The port of Amazonia was busy when Finn disembarked.
The first thing that struck him wasn't the noise or the smell of salt air off the docks. It was how few men there were among the locals. The men he did spot were traders, from foreign lands by the look of their dress, and even they seemed to know to keep their heads down. The recent treaties, the ones the three kingdoms were calling The League, had been quietly changing places like this. More trades are simply going on. Foreign goods were laid out on tables and crates: potteries, bolts of silk, even a merchant with a caged animal he couldn't recognize.
Finn didn't linger. Shopping wasn't his reason for coming. He was here to find Ciri, and to tell her that it was time to go.
He moved through the port and out the other side, onto the roads that cut through Amazonia. The looks started almost immediately. Some women were curious. Others were less friendly, eyes that tracked him with contempt. One woman near a well spat on the ground as he walked by. He kept moving. Two days of road stretched between the port and the capital, and he made camp each night in clearings off the main path, Chip was the only company he had through the whole stretch.
—
Themyscira looked like someone had drawn a Greek city like it was in the myths. Columns, wide stone streets, made of marble that made everything pale under the open sky. When Finn reached the gate, two guards moved to block the way before he even got close.
"Why is a man traveling this far into Amazonia?" one of them asked.
"I want to pick up a friend," Finn said. "Cirilla."
That got a pause. The guards exchanged a look.
"Are you this Finn Wegner?" the other asked. "The one Cirilla has been traveling with?"
Finn nodded.
They considered him for a moment longer, then stepped aside. One of them pointed him toward the palace of Queen Diana, where most of the younger women were training.
—
It was a busier day than usual in the training grounds. Queen Diana was out there with Princess Zala, and whatever the two of them were doing with each other was taking place far enough from the rest that nobody was getting close. Zala's laser eyes had scorched wide arcs into the earth. Diana moved with enough force that Finn could feel the impacts from where he was standing. The other trainees had cleared a wide area and kept their distance from it.
Ciri wasn't among them. She was in the middle of a bout with a taller woman near the far edge of the field. The style was obviously Amazonian, all pressure and forward aggression, and both of them were going at it without much restraint. Ciri had adapted well enough. The Witcher training was still there underneath, visible in the way she moved her feet, but the style on top of it had changed. More rougher.
Finn walked toward the field.
Ciri caught sight of him before he got within twenty paces, and she stopped completely. She lowered her sword. The taller woman across from her stopped and asked what was going on.
Ciri smiled, just briefly. "It seems I have a visitor."
The woman turned. She had a face that suggested she'd spent most of her years fighting. "Ah. Is that the Finn Wegner that fought with us in our camp? The one that is traveling with you?"
Finn raised a hand. "The one and only."
—
Ciri crossed the distance between them and pulled him into a hug. He returned it after a beat, somewhat awkwardly.
When she stepped back, she took him in properly. Seven months was enough time for the both of them to grow a bit. Finn looked a little older than she remembered. She was probably the same to him. They were both close to nineteen now.
"I don't know how to feel seeing you again," Ciri said. "I would have rather gotten a message telling me to come back than you showing up out of nowhere."
Finn shrugged. "I was getting a bit restless. A bit of walking isn't hurting anyone."
"Hm." Ciri turned toward the training ground for a moment, then back to him. "Give me some time to pack."
"Go ahead," Finn said. "I'll stay here for a moment."
She walked away. Finn moved to the edge of the training ground and leaned against the low stone wall there, with the Amazons still at work on the field in front of him. A group near the center were drilling with spears, moving through the same form again and again in a line.
Close to an hour passed before Ciri came back. She had everything with her, a pack slung across her back, sword beside it.
"Let's go," she said.
Finn pushed off the wall. "Did you want to say your goodbyes first?"
Ciri was quiet for a moment. Then she shook her head. "Hopefully, in the future, I can come back."
Finn smiled at that and said nothing more. They started walking, and as they moved past the edge of the palace grounds, Finn lifted his wrist and pulled back his sleeve. The compass was still there, strapped where it always was. He hadn't checked it in months. The needle is now pointing northeast.
"You do you," he murmured.
Ciri didn't answer. She walked beside him, and they left Themyscira behind.
—
The forest past the capital was thick. The temple was a few hours in, and it was abandoned long enough that the trees had started working their way through the walls. Vines over the entry, moss in the cracks between stones, a floor that shifted underfoot where the roots had gotten underneath it. Finn had followed the compass here, and when he stood near the center of the main chamber, the needle began to circle.
He opened his pocket watch. He watched it and waited. He kept waiting.
The portal opened without any buildup, the air in the center of the chamber simply tearing apart, magical energy crackling along the edges where the gap widened. Finn checked the watch and noted the time.
Ciri put her hand flat against his back and pushed, and he crossed through before he'd finished his thought.
—
The first thing he felt was cold, sharp enough to pull the breath out of him for a second. The chamber on the other side was another temple, abandoned, same as the last. Through a narrow window near the door, Finn could see outside: a thick grey wall of snow, the visibility cut down to almost nothing past a few feet. Whatever world this was, cold seemed to be its natural state. Like a lot of dead worlds.
"Did you want to go through the blizzard or—"
Both of them heard it at the same time, something moving deeper inside the temple, past the far door. Finn pulled his lightsaber. Ciri drew her sword. The two of them turned toward the sound, and for a moment there was nothing but a door.
Then someone opened the door.
Finn knew the build: the height, the proportion of limb to frame, the ears. He'd seen the type before. The face confirmed it before he'd finished the thought.
An elf. Most likely an Aen Saevherne. A sage, stepping out of the dark of the temple and into the cold grey light of the doorway.