{ pfsb } a letter and a meeting

[jaskoleczka]

Time is passing strangely for Ciri; it's difficult to tell if she has slept entire days or only a few hours. There is no way to mark the days aside from weather, and that changes quickly enough that it is wholly unreliable.

(The Bar, in her infinite kindness and usual sympathetic meddling, has in fact created a mild time loop in Ciri's room, giving her time to recover and somewhat ignoring the distressed flurry which has emanated out in ripples from her arrival.)

She comes downstairs, therefore, determined to more fully explore this strange place. There are stables she wishes to visit, and the woods remind her very slightly of those around Kaer Morhen...but her plans are abruptly canceled when, along with the strong hot tea she'd ordered, Lady Bar provides her also with a note.

Anyone watching would see Ciri rub at her forehead as if to quell a sudden headache, then lay a hand on the bartop and request something in a soft voice. Quill and pen appear, and she bends her head to write briskly and neatly:

Reverend Daughter,

I am terribly sorry for the distress I have caused. Please know it was not intentional.
I welcome your request for a meeting. I am at your disposal and shall visit Room 99 within the hour.

- Ciri

Folding the note, she looks for a waitrat to charge with its delivery and watches as the messenger scampers up the stairs before she turns with a sigh back to her tea.

Which she is now wishing was something a good deal stronger.

---

It's about half an hour later that she stands at the door of Room 99 with no idea of what to expect, knocking lightly with gloved knuckles.

Comments

[jaskoleczka]

"Easily," she says, "oh, easily. As easily as I can offer it. This power – it might be a curse for me, but if it can help you – I wouldn't even remember it," she continues, eagerly.

"Just – consider it. An option you didn't have before. Will you?"

[lightamidchaos]

In that moment, she reminds him of Wei Ying.

Wei Ying, draining himself to unconsciousness and near death in the first battle of Nightless City. Wei Ying, defending the Wen remnants with everything he had.

Wei Ying, always ready to give to others if they need it, despite what it might cost him.

"I will consider," he says, gravely. He suspects it might hurt her, if he did not. So he will consider, and will discuss it with Wei Ying as well.

(Gideon, he knows, would want him to accept - at least until he explained.)

"But I will not harm one innocent for the sake of another."

From his tone, it is clear, very clear, that he considers her to be the innocent in question.

[jaskoleczka]

The last person who wanted to protect her was Geralt. And Lan Wangji...is nothing like Geralt.

More than that, he's nothing like Bonhart, or Avallac'h, or Eredin, or Emhyr, or any of the myriad others who have wanted her for nothing more than the child she could give them or the power she could provide them.

(If he reminds her of anyone, it is Galahad. Pure of heart and of soul, dedicated to a singular cause.)

She was right. He's a good man. She sighs in relief. "Good," she says, smiling, and finally takes a drink of her beer, pleased enough that she doesn't even argue his last statement. She is no innocent, but if he wishes to keep her from harm, she can go along with it as long as necessary.

[lightamidchaos]

She seems more relaxed, and he is glad to see it.

With a slight press of his fingers to the bartop and a murmured word, he has a new cup of tea in hand, and takes a sip.

"Are you recovering well? From your injury?"

[jaskoleczka]

"Yes, thank you."

Having secured a small victory, she feels a good deal better and is happy to change subjects. "Doctor Ford did a beautiful job of stitching, I doubt I'll have a scar at all by the end of it. And I believe your cultivation sped up my healing remarkably – it's quite astonishing, what you can do."

[lightamidchaos]

"I am glad. That it helped."

He takes another sip of tea.

"Ford-daifu has been very helpful to me in the past, also."

[jaskoleczka]

She gives him a sympathetic glance over the edge of her mug. "Did you come here injured as well?"

[lightamidchaos]

He shakes his head.

"No. It happened later."

[jaskoleczka]

She takes a sip of her beer and watches him, wondering how much to press. Their meeting was so strange, it seems to have totally bypassed her usual wary reticence. They have only met twice now, but she trusts him fully, and wishes him to view her the same way.

"What happened?" she asks. "If it is not too forward a question."

[lightamidchaos]

"I have been sentenced to seclusion in Cold Pond Cave for three years. The term will be over very soon, but is not, yet."

He sounds matter-of-fact about it. It is not something generally spoken of outside Gusu Lan, he knows, because it is a largely internal matter to the sect -- but he is not ashamed of what he did, and will not pretend that he is.

And now that Wei Ying knows, there is no reason for him to conceal the extent of his punishment.

"I found it necessary to break my seclusion early. I was discovered. The punishment imposed -- aggravated old wounds."

[jaskoleczka]

"Oh, I'm sorry," she says, aghast. "That's...very severe."

Ciri, the only child in Kaer Morhen in almost a century and the joy of her adopted uncles, very rarely suffered any punishment worse than being forced to copy over old bestiaries or being sent to bed early.

[lightamidchaos]

"My uncle is very strict," Lan Wangji tells her. "He was -- extremely disappointed in me. Thus the punishment was strict, as well, commensurate with what he saw as my crime."

He does not place emphasis on any particular word, but somehow it is evident that he, himself, does not regret his actions.

"After it was over, I made my way here. Wei Ying insisted I see a doctor. Ford-daifu was very helpful."

[jaskoleczka]

"Three years alone," she muses, shaking her head. "And then to be punished for breaking that seclusion...I can't imagine. I've been alone, often, but never for so long, and never as punishment."

It has taken less time to form a disapproving opinion of Lan Wangji's uncle than it has for her to take another sip of her ale. "That's how she knew you, then," she says, casting her memory back to that night and pushing it past the last few horrible moments in her room. "I suppose she sees a lot of that sort of thing, here."

[lightamidchaos]

"He felt it was required," is all he says.

"And yes. That is how I met her. She is very skilled, and was very understanding. I did not know she was more than a doctor, though."

[jaskoleczka]

"I envy her control," Ciri sighs. "Hers, yours – so many here seem to be totally comfortable with the gifts they were born with or gained later in life."

[lightamidchaos]

"I have been cultivating since I was a child," he tells her. "It makes a difference, both in the strength of my golden core, and in my control of it."

Along with his absolute dedication to practice, which he does not find necessary to explain.

"Could she help you? If you are both seers?"

[jaskoleczka]

She spreads her hands and shrugs. "Maybe. To be frank, none of my previous teachers ever seemed to want to help me control it. I didn't even learn it was something I could do until quite a bit later than the first few times it happened."

And she has wondered ever since, not without trepidation, what else Yennefer and Triss and the witchers have kept from her about her own abilities.

[lightamidchaos]

He blinks at that.

"Mn."

He cannot say that he is impressed with the quality of her previous teachers, in that case. But--

"Were any of them seers?"

[jaskoleczka]

"No," she says, shaking her head. "Triss and Yennefer, they're sorceresses, but not oracles. Avallac'h has no gift of sight. And the witchers..."

Her smile is wryly affectionate. "Most of them don't believe prophecy is worth the time it takes to hear one."

[lightamidchaos]

Avallac'h is a name he remembers - her friend, that she had been traveling with before she fell through the portal.

"Then maybe someone who is can help, where they could not. It is not something I know enough about to say."

[jaskoleczka]

"Perhaps," she admits. "I know so little about it that any information at all would be helpful."

For example, determining whether or not she's likely to lose control and flatten the greater Bar area by accident.

[lightamidchaos]

He nods, and takes another sip of tea, leaving it at that. She knows where to find Ford-daifu, if that is a path she wishes to pursue.

"Sorceresses," he says, instead, and gives her a quizzical look.

[jaskoleczka]

"Women born with and trained to use magic," she says. "There's a school...well, there was. I don't know if it exists any longer. Two, actually: Ban Ard for men, Aretuza for women. Aretuza was the academy where Yennefer and Triss trained. I was supposed to go there, myself."

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn," he says, and takes another sip of tea.

"Are they Aes Sedai?"

[jaskoleczka]

She blinks at him. "Sorry?"