Archive of Our Own

Geralt grunts as Ciri helps him down in front of the fire, hand held firmly to his ribs and teeth gritted tightly. It was just a simple hunt, he'd said- an incubus or succubus, or some other sentient creature that would more than likely be able to be reasoned with, but--

He shakes his head when she tries to look at the wound.

“Show me,” she demands, can't even curse herself for how her voice shakes. She's only just found him and she's not ready to lose someone else she cares about. “Show me.”

“It's fine,” he grits, shifting himself so he can lean back against the cave wall, “Just need to- heal,”

“ Show me, ” she hates that she's reduced to begging, but Geralt isn't listening and she's not- she can't-

“Ciri,”

“ Please. .”

He sighs. “Fine,” he mutters, “Get the- the water. And a cloth- a clean one.”

Ciri's quick to do as she's told. Before he'd left to hunt down the creature bewitching the village men, he'd found them a decently sized cave to stay in for the night and told her to set up camp and part of that was to have a pot of water on the boil for his return.

Usually it ended up being used for their dinner, but not tonight.

She pulls the pot from beside the fire with a wrap of cloth around the handle to keep herself from getting burned and places it next to him before hunting down a clean bit of cloth from his potions bag.

“Bring the whole thing,”

She does, and Geralt instantly upends the thing over the rough floor of the cave, shifting through the mass of vials and bottles until he finds the one he's looking for. It's small enough that it could fit in the palm of her hand, and rounded, sealed at the top with a cork and pink wax.

Geralt pops the top with his teeth, spitting the cork into the fire, and then downs the entire thing in one deep swallow. The expression on his face when he finishes is one of disgust, but he doesn't complain about it- Ciri wonders briefly how bad it must taste for him to show it, and then how much worse it would have to taste before he'd complain about it.

She's been with him a little less than two months now, but she feels like she has a pretty good grasp on the kind of person Geralt is. He reminds her slightly of her grandmother. Strong and powerful, but careful and giving to those he cares about- and he does care, no matter how much he tries to deny it. Ciri can see that in every action he takes to keep her warm and clothed and fed.

He cares, he just doesn't know how to show it. Her grandmother was the same before-- ...well, before .

“What was that?” she asks, her voice not much more than a whisper.

Geralt just grunts, “Witcher potion- t'stop the bleeding.”

“ No,” she shakes her head. She knows that , but- “What's it called? How does it work ?”

These are things she's going to need to know if she's going to travel with him. She needs to be able to differentiate between all his potions and elixirs, and maybe even learn how to make them, so that she can help him when need be.

She refuses to be a burden, not when there are more things she can do than just set up camp and boil some water. She's a princess, but she's also the granddaughter of the Lioness Of Cintra. She is not useless, and she won't stand to be babied or pitied.

Geralt eyes her for a moment, face still tight with pain before he answers.

“Kiss. It forces the blood to congeal- stops you from bleeding out internally and externally.”

Ciri takes that in with little more than a shaky nod.

“Okay,” she says, “How is it made?”

“Ciri-”

“ I want to know,” she says firmly, “I want to be able to help .”

He's silent as he looks her over before apparently finding what he's looking for and sighing.

“ I'll teach you,” he says roughly, “ later . I need to heal and rest first, okay?”

“Okay,” she nods, and comes to kneel by his side.

Again, he looks at her and grumbles a confused: “What are you doing?”

“I'm going to clean it,” she says, “And you're going to teach me how.”

His sigh is harsh and a little laboured, “ Ciri ,”

“ You're going to teach me ,” she repeats, reaching to tug at his arm and pull it away from his stomach. The blood is already starting to congeal on his shirt, glueing it to both his arm and the wound, but he doesn't complain when she pulls it free. There's blood everywhere and Ciri doesn't know what to do. “Geralt...?”

Gritting his teeth, he sits forward enough to tug the shirt over his head, tossing it to the ground in a bloody ball.

“ Wet the cloth and clean the wound- gently ,” he tells her, stressing the word.

It's slow work- wiping away the mud and debris without dislodging the clot that's starting to grow around the wound and close it off. The pot of water is hot and stings her hands every time she dips the cloth in to clean it, but she doesn't let it stop her- not until the water is dark with blood and filth, and Geralt tells her the wound is clean. Her hands are a burning red as she helps wrap a bandage around his stomach.

“ What was it?” she asks after emptying the pot outside the cave and returning to her injured guardian. He's not as pale now, but he still doesn't look healthy- not with the blood loss or the sickness brought on by the potion he downed. “The thing enslaving the men, twisting their minds,” she clarifies when Geralt only blinks at her over the fire.

“Witch,” he grunts, “had a Barghest- a kind of spectral dog. Got a good bite in before I realised it was there.”

The wound didn't look anything like a dog bite, and Ciri winced at what that must mean for the kind of damage it could inflict if left to maul someone unchecked.

“And the witch...?”

“Dead.”

“Good.”

He gives her a look.

“Have you eaten?”

She nods, “I had some of the meat left from lunch.”

“Do you need more?”

If she said yes, Geralt would force himself to get up and hunt down something for her to eat and Ciri would never be able to live with the guilt knowing that she caused him to reopen his wounds and hurt more.

“I'm not hungry,” she says quietly, and it's not even a lie because even if she had been before he returned, cleaning all the blood and filth from the wound on his stomach quickly stole her appetite for anything more.

Geralt nods, “To bed with you, then. We have to be up early tomorrow morning.”

“We're up early every morning,” she grumbles, but does as she's told.

They've only one bedroll since coin hasn't been exactly abundant in the time since they found each other, so Ciri crawls in after stripping to her undershirt and smalls, and blinks over at where Geralt's still sprawled against the stone wall.

“Are you coming, too?”

“Soon,”

“Promise?” she asks, because she's noticed his habit of freezing during the night so that she can have the bedroll to herself and she doesn't appreciate it. Maybe she would have found it weird and uncomfortable before everything happened, but she'd spent almost a week travelling with Dara and the two of them had spent every night together huddled close for warmth. It wasn't any different with Geralt.

He smiles slightly- just the tiniest twitch of the corner of his mouth.

“Promise,”

“'kay,” she mumbles, shuffling down into the furs. “G'night, Geralt.”

Later, she'll wonder if she'd have been able to sleep at all knowing what would face her when she opened her eyes next, but as it is she falls asleep easily that night, with Geralt's quiet reply echoing in her ears.

“Sleep well, Ciri.”

Waking up is- disorientating, and for a long moment, she doesn't know what it is that pulled her from her sleep.

It seems like she'd only fallen asleep minutes ago- and maybe she had, because it's still dark outside and the fire is still burning high when she blinks her heavy eyes open to look. There's a hard weight behind her, hot and sticky across the skin of her back, something heavy thrown over her waist and pinning her to the bedroll.

She almost panics before she realises it's only Geralt.

Grumbling to herself, she shifts under the weight of his arm to get more comfortable and gains a heavy groan in response and all too suddenly Ciri is aware of three things.

One- the arm over her waist was touching skin to skin, which brought her to realisation two- her shirt was pulled up over her chest, baring the length of her body save for what was covered by her smalls, and three- there was a hand tugging at her smalls and something hard moving between her thighs in a sticky wet slide.

She freezes.

And she's not stupid, okay? She's almost thirteen and has lived with her grandparents constant flirting and bickering foreplay her entire life, and that wasn't even mentioning the fact that she'd been learning about that sort of stuff since she was ten and old enough to understand what it meant when her grandmother threatened to behead the men that came crawling to the castle with offers of land and betrothal.

She wasn't stupid- she knew what sex was. What she didn't know was what the hell had gotten into Geralt to make him do such a thing as this. She knows there are men out there that look specifically at children for their sexual needs- one such had come to her grandmother and had actually been beheaded- but Geralt wasn't.. that wasn't the kind of person Geralt was.

It wasn't.

“Geralt?” her voice is barely a whisper, shaky and weak in the silence of the surrounding.

The only reply she gets is a huff and the hand tugging at her underwear pauses before suddenly it's moving inside them and Ciri chokes on a gasp. She shoots upward- or she tries to, but the grip Geralt has around her waist holds her firmly in place.

“Geralt!” she struggles against his hold, frightened and confused, but he only tightens his grip. His hand slips inside, fingers touching and feeling, and Ciri's face burns when she feels them slide over her untouched seam.

She's wet, she realises with fervent horror, and not only that, but it's because Geralt is touching her and-- she hisses, thighs tensing and hands moving to push Geralt's away because during the split second pause in her struggling, the finger that was tracing her seam slipped between and then pushed inside her.

And it burns.

Witchers were never small men, but Ciri was sure Geralt was large even by their standards. She barely reached his chest, when on most other men she was of height with their shoulders at least, and he was so firmly built that his biceps were larger than her head. He was big and strong and wide, and so were his fingers, and Ciri could feel an ache already building between her legs as he stretched her virgin entrance so cruelly on them.

Sex wasn't even something that interested her- in fact she thought it was rather disgusting and indecent and she wanted no part of any of it, thank you very much, no matter what her grandfather said. It all seemed far too unbecoming and the one time she'd tried touching herself after learning about everything had felt too weird to continue with and now- now it hurt .

“ Geralt !” she cries, “What are you-”

The finger starts to move, cutting her off as the burn grows with the motion. She tries again to push him away, but the hand he has cupped around her chest moves down to capture both her wrists in its grip, pulling them up and away and pinning them up near her neck.

Another finger is shoved inside her, spreading her ruthlessly, careless of her struggling.

“ G-Geralt, please, stop, i-it hurts -”

He doesn't stop.

Ciri whimpers and tries to clench her legs shut to force him to stop, but he only growls in response. He forces his knee between her legs despite her efforts to keep it out and uses it to spread them wide, lifting her lower half off the bedroll. The fingers press deep, thrusting and moving until the pain almost seems to die away, until she can almost handle the feeling of the two brutish digits inside her, and then another finger is squeezed inside.

Ciri wants to cry, to scream, but it's all locked in her chest, throat tight. Nothing comes out when she opens her mouth except weak whines and strangled breaths. And then, as suddenly as everything started, the fingers retreat, pulling from her with a slick noise and a wince.

There's barely time for her to feel relieved, before something else is nudging its way between her legs instead.

Her struggles renew as the head of his prick prods at her, far too large and far too dry despite the slick she can feel it leaving over her skin as it slides and rubs across her most intimate area. She kicks out, lands a solid hit of her elbow right into his ribs, but he doesn't stop, and Ciri can't quite bite back the tears, the sob that chokes from her throat, when he finds his mark and forces himself inside in one harsh push.

If she'd thought his fingers hurt, than this is agony.

Sharp and aching, stretched too wide and feeling on the brink of tearing- he splits her apart as he forges his way inside, hands like brands across her skin as he holds her in place.

Ciri cries. Big heavy tears spill down her cheeks, soaking into the flimsy pillow under her head.

She'd heard that sex hurts, quiet whispers traded between maids that she overheard as they worked to pass the time, but nothing had ever hurt like this and Geralt doesn't even give her time to get used to the ache of him before he's moving. Long rolling thrusts of his hips that push him in deep, pressing harshly at something in her belly that aches even more than the stretch of him in her entrance.

She cries, struggles uselessly in his hold.

“You-you're hurting me,”

He feels massive inside her, forcing her body to conform to the weight of him as he moves. It hurts like a punch to the gut, like a blade, like something being forced into a place that it doesn't fit without a care of how much ruin it will leave in its wake.

It hurts like being abused by someone you trust.

Geralt groans in her ear, his breath hot and wet across her neck as he pants. Ciri shudders, struggles, but the hand he has around her wrists is like a vice- there's no chance of her getting free, all she can do is lay there and take it as she's used.

She hates it- hates what's happening to her. Hates Geralt for doing it and hates herself for trusting a man she doesn't know just because Destiny told her to. But most of all, she hates that under the pain- under the ache and tug and bruise of his thrusts- she can feel her stomach warming.

“St-stop,” she begs, but her hips are starting to twitch under his biting hold, to push back and take him deeper despite how much it hurts, “..p-please-”

He doesn't reply past a heavy grunt, his thrusts coming harder as he brutalises her.

The warmth in her stomach spreads with every hard shove, her breath coming faster and sharper in little ' ah ah ah ah 's the longer it goes on.

Her face is wet with tears, her quim wet with something else.

She wants it to stop.

She wants it to never stop.

The feeling inside her builds and builds, burning hot and wet at her core- her quim tingles sharp and strange, like an itch she can't scratch, and it only gets worse the longer Geralt assaults her. Nauseating, infuriating.

It feels like she needs something but she doesn't know what.

He grunts behind her, a hot puff of air down the neck of her chemise, and his hand slips off her hip to delve back between her legs. Ciri has a horrible moment to imagine him forcing his fingers inside her already stuffed quim alongside his prick, but thankfully they don't go that far. Instead they press into that place above where she's impaled- the place where she's throbbing and needy.

He rubs her there, fingers slipping through the slick dripping from her, and that's all it takes for the coiling warmth in her belly to snap. Her legs kick out, and she chokes on a scream as a feeling so sharp and violent rips through her that it knocks the breath from her lungs.

She hates the sound she makes- so high pitched and needy.

Geralt fucks her through it until it hurts more than it feels good again, and then, with a savage noise of his own, he stills inside her, pulsing and filling her with a burning heat right in her aching core.

Her stomach twists in disgust at the knowledge of just what it is.

She's still gasping for breath as he pulls from her moments later, allowing his spend to spill from her ruined quim and stain the bedding under them. Goosebumps break out across her body as he shifts back behind her, slinging his arm around her middle with a grumble, and settles back down to sleep as if nothing had happened.

Ciri lays awake for hours after and by the time she closes her eyes to sleep, she can hear animals waking in the woods outside.

The next morning he acts as if nothing happened.

He wakes her at sunrise as he does every morning and hands her a small breakfast of stale bread and dried meat. He even helps her sit up when the movement makes her abdomen ache like she'd been booted by a horse.

She wonders if it's bruised- if his assault on her body last night marked her as darkly inside as it feels it did.

Geralt frowns when she startles at his touch, looks like he wants to say something but- he doesn't. He steps back from her, letting his hand fall to his side. Ciri watches it tense and clench into a fist, before he's turning away.

“Eat your breakfast,” he says roughly, “We need to collect the payment for the witch and get out on the road before midday.”

And that's the last time he speaks to her that day.

It happens again that night, and it hurts even worse this time.

She's asleep when he crawls into the bedroll behind her, and she wakes on her stomach with him plastered across her back, already inside her. It's the pain of him entering her still aching quim that pulls her to consciousness, and tears spring to her eyes the second they open.

The pain hadn't ceased at all throughout the day- walking hurt and sitting on Roach was even worse, and when she checked her undergarments after relieving herself behind some bushes, there'd been spots of blood, but it wasn't the time for her cycle.

She bled because of what Geralt had done to her, and she knows she's going to bleed again tonight.

Ciri buries her face in the pillow, clutching it with trembling white knuckled fingers, and cries as she's used.

Just like the night before, Geralt finishes inside of her and then drops back down into the bedroll with a grunt. He pulls her bodily toward him without care of the shivers wreaking her form as she cries, and sleeps.

Ciri doesn't sleep again that night despite how her eyes burn with the need. The pain between her legs is too much to ignore.

And that's how it goes for the next week.

They travel, they hunt, they camp, and when night falls and they bunk down to sleep, Geralt fucks her.

It stops hurting so much eventually. Her body grows used to the stretch and no long tears when he pushes inside so she doesn't have to deal with washing blood from her thighs or undergarments the next day.

But with the pain weakening, the other sensations grow to be so much more severe, and she's not sure which she prefers.

That feeling that twisted in her stomach and burned through her that first night happens again, and again, and again, sometimes multiple times in one night. Every time it leaves her trembling and gasping for breath, sensitive to the point that it almost overwhelms her.

And every night it gets harder and harder for her to deny that she's growing to like it.

She knows what an orgasm is. Her grandmother's scathing advice to never marry a man who couldn't make you cum was still burned in her brain from her first lesson on the matter.

“ You may love a man, ” she'd said, over breakfast one morning, “ but if they're useless in bed, they're worth no more than their stinking horse.”

Eist had grinned at her over his wine at that, and made some sort of crude gesture with his tongue.

Geralt never uses his tongue, but he makes her cum every night, and it feels good . Like all the stresses of the day wash away with the force of it. Her mind goes soft and cottony, thoughts and fears no longer as daunting or pressing as they are in the light of the day.

It's a release , and she understands now why some adults go out of their way to pay for it.

But Geralt doesn't have any coin to spare on brothels, and it's the least she can do for him in return for his protection.

They don't bring it up in the light of the day.

Geralt is up and packing away camp by the time she wakes, and he's barely looked at or spoken to her since the morning after the first time when she pulled away from his touch.

She misses him.

It sounds stupid, she knows. They spend every minute of every day together, and at night they're as close as two people can be, but it's not the same.

They don't talk. He doesn't tell her stories or teach her about what kinds of plants are good to eat. He doesn't check in on her while they're travelling, or wish her a goodnight before she sleeps.

He doesn't show her how to make the potions like he promised he would that night she stitched him up by fire-light.

She misses him, and she knows it's partially her own fault.

That night, as they warm themselves by the fire and eat watery rabbit and turnip stew, Ciri asks about the potions once more.

Her question is timid, voice weak. She's not spoken in days, but all the whining and moaning she's been doing the last few nights has wreaked havoc on her throat. Her grandmother would make her Chamomile tea with Honey whenever she had a sore throat before, but tea is expensive and honey is hard to come by on the Path unless they plan to sneak into someone's hive and steal a chunk of comb.

Geralt did that once, when she asked, but she could see how much it bothered him to steal from someone just as poor as himself.

She didn't ask again.

Geralt's eyes flicker in the light of the fire, his strange split-pupils seeming to sway back and forth between narrow and dilated as he watches her.

Ciri forces herself to maintain eye contact.

He does tell her eventually, low and careful, and the vice around her heart loosens just the tiniest amount.

She can fix this. She can still be helpful.

It'll take time, but she knows it'll be worth it.

It's slow going, but things start to return to a cautious normal.

A month passes.

Then two.

Three.

They pick their way across Temeria, skirt around Redania, and slip into Kaedwen through back roads and forest paths. They listen to the whispers of war and soldiers in the small towns they dare to restock in, and rush back to the relative safety of the Path before anyone can question why a Witcher would be travelling with a young girl.

They camp most every night, and Ciri slowly learns how to differentiate between the masses of vials and bottles Geralt stores in his pack by the colour of their wax seal and the viscosity of the potion within.

She's quick to learn what plants are edible and what will kill her within moments. How to cook and mend and properly build a fire that will stay burning through the night.

She learns to stop bothering with her underwear when she crawls into bed, and eventually how to sleep through the activity on those nights where she's too tired to be an active participant.

They build a pattern- a routine. Her life will never be how it was, but Ciri starts to feel content with what she has.

Geralt, Roach, and the Path.

Things change in a little town just before Ban Gleán.

They find themselves at a tavern for the first time in far too long, and Ciri is quick to make use of their bath to scrub herself head to toe. She picks the dirt from under her fingers, cuts down her toenails with the little knife Geralt got her, and even lets herself use the oils she'd been saving in order to bring some life back to the nest of tangles her hair has become.

They'd taken the time to dye it before entering the town as they always did- a mixture of crushed berbercane fruit, puffball mushrooms, buckthorn, and bloodmoss that stunk to high heavens and gave off vapours so strong it burned her eyes. It came out a dark brown-red colour that looked natural enough to fool the simple peasants of the towns, and while it left her hair a little worse for wear afterwards, it washed out within a couple of days and didn't stain too terribly.

It's worth it, even if she can no longer recognise herself in the reflection of store windows. If she can't even recognise herself, than Nilfgaard has little chance.

The water is lukewarm when Geralt returns, but he fixes that with a burst of Igni.

Ciri busies herself in her notebook as he strips behind the privacy screen and sinks into the bath with a quiet groan.

Despite how many times they've had sex, she's still never seen a naked man. Sometimes if it's too hot, or if he gets injured, Geralt will strip his upper body, but never has he gone so far as to peel off his trousers in the light of the day.

Men and women obviously look different- they have entirely different parts and while she's felt those parts against and inside her, she's not actually seen them.

Ciri can't deny that she's... curious.

“Did you.. talk to the alderman?” she asks.

Geralt grunts, splashes the water around in the tub as he washes himself.

“Sounds like Nekkers,” he says, “probably a small nest if they're only taking livestock.”

She wrinkles her nose.

Nekker blood stinks .

“You'll bathe again before getting into bed, won't you?”

His voice is amused as he answers, “Yes, Princess, I'll bathe again before getting into bed. Wouldn't want to get you all dirty so soon after your bath,”

A shiver rolls down Ciri's spine. Arousal. Want . Geralt knows as well as she does that he's going to leave her filthy by the time he's finished with her, bath or no.

“You'll-” she clears her throat, tries to focus on her scratchy handwriting which details the visual difference between two almost identical mushrooms with entirely different uses. Mistaking one for the other and throwing it in your soup would mean certain death. “You'll be leaving after supper, I presume?”

“Mm. Ordered it while I was downstairs. Should be ready soon.”

Camping and avoiding towns for everything bar contracts has meant that when they do eventually spend the night at an inn or tavern, they usually have enough coin for a decent meal to go with their room and bath. Not that Geralt is a bad cook, but there's only so much one can do with foraged vegetables and hunted game.

Ciri's been looking forward to fresh bread and cheese for weeks .

“It's not stew, is it?”

“It's not stew,”

“ Good,” she says, and returns to her notes. The illustrations next to her notes are pretty terrible and almost illegible, but she's getting better over time- very, very slowly.

Geralt splashes some more.

“What did you order?”

He sighs.

“Ciri,”

“I'm just asking!”

“It's not stew,”

“That's what you said last time we stopped at a tavern and what did I end up eating?”

“ It was food , wasn't it?”

“ Hardly ,” she mutters to herself, thinking back on the gristly chunk of meat and soggy vegetables she'd been handed. The barmaid hadn't even looked apologetic for the disgrace she'd dished up. “Just so long as it isn't stew.”

Geralt sighs again.

It's not stew, thank the Gods.

The tavern owner's wife wanders up just as Geralt's finishing tightening the straps of his gauntlets, knocking and handing off two large plates of dark roasted pork and vegetables, and a smaller one with a chunk of cheese and two rolls.

Ciri's mouth waters.

Dinner is a quiet affair, and by the time they're finished and Geralt is strapping the last pieces of his armour on, Ciri's eyes are drooping.

It's not even completely dark out yet and she's exhausted . There was a time when she'd spend the entire night awake just to watch the sun rise, but now she's dead on her feet and ready for bed the second she stops walking.

“I'll be back in a few hours.”

She nods, yawns so wide her jaw cracks.

“Okay,” she mumbles, “can you- try not to wake me tonight?”

She's not going to tell him not to fuck her- after clearing out a Nekker nest, he's going to need some sort of comfort, and if he can find that within her body, then she's more than willing to allow him. 

Not that he'd listen to her, if she decided she wasn't.

That should scare her more than it does, she thinks.

He huffs, soft and almost amused, pulling her from her thoughts.

“I'll do my best,” he tells her, and then comes over and kisses her forehead, which immediately turns red with the heat of her blush. “Go to bed, Ciri.”

He's never done that before.

“O-Okay.”

Ciri's a stomach sleeper.

Sometimes she'll find herself on her side, but it's rare, and even more rare is to find her on her back, but it does happen every now and then. Tonight is one such night, and when she blinks awake some hours later, it's to the large, black outline of someone hovering over her.

Her heart lodges in her throat for the split second it takes for her to realise it's just Geralt.

So much for not waking her.

She sighs, stretches, but doesn't complain.

“Scared me,” she mumbles as his hands grab at her waist and start tugging her chemise.

Geralt doesn't reply with words, but he grunts quietly- though that could just as well be a sound of frustration at her not moving to help him strip her, rather than any kind of response.

Humming sleepily, she pulls her chemise up over her thighs and belly, baring herself to his wants. Geralt makes another quiet sound and drops down between her spread legs, prick already hard and free of his trousers.

It's so easy to take him now that the fear and pain of the first time seems like some sort of bad dream. Hazy and far away and almost impossible. The stretch had been so bad it left her bleeding more than once, but now she barely feels it.

She enjoys it, even.

He grunts as he breaches her, pushing down to the root in one exquisite slide that draws a little moaning sigh from Ciri's throat. She drops her head back into the pillow and lets herself feel.

Geralt fucks like he fights- rough and hard and throwing his all into it. He gives her no time to get used to his girth, but she's used to that by now, luxuriates in the force of his thrusts as he chases his pleasure within her body.

It doesn't occur to her for a good minute that this is the first time he's taken her like this, but the thought strikes hard and fast when she feels his mouth come down to cover her own for the first time. She gasps into the kiss, and Geralt uses that as his chance to slip his tongue inside and tangle it around her own in a slick, wet slide.

It's disgusting.

It's wonderful .

Ciri moans, copying him clumsily. Geralt grunts and doubles down, his hand gripping hard at her thigh and pulling her leg up and back to bare her further to his fucking. It's different in this position- deeper, somehow. His prick rubs against something in her belly, the tangle of hair at his base tickling that little nub that always grows so hard and sensitive under his ministrations and makes her shudder with the barest touch.

“ Oh -” she gasps, arching up into him. Her hands slip on his sweat slick skin, clawing lines across his shoulders, neck, arms as she struggles for somewhere to hold, “G- Geralt- ”

He doesn't speak during their activities, never says her name or answers her asks and pleas. But that's just something else she's grown used to. Geralt's not a very vocal man, and that includes while making love, but--

This is the first time he's taken her like this, the first time she's been able to look at him, to see him, and she realises something.

Geralt's always aware of his surroundings, even when he's in pain- he knows what's going on around him on a kind of level that Ciri can admit to being jealous about. He was always... present . Alert.

His eyes, when she looks into them now, are anything but. Open, but unfocused. Glazed over like he's... like he's asleep .

She gasps at the realisation, and then chokes on a shriek when Geralt uses his hold on her to wrench her up off the pillows and into his lap as he sits back. The position has her sinking down further on his length until the head presses into that place deep inside her that aches with the abuse. She scrambles for a hold on his shoulders, digging her nails in as he starts to bounce her, driving up to meet her every time she drops.

“ O-oh, g- gods ,” she whimpers, holding him tighter. Her own hips are moving, chasing the burn spreading in her stomach with harsh rolls.

He's asleep.

He's asleep, and gods only know how many times in the past have been the same.

Half of them? All of them?

Does he even know what he's been doing to her?

“ Oh, oh, ooh, I'm- ”

The hard ridges of his stomach rub at that spot between her legs with every dirty grind, bringing her closer and closer to the edge. Sweat is dripping down her back, another kind of wetness making a filthy mess of Geralt's lap where it drools from her quim with every depraved squelch.

“I'm gonna cum,” she whines, “Oh god, Geralt, I'm gonna-”

He does something- twists his hips in some way or uses fucking magic, because a split second after she says that, she's suddenly cumming harder than she ever has in her entire life. The window panes tremble with the volume of her squeal as lightning shoots across her skin. Her eyes go dark, her thighs shake, her cunt trembles, spasms, and something hot and wet gushes out around Geralt's prick inside her, drenching her thighs, his lap, and the shitty mattress under them.

Geralt grunts like an animal and follows her over the edge with three ferocious fucks, stilling with his prick buried to the hilt, and spraying her down with his burning seed until her stomach goes hard and swollen with it.

“ Oh ,” she shudders, “ooh, Geralt ,”

It ends as it always does.

Geralt pulls from her with a torrent of cum oozing after him, and drops back into the pillows to sleep. Only this time Ciri is in his lap, and he ends up throwing the both of them down to the mattress, his massive head colliding with her thin chest hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs with a heavy ' oof ' with the hit. Geralt grumbles something incomprehensible and then falls silent, his breath evening out.

Ciri wants to stay awake- knows she needs to think about this and figure out how to bring it up and explain why she never told him after the first time it happened, but her eyes are heavy and she's even more exhausted than she'd been when she first fell into bed that evening.

In the morning, she promises herself, falling for the sweet allure of sleep. She'll tell him in the morning.

She doesn't tell him in the morning. 

Nor the next, or the next, or the next.

It doesn't take a scholar to figure out it has something to do with the Witch he was hunting the first night it happened. She was doing the same thing to the men of the town that hired Geralt in the first place, she realised, but reason hadn't occurred to her until the morning after her realisation that he was asleep throughout their intimacy.

Knowing that he's asleep, that he has no idea what he's doing and can't stop himself- that it's a curse .. it makes something twist in her stomach and drown the words in her throat before she can even open her mouth.

She knows him well enough now to know he'll never forgive himself if she tells him. The guilt of knowing that he hurt her and abused her for so long- even if she's grown to enjoy it now.. it would eat him alive. Chipping away piece by piece until it killed him, and Ciri isn't strong enough to lose him over something so- so trivial.

She hated it to begin with, true, but now its good . A part of travelling and living on the Path with Geralt that she genuinely enjoys- something she looks forward to even, after too long without any kind of comfort.

It’s something she can do for him, even if he doesn't realise it.

She's also not unaware of what she gains from the activity- her decision is not entirely selfless.

Geralt's not like her parents were, not like her grandparents, even- her grandmother was harsh and occasionally cold, but even she knew how to put that aside when Ciri needed comforting. Could shelve the strength and power and ferocity that everyone came to expect from the Lioness of Cintra, so as to pull Ciri into her arms and hold her as she cried, just as any other grandmother would.

Her grandmother wasn't perfect, but she wasn't unfeeling , no matter what anyone might say.

Geralt isn't like that, and it's to no fault of his own.

He's told her about his childhood- bits and pieces about growing up with dorms full of other boys who never made it to adulthood. She knows he never had the comforts or love most other children are awarded, and now he doesn't know how to apply them himself.

He tries- patting her shoulder after she correctly identifies a plant or animal track, wrapping his arm around her when they ride Roach together so she doesn't fall, kissing her forehead when he leaves for a hunt.

He's trying and Ciri appreciates that more than she can explain- truly, she does. But she needs more.

Geralt can't give her that when he's awake. But asleep - asleep, Geralt gives her everything she needs and more. Attention, comfort, love .

Ciri takes to sleeping on her back more often, just so she can see him when he takes her- so she can kiss him and hold him in return.

He takes his pleasure from her. She takes her comfort from him.

No doubt it's an unhealthy way to go about everything, but it works, and she's not about to ruin it by telling him.

That works for a total of a week, and then, as things always do in her life, everything goes to shit.

It starts with fatigue.

She's always tired these days, especially these last few months with the added nightly activities, but it gets so bad that at times she falls asleep in Roach's saddle. If it weren't for Geralt riding behind her, she's sure she'd have fallen more than once already.

That, by itself, isn't too much to worry about. Geralt starts hunting more red meat and wild hens, stocking up on raisins when they pass a town and watching to make sure she eats them throughout the day. She does, even though she hates raisins more than those horrible little cakes from Skellige her grandfather would try to force on her that tasted like a mix of rotting pork and horse manure that had been left out in the Cintran sun in the height of summer.

A delicacy, he'd called them.

Vile , Ciri had spat back. Disgusting. Horrible. A slight to the very Gods themselves.

Grandmother agreed, though Ciri thinks that might just have been because she lived to rile up her husband more than for any real opinion on the taste.

Then came the overwhelming craving for cheese tortae, and salted cucumbers with honey- the former of which she's ever cared for much one way or the other, and the latter being something that ought to turn her stomach at the very thought but instead makes her mouth water like those lemons Grandmother would have specially brought in to add to her honey cakes.

The cravings are easier to ignore and keep to herself. She's always craving some sort of food nowadays, and she's become rather proficient at pushing the thought away and just being grateful to have anything to eat. If her time with Dara taught her anything, it's that hunger will drive you to lengths you never thought you'd ever reach for.

She's also been thinking about the roasted rat, but she's not quite ready to admit that yet.

When she starts becoming nauseous, Geralt cracks and drags the both of them into some little backwater town near the base of the Hertch mountains.

He's concerned, and Ciri doesn't have the energy to fight him. She lets him drag her to the healer on the outskirts of the village, even though she's sure it's just the stress of last year catching up with her and not because she's about to drop dead from plague or pox.

It's not the stress of the last year catching up with her, but neither is it plague nor pox.

She's not sure she prefers this.

The healer’s words are still ringing in her ears when Geralt leads her back to the tavern and the room they're sharing. The town is used to Witchers, she's realised during their stay so far- probably gets a number of them every year as they make their way home to Kaer Morhen for the winter, and then sees them again in the Spring on their way back to the Path.

They're almost nice here. They greet Geralt with a nod and even a smile sometimes. The owner of the tavern, a pot bellied man named Vurt, even hands off a couple of envelopes when they trudge in. Geralt takes them, but doesn't thank the man as he ushers Ciri up the stairs and to their room, shutting the door behind them with a quiet and yet somehow deafening ' click '.

Ciri's scared to look at him, and when she finally forces herself to, she sees exactly what she'd feared. He's stone faced, cold and closed off, but his eyes are alight with a rage so hot they burn with it.

Ciri sits gingerly on the edge of the shitty bed, staring hard at the hand she has resting on her stomach.

Witchers are infertile, but apparently not Geralt .

She doesn't know what to say, has no words to explain what's happened or why, and so she stays quiet.

Geralt paces the length of the small room in two strides, hands drawn into fists by his sides. His jaw is clenched, brow tight, eyes wide. He keeps looking from her, to his swords laying against the wall, to the door, and back to her, like he can't decide his next course of action.

When this all started, she might have worried he was thinking about turning those swords on her, on the life growing in her stomach, but she knows better now.

He won't hurt her.

He won't hurt their baby.

“Geralt-”

“ Who -” he spits, grits his teeth harder. His eyes are blazing with fury when he turns them on her, but she can see the fear hiding away in there, “Who? Who-”

“Geralt,” she tries again.

“Who did this to you?” he demands, “Who- touched you?”

“ Geralt -”

“Why didn't you tell me? Was it- the last town, when I was on the hunt, is that when it happened?”

“No,”

“Before that? Before I found you?”

She shakes her head weakly.

He bares his teeth, white and sharp and animal.

“ Who? ”

You.

You .

It was you. It's yours.

The words stick in her throat like honey thick marzipan, heavy, choking. 

Ciri can't bring herself to answer.

Geralt stops in front of her, muddy boots stepping into her eye-line where she's cast her gaze to the floor.

She can't look at him.

The guilt of knowing she's betrayed his trust for so long- of knowing her body has betrayed her and embraced the seed he planted in her womb..

She can't look at him and see his disappointment. She's not strong enough to look at him and see the pain she's caused etched into the lines in his face.

“ Ciri ,”

He begs.

She breaks.

The tears she's been fighting since the healer diagnosed her finally win the battle and bubble over her eyes, spilling down her cheeks in burning lines.

She hates this- hates that she's so weak. Hates herself for what she's done.

Geralt drops to his knees before her, huddles her into his arms. She clutches him close and cries into his neck, unable to refuse the comfort his embrace offers.

“I'm sorry,” she sobs, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-”

“It's not your fault,” he says firmly, but his own voice wavers so slightly that she almost misses it over her tears, “this isn't your fault, Ciri.”

She shakes her head, hugs him closer.

Guilt and regret are close friends of hers these days, but never has she felt them as keenly as she does now. They stab at her, claw into her stomach and set her chest alight with pain.

“Please,” he whispers, “tell me who did this.”

He takes her hands in his, holding them in a sweeter mockery of the way he had that first night when he took her virginity. Ciri sniffles.

“Ciri,”

She sighs, a short shuddering thing, and makes her decision.

She squares her shoulders.

She tells him.

Fin