gorysortofstory | Yennefer Open Post

It had been a little easier with the bard around. Almost effortlessly, Jaskier was able to flit about between the three of them. One moment he would be squawking his protests at gentle accusations from Geralt about being underfoot while the latter tried to make camp, and the next he'd be at Yennefer's side, passing her whatever ingredients she sometimes didn't even have an opportunity to ask for whenever she set about making a small handful of potions or salves to sell at the next village or farmstead they came across. When not, of course, singing whatever silly tunes he could think of whenever he managed to catch Ciri in a bit more of a sullen mood than she necessarily intended to be.

Ciri couldn't say whether it's because the bard simply knew what exactly they each needed in a given moment or if was adept at being a distraction, but it hardly seemed to matter. Jaskier's presence seemed to keep a bit of peace between the three of them, and whatever lingering hurts and resentments seemed quelled for a time. But Oxenfurt was eventually in a different direction than where they needed to go. Almost childishly, Ciri wanted to tell him not to leave and stay with them because she understood better now why Geralt had kept Jaskier around for so long with how much more peaceful it'd been with the four of them together. But Jaskier couldn't stay. He had other obligations. Other people to help. And Geralt likely wouldn't have allowed it either. There was no telling how long they'd be allowed to travel unaccosted, and he ultimately wasn't willing to risk the safety of anyone else unless strictly necessary.

So, Ciri did as Geralt and Yennefer, and said her goodbyes with a mixture of stoicism and fondness, and off they went.

Since then, it hasn't been quite as easy. Days on the road are met with significantly more silence. Conversation doesn't ebb and flow as easily it seems when there isn't someone willing to say whatever comes to mind without hardly any thought to how it might be received. Yennefer and Geralt both seem preoccupied with their thoughts while Ciri dose her best to stay out of it. But it's not just that... While Ciri's always been aware of Geralt's presence nearby during lessons with Yennefer, it felt different with another person around. With two people nearby, it felt more mere coincidence that both tasks happened to occupy a nearby space to one another. Now it was far more pointed that Geralt's mistrust of Yennefer hadn't healed enough that he felt comfortable enough to let them out of his sight. Not that Ciri doesn't have her misgivings about Yennefer herself to work through, but gods... She doesn't think it's made lessons any easier for her or Yennefer to have Geralt just lurking about. Hovering worse than a mother hen.

Ciri's tried the less direct approach of addressing it. She tries to offer as full and extensive of a report as she possibly can whether Geralt asks for it or not. Her thought is perhaps if she provides enough of a detailed report, he will trust that Ciri wouldn't hide anything that might be amiss. But when that didn't prove to make him budge, she opted for the more direct approach.

It, unfortunately, produced similar albeit more frustrating results.

Which is precisely why Ciri finds herself outside sulking, retreating to the horses since there's so very little room for Ciri to go and be on her own since she's not allowed into town and certainly not anywhere near Yennefer. (Perhaps rules she'd consider breaking if the conversation that sparked the desire for time on her own hadn't been what it was since she's at least rational enough to recognize that won't exactly inspire change from Geralt.) She understands Geralt's worry. She doesn't want him to just disappear for hours at a time and leave her completely on her own with Yennefer. Not yet. But she wants something to happen. She wants some of this tension that's been on the rise since Jaskier left to break.

Ciri raises her head, looking at Roach only to stop herself short with a frown. No, no. She is not going to become that sort of person who rants to her horse. Still...

"I'm starting to understand why he talks to you so much," she mumbles to herself. At least she tells herself it's to herself.

Yennefer had been sad to see Jaskier go as well, even if she didn't say as much with words. It had been nice having someone around she could just talk to without judgement or the weight of her actions hanging around her neck. That guilt is becoming lighter with time, but not as quickly as she would like. So when the time went to go their separate ways she lingered in the hug a little longer than necessary and comforted herself knowing she could visit him if she wanted to -- not too often, lest someone is tracking her portals -- but from time to time. To make sure he's okay.

(To give herself a moment of reprieve)

With him gone, Yennefer tries to make herself useful. She remembers how Tissaia taught her, both as a blue print of what to do and what not to do. She does not want Ciri to ever feel like she did back in Aretuza when she could not properly harness her Chaos yet. It does not help that Geralt is always watching a constant reminder.

I don't forgive you.

Yennefer feels terribly alone in her tiny house by herself. She has often been alone, but that was by choice most of the time, not design. It feels different now, and it's stifling. She comes outside for air, to breathe, when she finds Ciri with Roach. She makes her way to the girl, filled with concern and worry.

"What are you doing out by yourself?"

It was late. Things can be more dangerous in the dark.

"I'm not going anywhere if that's what you're asking," Ciri says, turning to face Yennefer. The concern and worry don't register entirely to her as she thinks immediately of how it must look having her hanging about with the horses unattended like this. It wouldn't be an unfair assumption to make, she supposed. For as long as Ciri's been old enough to move about on her own and design her own plans, she was always sneaking out of the castle to friends. Or who she thought were friends, anyway. And what girl her age wouldn't have some tendency to run off on her own in the dead of night when her caregivers would be likely none the wiser. She uncomfortably folds her arms that she tries as best she can to mold into something of nonchalance, nodding in the direction of the slightly larger house she shares with Geralt. "It's just a bit cramped in there tonight. That's all."

Ciri doesn't think it's entirely wise to say more than that and quickly attempts to change the subject.

"What about you? Why are you out here?"

"It's not. I know you're not that stupid, my ugly one." Ciri may be as rebellious as any teenage girl might be, but she's also smart. She knows how much is at risk. How much she is at risk. Even if she didn't want to know it, there are constant reminders from abandoning one hideaway to another to Geralt's constant hovering.

He probably wouldn't like that she's talking to Ciri in a non teaching magic way right now. She tries not to think about that.

Yennefer will not lie to Ciri. If she wants to foster any sort of trust between them, then she has to be honest. She nudges her own head towards the smaller house she had been inhabiting.

"It was cramped in there as well."

"You can't use a spell to make yourself something nicer?" Ciri asks with an edge of bitterness to her voice. Despite Ciri's lack of overall contempt for Yennefer, that doesn't mean that it's been replaced with all that much pity either. But Ciri ends up wincing slightly all the same because the bitterness isn't really for Yennefer so much as she happens to be there at the time to receive it. Really, it's more self-directed than anything. No amount of encouragement from Yennefer masks that the magic lessons haven't been going well. And while she's maintained her skills with her blade, practicing her drills just as frequently as she was in Kaer Morhen, she hasn't had any opportunity to put them to use. They always run or Geralt says he'll handle it, and she's left waiting.

And now this. Being unable to convince Geralt that he doesn't need to hover quite so much. That if Yennefer had any further ill intent, she likely would have acted upon it by now.

It's difficult feeling so helpless and it's not something that she thinks Yennefer can really relate to. Not anymore now that she has her Chaos again.

So, it's hard not to be a touch bitter.

"I can. And do. Eventually you'll be able to too." She believes this completely. Ciri struggles, but she is capable of the kind of magic Yennefer could not even dream of. Yennefer had struggled to harness her own Chaos at first as well. She knows how it feels to feel helpless, but she's not sure saying that would be helpful to the girl.

Bitterness is understandable, but it can also be poison. Look where bitterness has taken Yennefer.

Ciri glances at Yennefer when she says that eventually Ciri will be able to do the same, but she doesn't hold any sort of meaningful eye contact over it. It's not that she doesn't believe Yennefer when she speaks of the sort of power Ciri possesses. After the things Ciri has been able to do with her wild and out of control magic, she knows so much potential is within her. But Ciri's yet to demonstrate any semblance of meaningful control. No matter how many times they practice the same spells again and again. She ends up doing too much or too little, and never what she intends.

Looking at the houses they occupy for a moment longer, Ciri heaves a heavy sigh and steps away to sit on a nearby rock.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to be able to do much of anything," she says, confessing her frustration with some of Geralt's endless hovering. "I know he's just trying to protect me, but I—..."

Heaving yet another sigh, Ciri pushes some dirt around with the toe of her boot.

Control takes time, and even after all her years on the Continent, it is still something Yennefer struggles with. To control her chaos and not let it control her. She does not thinking sharing that with the girl would be helpful yet, but someday it might be, when she trusts her more.

Assuming Ciri ever does trust her more, Yennefer would not blame her if she didn't.

"You feel suffocated?" She suggests, gently. For not the first time she wishes Jaskier was still here, so Ciri had someone to vent to who wasn't the reason she was being watched so tightly to begin with.

Wordlessly, Ciri nods. Suffocated is only part of it, but it's the safest word to choose from. Or, at least, it feels like it is. Acknowledging the frustration more directly feels too close to acknowledging the helplessness any more than she already has not because of a fear of it being exploited—even with lingering mistrust, she doesn't think Yennefer would do that—but because acknowledging it only makes it burn and sting and itch all the worse beneath her skin.

"He's almost written back to you." The princess looks to Yennefer. She knows she shouldn't meddle. Geralt hasn't when it comes to Ciri's relationship with Yennefer aside from his hovering about. But she's already somewhat done that in pointing it out to Geralt earlier as part of her argument. If he's wanting to talk to Yennefer, then that has to be a sign they can be given a bit more space, doesn't it? Geralt hadn't agreed. Or rather, he hadn't said anything to that point. Just her name said in that tone that told her she was speaking out of turn mingled with the sort of exhaustion that has to come from all this division between the two people meant to protect, teach, and guide her. "A couple of times, actually."

It's possible Yennefer will say the same as Geralt with more words (or even the same amount), but it's also possible not.

There's a tightness in her chest that Yennefer chooses to ignore at the young girl's words. Of course she has hoped Geralt would write back to her, she would not keep writing to him without some hope of breaking down those damn walls of his, but that's hardly the main reason she does it. She really does want to gain his trust again, and reporting what she's doing and Ciri's progress seems like a good way to begin to do that.

"He'll write back when he's ready."

And not a minute sooner. Geralt is as stubborn as she is.

"You shouldn't have to keep track of that." Ciri has enough to worry about without adding the division between her two guardians to the list.

"What else do I have to do?"

It's not as though she can train all day. At some point, she has to put her blade down and there's only so much energy (or frustration) for her magic lessons before those also must come to an end. And after all that, she's not left with much. She does a few chores here and there—those that Geralt trusts her to do because, frankly, being a princess doesn't lend itself well to knowing how to do those things terribly well—and then... There's really not much else to fill her time with. She can't go to the nearest village and hang about the market, hoping for a bit of conversation or even playing with some of the children younger than her. She can't go wandering off into the wilderness on her own whether because of monster or man.

She gets bored.

"Besides," she says, lifting her chin in that way only a precocious child would ever do. "It's not as though the two of you are subtle about it."

...There might also be a few orens riding on when the two of them finally push past everything with one another with the bard. Ciri will never tell. But they do stare at one another longingly often enough that what? Ciri is supposed to just shut her eyes and pretend she doesn't see it?

If it was anyone else she would be annoyed at the sureness of Ciri's words -- actually she's still annoyed but Ciri gets away with a lot that other people would not -- would get the sharpness of her tongue. Even if she knows there is truth in it. She can feel Geralt's eyes on her sometimes, watching her for reasons that go beyond mistrust and paranoia.

Sometimes she wants to push that, to force herself back in whether he likes it or not. Soon enough, she will.

"No," She admits with a small chuckle, a rare sound these days. "I suppose for all the things we have been, subtle has never been one of them."

"No, not really," Ciri says with a shake of her head, eyebrows raising as she thinks almost immediately of the awkward way in which she met Yennefer. Dear friend was how Geralt described her to Ciri and she to this day doesn't know if that clumsy explanation made it better or worse that she had walked in on them locked in a kiss. "But maybe that's the problem. You're both trying to be subtle."

Yennefer with her letters. Geralt with his staring.

i'mma try this shit again

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magicians au maybe?

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