[Chapter Size: 2200 Words.]
Third Person POV
Ellander.
...
...
It was possible to say those two dried each other's tears together, since they spent at least five minutes crying in one another's arms, while Ciri seemed unwilling to let him go for anything in the world the entire time, and Aren appeared to share the same intention.
She pulled away from him slightly and began kissing his little face.
"I'm so happy to have you in my arms... but I can't monopolize you completely, son. You have to meet your father," she said.
That stirred Aren, whose eyes were slightly red as he clung to his mother's hair. He looked at her, then looked at Madara, who was standing against one of the corridor's pillars with his arms crossed beside them.
His father's eyes seemed sharp, but he was quite calm. Ciri took the initiative to pick Aren up and carry him over to Madara.
"Meet your father, Aren. He is the strongest man in the world. Madara Uchiha," she said. There was no better way to define him.
"Uchiha..." Aren widened his eyes as he looked at Madara with hope and realization, after all, he also had the name Uchiha in his own name. After all, he was Aren Uchiha!
Madara took him without any problem, then pulled him close and embraced him while feeling the little hands wrap around his neck.
"It's good to meet you, son," Madara said softly.
"Daddy..." Aren murmured, squeezing him with his little arms and pressing his face against the man's shoulder, the same way he had done with Mommy.
Watching this, Ciri couldn't make any effort to stop herself from joining them and hugging them both together.
Her arms immediately wrapped around the two of them. "I'm so happy... so happy that we're finally reunited... so happy that our family is finally together and nothing else will separate us anymore..." Ciri said with her eyes closed.
"You promise?" Aren suddenly cried out. "Promise you won't go away?" he practically demanded.
Ciri, unable to shed any more tears, held them even tighter as she took Aren's little face and placed it in front of her.
She gave a smile more confident than any she had ever shown before. "I promise. I promise that we will never be separated again. We will never stay so far away from you again... And I want this day to never end," Ciri declared.
The boy nodded immediately, tears still streaming down, but his little face said everything.
Hurried footsteps could be heard from the other side of the corridor as three women approached.
Among them was the woman who had run after Aren earlier, possibly his caretaker. Another was a priestess Madara remembered having seen many times before while they lived here, and she was one of Nenneke's direct assistants.
But the one in the middle drew the most attention.
Nenneke herself.
She looked at them with surprise and joy as she watched Aren still in Madara's arms, while Ciri remained there, rubbing the boy's face with extreme tenderness.
"So it really is you...?" The question had an obvious answer. She simply seemed unable to believe that Aren's parents had finally returned.
Madara looked at her. "It's been a while, Nenneke. How have you been?" he asked.
The next moment, everyone was inside the temple.
Ciri was sitting beside Madara, now with Aren clinging to her and refusing to let go in any way, while Madara was mainly speaking with Nenneke and the other women.
"Three years, Madara... three years. Where have you been?" Nenneke murmured.
After the initial greetings, the questions finally began to arise.
"We traveled through other worlds until we managed to return to this one," Madara said with a sigh.
That even caught Aren's attention, and he turned his face toward his father. "To other worlds?" he murmured.
"Yes, son. Your father and I were very far away... very, very far away," Ciri said sadly.
"I heard it was the unicorn who took Ciri away, and then you went along with her. Couldn't the unicorn bring you back?" Nenneke asked with dissatisfaction.
"The unicorn died simply for doing what it did. I won't go into details, but it was necessary. Otherwise, Aren and I would not exist," Madara replied.
Although Nenneke raised an eyebrow at something like that, she did not delve deeper into the subject, understanding that it certainly involved something between them and their goddess.
"We arrived in this world six months ago. We fought against the other continent and finally reached the true continent this morning," Madara explained.
"You dealt with the threat from the other continent?" Nenneke seemed hopeful.
She already understood why the gods wanted them so much. Because of that, she had even received signs to protect Ciri during her pregnancy and keep Aren safe.
"Yes. We dealt with a good portion of our enemies, to be honest," Madara replied.
There was almost nothing left between them and their final goal: establishing Cintra once again.
"That's good..." Nenneke said in a satisfied tone.
She was happy that everything was working out in the end.
"And now that you're here... you won't leave again, right?" she asked nonetheless.
Madara shook his head. "No. We no longer need to do that. It took us so long because, besides not being able to find this world, we only managed to return thanks to the Wild Hunt itself, which started chasing us to inspect us."
Ciri sighed before continuing. "I also didn't have much control over my abilities at first. I didn't have any teacher. We had to learn on our own. I certainly would have been lost without Madara. He managed to use his intelligence to help me learn about my powers," Ciri said.
And it was true.
Madara asked Ciri to perform various tests while he himself observed the sensation of her abilities through the Sharingan, analyzing her memories and giving feedback.
He could feel Ciri's agitation, her problems. Unlike the original timeline, she did not have that much difficulty with those powers because he could know exactly what she felt whenever she used her abilities.
Furthermore, the control she acquired over the years showed that she began mastering that ability quickly.
Within the first two months, she stabilized the portals used to travel between worlds.
By the following year, she had become extremely skilled at it while they continued traveling from world to world.
After two years of this, she had already fully mastered her power, possessing absurd control over it, more than at any other moment.
She had reached the peak of her abilities.
And whenever she had to display that power in any world they passed through, people became extremely terrified.
It could be said that Ciri terrified many of the worlds they passed through, especially those where they faced enemies and needed to fight together, using the full extent of their powers to survive.
"Anyway, it's all over now... and now we're here. Which makes me ask: how are the others? When was the last time Geralt was here?" Madara asked while Ciri placed Aren on her lap.
"Well, there's a war breaking out in the south, since Nilfgaard is trying to take advantage of your absence," Nenneke simply said.
It was almost funny to think that the empire really seemed to act because of the absence of the two of them, but it also made quite a bit of sense.
"I heard the Boy of Rivia earned a title."
"Yes, it's true. He was named Geralt of Rivia by the queen... Even I couldn't believe it. I haven't seen him in eight months. That was the last time he came here to see Aren."
"Eight months without seeing him?" Ciri asked worriedly while hugging Aren from behind on her lap.
"Tell me, Aren... does Geralt treat you well?" she asked almost like a demand.
"Hm... yes..." the boy answered, seeming a little surprised and even cautious. But then he quickly nodded his head. "Grandpa Geralt is always nice... although he's pretty scary sometimes," Aren said.
Ciri burst into laughter, even catching the boy by surprise. "Ah... that's true. He can be a little scary sometimes. It seems Aren isn't as brave as you," she said playfully in the last part while looking at Madara.
"But I'm not scared! I'm brave too!" the boy immediately panicked at his mother's words about him not seeming brave.
"You must be very brave. After all, you're my son, just like your father's. But any three-year-old boy would be afraid of Geralt," she simply said with a mischievous smile.
Madara merely watched before turning his gaze back to Nenneke, who was smiling. "I hope he hasn't caused any trouble."
"He never has," Nenneke replied with a direct look toward Aren.
The boy was now under a tickle attack from Ciri while he started laughing and tried to push his mother's hands away.
"He is a little boy that everyone here has learned to love. It will be a sad day when he has to leave, and that day is already approaching..." Nenneke said, making the sadness in her voice evident.
She truly seemed attached to the child.
That immediately lifted Aren's gaze, and he looked a little frightened by the idea. "I'm leaving?!"
Ciri became slightly more serious now, looking at him with some caution. "You will come with us, Aren. Mommy and Daddy came to take you so you can live with them now... so that we can stay together forever, as a family..." Ciri said.
The boy looked at her and then looked at Nenneke. He immediately understood what that meant and showed a face divided between living with his real parents or continuing to stay with the women who had cared for him since he was a baby.
Even though he felt he should go with his parents, he had obviously grown attached to the temple priestesses.
"Can't we all live together?" he asked, trying to find a solution.
Ciri let out a quiet humorless laugh before touching her son's face. "Unfortunately, the place where we must go doesn't allow that. We can't stay here, Aren. And you must come with us because you are the prince of a kingdom that your father and I have to conquer."
"A prince of a kingdom?" That was the first time he had heard that.
Obviously, Nenneke and the others would not tell a child that age such a detail, and Ciri did not mind telling him directly.
After all, what mattered most when he was already the biological son of those two? Being a prince was nothing compared to what it meant to have Madara and Ciri as parents.
"Yes. Your father and I lived in Cintra's castle ever since we were children, a little older than you."
"Really?" He seemed surprised, even forgetting his sadness and shock.
Ciri smiled. "They never told you about that? Your father and I have been together since we were six years old. I met him in the forest when I was about to be attacked by a monster. Then he appeared and saved me."
She smiled while Aren stared at her.
Then he looked at Madara, who merely nodded his head.
"Your mother was quite a rebellious young girl back then. She wandered away from Geralt while they were returning to Cintra, muttering words and phrases that a little girl shouldn't say at that age," Madara said while looking at Ciri before turning back to Aren.
She had invoked the Law of Surprise in that forest, and Madara appeared... Madara had been forced to act after that, when she was about to be struck.
"I saved her from some necrophages that were attacking her," Madara added.
"That's so cool!" Aren said before looking at Ciri. "You're so beautiful, Mommy. I've never seen anyone with hair like yours... without being really old..."
That drew laughter from the women on the other side of the table.
"You think so, son?" Ciri asked emotionally.
"Grandma Nenneke said you were very beautiful. She said Daddy fell in love with you and that he was also lucky to have the most beautiful woman in the world. I believe her," he said.
Ciri couldn't help but pull the boy close to her, starting to laugh with joy. "Did you hear that?" she said, turning toward Madara with a smug look.
Madara merely scoffed. "Don't praise your mother too much. She'll start thinking too highly of herself," Madara said, ruffling his son's hair.
Then he turned back to Nenneke. "Anyway, let's hear more about how Aren has been this past year. I'd still like to take our son out for a walk tonight," Madara said while the boy looked at him curiously.
Obviously, they would not sleep at the temple. Madara wanted to take Aren somewhere they could spend time together as a family.
And Ciri did not seem displeased about that at all. In fact, that excited smile began appearing as she talked to Aren about the options they had.
At least now, after three years, they could enjoy the continent while both of them were able to teleport wherever they wanted.
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