bialy_wilk | { pfsb } The Isle of Mists

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{ pfsb } The Isle of Mists

He'd had to force himself to slow down, to take their time as they traveled. First to Novigrad, to speak with Zoltan and Roche; then to board a ship to Skellige, where Ermion agreed to assist without hesitation and where Queen Cerys offered the aid of her finest knight – her brother, Hjalmar. He gets a message to Triss, does his best to do the same for Keira and Letho, somewhere in the wilderness.

Geralt sends them all to Kaer Morhen, and knows it won't be enough.

Lan Wangji is a quiet, reserved traveling companion. Geralt feels a pang at separating him from his husband, but it's not enough to make him want to send the cultivator back. Selfishly, he wants the man here, in case Ciri is in trouble. In case he needs to send her with her friend while he himself holds the path behind them.

They rise early, travel all the day, and camp at dark. On the ship to Skellige, Geralt meditates, his only other option to prowl the decks like the wolf of his name. And once they've reached the islands and found their allies, Cerys gives them a small sailing dinghy and sets them on their way.

Geralt steers them to the very edge of the archipelago, past looming, jagged rocks and endless tracts of gray, wavering sea, until they reach a place where the mists curl ethereal fingers along the edge of Lan Wangji's robes. The witcher heaves the little boat to, then reaches for the bottle he's stored in the qiankun bag Lan Wangji had gifted him what feels like a lifetime ago. "This had better work," he mutters, and uncorks the glass bottle to free the firefly spirit which Avallac'h had conjured. It flutters into the air, then describes a slightly wobbling path into the gray, hazy depths of the mists which stretch before them.

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She casts a small, grateful smile at Lan Wangji. "No," she murmurs. "I expect not."

Geralt pins her with another look. "How'd you even start traveling with him?"

Ciri looks back into the flames, remembering. "As soon as I'd left you and Yen on the Isle of Avalon, I found myself pursued, Eredin and his Red Riders on my heels. I fled through many worlds, many times... they came very close to catching me, once. It was then that Avallac'h appeared, out of nowhere. He found a portal and took us to a world where Eredin couldn't find us for... oh, perhaps half a year. Not as secure as the inn," she adds, looking to Lan Wangji. "Just.. far from Eredin's search."

He nods in understanding. Very few places would be such a refuge as the inn offers, he suspects, especially given what she had described before.

It briefly occurs to him to wonder if Avallac'h might have deliberately delayed until Ciri's need was desperate, in order to make himself appear more favorable in her eyes. It would not be unlike how Jin Guangshan had delayed his arrival during the Sunshot Campaign, conveniently maintaining the strength of the Jin where the other sects had suffered greater losses in the war.

But such suspicions are not kind, he reminds himself, and truly the man had suffered and has aided her; he must remember that.

"Did he find you, after that?"

"No," she admits, and sighs. "We should have stayed there." She looks back at Geralt. "I thought the Hunt had lost my scent for good. I thought I was safe. And, I... I wanted to find you and Yennefer," she finishes, rueful.

Geralt looks at her, his yellow eyes gleaming in the firelight. "You were looking for us, we were looking for you," he points out. "Times I thought you were just a step away. Like when I kept missing you at the inn."

He tips his head towards Lan Wangji. "Made some good allies there, though."

"Friends," Ciri says, firmly, and smiles warmly at Lan Wangji. Now that the first rush of his worry has dissipated, she's sure he would prefer not to be touched, but she very nearly reaches for his hand anyway.

"Friends," he agrees, softly. "And allies. Both."

"Both," she agrees, smiling still.

Geralt nods. "I know some of what you've been through, thanks to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian," he tells her. "But how did you get to Skellige?"

Ciri shakes her head. "I'd tried once more to find Avallac'h in Velen," she tells them. "Ran into a bit of trouble, had to portal away. Found myself on the shore of Hindersfjall – the first pleasant place that came to mind. Hjalmar and I used to swim there."

The witcher frowns. "So you wound up there by accident? I thought you and Avallac'h had arranged something."

She shakes her head. "No, he simply sensed my power. Just as Eredin can sense where I am, where I travel." Ciri sighs, thinking of sweet Skjall, who had helped her. "In fact, Eredin arrived soon after I did, his riders in tow."

Lan Wangji nods. "We heard," he says, as gently as he can. There is no need for her to relive what Geralt has already learned and shared with him and Wei Ying. "Of the village, and your escape."

And of the spell that Avallac'h had cast on her, knocking her into sleep, before rowing away. Understanding sets in, and with it a deep, simmering anger.

No wonder Avallac'h knew where she could be found. He had left her here in spellbound sleep, for any to stumble upon, and further stolen her spirit into his globe-spell so that even if Eredin and his riders found her it would not benefit them... not without Avallac'h himself.

"It happened so quickly," she murmurs. "And then dreams... just dreams."

Geralt's yellow eyes are gentle as he looks at her. "What did you dream?" he asks. "I've had nothing but nightmares lately. Pretty horrible."

"Likewise, for the most part." She gazes into the flames, remembering. "In one, a monster grown from a stillborn child chased you." She shudders at the thought. "That was horrible. But I had a few nice dreams, too."

Her mouth crooks as she looks back at Lan Wangji. "I dreamt you met a dragon, and offered it tea."

He struggles with his fury for a moment before he captures it in the deepest part of himself beside his feelings about Jiang Wanyin and locks it down. Now is neither the time or the place, but he will remember.

Drawn from his thoughts by Ciri’s observation, he manages the tiniest of smiles for her. It is not difficult, when he thinks of the joy of talking with Lung Tien Xiang. It seems Ciri’s dreams are more than dreams.

“Indeed that is something I might do,” he allows. “Tea is important in proper hospitality.”

She smiles back at him and allows herself to reach for his hand to warmly press his fingers. "In another, we were all sitting together around a fire," she recalls. "You, and Yennefer, and Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, too, drinking good wine as all around us people danced and laughed."

Geralt's expression softens. "I like that one a lot better."

"Me too," she admits. "But those dreams, and the others, ended in some tower. No matter what I'd dream, in the end I'd enter a tower."

He gently squeezes her hand in return, and does not pull away.

“Was it a familiar tower? One you might have seen before?”

"Not sure," she admits. "I don't think so. But there was something familiar about it." She hesitates, remembering the hazy visions. Snow, and fog, and a wicked winter wind whipping at her, slicing like the edge of a knife. "...And something terrifying."

She looks from Lan Wangji to Geralt and back again, leaving her fingers curled around those of her friend. "The tower was stark and dead, but at the same time, I felt I had to enter it."

Geralt makes a quiet sound. "Did you?"

She shakes her head. "No," she murmurs. "The dreams all ended with me searching for the entrance."

He is not sure he likes the sound of that, and glances at Geralt to see if anything about this mysterious tower is known to the older man.

The witcher shakes his head at Lan Wangji, and listens in silence.

Ciri glances back at Geralt. "Only, the last time, instead of the tower..." She smiles, and her eyes warm. "I saw your grizzled face. If not for the scar over your eye, I'd have thought I was still dreaming."

Geralt studies her for a long moment, as though he can't get enough of seeing her features, then looks down. The expression in his eyes is hollow and desolate. "I was afraid you were dead," he says, low. "Found some dwarves here. Said they'd tried to wake you, but you were cold as ice, and you weren't breathing."

"And yet you came in," she murmurs. "Both of you."

Geralt glances up. "Well," he says, trying for humor. "Who listens to dwarves these days?"

His hand tightens on hers, as if to prevent her from slipping away and vanishing into the mist once more.

"These are not the wisest of men," he tells her, dryly. "And we would not have left you here in any case."

She curls her fingers around Lan Wangji's and holds tightly, smiling faintly at his assessment. "Speaking of which," Geralt says, dry, "they're probably getting antsy. We should go, before they get eaten by something."

He reaches to pick Zirael up, handing the sword back to Ciri. "Got a boat on the beach. Once we land, we'll head for Kaer Morhen. On horseback."

"Right." Ciri squeezes Lan Wangji's hand once more, then lets go to push herself to her feet. "Conventional means of travel. They're just better."

He rises, gracefully, equanimity and equilibrium both restored by his relief.

"Perhaps someday I shall teach you to fly the sword," he offers. "Then you may consider that conventional as well."

She laughs and re-buckles Zirael to her back. "It would be faster," she agrees. "So would a portal."

"A portal would be faster," Geralt agrees. "But it'd also draw Eredin to us immediately. Rather not risk it." He turns for the door, and Ciri falls in behind him as he continues grumbling. "Besides, I hate portals."

He follows after them as they make their way from the hut and through the clammy mists, down the path to the dock. Lan Wangji feels nothing but relief at the thought of leaving this place behind, and happiness at the idea of returning to Kaer Morhen with Ciri, safe.

Geralt's curse draws his attention immediately from his own musings, and he looks ahead to spot the small boat already underway, with a crew of dwarven thieves.

"Opportunistic as well as cowardly and foolish," he observes.

Edited 2022-06-06 14:16 (UTC)

Geralt's exasperation is like a warm balm to her soul, as is Lan Wangji's dry observation. It's almost impossible to believe they're both here, and yet here they stand. And Yennefer, and Wei Wuxian, at Kaer Morhen -- it's nearly enough to bring tears of grateful joy to her eyes.

The witcher grimaces at the fast-disappearing boat. "Listen," he says. "We gotta think of a way to -- "

Ciri glances over at him as his voice trails off, and feels something in her gut freeze as he carefully exhales, his warm breath fogging in suddenly frigid air. She wheels about and makes a low sound of fear at what she sees: black sails like fangs, frost-limned and horrible moving slowly through the mist. "The Naglfar," she whispers, full of a childish dread.

He does not have the experience of the other two, not with this, but he knows from their past descriptions what this must be. The Wild Hunt has reached them.

"We must move," he says, low and urgent. "Quickly."

Back to the hut, perhaps, and through a door to the inn, then from the inn to elsewhere. He hopes to the depth of his spirit that Ford-daifu was not wrong in her assessment, but is willing to trust it now as it has proven true so far.

Geralt wheels to face Ciri. "Get us out of here," he tells her, but she shakes her head, panic biting at her heart.

"They'll know where we've gone," she says, her voice shaking. "They'll know how to find me!" The inn, perhaps -- or another world -- her thoughts tumble over one another in a rush.

"They already do." Geralt reaches out to take her by the shoulders, and she looks up at him, feeling as helpless as she once had as a young girl, when visions of the knight in black with his winged helmet haunted her ever dream. "Ciri. Take us home."

In a flash he realizes what Geralt is telling her to do, and how it aligns with the plans already being laid at Kaer Morhen. Ciri cannot continue to flee from world to world in this prey-like panic he has seen her show before, hunted and hounded and chased. It will end in her exhaustion, slavery and finally death.

She does not have to face this fight alone. Not any longer.

He shifts position so that she can see him past Geralt's shoulder, if she but looks, and nods agreement and support.

She stares at Geralt, but sees nothing in his face but calm belief and determination. Beyond him, Lan Wangji is a soothing, steady presence, his expression full of quiet support.

This is how it has to be, she realizes. Even if she were to bring them to the inn, the Hunt would still find her eventually. She'd still need to run.

They have to end it. She reaches first for Geralt's hand, then for Lan Wangji's, her own trembling, and stands between them a moment, fixing Kaer Morhen in her mind's eye. The crumbling walls, the scent of the river below, the clean bite of the cold air, Vesemir's beloved face.

Ciri breathes deep and closes her eyes, focusing. There's a moment of stillness, and then a flash of green light, and then nothing left of the three who had stood there but the mist slowly swirling to replace them.

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{ pfsb } The Isle of Mists

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