So, here's yet another attempt at a Witcher crossover, and a Harry/Ciri pairing. I hope you guys enjoy.
That being said, I'm not sure if and when this will come out. I've burned myself out on my Overlord crossover 200 Years, A Long Wait for Friends. So it may be a while before any new fics come out, even this one. However, I do have plenty of ideas that may or may not see the light of day. Aside from this one, I have...
*An aforementioned God of War crossover, with a Harry/Freya pairing.
*My long-awaited Legend of Drizzt crossover, with a Harry/Vierna pairing.
*A Genshin Impact crossover, pairings TBD (though with an adult Harry, the likely candidates are Rosaria and Lisa), with either a VATDP Harry or a post-Hogwarts Harry ending up in Teyvat. Oh, and fair warning? In all likelihood, I am probably going to be bashing the hell out of at least the first three Archons in that future story. Not so much Nahida, though.
*A Rising of the Shield Hero crossover...with a Harry/Malty pairing. No, really, and I have a few ideas on how to accomplish that, based in part on my abortive Harry/Renner fics.
*An Elden Ring crossover, with either Malenia or Melina in the pairing.
Keep in mind, these are just the more solid story ideas. I have a few more idle ideas bouncing around my noggin, and my Harry/Raynare fic is almost ready to be published. But I'm curious as to whether any of these catch your eye. Though I should point out, even knowing which ones are more popular won't guarantee they will be written.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy...
ZIREAEL UI DEWIN
CHAPTER 1:
THE WIZARD IN THE TOWER
Velen. A war-torn land, the intersection between the fronts of the current war. A war fought between the Nilfgaardian Empire and the Northern Realms…which, of late, was mostly those realms controlled by King Radovid. Between an ambitious, ruthless megalomaniac on one side, and a xenophobic madman on the other, the land of Velen didn't lack for suffering. Then again, it had for some time already. The current war was only the latest trouble to befall this land.
Recently, Velen, at least nominally, came under the dubious leadership of one Phillip Strenger, known colloquially as the Bloody Baron. Ironically, the incident that gave him an otherwise well-deserved moniker involved a dyeing works rather than any actual bloodshed, and for all his reputation and his acts, he was quite a jovial and affable man to those who met him outside of his more violent acts. The word likeable could easily be applied to him…whenever he wasn't drunk or in battle or bullying the peasantry, anyway.
Velen had much in the way of interesting history…much of it interesting in the cursed sense of the term. West of the village of Heatherton is an abandoned tower. Local folklore stated that a baron living here refused a beleaguered traveller hospitality, fearing him to be a spy. Unfortunately, said traveller was a mage of not-inconsiderable power, and the wrath of a mage spurned hospitality is the stuff of fairytales…or, more frequently, nightmares. The mage cursed the baron, his household, and the tower he lived in. All three fell to ruin, and the baron and his household went to an early grave.
Until very recently, the abandoned tower stood as a monument to those unwise enough to anger mages, as well as a convenient landmark. But the night before, someone had come to inhabit those ruins. Not by choice, true, but he had been left in this place, dropped even.
But like a pebble dropped into a pond, he would cause ripples that would distort and change the course of events in this world, which was exactly what the one who brought him here wanted…
"When I get my hands on that shave-headed Nyarlathotep wannabe, I'm going to punch him! I don't care if it's impossible or he turns me into something horrid or drives me insane, I'm going to bloody well do it! And I'll do worse to Malfoy, that overly-bleached bastard!"
In many ways, this angry rant was actually far calmer than what the one giving the rant was like the previous night. Then again, given that the person in question had been ripped from their homeworld and left stranded in another, one could understand his foul mood. And he needed to get it out of his system, even as he shrank a rather large wooden trunk and placed it in the pocket of his coat.
"Okay, now…let's take stock. Diet Nyarlathotep said I'm on what is basically a medieval fantasy world, in the middle of a war. Mages are burned on one side because one of the local kings is a psychopath, and the other side is only a little less brutal," he said. "Problem is, given that it's wartime, strangers in strange clothes are going to be suspicious, especially in strange clothes. Ugh, it's like what should've been my seventh year all over again. Well, might as well have breakfast with a view…"
Which was why, some minutes later, he was perched on the edge of the ruined parapet of the tower, munching on some toast. He'd always been prepared to have some sort of supplies in his Expanded Trunk, and while they wouldn't last that long, it helped to have something familiar, to help centre him. That, and he needed some blood sugar to help him be less cranky, at least theoretically. He'd Disillusioned himself, just in case some nosy parker came along. Or whatever had made that nest he had cleaned up just before eating his breakfast. Probably unwise, but he was in a foul mood, and he had no desire to sit anywhere near a pile of sticks, dung, and what looked disturbingly like human bones.
The view was admittedly good, forested countryside all around. Honestly, if it weren't for the distant but pervasive smell of blood, shit and decay, it'd be near-pristine. And the quiet, only birdsong and the sound of wind rustling the leaves breaking the peace.
Well, at first, anyway.
He heard hollering and hoofbeats in the distance, and he found his attention drawn to the source of the noise. A pair of horse riders, galloping along. And the riders couldn't be any more different.
As they came to a halt, the runner-up clambered off his horse, a rotund lump of a middle-aged man with a beard, dressed in armour with red clothing over it. He wore a sword at his hip, and a dagger was sheathed on his chest. "Bloody hell, you're wind, not a woman!" the man exclaimed, though it seemed less complaint and more admiration. "Well, you're worthy of the best horse, and I'm a man of my word."
The woman in question was about his age, though the white hair threw him at first. That framed beautiful features, marred by a scar on the right side of her face, while her dark green eyes, not unlike his own, almost seemed to glow. She was dressed in a well-worn white shirt and leather pants, a sword on her back. She seemed to be the epitome of a warrior woman. She approached the man, and said, a little out of breath, "Thank you, Baron!"
But then, a strange cry filled the air, and the woman seemed alert, holding up a hand for silence. The young man on the tower, having just finished his toast, stood and looked around, only to see some reptilian thing on feathered wings, like some mutant offspring of a pterosaur and a chicken, to fly past the tower with a screech, nearly knocking him from the tower in its wake. "MERLIN'S SAGGY NUTSACK!" he yelled, startled.
He'd probably drawn attention to himself and broke his spell, but he didn't care. Whatever it was, it was ugly and belligerent, and possibly what made that foul nest he had cleared away earlier. And given the way it was swooping down on the two horse riders, it wasn't remotely friendly, either…
Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, better known to her loved ones as Ciri, had been in a good mood until now. After spending some time indulging in the hospitality of Philip Strenger, better known as the Bloody Baron, she'd risen to goading that she could beat him in a horse race, with his best horse as the stakes. For all the man's many faults (given that his wife and daughter had fled him, to say nothing of his reputation), he had taken her in, healed her wounds, and even employed that girl Ciri had found in the swamps, Gretka, in his kitchens. And after dealing with those who had abused her goodwill in the past, she was grateful to have his without any real strings attached.
But now, just after having won a horse race, a Basilisk had attacked. And she heard a voice scream a familiar name from that derelict tower. Merlin…now there was a name she hadn't heard in a long time.
Her eyes flicked up, briefly taking in a dark-haired figure on the tower, body language startled, before she readied her blade. "What the bloody hell is that?" the Bloody Baron yelped.
"Another chance to win," Ciri said with grim humour, but she added in a more cautious tone, "Don't let it hit you with its poison. It's a Basilisk."
The Baron readied his sword. "Got it. Oh, and if I die, feel free to take what you want from my corpse."
"You'll survive," Ciri said.
Before she could say anything else, she heard that voice from earlier call out. "GET BACK! I'M GOING TO BLAST THE DAMN THING!"
Ciri and the Baron shared a look, before they dived away. "BOMBARDA!" the voice yelled, and a jet of light hit the Basilisk and exploded.
Ciri and the Baron looked at the responsible party, perched on the top of the derelict tower, holding a wand and pointing it at the writhing Basilisk. A mage of some sort. "ARE YOU TWO OKAY?" he yelled, looking down at them.
"WE'RE FINE! WATCH OUT FOR THE BASILISK'S POISON!" Ciri called out.
"ITS POISON? DON'T YOU MEAN ITS GAZE? ANYWAY, THAT'S NOT A BASILISK! I'VE FOUGHT ONE, AND IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE A ROOSTER AND A DINOSAUR HAD…OH SHIT!"
This came about because the Basilisk, despite being injured, launched itself into the air, and was attacking him, enduring the next spell before swooping on him. Ciri hurried for the tower, but she knew she wasn't going to make it in time. Suddenly, with a whipcrack-like noise, the figure tumbled out of thin air next to her. He looked at her with incredulous eyes, emerald, flashing behind glasses she knew didn't belong to this world. "As I was saying," he said, panting, "a Basilisk normally looks like a huge snake, so unless they're different here…"
"Less arguing, lad, and more fighting!" the Baron snarled. "Use whatever spells you have to bring that whoreson down!"
"I get that!" the young man retorted, before sending a jet of light from his wand to the tower. The parapet shattered into fragments, which then suddenly imploded in on the Basilisk, trying to crush the monster. The Basilisk broke free with a screech, sending stone fragments raining down on them. The young man snarled, "Protego!", and the stone fragments bounced off a shield of light just above him.
However, the Baron wasn't so lucky, and a stone fragment hit him in the head. As he swayed, the Basilisk swooped down and carried him off. "Shit!" the young man yelped.
"Whoever you are…can you slow our fall with a spell?" Ciri asked urgently, a desperate plan forming in her head. It would mean exposing her presence to Eredin and the Wild Hunt, but she couldn't let her temporary benefactor get carried off by a Basilisk for its supper.
"…Yes, I can. Why?"
Ciri concentrated, drawing on her power…and then, she was blinking into existence above the Basilisk in a flare of pale green light, plunging her sword into its back. The creature screamed, and she hacked at it, noting that their descent was slow and gradual, thankfully. The mage was on the ball. In fact, after the Basilisk landed, gently, but crippled, he hurried up to it, pointed his wand at its head, and snarled, "Reducto." The screeching monster's head was turned into mince.
The Baron crawled out from underneath it, shaking his head. "Are you all right?" Ciri asked.
"Believe me, I've had worse hangovers," the Baron groused. "And worse injuries on the battlefield. Bugger me sideways, though, that was a fair knock to the head. Damn beast. Still, whatever magic you used helped cushion our fall, lad." He turned to Ciri. "But how the bloody hell did you manage to get above the whoreson?"
"It's too long a story, and…I'm sorry, Baron, but…I'll have to leave you before long. For your own sake as well as my own," Ciri said. She then turned to the young mage, the one she suspected to have come from a world she had been to a couple of times before. "You would do well to leave this area too. Those who pursue me, the Wild Hunt, would search this area first. I'm sorry, I brought danger upon you."
The young man, after a moment, sighed, running a hand through his messy mop of black hair. "Story of my life," he groused.
She examined him as he digested her words. Short and lanky, his eyes a rather beautiful emerald, his forehead marred by a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. He seemed on-edge, but if what she suspected about his origins were true, she couldn't blame him. She had every right to be suspicious of someone like that. But given that he actually told them to stay back before firing an explosive spell at the Basilisk, it was doubtful he was malign, unless he was really trying to pull off one hell of a con.
"The Wild Hunt?" the Baron asked, interrupting her thoughts, his expression a mixture of disbelief and dread. "Those wraiths? They're real?"
Ciri nodded. "I wish they weren't." She returned her attention to the mage. "And I know roughly where you come from."
"You do?" the mage asked.
"You shouted out something about Merlin," Ciri said. "Believe it or not, I've met him many years ago. I've been to a few timelines of your world, I suspect. If you speak of Merlin, but your clothing is more advanced than that during the reign of King Arthur…let me guess, you're from Britain?"
"…Yes. How do you know?" he asked warily.
"Again, it's a very long story," Ciri said. "I think it best that we introduce ourselves. This is Baron Phillip Strenger, though he is known locally as the Bloody Baron. I am Ciri. What's your name?"
The young man, after a moment looking at the Baron in confusion, said, "I'm Harry Potter. And…yeah, it looks like I've been stranded here…"
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
So, there you have it. Harry's been stranded in The Witcher world, and has met Ciri and the Bloody Baron.
No numbered annotations this time.
