Chapter Text
The school cafeteria was a zoo of loud kids and sliding trays. Caelan was sitting with Josh, Marcus and a couple of other friends, trying to look interested in a slice of cauliflower pizza.
He was genuinely interested although a tad dubious about Josh's newest project which the latter was currently telling them about.
An old friend had invited him to an underground Battle bot league, and Josh became instantly hooked. The others at the table, despite their various opinions about the sport, respected his commitment.
They’d all heard the rumors of interesting betting getting mixed in by some leagues, blurring the lines of legality, but Josh told them he wasn't into that. He was just there to have a good time.
Caelan even went with him a couple of times to check things out. He had to admit, the strobe lights, pumping music, effusive energy and actual craftmanship on display all made it kind of fun to experience.
They each might have had their doubts but in the meantime they were just looking out for their friend. Josh was presently explaining how he rejigged the chassis for an RC truck, stripped the plastic body and welded scavenged metal plates onto the frame.
In his excitement, he pulled out a box from his backpack, and took out the model to show them. The others exchanged furtive glances.
"Josh man. You're gonna get us in trouble," Marcus warned.
The bot itself wasn't the problem but Caelan was sure the dozen or so three-inch, filed-down roofing nails Josh fitted into the top carapace, was probably a violation of five different school codes.
The friends instinctively huddled around to shield from the prying eyes of teachers and random staff floating around the cafeteria.
Josh was explaining his strategy for an upcoming challenge, proudly declaring he'd built the ultimate defensive perimeter. "Nobody’s flipping this over without shredding their tires," he said.
"You're going to shred your own hand just carrying it," Maya, the pragmatic one of the group muttered, shaking her head.
Suddenly, a small commotion erupted at the next table where a group of older high schoolers were messing around, shoving each other.
One senior, a guy twice Josh’s size, got pushed hard. He stumbled back, his entire weight crashing toward Josh, who had his back turned.
Caelan didn't calculate and he definitely didn't "fake" a struggle in the milliseconds before impact. His friend sat oblivious. Face directly in line and inches away from the sharp spikes.
Caelan shot around and caught the older boy’s shoulder to break his momentum. But in his flash of motion, he'd bumped the edge of the industrial-grade cafeteria table bolted to the floor. The sound of crunching concrete and crushing steel made Caelan feel slightly sick.
The table swung wildly to one side and trays slid, spraying french fries and soda bottles everywhere while everyone looked on in stunned silence.
"Whoa," Josh whispered, staring at the craters in the floor where the table legs had been fastened. “Cael dude…what the...?"
Caelan felt his heart rate rise just slightly, an unusual and unsettling feeling stemming not from the effort, but from the terror of being seen.
"The bolt must have been loose," He stammered, his voice cracking. "I just... I’m sorry. I gotta go."
He grabbed his bag and scrambled for the exit, leaving his friends and everyone there staring at the mess.
Caelan cycled through town, aware he was going faster and faster. The chain of his bike rattled against the frame, a sound that used to be background noise but now seemed amplified enough he could hear the specks of paint chip and float away in the wind.
The world took on new clarity—the smell of last night’s rain on the asphalt, the heartbeat of a stray cat up on a window sill, the way the late afternoon sun pulsed behind his eyelids. He kept pedaling faster, as if he would escape gravity.
He stopped at the cemetery where his sister was laid to rest. She'd be almost thirty now.
His mother explained what happened. About the accident. How she, Rebecca Tourminet, was snatched from the jaws of death by a mysterious man who had many names but no name. He who remains. How her baby was born but did not survive.
After that, she became Ravonna Renslayer. Remade and subject to the man's will; traveled backward and forward through time, commanding order across eras and a multiverse of reality, existing outside of it. Not immortal, but something else.
Then natural chaos swept in like a whirlwind. The past came back with a vengeance, killing one version of her captor, releasing her from those bonds and condemning her to wander in a wasteland.
Caelan knew the story well. How in that moment his father appeared, sent by mages from his own world, summoned through a temporal anomaly.
The two had come together for a time before the witcher returned home to live out his purpose, unaware he was going to be a father. The rest was history still being written.
Caelan said a quiet goodbye to Heather, got back on his bike and kept pedaling.
The houses he passed grew farther apart, the spaces between replaced with golden fields and wide open skies. He passed their elderly neighbors. Joe the husband was tending the asparagus patch next to the house.
His wife, Harriet, was out front playing fetch with their collie. Cael returned her wave as he went past. The smile on her lips faltered slightly, as if she sensed things were not okay.
As he turned into the driveway where he learned to ride a bike so long ago, he realized he was mourning them already. His friends probably texted, but he’d turned his phone off.
They’d laugh about the crazy thing that happened at school today, and talk about the Chem test coming up on Friday and the new season of their favorite show.
They’d ask if he was okay. They’d have no idea that the "adrenaline" they thought they witnessed was something else. Something ancient waking up in his blood. He would miss them all.
He put his bike away and climbed the porch steps, his pace slowed down as he took in everything around him, knowing it would be the last time.
Summer nights with his mom, when the sound of music flowed melodiously through the house and out to the porch where over the years they'd sat and looked up at the stars. Winter days by the fire spent reading or at play. His mother loved play.
His bedroom, messy and safe, filled with the posters and junk of a boy who didn’t exist anymore.
He feels the Path calling, a calming, clear necessity that makes Earth feel like a dream he’s finally waking up from.
When he opened the door, the look on his mother's face when she saw him said all. She must know the time had come, and his chest ached at the pain and resolve in her eyes.
“Do I have to be okay with this right now?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “You don’t have to be okay today.”
“Do you need me to pretend?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Please don’t.”
Ravonna wrapped her arms around her son and breathed in deeply.
She was urgent but unrushed. They had at best a couple of hours before the routine reporting that made its way up the chain to O.X.E and eventually the GTVA as it was contractually bound to, would flag the incident and her phone would ring.
The drive north was a calculated risk. The TemPad would work from any location but Ravonna felt something about the air there felt closer to the edge of the world.
The dull ache in her belly as they approached, a reminder of the man with whom she traveled this road a lifetime ago.
Ravonna parked the car as close as she could get to the rocky outcrop.
"You can change your mind," she said softly, "We’ll find another way. There’s got to be another way. I could tell Val–."
"I'll be okay, Mom," he said, his voice thick. He reached over and gripped her shoulders. To Von, his hand felt weighty and steady, he was calmer than he should be. "Thank you. For everything. For keeping me, even though it’s been... hard."
"I didn't just keep you, my darling boy" she whispered, leaning in to press her temple against his. "I loved you. I love you. Every part of you."
She pulled back, her eyes shining as she held his gaze “Every part of you. Never forget that, okay,"
“I won’t. I love you more.” He said, gently brushing away the tears that wet her cheeks
“Not possible,” She chuckled, and he smiled too, through his own tears.
They stepped out of the truck and Von pulled the device from her coat—its familiar technology responding with sleek efficiency as she dialed the coordinates. The air split open in a shimmer of orange light and the countdown began.
Ravonna and Caelan held hands and stepped through the doorway, falling upward and landing instantly in the Void. The vast and silent expanse enveloped them, its stillness so deep it felt heavy.
Then, Caelan felt the vibration in his very marrow. His Witcher senses, often a chaotic swirl of overstimulation, locked onto a single point in the distance. Someone was reaching out—a psychic tether as strong as a physical pull.
"They're waiting," he whispered, his eyes wide just as the space in front of them began to crackle with a different kind of energy—familiar to both in the rawness of its magic.
A portal of swirling white light tore open, and a woman stepped through. She was draped in leather and furs, a silver sword hilt peeking over her shoulder, her hair the color of moonlight.
"Ciri," Von breathed, her voice breaking.
Ciri’s sharp, emerald eyes softened and she stepped forward to take Von’s hands in hers. "You look just as I remembered,” Ciri said, her voice had a warm raspy maturity. ”You kept him safe. I know how much that cost you."
Ravonna shook her head. There was no cost too high, no price to match this moment. This end and this beginning.
She reached towards Caelan, took his hand and placed it into Ciri’s. The boy's eyes moved from one woman to the other. He observed the look of profound respect passing between them.
"He is our father’s son," Ciri stated. Then turning to Ravonna she said, "And you will always have a home at Kaer Morhen, my friend."
Ciri turned back to the boy, and regarded him as space and time melted into irrelevance. The milk-white streak in his hair, the tilt of his head.
She did not see an anomaly or the fulfillment of a grand prophecy. This boy who should not exist.
Instead for fifteen winters his presence had been a persistent, quiet familiarity, the restless rhythm she traced a thousand times in her sleep.
When he looked up, the amber of his eyes grounded years of hazy visions into a single, breathing reality that required no introduction.
"Come, Young wolf. Your father is waiting, and the Path calls you."
Caelan turned one last time to his mother. The look that passed between them was a moment and an eternity all at once. And then he was gone.