Jon
Jon Snow sat with Ciri by the fire, watching as the flames slowly cooked part of the elk Ghost had recently brought back. The only sound that could be heard was the wind howling through the trees surrounding their hill restlessly, the occasional crackling of the fire and their own voices. It was peaceful within the makeshift shelter of theirs as the sun was slowly lowering in the sky.
"I think we should go tomorrow," he was telling her. "Resume our trek again." Their few days lingering and resting near the dead ice dragon had quickly turned into a week, and then a fortnight. It was now their seventeenth day since they had slain the beast, and thankfully they had not encountered any other humans during their stay.
Ciri cocked her head. "Are you sure you're ready for that? Perhaps we can wait another day or two, don't you think?"
"No," Jon shook his head, "I'm well enough to ride now." And I don't want to wait until you're not much good for travel either. Ciri didn't like talking about it, but Jon knew it was only a matter of time before her pregnancy began affecting her body, and by extension, their travels. Today she claimed to still feel completely normal, but soon she wouldn't and they couldn't afford to waste such valuable time before that point. They still had a long mission ahead of them, and there was no telling just how precious each day could be for them.
"We'll see, Jon. Tomorrow, we'll try riding out, but if you can't, we'll be staying here again," she finally said. And I'll be deciding when you can ride after that, her voice indicated.
When the elk rib finally was done cooking, Ciri removed it from the fire and brought it over. They split it in half, though both of their portions would have been more than enough to feed the two of them. It was a very messy meal that left their hands covered in blood and grease, and when they were done, they both tossed what they had not eaten over to Ghost who happily devoured it.
"Why were you away all day?" Jon asked after they were done washing their hands off with water they poured from a flask. "Were you scouting or something?" Thanks to his direwolf, they didn't have to venture out too far usually, Ghost could do patrols for them around the hill, hunt and a whole host of other necessities for them.
"No…" Ciri said with a sigh. "I've just been… well I guess I just needed to take some time to be alone… I went to wash in the stream, and… I could have sworn my stomach was just a little bit bloated."
He nodded. Ever since Jon had told her that she was pregnant, Ciri had been prone to going off to be alone a little more than normal. When he first told her she stormed off into the woods, and on the day when her moon's blood should have come, she spent the entire day away from him. "Is it like you feel as though reality is setting in?"
"Yeah," she agreed. She moved into Jon's lap and hugged him now. "It does feel a bit weird, but… I guess I just wish I had a bit more time." She let out a bitter laugh. "I'm the Lady of Space and Time, yet I wish I could have had more time…"
That had been perhaps the part that Jon felt the most nervous about. Breaking his vows with just any woman would have been one thing, but Ciri… Ciri was not just any woman. As much as she assured him that things would be fine, the fact that he didn't feel confident that her Geralt and Yennefer approved of him as a partner for her, or the fact that his son might potentially have all of the powers that Ciri possessed, and the fact that it was he who had gotten her with child had been sources of anxiety for him. Ciri could travel between worlds, cut him to pieces in a fight without even trying, could make fire with her hands, and had countless other powers that Jon had either seen or she'd told him about or that he guessed she might have. Truthfully, he felt more afraid of Ciri now than he had before, worrying about how one wrong word or action might set her off. He didn't want to believe that she might lose her control with him but the thought still persisted in his mind.
Jon was a little bit worried about another feeling he'd been having more and more recently. He felt a bit more… lustful than he had been before. Maybe it was the fact that he knew he'd already thoroughly broken his vows, and now there was nothing holding him back. Maybe it was just him slowly building up feelings for Ciri over time, or maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, he felt his right hand slowly moving towards her, under her blouse, chainmail shirt and undercoat.
"Oh…" Ciri said with a slight giggle when she finally noticed. "Do go on."
He did go on, running his hand up her back first. She did ask him to rub her back or feet sometimes, but this was different. He was just… feeling her. His other hand moved towards her blouse, and he felt himself slowly undoing the buttons, one after another. When he got up to the middle of her back, he couldn't go any further with how she was sitting on him, so he started back down. Once he got back to her waist, he moved it to her front, running it along her stomach.
"It doesn't seem much bigger to me," he confessed as she shrugged out of her blouse now that it was completely unbuttoned. He slipped his other hand onto her stomach at that point, feeling her with both now.
"Errm… Jon… I thought you were going to lead this," she said. "You're fully clothed, I have one layer off and you're just touching my belly now…"
"Do you… not want me to?" Jon asked in response. He slipped his hands out from under her shirt then. Then he began to help her remove the rest of her layers. "How about this?" he asked when Ciri's entire torso was exposed, save for her white brassiere. Luckily, it had been a little warmer in the past few days, allowing for them to remove clothes like this.
She made a face. "Why don't you take off your shirt too, Jon?"
He found his eyes transfixed on her bare stomach still. It still appeared flat, but it did seem just the slightest bit bigger than it had been. He tapped his fingers a couple of times, as if to say hello to their child inside of her. Then he looked up at Ciri. "Do you mind if…"
"You're asking me if I'm comfortable with you touching my belly?" she asked him. She deliberated internally for a few seconds. Then she decided, "I'll allow it… as long as it… feels right."
Now Jon was confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ciri took a moment to think about it, then said, "Well, I do get it, Jon. Somewhere in there is our little Alaric, and he'll be our baby and all that. But I don't want to feel like… you're just playing with him. It's still my body, Jon. I'd feel better if I just knew you were respecting that fact." She paused again, then clasped her hands on top of his, pressing them against her stomach. "I just… I'm scared that it might feel like… the baby is becoming more of me than I am, Jon. And… well I think I've sort've told you that, but I don't want to feel ruled by our child. I hope… it'll be better once he's here, you know. I won't have the worry of carrying the baby, or labor or anything else like that to deal with any longer, and… it'll feel like more than just it being inside of me. But I guess the thought of not knowing where I end and where he begins… I just… I'm scared of that." She grimaced then. "I notice how you've been more interested in me now than you were before… I just… I don't like the feeling that it's just because of him."
Jon glanced down at their hands against her stomach for just a second then back up, looking her in the eyes again. He kissed her. "I'd still care for you even without us sharing a child," he promised her when they broke apart.
She gave him a hard look. "I know… I know you did. But when you told me about how your vows prevented you from taking a wife or having children… I… got scared, Jon. You told me that you wouldn't leave me, but… I'm scared that if we weren't having a child that you'd leave me eventually, or that you'd give me up for your vows." Her voice had broken slightly, as she slipped her hands off of Jon and moved to hug her. "I know you wouldn't love me as much if… we weren't having a child, and that scares me… because you're just loving me because of him. If I miscarried tomorrow, and my powers were back… would you just tell me to go?"
"Ciri, no…" he said, lifting his arms up to hug her now. He decided to tell her how he felt. "You've complicated my life… gods, you've really complicated things. But you're the only reason I have it. You've shown me other worlds, magic, monsters…" He paused for a second, thinking of how to say what would come next. "You told me that Geralt and Yennefer had loved each other for years, right? That they'd always come together, and break apart, but the fact that they would only come together meant they still loved each other. You said it wasn't until you that they finally seemed to truly be happy with each other though. But if they didn't already have feelings for each other, they wouldn't have been happy with each other just because of you, would they?"
"No," she agreed with a sniff. "Triss loved me too, but Geralt didn't get back together with her because of me…"
"We maybe wouldn't have stayed together if not for having a child together. But I wouldn't leave you now. Not if I can help it," he promised. "But I don't just see you as a mother, Ciri. You're a friend, lover and companion all in one, my dancing partner if I should ever need one, the witcher who saved my life…" he was tempted to keep going, but decided that had proven his point. He remembered what she had told him on the day they learned she was with child, how so often she'd been put off by the idea of having a child because of the fact that it was just a bunch of men who wanted to have children by her to fulfill some prophecy or another. "I don't just love you because you have a child of mine in your womb."
She sniffed again. Then he heard a muffled sob from her. "Do… you promise you'll always love me?"
"Wherever in space and time you are," he promised.
Eventually they got around the love-making, but not after holding each other for a while. When they were done, they went back to holding each other, and that was how they fell asleep. In the middle of the night, he woke to her singing a melodious tune in a language he didn't know. But she stopped when he moved his arms along her front.
"Can I ask you something, Jon?" she whispered. "This will seem really stupid, but, when's the last time you talked to a pregnant woman? Besides me, that is."
"Well… that would be Gilly," he said, thinking back to the girl who had been so utterly terrified of Ghost ripping her baby out when he'd tried to give her a rabbit.
"When was that?"
"Maybe… a couple of months ago." He paused momentarily, then clarified, "We didn't talk much though… Myrcella would probably be the most recent for people who I actually would talk to." He knew she wouldn't be asking this for no reason. "Why? When was the last time you spoke to one?"
Ciri turned her head around. "I have no idea, Jon… that's the problem. I remembered mama once mentioning how she felt me move inside of her for the first time, but… I don't know when that's supposed to happen. Geralt and the witchers taught me a little bit when we were at Kaer Morhen, but they mostly just focused on anatomy. Yennefer… she probably taught me the most, and even she barely taught me anything." She took a deep breath. "I never got to have younger siblings, or younger cousins, or an older sibling having a baby themselves… I haven't had any friends that I know of that have had a baby, and…" her voice faltered again. "I'm not supposed to drink, I know that…"
"Not supposed to drink?" Jon had never heard that before.
"Yes… that's science for you, Jon. Alcohol is bad for babies," she told him. "I think I just… we just need to find someone who actually knows something about this, Jon."
"Sure…" he agreed. "But you should get some sleep." Mother, if you're listening… "Sleep is good for the baby."
"Says who?"
"Says me," Jon replied, yawning. "Sleep, Ciri. If we find a midwife tomorrow, I promise we'll keep her."
Ciri took issue with his turn of phrase. "Keep her?"
"Well…"
"Shut it, Snow," she told him.
"Well, do you have a better plan?"
"Yes… like not kidnapping a midwife," she replied. "We'll ask her nicely to accompany us."
"And if she refuses?"
"Well that's not all we can do. If I stumble into a gate between worlds, you and I are going right back to Geralt and Yennefer." Her voice became wistful then. "Yennefer knows what she's doing at least…"
"But you can't travel between worlds," he pointed out.
"That's not true, Jon," she disagreed. "I can't teleport with my own powers. But portals are different, Jon. I bet I could still walk through any of those without any problems."
"Why haven't you made a portal yet?" he asked. He remembered her saying things about how sorcerers and sorceresses in her world were capable of conjuring portals that could take them across the world. "You're a sorceress, aren't you?"
"No…" she said, sounding almost judgemental of him now. "I had the powers of a sorceress, but I renounced them, because I couldn't control them. When I light fires with my hands, that's just me being able to use witcher signs, and that magic comes from my medallion, not me."
"If you renounced them… can they be reclaimed? All that talk about… what's that word..?"
"Genetics," she offered.
"Yeah, you say your powers are inside of you, right? And that Alaric will have them too, because he's your son, and they are just part of you, the same way that you have green eyes…" He paused for a second. "Or… is it like if you cut out your eyes, you wouldn't be able to get them back?"
"Well… I never cut anything out, Jon. I just renounced my abilities with words," she told him, sounding more thoughtful now. "You're right that I might be able to reclaim them… though if my powers to travel through space and time don't work, they might not work either." She seemed puzzled. "I just don't understand why my mother's powers worked when she was pregnant with me, but mine don't when I'm pregnant with Alaric."
"Are you sure you didn't renounce those by accident too?" he suggested.
She giggled. "Trust me, Jon, if I renounced my powers, you'd know."
"But why don't you try reclaiming your powers as a sorceress?" he suggested. "What's the worst that can happen?"
"Oh… I suppose I could lose control. The reason I renounced them was because I couldn't control them, Jon. They were trying to take me over. If I'd gotten more time with Yennefer, I bet she could have trained me to harness them better, but… well I don't, Jon, and I don't really know how to use them either," she explained. "They'd probably take control of me, and I wouldn't even be able to use them how we need to. Does that sound like something you want?"
"No," said Jon. "But then how will you get back to your world if you can't create portals?"
"We'll find one," she explained. "I might be able to influence where it'll take us."
"Why do you think there's a portal here?" he asked. "How can you know there are any if you've never been in this world?"
Ciri sighed. "I don't, Jon. Well… I'm certain that there are gates between worlds here on this world. They're in practically every world, and the fact that you are human tells me your race was probably created in the same way that humans on my world and that the humans on countless other worlds were created."
"The gods?" he wondered. Jon was not a particularly religious man, and the Old Gods from stories seemed to be more of watchers and observers than anything else.
She shook her head. "No, God is… honestly, I have no idea, Jon. All my travels… I stopped worrying about God a long time ago." She suddenly tossed her hair back. "As far as I can tell, the humans spread between worlds through portals, the same way that monsters, animals and everything else does. Sometimes the races are different, but… if your world has humans, it probably has portals somewhere."
"Are we going to search for them then?" he asked. "Are we going to drop my mission and just look for gates?"
"No, because the gates can be stupidly hard to find when you haven't just come out of them, or have much familiarity with the world. There's ways to calculate when and where they'll appear and how they'll be activated, but I've neither the time or resources to figure it out, Jon."
"No?"
"No," she agreed. "If I tried, Alaric will be older than us by the time I figured it out."
"Truly?" he asked. How have you ever figured it out before then?
"It would probably take me a year… but Alaric will be here before then, and we'd need to be able to stay where we are. Also, I'd need a lot of paper and tools that we don't have." She shrugged. "It's whatever. We don't always get what we want. If I had my way from the start, well I probably wouldn't bear any resemblance to who I am now."
Jon and Ciri both fell asleep not long after that.
In the morning, she seemed a little bit annoyed that his hand had made its way onto her stomach in the middle of the night, but other than that, they didn't say much at all. After briefly packing, Jon mounted Kelpie first, and then Ciri got on, riding in front with control of the reins, and they set off into the frozen wilderness with Ghost following behind them. After a final glance at the ice dragon's corpse, they melted into the woods.
Luckily, Jon managed to not feel any problems as they rode. His ear was still bandaged, but it didn't hurt as badly as it had before, and he didn't feel the least bit tired, even after several hours on horseback.
They stopped only a little bit before sundown, making a small little camp for themselves again in the middle of the forest. The second day was the same, riding for almost the entire day, and settling down to camp in the forest. When they reached the river on the third day, Jon hoped that it was the Milkwater. Given its size, and how they were traveling south, he couldn't think of any other rivers that it could be. And so they crossed, and on the other side they began to follow the river- until the fourth day of riding brought them to what looked like a frozen swampland within an hour of setting off.
"Do you see that, Jon?" Ciri said, pointing.
Jon squinted for just a moment, having been riding absently, but he saw what Ciri was pointing at. There was a wooden sign. The first sign of other humans they had seen in quite some time.
Ciri hastily dismounted and went over to read it. "Crookback Bog, the sign says," she announced. Then she turned back over to him. "You have bogs here? Isn't it too cold?"
"It's not always this cold," Jon explained. "It's only fall right now, but in the summer it's warmer." At least according to Uncle Benjen.
"There's something about this place…" Ciri began. "Something connecting you to it…"
"What do you mean?"
"I can't explain it," Ciri said. "It's just… Something bad will happen if we don't go… I can feel it."
Jon didn't want to question Ciri's magical instincts, but he also didn't like this place. Something about it unsettled him, made him want to ride hard south, as far from these bogs as possible. "Are you sure?"
Ciri nodded. "I'm sure of it." Her voice and nod didn't seem quite as sure though.
"If we encounter-"
"-We'll find a way," she interrupted. "We'll fight anything like we did that ice dragon. If we can't beat it, we'll run." She started making her way back over to the black mare, and mounted it again, taking the reins. "Let's go, Ghost."
Jon worried that Ciri would only be able to realize any foes were too strong after it was too late to flee, but he was left with no choice. Despite his unease, Kelpie started into the bogs.
Several times, Kelpie's foot broke through the ice on top of small puddles, and Ciri tried to keep the horse on solid ground as much as possible, but Jon also began to worry about that too. As they got further into the woods, the puddles seemed to be getting deeper and deeper.
The bogs were very quiet. The only sound Jon could hear were their own noises; each step Kelpie took, and every breath from Ciri and himself. Each tree seemed natural, yet twisted in some strange and unexplainable way. There was no path, yet it almost felt like they were following one. And most notably was how low the snow was, with only an inch or so on the ground, and the puddles all being visible.
The medallion necklace around her neck seemed to be dully vibrating, but she either didn't seem to notice or didn't care. He wanted to ask Ciri again how sure she was of this, as his dread had only grown, but he knew her resolve would have similarly hardened. She would not be convinced to turn back, and he had to go with her. Ciri, she needs you, just as much as you need her now, he remembered his mother had told him. You're her guide.
Ciri herself seemed like she was more than ready for a fight. Her body was tense, and she seemed uneasy, even if she felt drawn to this place by something. Even Kelpie seemed hesitant, though the horse still went on.
Suddenly, a howl came from the distance.
"Arrrroooooo!"
Both Jon and Ciri jumped. "Ghost?" Jon asked, instinctively, but the wolf was still right there next to them. It was much louder than a common wolf's howl or even a direwolf. A wolf that was larger than Ghost was not one that Jon had any desire to face in a fight, especially if it came with a pack.
Ciri dismounted Kelpie. "We should get ready," she said. "The werewolf will be upon us soon."
"Werewolf? Werewolves are the stuff of stories."
She laughed. "So are wargs and direwolves, but there you are."
"Werewolves can only be hurt by silver," Jon said as he got off of Kelpie. "Our swords aren't silver."
"Not all your stories are correct, you know. Witchers use silver blades for monsters and steel blades for men, but Zireael kills both men and monsters just the same."
"And Longclaw?"
"I'm quite curious to see whether it can hurt a werewolf. You did say it was magic, and it held up fine in that fight with the Axeman," she said with a grin. "Just stay back and let me handle it."
Jon didn't like any of this, but again, there was not much he could do. "Is there anything I can do? How do I fight it?"
"I'll fight it. I can handle it on my own."
"And if it guts you?"
"Then you get on Kelpie and ride as fast as you can." She seemed very unconcerned by the prospect.
He frowned. "I thought werewolves only transformed during the full moon."
That seemed to give Ciri pause. "That's true… maybe your world's werewolves are different, or this one is a different species of werewolf."
We don't have werewolves, Jon thought to himself, but he knew better than to think Ciri would have the time to explain any of this to him by the time the werewolf was on him. "Good luck," was all he could manage to say.
Ciri unsheathed Zireael, and started walking forward, through the bogs, in the direction of the howls, before Jon could think to ask how he would know the wolf was dead, or if he needed to run. So instead, he was forced to follow her deeper into the bogs, with Kelpie and Ghost following beside him.
Jon walked as quickly as he could, carefully watching his steps to ensure he didn't trip or fall into a deep frozen puddle. There were several more howls, and he could hear Ciri yelling as well, though no cries in pain at least. It seemed like she was charging at the beast, though nothing could indicate to Jon what happened besides the next sounds.
The sounds grew louder, and suddenly he had come upon a small clearing where Ciri was fighting with the werewolf. She had gotten behind the wolf and with a whirl must have given the werewolf a nasty cut, before quickly darting away as the beast spun around.
With a roar, it charged.
Ciri stood her ground, waiting with blade in hand until the last minute, jumping out of the way. The werewolf's momentum carried him forward into the tree, his claws skimming through empty air before crashing through bark with a horrifying shriek. Both tree and monster tumbled into a heap with a crack of wood and bone.
Jon would have hoped that the fight would be over, but Ciri was still ready for another attack, and the beast began to rise once more.
The werewolf had thick grey and brown fur, with black eyes, well muscled, and possessing all the features of an enormous wolf, save for how it was standing on two legs. It was bleeding from a number of places where Ciri must have already wounded it, but still the beast kept fighting.
She charged the monster, until it leapt at her again, and she dodged, slashing at its ankle from behind, causing the beast to howl with pain again, and it fell to the ground.
As Jon got closer, he could see the wounds much more clearly now. There was the cut across its back of course, and the cut to the back of its ankle, but Ciri must have stabbed it in the stomach as well, and dealt several other cuts and stabs to its back and chest area.
This time, Ciri did not wait, as she approached the monster from behind, and raised Zireael over the monster's head, and with a hard downward swing, severed it.
"Jon!" Ciri exclaimed, "You shouldn't have followed me."
"And you shouldn't have gone to face the monster alone."
Ciri brushed her ashen-grey hair out of her face, and knelt by the monster. "It's not quite a werewolf," she noted. "An ulfhedinn."
"An ulf- what?"
"It doesn't matter," she said. "You don't need to worry about it. It's dead now."
"Nobody has ever reported werewolves beyond the Wall," Jon said, mystified. He still didn't like this place and wanted to ride as far from it as they could go. "There's not even any stories of it really."
"Maybe there aren't that many," Ciri suggested. "This one was cursed by someone. And that's usually where werewolves come from."
"By whom?"
"I haven't the faintest idea." She glanced around. "Perhaps whoever lives in that hut might know something."
Jon turned and looked where Ciri was looking. Indeed there was a hut, one that seemed well-tended to, and occupied. "We shouldn't…"
"We must. I… I can feel it, Jon. Whatever was drawing us to these bogs… whatever you are connected to here… it's in that hut."
He shook his head. "I don't like this."
Ciri pursed her lips. "I know you don't, but we must."
They were quiet for a minute, their eyes locked, silently studying the other to see who would break first.
"Jon!" A voice suddenly called out. A little girl's voice. "Jon, follow me!"
He turned, and spotted the girl, but only saw her for just a moment. He only saw the wisp of a black haired child.
"Ciri, did you hear that?" he whispered. "Did you see it?"
"See what?"
"A girl… she called my name, and ran when I saw her."
"What did she look like?"
"She looked like…" Jon caught himself for a moment. He hadn't gotten a glimpse of the girl's face. But her gown…
"Jon…" Ciri said, her voice full of concern. "What did she look like?"
"Like my mother," he said, his suspicion of who the child was growing in his mind. How can it be though? Was it some trick, or was it real? "I don't want to go there."
But you must, a foreign voice whispered in his head. His mother's voice. You must come here to lift the curse.
What curse?
Ashara Dayne gave no answer.
Jon felt like a simpleton, being swayed at the whims of his mother's voice in his head, and allowing himself to be pressured into going to this place that was so obviously not to be treated upon. But he finally gave Ciri what she wanted. With a sigh he followed her.
He regretted his words as they got closer to the hut, which turned out to be a series of small huts that were circled, almost like a very small village. But it was certainly no ordinary village.
A post jutted out from the ground in the middle of the huts with a pair of skulls on it. Like the sign at the edge of the swamps, Crookback Bog, was engraved in it. The buildings seemed to be in good condition, and appeared to be new, yet seemed to be rather old too. Jon did not fail to note Ghost's tail wagging anxiously either.
"You folk look like you must be cooold," a voice suddenly said, catching both Ciri and Jon off guard.
They turned around, and saw a woman. Brown haired and scantily clad, Jon could not help but notice how she was much more poorly dressed for the weather than they were. "Who are you?" Ciri asked immediately. "What is this place?"
"Willow isss the name my mother gave me," the woman hissed. "We are the ladiesss of the bog."
We?
A second later, the other two appeared. "The crow and the swallow together," said one of them, blond with sharp blue eyes. "A strange pair."
All of them were beautiful, with skin that seemed to be perfectly tanned and a haunting beauty to each of them. Jon judged that they were all younger than twenty-five just from their looks.
Ciri, we should go, he wanted to say, but now in front of these women, his mouth remained closed. Normally when something was wrong, Ghost would be the first to know it, but the direwolf only seemed anxious now, while every instinct in Jon's body wanted to run.
"You didn't answer my question," Ciri responded, positioning herself in front of Jon. "Who are you?"
"It's none of yours to be troubled with," the third woman said. "I am Wylla, and that is Bella, and that is all you need know. Now come."
"No," Jon finally said. "We won't."
Bella raised an eyebrow. "You will," she declared, whilst Willow whispered something to Wylla about the girl's delicacy. "We have what you seek."
"And what would that be?" Ciri asked.
"The whereabouts of the crow's uncle of course. The goals of Mance Rayder. Where he'll strike next. We know all of it," Wylla answered. "All we ask is you grace us with your noble company."
Jon shared a glance with Ciri. He shook his head while she nodded. "We must," she whispered.
The moment was interrupted by the sudden opening of a door to one of the huts. A boy ran out, giggling. The boy's hair was fiery red, and Jon immediately saw his face was covered in red freckles to go with his pug nose and long face. Eight, if Jon was to guess.
"Robbbbbbbbbbbbbar," Willow yelled, "what do you think you're doing?"
"Hiding!" the boy grinned. "Playing hide and seek with Dya."
"Gooo back inside."
Rather than running back to the building he came out of, the boy brazenly ran over to where they were standing. Right to Jon.
"Are you…?" the boy, Robar said, stopping right in front of Jon. "I dreamed about you."
Jon examined the boy closely. His eyes, Jon suddenly realized. They were dark grey, just like his own. He felt the strangest sense of recognition for this boy he had never met before, picturing himself, holding the boy as a babe, seeing the boy's mother, everything.
And yet they were a total stranger.
"Who are you?"
The boy only gave a blank stare back. "I'm Robar," he announced proudly. "R-O-B-A-R."
"Ciri… We need to leave," Jon said, putting his hand around Robar's neck and pulling the boy tighter towards him. Even if these women knew all the information Jon needed, he didn't want to stay with them.
"You need to leave," Bella answered. "Leave us the girl, the daughter of the Elder Blood, and you will be free to go your own way. Take the boy if you will have him, but the girl is ours."
"I'm not yours," Ciri snarled, drawing Zireael.
"You're hisssss, swallow. It is for him to decide."
Jon drew Longclaw. "She already has"
"Soooo be it," Willow declared, before lifting her arms. In a flash, the three women had morphed into inhumanly large figures, wearing old, crudely assembled and beaten clothes. They were hideous now. One of them was wearing a red mask that covered her entire face, while the largest of the three had a basket of all things strapped to her face. The one without a mask was an even worse sight to behold though, as her wrinkly skin was covered in hideous warts and a glum expression, her skin color matching terribly with her pink-broken nose, to go alone with an eyepatch covering one eye, while where the uncovered one should have been wasn't an eye at all, but a series of strange holes in the overly-swollen area. Run, was Jon's first instinct, though he wouldn't leave Ciri alone against them.
Before they could even think to rush at the ladies though, the water around them began to bubble. "Jon, get the boy out of here," she shouted, readying herself to fight.
Jon didn't need to be told twice, picking up Robar in one hand, still clutching onto Longclaw and going as quickly as he possibly could over to where Kelpie and Ghost were waiting. He put Robar on the horse, and then mounted himself, looking back to see the monsters that Ciri was currently facing. The monsters were humanoid, but seemed to have all the features of a fish. Several of them already were killed, and Ciri was finishing off the very last one as Jon spurred Kelpie on to go help her.
"Ciri, let's go!" he yelled as she cut down the last of the monsters.
She looked over towards him, and rushed over, while Jon adjusted himself and Robar in the saddle to make room for her. "The ladies disappeared after the fighting began," she told him as she mounted Kelpie. "I don't know if they will follow us."
Jon didn't care, with a kick setting Kelpie off, as fast as the black mare could carry them, heading east through the bog. Where before, they had gone through the swamp with care, treading lightly and carefully examining each step, now they rushed madly away.
Around a mile away from the huts, they finally slowed down. The bogs had faded into normal woods, and no longer did Jon seem to hear the woods pursuing them like before. It was only then that Ciri spoke up.
"Jon, we should stop for a moment."
He was about to protest, but then he paid a glance at the boy in front of him. Throughout the ride, Jon had been keeping the reins, only dimly aware that Ciri was keeping a firm grasp on him to make sure that he didn't fall off. Now the boy was still shaking with fear, having been taken from his home by two strangers, and having seen monsters that Jon suspected the boy had only been told of in stories.
Ciri got off first, and then took Robar down, with Jon finally dismounting on his own. "What's your name?" Ciri asked the young boy, kneeling in front of him.
"R-Robar," the boy said nervously.
Ciri nodded in response. "Are you hurt, Robar?"
Hw nodded, pointing to his groin and thighs.
"It's okay, Robar. The monsters are gone. You can sit if you want."
"W-what about Dya? And Luke?"
"Who are Dya and Luke?" Ciri asked, concerned. "Are they children too?"
Once again, Robar nodded. "Luke is my brother, and Dya is my sister."
"Where's your parents?"
"I don't…" Robar started, pausing nervously.
"Know?" Ciri suggested.
Robar nodded in agreement.
"You can sit, Robar." Ciri turned and walked over to Jon.
"We can't stay here," Jon said. "We're too close…"
"Robar can't ride anymore for the day. I doubt he's ever seen a horse before, let alone ridden one." Ciri sighed. "I want to get out of here too, but we can't just leave the boy, and we can't go any more for the day. We just need to be ready in case the ladies come after us."
"What were those back there?"
"The ladies? I've never seen that before. The monsters I killed were drowned dead."
"Drowned dead?"
"Drowners," Ciri suggested. "All the stories say they're the spirits of evil men who drowned, but they came from the Conjunction of the Spheres like most other monsters, in truth."
Jon looked at her blankly.
"You've never dealt with drowners before?"
"No… we don't have those. Not even stories." Jon had heard tales of mermaids and krakens and whales and a whole bevy of other monsters from the depths, but never once had he heard of the drowned dead.
"Perhaps you've never heard of them because of how far inland you lived. It makes no difference. They aren't so hard to kill, especially if it's just one."
He decided to change the subject. "There's something about Robar…"
"What about him?"
"I don't know," Jon said, struggling to find the words to describe it.. "When I looked into his eyes… I… I had these memories… They weren't mine though… but… I saw his mother… I… I held him for the first time… saw him even younger than he was now…"
"He said that he had dreamt of you," Ciri added. "He didn't fight when you tried taking him away from those ladies…"
"What are you thinking?"
Ciri pursed her lips. "I think maybe… he's your child surprise. Like I was Geralt's."
Jon found himself momentarily thinking back to their adventures on Skellige, and how Ciri had likely gotten a child surprise there, but didn't want to talk about it. "I never invoked the Law of Surprise. Nobody ever promised me anything."
She gave it a little more thought. "I dunno… perhaps he's your child surprise from a different lifetime. I told you how this world is unstable, always repeating… I know that Robar isn't linked to me at least."
"How would that work?"
Ciri shrugged. "I haven't the faintest idea."
"What about the other children?"
"I don't know… what do you feel, Jon?"
Nothing, Jon wanted to say. He didn't have the instincts for this, all this magic was foreign and strange to him. None of it seemed to belong to him. And yet…
"I feel this tugging sensation," he finally allowed, "there's something that wants us to go back." It wasn't his mother's words or Ciri's words that were driving him, or even Robar. It wasn't a desire to get the information the crones claimed to have either. "The younger boy… Luke… he's important too. We need to go back for him."
"What makes you say that?" Ciri said with raised eyebrows.
Jon stopped for a second. "I… just feel like it… it is."
"I know…"
"What about the other child? Dya?"
Jon tried to picture the girl. Thought about her as hard as he could. "She… she's not… I don't know. She's not connected to me. Not like Robar and Luke." Even as Jon said it though, he knew there was some detail he was missing. "She… she's connected somehow… just not the same…"
"If we go back, we can't bring Robar."
"I agree."
"But we can't leave him here either."
"No…"
Ciri paused for a moment. "We'll figure it out later. Right now, I'll set up a camp, and you'll talk to Robar."
"About what?"
She rolled her eyes. "About yourselves. Destiny or not, you need to get to know each other. Go sit with him at least, he's scared."
Jon did as Ciri told, sitting down at the tree, next to the boy. "Robar?"
The boy looked over at him, huddled together. "We're not to go this far."
"How far have you ever ventured from the huts?"
Robar shook his head. "They say we can't go in the woods. Sometimes we go, but they always find out. They punish us when they do."
Jon spread his arm and pulled Robar in, giving him the added warmth from his cloak to keep him warmer. "You won't be going back to them. I promise."
"They'll… they'll hit us then."
We'll fight them. "You said that you had dreamt of me."
"I dreamed you," the boy said, "the… the ladies said you would come soon, and… and I dreamed you that night. They said you could turn into a crow and a wolf. They always said me and Luke are wolves too." Robar howled as loudly as he could.
"Shhh. The ladies might hear you."
The boy frowned. "They… they said Luke and I would have another brother. They want him more than us."
"Another brother?"
"They said his name was Allar."
Jon began to suspect that Ciri had missed the mark on who this boy was. Am I his father? He had never bedded a woman besides Ciri, but if he was from some other lifetime… "It was Alaric, not Allar."
Robar frowned. "Alaric… how'd you know?"
Gods be good. Jon took off his cloak and draped it over the boy's shoulder. "Just stay here."
"Jon, what's wrong?" Ciri asked when she saw him approaching her.
"Robar isn't my child surprise."
"How do you know?"
"He's my son."
"He has your eyes, I suppose," she said, glancing at the boy. "Where'd he get the hair though?"
"Whoever his mother is."
"Do you have any idea who his mother is?"
"I think so…" it was a mad thought if true, but the boy did bear a strong resemblance to one of the wildlings they had met. The hair, the freckles, the nose… When he closed his eyes, he could picture her in much more vivid detail than he should have been able to. He decided not to disclose the fact that they had already met her though. "I think she was a wildling."
Ciri just nodded. "If you met their mother… what would you do?"
"I don't know." Jon didn't know what to say to the question.
Ciri looked down. "You need to go back to the bog tonight. To get the other children and hopefully kill the ladies."
"I need to?"
"Well we can't leave them there," Ciri sounded a little angry now.
"I thought you would want to go."
"It's too risky. If I had my powers…" she shook her head, "it's your children, not mine. I can get you ready for the fight, but it must be you."
Jon spent the rest of the day sitting with Robar, sitting around the fire, while Ciri came and went, looking for various things, and from time to time sitting down for a little bit before returning to her search.
Eventually, after the sun had set, Robar fell asleep on Jon's shoulder, and Jon tucked the boy in under some blankets. He sat by the fire, watching the flames for a while, until eventually Ciri came over to him.
"I made some potions for you."
"Potions?" Jon asked, confused, "didn't you say they were toxic to anyone who hadn't undergone the witcher training?"
"Mutations, not training," Ciri corrected, "and yes, witcher potions are, but I didn't tell you that's what they were. They are- unless you drink this one first." She handed him the vial. "This one is Wolven Hour. It will boost your metabolism, make it so your liver can handle all the toxins in the others I thought were useful. Like this nasty one - should make any more drowners they summon impotent. The rest will help you fight them." After Jon had put the Wolven Hour potion away, she gave him the others, one at a time. "This is what you should drink if you start to feel really sick. I don't imagine you'll feel good afterwards, regardless, but try not to drink too much of them."
"What's that last one?"
"Cat. You'll be able to see in the dark. So you should drink it here."
"Are you sure that this will work?"
"It should…"
"What happens if it doesn't?"
"You'll die horribly."
So you are still mad at me. "Alright…" Jon took out the Wolven Hour potion, and drank it.
It wasn't much, but he nearly coughed it all up because of how bad it tasted, causing Ciri to laugh. "I should have warned you that by all the accounts I've ever heard, they taste terrible."
"And I should have guessed as much," Jon coughed, "give me that one now."
Ciri obliged, handing him the green vial.
Jon drank from the vial, this time prepared for the terrible taste. When he set it down, he could already feel its effects.
His eyes felt like they had widened somehow, and already he could see clearly in the darkness. It was such a strange sensation, seeing all the same colors but without all the normal lighting.
"How do you feel?"
"Ready," was all he could muster.
"Run back once you have the children. Don't try to kill all three of the ladies if you can't."
"Run?"
"Oh yes. Those potions will let you run for miles, even with a pair of children slung over your shoulders. You won't need Kelpie."
"Should I drink the other potions now? Or wait…"
"I would drink them now, in case the ladies try to surprise you."
Jon nodded, then took the other four potions. One after another, he felt the effects starting to change him even more. He felt calmer, his breath having steadied, and his heart slowing.
"Go now, before the effects wear off."
He didn't need to be told twice. After rising, he broke into a run, instinctively managing to follow the trail that they had made when they were fleeing the crones.
His senses seemed to have gotten better as a whole, and his body seemed to be going without even thinking. He didn't need to worry about tripping over any trees or where he was going. Now he could see every little detail, the hidden brush that was no doubt home to some animals, the squirrel rushing up the tree, and the hoofprints that Kelpie had made as they were walking out. They were all so clear, and his mind knew where to take him.
Within a few minutes, he had returned to the small series of huts they had been at before. Jon tried to remember which hut Robar had run out of, but before he could, a wisp of smoke filled the air.
"You should have known better than to trifle with us, White Wolf," said the one in the middle, who was larger than the other two. "We'll have the Swallow soon enough, and your spawn too."
"Not if I kill you."
The ladies just laughed. "We always win. You cannot escape us."
Jon drew Longclaw. "I've killed monsters before."
"And we've killed more foolish boysssss than you could ever count. Your boasts mean nothing."
Just like earlier, the ground began to bubble. But this time, when the drowners emerged, they did not attack Jon.
All three of the ladies hissed in frustration, while Jon made his way out of the huddle of drowners and charged at the monsters. Seeing it now, he realized that he had been mistaken when he had assumed that none of the witches had skin that was visible, as now he could clearly see one of them had an eye patch, and her legs from the knee down were uncovered, revealing skin that was an unsettling shade of grey.
Jon rushed that one first, charging with Longclaw, swinging the sword as hard as he possibly could at the woman's waist.
Much to his surprise, the woman made no effort to dodge or even block it, and instead the sword cut through the shocked witch, slicing her in two.
"Brewessssss. You'll pay for that, wolf," the lady with the red mask said. She and the other, stouter lady, bore down on Jon.
The larger witch swiped down at Jon, and instinctively he backed away. But before he could do anything else, she swiped again, hit Jon in the shoulder, causing him to yell in pain.
The children, he thought to himself. He might have been able to take that first witch by surprise and sliced her in two, but these other two were not who Jon wanted to fight against.
He started to run, faster than the ladies could, making for the first hut he could find. "Dya! Luke!" he shouted, hoping the children might respond to his name as he frantically searched inside the hut, though all three rooms inside seemed to be vacant.
Jon looked behind him and saw the ladies were now standing in the door, and so once again he allowed his instincts to take over, jumping out through the window.
There was a scent in the air, something Jon never would have caught normally, but now as he had drunk the witcher potions, he could easily detect it. That building, he thought to himself, looking at a hut on the opposite side of the clearing.
"Come backkkkk, wolf," the red masked witch shouted as Jon ran across the clearing, as she and the stouter witch pursued him.
"Dya, Luke, come on," Jon said as he broke down the door, finding the children on the floor, playing with some toys.
The girl looked strikingly like the girl Jon had seen in the woods, while Luke seemed to look almost nothing like his brother at all, but he didn't have time to think about that, as he picked up the two children and slung them over his shoulders, in spite of their protests. They were both smaller than Robar, Luke only a little so, and Dya seemed to be significantly younger than both of the boys. Jon held them with an iron grip, keeping them from worming their way out of his grasp, and turned out.
He broke into a sprint as the ladies were still only halfway across the clearing. He ran as fast as possible in the direction that he came, straight into the woods. Never before had he gone so fast, the powers of both adrenaline and the potions making him feel as though he was running as fast as a horse, and the squirming children were still firmly in place as Jon ran.
Despite time feeling like it had slowed for him, Jon was still out of the bogs before he knew it, and running into the camp Ciri had erected. Only now was he beginning to feel the effects of the potions he had drank, and within a few seconds of stopping and putting the children down, he bent over to violently wrench.
Desperately he fumbled to grasp the final potion Ciri had told him to drink when it was done, lifting his head and managing to swallow it somehow. Jon's vision started to clear, and it was only then he became aware of the wildlings.
"Take out that sword of yours and drop it to the ground, or we cut the wench's throat."
Author Notes:
Yes, I repurposed Wolven Hour to make it logically fit into a written story where these characters don't have player levels to deal with. Sue me.
Hope y'all enjoyed, and thanks once again for reading.
And in case you're wondering, no, we are not done with Crookback Bog yet. We'll be… returning soon.