A/N: Chapter updated 01/18/23
He observed her as she healed his cuts, trying to find traces of the broken nose he gave her. He saw none. It looked pristine, with no cartilage or bone out of place. No healer he knew could fix an injury so quickly and thoroughly. Her care was meticulous, no scrape or bruise escaped her thorough eyes and every time a wound healed, a little bit of gold shone in her dark eyes.
The more he looked at her, the more he had an eerie feeling that he had seen her before. There was something familiar about her, and yet he couldn't remember ever meeting her.
"What did you mean, I'm not a complete stranger?"
She met his eyes for a moment, then withdrew her hands, wiping them on her ruined dress.
"I'm done healing your face. You can use that towel to dry yourself and have a seat so I can treat your broken ribs and the other bruises on your back. I'll be in the next room to give you your privacy."
She more or less ran out of the room, leaving him without an answer.
He gave himself a few more minutes to enjoy the luxury of a warm bath before wrapping the towel around his waist and calling her back. She was still in the white dress he ruined. Although it had dried a bit, his eyes saw through the wet fabric. Her long legs peaked through the slits on the sides as she approached. The contours of her body had a lovely shape and what her dress revealed should have stirred his desire, yet he felt nothing. His body lacked any reaction to an image his eyes found enticing. He hoped it was only a by-product of fatigue, but a depressing thought crossed his mind – his mutations had deprived him of love, and maybe now he would be deprived of lust as well.
Thankfully, the sorceress was oblivious to his thoughts and internal anguish. She inspected his back and chest with careful eyes.
"Your ribs are the worst thing left to heal, the rest are just minor lacerations. Try to sit up straight, please," she said as she placed her hands on his side.
Again, he felt pressure, but no pain.
"You still haven't answered my question. How do you know me and how do you know Ciri? I've never heard her mention you."
After a moment's pause, she replied.
"I... Ciri is my… friend..."
"You sound unsure of that."
"Well, what do you call someone to whom you owe your life, but who never visits unless you or Yennefer are dying?"
Suddenly, he remembered where he had seen her before. The memories were no more than vague disconnected fragments. Her standing on a beach with her hands wrapped in bandages, an apple thrown at him, fear in her eyes. He wasn't even sure they were real and something dark loomed over them.
"The island. That's where you know me from. You healed us."
She nodded silently, her eyes pinned on the three scars that marred his chest. Her hand reached out to touch them but stopped midway.
"Mhm, I also wiped your memory of me and fled when the Hunt came for you." She shook her head, still staring at the scars. "I should have taken you both with me, but I was too cowardly."
"I doubt it would have made much difference. We were pawns in Eredin's chase. He would have followed us anywhere just to get to her."
"Regardless, I'm still sorry," she whispered.
"They took Yen that day," he said through his teeth. "It took me years to catch up to them. Had to trade my life for hers. They used us as bait for Ciri, to draw her out of hiding."
"I'm sorry," she repeated lifting her eyes. "If I had known..." Tears built up as she spoke.
"I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad. Just stating facts."
"Still, my choice haunted me for the past twenty years. I was just a kid, but I should have known better. Now all I can do is heal you and take your pain, but nothing changes the past."
She moved to the next injury. Again it healed with no pain. It took him a second to register what she said.
"Wait... Twenty years? It's been only four." His brow creased in confusion. "When is this? What has Ciri done?"
"She did what she needed to. Time and space are not linear constructs and mean nothing to her."
He wondered silently about her age. Judging by the small flashes of memory and her words, she must have been about forty although she looked twenty-five at most. Not that it surprised him much, sorceresses were known for their love of potions that kept them young and enhanced their beauty. In fact, he never met one who looked a day over twenty. Only mages preferred to freeze their appearance after the ripe age of forty, young enough to keep their vigour and old enough to instil respect.
"This is making my head hurt. Good thing you're almost done and I can..."
He froze, realizing he had no idea how he was supposed to go back to his own time.
"Actually..." She took a deep breath and took on that sorrowful look once more, so he braced himself for bad news. "I don't know how to tell you this and there's no way to sugarcoat it... But you're far from being healed. I've done everything I could to heal the physical damage, but when Ciri brought you here you were close to dying. Your soul had been pushed out and your connection nearly broken, your body couldn't take it back. A spell Yennefer cast was the only thing keeping you breathing."
"I'm breathing now, aren't I?"
"You are, but your soul... Your soul is here." She touched her own chest.
As much as he thought he was prepared to hear anything, he wasn't ready for this. It sounded like nonsense to him. He didn't believe in souls and, even when he rarely entertained the possibility of such a thing existing, he was convinced his witcher mutations had stripped him of it.
"I was returning part of it when you woke, along with the energy required for you to rebuild the structures that hold it..."
"But I don't feel any different than usual. Maybe a little tired and my senses are somewhat duller but..."
"That's because I'm pouring energy into you even as we speak."
"Let's say I believe you. How can one be without a soul and still live?"
"You're not exactly without it." She waved a hand and a string of light appeared between them, linking their chests. "It's a tether tying you to your soul, giving you a constant flow of energy. The distance it can go has a small limit for the time being. Beyond that, you'll be left untethered and you'll eventually lose consciousness."
He rubbed a hand across his face, fighting the keep calm.
"So you have me on a fucking leash?" he growled. "Like a fucking pet?"
"It's not like that. I have no control over your soul or body, no insight into your thoughts or memories. I'm only safekeeping it."
"So it's not permanent?" he interrupted her.
"No, it's just until you heal yourself. I'll return it bit by bit as you get better."
"And how long will this take? For me to get my soul back."
"I don't know. It mostly depends on how fast you rebuild yourself. It may take a month. It may take a year."
"A year! By then Ciri could be captured or worse."
"She won't be. As I said before, time is not a linear construct. When I take you back hardly any time will have passed for them."
"So I'm stuck here meanwhile."
"I wish there was another way, but there really isn't."
He sat back down and shook his head.
"So what happens next?" he asked after a long pause in which he worked on trying to accept the situation he had found himself in.
"Next? Next, we sleep. It must be well past midnight by now. Normally, I'd make you some food, but I don't think your body has restarted all its functions yet and you won't able to digest anything right now. It would just make you sick instead. Fortunately, sleep has great therapeutic properties so perhaps by morning your organs will resume their activity."
Perhaps that explained his lack of reaction.
"Let me show you the facilities here." She pointed to an opaque glass where the toilet was, as she explained it, a self-cleaning chamber pot. She continued by showing him how to use the taps to get the water running and set the temperature. It was similar to the systems they had in the bathhouse in Novigrad. A true luxury to have such things in your house, he thought.
"And now, some well-deserved rest."
He followed her into the bedroom. She gestured to the large bed on one side of the room, inviting him to occupy it.
"I'll be right back."
She pulled out some clothes from a drawer in her wardrobe and disappeared into the bathroom. Only then did he realize he forgot about the bathrobe and was wearing just a towel. The situation was awkward enough already, so leaving the towel next to the bed, he got under the covers just before she came back dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, with her hair tied back from her face. Despite attempting to mask it, she looked tired.
She smiled faintly. "I tried to be fast. The tether is still weak and I don't want you to be left without its energy."
She looked to the side of the room where a large armchair rested, then walked up to it and started pulling on it. Normally he would have helped her simply because she was a woman, but instead he just watched her drag it across the room until it was near the bed. Although it was mostly latent resentment stopping him from offering, he was also buck naked, which wouldn't have made things better.
"Why aren't you using magic to move it?" he asked as she struggled with the piece of furniture, her muscles tensing in her exposed arms and legs.
"Why would I? Magic is best left for things that can't be accomplished through other means."
"Surprising stance for a sorceress," he said, but she just shrugged, unphased. None of the sorceresses he met would have preferred manual labour over the wave of a hand.
Finally happy with the position of the armchair, she stopped tugging on it and went once more to the wardrobe to pull out a blanket and pillow.
"I'll sleep here," she said matter-of-factly.
She was a head shorter than him and thin, and the armchair was large, but even so, he couldn't see how she would fit in it. He'd invite her into the bed if he wasn't naked, but as things stood, he stayed silent and rolled onto his side, facing her.
After turning off the light, she curled up in the armchair with her head on the armrest, hugging the pillow as if looking for comfort. He wondered once more if she could really sleep like that.
Even with no lights, for him, no room was ever too dark to see. That was something she clearly didn't know because as soon as she thought the darkness would hide her, her expression changed from confident and smiling to worried and sad. Her eyes wandered in his general direction without being able to focus on him. He watched her snuggle into the pillow, forcefully shut her eyes and shake her head.
Was she worried the Hunt would chase him here? If it did, would she run again? This time he didn't even have his sword to defend himself. He sighed and tried to fight off his dark thoughts until exhaustion won over worry and he fell asleep.
A/N: The story of what happened on the island is now up. It's called Apples & Scars if any of you want more backstory.
s/14017572/1/Apples-Scars
