The Visitor

[antimonyschnuck]

The Visitor

fandom: The Witcher
ship: background Geralt/Emhyr
rating: general audiences

Witcher!Ciri visits Corvo Bianco - slightly whacky ficlet inspired by people's Tumblr posts after the Witcher4 trailer had dropped.

585 word ficlet behind the cut:

 

The Visitor

“Geralt!” Ciri grinned and returned the bear hug. “How are your, uh, grapes doing?”

Geralt huffed. “Are we strangers now who rely on small talk? You’ve made yourself rare though.”

“I know, I know. There was always one more thing I needed to do before I would visit and shit kept happening. You know how it is.” She peeled herself out of his arms.

“Nothing to do with him being here,” Geralt remarked dryly.

“Of course not.” She almost sounded genuine and fearless.

“He’s in Beauclair today, will be back for dinner, so you can relax for a bit,” Geralt sighed. “He’s forgiven you, I promise. Morvran seems to be doing a decent job, everything is fine.”

“I don’t need his forgiveness,” Ciri hissed but interrupted herself when she saw Geralt give her his putting-up-with-bullshit stare. “I’m sorry. I’ll be polite. Won’t be me who’s going to start the fight.”

Geralt rolled his eyes at her and led her into the kitchen. “Look, it’s all you.”

“You’ve got an icebox? Hoity toity. Putting up with him does have its perks, I see,” Ciri groused a little performatively.

The icebox was covered in notes, papers of different sizes pinned willy nilly to the polished dark wood of the extravagant furniture.

“Woah buff mama! White haired witcheress, if you’re passing through, visit me for a good time!” Ciri read aloud and chortled. “Those are notes from notice boards.”

“Yeah,” Geralt grinned. “I like the one begging you to step on him.”

“Step on her,” Ciri corrected him with a rakish grin. “We did meet up.”

“And then?”

“I stepped on her.” Ciri smiled. “Not literally. She’s cute.” She pursed her lips. “Not all of the notes for me are like that… you only collected the nice ones, I see.”

“I didn’t collect anything.” Geralt crossed his arms in front of his chest. “How am I supposed to get my hands on notices from all over the northern lands these days? Emhyr has them picked up by his - well Morvran’s now, I guess - administrative troops or governing agents or whatever the occupying forces are called this time of year. Of course we pin only the nice ones but there are plenty.” Ciri had to look away because the pride in his grin was a bit embarrassing to see when you were its source.

“How long had it taken him to conclude that I wasn’t dead?” she asked, looking at the pretty Toussaint floor tiles.

Geralt snorted. “About half a second.”

Ciri looked up sharply. “You said it was done, you told him.”

“Yes, I told him exactly what you asked me to tell him. Didn’t think you needed to know he hadn’t believed one word of it, though. He pretended to believe it, very ostentatiously. Made it clear he’d play along. That was good enough back then.”

Ciri nodded.

“He’s proud of you.” Geralt was relentless. “He does understand. Offering you the throne was mostly a brain fart he had, the greatest thing he could think of to give to you in an attempt to make up for all the previous shit. He can be really dumb.” Geralt’s smile was different now and Ciri had to look away again.

“I better wash up and get ready for that dinner,” she finally said.

“Yeah, didn’t want to say anything but you smell…” he dodged her blow and got kicked in the shin. “Guest room has been readied. You can stay a while, you know?”

“Thanks.” She blinked. “I might.”