[Chapter Size: 2500 Words.]
Third Person POV
Mizunagi.
...
...
"Wow..." a sound escaped involuntarily from the lips of the 3-year-old boy as he suddenly watched a huge castle being built right in front of him.
It could already be nighttime by then, but the construction was still clearly visible to him as Madara built an enormous wooden castle out of nowhere, choosing the region between Cintra and Sodden, the place where they always spent time, with Madara constantly creating and undoing this castle.
Chosen for being the best place to spend their first night with their son, since it wasn't a hostile location. Despite the monsters, they would be inside the castle. And the temperature wasn't extreme.
"Do you like what you're seeing, Aren? This is daddy's power," Ciri said with a laugh while holding her son in her arms, as Madara finished building the Japanese-style castle, something Ciri had already become quite accustomed to by now. After all, they had entered some worlds that shared that same design.
"It's incredible!" the boy shouted excitedly while Madara called them to enter the place.
"Can you light the torches?" Madara asked.
She nodded. Madara had already left torches prepared throughout the construction.
All it took was for Ciri to snap her fingers using magic, and suddenly the entire castle began to light up, with more than 100 torches igniting. It was a type of wood that would take days to be completely consumed by the flames, so lighting wasn't a problem for them.
They soon headed to the kitchen Madara had built with the intention of making dinner. He grabbed a storage scroll and began spreading a bunch of things across the table amid an explosion of smoke, while Aren was finally placed on the ground, though his hand was still being held by hers at her side.
"Look what I have here for us to see," Ciri said as she opened a space out of nowhere, a green light like a doorway appearing, slipping her hand inside it and pulling out a book.
None of his parents' powers went unnoticed by him, watching every one of their actions with complete internal amazement, though he also didn't hide it on his face.
Everything they could do was truly incredible, but he couldn't even say anything. It was completely beyond the reality of how he had lived in the temple. Even though Yennefer showed him some tricks to impress him, it was nothing like what his parents were capable of doing all the time.
"Come with me, my love."
Ciri picked up one of the chairs Madara had also built along with the castle and tossed it into a corner of the kitchen. With her magic, she used transfiguration, turning the chair into a comfortable sofa.
Aren was brought over to her while Ciri cuddled him at her side and began showing him the book.
"I know we lost so much time without you, my baby, but we're more than willing to try to make up for that lost time. We want to become a real family, and we know you're hurt. It's okay, you've been alone for so long, and we'll do everything we can to apologize for that."
Ciri said, suddenly with a mature tone, a tone she never would have had 3 years ago. There was sadness, but also acknowledgment. She could imagine her son carrying that feeling of abandonment.
Aren simply stared at her. His eyes became teary and embarrassed. He didn't say anything, he just hugged her, catching Ciri by surprise with the movement.
She knew there was resentment inside him. Ciri wrapped him in a hug, wanting to cry as well.
"Just promise me, then, that you won't leave anymore..." he said, whining softly.
The resentment might have been evident, but so was the desire to have his parents. That was something clear in that little boy.
"I'll keep that promise, son. We'll never abandon you again. We still have enemies, but we'll do everything we can to make sure that never happens again. I promise..." Ciri said while looking at her husband, with her son buried in her arms, crying once again. It was already the third time he had done that since they reunited.
Not even all the fantastic things his parents could do seemed to surpass the feeling of having his parents back.
Madara stood nearby, in front of the table, silently watching. He didn't say anything, merely pulling out a jug of wine and another of orange juice from one of the scrolls while two glasses were filled with wine and one with juice.
He approached the sofa, handing Ciri a glass of wine so she could drink with him, while Aren finally pulled away from her. After that, he handed the boy another glass of juice.
The boy wiped away his tears and thanked him.
"Thank you, dad..." he said.
Even though those words still felt a little strange to him, there was a feeling of belonging.
"It was nothing, son," Madara said, touching his head and messing up his hair a little.
The boy wiped his nose and drank the juice while Ciri and Madara drank their wine after toasting with each other, after all, it was a celebration for them.
Ciri finally remembered the book in her hands.
"Oh, right. Look here, Aren. We have some memories we managed to make in some of the worlds we traveled through. It was a huge mess your father and I got ourselves into. We had to fight against a bunch of wizards who attacked us as soon as we arrived in that world."
"Wizards? Auntie already talked about witches before, that they're terrifying and evil... You fought against them?" the boy immediately asked with a certain horror.
"Actually, those wizards were a little different from the ones in our world, but we managed to get some pretty interesting things from them," Ciri said while opening the book.
"During the three months after you were born, we knew something was going to happen. So we spent all that time not thinking about anything else. We didn't train, deal with politics, or anything like that. All we wanted was to spend our time with you, our beloved son," she said, and the boy merely nodded silently, quite surprised.
Then he saw his mother flipping through the first pages with some things written on them, and suddenly several pictures appeared, all moving, enough to even frighten him a little.
He could see his father and mother there holding a baby in their arms. There were several images, all taken from memories they had from that time and managed to turn into pictures in a world where there was a school of magic called Hogwarts.
Madara had come up with the idea. Ciri had never thought of something like that. She was deeply grateful that they finally had something like this and always looked at those pictures every single day, thinking about how her son must be in another world.
She always felt melancholic. To Ciri, that meant she had a place to return to, someone to protect and care for alongside her husband. So she spent all those years fighting and learning while they tried to find a way back to their world and, at the same time, deal with their enemies.
"How are they moving? Is that me?" the boy, after getting startled, recovered before looking at the image more carefully.
He saw his parents looking a little younger. After all, they were 18 and 19 years old when Aren was born.
"Yes. That's you. We traveled together for three months, staying in several places. I wanted you to see this, that even while far away, we still loved you and would never forget you. I myself looked at these pictures every day ever since Madara managed to find a wizard who made them for us," Ciri replied with a sad smile.
Aren looked at her, also unable to stop feeling a sting of sadness, but there was joy too. His parents truly loved him! He could see that in the images while being hugged by them.
"I... I love you, mommy..." he said for the first time, crying while looking at the baby in the arms of a younger Ciri.
They had only known each other again for a few hours. Obviously, their relationship was still very recent after the reunion, but Ciri wanted to prove to that little boy that he hadn't been abandoned out of selfishness and that he was still loved, even while they were in other worlds...
She wanted the chance to be his mother.
Ciri held him tightly.
"I love you too, son, and I will always love you. We'll become a family this time, nothing else will stop us from doing that!" she continued saying.
"She's right," Madara added his own words while continuing to cook. "Now everything will be different."
Madara said that because, regardless of anything, even if problems still existed, all the anchors were now in that world. They would no longer have to leave it, and Madara and Ciri were strong enough to protect Aren from any enemy.
Madara continued cooking while the atmosphere became much happier.
Ciri started asking about the boy's life. Whether he ate properly, whether he slept well, how Hilda and Nenneke took good care of him, what his relationship with Yennefer, Geralt, and the others who came to visit him was really like.
She wanted to know everything, while Madara listened silently as he also finished preparing their dinner.
As they talked, Ciri also began telling him about their travels between worlds, the adventures she and Madara had experienced, speaking about enemies without mentioning anything a 3-year-old child shouldn't hear.
After all, there had been destruction, massacres, and every kind of violence in many of the worlds they had passed through. But that wasn't something Aren should hear about.
"Once, your father and I went to a world full of technology."
"Technology?" the boy asked in confusion, not recognizing the word.
Ciri scratched her chin, trying to explain a concept she herself hadn't known before experiencing humanity's futurism in other worlds.
"Technology is an advancement that a world has in certain areas," she began carefully. "For example, there are worlds where people no longer use horses to pull wagons. They have a kind of magic of their own..." She tried to apply the concept.
"But it's a type of magic that doesn't even need mages to make the wagon move," she added...
"Creative of you to define cars as wagons and engines as magic," Madara couldn't help but laugh while Ciri huffed.
"What did you expect? There's nothing in this world I can use as a reference! Our son should have learned many things in these three years, but everything was limited to this world," Ciri huffed.
"Do you fight like this?" the boy asked cautiously, shrinking a little at his mother's words.
Even though he still didn't really understand the concepts they were talking about, it sounded like they were exchanging barbs.
Ciri immediately looked at the boy, showing a smile full of tenderness.
"Don't worry about that, son. We're just joking around. Your father and I tease each other a lot, but there's nothing disrespectful between us. Sometimes I'm stubborn, he's harsh, but we never insult each other. We're just playing around, understand? Your father and I love each other the way a man and a woman should, but you don't need to understand that now. Just don't be too surprised when we suddenly start exchanging words like this with each other..." Ciri said.
The boy nodded, still a little cautious.
"I've seen Yennefer and Geralt act like that too... But they seemed angry at each other..." he added.
"Those two..." Ciri murmured in a tired tone. What had they been teaching in front of her precious son?! Ciri immediately wanted to get angry at them.
"Listen, it's true that they love each other and act hostile toward one another, we've witnessed that many times, but your father and I don't go that far... Everything always ends in laughter, and we only stopped because you seemed quite cautious..." she explained.
Madara didn't say anything and continued cooking until he finished everything and began placing it on the table while the two of them kept talking.
"Come, it's ready," Madara said.
Ciri took Aren's little hand and led him to the chair to sit between the two of them.
"Now you're going to taste your father's cooking!" Ciri said cheerfully.
Aren's excitement was evident as Madara himself cut the meat into small strips that a 3-year-old boy could eat and began placing rice and sauce onto his plate.
"Here, son," he said while finishing serving everything.
"You're going to love these ingredients your father makes..." Ciri emphasized, after all, they had many ingredients they had acquired across various worlds.
There were so many things they had obtained over the years... Madara always sought good and genetically healthy ingredients, since there were many genetic modifications in the food of most futuristic worlds, something not very healthy for someone who wanted to live well.
They had obtained some interesting things, and Aren, upon eating, couldn't help but show sudden joy at the food.
"This is so delicious, dad..." he said.
Madara smiled approvingly at his son.
Ciri looked at Madara with a smile, happy to see that their son seemed to be opening up quite a bit to the two of them, while he happily returned to eating the food he had never experienced in his life.
Not even Nenneke or Hilda could make food that delicious in the temple. Though the temple kitchen was usually made for all the priestesses and people being treated there or for the ceremonies, so there wasn't really any refined preparation. It was simply a large amount of food being made so nobody would starve, along with some fruit.
What he was eating now was first-class food, something not even the kings of that world could eat.
After experiencing many worlds they had traveled through, that was just one dish among hundreds that Madara and Ciri knew, but even so, it was still much better than any food in that world.
But for the two adults, the most delicious thing at that table was finally having their son between them.
That ice and resentment created over the years had begun to break apart, at least one layer of it.
For the boy, accepting them completely might not be something that would happen that very night. Not everything would simply be forgotten.
But from that moment onward, they would become the parents Aren needed to have.
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