Castoff: Awkward Reunions (Patreon)

"What are you doing here, Ciri?" Geralt questioned, pulling away from her. He took a step back, and Ciri saw him searching her face. There was a subtle and quiet exhaustion in his features that told Ciri that he had been pushing himself too hard for too long. She felt more than a few pangs of guilt for that. They had been so close to a reunion already, and they went right by each other. It seemed like she put him through some unnecessary trouble.

"I was looking for you," Ciri confessed. That got a faint smile from Geralt, amused by the irony. "It's… it's a long story, but I ended up finding Yennefer first. And she told me that you would be here, so… here I am," Ciri finished lamely, feeling like she should have a better explanation prepared than that.

"Hm. You found me," Geralt replied with evident relief. He turned his attention to the massive toad that laid on the ground and seemed to be… shrinking? Ciri watched in dull amazement as the corpse began to recede, pulling in on itself until human flesh began to take shape. Within thirty seconds, the toad was gone entirely, replaced with a naked man that was laying face first into squishy wet moss.

"A curse?" Ciri questioned, curious. That was a first for her. Usually, even after killing something like a werewolf, the body remained transformed. And… "Is he still breathing?"

"Doesn't look like it," Geralt remarked, "Would have been good to know at the start. He's been poisoning the drinking water. Important during a siege. Enough soldiers are ill enough that command decided to kill the toad rather than use it to kill any Nilfgaardians sneaking through." Geralt explained, and that could explain why Nilfgaard was bothering to attack the walls, regardless of how costly it was. Soldiers were sick.

"Wonder who cursed him?" Ciri muttered, looking at his features after Geralt flipped him over. Youngish. Late twenties to early thirties, naturally tanned skin that told her that he wasn't a native of the north. Short beard and dark hair cut short. Nothing noteworthy beyond that, though.

"No idea," Geralt admitted, glancing around at the fallen Witch Hunters. Ciri's gaze found Guts, who was under siege himself by the children. They clung to him, thanking him and demanding to see Puck again. Without the fairy to cover for his awkwardness, Guts was pretty helpless with kids, she noticed. A fond smile found its way on her face, tugging at her lips. "I was just going to kill it and escape through the sewers. Ran into them down here."

It was a stroke of luck that Ciri couldn't complain about. Things would have gotten a whole lot more complicated if they had to rescue the kids from the Witch Hunters.

"If you found Yennefer, then you've been to Nilfgaard?" Geralt asked her, deciding that the de-cursified man was fine. His tone was guarded. Most people wouldn't have noticed it, but Ciri learned how to read Geralt's tone.

To that, Ciri scratched at the back of her neck. "Sort of. It's… kind of a long story. I can tell it when we're out of Oxenfurt. But everyone is in Novigrad -- Yennefer, Triss, Dandelion, and Zoltan." That got a reaction out of Geralt, his eyes narrowing a fraction as the darkened veins started to fade as his potions began to wear off. She deliberately didn't mention Emhyr, because she wanted to see Geralt's reaction when he saw her father laid out. She was expecting extreme jealousy towards Guts.

Geralt inclined his head to Guts, who had kids hanging off of him now while he wore an expression of long-standing suffering. Anna was talking to him in a worried tone while her daughter had a hand on her blade, watching Guts as if he might gobble one of the children right up. There was tension there. It seemed unlikely that a message had managed to arrive here about Guts' activities already, through a siege. Which told Ciri that it was either something else entirely or the Witch Hunters were using something to communicate despite the distance. "He part of that story?"

"Big part," Ciri admitted. "You'll like him. He only communicates through grunts and scowls too."

"Hm. Man after my own heart," came Geralt's dry retort. He shifted his head to the side. "We have people coming."

"Witch Hunters?" Ciri questioned, looking at the tunnel they entered from. She focused on her hearing and it took a few seconds to find the sound of footsteps and the jostling of chainmail. "Sounds like… a dozen of them," she observed, opening her eyes.

"We should make ourselves scarce," Geralt decided, giving a small nod in Ciri's direction.

"Guts! Everyone! We're leaving," Ciri called out to them. The kids clung to Guts, trying to drag him down as he approached. Anna was in his shadow, and her daughter hesitated to follow. Ciri spared a glance down at the corpse, idly wondering if they should take it with them. He was dead, but Witch Hunters weren’t the type to care about the nature of curses. Nor were they above desecrating a body to make themselves feel better about the situation.

Anna approached, "Thank you, Ciri." She voiced, her tone tired. It hadn't been that long since they last saw each other, but Anna was looking radiant in comparison to how she was before. A byproduct of living in a swamp, Ciri suspected. "We were trying to escape -- the Witch Hunters were trying to use the children against you both, so I thought…" she trailed off and Ciri understood. She was trying to protect the kids by escaping. Ciri just reached out, giving a hand a squeeze…

But it seemed that they delayed for too long. Rounding the same corner that they did, the dozen people Ciri expected appeared. Only they weren't Witch Hunters, Ciri swiftly noticed. They weren't dressed for it, for starters. Ciri recognized the scimitar sabers and the garb that they wore -- they were from Ofir. A land beyond the sea. They had little interaction with the main continent, to Ciri's knowledge, which raised a number of questions.

"Unhand the prince!" One of them shouted in stilted common. Their swords were out and their expressions twisted and it was very clear that they overstayed their welcome.

A prince? Ciri glanced down at the body of the Prince, his head hanging on by a thread. Did they just kill the prince of Ofir? She glanced at Guts, who seemed indifferent until their eyes met. "Don't say it," he sighed, expecting a jest at his expense. And it would have come if they hadn't accidently killed the guy. Though, as she looked down at Guts, she saw a daisy chain of contact. Anna was holding her daughter, and one of the children was holding her other hand while hanging off of Guts.

If they overstayed their welcome then that meant they simply needed to leave.

Reaching out with a hand to grab hold of Geralt, Ciri pulled up on the power in her blood. She felt space warp around her, though with so many people, Ciri had expected it to be more taxing. It wasn't. It was as easy as it was teleporting alone. However, as space began to warp, Ciri felt a shiver raced down her spine. Time seemed to stretch onward, a single second becoming a minute… and in that minute…

Ciri's gaze met someone's. Someone that was watching her between the fabric of space.

Then, time resumed as normal and they were back in the Rosemary and Thyme. The children were panicking, not expecting the sudden shift in location while Ciri's heart pounded in her chest. That had been a first. Someone had been watching her? Waiting for her to jump? She hadn't seen anything -- not enough to say who it was, at least. It was like locking eyes with someone when you were in the bath, and all you could see was an eye through a peephole. Ciri had guesses, and at the top of the list was the Wild Hunt.

They had to know that she was jumping around. They had always been able to track her. Were they waiting for an opportunity to grab her? Were they waiting until Guts wasn't around?

Ciri was so distracted and concerned that she hardly noticed Dandelion escorting Anna and the children out of the main dining room, Puck calming the kids down and promising to play with them. Her thoughts were only broken when Ciri found herself swept up in a hug by Yennefer and Geralt. With it, Ciri felt her tension and concern bleed away from her.

"I knew I'd see you again, Ciri. I never imagined the circumstances," Geralt told her in a low voice, stepping back and breaking the hug. He glanced down at her father, who was tied to a chair with one side of his face swelling up. Guts had punched him in the chin, but his fist was so big that it gave her father a shiner anyway. He seemed to still be unconscious, at least. "Or who would be joining us in the reunion."

Ciri let out a small laugh. "Yeah… you can thank Guts for that," Ciri said, her gaze sliding to Guts, who stood off to the side, his expression indifferent. "For a lot of things, really. He's why I'm able to use my power. The Wild Hunt… well, after I rescued you from them, they've been chasing me around dozens of spheres. I ended up picking Guts up along the way, and he's scared them off." A vast understatement and a far too simple explanation.

Yennefer's attention snapped to Guts, "Scared them off?" She echoed, sounding more than a little suspicious. "You scared off the Wild Hunt?" She didn't believe it, but Ciri was quick to try to convince her.

"It's true! They managed to track me down in the bog after I arrived, and he killed more than a few of them. Tell them, Guts," she said, looking to him. Ciri wasn't a little girl that needed permission to do anything, but she knew for a fact that both Geralt and Yennefer would be more than a little wary of her using her powers because they knew what it would lead to. Convincing them opened up a lot of possibilities if they understood that they wouldn't come near while Guts was around.

"Hn," Guts grunted, offering nothing else. Ciri closed her eyes, idly realizing that she should have expected that. She had no one to blame but herself for that one.

Opening her eyes after swallowing a sigh, she saw that Geralt was amused. "They're scared enough that I'm willing to teleport here," Ciri offered lamely, defeat in her tone. Yennefer met her gaze, her eyebrows drawing together as she looked at Guts in a new light.

"Dandelion did inform me of your recent activities. I assumed that they were his traditional bardic exaggerations," Yennefer remarked idly.

"I wouldn't mind hearing those tales," Geralt added, looking at Emhyr. "Are you holding him captive for Radovid?"

Ciri chuckled weakly, "Well… about that… Radovid is kind of dead. Guts punched his head off," Ciri said, shamelessly throwing Guts under the bus. Guts sent her a look of mild annoyance and even Geralt blinked in surprise. Then she saw him quickly sort through the implications.

"I think," Geralt began, "We should probably start from the very beginning of this is going to make any sense." He was probably right about that one, Ciri admitted. The three of them took a seat at a counter while Guts leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, keeping an ear on the ongoing riot in Novigrad.

It wasn't until Ciri began her tale that she realized how much had transpired in the past year. It all seemed to start after she rescued Geralt from the Wild Hunt, slipping from the trap that they had laid for her. From there, it was constant adventures across dozens of spheres before hiding out in Night City for about a year. After not seeing a hair of the Wild Hunt in that time, she thought it was safe to poke her head out. Her and Avallac'h. Only for that to be a trap in itself.

Predictably, everything went right to shit. They were ambushed in Skellige, and she teleported to the swamp. The fight with the Crones was glossed over, focusing more on Guts. Since Guts wasn't willing to share, she made sure it was clear what he could do. Geralt looked particularly interested when she mentioned him killing a fiend in two sword swipes. From there, it was about escorting the kids to safety. Then trying to find Triss. The madness of the night before, and now… their reunion.

They saved most of their questions until towards the end, and true to form, Geralt zeroed in on the problem at hand. "A Djinn is a bad idea," he ventured, earning a slight agreeing nod from Yennefer.

Ciri glanced at Guts to see his lips thinning, but Yennefer continued. "They are exceedingly dangerous and often not worth the wish they grant-"

"Do you know of another way to cure madness then?" Guts interjected, his tone gruff. To that, Yennefer narrowed her eyes. Ciri glanced between them, feeling a little apprehension. Ciri loved Yen. She was the mother that she chose. She just wasn't under any delusions about who she was. Yennefer was someone that demanded respect, regardless of anyone in the room. And Guts…

Well, he was three for three on hitting people of authority. Killing two of them.

"Without examination, I cannot say." Yennefer admitted, and for her, that was a large allowance. Yennefer didn't admit that she didn't know things. The common trick was to make people feel stupid for asking or dodge the question entirely.

"Then tell me where to find it," Guts demanded, his tone unyielding.

"I'm unaccustomed to being spoken to like that," Yennefer warned.

"Then get used to it," Guts replied without hesitation. Ciri could see Yennefer's annoyance growing while Geralt seemed more amused than anything. He knew exactly how prickly Yennefer could be. Ciri thought he was enjoying not being on the receiving end of it as much as he was seeing Guts carelessly dismiss the power and prestige that Yennefer commanded.

Honestly, this was going about as well as Curi had dared to hope.

"It's important, Yennefer. Do you know where we can find one?" She asked, and based on how her expression pinched, Ciri knew that she did. So much for Djinn being too dangerous and more trouble than they were worth. Yennefer's gaze snapped to Geralt to see what he thought of the demand.

He offered a small indifferent shrug. "Know the wish that you want, and be able to handle the Djinn if it gets rowdy. You should be fine," he voiced his opinion, annoying Yennefer, who wanted agreement. "Do you know how you're going to word the wish?"

"Revert Casca's mind, memories, and body to the day of the Eclipse but before Griffith's betrayal," Guts stated, making the wish sound a lot like a demand with an 'or else' attached to the end that went unspoken. It was… pretty ironclad, in Ciri's opinion. There didn't seem to be any real avenue for the Djinn to twist the wish. Specifying exactly when to revert her body and mind prevented the Djinn from turning her into a baby, and specifying memories meant that it couldn't revert her body but leave her mad.

Geralt seemed to approve of it based on his small nod. "They know the risks. It's their decision."

Yennefer seemed to disagree but held her tongue. Instead, she let out a silent breath. "I've been tracking one. Or, rather, I know someone that has one. I have it on good authority that they're dead, likely due to a wish made, but if it is so important, then I can take you to it. However, there do seem to be far more pressing issues at the moment. Such as dear Emperor Emhyr pretending to still be unconscious," Yennefer remarked, bringing Ciri's attention to her father.

During their short conversation, his eye had finished swelling up to the point that he couldn't look through it. Still, he attempted to appear dignified by sitting up straight in his rickety chair once called out. Ciri's blood froze in her veins as his lone eye landed on her, their eyes meeting. This was a moment that she had dreaded for years now. When he entered Yennefer's room, it was like a scene ripped right out of a nightmare.

Her father has always been an absente figure in her life. In truth, she only learned that he wasn't dead along with her mother relatively recently. She spent most of her life without him, unknowingly running from him because he happened to find a prophecy that he was trying to fulfill. If she never saw him again it would be too soon. But, never in a million years would she had anticipated this reunion. With him tied to a chair and one eye swollen shut.

"Hm. You do fine work," Geralt remarked to Guts as both loomed over her father.

There was something dangerously close to a smile on Guts' face. "Thanks."

Well, at least they were getting along. Ciri turned to face her father, unwilling to be cowed by his presence. Her jaw clenched when she saw him working his jaw to loosen it up so he could speak. But, when he did, it was directed to her. "Daughter. Do you have any idea what you have done?"

"I've kidnapped the Emperor of Nilfgaard. But don't worry about us giving you over to Radovid so he can burn you at the stake. He's dead," Ciri informed.

Her father was a guarded man. As guarded as Geralt was, only she had far less experience reading his expressions. It was impossible to tell what he thought of that. Or if he was even surprised. "Is that so?" Ciri had no idea if he was genuinely surprised or if he was faking it to pretend ignorance for one reason or another. "Then why am I here?" He questioned, his tone light. As if they were in his castle and that chair he sat on was a throne.

Ciri worked her jaw, glancing at Yennefer and Geralt. Half hoping that one of them would take point in this, but even if they wanted to, they couldn't. They had no idea why he was here in the first place.

Now she really wished she went into more detail about the whole… solidifying the North and Nilfgaard plan. Just to give them a heads up. "To end the war between you and the North," Ciri began, trying to appear comfortable in her seat. She had the leg up on her father, but how he looked at her made her feel small.

"If Radovid truly is dead, then the war is already over. I have won," he replied, his tone flat and unyielding.

Ciri couldn't help herself. "Do you feel like a winner?" To that, he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Before your… companion assaulted me," he began, turning a glare on Guts' direction. "I said that there was much to discuss. You are my heir. It is time that you returned to me to take your place, so you may learn what you need to become Empress of Nilfgaard after I pass." He spoke the words with a sense of finality but there was a hard edge in his tone. "Now, I have been disgraced with this."

Ciri fought the urge to glance at Yennefer and Geralt, who both stiffened at the words. Neither of them seemed surprised by the news itself, but hearing the words aloud. Ciri took a bracing breath, "I intend to unify the North. Against you." She should have had a speech prepared. Or had Dandelion prepare one for her. The declaration felt lame and stilted. If Geralt and Yennefer weren't surprised before, then they sure were now. "The plan is already in place and I know how much control you need over your Empire and armies. They can't wipe their own arses without your approval. Keep you here, and I imagine we'll make quick work of Nilfgaard."

Her parents -- her true family -- had about the reaction that she expected. Geralt went expressionless, telling Ciri that he was uncomfortable and uncertain. Yennefer was calculating -- the odds of things working, how it would change things, the pros and the cons. All at once. The reaction she was most nervous about was her father, and he merely tilted his head. "Why?"

Fuck. Why did he have to ask that? "Nilfgaard can't become what I want it to be. I… would have to be like you to lead Nilfgaard well, and I have no interest in that." It was more of a lack of ability, but that was neither here nor there. "We'll rebuff your army at Oxenfurt. Unify the North around the victory and defeat Nilfgaard in one fell swoop." And she just told him the strategy. The words tumbled from her mouth and she desperately wished she could pull them back. No such luck.

"I see," Emhyr replied, his tone even. "That is quite an optimistic point of view," he remarked. When her eyes narrowed into a glare, he continued, "It's not a poor plan. You have the blood, and I thoroughly purged the nobility of the north. What is optimistic about it is that you believe that a single battle is all that it shall take. Rebuffing my army at Oxenfurt is not the same thing as defeating Nilfgaard. To defeat us, you would need to reclaim territory and pose a direct threat to the Empire itself."

That… made more sense than Ciri wanted to admit.

"It sounds like you have a suggestion, Emhyr," Yennefer observed, making Ciri's attention snap to her.

"Emperor Emhyr," her father corrected drily. Was he… was he helping her? That had to be a trap, right? "Nilfgaard is yours by birthright, my daughter. What I suggest is merely an expansion of what you already intend -- purge Nilfgaard of its nobility," he said like he wasn't the bloody fucking Emperor of the nation he was talking about.

Ciri couldn't help it. She tried. She did. "What?" She blurted, her jaw dropping a fraction.

"Nilfgaard values competence and results, my daughter. If you believe that Nilfgaard can not become what you wish it to be, then break it with the armies of the North until it can be. In doing so, you will unite the North around you. They will show you true devotion for you will not only be the one that stopped the invasion, but bled the Empire in turn. Those victories should be used to butcher the nobility -- men, women, children. Uplift people that support you within the Empire to replace them to ensure a smooth transition of power. Between the support of the North and the support you create within Nilfgaard, you can turn the Empire into whatever you wish as if it were clay in your hands."

Ciri heard him. She understood the words, but they felt like a foreign language that she couldn't make any sense of. "I can't imagine that the people of Nilfgaard would be too pleased," Ciri forced out, knowing that she couldn't just gale at him.

"There will be dissenters, naturally. However, with the peace deal that is struck, within the treaty, I shall reaffirm you to be my heir. I shall have men create rebellious factions to suss out the traitors, and it will be a simple matter of murdering them before they can do anything," her father continued in a dispassionate voice. It was all numbers to him. Ruthless actions without anything resembling remorse. "However, all of this hinges on you, my daughter. Can you wage war for ambition?"

The question bounced in her skull for a moment and…

Ciri knew the answer.