Jon

He was shivering just a little as they sat down for their midday meal. Today, it was chunks of burnt venison that they were fed for their lunch, which was richer than the usual cuisine. After hours of shoveling away snow and monotonously trying to piece the frozen ground, Jon and the other laborers were finally given some time to rest.

Normally Jon kept to himself during these breaks. Somewhere inside the baron's castle, Ciri and the children they had rescued were hopefully being well cared for, but he had not been allowed to see them since they were captured. He usually tried to keep his thoughts on them, thinking about the possibility of seeing them soon. Once the curtain wall had finished, the baron had promised that Jon would be allowed to see Ciri again. It wouldn't be for long, as he would be tasked with some other labor, but there would be some respite.

Today, he sat next to a man with an exceptionally thin face. He was at least thirty, but his beard and mustache were only wisps of brown hair, and his eyes were a very distinctive blue. "What's your name?" Jon asked him.

"Horton," the man replied quickly. "Horton's the name me mum gave me."

Jon did not introduce himself. Everyone knew his name, even though he seldom spoke. He was the Night's Watchman who had taken a wood's witch to wife and offended the Ladies of the Wood. That, and the nephew of Benjen Stark, a man whose renown among the wildlings spread even as far as this. "What do you know of the Red Baron?" Jon asked instead. "I want to know more about him."

"Well, he's a southern man, for one. They say he carved up this area of the North with his sword. Won it by his blade. He wanted a crown for hisself, so he began building this here castle."

"He's not sworn to Mance Rayder, is he?"

"Sworn? You southerners and your queer talk. No, the baron don't owe no fealty to Mance. The king's never troubled us, no."

Jon was confused. While he had heard talk of some defiance to Mance Rayder in the west, he hadn't expected it to be a full warlord who had a castle of his own. He'd counted at least a hundred men who were captives, laboring each day to build this new curtain wall for the baron's castle, and the castle was even bigger than some castles he'd seen south of the Wall. It was certainly stronger than any of the castles that belonged to the Night's Watch, which had practically no defenses from three sides, and only the Wall itself to the North which their role was to defend. This baron was the closest thing to a lord the wildlings had to offer, and while Jon had not been able to get a good count, he suspected that his subjects numbered somewhere in the thousands, maybe even as high as ten thousand.

Grackle's Perch was almost a fortress, and they were making it even stronger, which made it surprising to Jon that the King Beyond the Wall had not made an effort to conquer it. The castle itself, from what Jon had seen, was very unique. All of it was constructed with wood, though some efforts had been made to replace the innermost keep with stone. Otherwise, there were five separate outer walls, and distinct sections that housed what were almost like entirely different villages. With how close the woods were allowed to grow to the castle, there was no shortage of timber close by. It was almost a city, though there was no trade or travelers to speak of, which in Jon's eyes made him unable to classify it as such. Now they were expanding it to the northwest, building a new outer wall around a hill that had come with the promise of offering even greater fortifications against any would-be attackers.

"Why does the Red Baron call himself a baron, and not a king?" Baron was an older lordly title, Jon remembered, though not one that was commonly used anymore within Westeros. It was lords, dukes- only in the Reach, and then lesser lords and landed knights in the South now, as it had been for centuries for titles to indicate possession of lands.

"Well why not? The baron don't want trouble with the Mance, so he don't call himself king or nothin'. Baron is a fine title if you ask me. Seems proud."

Jon suspected that the Red Baron had earned the red part of his name then through his past, taking his title with his sword. That was how things usually were. Red would mean blood, as it always did. But he kept those thoughts to himself. "Do you know his true name?"

"Wife's name was Anna. I know that much. She went missing not too long back though. And his daughter, well her name's Tamara. She's gone too, rumor has it. But I heard it that was just the baron keeping the fact that she'd finally taken a man a secret. His name? Not a clue."

He wanted more information about the Red Baron from Horton, but he didn't know what other questions to ask. Before he could think of one, they were called back to work, and their lunch was at an end.

Jon spent their second session of work unable to take his mind off of Ciri. His job was shoveling the snow to clear a pathway for the wall. Once that was done, boiling water was poured to thaw the earth, and then it was dug up. The wooden poles were put into place, and then the dirt was laid back in. Today they managed to place ten new poles in the second shift, after seventeen in the first. Alaric will already be a man by the time this is done at the rate we're going, he thought to himself.

Admittedly, Jon's job seemed the easiest to him. Shoveling snow was something he had done plenty of times before, both at Castle Black and at Winterfell, nor did he even need to do a perfect job as the boiling water would melt all the remaining snow anyway, but he still went to bed with a sore back.

Just as he kept his mind occupied in the day with thoughts of Ciri, at night, he couldn't stop thinking about her. Where she was, if she was healthy, what she was doing. All of them kept bothering him. In his mind's eye, he pictured her sleeping right now in a comfortable room, likely with Eskel, Luke and Dya beside her, or in different beds. It was that night that Jon began to realize he was really in love with her.

"Up, with you lot!" a voice called out in the morning, waking everyone up. Everyone except Jon, who hadn't fallen asleep. "A blizzard will be coming soon, the witch says, we have to finish today."

The witch had said a blizzard would be coming soon every single day that Jon had been working, yet none had come. In fact, he was beginning to suspect that there wasn't a witch at all, but it was just something that the man said every morning. But it didn't matter, there was work to be done.

Once they broke their fast, the job began. Jon shoveled away snow, though with the wind blowing today, and the fresh snow that must have come as they were sleeping, it meant going back quite frequently. Jon wished he had more coverage on his face, as his cheeks stung and must have been rosy red by the time they ate lunch beneath the shelter. His previously chapped lips had finally cracked as well, causing them to sting as he ate the salted meats.

But his lunch break was interrupted by a pair of new entrants to the area. Men close to the baron, he saw at once.

"Where is Jon Snow?" one of them asked. "We have orders by the baron to take him."

"What business does the baron have with him?" the man who was in charge asked.

"It's not your concern, Arlaf. It's the baron's orders."

"If it were so important, he would be here hisself. What proof do you have o' his orders?"

"Careful now," the second of the baron's men said. "We wouldn't want you to be workin' in these camps like them, would we? Do what you're fucking told."

"Piss off," the commander replied.

"That one's Jon Snow," one of the men said, pointing right at him. "Ben Stark's nephew, ain't he?"

"Shut your trap," Arlaf said to the man, but it was too late. The secret had already been revealed.

Jon cursed beneath his breath, then stood.

"Come with us, Snow," the baron's men ordered. They didn't wait to see if he was even following.

They made their way through the shoveled streets of two different quarters of Grackle's Perch, neither of which he knew the name of, and then finally into the heart of the castle itself.

In the courtyard, he finally caught a glimpse of her, but he did not know if it was his eyes that had changed, or her. Before, he had seen her as pretty, now he saw her as beautiful. "Ciri!" he exclaimed, rushing towards her. As he was about to pick her up, she leapt onto him, which caused him to fall back, straight into the snow, which softened the landing. Then he kissed her for the first time, his lips cold, chapped and cracked, hers soft and warm.

She giggled playfully as she continued to lay on top of him, then nestled her head next to his. "It's good to see you again, Jon. Oh, I missed you."

It was a sweet moment, but Jon knew it could not last long. They got back to their feet, and Ciri looked back over at the Red Baron.

"I take it that is him, then," the man said. Jon had only met the baron briefly, but he was surprised by the girth of the baron. He must have weighed at least twenty stone, and he was not an exceptionally tall man either.

Ciri nodded, grinning. "This is him. My husband, Jon."

Husband? Jon knew he'd be in for a nasty pinch if he questioned her outloud, and a good scolding when they were alone finally, so he said nothing, but he was still caught off guard.

"My apologies for your captivity," the baron said, looking at both of them with a regretful face. "Had I been wiser, I would not have allowed it."

You were the one who ordered it. "I forgive you, my lord."

The Red Baron chuckled. "My lord… both of you, heh. Ardal, give the man his sword back."

A man with a lined face and dark hair that seemed plastered to his head stepped forward. He held out Longclaw to Jon, still in the scabbard that it was in when Jon had gotten it from Lord Commander Mormont. "Thank you," he said, tentatively.

"May I have some time with Jon?" Ciri asked, with a soft smile. "I've sorely missed him."

"As you wish," the baron replied. "I won't begrudge you some time alone."

She took Jon's hand and led him away immediately.

Jon supposed the place that she took him was the closest that the wildlings had to a palace. It was impressive, considering how difficult Jon knew laboring was north of the Wall, but it was still nowhere close to a proper palace. If anything, calling it a palace was using the term quite loosely. It was small, lacked decoration and was all around too functional to be considered as one, at least in Jon's eyes.

Ciri led him into a room on the third floor of the building. There he almost immediately collapsed onto the bed. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have been able to get up.

"I think I still prefer my world better than yours," Ciri said, as she sat down beside him. "Maybe it's because I've seen the wrong parts, but oh… it can be a little boring here at times."

He stared up into her big emerald green eyes, finding himself getting lost in them. You're an utter fool, Jon, a voice in his head whispered. A voice that he ignored.

"If you must know, I saved the Baron's life, which is how I got you out of there. I think he fancied me a little, and because of that, he allowed me to come along on a hunting trip. But we got attacked by a weird hound, and it nearly carried him off into the woods, until I stopped it. It looked familiar. It was similar to a dog, but not quite. I've seen its like before, I just don't know what it would be doing here."

"I wouldn't know," Jon said, continuing to gaze into her eyes, as though if he looked hard enough, they might open up and reveal more within. They didn't though, as the mystery of what was inside still proved to be more than enough to drive his fascination.

"Oh, stop staring at me like that, Jon. What's gotten into you?"

Love. Jon was too afraid to say the word out loud. "Tired."

Ciri considered the answer for a moment, then seemed to accept it. "Well, the baron wants us to be part of his court now. I told him that you're my husband, and the children were orphans we rescued from those hags in the woods. Apparently, they're called, 'the Crones of Crookback Bog.' Some of his men wanted him to give the children back to him, but the baron refused. I told him that we killed one of the crones and a werewolf too." She paused for a second. "Oh, please Jon, just say something. I feel like I'm talking to myself right now."

"I'm listening."

"Well, the baron wants to keep it private, but he told me that he's beginning to prepare for war, and he wants fighters like us working for his cause." Ciri took another pause, then changed the subject. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." Now that he was back with her, he found himself remembering the last time that they were together. Right after he had found her at the edge of the bog, carrying Luke and Dya, he'd begun to shit himself uncontrollably. Kidney failure was what he had been suffering, caused by the potions- but as the White Honey began to enter his system, Jon was fine. However, he had not seen Ciri after that, having been separated while they traveled to Grackle's Perch.

Ciri was beginning to remove his boots, and it made him wish that he still had the strength within him to react to her attempts at seduction. Then as she was starting to remove his shirt, she finally said something. "Maybe we could…"

Jon touched her face, running his hand along that scar that marred her left cheek. "How about tomorrow?" he suggested. "I'm exhausted."

He realized that he found her pouting to be quite endearing. There was much that she could say without so much as a word. Then she crawled into bed next to him. "When I was talking to the baron… after I saved him, he offered me more than just a place in his court."

"And what would that be?"

"A mission… ohhh, a contract," she said, giggling. "He's got a job for us."

"What is it?"

"Well… he didn't say yet. But I did tell him that you would do it with me."

"Fair enough." He wouldn't let Ciri go off on a mission alone if he could help it. "How about you go get the little ones?"

"The little ones?" Ciri frowned. "No, they're your little rascals, Jon."

"Well, whatever you're calling them, can I see them?"

Ciri departed briefly. When she was coming back, he could hear the excited chatter of the children they'd rescued from the Ladies of the Wood. Jon sat up in anticipation, then watched as the door slowly opened.

Dya was the most excited. She raced over towards Jon, almost instantly going from the doorway to being on top of Jon. Luke and Eskel meanwhile remained beside Ciri, still holding her hands. "You're home, papa," the girl said as she hugged Jon tightly. For the first time, Jon realized how young she was. He guessed Eskel to be about eight and Luke to be around seven, but Dya was only around four. The boys approached slower, led by Eskel. When they made it to the bed, he mussed their hair, as he always did with Arya.

This was also the first time that he really began to see just how different they were. He'd noticed it before, and he'd been given plenty of time to think about it, but now it was incredibly obvious. Luke had a naturally pretty aura to him, with his honey blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall for his age, and slender, and in a few years, he guessed that Luke would have no shortage of young maidens wanting him. Jon felt reminded of Joffrey Baratheon, who'd always had a similar quality to him, though without so much arrogance.

Eskel on the other hand was handsome, but not pretty. Jon could see the most resemblance to himself within the boy; his long face, his dark grey eyes, his teeth, and more, but whoever his mother had been had left a firm imprint on him. Freckles, bright red hair, his ears, Jon was sure Eskel wouldn't have much trouble finding love either, though he wouldn't be so universally seen as pretty like his brother.

And there was Dya. Jon couldn't help but think of Arya when he looked at the girl, though they couldn't have looked more different. The more he studied her, the more he became convinced that she was not his child in any other world, but perhaps that of Allyria.

For just a moment, he was able to meet Ciri's eyes. Then he felt the combined weight of the boys on top of him, pushing him back down into the bed. "Where did you go, papa?" Dya was asking as Luke and Eskel seemed to be in admiration of their combined strength that was able to take him down.

It wasn't long before they were sitting down for a story. Jon was sitting amongst the pillows with Dya in his lap while Ciri sat down on the bed with Luke and Eskel. He told them all about his time away, telling them how the baron had given him jobs… jobs that he embellished significantly. Rather than building a new section of the castle, they'd been hunting, fighting rogues and even looking for a potential monster to kill. Ciri seemed amused at the notion that he had been doing all of that on his own, but the children were convinced. Up until he told them about how mama had killed a monster of her own, and Jon had come back to see her. That was what broke the story for them.

"Mama?" Luke said, looking at her confused.

Jon glanced over at Ciri. She squinted a little at him, then realized he had been referring to her. "I'm just… Ciri to them," she said, in a hushed voice, though all of them could hear it fine. "Or auntie."

He blinked, then realized what she meant. Jon started to realize that in all his time that he'd spent thinking about Ciri, and how she was, he hadn't given much thought to the idea that she might not just take up a maternal role with them as he had resolved to take a paternal role with them. With how much stress Alaric seemed to have been giving her without even being born yet, he doubted she had been eager to take on three more children who they had liberated in the swamps.

"Did you really hunt a white fawn?" Luke asked in a skeptical voice.

Eskel narrowed his eyes. "Where's your trophy from the monsters you killed?"

Jon looked at Ciri. She seemed to be apologizing with her careless shrug as he realized he probably had told her all sorts of things about hunting and fighting monsters to keep them entertained. And now he was unable to lie to them about it.

The next morning during breakfast, the Red Baron finally came to see Jon and Ciri again. Jon had decided to let the children stay in bed, since they still seemed to be very tired after the late night they'd had, so it was just the two of them. As they were eating, the baron knocked on the door and invited himself in to sit with the young couple. "I'm here to talk about the job I have for you," he announced as he seated himself across from them.

"Why are we your choice for a job?" Jon asked. "We're strangers."

"Strangers who have proven yourselves. You rescued those little ones of yours from the Crones of Crookback Bog, and your wife saved my life from a monster," the baron pointed out. "And you have a debt to me."

"What debt?"

"Those children of yours, the ones you took from Crookback Bog. You're lucky you turned up at Crackle's Perch, because other villages would not have been so welcoming of you if you knew where they got them. I've no care what the Ladies of the Wood think, or of what they'll do, but my people do. If my people knew the truth about you five, they'd form a riot and lynch you two and turn those little ones of yours back over to the Crones as tribute." The Baron sighed. "My hospitality is not without a price to me. Some of my men have already found out. Rumors haven't spread yet, but they will. Eventually. When it does, you must prove yourself to be indispensable to Grackle's Perch, or else the fate of being offered as tribute awaits."

"And how are we to go about that?" Ciri asked.

"Just before you arrived, maybe half a moon's turn earlier at most; my wife- Ana, and my daughter- Tamara, went missing." Jon was surprised by the Baron's hard northern accent, which didn't sound much like that of the wildlings. "I need you to track them down."

Jon remembered seeing the posters that had been set out for a pair of missing women. He hadn't ever realized that they were the baron's wife and daughter though. Why not look for them yourself?

Ciri seemed more interested. "Well… where do you think they went?"

"One night they just… disappeared," the Baron explained. "They just vanished, without a trace."

"Without a trace, huh?" Jon wasn't sure if he could believe that. "Had they gone out on a trip or something?"

"No. They were here in the castle. The next morning, they were nowhere to be found."

Ciri narrowed her eyes. Jon realized that simply out of habit she was beginning to play the role of the investigator. "Do you think they were kidnapped? Maybe one of your men."

The Red Baron shook his head. "My men are whoresons, every one of them. But they know better than to say so much as the wrong word to my wife or daughter, or they'll find their heads on spikes."

"Right… so, do you think they ran away then?"

"No," the baron said, taken aback. "They can't have."

Ciri was carefully studying the baron's face, as though looking for something that might betray more details. "Might we be able to have a look at their rooms? Maybe I'll be able to find some clues there."

"I don't want strangers pawing through their things," the baron replied.

"You do if you want them found," Ciri said, with a frown. "I'll help you, baron, only if you'll let me."

The Red Baron signed. "Phillip, that's my name. Phillip Stranger."

"Stranger…" Jon repeated. "You really are from the south, aren't you?"

"So what if I am?" the Baron retorted. "I've not seen the south since 'fore Tamara was born."

"Were you a knight? How far south did you come from?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Were you a brother of the Night's Watch?"

That had finally annoyed the Red Baron. "That's enough talking. I'll take you to see the rooms and then you'll be off."

Jon and Ciri both got up and began to follow the baron, who led them upstairs. Then they came upon a door, which Phillip Stranger struggled with for a minute, cursing the door for being jammed, then he opened it. "This is Anna's room. You can look around, but don't move anything. I want it to be like it was for when they come back."

"And your daughter's room?" asked Ciri.

"Right down there," the baron pointed down the corridor. "It'll be ready when you're satisfied with Anna's room."

They nodded in unison. "Thank you, my lord," Ciri said.

"You don't need to call me lord," the baron insisted.

"No, but it's courteous." Ciri stepped in. "I'll be seeing you soon."

Jon followed her. She closed the door behind them as they walked in and began to look around. "Do you know what we're looking for?"

"As it happens, I do," Ciri said. She stood on her tippie-toes and put a kiss on his forehead. "Just listen and observe and this will all be over quickly."

"I have another question," Jon said.

"Save it. I know what you'll ask me about. When we're on the trail outside of the castle we can discuss it." Ciri put an arm around his shoulder. "I see a clue already."

"What's that?"

"The candlestick over there on the table," she said, pointing to the left. "It's broken at the base. The candle sticks are all built roughly the same here, unless this one was built with a broken base, which I can't imagine would be acceptable for the lady of the castle."

"Which means…"

"Well, it means that it was broken recently." She turned her attention to the flowers on the table next to the one with the broken candlestick base. "Fresh flowers too, which means he's counting on their return soon. Or he's prepared for it. Those flowers are a rarity, so I wonder how often he's changing them. And he doesn't share a bedchamber with his wife either."

"Alright…"

Ciri rushed to the other side of the room, halfway along the wall on the right of the door, which was between a bookshelf and a dresser, pulling him behind her. "See this?"

"What?"

"Jon, open your eyes. The wall."

"I see there's a wall."

"Oh my, you really are hopeless."

"What?"

"It's discolored. Can't you see it?"

"I see it now." After you pointed it out. "What about it though, Ciri?"

"It's painted, so that probably means something was hanging from this part of the wall. Like say…" She turned to the left, staring at a painting in front of the dresser. "…a painting of the baron and his wife that fits perfectly."

"Ciri…"

"Yes, Jon?"

"The baron said to leave everything as we found it."

"Sure I will. We'll just have to move a few things. The baron seems to have moved plenty."

Ciri lowered the portrait, which depicted the Baron and his wife, who seemed to be younger than they were now.

"Ah-ha!" she said, pointing at the dresser. "There is something hiding here."

"What's that?"

"A hole." She raced around to the other side of the dresser where the doors were. Reluctantly, Jon followed after her. She opened the doors just as he was getting over there. "And there it is. Voila!"

Ciri knelt down and picked up the single piece that was in the dresser. Jon was bewildered that there was nothing else. "Is that-"

"It's the rest of the candlestick base," she agreed. "Looks like it was broken off and thrown, which means there must have been a fight in here or something."

"A fight?"

"Jon… please don't tell me you trusted every word the baron said and accepted it as the true recounting of events. His story doesn't add up. It just doesn't." She pointed to the pole nearby. "There's some sort of mark on there, like something was thrown against it or it was scratched. The baron's been hiding it, but there was some sort of fight here."

"What do you think happened?"

"To be honest, I think the baron wants a younger wife, possibly one more fertile. From what he told me, Tamara is nearly my age, and I've seen the way he looks at me. I know the look, gotten it countless times. He only seemed to back off because I told him about you and the fact that I was with child." Ciri decided to sit down. "I remember now him telling me about this most beautiful woman. He said she was Mance Rayder's queen's sister, though I can't remember the name. Said he'd wanted to steal her, though somebody else got to her first."

"Oh yeah?"

Ciri nodded. "He brought it up when he saw Luke. Said he looks like her."

"And what about Tamara? How's she in all of this?"

She frowned at him. "Jon, you're not that stupid. Think."

Jon thought about it for a minute. "Tamara is about your age… maybe she helped her mother escape? But what about her father?"

He felt her piercing gaze on him, trying to guess if he was serious or not. It seemed that she decided he was being serious. "Jon, I know you only had a father as a child, but not every child likes both of their parents when they do have both. In fact, some of them hate their one parent. Particularly girls who often get treated as little more than objects by their fathers. Like Tamara was."

"You know that for certain."

"Oh yes. I've heard the way he talks about his Tamara, how insistent he is that he'll chop off the hand of any man who touched her without his approval, or gouge out the eyes of anyone who looks at her the wrong way." Ciri shook her head. "I can't imagine she really liked her father based on that… promise me that you'll never be like that, Jon. With Dya. She needs a father, not a possessor."

"I promise I won't be like that with her," he assured Ciri. "But are you certain?"

"Yes. The baron wanted to marry the King Beyond the Wall's sister, which would allow him to bend to this Mance Rayder without giving up his lands and fiefs, only for his wife to take opposition and get into a fight over it. In addition to having a younger- more beautiful wife who's capable of giving him sons. The baron is trying to hide it now as a way to hide his own shame."

"Alright… let's go look at Tamara's room."

Tamara's room didn't possess any signs of a struggle, right away when they walked in. In fact, Ciri seemed perplexed. "Oh what are we going to do with this?"

"There's a letter here," Jon said, pointing to the nightstand next to the bed. "Doesn't look old."

Ciri went over, and unwrapped it. "Huh, didn't know the baron could read."

"What's it say?" Too late for it to not be unmoved.

She cleared her throat and made her voice deeper, making it sound a little bit like the Red Baron.

"We are more like a family. We support each other and help each other survive tough moments, grapple with the past. For each of us has a past. So you needn't worry about anyone digging into yours. We've got a rule — never ask more than someone offers on their own. The past doesn't matter to us, only the future does, that and our common fight against evil and depravity, against perverse and loathsome practices of all kinds…"

By the end, Jon couldn't help but laugh at Ciri's impression of the baron's voice.

"Hey…" she protested. "Why are you laughing?"

Jon looked at her and smiled. "Sorry, but… your impression was terrible."

"I'd like to see you do a better one," Ciri scoffed. She rolled up the letter and set it back down. "Nothing useful there, it's just more of the same stuff. Can't tell if he's asking for forgiveness or just trying to offer advice, either way he's not doing a good job of it.

"Anything else?"

"Don't see anything recently changed or loose. Unless…" she opened the drawer of the nightstand. "Maybe the baron wasn't as controlling as I thought?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jon asked, walking up to her.

"It means that the baron probably is giving his daughter more leeway than I thought. Knives and raven's feathers, wonder what that's about…?"

Jon shook his head. "I wouldn't know."

"The knives probably confirm what I thought," Ciri concluded. "Tamara was afraid of something most likely, or looking for some sort of fight. The feathers… ohh, I feel they're important."

"Maybe she's a hunter?" he suggested. "The baron took you hunting, didn't he?"

Ciri gave it some thought, putting a finger up to her chin. "Hmm, could be… but I'm not sure."

"Why not?"

"The baron loved his stories, always told about his companions, even on the few times he brought his wife along. Never mentioned his daughter though. At least one of those is a kitchen knife too, and raven's feathers make for a strange trophy to collect. Why not a squirrel's tail or a skin… or… anything else?"

They looked around some more, but nothing that Ciri found seemed to be of much importance. Apart from one thing- a few shards of shattered glass that must not have been cleaned up under Tamara's bed. Jon figured that those could be indicative of just about anything, but Ciri was insistent that it might be some kind of clue.

Eventually, when she seemed satisfied with their search through the room, she took a seat on the bed and patted the blanket next to her, directing him to sit too. "So… we found evidence of a fight, which might have been caused by the baron, and the baron's daughter has been collecting knives," she summarized. "Not much of a start, but we know the baron is probably hiding something about their disappearance. Maybe he even knows where they went?"

"You think all of this is a farce?" Jon offered. "Maybe they're dead and buried, and this whole missing daughter and wife story is… a lie?"

"Why'd he send us after them if that's so?" she paused for a moment, realizing what she'd just said. "Well… I can see sending people out to try and find them as being part of how he maintains the lie, especially if he had a part in their deaths, or if just Anna died and Tamara ran away. But I doubt he would send us for it. He'll either want to dispose of some sort of inconvenient folk in the search or send people loyal to him who could be in on a cover up. Certainly not someone like me who he'd indebted to after I saved his life."

"What do we do now?" he asked. "If the baron won't give us more than what he already told us and we don't have more to go off of than what we already found…"

"We ask around. The baron will probably stick to his story, and we don't have much that won't get him enraged at us, so we have to be discrete, look for subtle contradictions that betray their story."

Jon was still completely lost in all of this, and Ciri could obviously tell from the way she was staring at him. He was probably gaping like an insipid fool. Her emerald green eyes had a different feel to them, not like wildfire, which he sometimes had seen when she was furious, but something else.

"What? You've never heard of interrogating people? Do you not do that here in this world?"

"We do…" Jon answered, defensively. "I just… I've never really been taught a lot of this. I can follow tracks in the woods when I have to, can inspect bodies for clues, stuff like that. I'm just not…" his voice trailed off. "Is this stuff you learned from the witchers at your Kaer Morhen?"

Ciri shrugged. "Not entirely. I suppose a lot of this I learned from the fact that everyone was hunting for me for so long, I picked up their methods, figured out how they were tracking me." She let out a chuckle. "I suppose it's not as useful here in this world where nobody is searching for me. I wonder how their efforts to find me are going if I'm just not even there…"

"You didn't return to your world after what happened in Rivia, did you?"

"Only briefly. It's a long story, Jon…" she sounded like she regretted keeping

"How about you tell it to me tonight, before bed?" he suggested. Of all the things she had not liked to talk about to him, what had happened between the events of Rivia and when she had come to his rescue in the forest. "We'll have time then."

"Time," she repeated, like she found that to be amusing. "Sure, I'll tell it to you like a bedtime story, how's that sound?"

"That sounds entertaining,' he allowed. Ciri may not have always been the best storyteller, but the content of her stories were usually quite interesting to him. "So what are we going to tell the baron?"

She shrugged. "I've not the faintest clue where to go from here. So we'll start asking around tomorrow, see what we can find."

"Maybe we can start asking around tonight?" Jon had little idea as to what the future held for them now, but still wanted to get this done as quickly as possible. "Isn't it easier to look for people sooner after they disappear?"

Ciri rolled her eyes. "Yes… if it's shortly after they disappeared. After several weeks, a day or two isn't going to cause the trial to go cold, particularly since we don't have any leads."

"Do you actually believe that?"

"Why shouldn't I? Geralt and I were bound by destiny, but after Thanedd, it took our fates leading us to converge on the same castle at the same time to be reunited again. If not for Stygga, I'm not sure we ever could have found each other. If he did, it would have been for two reasons; one, the fact that everyone was looking for me, and two, I made a bit of a name for myself with some of the stuff I did afterwards, which could have resulted in him deducing it was me."

"Yes but… this isn't that, is it? The baron's wife and daughter went missing without some sort of magic, or in the chaos of a battle or something. If we delay, someone who might know something could die or-"

She snorted. "Funny how you're the one who wants us to hurry up with this now."

"Ciri…"

"Jon…"

"What?"

"Come on, let's go. I'll do the talking with the baron, alright? You'll just stand at my side and look pretty."

"And look pretty?"

Ciri gave him a crooked smile. "Yennefer taught me that. A man at a woman's side should enhance her beauty, not detract from it. That's you, Jon." She tilted her head a little. "And other purposes too, I suppose. Oh well, let's go."

The baron was waiting in his solar. "Well, did you find anything useful?"

"Not much," Ciri answered. "There's clues, but nothing that was really helpful for figuring out where they went. With your permission, could we ask around the castle? Do you think you know anyone who would know about it?" While she did the talking, Jon looked around, and immediately took a curiosity in the letter the baron was writing.

"I'll give you my permission," Phillip Stranger replied. "Aye, there's some who might know a bit about it. But Sergeant Ardal already has asked around, looking for clues. I'd ask him."

Jon was about to ask who Sergeant Ardal was, but Ciri's nod indicated that she probably did know him. "Did Tamara have any… friends who maybe we could talk to? Girls who age that she grew up with, or… And, your wife, Anna. Did she keep any close friends? Anyone, really."

"Friends?" the baron repeated. "Nay, seldom had those. We only began construction on this castle during the start of the summer, ten years ago. Before that, we were always traveling or distant. Didn't settle down for a while. Wasn't for a few years after that this place became what it is now, with a surrounding village. At first this was little better than a mercenary camp. Even now, not many women are kept around my- heh, my court."

Ciri narrowed her eyes, displaying interest to encourage the baron further, even though Jon thought she looked a bit silly. "How about… traveling, did they do much of that? They ever go anywhere outside the castle? Have any favorite spots?"

The Red Baron shook his head. "We never traveled. Occasionally we'd go as a family to attend certain matters beyond my walls, but… the only one who was ever leaving the castle on their own was me."

"And… in the castle? Any favorite spots? Did Tamara have a place she liked to stash things? Did your wife have a favorite room to do needlework and reading in?"

"None that'll be o' much interest for you. Wish I could say I had more, but…"

"Alright," Ciri said, with a slight smile. "Jon and I will be going. When we set off, will you be able to afford Jon a mount of his own, so we don't have to ride double on my Kelpie."

"Of course, of course," the baron agreed, "whatever you need. Armor, weapons, clothes, food, mounts."

Ciri nodded. "And someone to take care of the little ones."

"Ahh, they're not so little, now are they?" he snorted. "I've seen littler, you know, hah!"

"Come on, Jon, let's not use up more of the baron's time than we have to," she said, nodding.

With their second audience with the baron at its end, Jon and Ciri went back upstairs to the third floor, for their room. While Jon sat down on the bed, his ashen-haired lover stretched out on her back. "Did you notice anything?" she asked, with a yawn.

Jon had other concerns. "You're not about to take a nap are you?"

"I might be," she admitted. "So what. Tell me what you saw, then I'll tell you what I did."

"I saw his letter," Jon told her. "I could read his hand, though it was a little difficult upside down and between glances."

"What was he writing?"

"He was writing to Mance Rayder. I didn't get a look at what he was writing about."

"Unfortunate."

Jon laid back to join Ciri, looking into her eyes. She seemed a little bit lost in thought. "And what about you?" he asked. "What did you notice?"

"Jon… how often did your family travel, when you were growing up?"

"Quite a bit. Though nowhere near as much as yours did."

"I wouldn't expect that much," she giggled, "but did your father ever take you anywhere without your siblings… or even let you go alone?"

"He let my Uncle Benjen take me to the Wall."

"Before that."

"Once. He took my brother, Robb, south to King's Landing with Lady Catelyn when we were about ten. A couple of months later, when they came back, they did so with Robb's betrothed in their company. Then a little after that, father decided to take me on my own for a trip. Just us and a small escort."

"Where did you go?"

"We went south, to the Rills, this land in the southern parts of the kingdom. We met Lord Ryswell at his seat- Rhysdom. I never understood why my father took me with though." At least not until now. Now Jon had several guesses, of which he was not particularly certain. Maybe mother knows something? "But what's this got to do with the baron's wife and daughter?"

"Nothing. I just found it odd that the baron never took his wife and daughter anywhere. It seems odd." She stared up at the ceiling above them. "I don't like the fact that he can't tell us anything about their favorite spots either. To be honest, Jon, something seems very wrong in all of this. The baron wants us to find them, I'm certain, but he's hiding things from us. That or he's completely oblivious to the world around him. Even if we find them, I'm not sure it's wise to return them here. There may have been a reason for disappearing."

"Do you want to try to find them, even? What's the point if we aren't going to bring them back here?"

"I want to find them. I want to know the truth. The full story, and I want to hear it from the baron's lips. And I want to help this wife and daughter of his if I can," Ciri admitted. She let out a sigh. "I've become resigned to the fact that this might just be our life, too. Maybe we'll have a chance to get out of here with you finally being released from that camp, but we'll need horses, and traveling with the little ones could be dangerous. I don't like the idea of being stuck here, but-"

Jon interrupted his lover's speech with a kiss to the cheek. "It's alright, you don't need to tell me everything." He was worried too after all.

"What are we going to do with ourselves, Jon?" Ciri took another deep breath. "I wish Geralt was here. He could always make things cheerful somehow, even though he's horribly dreary. Maybe some of those dwarves could be here too… Yrpen Zigren, Xavier Moran, Regan Dahlberg… I'm getting carried away again, aren't I?"

"You were," he agreed. "Do you want to go see the sergeant now?"

Ciri shook her head. "I want you to get out of those clothes. But we need to go see the sergeant. You understand the difference, don't you?"

"I do."

"Let's go then."

Jon and Ciri didn't look like they belonged in Grackle's Perch at all, just from their attire. Jon still wore the clothes he had from the Night's Watch, which had luckily been washed and repaired after what he'd faced recently. Ciri meanwhile still had her white blouse and leather trousers and wore the black cloak she'd taken off of one of Jon's comrades on the first day after they'd found each other, though she seemed to have made some adjustments to make sure her clothes were more fitting for the weather that they were facing.

"You know who the baron reminds me of?" he asked as they were walking. "King Robert Baratheon."

"He's the father of your good-sister, the princess, isn't he?"

"He is," Jon nodded. "Father always told stories about the king that he had from his youth. He described a mighty warrior, a man capable of slaying the crown prince on the battlefield and leading a rebellion to victory despite the odds being horribly against them. By the time I got to see him with my own eyes though, he was much older. He'd gotten fat. I could see the boy from father's stories still in him, just a little bit, but he was a different man by then. The baron reminds me of him."

"How did the king die again?" Ciri asked. "I can't remember."

"He died in a hunting accident, apparently. Then my father was arrested by the king's son and heir, Prince Joffrey, who had him executed. That's when I nearly deserted- to join my brother's campaign in the south."

"Ah, I remember now."

Sergeant Ardal was someone that Jon had seen before, while working on building the new wall, he just had never learned his name. They found him just outside of the palace, sitting on a bench while he sharpened his sword next to the garden of evergreen trees. The sergeant had the look of a hard man, a lined and gaunt face, with straight dark hair that was plastered to his face. Frostbite had taken an ear from him, and he was one of the few who Jon had seen that was wearing proper armor.

"Eh, what do you want?" he asked, looking up from his task.

"We want to talk," Ciri said, bluntly. "You're the one who led the initial search for the Red Baron's wife and daughter, weren't you?"

"I was. There were two parties, one that he led and one I led meself. Baron never found nothing until he encountered a fight and was wounded and had to come back."

Jon was surprised to learn that the baron had sent a search of his own, but he didn't say anything about it, and just tried to hide his shock. Luckily, Ciri was there to do the talking. "What happened in the fight, do you know?"

"Baron and his men don't say. Three o' them were killed that day. Fourth died when they came back. That's all I know."

"Ah… and what did you find?"

"Spoke to the wizard, down the road. 'Pellar,' he calls hisself, thinks he's being all fancy using the Old Tongue to seem wise. Outta kill the bugger to set him straight, but… ah, he wan't o' much use." The sergeant looked around. "Think we might o' been on the right path. We had a trail for a little while. Then…"

"Do you know where this wizard is?"

"Sure. Due west o' hear, if you stay on the road, there's a village. Called Lurtch, it is. Wizard lives just outside it, someone'll tell you where to find him if you can't."

"West…" Ciri repeated. "The Ladies of the Wood are west of here too, aren't they?"

"Aye. All things west o' us are their territory, so be careful. If you want my thoughts, I think Anna and Tamara was killed by the Crones or their monsters o' theirs. If not that, they starved." The sergeant's face didn't seem bothered by it at all. "Baron's just in denial."

"Thank you, sergeant," Ciri said, curtseying a little. "It's been a pleasure."

Sergeant Ardal frowned. "Hope you're not serious 'bout finding them. I'd a dozen o' our best trackers and hunters. Couldn't find them then. You won't now."

"We'll see about that," she replied, defiantly.

The rest of the day proved a lot less eventful. Jon spent time with Eskel, Luke and Dya, while Ciri went off to go have a final talk with the baron, where she said she would be requesting some resources for them to use, followed by Ciri taking Jon to meet some of the friends she'd made in the castle; a young girl named Gretka, an orphan who Ciri had saved from a pack of wolves while out hunting, a man called Orryl- who along with his wife, Denya, had been taking care of the children while Ciri was away, and Captain Urgen, who'd been the one who initially captured them as it turned out.

She also told him a little more about what had happened after they'd been separated too. The reason for Jon immediately getting thrown in the camps- rather than being brought before the baron as was typically custom was because when they were traveling to Grackle's Perch, some of the men had gotten drunk and begun doing stupid dares. One of those dares had been to fuck Ciri, which she said she'd only agree to if the man drank a potion that would make him a suitable match for her. That man had agreed heartily, taking a deep swig of the potion- which as it turned out was black blood, a witcher potion used for fighting against vampires, which turned their blood into poison, making it so that if a vampire was capable of getting a drink of blood from them, they'd be drinking poison. While the man had died horribly, that had put an end to the drunken dares and resulted in their separation. While Captain Urgen had liked Ciri for setting his men straight, and ordered them not to hurt her, the men thought her a witch and wanted her burned, though Urgen had negotiated a kinder fate for them.

When they finally arrived at Grackle's Perch and stood before the Red Baron, Ciri had claimed that she was not in fact a witch, but a witcher- a trained monster hunter and killer, so the baron had dispatched her to prove it by killing the King of the Wolves- a monstrous wolf that had been plaguing the forest around the castle-village. Ciri returned; having rescued the orphaned Gretka and with a trophy to show for it. Then she took a contract on a monster called a Cockatrice, which Jon was able to deduce was some sort of massive bird, and got to tell the baron the story of how she'd killed the ice dragon with him.

Nightfall had caught up to them surprisingly quickly, but Jon finally felt like he had a deduction of his own to offer. "I think I know why the baron chose us," he said, as they were laying next to each other. "Or I do now at least."

"And why's that?" Ciri asked.

"The sergeant said the trail led west, didn't he? That's where the Crones are too." Jon looked Ciri in the eyes. "He wants someone who is capable of fighting monsters. Like you. This isn't some suicide mission to get rid of us or something. He wants us because he knows it's suicide for anyone else."

"Bravo, Jon," Ciri said, smiling.

"So tomorrow, we'll…" he began, allowing her to finish the sentence.

"We're going to say our goodbyes to the children and then we'll ride west to see if we can meet this pellar."

"So tomorrow we meet the wizard, and then-"

"-not the wizard," Ciri interrupted. "The pellar. He's a pellar, not a wizard."

"Why are you so insistent?" Jon wondered aloud. "The serjeant called him a wizard."

"Because they aren't the same. Pellar is a word in my world too. Wizard is a term used for wise men who wield magic- or at least most of them are wise- as a broad term, but there's more specific categorizations," she explained. "Sorcerer is a more common term, though it has a more purposeful connotation to it, usually meaning court influence or power. Druids are magic users more in touch with nature, like Uncle Mousesack, and usually live as hermits. Witchers are well… people who hunt monsters, though they don't use magic anywhere near as much as others. And a pellar tends to be more specific to the village- like the village healer. Sometimes they even play the part of alderman."

"Ah," he said, understanding. "So we'll see the pellar then."

"Yes, and then we'll go from there."

"And now for your story," Jon said. "You promised a story about what had happened after Rivia."

"Did you ever think about why the Crones wanted me so much?" Ciri asked. "Did you ever think about why they called me, 'daughter of the Elder Blood?'"

"I assumed it was about your powers… and maybe Alaric's too?"

"Yes. That's part of why everyone was always looking for me so much. Wielders of magic wanted to control me, force me to have their children so that they could have the Elder Blood for themselves. I only know bits and pieces of the story, I must say, but I know that the Elder Blood first appeared in this world called the Aen Elle. My world is called the Aen Seidhe by them. After I got my scar and was helped by Vysogota, I ended up finding this place called the Tower of Swallows. There, I went through a portal and it took me to the world of the Aen Elle- and the capital of the elves there- Tir ná Lia. My distant ancestor, Lara Dorren- had been the first one they cultivated the Alder Blood in. She was the daughter of their king, Auberon, and was to marry an elven sage named Avallac'h, but she fell in love with a human of the Aen Seidhe named Cregennen of Lod. They were killed by humans eventually, though not before they had their daughter, Riannon. To put things short, I was the first who the Elder Blood had truly manifested in, after several generations. My mother had power, but it never fully blossomed in her like it did with me."

Jon looked at her with bewilderment. Ciri's stories were often a lot to take in, but this… this was something else entirely.

Ciri gave him a minute to process all of that, then continued, "They wanted me to have a son with their king, Auberon. But he was old and I was human, which gave him difficulties with ah… impregnating me, I guess. Eventually, one of the other elves, named Eredin, supplied Auberon with an aphrodisiac to expedite the process, but Auberon was too old, and his heart wasn't able to handle it." She paused again for a minute, then went on, "I escaped, obviously, but Eredin didn't stop pursuing me. He became king after Auberon's death, and pursued me. I left the Isle of Avalon and went to this place called Camelot, ruled by a man named King Arthur, and a man named Galahad, who thought I was a fairy." She paused again to giggle. "I stayed there a while, and I think the Wild Hunt, the Aen Elle's forces that travel between worlds and were the ones pursuing me- couldn't locate me there. So instead, they tried something else. They decided to use Geralt and Yennefer, forcing them out of hiding to make me give in to their demands. They forced Geralt and Yennefer out of Avalon- the place I left them, and then captured Yennefer. Eventually, Geralt and some friends tracked the Hunt down to this place in the Aen Seidhe, were they fought, and eventually Geralt offered to trade his soul for Yennefer's, and became a rider of the Wild Hunt, under Eredin. I finally left Camelot to free him, and I left him in the world of the Aen Seidhe, but I couldn't stay. The Wild Hunt was now on my trail, and they began to pursue me between worlds, and this time I couldn't manage to get them to lose my track. When I found your world, I figured it wouldn't be long until I had to leave, but then… well my powers stopped working, and… they haven't come for us yet. But that monster I saved the baron from- the one that I won your freedom by killing. It wasn't just any hound. It was a Hound of the Wild Hunt."

Jon wasn't sure what to say to any of it. He understood Ciri's story, but he couldn't figure out what it all meant. Instead, he just gaped.

"If the Wild Hunt has found us… I don't have my powers so we can stay on the run from them." She shuddered. "I don't want to end up like Cregennen of Lod and Lara Dorren either. They died, and Riannon was adopted by the Queen of Redania. But back then, the elves weren't interested in a human child of the Elder Blood and Riannon wasn't given some great destiny. All my life I've been hearing my son this- my son that. If we leave Alaric an orphan, the Wild Hunt will take him, and they will use him."

All of it began to make sense to Jon. If anything, he felt ashamed for his own worries, which mostly centered around his Night's Watch vows and the idea of being trapped with the wildlings, which would make him a deserter. He'd been just as worried as Ciri, but her worries were of far more dangerous things. "We can fight."

"Against an army of… twenty thousand? More? All highly trained, elite warriors, who've fought in too many battles to count with decades to master their abilities?" Jon, we couldn't stand up to the Wild Hunt in a straight up fight without an army. Maybe your family could muster up the soldiers, but even those soldiers wouldn't be a match against the Wild Hunt, and your family is already caught up in a war of its own." It was strange seeing Ciri this fearful. If she was scared, that meant they really were in trouble. "Fighting monsters and fighting armies are two entirely different things, Jon. You should know that."

"Then maybe we need to make allies," he suggested. "Find people to help us fight them."

"Yes… would you like to commit thousands of your men to fighting against the Wild Hunt on behalf of me and my son? Most if not all of you will die in the process and ultimately this all could mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. That sounds like quite the pitch, Jon, really."

He realized then that nothing he could say would put Ciri's mind at ease. So he decided it was best to distract her with something else. "How about we ah… think about something else for a while?" he suggested as he reached a hand over, and unlaced her blouse. He inched towards her, then opened the blouse to reveal her torso.

"Oooh, really, Jon?" she said with a giggle. Then she rolled onto her back, and took the chance to remove her blouse completely, and gently removed her white bra as well- which was apparently what that piece of clothing was called, though he'd never seen one in Westeros, or even heard of it.

Though Jon was still wearing all of his clothes, and Ciri still had her pants on, she put her hands around his head and used that to pull him on top of her. He kissed her first on the lips, then followed as she began pushing his head down. He kissed her cheek, her neck, her shoulder, until finally making it to her breast.

Jon looked up with uncertainty, but he couldn't see her face. He kissed her breast, then she pushed him down a little further. Tentatively, he put a kiss on her nipple, which caused her to let out a moan in response. She wouldn't let him move his head any further either, instead, keeping it pressed against her tit, as though she wanted more. As strange as he felt it was, he took her nipple in his mouth.

"Yessss…." she moaned, "yesssss… there… there, Jon… yesss…"

His hands seemed to take on a life of their own, drifting towards Ciri's crotch. Without looking, they fumbled at her trousers, unbuttoning them and lowering the zipper (which was another part of her outfit that Jon had never seen in Westeros before, though she said she had gotten the trousers in a different world), then pulled away her underwear. She seemed to know how to react as well, spreading her legs and using her hands to push the pants and undergarment just a little further down her legs. With her teat still in his mouth, his right hand began to fumble with her crotch a little, tickling, until finally inserting a pair of fingers into her slit.

Ciri gasped with delight then, moaning even louder as he ran his left hand along her waist and stomach, then up to her chest and to her ashen grey hair, which he found himself tugging and playing with, until eventually he found her hand, and he grabbed that instead.

Jon's mouth had a mind of its own as well, kissing, sucking, and licking almost on instinct, rather than anything he was consciously doing. All the while, his fingers continued on, rising and then going deeper in a quick rhythm. His own arousal was growing almost unbearable, but Jon continued, unable to bring a pause to the moment, even for just a few seconds.

Her climax was marked by a sudden shudder that ran across her body, and a final drawn out moan. She released his hand, which hurt from how tightly she'd been squeezing it, while Jon withdrew his fingers from her slit, and lifted his head up from her tit.

He went lax on top of her, setting his head on top of her bare stomach, until finally Ciri pushed him off after a couple of minutes. She began to remove her trousers completely, while Jon was sitting up on his knees. Now completely naked, she sat up on her knees across from him. "I suppose it's my turn now, isn't it?"

Jon didn't answer with words, though he swore he could have felt his hand slowly itching towards her breast. Luckily, he restrained himself as she sat in front of him, and began fumbling at his clothes. She took off his shirt first, then began to work on his pants, until he was as naked as she was. In the darkness, he didn't have a particularly good view of her, though that didn't really matter.

She began to sink back into the bed, inviting Jon to join her. He did, though his time inside of her went even quicker than his time pleasuring her did.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, and pulled in rhythm with each thrust from Jon, as she kissed him across his face and neck and touched him all over. He fondled the breast he hadn't been sucking earlier as she did that, which caused Ciri to cry out, though he silenced that by kissing her on the lips. When they were done, both of them were out of breath. Jon rolled onto his back and laid next to her, until she decided to crawl on top of him.

"I love you, Ciri," he whispered, as he could already feel her starting to drift off to sleep. He gave her a final kiss, and then they fell asleep together.

That night, the Bastard of Winterfell only had one dream, and a strange one at that.

At first, he thought he was looking at himself, but he quickly realized that it wasn't right. It wasn't Lord Eddard either, and he felt confident it wasn't his father. It was a young man, almost the spitting image of Jon, though taller, with a little sharper features, and wearing a bizarre assortment of clothes; a blue and white patterned doublet with a red velvet cape- an iron crown atop of his head that had spikes jutting upwards- and a sword slung across his back like how Ciri wore her Zireael. What truly cemented this was the boy's ears though. Alaric, he realized.

His eyes were closed though, and Jon had no voice whatsoever. All around his not even yet born son were shadows and mist, though distantly he could make out the faint outline of a tower. Nothing at all seemed to be happening. It was just Alaric, standing there in the haze.

Then the fog grew too thick to see momentarily, then cleared a little once more. Now Alaric was standing side by side with a girl. The only discernible feature he could see of her was her silver-blond hair, which hung out from her hood, while the boy and the girl were standing back to back. Alaric's sword was drawn, revealing a magnificent greatsword unlike anything Jon had ever seen before, while the girl had a much more slender longsword. Instead of a doublet, Alaric now wore armor that was made of steel that was so polished it was silver.

Together, they were facing off against an unseen enemy that seemed to lurk just out of view.

Before anything else could happen, Jon was awoken by a scream, which caused the entire dream to be forgotten. It was Ciri who was screaming.

She was pinned beneath a hideous monster- perhaps the most hideous creature he'd ever seen. It was a baby, or at least that's what he initially thought it was, though its purple flesh, oversized body and grotesque features revealed it to be something else.

Jon was taken by instinct once more. He grabbed the creature that was crawling on top of Ciri and hoisted it off of her, holding it with his arms extended. What he saw was something he was not going to forget soon.

The creature's swollen tongue was much longer than any tongue ought to be, and behind that were sharp, pointy teeth. Its eyes were glossy and swollen too, and there was something that looked like an umbilical cord that was much longer than it should have been, wrapped around the monster's body.

Instinctively, Jon threw it across the room, as hard and as far as he could with how heavy it was. It struck the wall, letting out a strange wail of pain as it did, as Ciri sprung to action. Even though she was completely naked she nearly leapt out of bed and began looking around, which Jon guessed was for her sword, though that's not the one she found.

With Longclaw in hand, Ciri approached where the monster had landed. The monster was unmoving except for its tongue, which waved back and forth. "Kill it," Jon said, standing up, as Ciri stood over it, with his sword in position to kill the creature. "Just kill it."

Ciri looked up at him. "It's a botchling, Jon. I've only ever read about them, but- well they're born from miscarriages, and stillbirths when the body isn't properly buried. It must have targeted me because… well they supposedly go after pregnant women."

"Kill it then," he insisted. "If it's a danger to you-"

"It's an uneasy spirit, Jon. I know it's possible to kill it with a sword, but it's also possible to give it peace." She looked back at the horrific creature. "If my deductions are correct, it could be useful too."

"Why's that?"

"It's the baron and his wife's child, it has to be. There's no children in the palace, besides the ones we brought, only a handful of people who are even married, and nobody's said anything about a monster within the castle. If pregnant women were frequently being found dead with their breasts chewed off and their stomachs ripped open, I think we would have heard about it by now. This botchling belongs to the palace, and the palace belongs to the baron, it has to be. Put that robe on, and your cloak, Jon. You're going to need it."

Jon could see that Ciri was serious about this, and did as she asked. He located a robe and his cloak as well as some slippers.

"Now take the sword," Ciri instructed, offering Longclaw to him.

As he held Longclaw out, threatening the monster, Ciri began getting dressed herself, wearing a similar hasty outfit, then found Zireael and put the sword on.

"What now?"

"You're going to carry it. We're going to the dungeons, where someone should be awake, and we're going to ask for a set of shackles to be fitted, and a nice little box for it, so it can't hurt us. I'll go in front, and you'll hold it facing me, since it's me that it wants to feed on." She paused for a moment to itch her stomach, where the beast had been crawling just a couple of minutes before. "Don't get too close to me, or it will attack me. Just follow close enough that it will see me as bait, and no matter what you do, do not let go of it."

Ciri unsheathed Zireael and held the sword out towards the botchling, like Jon was doing with Longclaw.

"Leave your sword here, and pick it up," she said.

Jon was careful to follow her instructions, setting Longclaw down and then going forward to pick up the botchling. The monster seemed downright repugnant now, with him finally picking up on the fact that it reeked of dirt, blood and rot. Ciri kept her sword very close to the monster as Jon began to pick it up, and turned it so that its front was facing outwards. Very slowly, he lifted it, holding it towards Ciri, who was careful to remain just out of reach.

When his arms were finally raised completely, she gave him a nod. "I'm going to sheath my sword now, Jon. It's going to start to squirm when I do. Are you ready?"

"I think so…"

Very slowly, Ciri began to sheath her blade. Jon tightened his grip around the botchling as she finally was putting the sword in her scabbard, and was squeezing it hard enough that he swore he might kill it by the time it was completely in.

Then Ciri took her hand off of the hilt.

All at once the botchling began to squirm and was reaching out towards Ciri. Jon felt like he almost lost his grip in the process, but recovered at the last second to keep control. It was trying to claw and bite at Ciri, who remained just out of reach.

"Let's go," she said, opening the door.

The walk took an almost painfully long amount of time. Jon had to remain just out of reach from Ciri, and kept a firm grip on the monster while at any moment a door could open from someone who had been awoken by the commotion and create even more problems. Luckily, they made it to the stairwell without any problems, though when it came to the stairs themselves, it was trickier. Ciri made her way down to the first landing, then encouraged Jon to follow.

Twice Jon thought he might trip on the stairs, but Ciri was there to point out when he'd missed the step, or to tell him to slow down. Then they had to repeat the tedious process five more times, until finally they were on the first floor.

"Where are the dungeons?" Jon asked, as he tried to readjust his grip.

The botchling let out a particularly loud cry in response.

"They're beneath the castle, but the entrance is outside. We've got to-"

Ciri was interrupted by the baron's voice, right behind Jon on the stairs. "What the bloody hell?"

Jon turned around just in time to see the baron looming over him.

The Red Baron only needed a second to react to the monster in his arms. "What the blazes? Guards!"

His concentration broke just long enough that the botchling broke free from his grasp. In just the blink of an eye, chaos ensued. The monster crawled towards Ciri at an unnatural speed. Jon tried to jump on it in order to pin it to the ground but missed, while the baron rushed forward. Ciri tried to back away from the monster, like she was hoping not to hurt it, but an instant later, it had begun to crawl onto her, causing her to scream. The scream devolved into a howl of pain as the botchling bit Ciri.

Ultimately, it was the baron who saved her from the mess he'd created. He barreled forward, with a knife in hand, and stabbed the botchling through the chest. With a final wail, the monster died and slumped onto Ciri, who instinctively tossed it away.

"Guards!" the baron shouted again. "Guards!"

The guards appeared, swords drawn. All of them were confused by the commotion as well.

"What's the matter?" one of them began to ask.

"Take the bastard and his wench to the dungeons. They were trying to smuggle monsters into the castle to kill me."

Jon tried to crawl over to Ciri, who was more concerned by the fact that the right side of her stomach was bleeding than what the baron was saying, until he felt a spear resting between his shoulders. "Oh no you don't," the man said, "it's to the slammer for you."

Author Notes:

Hey ya! Thanks for reading folks.

And a big thanks to Veronica for drawing Jon's dreams of Alaric, which can be seen here: /thewweskywalker/status/1704674361322700983?s=20