{ pfsb } on the Path

[jaskoleczka]

 The black mare the Baron had given her isn't as fleet as Kelpie once was, but she's sturdy and swift and Ciri reaches the inn before nightfall, which is all she'd really hoped for. She sees to the mare first, making certain she's set in a comfortable loose box with plenty of hay and water, then makes her weary way to the heavy wooden front door.

But –

"This inn has improved somewhat, since my last visit," she says to herself, and smiles as she lowers the hood that had covered her ashen hair.

Milliways, again. At last.

Comments

[lightamidchaos]

"Very powerful."

Several things combine into near certainty, based on what he is hearing now together with what Ciri has told him before.

"Your grandmother," he asks. "Calanthe?"

[jaskoleczka]

"Yes."

She hasn't tried to hide the truth, exactly, but she looks a small apology at him anyway. "Queen Calanthe had no choice; she listened to the witcher and married Duny and Pavetta then and there. The marriage broke the curse, and to thank the witcher for his help, Duny offered anything that was in his power to give."

Her smile is humorless but inexplicably fond. "The witcher invoked the Law of Surprise. And it turned out that Pavetta was already pregnant."

[lightamidchaos]

He nods at the confirmation, without any sign of concern or indication whatsoever that he might feel she had hidden something from him. She has not, insofar as he is concerned.

But then Ciri explains the second invocation of the Law of Surprise, and Lan Wangji stares at her, rapidly putting the pieces together.

"The witcher was Geralt?"

[jaskoleczka]

"The very same," she confirms. "Not that he had any idea what to do with a Child Surprise, so he left without any intention of taking me. And I grew up in Cintra and in Skellige, where my grandmother's husband Eist was from."

The line of her mouth turns rueful. "I was so young, I don't remember much about that day. I was meant to be on the boat with them, we all would have been lost together. Nothing was ever found of the wreck, and I went to my grandmother until... well. That's a different story."

Her tea is cooling between her hands; she's completely forgotten about it. "But I've learned since then that it was no natural storm that took their ship. Duny was a prince, but not of Maecht, as he'd originally said. He was the son of the previous Emperor of Nilfgaard. His true name is Emhyr var Emreis, and he plotted with the mage Vilgefortz to destroy the ship so he could return to Nilfgaard and take his place as Emperor."

[lightamidchaos]

He stares at her.

"Nilfgaard," he says, slowly. The name is familiar. "The same that razed your Cintra?"

I hear the Emperor Emhyr even found the missing Cintran princess, she had told him before, and a scowl creases his brow and darkens the look in his eyes.

[jaskoleczka]

"The same. But that was later."

The first time Emperor Emhyr tried to reclaim his daughter.

"The truth of the shipwreck is that my mother discovered Duny's plots. She smuggled me off the ship. When he found out, they quarreled. They fought. And in the struggle, she fell overboard and drowned."

Her hands tighten around her tea cup, her already pale knuckles turning even whiter, though her voice is calm. "And then the mage Vilgefortz activated the spell that lifted the ship from the sea and dropped it in a remote piece of land. Duny – Emhyr – was the only survivor."

[lightamidchaos]

"Complicated indeed," he murmurs. "I am sorry, Ciri."

[jaskoleczka]

She nods, accepting his sympathy. "So I still say I lost both my parents that day," she tells him. "Pavetta when she drowned, Duny when it turned out he never existed at all."

Her expression turns darkly frustrated. "And Emhyr has been no kind of father. If I have a father at all, it's Geralt, not him."

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji nods. "I understand. And would not disagree."

What filial piety would Ciri owe a man who misrepresented himself from the start, tried to have her killed, and arranged the murder of the rest of her family? Surely this Emhyr severed any ties of obligation with his own bloody hands - or even earlier, by giving over Ciri to the witcher Geralt through this Law of Surprise even before she was born, as through adoption into the Wolf sect of Kaer Morhen -- no, school, he reminds himself.

[jaskoleczka]

Now and again she thinks of that poor creature, the false Princess Cirilla, and wonders what ever became of her.

She shakes the thought from her head and offers him a wry smile as she finally lifts her tea for a sip. "Thank you for listening through all that," she tells him. "It's been a long time since I've talked about my past. And no one at all to talk with lately, aside from Avallac'h."

[lightamidchaos]

"You need not thank me. It was neither trouble nor hardship," he tells her. "To listen. I am always happy to talk with you, Ciri."

[jaskoleczka]

She smiles at him and thinks for a moment of Vysogota, of the long nights spent telling her story and hearing his.

"And I with you," she assures him. "If there's anything you wish to speak of, I will always be happy to listen."

[lightamidchaos]

He smiles back and pours some tea into her cup to warm it.

[jaskoleczka]

The warmth from the tea seeps into her palms, soothing her even before she takes a sip.

"I'm very glad you met Geralt," she says, after a long moment, a smile in her spring-green eyes. "He is very, very dear to me."

[lightamidchaos]

"I am, also," he tells her. "He was glad to hear news of you."

[jaskoleczka]

"I'm sure he was," she murmurs. She can almost hear her childhood self extracting a promise from Geralt that they would never have to be apart again.

"I wonder how he learned I was back."

[lightamidchaos]

"He said that he found out from a friend that you were seen," he tells her. "He did not say who, only that she had used magic to try to find you and had been unsuccessful."

[jaskoleczka]

"Yennefer," she muses. "Or Triss, perhaps."

Much as she loves Triss, she hopes it's Yennefer, who had given up her own life energy to save the witcher. "Both are powerful sorceresses."

[lightamidchaos]

"It could be. He did not mention either of them by name."

He refreshes his cup of tea and lets his fingers rest around the cup without yet drinking.

"I am glad to have met him. He is worthy of respect."

[jaskoleczka]

Something surprised and happy sparks behind her eyes at that. "I have always thought so," she agrees, deeply pleased.

Lan Wangji's good opinion is quite the stamp of approval. "Although I suspect he would disagree."

[lightamidchaos]

There is a hint of surprise in his glance, at that.

"Why?"

[jaskoleczka]

"Because he rarely receives it," she says. "Because witchers as a rule are shunned and disliked. Because he's gruff and rude and despises pomp and hierarchy."

Just the thought makes her laugh. "How he hasn't lost his head yet with the way he talks to kings and queens I'll never know."

[lightamidchaos]

"I cannot speak to how your world regards witchers, but I did not find him rude," Lan Wangji counters. "Considered in his speech, perhaps."

The narration silently invites one to consider the source of this observation.

[jaskoleczka]

It's to her credit, she thinks, that she doesn't laugh.

"That is a very generous interpretation," she observes, once she's sure her inner amusement is under control. "I suppose Geralt is, in some ways, like you: he thinks he's worse with people than he is."

[lightamidchaos]

He shakes his head at her. "Most do not consider me good with people. I have also never considered myself so."