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Robert is a badass who treats killing gods and slaying demons like just another Thursday. Did you know it was inspired by Thairon, the protagonist of my original story, Arrival : Ruptures, long before I began to write it? Comments, likes and reviews are appreciated. Here are the links for : AO3, Spacebattles, Royal Road and Webnovel.
What can you expect from Arrival : Ruptures:
Thairon the Genius MC with technology far ahead of the planet who does not take anyone's attitude,Skyler, his younger brother who is trying to save humanity from itself,Kael who is a chaos gremlin helbent on causing trouble,Tomoe, the female lead that is not a damsel in distress and knows how to kick ass,Individual and military battles, political intrigue and family issues,Expanding universe that you can be a part of as well.
Today is the day for you to join me in any of the links above.
—
Novigrad
"You brought spectators?" Robert asked.
Ciri was strolling into the arena. Shoulders straight and her Gwent face on, she was as confident as always. Her family and friends were following her this time, though. Geralt had always accompanied her, but his Witcher comrades, Yennefer, and the Sorceresses had joined her as well.
"No harm in it. They just wanted to see me finally kick your arse," she said in a light, energetic tone.
"Oh? I should take this seriously then," he said. He held the sword by the blade, willing the handle to expand. It took the shape of his hammer, one end flat to break everything in its path and the other carrying a hook that was just as deadly.
She drew her sword, holding it parallel to her body. "Your idea of taking this seriously is a big, ugly hammer?"
He twirled the hammer. "My first ever weapon. The one I'm most proficient in."
"Giving your best for me then? I'm touched."
He winked at her. "I can't let my ass get kicked by a dainty little thing like you. Imagine how my reputation will suffer."
"Geralt," Yennefer whispered to her lover as she narrowed her eyes. "Am I imagining this or are they…" She couldn't finish the sentence, swallowing her saliva to soothe her dry throat instead.
"Flirting? Yeah, they are," Geralt said. It had come as a surprise to him too. The first days of training were just that, training. Then Robert had started to banter, and Ciri responded. Nothing else had happened, but the two were strangely getting along well.
Too well.
He had said nothing. Ciri, after all she had gone through, more than deserved to experience the different aspects of life. Flirting was definitely one of them, and he knew Robert was a good man. A part of him still didn't like the idea for some reason.
He could not name the cause.
His attention was diverted back to the arena as sword and hammer clashed. Ciri did not have the physical power to match Robert, but the astonishing growth of her control over the Elder Blood gave her an edge. Her sword glowed ghostly white, thrumming with each strike.
Robert was taking the spar seriously. Her strikes were actually dangerous. A glancing blow in their last training session had given him a nasty wound on his arm. It was quick to heal but highlighted how she was getting better.
He struck from all sides, forcing her back into defense. She was planning something; he could see it. She tried to get inside the reach of his weapon. She had no chance of winning in hand-to-hand combat.
Hence the reason he thought she was planning something.
She thrust her sword forward to his chest. He brought his hammer down on her, feet positioned so he could turn around when she teleported to his back. She did blink as he expected but only a foot to the side and ahead. Her sword clanged on the ground as her hand suddenly appeared less than an inch over his belly. She touched him before he could react.
This manner of precision was not something she had shown before.
The ghostly energy spread from her palm, washing over him like a veil. His senses went haywire, and the world around him changed. His arm snapped down to catch Ciri, but to his surprise, his hand simply went through her.
He stopped, posture falling slack, and waved his hand through her hair. It went through as if she weren't even there. Ciri pulled her stretched arm back, dusting her clothes, her eyes glinting. The mischievous smile on her face told him her plan was a success.
"Got you now." she said. "You talked about higher dimensions and whatnot. I thought to myself, what if they existed and I could control them?"
He chuckled. She had gotten him good.
"I'll gladly accept your surrender if you could stand in front of my palm."
He did so and was quickly brought back.
He raised his hand, yielding the bout.
"Not bad. Didn't see that coming."
"The training's been working wonderfully," she said. On the side, behind everyone else, Avallac'h was watching the scene with disbelief. He had spent months training Zirael, and she was far from mastering her abilities. What had this dragonlord done for her mastery to improve so much?
"Up for another round?" he asked. He had to get her back now.
"I have to even the score," she said, picking her sword up.
—
After four matches that took an hour each, they sat down to rest. Most of the spectators had left by then. Only Yen and Geralt had stayed until the end. The raven-haired sorceress was curious to see how much Ciri had progressed. She had won twice against Robert in total, leaving their score at forty-six to two.
Considering she couldn't think of anyone that could defeat Robert, it was a miracle.
—
Robert sat down next to Ciri, handing her a large cup of water, drawing the heat and cooling it beforehand.
"You know," she said after sipping half the cup, "this is a really convenient ability to have." Cold drinks at any time she wanted? She would give all her royal and imperial titles for that.
"It is," he said.
"My lord," Margarita came, carrying a glass candle. "Your grandmother wishes to speak to you."
"Sure, connect it." With his words, Margarita ignited the candle, bringing to the screen his grandmother's grumpy face.
"Grandma!" he said, the joy visible in his tone. "You look radiant as usual."
She scoffed, not in the mood. "Cut the flattery. I just handed the Stark girl and her son to Rickard Stark. Stannis has already stationed men on the land. Your company is building a temporary wall." Thankfully, her sole task was to only handle the matters of utmost importance.
"Swell. Can you tell Slifer to blast the land apart until the sea connects on both ends?" he asked. By the time he returned, the canal would be seeing traffic.
"I already have. He was getting irritated in King's Landing. It'll give him something to do," she said.
"Thank you. Why don't you go and rest? Let Father handle the matters." Her grumpiness could be attributed to many factors. The bags under her eyes and the weariness in her stance, though, could not be.
"I intend to. In fact, once this whole damn affair simmers down, I am going to visit the Summer Islands," she said.
"Have them send the costs to Asgard." He would buy her a mansion or two there and cover all the expenses.
"Who is the young lady?" she asked, straightening up. Her demeanor became more lively now, and he knew why.
Ciri waved at the screen. "I'm Ciri, a monster hunter."
"A monster hunter? Exactly the kind of person Robert would befriend," Rhaelle said. The screen faded away like embers in the wind, leaving the two alone.
"I like her," Ciri said. She truly reminded her of her grandmother.
"Told you she is tough."
"Got something on your mind?" he asked. In moments of peace like this, her mind drifted to the myriad of troubles plaguing her.
"It's been a week, and the Wild Hunt is nowhere," she said. The moment she appeared in a new world, the Hunt would be right on her tail. Even if she were in Novigrad, this silence was too much.
"You said it yourself. Their navigators can't bring them in large numbers. They must be amassing their forces to attack Novigrad," he suggested. It would be the logical choice.
"If you have nothing to do, why don't you drop by Rosemary and Thyme earlier?" she asked.
"Sure."
—
Rosemary and Thyme
Having already dumped all his work on Roche while supervising, he had ample time to himself. He took Ciri's offer after a two-hour break to clean up.
The said Witcher was sitting by herself, sipping her drink. He took the empty seat across her as the hustle and bustle of the inn faded. His arrival had that effect usually, which is why he only came late at night to sleep.
"Hey, here," she said, passing him a deck of Gwent cards. Unlike the game, there were no hero cards of individuals like Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri, and many more. The cards were composed of soldiers of various ranks, from infantry to generals, or their equivalent in non-human decks.
"Since we can't spar all the time, I thought we'd play cards instead."
"Works for me," he said, taking the deck. Mostly low-level soldiers and random spell cards with standard environmental cards, it was a beginner's deck.
"Your grandmother was a Targaryen, right?" she asked. The history of Westeros, especially the political issues, was a mess that would leave the nobles of the empire gaping like fish. An incestous royal family of dragonriders and an army of undead beyond a wall of ice led by creatures of frost were certainly more than they could handle.
"Oh yes. Her father was Aegon the Unlikely, who destroyed himself and almost the rest of his house while trying to hatch dragons. She married my grandfather when her brother, Duncan Targaryen, fell in love with a commoner and broke his betrothal to grandfather's sister. Lionel, my great-grandfather, rebelled after that. He lost, of course, and my grandmother's betrothal to Ormund Baratheon was established to mend the wounds," he said. It was a well-known tale how Rhaelle was offered to House Baratheon for peace.
"They sold her for peace," she said, her tone falling flat.
"Yes. All her siblings married for love. She alone married for duty." Not that his grandmother regretted her decision.
"And you?" she asked. A noble of his status, with power, wealth, and dragons under his command, should certainly be married. She never heard Robert mention a wife or a lover.
"I did have some interesting adventures on that front," he said, launching into a tale of his lackluster love life. His desire to marry Lyanna Stark to be brothers with Eddard; his refusal of Shayera's hand; and, of course, his suitor from Yi-Ti, Mei Lin.
"Why didn't you marry her? She seems exactly the kind of person you'd like," she said.
"She believed her abilities were lacking with how easily I defeated her."
Their card game evolved into a tool to occupy their hands while they shared stories. He spoke of the Archdemon of Valyria; she spoke of her visit to the dystopian Night City. He spoke of how he convinced the giants and the Children of the Forest to join him; she mentioned her visit to an abandoned hold carved into a mountain. That alone wasn't descriptive enough, but the speaking dragon that was roosting on a mountain of gold was enough for him to understand where she had visited.
"Erebor? You went to Erebor?" he said, his voice cracking near the end. She had visited Erebor?!
Ciri tilted her head to the side. "How do you know its name?" She had barely stayed there for a couple of hours to catch her breath. Learning the name of the keep was not in her priority list.
So how did Robert, who had no way of traveling between worlds, know it?
"I see them in my dreams. Worlds, events, and people I never encountered before," he said. The dragon dreams were, in essence, a weaker version of her prophetic trances. She knew what it was like and believed his excuse.
Turns out, The Lord of the Rings wasn't the only universe she had visited. She had seen a horde of corrupted creatures led by an archdemon, heard the legends of a man who spoke the tongue of the dragons, and witnessed humans fighting enormous monsters for support and survival.
"Damn. I'm jealous now," he said. What would it be like to visit all those worlds, experience their stories, see the sights, and meet the heroes? Of course it came with its share of troubles, mainly the Wild Hunt, but if she could trap him in that manner, they wouldn't be an issue soon.
"Not when you always find yourself in mortal danger."
"Because you had limited control of your powers. Would it be the same if you had total control?"
"I suppose not," she said. She put down her final card, winning the game.
She got up from her chair, looking at the setting sun, stretching her body. "Didn't realize we were sitting down for so long."
"Yeah. How the time flies," he replied. The usual complement of Witchers and Sorceresses had already filled the inn, though they had chosen to leave the two of them alone.
"Maybe once the Wild Hunt and the White Frost are dealt with, I can take you to those worlds."
"Now that sounds like a great idea."
"You know nothing of the dangers that could lie in those worlds, and you wish to travel there?" Avallac'h said as he approached the two of them.
Robert looked at the elf as if he were deaf. "Yeah? That's like half the fun."
"Fun? You must be troubled in the mind to consider that fun," the elf said.
"I did things you couldn't imagine. What is insane for you is just a fun excursion for me."
"You know nothing of me," Avallac'h scoffed. The irritation he felt at the d'hoine was enough to break his stoic demeanor.
Robert smirked, sitting back down. "I'm a pretty observant guy. Just looking at you was enough to learn a lot."
"Empty words."
"Then there is no harm in me proving you otherwise, is there?" He got up, the infuriating smirk still on his face.
"I researched this whole Elder Blood matter a bit. No one knows its origin, only that one day an elf by the name of Lara Dorren had magnificent powers over space and time," he said. It was time to lore bomb them a bit.
"But you," he pointed at the elf, "your knowledge and the way you treat those powers? You know more than you are letting on. It's not just the obsession of a researcher either. She told me how shocked you were when she shifted you out of this dimension. You had no reason to be shocked unless it went against everything you knew." A researcher who had witnessed what Ciri could do should have been intrigued, not shocked.
"How could you think you know everything about the Elder Blood by researching it when most of the carriers never manifested those powers?" he asked. His question wasn't aimed at Avallac'h in truth.
"Yes, Avallac'h, how?" Ciri asked, crossing her arms. She had respected the sage's silence on the matter so far but not now.
"He thinks he knows everything about the Elder Blood because it is not a natural source of power. It was created, and he knows the power of your blood like a blacksmith would know a blade he created," he said.
His words shocked the room into silence, only the sound of Ciri stumbling breaking it.
He turned to Avallac'h, getting awfully close to his face. "You, probably with more elven sages in it too, created the Elder Blood through careful genetic selection. You think you know everything the Elder Blood can do because you were responsible for its existence."
"But that's not all, is it?" he asked the frozen elf.
The fun had yet to begin.
—
In the next chapter:
"When you think no one is looking, I see the way you glance at Ciri. The grief and regret in your gaze are quite palpable. Not at Ciri but at what she represents. The result of Lara's choices, of how she fell in love with a human," he said. Of course he hadn't actually caught Avallac'h like that, but he knew enough that it did not matter.
He approached even closer, almost whispering to the sage's ear. "You were in love with Lara, weren't you? And not just because she was the end result of your research. But then she said fuck you to Aen Elle and married a human."
"Think I know enough?"
"Avallac'h?" Ciri said, stiff as a statue. Her breathing was intensifying, though, with a growl on the back of her throat.
The elven sage said nothing, simply turning around and leaving.
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