The Human (A Witcher Fanfic)

Chapter 4: A Monster Slayer

Our world is filled with magic and wonder but a galloping steed is still as majestic of a sight to behold. Even the act of riding one was a rustic experience that brought the most stern of man a pure joy hidden underneath their leather like skin. Wind was no such man, he was grinning from ear to ear. Ves had a half smile adorned on her face, partly excited but partly scared. They both were taking this journey as an escape from their harsh reality for a spell.

Ves had never ridden a horse before. She hadn't done much of anything, really. Even from a young age her days were mostly filled with helping out with farming or fishing, never going that far from home until her mother became ill. Her life shifted to taking care of her. Her heart was in it but her mind was becoming ashy, almost like a campfire that's just burnt out. As terrible of a situation she found herself in, this was a needed adventure for her sanity, even if she didn't know it yet.

Ves and Wind rode for an entire day, deciding to not stop and set up camp but to ride through part of the night to make it to Kirkwall as fast as possible. And they did, arriving before the moon sprung to its highest point. Ves' eyes were coated with such amazement at the town. It seemed one building alone could fit every home in Ambra inside it. Even with the townsmen asleep and the desolate streets sprawled out before her as empty as the heart of a siren in the frigid waters of Skellige she could feel the incredible energy the town held. The streets were alive and you'd never know the night was hanging over with the torches and lanterns lighting up everything.

Wind pointed out a tavern made up with dark wood, with a few people coming in and out. A few more standing around. Ves was visibly nervous but Wind told her he's been here lots of times. These were some good people and they wouldn't be long. Find the Witcher, pay him and leave. Simple. Wind swung open the door with Ves in tow. The tavern brimming with laughter and muffled talking and it reeked of mead and bad decisions. There were more people inside than Ves had ever seen in her life, or so it seemed. Just then, it struck as swiftly as a bolt of lightning. Ves' chest became tight like some unearthly python unseen by the naked eye was squeezing the life from her, making it near impossible to breath. Her heart fluttered and skipped, becoming erratic and unruly. She started to panic.

A flashback rushed to the foreground of her subconscious of when she was little. She was playing beside the Copper stream, running along it for a little too long until she was out of town. She started panicking then, too, but it started completely consuming her in a silent, windless night kind of way when she saw what stood before her in the foliage. A grotesque bug called a kikimore worker, it was bigger than Ves on its four grey-ish red tinted legs, with its gnarled mouth contoured. The red streaks of color along its body and legs made her think of blood. Ves was frozen with fear on the outside but internally she was hysterical. Unbeknown to her, her quietness actually helped her. These bugs are born blind but with a great sense of hearing, so her stillness was actually concealing her.

It stalked around, it's blade like legs piercing the ground and leaving behind small holes. It started walking towards the stream, and towards her. Just then her father, brandishing a cooking pot lid in one hand as a makeshift shield and a long spear that was just a sharpened stick, came running.

Ves watched in awe at the bravery of her father, impaling the giant insect and its green hued insides gushing out onto the ground. But the bug was more resilient than that, retaliating by spitting acid at her father. He raised his metal pot lid to block it, and it did to some extent but that acid was potent and some of it ate clean through the lid, burning her fathers hand pretty badly. She didn't remember much past that, just waking up at home in a blur and her parents talking over her. Her father ended up losing his left hand from that encounter, she felt mostly responsible for it.

Some of those feelings reared up in that tavern, those feelings of helplessness and feeling trapped. This time, though, she didn't freeze, she bolted outside and straight into the middle of the main road. She kneeled over, hands on her knees as she tried to calm her breathing. Wind came running up behind her, wanting to comfort her but not really knowing how.