Of Women and Wolves

Doubts

They passed the Winter within the old stone walls of Kaer Morhen. Spending days at a time in their shared bed filled with breathless laughter, not leaving except to eat and bathe.

There was nothing quite like the calm that settled over the School of the Wolf when they were all together for that first night. Catching up on years passed, trading stories, comparing scars and drinking like it was going out of style.

Vesemir would never let them sit idly for three months though. Between friendly sparring matches, there were days of intense training and work to keep the castle standing.

Fianna revelled in her title of the best swordsman from their school. She fought all of her brothers over the course of two days. Her last two fights were the only ones that posed any sort of challenge for her.

She fought Vesemir for thirty minutes before disarming him.

She fought Geralt for over an hour. Vesemir made them move out into the snowy courtyard to prevent structural damage.

It was a good call.

They were fairly evenly matched in skill. Geralt would always win on raw strength but Fianna was faster than anything they had ever seen before. She moved with practised grace, her fluid movements when she dodged or parried looked like dancing.

Vesemir told them to introduce signs an hour into their spar. Geralt paled significantly and looked to their master with pleading eyes. Fianna held back though, not wanting to actually hurt him.

Until he caught her in the side with an over-powered Aard that sent her careening across the courtyard and into some scaffolding. There was nothing but silence as Fianna stood back up slowly and wiped some blood from her split lip. She looked at her opponent dangerously and if Geralt did not know that she loved him with all of her heart. He would have been afraid.

Well, more afraid.

Her eyes flashed violet and she grinned.

He woke up in bed four hours later with a splitting headache but thankfully still in possession of all of his limbs.

As lovely as those months together were and how essential they were for The Witcher's mental health, they were not made to be idle. They were meant to be roaming. So when the snow had melted enough for them to leave again. Fianna and Geralt were the first ones back on the Path.

That was two months ago now, they had collected Jaskier - much to Geralt's frustration - from Ard Carraigh and travelled back down through Lyria and Rivia to where they were now, in a small city called Spalla.

There had been a marked increase in monster activity, so they had been here for two weeks taking contract after contract. They had taken out a sizable nest of Endregas the day before and Fianna was looking forward to finishing her meal with a cup of wine and taking her Wolf upstairs and having him work out all of her knots.

They had finished their meals and were enjoying a drink when Fianna heard Jaskier singing one of 'her' songs and rolled her eyes.

"And now my wine tastes like shit." She muttered, forlorn.

Geralt chuckled at her dramatics, he would never, EVER, tell the bard but he enjoyed the songs written about Fianna. He looked over at his lover only to see her looking straight at him with a lustful smirk and a raised eyebrow.

He downed the last of his Ale before taking her hand and making their way toward the stairs. They had barely made it to the bottom step when the door of the Inn was slammed open wide, a hush falling upon the patrons.

A heavy-set middle-aged man stood in the entryway, covered in sweat and panting for breath.

"I heard news of a Witcher in these parts!" He yelled as he walked towards the bar with determined strides.

Fianna did not want to take a new contract so soon after finishing their last, so she started taking measured steps backwards and up the stairs without Geralt noticing, she didn't even feel bad that she was metaphorically throwing him to the Drowners.

"Aye. There jus' so happens to be two of them 'ere at the moment." The barman replied while polishing a glass with a dirty rag.

"Lookin' for the woman Witcher! The She-Wolf!" Fianna heard this and risked taking the steps a bit faster. She made it to the top step before she was caught.

"There she is over there!" The barman unhelpfully pointed towards her. Her shoulders slumped and she threw her head back dramatically and huffed before turning around and walking back down the stairs.

Geralt was still standing at the bottom, he had his arms crossed on his chest and a smug grin tugged at his lips at her misfortune.

"Fuck off, Wolf" She growled before addressing the man coming towards her.

"What can I do for you?" Trying to seem somewhat pleasant, she plastered a fake smile on her face.

"There be a beast! A massive man-eatin' beast that dwell in our lake. Swallowin' our fishermen whole!" Fianna immediately knew that she was dealing with either a Kelpie or a Selkiemore. She glanced at Geralt with a questioning lift of her brow and he nodded back affirmatively.

"Where is this lake exactly?"

"Brugge. About twenty miles from Cintra."

"Fuck"

—

Geralt had told the man that we needed a day to restock before we set out. He gave us the name of a tavern where we could meet him when we arrived. It was a three-day journey to Brugge from where they were.

Fianna was not thrilled at the prospect of returning to Cintra. Having taken a contract or two there when her job called for it, she knew that no one would recognise her but the memories associated with the kingdom were less than pleasant.

Geralt tried to comfort her.

"It'll be okay, Lya. We won't even be entering the city."

"I know. I know... come on. I do actually need to restock before we leave. We can wrangle our wayward bard on the way."

"Can we not just leave him here?"

"No, Geralt. We can't just leave him, he'd follow anyway. Getting into all sorts of trouble before we had to delay our journey to save him." She huffed in amusement before he caught her cringe.

"Besides... I lost a bet. I have to keep him."

"You? You, lost a bet? And what? Now you have a pet Bard?" He laughed loudly at the way her nose scrunched in distaste.

"Yeah. Yeah, laugh it up arsehole. You're stuck with him now too." She grumbled before walking out the door as his laughter stopped at the realisation.

"Can I just kill him?" He called out after her. Geralt followed the sound of her laughter out of the Inn and onto the streets to prepare for their journey.