Road Past Blaviken, 1243
"Are we not stopping?" Jaskier asked pointedly, gazing at the towers of Blaviken in the distance.
They usually stopped in any town they passed, whether it was small or large. But Jaskier knew very well that Blaviken was off limits. He just wanted the one tale that Geralt had never told him.
Robin doubted that Geralt would suddenly be forthcoming. He'd never even told her what had happened in Blaviken, which was how she knew it had been something very meaningful to him.
She also remembered a tiny detail he'd let slip in bed one night. That it had involved a princess who had given him a scar.
She both wanted to know and didn't, so she wasn't going to encourage Jaskier this time.
Geralt growled, which was what both Jaskier and Robin had expected. But then he continued to speak, which was something neither of them had expected.
"I'm not welcome in Blaviken. And it hasn't been long enough since I was last here for the people to have forgotten what I did."
"And what did you do, exactly?" Jaskier wondered eagerly, pressing his advantage. "I've heard many versions, Geralt, but none from the horse's mouth, so to speak."
"I killed several men and one woman, and greatly angered their resident sorcerer," he answered shortly.
"Surely you don't think I'll be satisfied with that simple response?" Jaskier retorted.
"He doesn't have to talk about it if he doesn't want to, Jaskier," Robin admonished him.
She had landed on the side of not wanting to know, because the pain in Geralt's voice was obvious.
But his arm tightened around her and he shook his head. "It's all right, Robin. I don't mind, for once."
She almost protested again, but held her tongue. He obviously wanted them both to know. He wouldn't have indulged Jaskier otherwise. So, as much as she didn't want to, she was going to listen.
"Are either of you familiar with the Black Sun?" he began.
Jaskier shook his head as Robin nodded. "It was a curse prophesied by Eltibald, a mage who'd gone mad. He said that sixty girls born during the Black Sun would hail the return of the goddess Lilit and therefore the end of the world. They were all supposed to be royalty, and eventually violent murderesses," she remembered.
"Yikes," Jaskier muttered. "Talk about being born under a bad sign."
Geralt nodded ruefully as he picked up the story from her. "They were hunted down, mostly by wizards. In particular, a wizard in Blaviken called Stregobor. He killed many of them and cut open their bodies to see what he could learn. According to him, they were all mutated internally. Others were merely locked away to die, though some of them eventually escaped."
"Was he right, though?" Jaskier pressed Geralt. "Were they truly evil simply because of when they were born?"
Robin barked out a harsh laugh. "Then you might as well say I'm evil for being born with a talent for magic that affects the dead."
Jaskier's eyes widened as Geralt glanced at him and shrugged. "There is no clear determination, Jaskier," the witcher continued. "Some believe that the curse was self-fulfilling. That the girls ended up inflicting cruelty on others because of the cruel way they were treated themselves."
"That's not a bad theory," the bard agreed.
"There was only one girl left by the time I arrived in Blaviken and met Stregobor," Geralt continued. "Renfri. A princess. She was there and planning to murder him when I arrived to sell a kikimora I'd slain. Both of them wanted to hire me to kill the other."
"Well, who did you side with? It sounds like neither of them was particularly pleasant," Jaskier observed.
"I didn't side with anyone," Geralt revealed. "Stregobor spoke to me first and I refused him. I don't kill humans, after all. I kill monsters. I'm not an assassin for hire. I'm not a bodyguard. He told me that killing Renfri would be the lesser evil."
"There's no such thing," Robin interrupted him. "Evil is evil. The concept's rather simple."
Geralt smiled and rested his chin on her head. "I agree. Which is why I also said no when Renfri asked me to kill Stregobor, though her story was certainly more compelling than his."
"What did she have to say for herself?" Jaskier prodded.
"That her stepmother tried to have her killed," Geralt explained. "But the man decided to rob and rape her first. She killed him with the pin on a brooch she was wearing."
Robin turned slightly and stared up at him. "The gold one that you tried to give to Foltest?"
He nodded. "The very same."
"What, did she give it to you as payment or something?" Jaskier mused. "To try and get you to do what she wanted?"
"No. I took it off her body after I killed her."
Jaskier frowned. "But I thought you said you weren't going to kill either of them."
"I wasn't going to. But they forced my hand. Renfri came to me again after we spoke the first time and told me she was going to leave Blaviken without attacking Stregobor. But she... hypnotized me, I think. It's hard to say. According to Stregobor, she had strange powers. She could make people rally to her cause even if they didn't want to."
"You let your guard down enough to be hypnotized?" Jaskier snorted.
Geralt grimaced. He didn't really want to talk about this part around Robin, despite their arrangement. She knew he'd slept with women before her, of course, but since he'd been sleeping with her exclusively for some time now, it felt disrespectful.
And Renfri had been different. She wasn't a whore. He and Robin weren't in love, but he wasn't stupid. He got jealous, after all. There was no reason she shouldn't.
Ultimately, though, he didn't think any good would come of lying.
"We were... together at the time," he confessed, leaving it at that.
Robin swallowed and stiffened at the admission. Jaskier stammered, realizing that his question had made things awkward. "Oh, I... I see," he added lamely in an attempt to diffuse the tension.
"By the time I woke, she'd gone back to the marketplace. I followed and her men attacked me. I killed them all. Then she attacked me. I told her to stop, but she insisted that she would keep killing unless I killed her."
"So you did," Jaskier finished for him.
"So I did," Geralt repeated. "It was a hard fight. I didn't come away unscathed." He paused and licked his lips. "I didn't want Stregobor to have her body, but when they drove me out of town, I couldn't stop him. I took the brooch, though, as a memento. And a reminder."
"Why did they drive you out of town? It sounds like you did them a favor, really," Jaskier decided.
"They said I'd endangered them all by fighting. They threw stones at me as I left."
Jaskier shook his head. "Well, that hardly seems fair."
Robin squeezed his hand between both of hers. "I'm sorry, Geralt."
"For what, little mage? You weren't there. You didn't do it."
"I'm still sorry," she insisted.
She traced small circles on his hand. "What's the brooch a reminder of?"
"To not involve myself in the affairs of men," he said heavily after a moment of silence. "I have lived for a very long time, and I'll likely live even longer. Too long to bear the personal pain of such encounters. I need to remember that no matter how good one tries to be, evil can always result."
"Personal pain," Robin echoed softly, hanging her head dejectedly.
Jaskier opened his mouth, then thought better of it and shut it again. The story had weight, surely, but not the way he'd imagined. It was actually quite sobering.
Later that night, after they'd made camp and eaten dinner, Robin finally approached Geralt after giving him a wide berth all evening. He looked up at her and smiled kindly, holding out his hand and waiting for her to speak.
She ignored his hand, sitting down beside him and hugging her knees instead.
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment, then forced herself to ask him something she really wasn't sure she wanted to know. At the same time, she had to know, so as far as she was concerned, she didn't have a choice.
"Did you love Renfri?"
"No," Geralt answered immediately and easily. "I felt sorry for her. She thought she was a monster."
Robin had told Geralt she felt like a monster sometimes when they'd first met. And even though he didn't say it in so many words, she knew he felt the same way about himself.
So he pitied her. She'd been alone and helpless. It was only natural. But to think that pity had sustained them for almost four years seemed ridiculous.
Robin opened her eyes and gazed directly into his as she finally asked him the question she'd really been dreading. "Have you ever loved anyone?"
"No." He tilted his head curiously as he stared back at her. "Why?"
She couldn't come up with anything to say that wouldn't instantly drive him away, so she didn't say anything at all.
She could hardly admit that she'd done the one thing he'd warned her not to do. She'd fallen in love with him. She didn't know when it had happened, exactly, but almost losing him in Temeria had finally made her realize it. She'd just been keeping it inside because she knew it was impossible.
And, despite the fact that she'd never been in love before, she knew her love for Geralt was real. It wasn't just because he was the first man who had been kind to her, the first man who had bedded her.
It was because he was a truly good man. A man worthy of more love than she could ever give him, certainly, though she so wanted to be allowed to try.
She knew he cared for her deeply. Or he at least pretended to, which could be even sweeter, in a way, if she really thought about it.
But she also knew that Yennefer's plot was the only thing truly binding them together. Geralt didn't need her. He didn't need anyone.
So once Yennefer's plot was vanquished, he wouldn't want to keep her around anymore.
"I need to be alone," she said abruptly, standing up and hurrying away.
She walked until she thought she was far enough away to be out of the range of his hearing, then fell to her knees and started to sob.
They were horrifying, bereft, gut-wrenching sobs. Because now she knew that Geralt didn't love her. And if he didn't love her by now, he would never love her.
It was a worse feeling than when she thought he might die. It made her want to rot from the inside out until she faded away.
She'd wanted to tell him she loved him when he'd woken, but she'd been too afraid. She hadn't even spoken the words to him when he was in a haze of pain and healing. She'd been too scared.
And her instincts had been right, apparently. She would always have to keep her love to herself, because he would never accept it.
She didn't want to, but if that was the price of being with him, she would pay it.
As the last sobs escaped her, she vowed that, no matter what happened between them, she would not leave his side until he didn't want her anymore. She would have as many years as she could, at least.
And perhaps, as a final desperate gesture, she would declare her true feelings to him. Even though she knew that he would still turn her away, at least she would leave with the knowledge that he knew how she'd always felt.
Back in the camp, Geralt listened to her sobs. He didn't know what had upset her, and he wanted to comfort her, but something kept him rooted to his spot. His instincts told him that going to her would be worse than staying, for some reason, though he couldn't have articulated why if his life depended on it.
Jaskier glared at the witcher for a long moment, then made a sound of disgust and got up to go to his sister. He wasn't going to listen to her cry and not do anything about it.
When he bent and put his arms around her, her breath hitched and she stiffened. If her brother had heard her, Geralt definitely had.
But he hadn't come.
"Robin, tell me what's wrong," Jaskier begged. "Let me try and fix it somehow."
"You can't fix it, Jaskier," she gasped. "Just hold me, please."
He wanted to do so much more, but he didn't know how. So he did what she asked and held her as tight as he could, letting her cry until she didn't have any tears left.
After, he walked her back to camp. Geralt wasn't asleep, but he'd laid down already so she wouldn't have to talk to him or tell him she wanted to sleep elsewhere. He understood needing to be alone, and he didn't want to deprive her of that time.
"I'm all right, Jaskier, really," she assured him quietly so she wouldn't disturb Geralt. "Get some rest."
"Are you sleeping on my side of the fire tonight?" he wondered, gesturing at Geralt.
She shook her head. "No, Jaskier."
He nodded, his brow furrowed. "Suit yourself. I'd be angry at him a while longer, if I were you."
"I'm not angry," she whispered. "There's no reason to be."
She gave her brother a pointed look. They had already come dangerously close to letting Geralt overhear them, and she couldn't risk him discovering what she was hiding. It would ruin everything.
Jaskier stared at her worriedly and shook his head disapprovingly, but he went to his own bedroll and left her alone.
It wasn't fair to try and force Geralt to feel a certain way. Robin had long since ceased to believe the rumor about witchers being unable to feel. It was clear that he felt a great deal. He just didn't feel what she wanted him to feel for her. And she couldn't change it, so she had to accept it.
She knew it would take her some time, but she was going to. Having him halfway was better than not having him at all. Especially when they had to stay together until they stopped Yennefer.
She took a deep breath, bent and used some water from one of their skins to clean up her face, and then went to lie down beside Geralt.
Usually, they fell asleep together, and he would keep his arms around her to make sure she stayed warm throughout the night. Since he'd fallen asleep before her, though, his arms were crossed over his chest, so she wouldn't get that luxury tonight.
But as she settled into place, he moved, tucking the blanket around her, then wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his nose against her neck to breathe her in.
He didn't say a thing. He just held her.
She smiled to herself. In a way, he understood her better than even her own brother did.
For a brief moment, it made her sadder than she'd been before. To have him not love her when he knew her so well was almost cruel, though she knew he didn't mean it that way.
She rested her hands over his and reminded herself that she was perfectly capable of doing this. She could hide the part of herself that burned to say she loved him, and keep it tucked away so that the only person who hurt was her.
It was nothing she hadn't done before, after all. One more comparatively tiny sacrifice would hardly matter, especially when she considered what she would get in return.