Geraskier & Ciri - Training [G]
Jaskier looks up from his notebook, eyeing the Witcher watching over his ward and her practise. He’s taken to keeping them company outside, even as snow settles into the mountain and the winds almost blister his skin as gusts bluster through the crumbling walls. Geralt would prefer them to be alone, but Jaskier knows for a fact that Ciri appreciates the company – another witness in case Geralt pushes her over the edge and she snaps.
Ciri doesn’t bother hiding the sharp huff of breath that escapes her. “What now?” she asks, voice clipped and solid, even as a breeze rushes through the courtyard. Jaskier barely manages to hide his grin into the thick scarf pulled around his neck and mouth. She’s a terror; headstrong and by no means the weak, pampered princess some Witchers would have thought her to be.
She’s certainly Calanthe’s granddaughter.
Geralt’s lips thin. “Too slow. You need to be quicker than that if you want to keep your head.” He gestures to the obstacles; a path of stepping stones and beams, mannequins fitted with plated armour and stuffed thick with hay.
Some sort of argument, or dry comment, sits on the princess’ tongue. One that stays there, swallowed back down as she turns back to the course. The first insult to her might have been the wooden sword. She’s a princess – Calanthe’s grandchild. She asked for a sparring sword, metal and dulled, but was given a stick instead. What was she, five years old?
Lambert took enough time to laugh at her, only stopped when Eskel grabbed him by the collar of his tunic and dragged him away. Jaskier is better company; he stays quiet, occasionally offering small words of encouragement. And he tempers the worst of Geralt’s corrections.
Jaskier’s voice barely makes it over the howl of wind. “You’re too tough with her,” he murmurs, setting his quill’s tip back on to his page, scribbling a line he had written last night out completely. “Be gentler.”
Geralt doesn’t even look to him. Keeping his gaze solely fixed on the girl, he watches her take up position in front of a mannequin again. “No one was ever gentle with me,” he grunts, lifting his chin as she lashes out with a strike, hitting the mannequin’s shoulder, before quickly reposting so she can lunge for its abdomen.
He barely stops his eyes from rolling. “Yes, but she isn’t you, is she?” Jaskier asks. “She doesn’t have the same mutations as you. She’s just an ordinary human.”
Geralt’s jaw clenches. “Nothing about her is ordinary.”
Gods, he knows that. Nothing about Ciri is ordinary. She stands in front of them as a girl, barely on the edge of maidenhood, but there’s something about her that is otherworldly. She’s a Source. Vesemir got the first tremors of magic off of her; not that Jaskier can tell. She’s promised to go great things, but not now. Something is brewing beyond the reach of Kaer Morhen – something that can wait while she prepares, getting ready to protect herself and others.
And she’s taking to it all rather quickly. Eskel takes her for magic lessons, although he still doesn’t quite know how her magic conducts itself through her. It just...happens. Until a sorcerer arrives, Eskel has taken it upon himself to teach her how to curb her magic’s worst corners and tempers. Lambert agreed, with the pressure of Vesemir’s stare during one dinner, that he would teach her how to fight – something Geralt has joined in on. Both of them have different styles. One is more fluid than the other. It’s good for her to find her own style of fighting.
Vesemir lets her read; escaping from the others and huddling in the old man’s library just to read any books she spots and can pluck off of the shelves. A mind is like a sword; it has to be kept sharp.
And then there’s Jaskier. He’s not entirely sure what he can do to help her, but every so often, when her throat is raw from screaming at one or most or all of the Wolves one way or the other, she’ll seek him out and spend an hour or two, or a night, with him.
And he’s well aware of how infuriating Witchers can be.
Geralt bristles. Ciri’s foot skids on the frosted ground, but she’s quick to catch herself before lunging forward, landing another strike on the mannequin. “Good.” His voice is as clipped as it tends to be when he’s instructing her, but Jaskier notes the slight warmth running through it. The Witcher clears his throat. “Good. Again.”
Jaskier quirks an eyebrow. He doesn’t say anything, keeping his focus back on his notebook. Writing has been keeping him busy for the past couple of weeks. The princess has her training and Geralt spends almost all of his time trailing after her. There must be something for him to do.
Ciri, to her credit, doesn’t falter again or lose focus. Her steps are assured and every strike she lands on the mannequins poised around her is accurate and deadly, should the sword in her hand be made of sharpened metal and the bodies skin and muscle, rather than leather hide and stuffed with straw.
Only a few weeks have turned her into quite the little warrior. He dreads what she’ll be like after a winter of training; swordplay and fighting, and her insistence on waking up at the crack of dawn every day just to run the trails around the mountain.
Jaskier bundles his cloak around himself, staving off the worst of the chill.
Geralt makes a small noise. “Go inside,” he murmurs, taking his eyes off of the girl for the first time all afternoon. Warm, golden eyes fall on to him, and the chill doesn’t seem to bother him anymore. Geralt’s gaze softens as he looks to his bard. “You’ll freeze out here. We’ll be another hour or so.”
Jaskier sighs. “Alright,” he says, gathering his inkwell and quill and notebook. His fur-lined cloak shelters him from the worst of the chill, but he can still feel it nipping as his flushed cheeks and frostbitten nose. As he stands, Geralt reaches out, catching the bard’s hand in his.
Jaskier almost shivers at the familiar warmth that burrows through his skin and muscles, settling into his bones as his Witcher touches him. “I need you alive,” Geralt murmurs, brushing his thumb over Jaskier’s reddened and flushed knuckles. “You’re no use to me frozen.”
The bard offers him a soft smile. “Well then, darling,” he murmurs, “wrap it up here and join me inside. I’m never warmer than when you are by my side in front of our hearth, or in our bed.”
There’s a sharp gag. “Can you two give it a break?” Ciri winces, wooden sword dropped to her side and a frown knitting her brows together.
Geralt glowers. “Don’t lose your focus in a fight,” he warns.
Ciri glowers right back at him, setting a hand on to her hip. “Yes; because straw-stuffed mannequins are very dangerous. It’s a wonder I haven’t lost my head.”
Jaskier leaves them. He’s cold and they’re going to be snipping and growling at each other and he could do without it. But as he turns, when the princess is lashing back at the Witcher just as well as he is to her, a smirk curls along his lip.
