to grow in adversity

by Soulykins

Chapter 16: confrontation

Summary:

Renfri makes a choice she immediately regrets, Jaskier makes a choice he vows to never regret, and Ciri struggles to find her place.

Notes:

HELLO EVERYONE i return... slowly but surely lol

thank you everyone for having patience with me!! i don't forsee there being too many more chapters in this part tbh so hopefully the fic will be complete soon!! not giving up on it at least ;3c

She shouldn’t turn back. She’s already shed her armor like a snake sheds its skin, already committed to making her way back to the wall. She shouldn’t turn back, because she’s already decided that Ciri isn’t here and if she isn’t here, then Renfri isn’t here.

But she recognizes the voice, faint in the air.

She shouldn’t turn back, because she doesn’t even like the man. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to avoid him, slithering through the halls in dresses that were just nice enough to not be noticeable.

Every time she’d heard his voice, there had been a shiver like something cold dripping down her spine. Something pinged her animal hind brain of danger, beware, get out.

Renfri’s relationship with Ciri wasn’t like Jaskier’s. She’d been content to watch Jaskier swing the little girl into his arms and shower her in kisses, indulgently singing and dancing for her and even allowing stubby little fingers to pluck at the strings of his lute. Jaskier had looked at Ciri like she hung the moon, like she was the reason for the sun rising and setting every day.

But Renfri still remembers Ciri as the tiny slip of a girl hanging onto her father’s leg, peeking around to look at the Shrike with wide, curious eyes.

(When Pavetta had held Ciri in her lap, fingers tracing patterns through the little girl's hair and down her forehead to her cheekbones, Renfri remembers. She remembers the faint traces of fingers against her forehead, looping around her temples and around the sockets of her eyes. Renfri remembers her mother’s warm lips pressed against her face and whispers about crowns and royal blood.

Sometimes she looks at Ciri and sees warm brown hair instead of the ethereal blond, spilling down her back. She sees chestnut brown eyes instead of blue. Sees the crest of Creyden instead of Cintra. She has to look away until she can trust her eyes again.)

Maybe that’s why Cintra’s mage made her hackles raise, her stomach curdle. Because she saw too much of herself in the little princess, and when Renfri had been young… well. No one had protected her.

Ciri was more protected, of course. Renfri had monitored the gossip channels closely - Pavetta had no other children and Calanthe desired no more spawn, either. Ciri was it, the last heir of her house. As such she was far more protected than Renfri had been as the spare after Jaskier had been born.

(She loves Jaskier more than anything, but sometimes she wonders how different her life would be if he hadn’t been born. If she had been her kingdom’s only heir, afforded the lavish protections that such a position should have given her from Stregobor. It would have been stifling, suffocating even, but she still wonders some nights.)

It shouldn’t be difficult to remember that Ciri is not her. That Ciri’s circumstances are not Renfri’s circumstances.

So Renfri has to remember a little girl’s voice asking for “Mousey” instead of remembering exactly how dangerous mages are.

She closes her eyes and tries to convince herself to leave.

What if he has information about the princess? An insidious little part of her hisses, beneath the other parts that are screaming at her to run because the only good mage is a dead mage.

Mousesack was close with Ciri. Eist trusted the man, and so did Calanthe. He likely would have been involved in protecting the princess or would know about whatever plan they had to abscond her away from the fighting. He might have good information, the kind that would cut her hunt in half and get her to Ciri before Ciri got herself killed.

But he’s a mage.

With a snarl that’s almost inhuman, Renfri hauls her discarded armor back into her hand and shimmies into it. This is possibly the stupidest thing she’s done in a long time.

But at the end of the day, Renfri is an actor. She straightens her spine, sets her jaw, and walks purposefully forward like she has a mission. As long as her eyes are hard, her stride heavy and determined, and her sword is loose and ready in her hand, very few people stop her - including the enemy forces whose colors she now wears.

It’s stupidly easy to find him, in the end. His hands are bound to a length leading to the saddle of a horse with chains, being forced to stumble and keep up or be dragged through the street by his wrists.

It’s equally and stupidly easy to wait until they turn a corner, heft a knife in one hand and hurl with enough force that it slices butter quick through the skin of the rider’s throat before Renfri is heaving herself at the two foot soldiers with a growl rumbling in her ribcage.

When she was little, she’d watched knights fight in the courtyard of her castle. She’d clapped politely as they spun and whirled and parried with one another, even politely offering her handkerchief to the winner on occasion as the princess and offering sneers to the ones who flinched from it.

This is nothing like that. It’s raw strength and power, slamming the hilt of her sword into a man’s jaw and hearing the crunch of bones crumpling under the pressure. She doesn’t hesitate to lunge forward to her next victim, who manages to bring his own sword up enough to stop hers from skewering him. It doesn’t matter though, because it only allowed her to get close enough to bring up her other fist to catch him in the neck and send him down wheezing.

From there isn’t only a matter of stomping on a wrist to make him let go of the sword before bringing hers down in a brutal move, making sure she’s delivered fatal blows to all three before she finally, finally turns to her prize.

Mousesack stands there, pale and shaking with his wrists bound in front of him.

He licks his lips, nervous as his eyes dart to and fro. “Please, you must let me go. You - I can - ”

Renfri cuts him off, though she’s not sure if she’s deciding to be merciful or if she just doesn’t want to deal with his sniveling. She’s never been one for gloating and making her enemies beg. “Where’s Ciri?”

Mousesack immediately stiffens, going terribly still. He stares her dead in the eye with a courage that she honestly wouldn’t have thought him capable of. “I do not know.”

It’s clear that this isn’t the first time he’s been asked this question.

Despite herself, Renfri feels the slightest glimmer of something that might be respect. Could also be gas though. Probably gas.

She sighs, shoulders heaving with the force of it. “Look, Mouseballs - or whatever your name is - Jaskier sent me.”

Mousesack’s eyebrows, which had immediately taken a somewhat scandalized and very confused position at the butchering of his name, immediately shoot up his forehead into what Renfri assumes is shocked-disbelief territory. Then they settle back down into a serious expression that Renfri dislikes much more than his previous two.

“Get me out of these chains.” He demands, which makes Renfri’s mouth twitch into a frown, “We must get to her before Nilfgaard do.”

Renfri wants to take a step backward, but instead steps forward threateningly. “Who the fuck is we, mage?”

“You and me.” Mousesack volleys back, unimpressed with the show of force now that he knows Renfri is a tentative ally. “Look, she hasn’t seen Jaskier in years - she needs a familiar face.”

Renfri grimaces. How old was Ciri when they left? Were forced to leave her? Unfortunately, Renfri and Jaskier’s lifespans seemed to be more similar to mages and witchers than the average human. As such, though it felt like barely yesterday, Renfri knew that Ciri wasn’t exactly the knee-high little goblin that she remembers.

Grudgingly, Renfri reaches over and grabs at the chain, almost yanking Mousesack off balance with the force of her tug which absolutely sends a smug little spark of satisfaction through her. She inspects the chain, and reluctantly tugging Mousesack closer to her, the cuffs.

“They’re magic blocking.” Mousesack says seriously.

“Key?”

The man only shakes his head.

Renfri gives some very serious thought to just chopping the man’s hands off, but a tiny voice in her head is telling her that it’s probably a bad idea. Mostly because Jaskier isn’t there to sing them back on or whatever, and the soft little mage would probably die of shock.

“Alright, on the horse you go.” Renfri decides, grabbing the man’s shoulder with one hand and jerking him forward so she can reach and sweep the poor warhorse’s forgotten reigns into her hands. Honestly, she’s lucky the beast had accepted his rider’s unfortunate fall with nothing more than an irritated huff instead of hurtling forward at full speed and dislocating Mousesack’s arms.

“What?”

“Do you need a leg up? An embossed invitation? Get up there.”

“That’s just going to make me a target.” Mousesack sounds disgruntled, “It would be better if you rode and pretended to be my guard.”

“Yeah, no.” Renfri vetoes immediately, “I left a Nilfgaard mage’s body like, a couple blocks away. We go grab the cloak, sweep it over you, and then we both ride out of here like a bat out of hell. Got it?”

Mousesack just stares at her.

“Unless Ciri’s still in the city…?” She doesn’t think so, but it’s probably best to make sure.

She gets a slow head shake for that one, and then a nervous glance at the horse.

“For fucks - here, after you princess.” Renfri growls, cupping her hands together to make a foothold and jerking her head at the horse in a clear signal to get up there already, jackass.

Mousesack nods jerkily and two minutes later, with some less than graceful flailing, he’s on the horse.

Five minutes later, Renfri is shoving both the stupid material that serves as a uniform for Nilfgaard’s mages at the man as well as what looks like a toddler, though Renfri’s never been one for guessing ages. It had been hiding in an alley, little fist shoved into its slimy little mouth.

“Hide it beneath your cloak.” Renfri says grimly as she frisks the mage for anything else potentially useful. “We’ll be riding hard, soon.”

Despite the muttered it indeed, she gets no argument when she finally swings up and into the saddle. What a pair they make, with their pilfered disguises and the soft clink of the chain where Mousesack has it bundled between them. At least the random child has the sense to keep quiet.

Renfri smoothes a hand over the horse’s neck, grim determination in every movement.

“North.” Mousesack murmurs, “She should be on a horse with Sir Lazlo.”

“North.” Renfri repeats, “Wonderful.”

And then they ride.

 

—

 

They aren’t that far out of the city when Renfri makes them stop. She shucks her Nilfgaardian armor and throws it to the ground, valiantly resisting the urge to spit on it.

She holds her hand out patiently, though her patience is tested when Mousesack just stares at her blankly. Idiot.

“Cloak.” She says slowly, like her companion is the same age as the toddler they’d pulled out as well.

“Shouldn’t we hang onto good disguises?” Mousesack’s hand flexes, holding the fabric tighter around his shoulders.

Renfri valiantly resists rolling her eyes, but only just. “Only if we need to infiltrate Nilfgaard forces again. Right now though, we’re assuming that Ciri fled North, so her and Lazalar are probably with the other refugees. Refugees who would probably take exception to a couple of Nilfgaardian’s showing up.”

Mousesack’s hand relaxes, conceding her point as he then makes an effort to peel his cloak off while not dropping the toddler.

“Lilith, give me patience.” Renfri murmurs under her breath.

“This isn’t exactly easy.” Mousesack snaps, and then immediately backtracks when his harsh tone causes some upset noises to emerge from the child.

Renfri strolls closer, laying her hand on the chains and trying to ignore the warm body attached to them. They just feel like cold steel to her, but she’s never been particularly magically sensitive.

Missing Jaskier hits her like a knife to the gut, and she grits her teeth through the pain of it. He would have been able to tell if whatever enchantment on these things had worn off by now - but then, Jaskier had always been more attentive than any other to all things magical.

“Is the chain still working?”

“Why would it stop?”

Renfri ignores the tone. She’s ignoring a lot right now, honestly. “Magic items don’t really tend to survive close contact with me for too long. Try breaking them, again.”

Mousesack gives her an incredulous look, and then an irritated one. He looks down at his hands, and she can see the thought going through his head that he’ll indulge the non-mage who so clearly doesn’t understand magic -

With one muttered incantation, the cuffs fall off with a sharp flash of light.

Mousesack stares down at his own wrists blankly and Renfri can’t help but snort at the expression. Maybe it’s a little bit mean of her but - well, yeah it’s mean. She’s mean. Can’t help that. “Told you.”

Mousesack’s hands adjust to support the child better, and his gaze has suddenly turned very wary. “What did you say your name was, again?”

“I didn’t.” Renfri locks eyes with him, showing him exactly how unimpressed she was.

“I’m… Mousesack?” The man offers, and it almost feels like she should pity him with how out of his depth and bewildered he looks.

“I’m aware.”

They stare at each other for a few more minutes before Mousesack finally shrugs off his stolen Nilfgaard cloak and wordlessly hands it to her.

Renfri, who is no one’s maid, drops it onto the dusty road as soon as it’s in her hands.

“Great. Hold the baby and we’ll dump it with the first group of refugees we see. Hopefully Ciri will be there as well.” Renfri pauses, “Think about cutting off your beard.”

“My beard?” A confused hand reaches up to touch his chin.

Renfri gives him a foreboding look, “If I recognized you, so will others.”

With that grim reminder, they go forth into the unknown.

 

—

 

Jaskier hates fighting, honestly. It’s too much work.

It also, frankly, hurts. He’s enchanted his clothing and various belongings to hell and back of course, because frankly it gives him something to do when he’s walking along the road that isn’t frantically monitoring his sister’s progress through whatever mystical bond they shared. These enchantments mean that the brigiands he comes across that try to slice at him are met with as much resistance as they would find from a knight’s chainmail.

Good for his flesh to remain intact and his blood to remain in his body, less great for the bruises he sports. There’s still power behind those blows.

He’s traveling with a group when they get halted by a band of Nilfgaard soldiers. The entire group is terrified, but the bastards seem content to just inspect them.

Not inspect all of them - just the children and young women. They pull out a couple of the blond girls to compare against a piece of paper they have.

Jaskier is curious to a fault, so he can be forgiven for sliding over, getting up on his tiptoes, and just taking a little peek -

His blood runs cold when he recognizes the face on the paper.

Ciri looks so much like her mother, it aches.

Why are they looking for Ciri?

(If they’re looking for Ciri, that means she’s alive. Something inside of his sobs in relief. The rest of him is just worried, though.)

He splits from the party after they’re begrudgingly let go, backtracks with the careful stalking steps of his younger years.

(Renfri hadn’t been the only one hunting to put food on the table, though admittedly she’d always been more successful at it. Before Jaskier started to cheat using magic, at least.)

It’s almost too simple to wait until one of the soldiers split off from their main party, and Jaskier strikes.

He hums as he ties up the man, weaving gentle suggestions to tell the truth between each note and listening as they curl around the man’s throat with almost gleeful ease.

“Why are you looking for Princess Cirilla?” Jaskier asks the man.

The response that he gets isn’t expected at all.

 

—

 

In the end, he only has one option. Well, that’s a lie. He probably has a wealth of them, but with Renfri already so far away and his fear threatening to drown him in its tidal waves, he knows that he can’t do this alone.

It’s not a weakness. Jaskier has always been at his best when he has someone to work off of, after all.

He takes in a deep breath, and despite the greenery around him he can smell the scent of ash and smoke on the breeze and the underlying hints of decay. He takes another deep breath regardless though, because sometimes it’s important to sit with the pain before picking yourself up and moving on.

“If anything can speak to me, of silent songs and stories,” Jaskier sings ever so softly, tracing his fingers up and out in wide circling movements, ”Then can it not be we, me and my lady of morning glories?”

He has to strain to hear it, the lilting soprano notes. They’re so far away, but Jaskier reaches for them. His own magic croons gently, beckoningly, with the backbone of Jaskier’s voice.

“The sweet scent of you in the air, the burn of you against the day. I don’t have to tell you it isn’t fair. Fingers to the ground, we’ll find our way.” He warbles as sparks light up the air where his fingers are splayed.

The voice he seeks is louder now, louder and louder as the sparks rend the air and the magics combine with one another as though they are lost lovers seeing each other for the first time.

But Jaskier can tune out the joyful notes of their magic - he has to, because what is following behind those lovely chords is someone who looks to be far less impressed with him.

“Jaskier, what the fuck do you want?” Yennefer asks, and there’s marks on her face that almost look like she hastily swiped at her eyes and smeared her makeup ever so slightly. Honestly, no worse than he himself looks.

In short, she looks upset and not about to take any of his shit.

“What do you know about prophecies?” Jaskier shoots back, deciding that cutting to the chase is the wisest course of action when faced with a witch who smells of desert storms and glares at him like he’s the cause of every problem in her life.

It must work, because she doesn’t leave. Instead she looks mildly taken aback, squinting suspiciously like she doesn’t trust his question.

Which honestly, rude. Yennefer has popped out of nowhere with far more random questions than this one, usually to do with what rumors he’s heard about the magical treasures of such and such kingdom or the occasional query about how many owl hearts are used in the Antemonian health rituals. The normal questions that friends ask one another.

“Why do you want to know?” She demands, wariness written across her face.

Now that he knows he has her hooked, that she’s at least curious enough to ask questions, he steps backwards. His shoulders slump and he closes his eyes as he lets out a breath he hadn’t really known he was holding.

He can’t believe he feels relief at seeing her. Something is clearly wrong with his brain. One concussion too many.

“Jaskier?” He can hear Yennefer ask, and if he didn’t know better he would almost say she sounds concerned.

He opens his eyes and scratches the side of his face roughly, “I’ve been having a day, Yen.”

She shakes her head, face scrunching from something suspicious into something almost understanding. “Yeah. You and me both.”

“Oh? You found out that the child who is all but blood to you is wanted by an enemy army because of some vague prophecy?”

Yennefer shakes her head. “Worse. Just talked with an ex.”

“Geralt?” Jaskier asks incredulously, because the last time they’d talked Yennefer had been several drinks deep and swearing to place a penis curse on the wayward Witcher.

Yennefer throws up her hands, face instantly twisting with disgust, “I have more than one ex, you know!”

Jaskier turns this over in his mind, before his face slackens with incredulous realization, “Istredd?”

“What was your problem?” Yennefer cuts him off, looking mildly desperate. “Prophecies?”

Jaskier allows the distraction, because he is both a good friend and also genuinely has a huge and massive problem that he summoned her for. But because he is an excellent friend, he files this information away to bring back up again at a later time.

“Do you know any prophecies regarding the princess of Cintra?”

Yennefer pulls a face and makes a noise somewhere between a yes and a no. It kind of makes Jaskier want to smack her, but he valiantly resists the impulse because he is a kind and benevolent person.

“Yennefer, please.”

She shrugs, the contrary witch. “I’ve never had all that much interest in divination magics. They always seem to be self fulfilling prophecies.”

“Fuck.” Jaskier says with emotion, and Yennefer at least has the grace to look sorry about her own lack of knowledge. “I need to know why an entire fucking army is gunning for Ciri, shit. Even if Renfri gets to her - what the fuck does this prophecy even say that has them so desperate to find her?”

“Those who listen to prophecies aren’t usually the most intelligent beings.” Yennefer inspects her nails lightly.

It makes Jaskier think of Stregobor, oddly enough. It’s at least enough to make him slightly less sorry for himself as a pang of amusement shoots through him at the roundabout insult the mage was delivered by one of his own. “Agreed. But unfortunately, I have a lot of idiots who apparently are listening quite intently. I need to know what it says.”

“I… might know someone.” Yennefer states, but it’s cagey. Her eyes aren’t managing to find his, instead looking askance.

Jaskier tries to catch her gaze, fingers fluttering and heartbeat rabbit quick against his ribcage. “Yennefer. Please.”

“I - It’s not that easy, Jaskier.” Her breath explodes from her throat in a sigh that’s more worldweary than even Jaskier looks right now. “I’ve burned a lot of bridges in my time.”

“Yennefer, you are practically a professional bridge arsonist at this point. I both love and respect this about you. Please.”

“I have - well, my teacher… she doesn’t know more magic than me, but she’s more - traditional. She’s old, and she probably cares about divination magic more than I ever would. If there are prophecies roaming about… she might know of them.”

“I need to meet her.” Jaskier is close to being on his knees and begging, desperation coloring every word he speaks.

“It’s not that easy.” Yennefer repeats, shaking her head. “She’s basically attached at the hip to Aretuza. If you want a meeting, it would have to be there.”

Jaskier heads the word Aretuza and his mind momentarily fuzzes out. He can hear static in his ears, the hum of his magic trying to comfort him from the sudden spike of terror he feels.

Aretuza. The mage school. Sister to Ban Ard.

Places swarming with mages, swarming with the very people who Renfri had tried her damndest to protect him from his entire life. Full of people with unbridled curiosity and little morals, ready to poke and prod at every new thing with both glee and suspicion.

Jaskier feels a warm weight on his shoulder, and he focuses on it. Slowly, the rest of the world comes back into focus.

“Breathe, idiot.” A voice hisses at him, and he absently recognizes it as belonging to Yennefer.

“When do we leave?” Jaskier shoots back airily, even as he gasps in an attempt to get his breathing pattern to something approaching normal.

Yennefer’s eyes are hard and flinty, like amethysts. “Never, you fool. Clearly neither of us want to go there.”

Jaskier waves a hand as though he’s trying to physically shoo away the sudden anxiety that shudders up and down his limbs, “It’s not a matter of want. Fuck, you think I’d ever even look at one of your magic schools if I had other options? It’s a matter of need. And I need to help Ciri.”

“What is your deal?” She sounds so frustrated with him, but that’s such a common occurrence that it doesn’t even occur to him to flinch from it.

“I’ve spent my whole life avoiding recruitment.” He hisses back, irritation chasing the last of the shaking from his fingertips. “My entire childhood was spent running from mages, terrified that they would tear me away from my family for the crime of being different. I’m many things, Yennefer, but a mage isn’t one of them.”

“You literally used magic to get me here. I could feel you tugging at me.” Yennefer crosses her arms, unimpressed.

“I’m a bard.” Jaskier insists.

“What business does a bard have, chasing after princesses and prophecies?”

“With the King and Queen’s deaths, I’m the closest thing Ciri has left to family.” Jaskier lays out, “She’s just a kid. She’s too young for this, way too young to be chased to the ends of the world on the word of a prophecy. Please, Yen. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Yennefer hesitates.

“Please.” Jaskier repeats again, and he can see her crumbling. He silently wills it to happen faster as he tries to find solid ground within his own resolve. He can take it. He can be hunted to the ends of the earth by mages. He can risk that, because he’s an adult. Because he has friends, allies, people on his side. Ciri right now has none of that. He has to convince Yennefer, for her.

“I hate you so much.” She grumbles, “But fine. Okay. Let’s take a field trip to my traumatic childhood home.”

“Yennefer of Vengerburg, I owe you.”

She laughs, short and just a little bit cruel. Somehow, that only makes him smile though. “Oh Jaskier, you’re going to owe me so much for this.”

 

—

 

Despite everything, the refugees that Geralt comes across are making merry and dancing around the fire.

“Here you go, dear.” An older woman says, handing Geralt a chunk of bread and a couple of pieces of dried fruit.

“I’m alright.” Geralt says gruffly, trying fruitlessly to hand the food back. These people have so little, after all, and Geralt can’t justify taking more from them. Not when he’s already feeling like such a failure.

“None of that now.” The woman scolds him, and suddenly Geralt is four-years-old and being told to ask permission before he pets someone’s dog. It’s the tone that makes his shoulders hike up around his ears and withdraw his hands back to his lap. “Eat. Gather your strength. We have a long road ahead of us, after all.”

Geralt can’t help but stare at her back as she turns away. Didn’t she know? Didn’t she look at his white hair and yellow eyes and wolf medallion and know that he’s a Witcher? He knows that Witchers haven’t been welcome in Cintra since the disastrous betrothal banquet, but that woman was old. She would know what all those signs meant.

Instead of weighing too heavily on the matter, Geralt eats. The bread is slightly stale, and the dried fruit sticks between his teeth.

It’s the best meal he’s had in a while.

He looks at the dancing people. A couple of teenagers are jumping around to the fast-paced beat in one corner. In another a couple dances achingly slowly, pressed against one another like they’re trying to meld into one another. A man is bent almost in half to support the little girl balanced precariously on his boots, shuffling slowly to the beat as she giggles.

His heart hurts, looking at these people who have lost their homes, their families, their friends. Everything.

Against his will, he thinks of dancing with Jaskier. He remembers that night. He remembers Jaskier’s bright laughter, breathless as he swung Geralt around with a strength that surprised the Witcher.

The memory of it aches, because Jaskier had been so happy. His face had been lit up and merry, cheeks red with physical exertion and just a touch too much alcohol. His palms had been rough against Geralt’s own, the calluses of a musician scraping against the calluses of a warrior. Such a stark contrast to the last time he’d seen the bard - face pale and eyes wide with shock and betrayal.

Someone sits next to him, and there’s a warm hand against his arm.

It’s the same woman again from earlier.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” She murmurs, and there’s something dark and deep written across her face with the words. Something endlessly sad that makes the wrinkles in her face seem deeper, casts the shadows darker around her eyes.

“I haven’t lost anyone.” Geralt says, and he’s almost too exhausted to even sound confused after the day he’s had.

“I know that look in your eyes.” The woman says, shaking her head and patting his arm again. “You’ve lost someone very important to you. Don’t worry, you’re in fine company here. I think everyone’s lost someone or another.”

“I haven’t.” He insists, jerking his arm out of her grip.

She withdraws her hand to lay it in her lap, looking at Geralt with kind eyes.

(Before he met Jaskier, no one looked at him with kind eyes.)

“I’m a Witcher.” Geralt says, because surely she can’t know, not when she’s treating him with the same softness that a human would deserve.

“I’m a weaver. Or I was.” The woman says easily, and she looks towards the fire, “Hmm. No, I still am. You don’t get hands like these by sitting around doing nothing, after all.”

She waves a hand, and Geralt can’t help but look. Her hands are large, broad, and strong looking. They’re wrinkled, with dark spots dappling the skin, but they don’t shake as she inspects her own palms.

She looks up again, up and up until she’s craning her head back to look up towards the rapidly graying sky. “War is the great equalizer, I suppose. I’m a weaver. That man over there was a noble. That woman a whore. Those two children were homeless long before Cintra fell, and that one playing with them there was a merchant’s daughter.”

She gestures without looking, and Geralt follows her motions.

The three children are sitting in a circle, playing what looks like a complicated hand clapping game of indeterminate origin. The little girl’s brows are furrowed in intense concentration as she plays, but Geralt can see the dried tear tracks staining her face.

“When you lose everything, you learn to hold onto what you have.” The woman says softly, like it’s a secret. She reaches over to pat his arm once again as she heaves herself up, joints cracking as she does so. “I suppose you’ll be gone by morning?”

Geralt doesn’t say anything.

She seems to understand though, nodding slightly. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, son.”

Geralt nods jerkily, and that seems to be all she wants as she gives him the kindest smile he might have ever been on the receiving end of, before walking away. She touches people’s shoulders and elbows as she goes, leaning in to exchange quiet words.

Geralt wonders who she’s lost.

(In the morning, in the twilight hours when the sky is just beginning to wake up, Geralt finds some dried fruits and nuts all wrapped up in a cloth on top of his belongings. He stores the little package carefully in one of Roach’s saddlebags before he leaves the small group.

He doesn’t look back.)

 

—

 

“So this is where you grew up?” Jaskier asks, eyes roaming the room as Yennefer looks away. She traces her fingertips lightly against the stone walls as though she can trace her way through time.

“In a way.” Yennefer says softly, because Aretuza was a trial by fire. It placed her into a kiln with her sisters and watched with absent curiosity to see who could bear the flames. But it was not only Aretuza’s fingerprints preserved in the heat.

The harshest lessons that Yennefer learned, she learned young. Learned with the taste of mud gritted in the back of her molars, coarse like sand. Learned with the hot sting of flesh against flesh as she begged for any scrap of affection and learned that she didn’t deserve it.

She could be respected, could be scorned, could be feared, but she was not one of the soft and pretty creatures capable of being loved.

Being back here is… hard in a way that’s difficult to describe. There is suffering written into the very foundations of this place. But it also gave her power, gave her a life she could have never had as the little unloved girl that everybody turned their faces from.

They still turn their faces from her now, but it’s in fear instead of disgust. Yennefer tells herself that it’s better that way.

“This was my room.”

Jaskier hums, and she isn’t sure why she’s even showing him this. Why she chased those girls in their blue dresses out of here so that she could share this with him. Those girls are her sisters, would understand her better than any outsider, but she can’t bring herself to regret it.

Not as she catches her own eyes in the dirty mirror and her breath catches in her throat.

And then, an instant later, Jaskier’s hand is on her own. She can feel the rough calluses on the pads of his fingers, the ridges of skin that mark him as a musician. It pulls her out of her own head just long enough to look down at their entwined fingers.

She follows his arm back up his body until she finds his face, giving him an unimpressed look before shaking her hand out of his.

“I know, I know.” Jaskier laughs, bringing his hand up to rub sheepishly at the back of his head, “But it can’t be easy, being back here.”

“Why not?”

There’s a challenge in her words, chin lifting up and daring him to call her out on her difficulty. She would deny it, of course. She could never admit weakness, and even less so here.

But instead Jaskier gives her a rueful grin, “I would find it difficult to be back at the castle I was born in, you know.”

A breadcrumb. A hint about Jaskier’s mysterious past. He keeps those on lockdown, never saying more than he means to about it. She should ignore it on principle, because she knows that he knows that she’ll want to ask - but at the end of the day she’s always wanted too much for her own good.

“You lived in a castle?”

Jaskier shrugs, “Not one like this, but I always get antsy when surrounded by stone. Give me a good wooden tavern any day of the week.”

Yennefer gives him another unimpressed look, somehow more unimpressed than the one before it. It helps to keep her eyes on him and not on the mirror in the edge of her vision.

“Stone remembers too much, I think. Lasts too long.” Jaskier steps away from her to lift his hand to press against the wall. “I think the worst thing was that I wasn’t always unhappy. There were good times as well, and it hurts that the good will always be overshadowed by the bad.”

He pulls his hand away from the wall and looks back, his face oddly serious. His eyes are very blue, Yennefer notes. She wonders if they’re a human blue or inhuman, like her own. She wonders if he’ll ever trust her enough to find out.

“We’re different people than we were back then.” All the seriousness leaves him in one fell swoop, the tension in Jaskier’s shoulders releasing as he laces his fingers together and cups the back of his head. The movement is so casual it looks out of place.

Yennefer’s eyes drift to the mirror again, “Are we?”

Jaskier steps between her and the mirror, blocking her view. “I didn’t know you back then. If nothing else, the Jaskier-of-now knows how to most efficiently piss off one very powerful magic user.”

“I don’t know, doesn’t sound like you’ve learned anything to me.” Yennefer scoffs, but it’s lighthearted.

“Well, neither of us knew Geralt back then, either.” Jaskier offers, and the bastard doesn’t even flinch at the mention of the motherfucker who tore both of their hearts from their chests.

“I don’t know how I ever thought I was in love with that fool.” Yennefer scowls, waiting to share in their misery. But Jaskier has always defied expectations.

Jaskier barks out a laugh, and Yennefer can’t help but raise an eyebrow. Jaskier just shakes his head, pursing his lips to try and hide his mirth. “Well, Geralt is very easy to love, but I’m pretty sure I can think of what tricked you.”

Yennefer can feel her eyebrow twitch in irritation at the smug, amused gleam in Jaskier’s eye.

She taps a foot impatiently, but when it becomes clear that Jaskier is waiting for a verbal response she has no choice but to snap out, “Well? Out with it!”

Jaskier makes a flourishing gesture with his hands and waggles his eyebrows suggestively before hammering home the final nail in his own coffin. “His ass.”

The word is so unexpected that it genuinely takes her a second before it hits her, and then suddenly both her and Jaskier have collapsed into helpless laughter. Not the kind of giggle fit you get over quickly either, because every time it seems like they’ll stop they catch each other’s eye and the laughs bubble up again.

It hurts, not physically - well not all physically, her ribs aren’t exactly pleased with this and her lungs can’t decide if they’re on board with it - but it hurts the same way that a bruise does as it heals. Tender, but getting better with every day that passes.

They’re both on their own asses on the cold floor by the time they manage to get any control over their own bodies. Yennefer managed self control first, because she is superior in every way to Jaskier, but she just rolls her eyes and lets him have his last little giggle fits in good sport.

“I don’t get how you’re like this.” She tells him.

He cocks his head, like a curious little puppy. “Like what?”

“Like - ” She waves a hand around vaguely, “All ‘love is easy’ and ‘love is beautiful’ and all that nonsense.”

“Love is easy.” Jaskier says, and she hates that she can tell that it’s so damn earnest. Sometimes it’s like the man puts his whole heart on his sleeve without a single passing thought to the vultures flying overhead.

Yennefer scoffs at the sentiment. “Maybe for other people. But now - after everything, after this place, I think it took everything lovable about me away.”

Not that there was much to begin with. Or anything actually, to begin with.

She can hear the echoes of her conversation with Istredd, telling him about how she liked being wanted but that people loved the power of her position rather than her own power. She can see the way he drew away from her, turning his back.

Hadn’t he loved her, before she had changed her face? She had to believe he did.

She almost misses Jaskier’s own scoff, too trapped by her own thoughts. But she catches the tail end, and shoots him a sharp look.

He raises his hands in false surrender, “I’m just saying. You’re pretty easy to love, as well.”

“Oh yeah?” She challenges, “How so?”

She waits with a skeptical raised eyebrow for the compliments to be rained down upon her. Yennefer is not an idiot, nor is she blind. She knows that she is beautiful, with her silky black hair and glittering purple eyes. How could she not? She sacrificed everything for this face.

“I love your ambition.” Jaskier smiles, and Yennefer can feel her eyes widen incrementally with the shock of it, the sharp inhale making her still aching ribs protest, “Your fire. The way you can never stay still, always fighting and clawing and finding the excitement in life. The way you’ll never settle for anything less than the best. That confidence, the stubborn refusal to accept the lot you were given in life - it’s wonderful.”

“Shut up.” Yennefer says, automatically.

Jaskier scoots closer across the stone floor with a grin, light eyes and a teasing tone as his foot bumps against hers, “Your wit is unparalleled, and it’s always a joy to match words with you. You’re so damn smart I can hardly keep up, but you always make me want to try just to wipe that smug look off your face. You have this wonderful dark sense of humor that always makes me laugh at the most inopportune times, and I can always tell when you’re laughing at my misfortunes behind my back.”

Yennefer reaches out to shove him away, and he falls backwards dramatically before collapsing fully onto the floor. He shoots her such a fake-wounded look that it makes her lips twitch despite her usually iron control over her facial features.

Her not-a-smile just seems to encourage him though as he sits himself up, “Your sense of adventure! Who else would casually invite me to go hunt a griffin as casually as asking me out for a drink?”

“Geralt?” Yennefer supplies automatically, and the playfulness vanishes in an instant.

The single name lays down between them, like a thrown gauntlet.

“Jaskier?” Yennefer’s voice is not hesitant, it doesn’t tremble or shake. She’s never been the sort of person to apologize for a misstep, only willing to commit even further. Like a cat that’s fallen over and only licks a paw as though to say I meant to do that.

Jaskier releases a long breath, before locking eyes with her. She isn’t surprised by the smile, because the damn fool always seems to have a smile painted across his face. But she is a little surprised by the sincerity of it.

“I like that you don’t pull punches.” Jaskier tells her, like he’s imparting a secret, “I like that you don’t treat me like I’m delicate. It’s nice.”

“I think you’re my only friend.” Yennefer tells him, gesturing him over to lean against the wall next to her because fair is fair. “Isn’t that horribly sad?”

“Only if you let it be.” Jaskier takes his new place with a sigh, knocking his boot against her more delicate slipper.

They’re silent, for a little while, as Yennefer considers.

Yennefer thinks of her first friends, made within these walls and unmade just as quickly. She hums, thoughtful. “Hey, want to see something really fucked up?”

“My dear, I thought you’d never ask.”

 

—

 

“Man, when you say ‘fucked up’ you really mean it.” Jaskier says mildly, staring into the water with an empty expression.

Yennefer tucks her feet under her as she sits down on the rough stone platform, watching the eels swim in circles absently.

“I have a friend in there.” Yennefer tells him, tone just as mild as his, “Not sure which one. They all look identical now, but that’s the point I think.”

Jaskier sits down as well, careful. “Their song is beautiful.”

“Sometimes I don’t know what you’re saying at all.” Yennefer says, and she’s surprised by how thick her voice is.

Jaskier scoots closer and takes her hand.

“What are you doing?” She says, going to tug away but his grip is suddenly like iron.

“Please.” Jaskier says, “Let me try something. I want you to hear them.”

He must read the hesitation on her face, because he says it again.

“Please.”

It’s only that second plea that makes her nod her head, just slightly. Just enough that Jaskier takes it as permission and grabs for her other hand.

It’s ridiculous, sitting cross legged like children across from one another on this jagged piece of misery, surrounded by all her sisters who never ascended. Holding hands like they’re small and pretending to be magic for a few minutes with potions made of creek water and twigs.

But Jaskier’s eyes are closed in concentration and then -

And then.

Whispers, at first. She jumps in surprise at the sudden sounds, skittering across her senses like ripples in the pool itself. Jaskier squeezes her hands comfortingly, which is the only reason she doesn’t jerk them straight out of his grasp. But then the noise gets louder, and then louder still until -

There are no words, but it would be impossible to pick out even if there were. A thousand voices, overlapping and harmonizing and vocalizing all together. It’s haunting, it’s horrifying, it’s beautiful.

Yennefer closes her eyes, and pretends that she can hear Annika in there, just for a moment.

Jaskier squeezes her hands, and Yennefer realizes that the heat she feels on her face is tears. She hadn’t even recognized the prickling sensation between her eyes. Hadn’t recognized the gentle drips against her legs as being of her own making.

“Is this how you experience all magic?” Yennefer whispers without opening her eyes. It feels so private, so vulnerable, both of them together surrounded by the haunting songs of the windmill children who never grew old.

“Yes.” Jaskier whispers back, and she squeezes his hands in hers tightly.

They sit there together, caught in an endless moment. She isn’t sure who starts humming first, her or Jaskier, but suddenly they’re both doing it - adding their voices to the endless chorus surrounding them.

Yennefer opens her eyes, and the pool which had been its regular opaque white is glittering with magic, the likes of which she had only seen the one time. When her sisters were being fed to the depths. It’s beautiful, so very beautiful.

She thinks about what Jaskier said before, about the good being overshadowed by the bad.

But then a voice is cutting through the moment like a hot knife through butter, as a voice that Yennefer recognizes cracks like a whip across the room.

“What are you doing?”

It isn’t a yell, but Tissaia never needed to shout to command a room. Jaskier’s hands drop from hers, and her sisters’ voices vanish from her ears leaving only silence and the gentle lapping of the water to take their place.

It feels so empty now, without the song.

Yennefer scrambles to her feet, because despite everything she knows that weakness is blood in the water at Aretuza. Especially in this room. She cannot face her teacher with anything less than her best defenses up, her sharpest claws at the ready.

“Who is this?” Tissaia asks severely, and Yennefer doesn’t have to turn around to hear Jaskier getting to his feet.

Even though this is the reason they came, Yennefer can’t help but feel like someone dumped ice water down her spine. And, remembering the tears, Yennefer hurriedly wipes her face before turning.

In her best court tones, Yennefer gestures regally, “Tissaia of Aretuza, this is Jaskier.”

Tissaia’s face is unimpressed, but since that seems to be her default expression Yennefer can’t tell if her vagueness is pissing her old teacher off. She hopes she is, though.

“Well met.” Jaskier says, bowing with a flourish, because he’s a complete drama queen. “Lady Tissaia, you happen to be just the person we were seeking.”

“What were you doing?” Tissaia only asks again, frowning at them both.

“I was simply showing Jaskier a few of the old sights.” Yennefer cuts in, before Jaskier can open his big mouth. She wants to think he wouldn’t have mentioned what they’d just been up to regardless, the moment was intensely personal after all, but she wouldn’t put it past the idiot to be honest to a fault.

“Yes, we understand that you’re very busy.” Jaskier cuts in right back, but he’s smiling his ‘aren’t I so charming and innocent?’ smile which makes Yennefer want to roll her eyes right out of her head, so she figures he got the message. “But unfortunately, we have business to speak of.”

“Busy is an understatement.” Tissaia says, “There is a war going on. What business would Aretuza have with a bard?”

“Ah! So you’ve heard of me.” Jaskier’s entire face lights up in delight, and Yennefer takes a quick step backwards purely so that she’s within range to elbow him. Jaskier has before commented on the pointiness of her elbow, which it seems holds true if the yelp is anything to go by.

“The matter is about the war, Tissaia.” Yennefer says smoothly, watching her teacher’s eyes flick between them.

She wonders what her teacher sees. Her wayward student and a wayward bard, acting like they’ve known one another their whole lives. She feels a sense of satisfaction at the confusion they must be causing, and suddenly wonders if Jaskier feels like this all the time when he drops tiny breadcrumbs of truth for all the mice to squabble over.

Jaskier steps forward, face suddenly deathly serious. “I need to know why Nilfsgaard’s forces are looking for Princess Cirilla of Cintra. Alive.”

It’s only because Yennefer is looking that she catches the flicker of confusion across her mentor’s face. Her heart sinks.

She’s been so sure that her teacher would know. And maybe it’s the last dying throes of the little girl so desperate for a parent to love and protect her that she’d project on anything, but Tissaia had always seemed so all-knowing, so invulnerable.

“Follow me.” Tissaia says finally, because of course she’s unable to admit to not knowing something. “An emergency conclave of the northern mages has been called. You might find some answers there.”

Yennefer nods and steps forward, but before she can get too far she feels Jaskier’s hand in her own. She looks back at him, and he looks - not scared, but something related to it. A close cousin.

She remembers his confession about avoiding mages for fear of being taken as a child, and thinks that perhaps Aretuza is not a nightmare only for her.

She grips his hand tight in hers, and pulls them past Tissaia’s calculating expression with a fearlessness that’s half manufactured and half stubbornness.

She doesn’t look back.

 

—

 

When Ciri finally reaches a refugee camp, the terror pulsing in her bones has faded to a low buzz. Not even she can be in a state of panic for more than twelve hours. Looking around her at all the other exhausted faces, she thinks it must be a universal feeling.

Honestly, she’s almost too tired to be terrified. If images weren’t playing behind her eyelids every time she blinked, she would probably already be curled up and asleep in the dirt like more than a few of the people around. Her hair is slick with mud and still a bit wet and slimy against her neck.

She slips one hand into her pocket and rubs her fingers over her grandfather’s knucklebones and the other hand clutches the blue coak her grandmother gave her for her last birthday tight around her.

They’re the only things she has left now of the people who loved her.

(She remembers Mousesack holding her as she threw a fit, the memory fuzzy around the edges. She’s been screaming for her mother, and Mousesack had rocked her back and forth. Back and forth. He hadn’t said anything, not after telling her, but held her as she raged and cried until she didn’t have any tears left in her.

She feels the same way now, all out of tears and exhausted.)

Ciri finds a tree to lean against that hasn’t been claimed - rare amongst the bustling people. Honestly, she just needed some space. Time to think. To process.

Mousesack had told her to find Geralt of Rivia, which means nothing to her. She inscribes the name into her mind, of course, but it’s the name of a stranger. No strings attached. Not like the second name uttered from Mousesack’s mouth.

Find Jaskier the bard.

Ciri doesn’t know how to feel about that. She’s been so angry for so long, fingertips stained with ink as she tried in vain to put feelings into words as poetically as her mother. Her mother and father had died, Jaskier had abandoned her. It is not the same.

There’s so much that was kept from you.

She wants to scream, and the pressure in her throat makes her clench her fists and screw her eyes shut until it goes away. She isn’t sure what happened, with the pain and the crumbling stone and the man and the earth splitting before her. Nothing has made sense since her grandparents went off to war.

(Maybe nothing has made sense since Pavetta and Duny did not return from their voyage.)

When she closes her eyes, she can see Jaskier’s smile, remember the way his arms were stronger than they looked when they swung her into the air. She remembers the feel of taut strings under her fingers as Jaskier guided her hands across his prized lute and the sound of his voice as she fell asleep.

Even though he had been in and out of her life, she had never doubted how much he loved her. Had never questioned anything until she sat in her room waiting for him to come back when her parents died. She had arranged the various toys he had gotten her around her room like sentries. She’d waited for him to come, and then he never did.

Mousesack had told her that he was hunting dragons.

Mousesack told her to find him. Told her that there were secrets. Reasons. She’s so angry that she can barely breathe, because she deserved better.

She deserves better.

“Are you okay there?” A voice cuts through her thoughts.

Ciri looks up and there’s a boy a few feet away, looking concerned.

He has a necklace made of ears.

Ciri takes a moment to mourn the days when this would actually alarm her and she would make a hasty retreat in the opposite direction. But unfortunately, it is today and Ciri is officially unable to muster the energy to think too hard about the fun body part necklace. She simply files it away under her “to freak out about later” mental folder, which is already on a serious backlog.

“I noticed your cloak.” The boy tells her, nodding down. It sends ice shooting down Ciri’s veins and suspicion nestles in her mind - she doesn’t want to have to throw it away though. Not when she has so little else left.

“Your cloak was made by my father. Ziven Ozol.” The boy continues oblivious to Ciri’s struggles, “He clothes Cintra’s finest.”

It’s said with pride, and Ciri wonders if his father had told him about a blue cloak for a princess. Prays that he hadn’t. Prays that the boy's father is far from here, or she might have to move on.

The boy moves to leave, and Ciri lets him. Maybe in another life she would be desperate for the scraps of recognition, the scraps of normalcy present in his acknowledgement but -

She’s so afraid, and the time she spent in the city during the fall haunts her sleep. The feeling of scrambling through windows, cutting through shadows, and holding her breath as she ran for her life have yet to leave her. That visceral feeling of being hunted has yet to leave her.

She cannot risk being recognized, not until she has people at her back. Allies. She can’t trust anyone right now - can only seek out Geralt of Rivia and Jaskier the bard, no matter her complicated feelings.

She watches with wary eyes as the boy crosses camp, and slips into the crowd in the opposite direction from him and his family.

She ends up huddled around a fire with a group of other children, who all eye one another both warily and wearily.

An older girl sits next to her heavily, and wordlessly offers her an apple.

“Thank you.” Ciri whispers gratefully.

The girl snorts, “Don’t thank me. I could practically see you wasting away over here. Almost made me feel guilty.”

“Almost.” Parrots a younger boy, who ducks his head when the older girl glares his way.

“You an orphan?” The girl turns back to Ciri with an evaluating eye, clearly taking in her fine cloak, her mudstained face, and her sorry looking shoes.

Ciri has been an orphan for a long time, so she only takes a bite of her apple and nods her head ever so slightly.

The nod makes all the children ease up, just a little. Become a little warmer, friendlier.

“Newly orphaned?” A boy who only looks to be a year or so older than her asks, looking sympathetic. He clearly thinks Ciri must have lost her parents in the fighting, in wherever she was running from before she stumbled into the camp.

It makes her lift her chin, defiant. “No.” But even that motion exhausts her, and she collapses in on herself to look down at the half-eaten apple in her hands. Shoulders hunched and feeling terribly small. “I was living with - with my grandparents. They’re gone now.”

The older girl wraps an arm around Ciri’s shoulders. It’s warm and kind, but it makes her stiffen. The girl withdraws, looking apologetic, but doesn’t comment on it. It almost makes Ciri want to thank her again.

“We’re all orphans here.” The girl says finally, as Ciri finishes the apple core and all. “We don’t have anyone to look out for us. Don’t have the fancy tents or anything like that. But we look out for each other, alright. S’long as you don’t stab anyone in the back, you can have a place with us.”

Ciri looks up, across the camp towards the white tents on the side of camp where the boy had headed, the side of camp that clearly delineates those with money and those who were more within her own social circles than these dirty orphans.

But she played in the streets behind the castle, stealing bread and practicing her games.

Ciri takes a deep breath. She sticks her hand in her pocket and runs her fingers over the only thing she has left of her grandfather.

“Has anyone here ever played knucklebones?”

 

—

 

Once they’ve gotten rid of the kid, it’s a little easier.

Renfri points at Mousesack and says “Malcolm.” firmly, as though telling a dog to sit, and then points at herself, “René.”

Mousesack just looks at her forlornly, and his hands keep coming up to touch his shoddily trimmed hair. He hasn’t complained about it at least, and Renfri shudders to even consider what Jaskier would say if he were the one forced into a haircut against his will, so the mage has that going for him at least.

“Please,” Renfri says, stopping another refugee with a light hand on an arm and a pleading expression, “Have you seen my little sister? She’s about yea high, pale hair, blue eyes? Please, she’s all I’ve got.”

“I’m sorry,” The woman Renfri has stopped settles a worn hand on top of Renfri’s, and she looks genuine in her sympathy.

“Please, if you see her, tell her to come and find us.”

The woman promises, but Renfri can see in her eyes that she has likely been asked the same thing by a dozen other people. Nilfgaard tore into more than just Cintra, and the roads are bloated with refugees from all over. Everyone is missing someone, looking for someone. In that, at least, Renfri and Mousesack don’t stand out.

Renfri quietly steals some clothes and tries not to feel too guilty about it as she shoves the worn shirt and trousers at Mousesack and hauls the simple dress on over her outfit, not bothering to fully undress.

“What are we doing now?” Mousesack murmurs, sounding aggrieved.

“Your clothes are too fancy.” Renfri whispers back, “You stand out.”

Mousesack looks down at his, admittedly, fairly fancy if ruined outfit. Being a prisoner, even briefly, had not done wonders for the man’s wardrobe. Even so, a mage’s outfits were often fanciful and expensive - especially those of trained and schooled mages. Court mages. Mousesack is far too gold and shimmery to not stand out.

When Mousesack is in peasant clothes, scowling with unevenly cut hair, it helps. A little bit. He stops looking so much like one of the people from her nightmares, twirling around lavish ballrooms awash with magic as she schools her face perfectly to not shame her family and country.

She’s ready to move on, to ask the next dozen people about her baby sister, her niece, her little cousin - but a hand on her elbow has her twirling around. She’d got Mousesack’s arm twisted behind his back, pushing up threateningly to dislocate his shoulder, before she even knows what’s happened.

“Whoa!” Mousesack yelps in alarm, and Renfri releases him roughly, disgust in every jerky motion she makes.

Mousesack rubs at his arms with wide eyes. “What is wrong with you?”

“Me?” Renfri raises an eyebrow, daring Mousesack to continue down this dangerous path.

Mousesack throws his hands in the air, “Are we not allies!”

The disgust must show up on her face, because Mousesack gestures at her wildly as though to punctuate his own point.

“What did I do to make you hate me like this?”

She turns to leave, not wanting to answer such idiot questions.

“René!” Mousesack snaps, and his voice falters just a little bit. Like he’s standing on his last leg, but somehow he’s boarded a ship and now even the very ground bucks beneath his feet. It makes her pause, hesitate, because there have been many days in her long life that she’s felt… not dissimilar.

“I don’t work with mages.” Renfri finally says, words so blunt and hard in her mouth that she almost has to spit them out.

“You do right now. If you want to find Ciri - if you want her to trust you, then you need me.”

She wants to whirl back and snarl in his face, wants to say that it doesn’t matter what Ciri wants because Renfri can toss the girl over her shoulder and march her back to Jaskier by herself, thank you. She wants to cut this man, who has done nothing to her, down where he stands.

Instead, she does nothing. Doesn’t turn around to face him, but doesn’t stride away either.

As though sensing that she’s finally listening, Mousesack steps forward, “We are on the same side. We have the same goal. Work with me, not against me.”

“We’ll see.” Is all Renfri can say on the matter.

 

—

 

The other refugees grumble about the rain, pulling their cloaks tighter around them and huddling into one another as though it will protect them from the cold.

Renfri, on the other hand, turns her face up into it. The drops stroke her face, curling down her temples and tracing the same paths her mother’s fingers did all those years ago.

She’s always taken comfort in the rain.

“Bad luck about the weather.” Mousesack’s voice cuts through what little peace she has managed to grasp for herself, and it makes something dark inside of her twist in displeasure.

But she is committed to this working together thing now, tries to shove Mousesack into the same box she has grudgingly constructed around Yennefer - mages she does not trust but can… tolerate. Even be friendly with.

It’s like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Practically futile and endlessly frustrating.

“You don’t need to make conversation with me.” Renfri tells him, turning to take in the bedraggled man.

Mousesack fruitlessly tries to brush raindrops from his shirt, and she can see the dark blooms of bruises on his wrists. Something inside of her pangs in - sympathy, perhaps? She can sympathize with the strange agony that are the marks left behind by something painful, something that you would prefer to forget.

(Mousesack’s bruises were made by shackles, cool and unfeeling. Renfri’s had always been in the shape of fingers, pressed into her skin by someone with fire in their veins. They are not the same, but she still allows herself to acknowledge the shadow of similarity. At the end of the day, they’re both bruises.)

“Perhaps I want to talk. Finally get to know one another. It’s awfully difficult to bond with someone that you don’t speak to, after all.” Mousesack spreads his hands in front of him innocently, a gentle teasing tone to his voice that makes Renfri’s hackles rise.

“Perhaps I don’t want to bond.”

Mousesack sighs, and he looks about as frustrated as Renfri feels. “We have to figure out this partnership.”

“I will find Ciri,” Renfri murmurs, “I will make sure she is safe, deliver her to Jaskier. But you and I? You will never see me again. We will only be nightmares to one another.”

“...Nightmares?”

Renfri winces. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, or admit to anything. She spends so long beating her emotions down, that she forgets that the blood of them still stains her hands, visible and incriminating.

“You… remind me of someone.” Renfri admits slowly, and even that feels like every word is being torn from her mouth until the blood is too much to grit back, dribbling down her chin and alerting every shark and monster in the camp.

There’s a dawning understanding lighting up Mousesack’s face that Renfri finds she despises, hates that he looks like he knows her. “Someone you hate.”

“Hate… isn’t the right word.” Renfri murmurs, more to herself.

In Elder there is a word that is commonly translated as to inspire terror. It’s misused all the time in spells and chants and invocations - she’s had to listen to more than one rant (from both Jaskier and Yennefer) about its unreliable nature.

The truth is, the word isn’t about fear, it’s about the yawning gaping horror that opens up under someone’s feet. It’s about feeling a wound from the past as clearly as if it is rending you alive today.

Jaskier once said that it would be better translated as to remind of the bad, but bad seemed like such a mild word to hold against everything that could be dredged from the depths of a person’s soul.

Renfri does hate Stregobor, on good days. On better days, she doesn’t think about him at all. It’s the bad days that creep up on her, when Yennefer says a certain word in Elder that makes the fine hairs on her arms stand up straight, or when the air smells of ozone, or when someone burns a certain herb that makes even her molars taste bitter in her mouth.

When she sits across from a man she knows is a mage, whose voice curls around words the same way his did. The way they were all likely taught to speak to present calm facades to the courts they served at their hidden schools. It’s then that she remembers the bad.

It isn’t Mousesack’s fault, though. She should be more forgiving.

(She doesn’t want to be forgiving.)

“Yeah.” She finally says, rolling the word around her mouth until she almost can’t taste the blood anymore, “Something like that.”

“I see.” Mousesack hesitates, “Is there… anything I can do that would help with that?”

Stop being a mage, Renfri’s mind snarls, a little unfairly.

She looks at him. Properly looks at him, for the first time since she first laid eyes on him in Cintra. He looks - small. Worn. His beard shorn close to his face, his hair shorter and choppy from only having a knife and no mirror on hand. His glittering golden clothes replaced by the well-used clothes of refugees.

He couldn’t look further from Stregobor if he was actively trying.

“Warn me.” She says finally, and hates the way Mousesack perks up at finally getting a crumb from her. “Before you use magic… let me know. Doesn’t have to be complicated, just… instead of calling me René, call me Ren. There. Easy.”

Mousesack nods quickly, “Anything else?”

“We aren’t going to be best friends.” Renfri says, a warning sign stamped behind her teeth, “Get that thought out of your head right now. But I will try to be… civil.”

“That’s all I ask, for now.”

It’s strange, this mage. His emotions play so clearly on his face, relief sweeping across his entire body so visibly that Renfri has to look away. It seems - almost honest. Not exactly something that Renfri expects from mages.

“You know, you remind me a bit of Calanthe.” Mousesack says, leaning back.

Renfri tilts her head, considering. She should probably be offended, because Calanthe is the bitch who hurt her brother and prevented them from seeing Ciri after Pavetta’s death. But, at the same time, Renfri is a bitch. She inclines her head slightly, accepting the point.

“Cintra isn’t exactly fond of mages, either.” Renfri acknowledges, “I’m surprised they let you wander around unsupervised.”

“Helps when you have royalty that you’ve known since they were in diapers.” Mousesack shoots back, his voice becoming unbearably fond, “I have more dirt on Eist than you would believe.”

Then his face falls, and he corrects himself. “Had, I suppose.”

“Have,” Renfri corrects right back. “He’s dead, the memories of him aren’t.”

It’s almost kind. In anyone else’s mouth the words would have been gentle, sympathetic. But it’s Renfri’s mouth, so they come out clipped and sharp.

But Mousesack seems to appreciate them anyway.

Renfri looks down at her hands, and remembers the day that Pavetta spent tracing fingertips along the creases on Renfri’s palms as she consulted an open book, swearing that if she had magic then surely divination wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Duny had complained that reading palms wasn’t a real form of magic, but allowed Pavetta to inspect his hands as well with something gentle and indulgent in his crooked smile.

The phantom touches across the scars on her knuckles make her bring her hand up to her lips, pressing a gentle kiss against the past.

“The memories come with us.” She whispers, and Mousesack hums in agreement.

 

—

 

When all is said and done, Jaskier will say that he doesn’t remember how his lute got into his hands. It had been slung across his back, out of the way in its case where it usually was. Tucked away but on hand as it always is.

All Jaskier remembers is the chorus of magic that had greeted him even before he stepped into the room, a cacophony of voices blending together and clashing against one another in disharmony strong enough to hurt his ears.

And then he remembers walking in and seeing that face. His face.

And then there were strings under his fingers and the thrum of a magic so furious it burned him inside, like acid eating away at him until only his ribs were left to ineffectively cage it.

He doesn’t see Yennefer fall to her knees behind him, hands clasped over her ears. He doesn’t see the other mages surrounding them, all on the floor and gasping for air as though Jaskier’s magic was a vacuum, stealing the very breath from their lungs.

His fingers strum across his lute again and he watches in fascination as the man before him writhes in pain.

“Hello, Stregobor.” He greets, mild as milk as his fingers pick and pluck their way through a familiar tune.

“...Jaskier?” He almost doesn’t hear Yennefer gasp, it's so quiet, but he can’t turn around. Doesn’t do anything but allow his hands to take him through the first stanzas of one of his oldest compositions. The sun-girl and the moon-boy.

“W-What?” Stregobor gurgles, and Jaskier circles him like a carrion bird. His magic pushing away everyone with each sweep of his fingers, every chord that pierces the air. He wonders this is how Renfri feels, when she has a target in her sights.

(He thinks of her nickname - the Shrike. It amuses him some, that the shrike is also called the butcherbird. The Shike, the Butcher of Blaviken, and… him. Jaskier, the flower, the weed that grows inside a monster’s heart.

He wants to grow in this one. Want to take everything this man is and make it into nothingness, bright yellow flowers in decomposing eye sockets. Wants to take and take and take until Stregobor begs for mercy, and watch when he realizes that Jaskier has no intention to give it.)

He’d been so busy carrying his sister, so distracted back then. Perhaps Stregobor was fortunate, that Jaskier hadn’t caught sight of him on that day so long ago.

“Do you remember me?” Jaskier asks, and his smile might have been called kind were it not for the eyes above them, impaling Stregobor in their sight as efficiently as any shrike with their prey.

“W-who are - who?” Stregobor seems to have trouble forming the words.

Jaskier comes to a halt in front of the downed man, taking his fingers from his lute to splay his arms widely and tapdance in an extravagant circle as though inviting his enemy to look and look closely. A stage magician commanding the attention from his audience. “Come, Stregobor! I shall be very offended if you can’t name me. And you very much wouldn’t want to offend me, right now.”

Jaskier turns to set his lute down gently on the war table. It doesn’t matter that his fingers are not dancing across the instrument, because the strings move despite no hand being placed upon them, laughing whispers of magic taking over. The tune continues, gentle and slow and oppressive.

“I - I demand you stop this - at once.”

It’s almost cute how Stregobor still tries to have any control of the situation, and Jaskier smiles indulgently like he’s looking at a dog that has managed to shut itself in the pantry for the seventh time that day. “Oh? And if I refuse? Who will stop me?”

Jaskier opens his arms wide, finally taking in all the mages who are on the floor, pressed against each other and silent with terrified eyes.

(Jaskier doesn’t look at Yennefer. If he sees fear on her face, it might stop him.)

(He doesn’t want to be stopped.)

“Who are you?” Stregobor demands, but the naked terror on his face is like a balm to Jaskier’s soul.

(Jaskier didn’t have a cruel bone in his body. He had let the town that killed his sister sleep peacefully as he took her away. But when he had held Renfri in his arms after her revival, after he had wiped the blood from her face and vowed never again, he had decided he would simply have to grow one.)

Jaskier hums softly, “Ah yes, of course. Perhaps you wouldn’t recognize me. I was only a boy, after all, the last time we saw one another face to face. Too young to protect her from you.”

He sees Stregobor’s face scrunch in thought, and is disgusted. The man has to think on how many women have needed protection from his sick desires, both scientific and lecherous.

“I used to go to her room, you know. All the time. I would wash the blood from her hands because they shook too much.” Jaskier shakes his head, “Do you remember? How blank she would look after spending time with you?”

Jaskier kneels down so that he’s face to face with his enemy.

“Did you watch her die in that square?”

The cogs are turning in Stregobor’s head as he bows under the weight of Jaskier’s magic, and Jaskier watches those terrible eyes light up with incredulous recognition. “No… Julian? But you’re dead.”

In one swift motion, Jaskier has a knife in his hand and lovingly caresses Stregobor’s cheeks with it, watching the ever-so-fine red line bloom across the skin.

“How?” Stregobor croaks.

“The Shrike is my sister.” He tells Stregobor softly, “You claim her to be a monster? She is blood of my blood. If she is as monstrous as you claim, well, then it only makes sense that her kin are monsters as well does it not?”

He can see the calculation. “I didn’t kill your sister.” Stregobor immediately states, throwing the blame off of himself like a hot coal.

It only makes Jaskier want to pick the coal up and press it against the man’s skin until he can hear the sizzle and screams like music.

Jaskier raises his eyebrows in mock surprise, “Oh Stregobor, perhaps I could have forgiven you for killing my sister. Goodness knows I forgave the Witcher, in due time. No, your crime is far worse - you ripped her apart. Piece by terrible piece. You carved chunks from her soul and made me watch as she grew dimmer and dimmer. My sunshine girl, who burns brightest of all, brought low by the likes of you.”

Jaskier leans forward, his smile showing just a few too many teeth. No - not a smile, a baring of teeth. Monstrous.

“I think it is only fair that I, too, get a chance to carve you up. Piece by piece.”

“No!” Stregobor yelps, recoiling, but the soft and sorrowful music binds him in place more effectively than any rope before their captive audience. “I did nothing to her! I never laid a hand on her!”

“Of course you didn’t,” Jaskier scoffs, “Too cowardly to ever get your hands dirty. She still has nightmares about you, did you know that? Wakes up shaking, washing her hands over and over again like they still drip with red.”

Stregobor’s eyes widen in shock, and Jaskier almost winces at what he’s just given away.

“No matter!” He says out loud, standing up and shaking himself off, “You won’t live to make use of that information regardless.”

“She’s dead.” Stregobor denies immediately, insistently. “She’s dead. I saw her die.”

“They say to kill a monster, you have to go for either the head or the heart.” Jaskier observes mildly, an assessing look in his eyes, “Which will kill you, I wonder?”

Stregobor changes tracks immediately, “Wait! Would she not want to kill me herself? Make sure she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am no longer in the world?”

Jaskier kneels down again and with a movement quick as a snake, plunges his knife directly into Stregobor’s thigh.

The man howls, deep and agonized as his magic swells up within him to try and fight his fate.

But Jaskier’s magic is maestro here, beckoning lovingly and folding the weak notes into its arms to come back, to come home. It is not a tool’s fault that its master has used it in the creation of evil, after all.

“I want her to never have to think about you ever again.” Jaskier says conversationally, as though he was having tea rather than twisting the knife deeper, “I want her to wake up without fear. Knowing that she never has to look at you, never has to worry about you, never has to bear the indignity of breathing the same air as you ever again.”

Jaskier wrenches the knife out, ignoring the splatter of blood that he gets on his doublet. A quick cleaning ditty later and it will come out easily enough.

Stregobor’s hands strain to grasp at his new wound, “You need me.” He tries, “If there is to be war, you need me. You need me.”

He says it desperately, like a man possessed.

“They need power.” Jaskier corrects gently, “And who would they rather have with them? You, who would earn them an enemy in me? You, who killed a hundred maidens for the crime of being born on a day you didn’t like?”

Stregobor says nothing, pale and frightened on the floor.

“I won’t fight alongside you.” Jaskier leans closer, “The very idea is so abhorrent that it makes me want to drown myself. How could I ever claim to do what is right when I would have the stain of your existence marring everything I could ever build?”

“I could help you.”

“It’s far too late for that. You have tortured and killed too many for that. Did you ever think it would catch up to you like this?” Jaskier asks gently, so very gently, “Did you ever think that one day someone would hunt you down for what you did to their family? To their mothers, their sisters, their daughters?”

No response.

“You didn’t, because you thought your power would protect you. Well, it certainly isn’t protecting you now.” Jaskier gently sways forward and places the tip of the bloodied dagger against Stregobor’s breastbone, prompting a sharp inhale from the man in question. “I could kill you with magic, make you so lost in the music that you don’t even notice yourself unraveling piece by piece. But Renfri gave me this knife, you know?”

Jaskier reaches out and grasps Stregobor’s shoulder in an almost comradely gesture, steadying the other man as he traces along skin and slides the knife home between the fourth and fifth ribs.

Stregobor gurgles as Jaskier pulls back, standing up and looking down at his handiwork with suddenly indifferent eyes.

He turns his back on the dying man and walks gingerly to the table where his lute is playing the last few stanzas loyally, humming gently along to the lines about how the moon-boy held the sun-girl in his arms and wept tears of stardust.

He presses gentle fingers against the instrument, halting the music and picking up the simple wooden lute once more. He leaves behind imprints of blood on the strings, but he doesn’t bother wiping his hands off.

He doesn’t bother to look too closely as the mages shift around him either, finally free of the spell that kept them down and uninvolved, though he keeps a sharp ear out for any hints of reprisal for what he has done. He can hear their fear in the sharp notes of their magic, no matter how much the croon of his own soothes and softens.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jaskier says, bringing everyone to attention with a rap of his knuckles against the table, “I think we should have a little talk about Cintra.”

 

—

 

“Jaskier what the fuck was that.” Yennefer demands, grabbing the bard’s elbow and digging in her nails as she ignores the pounding of her heart in her throat.

Almost everyone had fled the moment Jaskier had waved a hand, having gotten whispers of prophecy from some of the whimpering little worms who had looked far too shifty to not be in dealings with Fringilla behind the council’s backs.

Yennefer can see how tense Tissaia is, and normally she would revel in it but Stregobor’s body is rapidly cooling on the floor in a puddle of its own blood and Yenenfer just watched someone she would - grudgingly - consider a friend unravel a room full of the most powerful people in the realm with barely a thought.

She hadn’t known Jaskier had it in him.

(She’d been caught like a fly in a web, pressed against the floor against her will. Powerless. Weak. She could taste the mud and straw dust in the back of her throat as she choked on her words, voice stolen by the music that lay thick in the chamber - beautiful and aching and mournful enough to almost bring her to tears.)

“Taking out the trash.” Jaskier says mildly, and it makes her want to slap him.

(Would she have slapped him, before this day?)

“He called you Julian.” Yennefer says slowly, letting go of him and turning the name over in her mind. It’s familiar. Jaskier has said it before, but she’d thought it was a pseudonym hadn’t she? Geralt’s little pet putting on another show, trying desperately to grab a spotlight he would never be able to stand in. “Julian Alfred Pankratz.”

Tissaia breathes in sharply enough that it has Yennefer’s gaze snapping up. Her mentor clearly recognized the name.

“Well, I was Julian before I was Jaskier.” The bard replied, leaning back on the table and dragging his hand down his face as though the weight of the world was on his back. Perhaps it was, if all of Nilfgaard was going after someone he considered precious.

“Julian?” Yennefer asks again, incredulously.

It makes Jaskier huff, which is more than she dared hope honestly. “I know. I much prefer Jaskier, as you well know.”

“Jaskier is an equally stupid name.” Yennefer snaps back automatically. It’s strange - like her brain is on autopilot. Like she knows the steps to this dance that she and Jaskier do so intimately that it’s practically muscle memory, like she doesn’t even have to think about it. Which is a good thing indeed, because Yennefer’s brain feels like it’s on fire with trying to process everything she’s just seen and incorporate it somehow into her worldview.

Or maybe it’s a good thing because each time she talks to Jaskier, she can see Tissaia tense even more.

Is this what people feel like, being friends with her? Like they can look smugly about the world as if to say yes, I can pet the tiger without being bitten?

Bizarre.

Yennefer watches Jaskier turn to Tissaia, who looks incredibly wary to be the center of his attention. It makes her want to smirk.

“Thank you, Tissaia.” Jaskier nods regally. “I did indeed find answers at this meeting, perhaps more than I thought I might.”

Tissaia’s return nod is a slow and cautious thing, like a mouse that thinks perhaps the hawk has gone away but cannot be certain. “Ah, yes. If you don’t mind me asking - where did you receive your training?”

Jaskier raises his eyebrows, “Training? I suppose you could say I’m self-taught.”

“Self-taught in the art of dickery.” Yennefer mutters under her breath.

“Get fucked, Yen.” Jaskier says breezily, waving his hand. “But no, seriously. We always avoided mages. If I’d been caught ‘n taught, well. You lot only have two schools, don’t you? And with Stregobor as part of your circle - it was always far too dangerous, even if I had wanted to be separated from my sister.”

Yennefer’s eyes widen as her brain suddenly recounts every piece of Jaskier’s shifty behavior around her, the wariness that never quite seemed to go away and only intensified when other mages were brought into the mix.

Can it all be traced directly back to Stregobor? Is it really that simple?

“What did he do to you?” Her head tilts, and she can’t help but be hungry for more knowledge even when she sees the glittering edges of pain in Jaskier’s eyes.

“Me? Nothing.” Jaskier runs one of his hands through his hair, messing it up. That’s how Yennefer knows he’s really emotional - when he stops caring about his looks. “Or perhaps everything. That man diverted the entire course of the river that is my life. Who would I be, if he hadn’t existed?”

Yennefer doesn’t have an answer to Jaskier’s plaintive words.

“Perhaps I would be a king, empty and vapid. A collector of beautiful things with none of the appreciation for any of them.”

“I can’t picture that.” Yennefer says finally, and she really is trying to wrap her head around it. Trying to picture Jaskier in the place of any of the insipid and feeble-minded nobility that she has dealt with in her time at court. And she finds that she can’t, can’t imagine it without a flash of mischief in his eyes and the tiny over-exaggerated flourishes as though he’s silently laughing at the finery and drama of it all.

Jaskier sighs, a deep full body thing just as exaggerated as what she pictured. “I’m fully capable of cruelty, Yennefer. Of pettiness and irritation and airheaded nonsense. In fact, I recall you explictly calling me an airheaded dullard who wouldn’t know a good time if it bit me in the ass oh, last month was it?”

“In my defense, at the time you were being an airheaded dullard who wouldn’t know a good time if it bit you in the ass.” Yennefer lifts her chin in faux indignation, and it brings a smile to Jaskier’s face. She much prefers a smile on his face to whatever his face was doing before, to be honest. Something inside of her quakes a little less for it.

“You’re such a bitch.” Jaskier observes, but it’s deeply fond.

It’s strange to banter like this, when they’d started their friendship all but despising one another. When had annoyance given way to fondness? When had hatred filtered out into loyalty? It’s bizarre, but incredibly Jaskier in a way that she should find utterly frustrating.

“I wear that title proudly, better than being a squalling pup panting after what he can’t have.”

Her words always sound so mean, venom dripping off of each syllable. But Jaskier, the contrary little thing, laughs. (I like that you don’t pull punches, he had told her). He never makes any sense.

“You never make any sense.”

Jaskier scrubs a hand over his face again, rubbing at his eyes in a way that’s still exhausted but a little bit more amused than before. “Maybe it’s your lot that doesn't make any sense.”

“Jas, I literally watched you murder a man like, five minutes ago with nothing but music and a knife.”

“In fairness, most people can do it with just the knife. So really, it’s far less impressive than you think.”

Yennefer groans at his purposeful obtuseness, “I just don’t get you.”

“I don’t think you ever will.” Jaskier proclaims cheerfully, pushing himself off the table with a flourish. At least he looks more lively now, less like the weight of the world is pressing down on him. “What I am is as alien to you as you are to me, I suppose.”

“And what is that?” Tissaia cuts in, making them both look over. She looks tense, but that makes sense with what just went down. A petty part of Yennefer kind of wants to bring Jaskier as her standing date to all Aretuza events from now on, honestly. “What are you?”

Jaskier smiles, face soft and warm. The face of a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and cares about the futures of little orphan princesses, not because of the future of a kingdom but because they once slipped their tiny hands into his and asked him to tell them another story.

“Why, I’m a bard, of course.”

—

 

When night settles in, and they can’t see well enough to play anymore, Ciri and the camp children pile up for the night.

The older girl, who had smiled at her and introduced herself as Lucia, helps her scoop up each of the knucklebones and returns them to the pockets of Ciri’s cloak.

“You keep your head down, Fiona.” Lucia tells her, and Ciri tries not to wince at the alias she had given in her panic - one of her own middle names. “Keep your head down, and if the adults get too interested, you turn tail and you run away, alright? Ain’t nothing good that comes from a grown up that’s too interested in orphans.”

Ciri nods her head obediently as Lucia fusses over her, allowing the older girl to pull a corner of what was probably originally a piece of tarp from one of the tents that had been appropriated by the orphans as a mass blanket.

All of the kids had been giving her tips and hints like this all night. Not just to her - to all the kids who were freshly orphaned and new to being on their own.

“Do you think the fighting will last a long time?” Ciri whispers at Lucia as they settle in.

Lucia frowns, “Don’t be thinking about that now, Fiona. We ain’t got any control over any of that, so there’s no use worrying about it. We have to concern ourselves with surviving the day to day, not to politics. Leave that to royalty and nobles.”

Ciri fights not to wince, because she is royalty and nobles. That’s why she’s asking - she needs to be concerned with all of that, right? It’s her responsibility. All of it is her responsibility.

They’re quiet then for long enough that Ciri almost thinks Lucia fell asleep, but there’s something else which is itching at her mind. Just enough that she hears her own voice, loud against her own thoughts, whisper Lucia’s name.

“Hmm?”

“Have you ever heard of, uh, Geralt of Rivia?” Ciri whispers.

Lucia blinks at her sleepily, brow creasing in confusion. “The witcher?”

Ciri almost bolts upright, eyes widening, “You know of him?”

A witcher. A witcher? Ciri thinks she remembers hearing about them. Maybe once or twice, in passing.

Lucia scrunches up her nose, still looking wildly confused. “Yeah, like, in the song? Toss a coin to your witcher? The witcher in the song is Geralt of Rivia. It’s like, super catchy and popular.”

A song. A song. Ciri can’t help but think of hand holding her hand up, trying so hard to spread her fingers to reach an adult’s span as the man she loved like an uncle laughed and guided her into strumming a few chords.

“Why?” Lucia asks.

“My, uh, my family said I should try and find him. Before - before -”

She doesn’t have to elaborate. Lucia’s eyes are bright with sympathy, and her hand reaches across to tuck one of Ciri’s dirty strands of hair from her face. Ciri doesn’t tense up now - she’s eased up a little in the face of her first dose of normalcy since she first heard word of Nilfgaard on the move.

“It would be nice, if Nilfgaard were monsters.” Lucia whispers, “I’m sure your grandparents meant well. But - at the end of the day they’re just men. Witchers fight monsters, which isn’t to be confused with evil. Men can be evil. Monsters are just monsters. You’ll do well to remember that, Fiona.”

Witchers fight monsters. That tickles something in the back of Ciri’s mind, a conversation she had overheard when she was younger, perhaps. A conversation that was brushed off as quickly as it was brought up, nervous eyes flicking in her grandmother’s direction as though fearing to be overheard.

“Oh.” Ciri whispers.

She has studied maps since she could read, had learned each province and city state in her lessons. She knew each of her neighbors and could recite history as easily as breathing. She can't recall a Rivia that she knows of. Maybe it exists - but it's likely a small town in another country. Even with her learning, she can't be expected to recall everything - so the name is useless to her unless she can get her hands on a map.

At least she knew more than she did before.

“Go to sleep.” Lucia whispers, hand coming up to take Ciri’s, laying their entwined fingers between them. It’s so personal, so familiar. Nothing like anything she’s ever really experienced before, outside of hazy memories of being tucked against someone’s chest as her mother’s hand traced patterns on her forehead as she fought against slumber’s hold.

She’s a princess, held separate from the rest of her people. No other in her kingdom holds the same rank as her, and she has always been regarded as other. Not only that, but nobility in general does not put much stock in gentleness. Even her grandmother’s kindness was only silk over daggers, something that barely hid the steel beneath it.

But not right now. Right now she is a scared child surrounded by scared children, equalized by the horrors of what they have all faced. Lucia squeezes her hand, and Ciri squeezes back.

She will figure out what to do in the morning.

 

—

 

Waking comes abruptly with screams and shouts, and Ciri jerks awake to the sound of panic in the air.

It’s still night, still dark, and Lucia’s hand is still tightly gripped in hers as the older girls hauls Ciri up to her feet before letting go to grab one of the other children and haul them up as well.

“What’s happening?” Ciri cries, grabbing her cloak and pulling it tightly around her in her fear.

One of the boys, Waltan, hands her a small bag grimly. “Nilfgaard has found the camp, we can’t stick around.”

Ciri whips around, and she can see people running and frantic. She can see soldiers and people fighting. And over on the other side of camp, on horseback, she can see a rider with a large feather coming out from the top of his helmet. Searching.

(He’s on the wrong side of camp - not looking among the forgotten and poor. Fool.)

Her breath catches in her throat, and she feels like she’s going to be sick.

She snaps out of it with a hand on her shoulder, turning her and shoving her forward. “Go!” Lucia hisses, and Lucia has one of the younger children hitched up on her back.

There’s only a small pack of them left, Waltan, Lucia, Emmeline, Kaleb, and a handful of the younger kids.

“Go where?” Kaleb, the boy only a year or two older than her who had a wicked sense of humor and picked up knucklebones quickly, snapped out, shoving at them.

“Into the woods.” Lucia hisses, jerking Ciri’s shoulder and pulling her out of the way of a man who sprints past into the fray, almost barreling her over. “Shit, we need to get out of here.”

“Nilfgaard doesn’t take prisoners.” Emmeline, who is younger than Ciri but twice as solemn, tells them. It makes the child on Lucia’s back choke out a sob.

Ciri sees flashes of people from Cintras’s streets, blood everywhere. Men, women, children. It’s horrible, it’s traumatizing, but it’s something that everyone here has seen and not just her. She isn’t alone in the horror, and that gives her strength that she might not otherwise.

A boy shows up in front of them, one that Ciri doesn’t recognize. He has dark skin and serious eyes that dance across the fighting with something like grim familiarity. He gestures to them. It’s clear, even without words. Follow me.

Lucia only hesitates a heartbeat at an unfamiliar face, but someone screams behind them and that’s all it takes for Ciri to press forward.

For all that she fears Nilfgaard - they don’t have any child soldiers that she knows of. That makes children the safest people to be around right now, and she would rather trust this boy than trust her own skills in a fight.

“Shit,” Ciri hears Lucia swear under her breath.

With that blessing, Ciri doesn’t look back as she pulls her cloak’s hood up and follows a stranger into the woods.

(Somehow, being in the woods feels… right.)

 

—

 

Geralt is focusing on finding Ciri. He is. He’s taking responsibility, taking the blame for his own actions, and stepping up.

It’s not his fault that Jaskier haunts him like a damn ghost.

Everywhere he looks, he can hear Jaskier’s voice in his ears. Soft and tender and kind in a way that so few things are in a Witcher’s life.

He scans everyone he comes across looking for a girl with blond hair, but instead his eyes catch on the way people interact. The way a man hugs his lover from behind, swaying gently as they take a moment to themselves. The way a girl peppers kisses against her lover’s cheek as she undoes her beloved’s braid with mischievous fingers. The way an older couple leans into each other’s space with such comfort and ease, bumping elbows and exchanging smiles.

He can’t help it. He remembers the way Jaskier would wrap his arms around Geralt in wild hugs before patting him down and scolding him for ruining yet another pair of clothes with rips or tears or monster blood. He remembers the way Jaskier would hum and sway as he rubbed bruise balm into Geralt’s shoulders, back, thighs when Geralt was too exhausted and sore to move.

It’s so similar to what he sees, the gentle relief of finding a dear one okay, and the relief turning into something more pointed - like hooked burrs. Rough and clinging, wanting to get close enough that you’ll never be pried off.

(He’d called Jaskier clingy so many times. Why had he thought that was a bad thing?)

He remembers the way Jaskier touched him. All the time. Without warning, without fear, without even thinking. Geralt could never touch Jaskier back in the same unthinking manner, but Jaskier had never seemed to care. Jaskier had leaned forward enough for both of them, reached out to bridge the gap enough for both of them.

It’s only in the absence that Geralt realizes his fatal error.

It’s that lesson from so many years ago, with the Alderman’s son and the knots. Geralt had sat there and believed that Jaskier had tied himself too deeply to ever slip away, failing to realize that it was his own stupid inaction that allowed it in the end.

It wasn’t Jaskier’s fault for leaving. It was Geralt’s.

(It was always Geralt’s fault, when people left him.)

Geralt keeps his ears open, because he wants to catch any news of a lost girl child. Instead he hears snippets of conversations and worse, songs, that throw him back in time. Logically, he knows that Jaskier is a famous and popular musician. He’d been recruited to play at a betrothal feast for royalty, which was apparently over a decade ago. His music has only grown in popularity since then.

No one sang the bard’s songs when the bard himself was actually present, and even now after their time separated… it doesn’t seem right. None of them sing the songs the way Jaskier does, something brilliant and magical in each word. Jaskier singing was indescribable, it caught your attention and made every fiber in your body follow along to his tune.

In comparison, the renditions that Geralt is subjected to fall flat and empty. Oh, the people still cheer and clap, but it’s not the same. When Jaskier sang, it was like he was singing directly to you, the rest of the world falling away until it was only you and him.

Or maybe Geralt is projecting.

It’s so difficult to look back. To look back and fully realize the scope of what he lost. He hadn’t known. Would knowing have made it different?

Geralt lays on his back and stares sleeplessly at the sky. His eyes catch on the stars, and he hears Jaskier’s voice in his ears, quiet and soft as he points out the curve of Roach’s saddle among the stars.

“I don’t want you to forget about me, Geralt.” Jaskier had whispered, like it was even a possibility.

Jaskier has dug himself so deeply into the marrow of Geralt’s being, that he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to pry all the roots out. Isn’t even sure he’d want to if he could. Jaskier has irrevocably and irreparably changed the way Geralt sees the world, the way he interacts with the world.

Geralt presses his fingers to his chest as he looks at the stars, transformed into a story. He’s never been a singer, but he can hum with the best of them. He hums Jaskier’s songs and feels the buzz in his chest, in his ears, against the pads of his fingers.

It isn’t enough. It will never be enough. But he closes his eyes and pretends for a moment that Jaskier is with him again, humming in the corner as he does his chores like he always did. Never shutting up for a moment, always in motion like a hummingbird.

Geralt falls asleep to the gentle echo of Jaskier’s voice.

(He dreams of dancing.)

 

—

 

A long time ago, Yennefer had told Jaskier that she could bend reality to her will. He’d watched her face twist into a sneer as she said it, magic singing along her fingertips in crackles and sparks. It was probably meant to be intimidating, but Jaskier could only think of how beautiful it was.

Perhaps that is what sets him apart.

The other mages, they wield their magic like they would a weapon. A simple tool, a means to an end. It makes Jaskier long to find some elves to study alongside, to see how they use the magic given to them. Is it the same? Different?

Do they dance, like Jaskier dances?

When he was small and running his fingers along ancient words written in blotted ink, mouthing along pronunciations he could never be sure were correct, he had felt alone. None of the various books that Renfri settled into his hands talked about the song, after all.

At first he’d thought they simply weren’t discussing it because it was so obvious, so commonplace. How could you describe a melody in words? When he was older, he’d pulled out notebooks and scribbled clefs and trebles, denoting what songs went with which magics. The lively jigs of blessings and the mournful serenades of curses. The staccato beats of weather spells and the booming drums of earth shakers.

The books talked about chaos, and when Jaskier’s fingers were stained black with ink in attempts to scribble down the music, he would press smudges or ridges and whorls and loops against the pages until it was just him between the lines.

Sometimes when Jaskier plays, he dances as well. Tapping around and twirling with gusto, putting on a show for everyone. But also putting on a show for the magic. He can’t see it - that has never been his gift - but he hears it swirling around him in time to the strums of his fingers and the beat of his heart. Together, they dance.

The ebb, the flow, the rhythm. There is music everywhere, and where there is music there is magic.

Many of the books talk about sources, of divination and fire and bending power to one’s will. They almost never talk about the everyday magic, the curling crooning notes that Jaskier hears when the baker’s wife hums and he knows that the bread will be softer and fluffier than usual. The sea shanties that soften the waves and drum themselves into the very clouds, chasing storms away sooner than they would otherwise leave. None of the books talk about the hope and lust and anger and love that people seed into the ground every single day.

When they plant these seeds into the universe, do they expect that nothing will grow from them?

They say chaos like it means something, but none of the books explain what, exactly.

Perhaps it’s only a translation issue.

When Jaskier thinks magic he thinks of sound. Of the fluttering cries of the songbirds overhead and the heavy purr of the stable cats. The howling of dogs and the deep heartbeat of Roach as he lay pressed against her side on winter nights.

What is life, if not the drumbeat of a heart? What is magic, if not life?

But most of all, he thinks of the clapping of hands and the heavy stomping of feet against the ground, the crackles of fire and the hefty beat of a room full of people singing and dancing and bending the world around them with their laughter as bright as the stars.

The first time he watched Yennefer chant something in Elder, he’d been almost disappointed. Almost, because he’d hoped to hear her singing voice only for her to speak the words that were so poetically written across the page. Almost, because her magic sprang into action, taking the words that Yennefer provided and running with them, euphonious and joyful and bright.

He’d practically lunged for his notebook, scribbling the song down as it curled around his ears. Yennefer had leaned over to look and had rolled her eyes to see music blooming beneath his fingers instead of words. That was the moment when Jaskier knew that Yennefer would likely never understand him.

That’s okay though. He knew the same thing when he danced with Geralt, clumsily leading the Witcher through a courtly dance on an empty street, crooning to his love’s more quiet and cantankerous magic until it grumpily entwined with his lighter, swirling song. He’d known with every hum, every sway of his shoulders as he repaired the latest rip and tear in their clothing with skilled fingers. He’d known when he’d asked Geralt all those years ago what he thought magic was.

(“Magic?” Geralt had been gruff, not quite looking at the wayward bard. “It’s a way for humans to get themselves into trouble.”)

It’s fair to say that Jaskier loves magic. He lives it, breathes it, weaves it between his hands. Isn’t that one of the most human urges in the world? To create? To take nothing and make it into something?

He wonders if Yennefer feels the same way, with the way she flings her magic everywhere. It loves it, constant musical giggles and mischievous vibrato. He wonders how it feels when she performs magic, can she hear the way it winds around her, eager and lovely with a voice as clear as a bell to his ears? How does Geralt experience it, with his deeper, softer magic that rumbles in waves - bursting forward like a crash of cymbals to collide with the monster of the week with a satisfied rumble.

(Do they know that sometimes the stars sing at night? Humming lullabies that even he has to strain to hear. Do they know? How can they not know?)

Renfri feels like pressure, when he listens. Like when you hum and can feel it reverberate in your ears, drowning out every other piece of noise until there is nothing but the buzz pressing in until it almost hurts. Maybe it would be discomforting to anyone else, but it crept up on Jaskier slowly. Or perhaps it had always been there, just out of reach of his senses but nonetheless present.

It’s comforting now, when he leans against her and feels the buzz of her against his bones. He can tell when she’s playful or angry or worried by the pitch of it, the sound bouncing up and down like the beat of a heart.

It’s a different feeling entirely from the way Geralt’s magic had rumbled through him in waves on the one occasion when Geralt had gotten so sick of Jaskier complaining about the cold that he’d tugged the bard close to him and growled that he would toss Jaskier into a snow bank if he breathed one more word of complaint. Jaskier remembers his ear against Geralt’s chest, the slow steady beat of the Witcher’s heart, slow like his body forgot that it was human sized and expected itself to be far bigger. A predator’s heartbeat. Nothing like the rabbit quickness of Jaskier’s own heart as his breath caught in his throat at the purring rumble of Geralt’s magic washing over him like waves, soothing and warm and kind, even in its roughness.

Perhaps this is the truth of it. Even if everyone perceived the world as Jaskier did, there would be no way to write it down in its entirety. Each person has a rhythm distinct to themselves, and when they combine -

It’s a dance. It’s always been a dance. Between him, between his magic, between the rest of the world. He moves in harmony with it all, flowing through and between with each rising note, each tap of his feet and strum of his fingers. An endless ebb and slow, too and fro, in and out. Jaskier moves, and the world moves with him.

Jaskier sings, and the world lifts its voice to join his.

 

—

 

When they finally curl up, exhausted and frightened and freezing on the forest floor, Ciri dreams. She dreams of the woods. Dreams of brushing past the trees, and finding a clearing. The woods across the grasses call to her - feel right in a way that should be terrifying. The trees are a fortress, cutting across the land in such a clear line that it seems almost unnatural.

She hears her name - not Fiona, but a whispering call of Ciri… Ciri… that echoes in her head and makes the fine hairs on the back of her neck raise.

It’s just a dream, so she feels no fear as she pushes through the trees, the underbrush letting her through easily. Too easily - a real forest would catch at her cloak and scratch at her arms. She already has enough of those from her frantic fleeing.

The season seems to change, in the dream. The forest floor becoming lush and green instead of barren and frozen. The light glints, and it’s so beautiful that Ciri aches. She wishes it was summer again, that everything was green and full of promise.

She hears birdsong, and she can’t help but twist her gaze to the trees to look for the origin.

Songbirds are silly little things who love beauty. A voice whispers in her ear, gentle and fond and something she half remembers. They like to sing about it, you know? To sing about all of the most beautiful things.

It had been Jaskier who said those words, and the sudden reminder snaps her out of it - and suddenly she’s standing in the middle of somewhere she doesn’t recognize and there are people surrounding her with spears.

She’s almost too tired to be afraid, at this point. But that’s for herself - she looks over her shoulder. She doesn’t see Lucia, or Walten, or even the new boy - Dara, who had saved their lives.

She is alone again.

She looks at the woman who appears to be the leader, and feels herself tremble with exhaustion. She wills this woman to believe that she trembles because she is frightened. “Please,” She says, and she doesn’t even have to fake the way her voice cracks, “I don’t know where I am. I’m lost.”

The woman approaches her, and Ciri can’t even bother to cower away.

She is a princess. At least the attention is on her right now - if these women want to hurt her, then that just gives Lucia and the other kids time to run away without pursuit. She owes it to them. Not because they fed her and were kind to her - though that plays a part - but because she is a royal and a noble and a liar.

She thinks of Lucia telling her to not concern herself with the fighting, and feels Cintra steel in her spine. She is a lion cub, and she stares the woman in the eye instead of running away.

She isn’t stabbed, which is honestly a surprise with the way her life has been going recently. Instead, the woman walks past her, and the others close ranks to - herd her? She’s too tired to run right now, more bruises and scratches than girl at this point.

But if she has to trade herself for the chance for her friends to escape, then so be it. Wasn’t it a princesses duty to sacrifice for her people?

“Where are you taking me?” Ciri asks, proud and steady.

No one answers her, but then a woman comes from between the trees. The sun must still be rising, because Ciri has to shield her eyes from the light.

“What is your name?” The woman asks, and from the way she commands the attention of everyone around them, Ciri can tell she is very important.

“Fiona.” Ciri says, and tries not to let it feel like a lie on her tongue. It is her name. Her middle name, but hers nonetheless. She has her name, her blue cloak, and her grandfather’s knucklebones, and she will hold onto all three with all that she has left.

They regard one another warily.

“Where am I?” Ciri asks, finally breaking the silence.

She waits patiently as the woman clearly considers whether to answer her or not. Thankfully for Ciri’s sanity, she seems to be curious about her enough to answer. “You are in Brokilon Forest.”

Ciri’s mind instantly goes back to the maps that were drilled into her head.

She’s more north than she thought, out of Cintra. But then how had Nilfgaard found her so quickly? An army moves slowly, unable to outrun their own supply chain. She should be able to outrun them by herself - that’s why the refugees continuously move north and continue to outrun them, even with their horses and carts and other helpful amenities.

“How did I get here?” Ciri asks tensely, uncertain.

“You do not know?” The woman’s eyebrows raise in something like surprise.

These people didn’t bat an eye when she called herself Fiona, don’t stare at her hair despite the fact that the mud is flaking off and showing the white-blonde underneath. It doesn’t feel like they’re with Nilfgaard.

So Ciri lifts her chin, “Well, I assume that I walked.”

It makes the woman laugh, quickly muffled by her own hand. But she looks like she respects Ciri’s spine. At least, for now she does.

Ciri hears Lucia’s voice in her head. Keep your head down, and if the adults get too interested, you turn tail and you run away, alright?

Sorry Lucia, Ciri thinks to herself as she follows the woman she is gestured to walk alongside, warily watching from the corner of her eye. Sometimes it is better to keep your head down and go unnoticed, but if Ciri has learned anything from the palace (from a man she loves and hates in equal measures) it is that sometimes the best thing to do is be loud.

Command the attention, before it commands you.

Notes:

let me know if you pick up on some of the parallels i put in between characters! >:3c

if you spot any error let me know as well lol
thank you to my lovely friend Aggy for reading the chapter and helping me with errors/ordering it! and thank you as well to electriclove who helped out a lot in early editing of this chapter!! most of it has been written for. months oops.

shoutout to Dara who refused to show up until the last minute. another shoutout to ear boy who was actually supposed to have ciri stay with his family again but tgia!ciri noped out of that so i ended up having to go a completely different direction than what was originally planned oops. such is the plague of being a writer - sometimes characters don't cooperate. like geralt. geralt doesn't get much this chapter bc he was being very uncooperative smh