For the June of Doom prompts: 2 "Scream", 7 "Nightmare", 23 Trembling & "Please don't leave me." and the Witcher Monster of the Month June picture prompt
Eerie, shrill, not much different from a banshee's cry, her loud scream echoes through the empty corridors of Kaer Morhen.
Fuck!
Geralt jumps to his feet and hastens toward the door. Another nightmare, and he can well imagine what about.
"Was it the black knight again?" he asks tenderly, holding the girl's trembling hand in his as he sits down next to her on the edge of her wooden bed. The room is cold, like all the bedrooms, but Ciri is used to it by now. It is not the chilly temperature that makes her shiver.
Her voice still too shaky to answer, Ciri nods. She swallows and angrily wipes away the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown. It is almost dark in the room with only one candle lit and she hopes Geralt has not seen it. But no such luck, he is a Witcher after all.
"Here, take my handkerchief," he says with a fatherly smile and produces a piece of black fabric from his trouser pocket. "And don't be embarrassed. You have every reason to cry after what happened."
Ciri sniffs into the handkerchief. Somehow it smells like Geralt, a little of leather and horse, and of safety.
"You know that you are safe here, don't you, Ciri? He can't hurt you anymore. You're safe here in Kaer Morhen with Vesemir and Lambert and Coen and me to protect you."
Ciri nods again. Yes, she knows she is safe. By day. But not at night when the dreams come. When he chases her through the fire and conflagration of Cintra, her home. When he shoots Sir Laslo dead directly behind her. When he grabs her and tosses her across his horse. When he burns and tramples down the refugee camp. The black knight on his black horse, on his head the helmet with the wings of a bird of prey. How she yearns to shove her sword through his throat until his feathers are soaked in blood.
"I hate him," she says, her voice dark with utmost loathing.
"I know you do, Ciri. And you want to kill him. We have talked about it before. And I have told you that Witchers do not kill for hatred but to protect the innocent."
"What if, by killing him, I protect the innocent? Keep him from burning yet another city to the ground, from slaughtering yet another refugee camp? From invading and plundering yet another country?"
"Hmm." Geralt frowns. Ciri's reasoning might sound logical, yet it has one big flaw. The black knight, no matter how terrifying and evil he might be, is a mere tool, a sharp and deadly sword in the hands of his Emperor. He is replaceable. Cut him down, and there will soon be another black knight doing the dirty work for Emhyr var Emreis, the White Flame of Nilfgaard. If his many years on the Path have taught him one thing, it is that you have to cut off the monster's head, not just one tentacle. But they can hardly kill the ruler of the most powerful kingdom on the continent, can they? The thought alone is ridiculous.
"Go back to sleep, Ciri, and try not to think of him," Geralt says, taking back his handkerchief. "I'll stay here with you for a while."
However, to Geralt's surprise, Ciri shakes her head.
"Do you rather want me to leave?" he asks, making to stand up.
"No, please, Geralt, don't go! Don't leave me!" Ciri grips his hand, a glint of desperation in her eyes. "I want you to stay. But I can't go back to sleep. Not yet."
"Alright then. I'll stay. As long as you need me to." Geralt sits back down, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. Sitting like this is not exactly comfortable but he has spent nights in worse places and in far worse company - inside a tomb, for example, with a blood-thirsty Striga waiting for him to come out.
"Tell me a story. Like Moussack used to do when I couldn't sleep," Ciri pleads, looking at him with big green eyes. "But not a silly children's story. A Witcher story. Please, Geralt."
"Hmm." He knits his brow. A Witcher story. There are so many, and most of them are scary and bloody. But, when he was a young boy, he and his brothers had loved it when Vesemir told them stories of his or other Witchers' deeds, the bloodier and scarier, the better, and it had not harmed them in any way. Why should Ciri be different? An exciting monster story might take her mind off the hated black knight and her own trauma, at least for a while. Maybe she can learn something from the story, too?
"Alright, a story it is," Geralt says. "A story of a terrible monster and a Witcher, a true story. That agreeable?"
Ciri nods vigorously and moves to the side a little to make more space for Geralt. He settles against the headrest, his legs stretched out on the bed, and Ciri snuggles up to him with a bright smile, her nightmare almost forgotten.
"Many, many years ago," Geralt begins, putting his arm around his new-found daughter, "not long after the first Wolf Witchers had settled in the Kaer Morhen valley, there was a wealthy merchant in Oxenfurt who traded in silk and gemstones and exotic spices and fragrances and all kinds of rich-people goods. He was the proud owner of several merchant vessels that sailed the seas from north to south, and back again. Sometimes he himself would journey on one of his ships and, one day, he took his beautiful young wife and is four-year-old son with him. The wind was fair, the white sails were a beautiful sight to behold - like the feathery wings of so many seagulls - and the ocean was vast and tranquil and shimmering golden in the light of the summer sun. While, supervised by a nanny, the little boy was playing with the ship's parrot, the merchant and his wife stood on the quarterdeck watching the helmsman steer the ship, the crew climb up and down the masts and rigging, the happy waves wash against the ship's planks and the merrily cawing sea birds circle the brilliantly blue, cloudless sky.
Suddenly, a cry from the crow's nest tore through the peace and quiet of the afternoon. Everybody looked up and around, startled, alarmed. Then they saw it. Within a fountain of water, a gigantic arm with suction cups as big as a wagon's wheels shot from the surface of the ocean into the air. For a split second, it stayed like this, motionless, ominous, forming an almost beautiful, dark spiral against the azure horizon. Then, with one fluid, incredibly fast movement, the tentacle reached across the railing, curled around the merchant's wife's waist and snatched her up high into the sky. Paralysed with fear and shock, her husband watched her struggle and thrash in the giant kraken's arm, heard her shrieks of terror. Then arm and woman vanished in the deep of the ocean. And there was nothing anybody, nothing he could do.
Only the little boy and the parrot had not noticed anything but kept teaching each other new words.
"Blast me barnacles, ol' scurvy dog!" the little boy exclaimed happily, finally getting it perfectly right.
"Huzzah, huzzah!" cawed the parrot, cheering his new friend on.
It was but a short friendship. The merchant, bereft of his beloved wife and filled with utmost loathing against the kraken that took her from him and with her all the happiness and love and joy, from now on dedicate his life to revenge, to hunting down the monster that took everything from him. And in so doing, he forgot that his son had lost his mother, too, and needed him. Blinded by hate, he gave up on trading and hired soldiers and pirates and mages and charlatans instead to man his ships and to sail the seven seas searching for the kraken, but to no avail. There were rumours of sightings now and then, yet they never amounted to anything. And soon, nobody believed in the existence of the giant kraken anymore, nobody but the merchant and his son, who was told about it over and over by his father for it was all he would talk about, obsessed as he was. Eventually, all the man's money was gone, spent on the futile monster hunt. Still, the merchant refused to give up. Then, one evening spent in a cheap tavern and deep in his cups, he heard of Witchers and the School of the Wolf deep in the Blue Mountains. And he did one more desperate thing. He used the very last of his money to put up notices everywhere, announcing that he was looking for a Witcher to take care of an evil monster. And so it happened that, not long after, a young Witcher from the School of the Wolf by the name of Klent - or was it Krent? Well, doesn't really matter - he met the merchant in the very same, seedy tavern expecting a lucrative contract. However, he left not with a contract, but with a boy, the merchant's own, nine-year-old son, who was to become a Witcher - his father's final tool to find and kill the kraken, to exact revenge on the beast that destroyed his family. Fuelled by his father's hatred and not knowing what it would encompass, the boy was more than eager to fulfil his father's wish."
"What was his name? Did he make it through the Trial of the Grasses?" Ciri asks curiously when Geralt pauses for a moment. Vesemir has told her a few Witcher stories already, but this one she has never heard of before. She has an inkling about why exactly Geralt has chosen this particular story, of course, to teach her some lesson about hatred and revenge, but the story is exciting, so she does not mind and definitely wants to hear what became of the boy. And the kraken.
"Yes, he did. The years of training were hard and even harder was the Trial. But he was one of the few survivors. His name was Thore. He was strong like a young ox and swift like a panther. But all he could think of during his Witcher training was the kraken and how he hated the beast. So, instead of doing mischief with the other boys whenever he had a little free time between running the killer, sword training and doing his chores in the stables and kitchen, he could be found in the library searching for clues on ancient ocean monsters and how to kill them. He became quite a specialist on that topic, but a lonely one even in a castle full of young boys. Then, after Thore had finished his training and took to the Path, he travelled the coast looking for contracts in major port cities. His father had died a year before and he never returned to Kaer Morhen, not even in the winter, but sailed south to Cintra and Nilfgaard instead and the seaports in between. And in the summer he journeyed all the way north to Pont Vanis and Lan Exeter in Poviss. On his travels he got rid of many a sea monster but never a giant kraken."
"Sounds like he did plenty of good despite his obsession to kill the hated monster," Ciri says when Geralt pauses yet again. "So maybe his hatred of the kraken wasn't a bad thing after all?"
"Did I say it was a bad thing?" Geralt asks, raising his eyebrow. Of course, Ciri has spotted the intended lecture right away, she is a very bright kid. But things are never just good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. Perhaps that is the most important lesson life has taught him - there are a hundred shades of grey in between. Hardly anything or anybody is plain evil. The giant kraken was just a top predator that needed to feed. The merchant's wife simply and very unfortunately happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. "But hear the story out, Ciri. Then you make up your mind about it."
Ciri nods eagerly. She does want to know the ending, even though she suspects it was not a happy one. She cuddles up even closer to Geralt and yawns contentedly. "Go on, I like this story and how you tell it. You're almost as good as Moussack."
"Almost?"
"Almost. Because Moussack always brought hot cocoa, too, and cinnamon buns and—"
"Next time, Ciri." He ruffles her hair fondly. "Next time, I'll remember to bring some treats. But now, let me finish the tale. Before you fall asleep. Your eyes are already drooping."
"No, they are not," Ciri objects. However, she does feel sleepy again, in a good and warm and safe way, a way that feels like home.
"They are, Ciri," Geralt smiles, and this time she does not protest.
"So, one fateful evening," the Witcher continues his tale, "in a tavern on the Skellige Islands, Thore met a very old sailor. This sailor claimed that he had heard of an ancient elven ritual that would lure the kraken out of wherever it was hiding. An ancient and very dark ritual that involved the sacrifice of a virgin, it was rumoured. Thore spent the following months and years obsessed with finding this ancient ritual and a mage who would perform it. Unfortunately, the name of the mage was lost to history and nobody remembers where or when or how exactly they met and if indeed a virgin was sacrificed. However, what we do know is that Thore was successful. The kraken showed itself. And, this time, it took the entire ship and crew with it into the deepest depths of the ocean. Well, not the entire crew. As by a miracle, Thore was the only one of the more than a score sailors to survive, thanks to his Witcher mutations that kept him alive despite drifting on a broken off mast on the ocean waves for days on end without food or water until he was saved by a fishing boat. His right leg was so mangled though that not even his enhanced healing abilities could save it."
"This was not the end of it, was it?" Ciri asks. "Thore did not give up just because he lost his leg, right?"
"No, he did not. He recovered from the amputation and learned how to walk and fight with a wooden leg. And while he was doing so, the giant kraken went on a killing spree sinking a dozen ships and more along the northern coast. It soon became the terror of the seas, no sailing ship was safe, and few survived the attacks to tell the horrible tale."
Ah, there lies the rub, the moral of the story, Ciri thinks. With his ritual born from his unhealthy thirst for vengeance, Thore woke up the monster and then things became much worse than they had ever been before. That is the point Geralt wants to make, the lesson he wants to teach her. That by blindly following your hatred, you not only lose yourself, your family, your life, but you also endanger others, like Thore did. She stays silent though and does not interrupt but keeps listening to Geralt's deep, soothing voice as he goes on with the story.
"Fitted with his wooden leg, his hate burning hotter than ever, Thore eventually boarded a whaling ship from Skellige, among his meagre belongings a magical harpoon. How and if at all it was really magical, nobody knows for sure, but there were ancient-looking runes inscribed onto its long, wooden shaft. The hardened sea dogs of the whaling ship were superstitious at first and kept their distance from the mysterious, one-legged Witcher, however, after a few days and a lot of rum drunk together, they were almost as eager to kill the kraken as he. The merchant guild's generous head-money he told them about for ending the monster and stopping the threat to their trade certainly was an effective incentive, too.
The journey went well for a while. But then, a little north of Novigrad, a heavy storm came on with waves as high as houses and blasts that threatened to tear apart masts and sails. The ship veered off course and for many hours it was tossed about by the waves and driven farther and farther north. A few of the sailors, becoming desperate, proposed that their shitty luck was Thore's fault, that he was cursed, that they would all drown in the gale because of the mutant and that they should throw him over board to save themselves. However, the others laughed in their faces and called them cowards. They had weathered worse storms before and would not give up their hunt for the kraken and their chance of winning the bounty. And without Thore wielding his magical harpoon, how would they be able to kill a beast like this? No, they would not abandon the hunt, nor the Witcher, not even if Thore was the devil himself. So, they sailed on, and Thore with them.
Then, suddenly, against the bright flash of a lightning bolt, they saw it. The giant kraken's ugly head rose from between the wild waves, several of its arms shooting into the air and grabbing the ship by its stern. The ship lurched and the men fell all over each other, swearing and cursing and trying to hold fast to something so they would not be tossed over board. Most of them managed, but for two it was too late. They disappeared in the churning ocean without a trace. Yet, the whalers would not give up, no. They reached for boathooks, cutlasses and harpoons. The ones closest to the kraken started to hack at the beast's arms with the huge suckers. First one arm came off, then a second one. However, there were more, and with those other tentacles, the kraken started to rock and shake the ship as if it was a mere child's toy.
In the meantime, Thore, his harpoon clutched firmly by its shaft with both hands, fought his way across the ship from the bow toward the rear end through the pelting rain and howling wind. This was the day he had waited for for so many years. He knew it. This was the day destiny would fulfil itself, the day he would kill the monster or die trying. But cutting off a few tentacles would not end the beast, at least not fast enough to keep it from sinking their ship, no. Finally facing the kraken and holding onto the railing with one hand, he raised his deadly weapon and took aim. Through the huge black eye and straight into its brain, that was his best chance to kill it. With a roar louder than the howling of the storm, Thore threw the harpoon with all his might. However, the monster made a sudden sideways move and, instead of hitting the eye, the harpoon inserted itself in the root of one of the tentacles. Fuck. The monster seemed not to notice the projectile any more than the several smaller, regular harpoons that were already sticking in its body and limbs. So much so for being magical. Thore swore again and cursed the beast that was shaking the ship worse than ever before. It was only a matter of minutes and the vessel would capsize. But he would not let that happen. He would not let the monster get away alive. Not over his dead body.
So, while the whalers kept slashing at the kraken with their cutlasses, the Witcher tied himself to the railing with a long rope. Then he climbed onto it. And then, he jumped. Right at the beast. He landed exactly where he wanted to, on the arm with his kraken's skin was slippery and for a moment, Thore feared he would not be able to hold fast to it and drop into the dark, cold sea. Yet, in the very last moment, he managed to grab and cling to the shaft of his harpoon. With superhuman effort, he pulled himself further up onto what might count as the kraken's shoulder where the monster's skin was overgrown with barnacles that made it easier to find a foothold. Then he yanked the harpoon from the beast's body and, fast as a panther despite his wooden leg, leaped onto its head.
The whalers on board the ship stared at the Witcher, holding their breaths. What he was doing was impossible, but still, it happened right before their very eyes. They saw him standing tall and dark, outlined against the black sky by jagged bolts of lightning. The harpoon, held high above his head and poised to attack, was glowing with a green, otherworldly fire. Then he thrust it deep, deep through leathery skin and muscle and into the kraken's brains.
Unfortunately, the monster did not die that easily. Despite the lethal wound, it reared with agony and, enraged beyond measure, tried to grab the Witcher with one of its tentacles. Thore jumped into the water.
"Haul him in!" one of the whalers shouted and grasped the rope. Several others sprang to his side and, together, they pulled. However, the deadly wounded kraken had other plans. Gathering its last strength, it ripped away the railing with one of its tentacles and gave the ship a vicious shove. Many of the whalers fell from the deck into the sea never to be seen again. Then, with the very last convulsions of its nervous system, the kraken's arm wrapped around Thore and dragged him with it into the deep to forever disappear. The ship, however, with the few survivors drifted on the storm-tossed sea for several more days until it was smashed to pieces against a cliff. One single sailor was rescued alive and made his way back to Skellige. When he told his tale, hardly anybody believed him. Yet, we know it is a true story.
The giant kraken was never seen again. The end. And now, good night Ciri, sleep well."
Geralt smiles down on her as she yawns heartily.
"Thanks for the story. Was a good one, the Witcher and the kraken of hate," she murmurs, already half asleep. "And don't worry, I won't spend all my money on hunting down the black knight. Nor will I sacrifice a virgin."
"Good." Geralt chuckles softly and stands up. "See you at breakfast."
"Porridge with cinnamon?"
"Right. And cocoa. Sweet dreams, Ciri."
"Night, Geralt." She flashes him a last smile, then she closes her eyes and yawns extensively. It must be very late. Hopefully, Geralt will let her sleep in a bit. She hears him open and close the door behind him quietly. It feels a bit colder in her bedroom without him, but she knows his room is not far. He will always be there for her when she needs him. Geralt of Rivia, the mutant Witcher who, miraculously, has become her found family. No, Ciri will never, like Thore, leave this family behind to search for the one who took everything away from her, for the hated black knight of Cintra. However, if destiny brings them together one day, she will definitely kill him in cold blood and with relish. Only she will do so without dying herself or endangering others. Kill from hate, yes, but do it smartly. Maybe it is not exactly the lesson Geralt intended her to learn from his story, but it is a good one - no, an excellent one.
With a smug smile on her lips, Ciri falls asleep to this satisfying new insight.
Little does she know, though, of what destiny holds in store for her, the bearer of elder blood, the former princess and future Witcher. And that when she, in a few years from now, finally meets the black knight again, she will not do it although he asks her to.