Chapter Text
The creak of sun-aged wood is subtle in the night as an old ship sways on the swells of the sea. The corvette, flying the colors of Redania, is quiet as her inhabitants slumber below deck, their hammocks groaning under their weight and soft snores filling her wooden underbelly. The only sailors that stir are the ones who sleepily shuffle from head to bed and the lone watchman perched in the crow’s nest.
The watchman yawns, her spyglass dangling lazily from her fingers as she watches the glittering water, the shine of millions of stars reflected in glistening fractals. The night is unusually clear, this part of the sea normally rife with bad weather and worse waves, but a sailor is never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The watchman sighs, propping her cheek upon her fist and letting her eyes drift shut. It can’t hurt to sleep for a few moments, after all, there’s nothing but the ocean swells in any direction.
When she opens her eyes it’s with a shiver, a shudder running down her spine and her breath puffing before her face. She sits up in confusion, the crow’s nest covered in a layer of frost with her sleeping form imprinted upon its surface. What was once a balmy night has turned frigid, despot, and her stomach sinks as she rises to her feet. In the west, a rolling cloud of fog approaches. She lifts her spyglass.
A ship leads the gloom.
Stained and tattered sails hang from splintered yards, the wood dark with rot. The ship sags under its own weight, yet sails effortlessly towards them, even the ocean herself unwilling to touch such an accursed thing. This ship flies no colors, has no flags or banners or ornaments, no name upon the bow, no figurehead. It is a skeletal visage, crooked masts breaching the sky like withered fingers, darkening the stars that are soon snuffed by the dense steam that follows in its wake.
The watchman inhales shakily, stunned by the sight.
Howls break the silence.
A horrific screech, an ululation of the dead and dying. It gurgles and warbles with a viciousness only rivaled by the thickest of storms.
The watchman claps her hands over her ears as visions of death and drowning dance before her. She staggers to the edge of the crow’s nest, her knees threatening to give.
She has the wind at her back as the railing splinters.
The sea rushes up to greet her.
Her ship never reaches port.
Geralt sighs as he stands at the bow of yet another fucking ship, grinding his teeth as he listens to the squabbling of his ward and a powdermonkey. Why they couldn’t just travel by horse, he doesn’t know, but Ciri had insisted on buying passage aboard a vessel to sail the coast from Temeria to Kovir. A horse would be perfectly fine, Geralt had argued, they won’t even need to set foot anywhere near the North Sea. Ciri had challenged him by calling him a chicken and then swanning off to the docks to find a ship traversing the sea.
Now Geralt is stuck on a fucking ship in the fucking sea with no fucking land in sight.
“You give that back, Mira!” Ciri shouts from somewhere behind him.
“I shan’t!” the powder monkey that Ciri quickly befriended yells back, “found it meself, I did!”
Ciri stomps her foot, “you’ve done no such thing, you fucker. You stole it from my belongings!”
Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose. “Ci- Fiona, let it be.”
“But, Ger- Dad,” Ciri stresses, stomping over to him, “Mira’s stolen my personal effects, oughtn’t I fight for it back?”
He turns around begrudgingly to look down at the deck girl. Her pale skin is tanned from long hours in the sun and her dark hair is tangled and matted. In her hands she clutches an oyster shell and Geralt vaguely recalls Ciri picking up a similar one from one of the ports they docked at not too long ago. He thinks she stole it since the beaches were covered with nothing but rocks and coral.
Geralt sighs again, “is it really so important to you?”
“Yes.”
“Fine,” he crosses his arms and Mira shrinks back from his imposing form. “Mira, give it back.”
“But-” Mira squeaks, “but I found it. I swears, I did. ‘Twas on the ground in ship’s belly.”
Geralt directs a pointed look at Ciri, “go check your things. Perhaps it’s a similar shell to the one you have.”
“I’m certain it’s the same,” Ciri huffs and stomps off towards the stairs that lead deeper into the ship.
Mira’s dark eyes dart between Geralt and the direction Ciri stormed off in, her shoulders pulled tight to her ears. She clears her throat delicately, even as she looks like she’d rather jump into the ocean than stand under Geralt’s scrutiny, “I ain’t a thief, Mister. I found this here shell, sworn on my mama’s grave.”
Geralt hums and leans against the railing as he waits for Ciri to slink back up to the main deck. It doesn’t take long before she reappears, her jaw stubbornly clenched even as she looks guiltily at the wood beneath her feet.
“Well?” Geralt asks when she draws near.
Ciri sighs, “It’s not the one I got from Verden. I’m sorry for accusing you, Mira.”
Mira scuffs her bare foot against the deck, “s’pose it’s alright. Wanna go up the crow’s nest?”
Ciri glances at Geralt, a question in her eyes. When he nods she beams and nods enthusiastically. “Isn’t Reina up there?”
“Sure is,” Mira stashes the shell in a small pouch hanging from a cord tied around her waist, “she done told me she got a new ghost story!”
Ciri and Mira run towards the rigging, quickly clambering up the ropes to the mainsail yard, skittering across the wide beam, and climbing the rest of the way to the nest. Geralt watches them with wary eyes, his lips twisting into a deep frown. He doesn’t particularly like being on the sea, never has, but especially since–
No , Geralt shakes his head, he won’t think about the night the moon burned as dark as the sun. The scene stays with him, as bright as when it happened almost a year ago, every time he closes his eyes; the only reprieve he gets is when he’s forcibly distracted by his and Ciri’s flight across the Continent, avoiding Nilfgaardian soldiers and any mention of pirates or black suns. He knows that Renfri is hunting him, and it leaves him feeling somewhat like an ant beneath a magnifying glass, the ground burning behind him as he flees his death.
He scrubs a hand down his face and turns to lean his forearms on the railing, clasping his hands together as he lets his head drop wearily. He fears he’ll never be able to stop running, from the Emperor, from Renfri, hell even from the ghosts that dog his steps. Half the time he thinks he’s losing his mind: familiar footsteps from beyond closed doors, a whisper of a caress along his neck, a flicker of blue from the corner of his eye. But when he investigates there’s never anything there.
Ghosts are something designed by frightened men to explain what goes bump in the night.
Geralt’s not frightened enough for that yet.
He worries it won’t be much longer until he is.
Geralt is pulled from his morose musings by a hand clapping down onto his shoulder. He jerks, whipping his head around to look at who dares accost him so, and then sighs as he recognizes the first mate. A tall man, Aiden stands of a height with Geralt, his dark skin and darker hair rich in the late afternoon light. If Geralt were a different man he’d be more interested in Aiden, as it is Geralt finds the man vaguely grating as he talks more than he thinks.
“Eric,” Aiden greets jovially, “Why the long face? I can’t imagine our voyage going quite so poorly yet as to leave you looking so aged. What has you so worried?”
Geralt presses his lips into a thin line as he eyes Aiden, debating how much he should filter the truth. “I fear for Fiona’s safety when she climbs the rigging,” he hedges. Not entirely untrue but not the core of his anxieties. “I don’t want to stop her from learning and enjoying herself, but the strong winds sometimes worry me that she’ll fall.”
Aiden watches him with rich, caramel eyes for a beat too long before shrugging, dropping his hand from Geralt’s shoulder, “Ah, what can you do? Children are wont to get into things they oughtn’t and situations more dangerous than their parents would care for. It’s the way of things.”
Geralt grunts, eyes glancing up to where he can see Ciri’s boots dangling over the edge of the crow’s nest. “I suppose. Still, can’t help worrying.”
“You wouldn’t be a very good parent if you didn’t,” Aiden says kindly, crossing his arms and leaning his hip against the railing. They fall into an amicable silence for a while as they watch the sky turn red with the setting sun. After some time, Aiden speaks again. “I’ve heard some interesting rumors.”
“Have you?” Geralt murmurs.
Aiden hums thoughtfully, “Heard there’s folks looking for you.”
Geralt glances over. Aiden isn’t looking at Geralt, but he feels watched all the same.
“What kind of folks?” Geralt asks cautiously.
“The kinds that would pay handsomely for a man with silver hair and a princess.”
Geralt’s blood runs cold. “Mercenaries?”
He holds his breath in anxious anticipation as Aiden shakes his head.
“Pirates.”
Geralt wakes Ciri in the middle of the night, covering her mouth with his gloved hand and holding a finger to his lips. She wakes slowly, squinting groggily at him and sighing as Geralt motions for her to get up. He already has their bags packed, handing her a clean shirt and her boots and turning away to watch the sleeping crew around them as Ciri dresses. Silently, the pair skirts the slumbering sailors to the stairs, ascending into the starlit night.
“What’s going on?” Ciri whispers, her voice loud in the silence.
Geralt guides her to one of the few rowboats, grunting softly as he rolls it over the rail of the ship. “This ship isn’t safe.”
“Why not? No one knows who we are,” Ciri argues.
Geralt shakes his head, “Aiden does.”
“The captain?”
“First mate, actually,” Aiden’s voice comes from behind them and they both startle, spinning around to face the sailor. Aiden has his hand on a pistol on his hip, his lips turned down in a troubled frown. “You didn’t think you could row to land, did you, Geralt?”
Geralt feels Ciri stiffen beside him. “I hoped.”
“We’re miles from shore,” Aiden sighs, “you’d never make it.”
“I can try.”
“And kill the princess, too?” Aiden nods at Ciri. She opens her mouth to argue but he continues talking, “yes, I know who you are, Cirilla. Honestly, it’s a wonder Renfri hasn’t caught you two yet. You’re about as subtle as a rifle. Eric? Fiona? The girl’s middle name that’s also public knowledge?”
Geralt grinds his teeth and refuses to feel embarrassed by his feeble attempts to disguise himself and Ciri. “So what now? You turn us in to the to Black Sun? Or perhaps Nilfgaard?”
“Neither, actually,” Aiden’s disappointed frown slowly eeks into a sly smile, “I reserved that honor for the captain.”
“I thought the captain wasn’t on board this vessel currently?” Ciri speaks up finally, her hands balled into defiant fists at her sides. Geralt would feel pride for her ferocity if his heart wasn’t beating so hard.
Aiden walks past them, drawing a dagger and cutting the ropes binding the rowboat to the ship. “He isn’t.”
Ciri rolls her eyes, “then how’s he gonna do anything?”
Aiden’s smile turns into a feral grin as he looks across the sea, pointing his dagger towards the horizon. “He’s on that one.”
Geralt takes a step closer to the railing to peer at the rapidly approaching galleon and his stomach drops.
A black sun flies in the moonlight.