hi, love your blog!!! i've been wondering something and you're an expert in witcher lore so i'm sure you know the answer.... does dandelion ever get to hang out with ciri when she's younger? is it ever mentioned in the books?
the only time dandelion and ciri meet and spend time together in the books is about for a night or so in time of contempt, and also towards the end in lady of the lake.
but first as a short preface: dandelion canonically in relation to geralt and geralt, yennefer, ciri as a family doesn’t so much exist as another member of that family, but rather as an observer and narrator. this is probably best shown by the scene in time of contempt with him and ciri. sapkowski uses his character as kind of a device to see what’s going on with their family. this of course doesn’t mean that he’s not welcome or something, but rather that his more is rather of geralt’s friend and so his role to ciri is more like “cool friend of my dad’s” rather than ever being like a father or mentor or something like that to her. he summarizes it in this prelude to chapter 2 in time of contempt:
time of contempt scene is when he and geralt, who have been travelling together, finally meet up with yennefer and ciri, who have been travelling together. after some drama (ciri runs away because she wants to go see geralt before she enrolls at aretuza, but gets caught on her horse by the wild hunt and other apocalyptic visions). she’s about 13? 14? at this time, by the way.
after she’s recovered, she walks towards geralt and yennefer but cannot decide which one to run towards, so she faints instead. after some time, she’s recovered. it’s then when she gets out of bed to spy on geralt and yennefer, who are having an argument because they’ve been apart for a long time and also now have a child to take care of who is being hunted down and it’s a little much riding on them. dandelion catches her spying and this is amusing to him, so he playfully mocks her a little and then provides some good advice and care. it’s somewhat of a good but also strange scene for dandelion in my opinion because he takes a more mature and distant stance in this scene with ciri, he’s treating her appropriately and not being childish to her, but it’s just uncommon for dandelion to be serious and distant unless things are serious.
the scene is short enough to post here, in fact:
then in lady of the lake, after stygga and nilfgaard have been dealt with, we get a comical (yet still keeping with the tone of the book, as you can see from geralt’s dismal reaction) scene where dandelion’s about to face execution for cheating on the duchess. geralt and ciri have been travelling together and planned to meet dandelion in the palace stables in beauclair, but come across the execution which is congesting traffic. they’re both very glad when they get him back!
“You’re hopelessly stupid,” stated Geralt, and Ciri confirmed she thought the same with an energetic nod of her head.
ciri eventually does leave them though, because she must ride to yennefer. she plans to ride across the continent in three days, which sparks this exchange, because dandelion points out that it’s logically impossible to do so:
ending on a tragic note, as lady of the lake does :( <3
if you are looking specifically at dandelion and ciri, in my opinion dandelion and ciri have a very sweet friendship but it’s not ever explored because they’re simply just not that close, i feel like had the series ended happily, since geralt and dandelion travel together ciri would have travelled equally in parts with them and yennefer, getting to know dandelion more through travels.
but on the other hand, if you are looking for dandelion being a mentor to someone, i’d suggest thinking about dandelion and essi daven’s friendship/siblingship/mentorship, which we learn of in a little sacrifice. because this is not something that we ever really get with dandelion and ciri since he’s not a kind of role model or anything to her
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