Geralt's hand lingers on Ciri's shoulder as she turns from him and walks towards Jaskier; he hovers, the instinct to protect there, but not the experience in how it's done. He watches as she approaches the bard, and these past weeks of living in Kaer Morhen with the other witchers seems to have done her some good-- she's less frightened and suspicious of new people, or maybe she's just less afraid of Jaskier because she'd met him before.

"Of course I remember you, you wrote a song for me for my tenth birthday," she says, and something in her face goes quiet and sad. "Eist sang it for me for weeks after."

The memory of the siege of Cintra is still fresh in her, the wounds still fresh. But Jaskier is a reminder of the good things-- the lively banquets, Eist's singing, her grandmother's eternal exacerbation at her husband's fondness for dramatic ballads. And maybe that will be a help.

She leans in, though, when Jaskier puts a hand to his mouth, like she's going to receive a secret. There aren't really any secrets in a keep full of witchers, of course, not with their hearing. She smiles when he tells her that her suspicions are correct, that pleased little smile that children get when they're proven right.

"He's really quite bad at taking care of himself, isn't he?" she says, as though Geralt isn't right there and listening to them. "You'll take him up to bed, won't you? Vesemir wants me to read through this bestiary by tonight because he's going to ask me about it tomorrow."

"I'm right here," Geralt says, though he doubts that it will make a difference.