middaeg | October catch-all [closed]

[ He'd been expecting a question about his name (that's normal and expected when anyone has known him for any length of time), not the oh-so-eloquently phrased one he got. Berserker grimaces, his claws digging into his palm for a moment. It's a long story, not entirely pleasant, but there's no harm in telling it to Geralt.

He takes a deep breath, slowly sighing it out. ]

For doing as he was told. [ His hand relaxes as he looks at Geralt now. ] Let me explain it further...It's a long story.

I trained with a fearsome warrior in the Land of Shadows in order to prove myself worthy of marrying a princess. While training there, a woman named Aife, rival of the warrior I trained under, attacked. My teacher didn't want me to fight, but I did anyway. I ended up defeating Aife and agreed to bear me a child. [ The setup was kind of important for how weird everything is. Irish legends are a fucking mess, sorry. ] I told her to name him Connla and to send him to Ulster. When she did send him to Ulster, he had to follow three vows: to not answer his name when asked, to not change course, and to not back down from a fight.

[ Berserker finds himself staring at his empty shot glass again as he thinks about what happened. ]

Some years passed, I survived my training, received my cursed spear from my mentor, and married the princess. News of a boy causing trouble on the coast, beating up every warrior who so much as asked him anything, reached my king. He said only I was capable of dealing with him, so I went to the coast to deal with it.

[ His gaze drifts back to his companion, still cold as ever. ]

He refused to give me his name and wouldn't back down nor stop what he was doing. He was strong, so I had to use my spear...The curse means it would be used to kill those closest to me. "She didn't teach me that," he said. I figured he was a student of my mentor...Then he said as he was dying that we would have carried the flag of Ulster to the gates of Rome and beyond.

[ Berserker's expression remains unchanged as he finishes his story, though his voice is tinged just barely with sadness. ]

The boy's name was Connla. I killed my son without knowing it was him and it was my own doing. That's why.

[ Asking may have been accidental - a moment of his subconscious yanking the reins away from him - but he's grateful that it happened, and that Berserker is willing to speak with it. Even if it upsets the other man. Such a thing should be upsetting. And perhaps not unexpected; Geralt would have never asked had he not mentioned it earlier, left it sitting on the table conspicuously, waiting for unavoidable future attention.

The most respectful thing Geralt can do is listen, so he does. It seems so many have epic tales, lives of high stations, kings and princesses and wars. A familiar context, at least; on that note, he's beginning to piece together the way these people can be from the same world and be familiar with each other despite seeming to come from wildly different times. So he thinks. (He is wrong. Wildly. Fates u r crazy.)

It is not a relief to hear that Berserker didn't know, truly, what he'd been doing. Because the death someone's child isn't a relief. It's still horrible, and the weight of it - whether or not he says he's used to feeling anything - must be excruciating. Even one of the worst monsters, a real one, that Geralt ever knew, stumbled when faced with knowingly ruining his own child.

He doesn't say anything right away. If they had any more alcohol he might raise a glass to Connla. ]

I have a daughter, [ is what he offers eventually. ] Her name's Cirilla. We call her Ciri.

[ That's why I had to ask. ]

[ It's not something he regrets (Cú Chulainn had no regrets in his life), but he does rue and lament it, to some degree. How cold and broken he is makes that difficult, though even his Caster has trouble interacting with those memories in any meaningful way. Connla is what led to confrontation Berserker and Caster had in a shared dream, the one that resulted in the latter's death. The conversation they had back then replays in his head. "Were you trying to— figure out how you feel about it through me—?" The words Caster spoke as he was bleeding out...He still doesn't know how to feel about it and it's unlikely his lighter side does either.

Berserker realizes he's been sitting in silence and only partially heard what Geralt said. ]

That's why you asked, isn't it? Because you couldn't comprehend someone killing their own child without a reason. It's an impossibility in your life.

Yes.

[ Even before Geralt accepted that he could feel love at all, he loved Ciri. It had come out of his mouth, there at Stygga, as they cut down soldiers trying to escape the castle. You did well. I love you. She had moved under his arm like lightning, slicing the throat of another advancing opponent, stepping lightly over blood-slick stone. I know. I love you too.

He'd understood then, that he'd loved her all along, that she'd taught him just by existing. He wasn't running from the concept of Destiny when he had rejected her - he'd been running from his own emotions and the overwhelming terror of dealing with his own bullshit. ]

I think the worst things I've ever done have been in defense of her. I went to Dorchacht because I knew she'd be disappointed with me if I didn't.

[ Other witchers, especially his wolf brothers, have pinned their actions by Geralt, knowing he has something of a functional moral compass. But in these past ten years, Geralt has navigated by Ciri's. ]

I foolishly tried to teach her neutrality. And she decided, no. Two eyes for an eye.

[ Berserker couldn't relate, if only because he's never had a relationship like that with anyone. Not even Emer, his wife who knew no jealousy, could elicit that sort of response from him. Though the memories of Cú Chulainn aren't truly his memories, they're still as real to him as though they were. ]

I feel like I understand you better now. [ Knowing that. ] You're dedicated...and you have someone worth protecting.

[ Worth being better for. ]

Mm. [ Geralt nods slowly. In the grand scheme of things, Ciri is a recent addition to his life. She's not quite twenty, and Geralt has at last cracked his first century. Even Yen was with him - on and off - before then. And after he'd demanded Pavetta's unborn child as payment, he spent a number of years refusing to accept it, not wanting to put a little girl through the horrors of the witcher life.

Sometimes you just shouldn't argue when fate gives you a baby, but sometimes you're a fucking idiot, so. ]

I wish I could make the world better so she doesn't have to live in such a fucking depressing wasteland. But all I can do is teach her to be strong enough to kill anyone who'd hurt her.

[ That's good parenting, right??? Right. ]

[ It's good enough for Berserker, really. Considering his own upbringing and the fact he was able to kill a lord's guard dog with his bare hands when he was just 12(...ish, the timeline of his legend is a mess), it makes sense. It's practical. Even if his pursuit of it broke him, he knows the value of strength. ]

It's good enough. She will survive.

[ That's praise coming from him. ]

[ That's all Geralt wants. For Ciri to survive and have the life she wants - even if it's not with or near him, even if it's not in their world. He had received so many dreary prophecies and fortunes from every soothsayer and sage on the Continent, it felt like; telling him that he'd succeed in his mission to find her, but then lose her again.

And he did. Because they traveled together, and he trained her, and she left in the middle of the night, leaving him a letter to explain she needs to learn to live without his shadow cast over her. Geralt of Rivia, master witcher-- and a girl? The pain is there, a raw part of his heart, but more than that, he's proud. Because he wants her to be herself, on her own. He wants to meet her again on the Path and learn what name she's taken. Will she be Cirilla of Cintra, or like she wanted when she was a little girl, of Vengerberg? Or just Ciri.

... Zoning out, just a little. Geralt focuses most of his emotion into his loved ones, and sometimes it borders on overwhelming. ]

Thank you. For sharing with me.

[ Geralt won't repeat any of it. It's not his business, and he considers this something special - in whatever way that means. He leans back and looks at Berserker, and looks out at the veiled room below; they can get another round or they can just sit here, or even go terrorize some of the mundane humans playing pool. He doesn't mind which way things go. The company's been fine. ]

[ Berserker just gives a nod in response. If he didn't trust Geralt, he never would have said a word of it to him -- he has the distinction of being the first outsider to learn anything about him beyond just his name. As a rule, he's guarded with the past of his actual life, if only because revealing too much puts Caster at risk, too. No longer a Servant, no longer in a Grail War, but some things were too difficult to let go of.

After the shit they experienced in Dorchacht, this was a necessary reprieve. Another round and maybe some more conversation. Comfortable silence is alright, too. ]

October catch-all [closed]

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