Epiphany

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Epiphany

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Fandom: The Witcher

Ship: Emhyr/Geralt

Rating: general audiences

Written for the video prompt by do-androids-dream-ao3acc

775 words will enlighten you after the cut:

Epiphany

The day it happened, Geralt strolled through Beauclair; it was a lovely warm day, sun was shining, the houses competed in being brightly coloured, the trees were horny, huge pollen balls were tumbling lazily through the air. Some vague feeling of longing was tugging Geralt's heart strings, like thoughts of an absent lover he'd want to share the mellow vibes of this day with. He snorted. There was no-one. And yet it felt like missing.

There had been a letter for him at the post office, from Ciri. She tried to write regularly but didn't always succeed. Geralt chose a quiet public bench, breathed in the sweet scent of nearby locust trees and read his letter.

Ciri was doing great. He'd known she could do anything she set her mind on doing, but she also didn't seem to mind her new duties too much. He sometimes actually forgot how she'd been brought up as a proper princess once. He laughed under his breath, remembering what she'd been like when he first met her in Brokilon forest - headstrong as she'd always be, but also a bit of an entitled brat.

She described scenes from her life at Vizima palace that were notably ridiculous, so boring it was worth mentioning, or actually interesting. She also had to learn plenty of new things which fell under those categories, too. Geralt grudgingly admitted Emhyr seemed to be doing a good job at helping her with basically everything. He huffed. Whatever part of her life Ciri described, she mentioned her father saying this, doing that - he really seemed to be there for her a lot. Hm.

Geralt stared into thin air, imagining them side by side, talking, Ciri sitting in on Emhyr's meetings, Emhyr (apparently, according to the letter) lurking ominously about at social gatherings orchestrated to introduce the heiress to important members of the court. A picture of Emhyr formed in Geralt's mind, watching over Ciri from behind some marble pillar or peeping through the leafy branches of some decorative plant, shooting murderous glances at nobles who seemed to be too forward with her. Geralt grinned.

'Stern and intimidating' was Emhyr's forte. It usually worked, too, except that Geralt had always thought of it as theatrics - a glamour. It tended to slip when you poked him enough. Well, at least when Geralt poked him enough. He'd thought that's what Ciri would be doing, too: shake him up, deal with the helpless anger that ensued, clean up the mess, emerge victorious as the bigger person who'd kept a cool head. But apparently she didn't have to.

Alright, when he thought about it, it might not always have been necessary to antagonise Emhyr as much as he'd done. There were times he'd been able to just talk to him and - funny, actually - Geralt had usually felt quite relaxed in his company. Exasperated, yes. But not coiled up and ready to dodge some bullshit. There was no avarice in the man. No rotten core behind a layer of self-interest with a varnish of jovial camaradery like, let's say, Foltest or, lately, the Bloody Baron. It still gnawed at Geralt that Ciri hadn't seen through that guy. She was so young.

Emhyr was ruthless and sacrificed the lives of other people to further his goals but he didn't enjoy the suffering of people. And he didn't butter you up to make you dance for him, he just outright expected the dance. And people tended to dance.

It had always been so enjoyable to spite him. Geralt smiled. When he'd swum over to the Imperial flag ship to emerge in front of Emhyr like a pain in the arse - it had been so silly and unnecessary but also absolutely worth it, seeing the long-suffering expression in Emhyr's face and maybe a surpressed eyeroll. When you riled him up right, he was outright cute.

Geralt looked up from the hole he'd been staring into thin air and blinked. He looked down at the letter in his hand. He'd zoomed in on those sentences where Ciri mentioned Emhyr like he'd been waiting for them. Because he had.

He slowly breathed in and had accepted the truth by the time he exhaled. This hadn't happened suddenly, he'd just suddenly understood. But there would be more time to contemplate things once he'd be on his way to Vizima.

Geralt strode over to where he'd left Roach and made his way back to Corvo Bianco to pack his things for travel. A halfling puked into a basket next to the street. Geralt had no idea how to approach this once he was at Vizima but something would come up.