Summary: An extended scene in Vizima, Prologue

Disclaimer: The characters and story of this short scene are based upon Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher series and the video game series by CD Projekt Red.

Spoiler Warning: This story contains spoilers from Sapkowski's book and the CD Projekt Red games.

Vizima - Prologue - Extended Scene

"And Geralt, I know it's wartime, but try not to be a hero, all right? Just check those leads and come back to me - in one piece." Yennefer said, and after a chaste but tender kiss, continued, "I shall be waiting."

As she walked away, Geralt glanced back, twisting at the waist. Yennefer stretched her arms towards the ceiling, her body tensing as magic coursed through her, a conduit for energy. Forcefully, she swung her arms downward as if she were to physically rend a gash into the air itself.

A swirling, spiraling pool appeared at the far end of the room, the portal tearing a hole between worlds and realms. Maybe even time as well. Geralt hated them. The sensation of bleakness, the nothingness, the loss of control. One could also be torn in half during travel. Another experience the witcher hoped to forever avoid.

He turned. "Yen, wait."

She paused at the threshold, her head turning slightly to peer back over her shoulder. Strands of black hair obscured her expression from his view, though he could see the slender profile of her nose.

"I searched for you for months." He rumbled and took two steps towards the sorceress, gesturing to her with an outstretched hand. "I had a different idea about this moment."

Yennefer sighed, exasperated as she turned to face the witcher. "What did you expect, Geralt? That we would sit and have tea and sweet cakes under a poplar tree by the brook? Every moment we tarry, Ciri is in danger. You have to find her. Without delay."

"I will," he stated. "But 15 minutes won't change that." He waited, watching as she weighed the consequences of staying. Before she could leave, he spoke. "Letho put me on your trail. Told me you were with him and a few other witchers for a while before you were separated."

"Really? You wish to wax lyrical about my adventures with a trio of witchers that make a band of Temerian bandits look like knights of Toussant?" Yennefer shook her head and flippantly disregarded the thought with a flick of the wrist. "It doesn't really matter. How I got here, or how you came to White Orchard. It doesn't interest me."

"Well maybe it interests me," Geralt said.

Yennefer crossed her arms, and the portal at her back closed. "Is that so? Perhaps, I should regale you with tales of my time with Istredd?" She paused, and when Geralt's lip curled in disgust, she continued. "That is what I thought. What makes you think, then, that I want to hear of your trysts in Foltest's court?"

"That's not what I meant," Geralt growled. "Frankly, I don't really like thinking about it. Maybe it's not a good excuse to you, but I lost my memory. I just had these faint visions and nothing else really to go by. I remembered a sorceress, I think. Just couldn't ..." His brow furrowed in recollection, and he shook his head. "Grmm, Nothing made sense to me. Everyone seemed to know me, and I had no idea who any of them were. And for some reason, none of them thought it was a good idea to maybe remind me about certain important things. You, for instance. Or Ciri. Or anything about me. Not Triss, not Dandelion. Vesemir, none of them."

Placing her hands on her waist, Yennefer leaned into her hip. "Tell me, Geralt. Now that you have your memory back, so you say, are you actually shocked that Triss did not tell you anything? Think long and hard about that as it should not come as a surprise."

He reflected on Yennefer's question. Though he hated the thought, he understood why Triss remained silent about his past. She even mentioned, at one point, that it was good his memory was returning, as people would no longer take advantage of him. She had included herself in that comment. He still did not understand why Dandelion said nothing, or Vesemir. He sneered. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Did I suggest you did?" Her brow arched in question. She shook her head and huffed, closing the distance between them. Glancing towards the door through which the Niflgaardian ambassador worked, she lowered the volume of her voice and addressed the witcher. "Geralt, listen to me. This is not the time, nor the place to hash out the differences in the turn of events over the last few months. I am not angry with you, or Triss for that matter. I don't have time to be angry. Frankly, I would have been stunned if she did not take advantage of your apparent amnesia."

"There was nothing apparent about it," Geralt replied. "Is there anyone else in Novigrad that might know something about Ciri?"

"Doubtful," she answered with a casual shrug. "The Northern Realms are aflame, and any connections I may have once had are unreliable, at best. Deceased, at worst. Triss Merigold is the only lead we have. And to put it simply, I'm counting on her to bend over backwards to help you in the hopes to please you. And if it does? Well … there you have it."

Geralt wasn't sure he wanted to have it at all. Whatever it was. Actually, this wasn't at all what he wanted. Only two days ago, he sat in a corner of the inn at White Orchard with a tankard of rye thinking about what would happen during the first meeting with Yennefer after so long apart. Not that he assumed everything would be perfect, but he was certainly not expecting an audience with the Nilfgaardian emperor, or that Ciri had returned and was pursued by the Wild Hunt.

Or that he and Yennefer would have to part so quickly after the years apart.

Instead, Geralt had wanted to convince her to go to Kaer Morhen, to spend time away from everything, enjoying her company. To laze down by the lake, to swim in the cool spring waters while the sun was high, to make love on the shore beneath the pines.

Yennefer's lip quirked slightly at one side as she regarded him with amused interest, and Geralt knew then that she was reading his mind. How often had she done such a thing in their past? When she did, he would think of beautiful, wonderful things to make her smile. Just like those other times, Geralt turned his thoughts to what would make her happy.

He remembered a time with Ciri many years ago when his surprise child was at Kaer Morhen. There was only one thing Geralt understood and knew well, being a witcher. And so he had embarked on the task of training Ciri in the same manner in which he was trained as a young boy, with Vesemir's assistance. One day, his little witcheress entered the main room, stood proudly, and stated that she was indisposed for the day. At Triss's coaxing, no doubt, but Geralt recalled the expressions on the faces of the other witchers at her declaration. Of course, they had not thought of her monthly cycle and if that would affect her training, or how to even address such a thing with a girl.

Yennefer gently rested a hand upon Geralt's chest, her smile soft. "She always held her head a little too high, our Ciri. I wish I could have seen it. A princess looking down at her peasants."

"Yeah, it felt kind of like that." Geralt replied.

"She tried such an excuse with me at one point," Yennefer stated and glanced up at the witcher with stern eyes. "It didn't work."

"She had us wrapped around her finger." After a few moments of comfortable silence, he rumbled. "We'll find her."

"I know."

Geralt did not object when the sorceress backed away from him, nor did he stop her when she summoned a portal and stepped into the swirling vortex without a word.