The wind had quieted by nightfall, and a hush had settled over the glade like a blanket drawn over the world. The campfire cracked and hissed, flames licking the sky in slow, lazy tongues. Sparks drifted upward before dying into the dark, and the faint murmur of a nearby stream played softly in the background, mingling with the rustle of leaves. Roach was tethered just beyond the trees, chewing lazily. Ciri was asleep again, and Geralt sat with his back against a felled log, one knee drawn up, arms resting loosely, sword laid beside him but never far.

You sat a little to the side, watching him through the flickering firelight. For a while, you said nothing—just let the night wrap around you both. But the words had been swelling in your chest for days now, maybe weeks. You’d tried to bite them back, tried to convince yourself it was foolish, or unfair, or mistimed.

But you couldn't hold them in anymore.

“I ever tell you,” you said softly, breaking the silence, “that I always wanted a child?”

He glanced up at you then, expression unreadable, though his golden eyes glinted with something—curiosity, maybe. Or caution.

“Not the way little girls talk about it,” you continued, voice quiet and steady. “It wasn’t about toys or pink clothes. It was… deeper. A pull. I used to lie awake at night wondering what it would feel like. To carry something that was mine. To know I could protect something, love something, shape something. I think I started dreaming about it before I even knew what the dream meant.”

Geralt’s gaze didn’t waver. His face was stone still.

You inhaled. Exhaled. “And now I look at you. And I know you’d never say it, but I see the way you are with her. How careful you are. How proud, even when you’re trying to hide it. You’d be a good father.”

You paused.

“I think you already are.”

His jaw flexed once. He hadn’t moved.

“So I guess what I’m trying to say,” you whispered, “is that I want that dream. Still. And when I think of it now, I don’t picture it with anyone else but you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t cold—but it was heavy. Crushing. He sat there, unmoving, for what felt like an eternity before his voice came low and rough, like gravel dragged beneath booted feet.

“You know I can’t.”

Your stomach tightened, breath catching.

“I… I know,” you said, blinking hard. “I just—”

“No.” He leaned forward slightly, hands braced on his knees, voice steadier now. “You don’t.”

The words weren’t cruel, but they were sharp. True.

“I’m sterile,” he said, as if the word alone could cleave something clean in two. “The Trial of the Grasses burned that out of us. Long ago. There is no fixing it. No hope of a miracle.”