it.
Yennefer smirked, eyes transfixed on Geralt, disregarding the poet's outrage.
"I'm a good many things, Geralt, you know that."
She moved to his side, taking over from where Ciri had been.
"As soon as I've dressed Geralt's wounds we'll be along to watch."
At least she would.
Geralt looked at her with a both confused and apologetic smile. "Besides the healing talent, what else is there I should be aware of?"
"That you were missed."
It hadn't mattered that he'd only been gone a day. She took a hold of his elbow, encouraging him to follow behind the troop of giddy youngsters heading off to ride.
"I'll take you back to the inn. I have a poultice that'll fix you right up."
Geralt followed, thinking once again that he should have come in a day, after having taken care of that and a couple more contracts.
Dandelion never respected other people's plans.
Ciri cackled in glee at Dandelion's outrage, and between her and Zoltan, they pulled the minstrel outside to walk the tunnel that led down to the stables. It was a bit more comfortable than the stairs considering it protected them from the wind "It's your own damned fault," Ciri told him when his teeth started chattering excessively. "You came to Skellige wearing tights!"
Dandelion appeared to have lost the will for rebuttals. Either that or he feared opening his mouth would let the last of his heat escape.
They reached the stables before long where Cerys' brother, Hjalmar, was waiting along with a few friends.
"I see how it is!" he called to his sister as they approached. "Queen of only one day and already you expect others to saddle your horse for you!"
"Shut your gob!" the Queen howled back with a smile, taking Ciri's hand and leading her into the stables where they were to pick and ready their horses.
The Inn was roaring with its own festivities when Geralt and Yennefer walked in. No one even noticed as the innkeeper was loading a freshly baked boar into the table to the thundering cheer of the already happily drunk patrons.
Yennefer released his elbow, quietly walking beside him, reveling in the fact that they were able to do that despite the change in their relationship – the new dynamic.
Was it that new, though?
Nothing had changed for her aside from the fact that he hadn't made a singular suggestive comment yet and they'd been in each other's company for little over five minutes.
She walked ahead of him into the bedroom, heading straight for the bath to check if the water had been changed up and reheated. It was tepid but it would do.
"You should take a bath. The less grime, the less chance of infection."
But he knew that.
Geralt stopped in the middle of the room watching her. "I have before coming here. I had a bit of time, so I didn't waste it."
Yennefer flicked the water aside with a nod, drying her hand on the renewed towel nearby and gestured for him to sit, moving toward her items trunk.
A motion of her hand and it flipped open. She never left it unguarded or unlocked. She navigated through the ingredients inside.
"We thought you might have been a few days. What'd you have left to do in Novigrad?"
He sat down, regarding her with mild confusion.
"Ciri must've been quite talkative," he remarked, unbuckling the straps on his jacket. "I couldn't finish all I intended because Dandelion insisted on coming right away. He wasn't going to before. Must've missed Ciri and Zoltan. And, perhaps, a place to brag a ballad or ten."
"You're going back then?"
The idea that he would leave as quickly as he appeared suddenly didn't sit right with her.
She set the items down on top of the mattress, pushing aside his hands so that she could undo the last of the buckles and straps for him, being careful once she managed to free it up and peel it from his upper body.
"Soon?"
He let her take control and leaned back on his elbows. "When Ciri's ready to go."
There would be some time, then.
She stepped away, reclaimed the herbs from the bed, already ground down and quickly threw them all together in one of her bowls. She took her time doing it as well.
"I was thinking of leaving."
She gauged his reaction to the suggested news.
He hemmed his acknowledgement. "You don't like the cold, either? Or there's some urgent business? A djinn to tame?" The smallest of smiles touched the corners of his mouth.
"I can deal with the cold." It was his cold that was more biting than ever. Not that the smile, although caustic in nature, had gone unnoticed. "No. I assumed you'd prefer it. That's why you left, isn't it?"
He frowned, confused. "What would it have to do with my leave? I had contracts. I'm a witcher, if you've forgotten perchance. And why would I prefer you left? You're a gem to any party. It would be a sour loss."
"Even so, we decided to stay a few days. I thought that after the djinn that maybe you were trying to distance yourself from me."
She rarely ever lied to him in the past about how she felt and she felt even less inclined now to pretend that he hadn't hurt her in the most impossible way.
"Not that I would blame you."
She carried the herbs over to the bath, added some water and mixed it together more proficiently as she returned to his side.
He stared at her, dumbfounded, as if she suddenly started to speak some demonic dialect.
"Distance myself from you after the djinn? That djinn? But it happened dozens of years ago. You had no desire for anything other than that... one time."
"What?"
Yennefer blinked, his response giving her pause, unsure of what he was trying to refer to and why he was saying that it—as in, sex—had happened one time? Was he really that unfazed by what had happened a day ago that he couldn't even refer to it or had forgotten about it?
She narrowed her eyes speculatively. "You go from feeling nothing, to pretending that we've never been intimate every time we happened to be in the same breathing space? That your subtle attempt at moving on?"
Geralt was lost for words for a long moment, searching his memories as if there was anything to doubt. He watched her with quiet astonishment. "I met you just one other time - by accident, when I joined the golden dragon hunting party. And nothing happened between us then. I never saw you since."
"Nothing? Never?!"
She set the poultice aside on the bed covers, took his face into her hands and thoroughly kissed him until she was sure he'd feel that spark of recognition.
Thoroughly astounded, Geralt didn't expect her kiss, but it swept his mind off its focus completely. He lost himself in her lips working on his in such delicious manner that immediately shot a hot and heavy desire through his nerves. Her hair tickled his face and the heavenly aroma of lilac and gooseberries was irresistibly arousing. It brought him back to their frantic sex in the half-destroyed room upon her banishing the djinn. It was so long ago, but he never forgot any details.
Yennefer buried her hands in his hair as soon as he returned the exploration, delving her tongue into his mouth to better taste what she'd missed the night before and to fully absorb him a while longer before unsteadily pulling back. Oh, he was kissing her as he always did, and she'd easily been able to read his mind during it, but not once had their time on the ship come up.
"You've lost your memory."
No sooner she said it, no sooner the realization kicked in. Did her breaking the djinn's connection erase her from his consciousness entirely?
"What's the last thing I asked you?"
He frowned, recollecting. "To make the Igni sign to free your hands from the binds. Back at that dragon hunt. The last time I saw you before today. It burnt your skin, but you demanded you could take it. I did as you asked. Our ways parted upon winning the fight."
"What do you remember of Ciri?" She wanted to see if there were points where the girl also disappeared, although their greeting had been familiar and the same as it always was. "You remember that we'd lost her?"
"We?! It was I who lost her. Several times, in fact. I tried to escape that bond at first, and then... I guess it happened to be stronger. And then the Hunt - I assume you know about it, then. Who told you? Ciri?"
I?
As in, Yennefer'd had no pain at all. As if she hadn't been there helping Ciri?
"No, I— I helped you get her back. You don't remember the garden? The elf?"
"If you mean Avallac'h – yes, I do know him. Garden… what garden?" Something dawned in the back of his mind as Geralt spoke it. "Freya's Garden here in Skellige – I came upon it once while searching for Ciri's trail. I killed a werewolf there, but found nothing helpful. Rather one of the women told me she saw Ciri ride away from the village, and I followed the trail to the beach. Found a new lead. I… I was on my own."
Yennefer closed her eyes as he spoke, trying to come to terms with the new information and the fact that she had been completely erased from his head. She guessed that's where the connection came in, the added nothing, but then why had he been willing to sit with her after? Was what he'd said true or had it been before that and come in later?
"I'll quit with the questions."
She also had all the answers she could want. She swiped at her lips, touching the last reminisces of their shared kiss and then slowly picked up the poultice. She moved to her haunches, pushed his arms aside and carefully got to work applying the mix to his body.
"This should heal you up within a day."
She shut down, and the light went dim in her gaze in a strange manner. Geralt couldn't decipher what the light was, but then – as her fingers touched his damaged skin – it occurred to him it eerily resembled hope.
Hope for what? Did she hope they had something even after just two times they ever met?
He felt he was missing something crucial. He caught her chin gently in his hand making her look up at him.
"You said I lost my memory. I had once – because of the Wild Hunt. Why did you say it now?"
Yennefer looked up when he took a hold of her chin, keeping her fingers pressed to his abdomen, meeting his eyes with curiosity.
"Because it's happened again. You might not understand, but you and I, we've had a lifetime of ups and downs and were on the edge of an even better beginning."
At least it had felt that way when she finally rid herself of every fear she possessed.
To relay that, she raised up, pressed another kiss to his mouth and then stepped back to go in search of some material strips with which to seal the poultice.
"But…" He looked after her as she moved away, feeling shocked and helpless. "How did it happen?"
"How does it ever happen?"
Yennefer speared him a look from where she was rifling around in her trunk, using magic to slice a few pieces from the uncut material she'd had, not feeling up to struggling the more conventional way.
Usually she was prepared, always at the ready, but since their thing with the djinn it seemed she had lost her touch a little. At least in certain aspects.
"People fall in love, they become intimate – life gets complicated."
Strange to hear that coming from the cold-hearted sorceress she was etched into his memory as – she made it clear from the start how little she cared about making any intimate connections, especially with someone like him.
But then, there was what she claimed had happened to him. Again.
"No, I mean my supposed loss of memory. How could I have lost it? I don't feel I have any gaps in need of filling."
"The djinn. Our connection. I— I made a mistake. I thought that what we felt was tied to it and when I could, I tried to break it – I did."
It hurt to say that, it really did, especially now that she knew what it cost her and like the night before. The tears built and then disappeared as she returned to his side, the strips of material in hand. She smoothed them out and pressed them to his wound, across the paste to make sure that it got the coverage it needed.
There was pain as she pressed a bandage to his side, but it was as if it was happening in another world, altogether. He was trying to make sense of what she explained, but a lot was lacking.
"What did we have? And why was it tied to the djinn?"
"We have love. And… each other." Now that she knew the cause, she refused to speak about in the past tense. "How's that feel?"
"It's fine," he murmured automatically, mulling it over. "Witchers don't love or settle down. You seemed to be aware the first time we met."
Yennefer flattened her hand against his abdomen, took his face into her hands again, smoothing his hair away, combing it behind his ears, gently touching him in ways she had never allowed herself to before. She brought her lips to meet his own, putting everything she had into it, sliding her arms around his neck until they were flush against one another and were both struggling for a touch of breath.
Despite the jolts of pain in his side due to all the moving and her advances, her kisses were welcome. It was like something from a dream he had and then forgot over time. Her breath tickled his lips as she pulled back a bit, and he stared into the violet eyes of hers and saw the same spark of hope reignited.
"What's that feel like?" It sure felt like love to her and she was only really now able to label it.
He didn't know what to offer for that hope in her to not die out. He barely knew her, and she claimed they were in love.
It sorely resembled what happened with the loss of memory he actually knew about, but he couldn't quite put his finger on how, exactly.
"You're tempting me. Though it wouldn't take as much effort, especially from you."
"That's lust, Geralt."
One of the only connections between them she had easily been able to distinguish. Yennefer slid her arms from around his neck, leaning in once against as if to kiss him, halting short of the actual touch to bring their foreheads together.
She wanted him to differentiate the closeness, the scent and warmth, see if any of it registered on his features, assuring him of what she knew was there and what she had quite possibly buried.
Even if he didn't, she closed her eyes, savoring the moment for herself, grateful that it wasn't her love that had been unreturned but lost entirely.
All she had to do now was unlock it.
She was right, it was lust, and it played all the more insistently on his body the more she bathed him in her delicious scent. Her black hair enclosed around their faces brought together like curtains, isolating them from the rest of the world. Even the sounds of the Skelligan sailors feasting in the hall outside their room retreated away.
"What are you doing?" he ventured after a while of her strange meditation, her forehead pressed to his.
"Regretting my decisions."
She drew back slightly and pressed an uncharacteristic kiss to his forehead, moving to pick up his armor, the bits she had helped him discard earlier so that he could slip back into it.
"We should get back to the festivities."
She needed time to think on what to do with him now, how she was to work around this new change and if there was any way to undo what she'd done. Should she even? Maybe he was happier this way? Without the knowledge and complications they had shared before. They could start fresh.
But would it be the same?
Nothing had changed for her, but who was to say he'd ever reach that pinnacle again?
The abrupt end after all the declarations of love they supposedly had was disappointing. He didn't feel like going back to the roaring Nordlings. Ciri and Dandelion were out there, though. He had to make an effort.
Geralt sighed and began to dress.
His attitude didn't go unnoticed and wondered if his reasoning for not wanting to join the festivities stemmed from exhaustion. "If you're tired, you should stay, I'm sure Ciri would know where to find us."
"I'll rest when I'm dead," he replied, getting up, and buckled up the remaining straps of his jacket. "Thank you for the treatment. Feels better already."
"You don't have to thank me for that. I'm glad it's helping."
She washed her hands in the bath, dried them once more and sealed her trunk, moving toward the door to guide him out.
"Do you know Triss?"
"Triss Merigold? Yes, I know her. She helped me a few times, I helped her in return. Why?"
"That's it? You've never—"
Yennefer didn't even want to put the idea in his head, but for her question, she found it necessary, wondering if this new alternate reality where she had removed herself from his life, if he'd automatically replaced her with Triss. Yennefer assumed it could be possible since once upon a time Triss had found him before.
"—you two aren't intimately close?"
Geralt smirked with unexplained amusement. "A couple of times in the past."
And only once with me?
What kind of bizarre destiny was that! If Yennefer were a cat, she'd have hissed, whirled on him and pounced, fucking Triss out of him.
Only, if he didn't know Yennefer, what would that serve but to push him away or have him divert to the usual?
And yet the need to possess was almost smothering.
"Wonderful."
A hand swept through the air, magic springing forth to release a spark of that immediately jumped into a whirlwind of gold that would carry them to Ciri and the race Yennefer assumed was in progress.
"After you."
Geralt made a face, reprimanding her with a look. "Hate portals. We could just walk."
By the time Cerys and Ciri had saddled their horses and led them outside, Dandelion had found two new female admirers to drape him with warm pelts and hug him close. This was the most content Ciri had seen him since he appeared earlier.
She snorted with mingled exasperation and amusement.
"Oy, if you want this to be a fair race, you two gotta catch up," Hjalmar said, moving to her and his sister carrying large tankards of what appeared to be mead. He grinned. "The lads and I have got two down our hatches already. Your turn."
Ciri exchanged a brief look with the Queen, who shrugged and accepted her tankard without protest. She followed Cerys's example and drank deeply.
They drank more than two tankards and once Ciri made it into the saddle, she promptly fell out of it again.
It didn't hurt. Barely even felt it.
Giggling, she climbed back up and guided her horse to the starting line, throwing a glance over her shoulder to see if Yen and Geralt had emerged from the small crowd that had gathered.
She couldn't see them, anywhere. Hopefully that was a good sign.
She made a mental note never to touch Yennefer's stuffed unicorn and urged her steed into a gallop as soon as the starting-trumpet sounded. They were off!