As always, if you like what you read, [redacted]I hope you enjoy![/pre-story]
Ciri in Heat; Ch. 1
The inn’s wooden door creaked softly as Ciri pulled it closed behind her. The night air was chilly, but not unbearable on her smooth, pale skin, and between the nearly-full moon and her lantern, she could see just fine. She let her emerald eyes close as a fait breeze swept past her, feeling it blow across her skin and through her long, ashen hair. She quite liked nights like this. She felt like she could relax a little, like she didn’t have to be constantly peering into the darkness, watching the treeline for some monster to emerge. It was exactly what she needed, at the moment.
Ciri hadn’t even taken off her usual travelling clothes yet. Her cream-colored, wide-necked blouse was worn loosely around her chest, baring much of her shoulders, a split down the middle offering a tantalizing glimpse of the bra beneath. Leather bands around her upper arms held the sleeves in place so they wouldn’t bind when she moved, fitted leather gloves extended up to cover most of her forearms before flaring out slightly at the end. A thick leather wrap, almost like a corset, hugged her torso from her hips to just below the swell of her breasts. She wore two belts, one a string of engraved metal squares with rounded corners, each bearing a blue stone at its center, which hugged the thinnest point of her already-narrow waist, the other, a simple leather belt that hung off the swell of her hips, bearing a few small pouches and trinkets. Below, she wore soft leather pants, dark gray, almost black, the hide specially treated so as to stretch and shift freely with her movements while still clinging tight to her slender thighs. Her boots rose to almost her knees, fastened with leather straps that wound around her ankle and calf, leaving the uppermost edge loose and rumpled.
She couldn’t sleep. The meeting with her father was still fresh in her mind, even after several days on the road. She tried not to think about it, but that was like putting a lid on the boiling pot of anger and disgust in her core- All it did was hide the problem while it got worse and worse, until it eventually boiled over. He’d really thought he could just… buy her, that he could just offer Geralt a pile of gold and he’d just hand her over. Of course, Geralt had refused payment, but the very idea infuriated her. Treating her like… like something to be bought and sold, traded or wagered, a possession, an animal… Like the horse he’d ‘generously’ given Geralt after his gold was refused.