« Don't need to tell you but your arrow's made of stars,
and the shot that you've made punched it straight into my heart.
It's a little ignorant but everybody's saying that forever is the place
where you and I were made. »
Started: November, 2020
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
[ Geralt lightly bowed his head at her, silently thanking her; both he and the bard bid her farewell and walked out of her house. ]
A loud knock was heard by Darrene once again, waking her from her slumber with a grunt. This one was different than the one days before, more eager, more urgent. She sighed as she followed the routine she had done that past day and opened the door in the same hastily manner.
She rose one of her eyebrows in disbelief at the man in front of her, who looked dishevelled, "What is it, bard?"
"I need your help." he sounded out of breath like he'd run miles to get to her house.
"With what?"
"Geralt was injured while hunting the griffin." she had heard about the griffin a few days prior in the tavern, that was all the patrons talked about for a couple of days, "Badly injured."
"What's it got to do with me?"
"Well, you're the only healer around." he wasn't wrong, she just had forgotten that the last one died from old age not too long ago so nobody had asked her for aid before. Yet.
The brunette woman closed the door leaving the bard with an open mouth out on the other side. Putting on her boots and not taking her time to tie the shoelaces right, she picked up her fur coat as the cold winter air was still lingering and would still be present for some weeks, especially this early in the morning when the sun hadn't even begun to rise. Darrene knew that whatever the witcher's injuries were they had to be pretty bad to have the bard call her so early.
Even though she didn't exactly know how bad they were, the girl picked up a few small bottles from her kitchen that she knew she would need and cautiously placed them in the pockets of her coat.
The bard still stood on her doorstep when she opened the wooden door again. He hadn't thought of another option that wasn't the sorceress, his face of distress and the way he was looking at the floor told the whole story by itself.
"Where is he?" at the sound of the woman's voice he raised his head, his blue eyes boring into her's bright green ones, his preoccupied expression turned into one of relief.
To her dismay he didn't tell her, he just grabbed her forearm and started walking quickly towards the village ignoring her silent protests by trying to free her arm from his grasp. For a moment she cursed at herself for not choosing to put on her hooded cloak and wearing her fur coat, but those thoughts quickly disappeared when they reached the empty streets of the centre of the village. The realization hit her hard when that didn't last long as they soon arrived at the only inn anyone could find for miles.
Jaskier, yes, that was his name, had to be, let go of her once he made sure she was inside the inn and walked upstairs, hoping she would follow him. And she did. The brunette followed the bard's steps, leading her to the small room they were staying in and he opened the door for her.
The first thing she saw was the shirtless white-haired man that was laying on the bed with his eyes closed. To anyone that saw him in that state, he would appear to be dead but not to Darrene. She, instead, walked past Jaskier and towards the injured witcher. Sitting sideways on the uncomfortable mattress she took the little bottles out of her pockets and put them on the bedside table delicately, hearing the grunt the man by her side made as he woke up.
"Why are you here?" the sound of the raspy voice by her side made her turn her head.
"The bard came to get me." the witcher looked harshly at the man who stood now by the closed door as if he were about to stand up and strangle him.
From where she was seated she could see how the white hair of the witcher was now almost dark grey because of the grime and blood that also covered the rest of his body that was uncovered and his clothes.
"Could you fetch me a rag and a bucket full of water?"
The direct question that was more like an order, took Jaskier by surprise as he didn't speak a word and just stumbled with his own feet to do what the girl had said.
She took advantage of that moment to inspect more carefully Geralt's wounds. He had two small cuts on his forehead and a bigger horizontal cut over his ribs but it was pretty narrow. The most preoccupying one was the big deep holes that opened the skin on his shoulder, from where she could only assume the griffin had tried to pick him up and carry him away.
The bard dropped the bucket and the rag right in front of her and quickly scurried away as if he was scared of the sorceress. She looked at him for a few seconds arching her eyebrows as a small smile appeared on her face.
Darrene rapidly soaked the rag in the water and started cleaning the wound on his ribs and his forehead. Then she continued with the bigger injury, cleaning it more carefully, not applying as much pressure as she had done with the other ones. She could see all the blood he had lost pooling the sheets under him. That must've distracted her because she noticed a grunt coming from the man she was healing and a hand around her wrist applying a little too much force.
