Somewhat Clear

deerna
somewhatclear

Rating: SAFE
Fandom: The Witcher
Relationship: Ciri & Geralt, Geralt/Eskel
Warnings: Geralt looting corpses game-style, sad witcher childhoods, mention of the attack in Kaer Morhen, mention of Renfri's sad childhood, mention of Adda's sad life and the incest with her brother.
Wordcount: 3094
Notes: My entry for Imbolc for the witcher wheel of the year event.

Summary:
It begins with Geralt picking up a doll. Childhoods are lost and denied; princesses are monsters, and monsters are princesses. Agency is questioned. Family is found.

Excerpt:

He let himself slip into a light meditation, memories of a bare childhood washing over him as the fire kept consuming the corpses in the pile. Vesemir had always pretended not to see the playthings that made it in the dormitory while Geralt and Eskel were under his care, but he’d never treated them like children. Every evening they went to bed black and blue with bruises, crying with fatigue and frustration. And yet they were fond memories—the only childhood he had known.

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It didn’t happen often that bandits decided to attack Geralt. Most of them knew better than to try it with a witcher, but sometimes it happened when he had his hood up and it was dark, or when he made camp and lay down to sleep. It never ended well for them; this time was no different. Geralt was still half out of it, when he wrapped his hand around the hilt of his steel sword to cut down the assailants, muscle memory and the adrenaline of having been startled awake doing most of the work.

By the time he blinked the sleep out of his eyes, it was too late: the five men, young but not too young, armed well enough to have been assaulting travelers by trade and not by chance, were already dead. At least no desperate country folk turned to crime had fallen under this blade that night.

He cleaned and sheathed the sword, checked on Roach and knelt on the ground to search the bodies, the smell of blood thick in his nostrils. Geralt never enjoyed killing people, but dead was dead, and dead didn’t need whatever earthly possessions they left behind. Most of the clothes were unsalvageable—too bloody or too sweaty—but rummaging through the pockets he produced a few coins of various currencies, bread and cheese wrapped in squares of rough cloth, half a chicken sandwich and a bit of string. A hard flat shape tucked in the inner pocket of one of the bandit’s jacket revealed itself to be a comb—either a small indulgence to their own vanity or a gift for someone else.

He didn’t expect to find anything relevant when he got to the last corpse, but he’d noticed a strange bulk inside the man’s jerkin. Geralt cut the buttons off and peeled the bloodied garment off, expecting to see a weapon, or more food, but something small and colorful tumbled out instead.

It was a doll—a peasant doll, made of rolled rags pieced together, a patterned scrap of fabric for a dress and yellow yarn for hair, a smaller piece of cloth tied around its head like a handkerchief. Its crooked stitched mouth smiled up at him, unwavering and unafraid and forcibly friendly.

It was such an unexpected find Geralt couldn’t help but stare before picking it up. He glanced down at the dead man, wondering briefly about his life and the circumstance he’d found his end, before shaking himself off.

He tucked his findings into his saddlebags and gathered the corpses in a tidy pile before setting them on fire with Igni. He tried to think respectful thoughts about the men whose ends he unwittingly caused, but his mind was already moving onto the next task.

He would keep the food, and the bits and scraps of thread were useful when it came to quick repairs, but the money was useless if he couldn’t spend it—Kaedwen only accepted ducats for business. He had to loop back to Ard Carraigh if he hoped to find someone with the means to make that kind of exchange. And about the doll—depending on which of the old masters had been entrusted with the youngest cohort this year, he might have been able to sneak the toy to one of the kids.

He let himself slip into a light meditation, memories of a bare childhood washing over him as the fire kept consuming the corpses in the pile. Vesemir had always pretended not to see the playthings that made it in the dormitory while Geralt and Eskel were under his care, but he’d never treated them like children. Every evening they went to bed black and blue with bruises, crying with fatigue and frustration. And yet they were fond memories—the only childhood he had known.

He broke camp at first light. It took him a day and a half to ride to Ard Carraigh, and almost a whole day to find someone available to change the currency. Two weeks later he was leading Roach by hand through the narrow, snowed in passage, cursing his poor luck and the worse weather.

It was another week before he got close enough to catch the smell of death.

*

Another spring, another year. Another bonfire, another village covered in decorations and flowers and candles. Another Imbaelk. The children ran about screaming and laughing, flower crowns in their hair, makeshift stick-swords clutched in their small fists. Their parents indulgently looked upon them, allowing them to forget about all the promises of being helpful and of behaving for the festival. Their good mood and the joy for the incoming warmer weather was as contagious as a benevolent plague, to them.

Leading Roach through the village, Geralt watched as people set their wares on colorful tablecloths, as they gathered the wood for the fire, as they exchanged cheerful greetings. Witchers didn’t have any use for festivals; there was no favour they could win for the gods. They had their own rituals. Their own bonfires.

Another spring, another year. Another round of goodbyes stuck in the back of their throats. The spike of uncertainty and fear in his stomach never left Geralt as he made his way down the mountain, leaving behind the empty keep, the Path in front of him. He allowed himself to forget the promises that he and Eskel made to each other and that couldn’t possibly be kept. He swallowed the grief, pushing it out of his mind to stop it from festering like a purulent wound.

“May you walk radiant and bountiful paths this Imbaelk, traveller!” a woman called out from her stand, radiant and bountiful herself, fixing a display of fat dumplings in a basket. “The sun is setting and the dancing is about to start, aren’t you going to stay and eat something?” He saw her startle at his eyeshine when he glanced in her direction, but she recovered quickly, her smile faltering only slightly. “Even a witcher like yourself deserves to celebrate, surely. Will you stay?”

Geralt swallowed around the hollowness in his gut, slowly blinking at the villagers who around him bought sweets and flowers and lucky charms, unconcerned for that one night about their hardships. Witchers didn’t have any use for festivals; there was no favour they could win from the gods. They had their own rituals—a bonfire turned into a pyre, to burn the bodies, to remember the ones that every year failed to come home.

“I’ll stay,” he murmured quietly.

*

Once upon a time, there was a princess that was born during an eclipse. Her mother died when she was little and her father married a woman that was so scared of her she couldn’t bear to see her sitting at the dinner table. So the princess was locked away in her rooms, no company and no toys, while the king learned to fear her. She was just a little girl, but her father had forgotten; he believed the queen’s stories and thought she was a monster.

“I killed the hunter with my mother’s brooch, piercing his brain through his ear,” Renfri told him, defiant and roughened by her difficult years, the bite of a little girl who didn’t know she wasn’t a monster. Geralt could only see the fear she had felt as a child. He could almost smell the adrenaline coursing through her body as her whole being had focused in the movement of her hand, and he’d saw something of himself.

Survival.

*

Once upon a time, there was a princess that was born from a curse. Her mother was loved by her brother in a way brothers should never love their sisters, and was cursed by a man who wanted to have her more than he wanted to save her. So the princess died and then came back as her father’s worst nightmare. She lived in a crypt for fourteen years, eating the guts of anyone who got too close, sleeping on her mother’s corpse.

Adda hadn’t been much more than a child herself when Foltest had gotten her pregnant. Geralt had seen her room filled with toys and baubles, the broken frame of her bed and the soiled sheets. Another kind of prison, for another kind of cursed princess.

Geralt grunted when the little princess dug her teeth into his throat—the bite of a monster who didn’t know she was a little girl. Blood filled his mouth as he cradled her head against his, feeling the adrenaline coursing through his body, his whole being helpless against the loss of coordination.

Death.

*

Geralt had forgotten about the doll until he upturned one of the satchels over his bed and it rolled out, its smiling face turned towards him, half of its expression covered in yellow yarn and its dress torn. He froze staring at it while it lay there among his holey socks and the ripped shirts, the empty vials and the cracked runestones, like she was on a bed of flowers, until Jaskier noticed and made an interested noise.

“Is that a doll?”

“Junk I picked up. I was going to give it to some kid,” Geralt said, too quickly, too defensive even if it was the truth. Jaskier didn’t need to know that he’d been carrying the damn thing around for fifty years.

When he turned around, Jaskier had a weird look in his eyes. “What?”

“Nothing.” Jaskier sighed. “Just being a poet, as usual. It’s just—this is why I write songs about you. People believe you’re a beastly man, unfeeling and only interested in killing and making coin but actually you’re brave and you’re kind and you—actually care about people, more than anyone I know.”

“I just avoid giving them more reasons to throw stones at me.”

“Do you really think like that?”

Geralt shrugged one shoulder, uneasy. “Humans don’t pay me to care. Humans pay me to kill the nekkers that keep eating their cattle. It doesn’t matter if I care.”

“Well, it matters to me,” Jaskier huffed. “Forgive me for being a romantic.”

Geralt shook his head. He picked up the toy and shoved it back into the saddlebag, breathing through the memories of winter and crumbling stone and burning bodies.

*

Eskel fucked him like he was trying to brand him, his hands pressing bruises into his hips and into his arms and into his wrists. Geralt in turn ran his nails down his back until bloody tracks ruined the sheets, clinging to him like he was the only thing keeping him grounded. Remember, they growled to each other, like they could ever forget—but Geralt understood and he knew that Eskel understood, too. They were going to live another year.

Kaer Morhen was cold and silent and empty, but they could pretend they could have this every night, there. They curled up under the furs and kept each other warm, joking and laughing until the brazier burned low in the corner of the room and the moon was high in the dark velvet sky. They fell asleep holding each other like children clinging to favorite toys, dreaming white noise and distant nightmares.

“I’m going to clip your claws next time, see if I don’t,” Eskel grumbled in the morning, playfully slapping at Geralt’s thigh and pointing out the raised, already healing marks on his shoulders.

Geralt bared his teeth, a wide smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll bite you with my fangs, then.” He curled up on his side, watching Eskel get dressed. “It’s the middle of the winter. Spring is weeks away.”

Don’t leave.

Eskel shook his head. His amber eyes were warm and soft when he leaned in for a kiss. He pressed their foreheads together, his hand warm and calloused against the nape of Geralt’s neck, and then he was gone.

Their pillow smelled like Eskel—like their first kisses, like the long nights they spent rubbing at each other’s bruises, like the first sip of spiced ale they all drank near the fire. It smelled like the only childhood he knew, like the only home he ever had. Geralt wrapped his arms around the pillow and breathed slowly.

*

Geralt sat up and scooted down to the foot of the bed, letting the sheets pool in his lap. “Can I ask you a question?”

Yen looked at him in the mirror. “You just did. But you can ask another, if you wish,” she answered, slightly amused at her own cleverness, raising an eyebrow at him. It was lopsided—she’d been filling them in when Geralt had interrupted her. The other one was still dark enough to pop starkly against her light brown skin, but it was a different shape, and it made her whole expression a little strange.

“You have magic,” Geralt started, feeling like a fool as her eyebrow arched higher. “I mean—that seems like a lot of work. Why don’t you just—” he mimicked a gesture, like casting a spell, “—and be done with it?”

“Well, that would take the fun out of it, wouldn’t it?” she laughed, rubbing the tip of a dark stick against the other eyebrow, carefully tracing out the shape so that it was identical to the other one. “I happen to enjoy the process.”

Geralt observed her while she picked out a small pot among several that were piled on the desk, opened it and plunged a small brush in the rich pigment inside. She started applying it to her lips, her hand sure and precise, and there was something strangely satisfying in the way the color spread over her skin in such a neat line. He didn’t know much about make-up application, but he could tell that she’d done this many, many, many times. Even so, he wondered if she was putting on a bit of a show for him, letting him see her as she morphed through different sides of herself.

She smiled at her reflection when she was done. “I do give it a little help so everything stays where it’s supposed to be,” she admitted, casting then a spell and making Geralt’s medallion vibrate faintly. “Sometimes illusions are useful, but some things…” she turned around to press a kiss against Geralt’s mouth. He expected her to taste like her lip color, but she didn’t—her perfume overpowered his senses.

“There’s some things you have to do yourself.”

*

The first evening in Kaer Morhen was laughter, food, relief and alcohol—a loud celebration to exorcise and acknowledge the quiet that pressed on them from every direction like a pillow of falling snow, freezing and suffocating. They had survived another year. Others didn’t. Be grateful. Be merry.

Geralt never realized he’d spent nine months feeling like he was drowning until he came back to the familiar hall and saw Eskel’s scarred face, smelled Vesemir’s familiar scent, heard Lambert’s squeaky rants. Destiny chased him every step of the way, but it felt like it couldn’t reach him there, among his people.

They had a room each now—a luxury tinged with tragedy—but they usually slept near the fire for a few weeks, at first. Pressed close to soak up the warmth and each other’s presence, re-learning how to feel. They eventually wandered to their spaces, feeling more settled and ready to face the winter and its pile of chores; it left them ready to prepare for the next reason—restocking ingredients, repairing weapons and clothes, making sure that the keep was going to be standing for them for the following winter.

For the first time the routine was disrupted. It had been too long since there was a child in Kaer Morhen.

Ciri had eaten her fill at dinner, uncaring of the stilted conversation that kept starting and drifting off around her; she didn’t seem to mind or to care that the witchers got distracted by her presence, lost in memories every time their eyes fell on her. She nearly fell asleep on her plate, and Geralt had to coax her to leave the spoon before he picked up to put her to bed.

Nice going, Geralt, he thought to himself as he lay the girl on his bed, covering her with a pile of furs and starting the bracier in the corner of his room so she didn’t feel cold. You spent every winter in Kaer Morhen to escape Destiny. What were you thinking, bringing her here? But despite everything, he didn’t regret it. It felt right.

He sat down at the foot of the bed, on the stone floor, and turned over the saddlebag that carried Ciri’s things, mentally listing all the things that needed repairs or replacements. She needed more socks, another pair of trousers, maybe a couple more shirts. She was still a little girl but she was going to be a woman soon; they needed to get ready for that and kids grew up so fast.

He pulled the battered doll out from under the boyish clothes Geralt had hid his child surprise in, and noticed that there was a rip in its dress. Her embroidered face was as smiley as the day he’d picked it up from the bandit’s body.

He’d given it to Ciri one night while they were out on the road, while she couldn’t sleep and he didn’t know how to comfort her. He didn’t expect her to take a liking to it; he’d tried to apologize for the state of it, promising her he would’ve gotten her something prettier, something newer, if she let him—but Ciri had refused to let go of it. He wondered if it was about magic giving her insight about that doll’s history with Geralt, or if it was simply that being afraid for so long made her wish for simpler comforts.

Either way, Geralt couldn’t give her mother back. He couldn’t save Cintra from destruction. He couldn’t spare her from her future.

But he could still take his sewing kit, pick a thread from his stash and fix a rip in the dress of his daughter’s doll.