Chapter Text
Cahir wakes up to lips pressed between his shoulder blades and gentle fingers trailing his numerous scars. He wondered, during those half-awake moments in the dark when all the fears grow teeth, whether the morning would be awkward; whether Ciri would regret anything that happened between them. Whether she'd even still be here come dawn.
Her leg wrapping around his thigh disperses all the worries quite successfully.
"Morning," Ciri murmurs into his skin.
Carefully, Cahir turns onto his back, mindful of his wound throbbing with dull pain. Ciri waits till he settles, then props herself up to lean over him, her hand on his chest. Her eyes are still puffy after all the emotional turmoil from the night before; her hair falls around him in loose waves, and he gives into the temptation and cards his fingers through its silky strands.
"How are you feeling?" Ciri asks in that soft tone Cahir quietly adores.
"Great," he replies with a smile in an attempt to cheer her up.
To his delight, it works: she grins and gently slaps his shoulder. "Charmer. I meant the wound."
Laughing softly, he probes the edges of the cut. "Better," he declares. "But I will have to ask Lambert for more of that salve."
"I'll have to get some, too."
Cahir gently touches the gashes on her forearm. "You need to tell me about them."
"And you need to tell me about yours," Ciri counters. "Like the ones on your back."
Cahir grimaces at the reminder of the darkest year of his life. "That is a bleak tale for another day."
Ciri touches his cheek, leans in to kiss him. He greedily chases her lips, chases the warmth she keeps offering him for some inexplicable reason. It's only been one night that they spent together, yet her presence feels like a drug: intoxicating, addictive.
Ciri breaks the kiss, but doesn't move away, her nose pressed into his neck.
"Thank you," she says; her voice is muffled but Cahir can hear it wavering a little. "I was desperate to--to feel something, anything other than grief, but I didn't want to add to Geralt’s burden. And you…"
The words die on her lips; Cahir presses a kiss to her hair.
"Thank you," he says simply.
Ciri raises her head and frowns at him. "For what?"
"For trusting me." Cahir hesitates, cups her cheek. "I don't deserve it, not with everything I've done..."
Ciri looks at him with a strange expression. She leans in and kisses him softly.
"And I don't deserve your kindness," she breathes against his lips. "Not with everything I have done."
He pulls her into an embrace; she sighs and makes herself comfortable on his chest. Cahir closes his eyes and relishes in the quiet warmth that settles between them, thankful for the circumstances that brought them together, dreary as they are.
He must doze off; when Ciri stirs in his arms, he jerks awake, the feeling of cold and helplessness like a fog clogging his mind.
He takes a careful breath, willing his rapidly beating heart to quieten. He can't remember the details of the dream this time. He's not sure if it's premonition; he didn't have any since before Stygga–but he decides to mention the dream to Geralt.
"As much as I don't want to move, we should probably hunt down some breakfast," Ciri murmurs into his neck.
Cahir manages a smile and runs his fingers through her hair.
"I'll go get us something; I need to fetch some fresh dressings anyway. You can be lazy for a little bit longer. Do you want me to start the fire before I go?"
Ciri rolls onto her back and stretches like a cat. "You're spoiling me. Careful, or I'll get used to that."
"You should." Cahir leans over to press a quick kiss to her forehead. "It's what you deserve."
Cahir finds some clean linen in the laboratory before heading to the main hall. Eskel and Lambert are there, sitting at a long table and eating in silence. They nod at him as he walks past, and point him towards the stove, where a pot of porridge, thick and creamy and comforting, is being kept hot.
Cahir fills two bowls with a generous serving; there are some nuts and dried fruit in a jar beside the stove. As he heads back, Eskel beacons him over, and pushes a small brown pot towards him.
“Honey,” he says in a way of explanation; he gives Cahir a small smile that softens his scarred face beyond recognition. “Ciri likes it.”
Cahir casts a quick look around, but Geralt is nowhere to be seen. He nods at Eskel, puts the bowls down and adds a generous serving of the golden liquid to both. The witchers watch him in silence, before Eskel speaks again.
“She loved the old man something fierce. Glad to see she found some solace–”
“Even if it’s with a fucking Nilfgaardian,” Lambert cuts in, but without venom. After he patched Cahir up, mumbling profanities under his breath and cursing the quality of Cahir’s armour, Cahir finds it a little easier to ignore the man’s crude facade.
“How about you?” he asks.
“Witchers, remember? No feelings,” Lambert sneers, but Cahir only raises his eyebrows.
“You’re forgetting I spent a few months with Geralt.”
Eskel snorts out a quiet laugh. “Our condolences.” He looks around the hall, his expression turning somber. “This place will never be the same without Vesemir–but sacrificing yourself for your family is not a bad way to go. Double so for the likes of us.”
“This place is a pile of rubble anyway," Lambert says dismissively. "Need to find a better spot to winter. Somewhere warm and comfortable, for a change.”
Eskel doesn't say anything to that; Cahir has a distinct feeling the conversation goes much deeper than what either of the men are saying.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry for your loss," he says.
Eskel's wandering gaze focuses on him, and he gives him a sad smile. "Thank you. Now, get that breakfast over to your Princess before it gets cold."
Cahir half expects to find his room empty, but to his delight, Ciri is still buried deep under the furs, only a hint of ashen-blond hair spilled on the pillow. The fire he started earlier is now going, the flames dancing happily on the logs, but the room hasn't warmed up yet.
The shapeless pile moves when he opens the door; Ciri peeks at him from under the covers.
"I hunted some porridge," Cahir says softly.
Ciri sits up, shivers, and grabs her cloak, discarded on the floor, to wrap it around her bare shoulders.
"Tell me it's hot," she murmurs as she tries to find a comfortable position, leaning against the backrest.
"It is." Cahir hands over the bowl to her and sits beside her. She stirs the porridge with a spoon, and smiles a little.
"Just how I like it."
"So I’ve been told.”
Ciri scrunches her nose. "By whom?"
"Eskel and Lambert," Cahir says with a grimace. "Didn't see Geralt, so I may live to see another day."
Ciri chuckles at that, and shifts closer to nudge him. "I'll protect you."
"I'm counting on that."
She flashes him a grin, and goes back to her breakfast, wolfing down the porridge. Once she's done, she puts the bowl on the floor and wraps the cloak tighter around herself. She leans into his side; he puts his arm around her shoulders to pull her close.
"I'll have to go soon," she says. Cahir is delighted to hear a note of hesitation in her voice. "I need to find Avallac'h."
He struggles to contain a grimace. He only saw the elusive elf a handful of times, but each encounter left him deeply unsettled. Cahir felt utterly exposed under the sage's gaze, as if he was being judged against some unknown criteria, and was found severely lacking.
"How much do you trust him?" he probes carefully.
"With my life," Ciri says simply. "He saved me, and multiple times. He wants to teach me to control my powers. And we need to make new plans," she breaks off, then finishes bitterly, "unless they already finished making them without me."
Cahir presses a kiss to her head. "You know they're doing that out of care. All they want is to protect you."
"Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it." Ciri sits up with a sigh. "Need to go. I'll just change the bandages for you first."
"I can manage–"
She lets out an impatient huff. "Will you let me do this for you without protesting?"
"Sorry." Cahir smiles. "Old habits. Thank you."
He watches her as she dresses in quick, almost nervous movements, and is consumed by a need to reach out, to pull her back into his arms, to hide her from anything and anyone looking to hurt her. She would hate it, he knows, yet, the urge remains.
To his dismay, she's even more efficient with tending to his wound than the previous night, and the next thing he knows, she's gone, only a memory of her soft kiss lingering on his lips.
Cahir sleeps for most of the next two days. Someone keeps leaving some food for him outside his door, but other than that, nobody bothers him.
Including Ciri.
He does his damn best to swallow the apprehension and the disappointment during his wakeful moments. He keeps going on and on through everything that happened, everything she did and said, looking for clues for her absence.
Did she come to regret her decisions, after all?
Did someone intervene?
On the third day he feels much stronger, and his sanity is in shreds. His entire being is consumed by the need to see Ciri, to hold her, to once again feel that fragile connection–to make sure it wasn't just his imagination.
Cahir knows it's foolish to hope that the tenderness between them means more to Ciri than a fleeting comfort, but his heart does not care for reason.
It's late morning when he makes it down to the main hall. The place is empty and quiet but for a distant sound of swords clashing that carry through the open doors. He finds some bread and cured meat and sits down to eat, when Geralt enters the hall.
Cahir forces down the piece of bread he's just bitten off, and takes a careful breath. He cannot avoid Geralt, after all; he only prays that the Witcher isn't yet aware of everything that happened between him and Ciri.
"Feeling better?" Geralt asks as he sits on the bench across the table.
"Much," Cahir says. "Lambert's salve works wonders."
Geralt smiles. "That it does. Alchemy is his thing; Eskel's are signs."
"And yours?" Cahir asks, curious. He doesn't remember Geralt ever mentioning other witchers during their travels in search of Ciri.
Geralt's expression changes a little. "I'm a freak with an extra set of mutations."
"Seems to me like they served you well."
The witcher only shrugs. As they sit together in silence for a moment, Cahir attempts to eat, but Geralt's next words cause him to almost choke again.
"Need to talk to you."
Cahir makes an effort to steady his breathing. Geralt's senses have surely picked up his reaction, but appearances may help avoid the delicate subject for a little longer. Without a word, he gestures for the witcher to continue.
Geralt seems to hesitate for a moment before speaking. "I never got a chance to thank you for your help."
Cahir shrugs. "You know I had to."
"Is it that simple for you?"
"Always."
Geralt studies him and Cahir wonders if he said too much, bringing Geralt's attention to the why…
"The plan is to reconvene in Novigrad," Geralt continues. "Yen and Triss are already there. Not sure yet what we're going to do next, but we need reinforcements, and plenty of them. We need a small army to challenge the Hunt again. And this is where things get less simple."
Cahir waits in silence as Geralt hesitates again.
"You have to know… It's Emhyr who sent me on the mission to find Ciri. He gave me the clues his intelligence gathered, gave me her portrait; he had Yen working on locating her."
Cahir's blood turns to ice, then to hot fury, the lash wounds throbbing with phantom pain.
Geralt, oblivious to his reaction, continues. "I trust everyone that was here to not work for him, but in Novigrad you'll be in danger. Told him you had died–"
But Cahir doesn't listen anymore. "What does he want from Ciri now?" he hisses. "He has Cintra. He has half of the North. How the fuck does he plan to use her this time?" He takes a breath to calm himself down. "And you--you agreed to help him?"
"He told me the Hunt is after Ciri," Geralt says simply. "I had to find her before they did. As for the rest…that's up to her."
"Up to her?" Cahir repeats, incredulous. "Why would she ever decide to have anything to do with him?"
Geralt goes silent again, but his expression sends a shiver down Cahir's spine. He suddenly, inexplicably dreads Geralt's next words.
"Emhyr is Ciri's father," the witcher says softly, and Cahir's dread solidifies into something monstrous, something without a name. "Won't try and stop her if she decides to hear him out."
Cahir's head is swimming. The dark hall of the keep looses contour, and he's back in the cell in the Citadel, hopeless, broken, delirious from pain and fear for his family. There's no light, no way of knowing day from night, no way out other than death, and he finds himself praying for it, praying the next footsteps would mean the end of this suffering; but it doesn't end, it never ends, there's only more questions, more torture, more pain, for he failed–he failed in his mission to bring Emhyr his child bride.
His daughter.
A hand on the shoulder, warm and steady, snaps Cahir out of the nightmare of his past. He's shaking, his skin feels clammy, cold sweat trickling down his spine. Geralt stands beside him, his presence soothing, anchoring him back in reality.
"You–you knew…? That he…that he is…" Cahir manages in a whisper.
"I began to have my suspicions in Toussaint," Geralt says. "I hoped I was wrong."
A wave of nausea overcomes Cahir. "If I had succeeded in getting Ciri to him… Geralt, if I had succeeded–"
The grip on his shoulder tightens. "You didn't. And he let her go, in the end."
"Does Ciri–does she know?"
"We–we never spoke about it. But I believe he told her, in Stygga."
Cahir's fists clench on their own accord, helpless anger now flooding his veins. Just how unfair, how cruel can the world get? How many things was Ciri forced to come to terms with, and with little support? How much suffering did she have to endure?
"How is Ciri?" he manages eventually.
Geralt gives him a strange look. "Seems better. Haven't seen much of her over the last few days; Avallac'h rarely lets her get a break. He claims we're out of time."
Cahir's burning need to see Ciri that consumed him earlier is back with full force–but it is no longer about him and his hopes, misplaced as they may yet turn out to be.
"I'll head to Novigrad," he says simply.
"You sure?"
"I've been having dreams again."
Geralt's gaze sharpens. "What did you dream of?"
"It's vague: cold and helplessness and desperately trying to stop something from happening. But I feel...I feel my place is here."
Geralt studies him for a moment and Cahir does his best not to squirm under his scrutiny; but the witcher only squeezes his shoulder one more time and leaves.
Cahir watches him go, and thinks of the broken, traumatised girl on the corridors of that damned castle, facing one horror after another in an endless cycle of blood and pain–and facing them alone.
He thinks of Ciri outside his door, so lonely in her hurt and grief. He thinks of the trials that await her, the challenges she's expected to face just because of some grand destiny.
And it no longer matters if what happened between them is as important to Ciri as it is to him; it matters not if it's but a way for her to briefly forget her troubles. For as long as Ciri turns to him for comfort, for support, he will be there to give it to her. Even if it means eliciting Emhyr's wrath.
For as long as Ciri wants him close, Cahir will not let her feel alone.