Geralt (enchantedeyes) wrote in evaluation, @ 2020-03-06 20:03:00 |
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Now, Jaskier really did mean now, as the bard discovered years and years ago the first time he’d been left behind while begging a few more moments from someone who wouldn’t know patience or fashion sense if it bit him on his lovely, aquiline nose. So when Geralt put his foot down on Jaskier dodging off for five minutes to make sure he looked presentable for the princess, Jaskier reluctantly conceded.
Honestly, would five minutes kill them? No, it wouldn’t. And not everyone was satisfied with basic black. Even Geralt shouldn’t wear as much of it as he did because it hardly suited his coloring.
Jaskier asked once. He got a snappish growl about how it didn’t show blood, Jaskier, and that was that.
Boor.
“What a marvelous coincidence,” Jaskier opined, thoughtful. “Assuming it is coincidence at all, and not Destiny. I know how you feel about that, and yet. For Cirilla to be here, as we are here, it’s got to be more than idle circumstance.”
He hadn’t seen the little princess in a few years, and cringed a bit to think of her here at all. This didn’t seem the sort of place for a child… and if she was a child, she’d done a lot of talking about drinking and stabbing things, which was sort of odd if one didn’t know Queen Calanthe’s tastes. Still, Jaskier had seen more of Pavetta in the girl, all big eyes and fair hair and a delicacy that begged for sheltering rather than running her out into the courtyard for practicing with swordplay.
But what did he know? Jaskier liked children well enough but had little if any practice at raising one. Or even watching one.
“She did seem eager to see you, though.” He peered sidelong at Geralt as they walked, headed for the area Cirilla promised to wait for them.
Troubled did not even begin to describe Geralt’s current state of mind. Concerned, perplexed, and downright pissed were some other words to fully encapsulate how the Witcher happened to be feeling at the news that once again fate or destiny as some liked to call it had ripped Cirilla from everything she knew and dumped her in this place whatever this place was.
She had clearly acclimated quite quickly given that she was conversing on the network and sending Royal Summons in a way that would have made her grandmother proud. His stride was fast and if you knew him well you would be able to sense the urgency in his step, he had definitely come to care for the girl he now called Ciri in lieu of her more official names and titles, and the sooner he clasped eyes on her the better he would feel.
Jaskier knew full well how Geralt felt in regards to Destiny and how much the word tasted like bitter fruit on the edge of his tongue but even Geralt had to admit that perhaps there was more to life than the simple bare basics of everyday living. Of course that still didn’t in any shape or form make him readily embrace the notion or want it steering the course his life took.
“We should waste no time then,” he grumbled in the Bard’s direction as he did have a habit of getting distracted and wandering off the beaten track.
Having fully functional eyes, and at least a passing grasp of self-preservation, of course Jaskier could see that Geralt was agitated. It read in the clench of his jaw and the flare of his nostrils, never mind the way he was stalking along at the speed of a prowling, hungry predator. Jaskier could keep up well enough, though the way he moved lacked that particular intent. At least he was built on long, lean lines, and a couple of decades of tagging after the Witcher- who would still not let him ride Roach- meant he could walk at a decent pace for a while without complaining.
Not that it stopped him, often. Jaskier liked to complain. It gave Geralt something to grumble about and if grumbling was the only speaking Geralt would do, well. Needs must.
“You couldn’t have spared five minutes?” Jaskier lamented, plucking at his shirt. It was perfectly serviceable, at least by the standards of this time and place, but it wasn’t formal. “I have a lovely new embroidered doublet that would be far more appropriate for meeting with royalty. It’s been at least a few years since I’ve seen the girl, I don’t want her to think I’ve become some sort of transient in the meantime.”
He wrinkled his nose, despairing, but didn’t break stride.
“No, Jaskier,” Geralt growled. Besides, the Bard looked absolutely fine. He was fussing for nothing. Thankfully he was moving and moving fast which helped offset some of Geralt’s bad mood at the thought that the fates had once again conspired and ripped Ciri away from some semblance of stability and normal.
Of course as they approached he unlike Jaskier possessed the ability to see long into the distance and the sight of a fully grown white haired woman that looked nothing like the child he’d come to know as Ciri but then those eyes, those bright green eyes were undeniably hers. What trickery was this? He also sensed power, the same power that Ciri possessed as a young girl but this? This was different especially as medallion reacted not by warning but rather by pulling him towards. Clearly it knew something that the Witcher did not.
“Ciri?” He queried when they were close enough.
Ciri had gone through the motions of chewing on her thumb, playing with the collar of her shirt, wishing she had her weapons on her, wishing she had Kelpie, wishing that she wasn’t here (and, for a moment, trying to summon the power again that would have allowed her to just go home) and then wishing that they would just hurry up already. She thought about using the device to message Dande- Jaskier again but thought better of it. He’d said he would come.
He’d never let her down before.
Her concerns were primarily around the fact that he spoke as though he only knew her as a child. That had been a long time ago (not comparatively with the lives of Geralt and Julian De Lettenhove (Dandelion) but that was hardly the point: Ciri was younger than them by rote and would never be as old, partly because she was convinced they would never die). More recently he’d helped her escape the Wild Hunt. It had gone wrong, as his schemes always did, but it had helped. And Geralt… if he’d been here for a while why hadn’t he found her? Why hadn’t she found him?
It felt wrong. That wrongness was compounded when she heard the sound of footsteps, familiar gaits even as she looked up to see two men approaching her. Geralt had never looked so young and Dande- Jaskier, well, he didn’t look too different but he was missing his fashionable hat.
She stood up straight, suddenly conscious of the state of her hair and the ugly scar on her cheek, trying to turn her head slightly as though that would hide it, fingers laced together to stop herself from reaching out to them both.
“You- this is impossible. You’re both so young.” Okay, not the best words to have fallen from her lips, perhaps not the best greeting either. She hesitated and then nodded, to affirm Geralt’s assumption. “But, um, yes. I’m Ciri.” From the looks on their faces, just… not the Ciri they were expecting.
It would have been flattering from anyone else. From this strange woman, it was merely confusing, and Jaskier squinted at her in some amount of consternation before giving a wide-eyed, bewildered look to Geralt instead.
Not that he expected it would help. It probably wouldn’t. Geralt was always short on explanations, long on meaningful looks, and if Jaskier were lucky, he’d maybe get a hm somewhere in the mix. At least those he could translate, more often than not.
“I knew something was amiss,” he exclaimed, flapping his hands in what was, perhaps, a gesture too melodramatic for the moment. Far be it for Jaskier not to indulge, though. He could never pass up the opportunity to make a moment bigger than it needed to be. “She kept speaking as if we were familiar.” He paused, turning those wide, blue eyes on the woman instead. “Please forgive me, I know it’s rude to speak as if you aren’t here, and yet... “
He gestured again, fitful. She wasn’t the princess as Jaskier had last seen her. She certainly wasn’t a child. And he wasn’t entirely prepared to fathom why Geralt was using a familiar sort of nickname and not a single title. That implied things Jaskier didn’t know, and he hated not knowing. It meant he’d missed parts of the story and he never wanted to miss parts of the story. Geralt always refused to catch him up.
It was impossible for this Ciri to be the Ciri that Geralt and Jaskier knew but he knew it was a Ciri and she had the exact same feel about her as the younger one did. This one however had definitely been through the wars by the looks of things and Geralt felt a stirring of something resembling anger occurring in the middle of his chest.
The Witcher was still for all of a moment before he closed the distance that separated them and it wasn’t long until he’d laid hands on her shoulders, bent ever so slightly, and found eye contact. In his own unique way he was telling her that it was okay and whatever this was they would figure it out together regardless of where she had come from and what different path her life had taken.
“You’re so grown up,” he rumbled with a considering look over the woman stood before them.
“It’s fine, Dand- Jaskier,” Ciri managed with a wave of her hand, not quite dismissing his apology but more wanting to let him know that it really was okay. They were long past ceremony. Or, at least, she was. For a while, she’d even forgotten that she was a princess, had nearly lost herself as Falka. So, she had no need for ceremony; it didn’t matter here. But still. They were so young. Still older than her, of course, but much younger than she had thought them to be. Not that Dandelion ever aged.
Some tension in her drained when Geralt’s hands touched her shoulders. He was looking at her as though he’d never seen her before, not looking like this, they both were and she leaned past him to look at Jaskier again, the look of marked confusion on his face and the slight expression of excuse me I am missing something so familiar that it caused her lips to curl upwards a little. She nodded at him, a promise that if he wanted, she’d tell him everything.
“That’s what happens,” she said after a moment. “Growing up, I mean. You both must come from pretty far in the past if you were expecting to see a little girl. I haven’t been that for a long time.”
Clearly this was all going to remain beyond Jaskier’s understanding, which was typical when it came to the parts of his life involving Geralt. He asked of course. He always asked. Jaskier wasn’t stupid, merely flighty, and his capacity for being curious was more or less endless. If given the opportunity, he would ask a thousand questions and then some, perhaps take some notes.
He had the feeling that a thousand questions wouldn’t cover this, whatever it was.
Anyway, it was almost impossible to watch Geralt with the girl- no, woman, she was a woman fully grown- and Jaskier’s gaze slid aside even as his hands curled and twisted in front of him, the sort of fidgeting that betrayed nerves. If nothing else, he could fall back to manners. Courtesy was something he’d learned so long ago it was basically second nature.
“We may not have been expecting a young lady, no,” Jaskier agreed, peeking back with a smile that was all easy charm, “But we are far from disappointed, I assure you. I’m quite pleased to make your acquaintance… Highness? Titles are so tricky, I hope you’ll tell me which I ought to be using. If any. I don’t intend to stand on ceremony if you’ve no interest in it.” Deferring to a lady’s preferences was only the right thing to do, obviously.
Geralt sought her expression and gave the smallest of nods to indicate that he understood what she was saying without a word being given in explanation. He tilted his head ever so slightly as he listened to Jaskier speak and with one final lingering look and squeeze of Ciri’s shoulders he released her from his grip so she could go closer to the Bard.
“Not disappointed,” he affirmed in a nod towards Jaskier to show that he agreed with what the other man was saying.
She hadn’t been worried about them being disappointed until Jaskier had said something, but then it was something that settled under her skin a little. She hoped they were just from a time in her past. She squeezed Geralt’s wrist in thanks before she moved closer to the bard who had been rambling anxiously in a way that was so familiar it made her chest ache. She wished he’d been at White Orchard when she’d left.
“I don’t need you to stand on ceremony,” she reassured him, adding impishly a moment later, “it’s Empress, technically. If you wanted a title.” She glanced back at Geralt to see if he was at all surprised by that, she often wondered if he had his suspicions as to who her father truly was. “But honestly, Ciri is fine. You took to calling me Little Swallow after I became a teenager, the few times I saw you.” It had been nice, a nickname that had still made her feel pretty.
“Empress,” Jaskier repeated, tone waffling between amazement and something very much like horror- not because it was her title, no, but because it implied that so much had occurred between the recollection of the girl Cirilla had been and the appearance of this woman that she would be, and Jaskier despaired of ever catching up. His jaw hung loose for a beat before he closed his mouth with a clack of teeth.
Well. Nothing for it but to move ahead, he supposed.
“That,” he decided, firmly, “Sounds like the kind of story you’ll have to tell me. All of it, preferably, not only the good bits, but everything between, because we lose too many details trying to gloss over middle parts to get to the end and you’re... wow.” He gestured again, broad and increasingly delighted, and swept a hand forward to catch at one of hers for a squeeze.
Probably he shouldn’t, because Empress, but Jaskier and boundaries were only very loosely acquainted at the best of times.
He didn’t hang on long, but couldn’t bring himself to back up too much. Instead, he turned his grin on Geralt. “Look, Geralt, you helped raise an Empress. Who would’ve thought?”
Geralt was a little taken aback, surprised even, but he’d had his suspicions from the very beginning. It made no sense for Nilfgaard to attack Cintra as viciously and aggressively as it had with Calanthe being as obstinate as she had. Empress however? That was truly remarkable and never in a thousand years would he have thought that he might have a hand in such a thing. There was much to talk about, lots to catch up, and more information to be had. The sooner the better.
He watched with some bemusement the interaction between Jaskier and Ciri, biting back the smile which threatened to do away with his normal unimpressed scowl. Two people he cared about were now with him, in this place, to do what, they had no idea, but Geralt resolved to protect them both to his dying end if needed.
“A drink,” he concluded with a nod. “I think a drink is in order.”
“What is it with us warrior types and always going straight for the drink?” She tipped her head to look at Jaskier, eyes bright in amusement. “Isn’t that what you said?” She had, after all, been raised by Geralt and four other witchers. The habits instilled into her with them, before Aretuza, had been harder to shake despite the Rectoress and Yennifer doing their very best. She would always be a little witcher girl. Even when sitting next to her father in Nilfgaard. She could do good there, she knew it, and that was the only reason she’d- She looked at Geralt; he wanted to smile, she could see it, so she offered him one first, tucked her hair behind her ear.
Catching Jaskier’s hand again, Ciri also added, “I’m not sure, it’s a very long story. Are you sure you want to hear it all? I could just skip to the ‘and they lived happily ever after’ if you wanted. You own a tavern.”
“I strongly suspect that it’s because you’re all a little incorrigible,” Jaskier mused, holding up a hand with forefinger and thumb a scarce breadth apart in illustration. He gave it up on a merry peal of laughter in the next moment, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes as he slanted a look to Geralt.
There were worse words he could use, but they both (all? Apparently there was an all now, which was strange but not at all unpleasant, and Jaskier would get used to it as he did with most surprising things) knew he would only be teasing.
Curling elegant fingers around Ciri’s hand, Jaskier grinned again. “Do I? That’s very smart of me. It’s like buying a venue so I always know there’s a quality performer on stage. Namely, myself. Obviously.” He winked, turned them a little, and began the trek back toward where he knew the drinks to be.
Assuming they were talking drinks in public, anyway. Jaskier hadn’t purchased a thing here and had not a sip to his name to share amongst them, but he knew there was a place over in… Red? Possibly it was Red. They’d figure it out.