Reincarnation ➵ The Witcher

xviii.

TREES covered her view on either side, branches reaching high into the sky whilst they made their way down the stream. Edith's mind was frazzled, yet Geralt seemed completely the same. Careless. She had to second guess the argument that Witcher's didn't feel multiple times, but from the small bits of amusement she often saw in his eyes, she knew they did.

Edith sighed, "What did he mean?," Geralt gazed at her from the corner of his eye, "About a friend of yours once containing the power to destroy the Continent?"

"It doesn't matter what he meant, because she's dead."

"Dead.. How?"

Geralt clenched his jaw at the questions, "I killed her." Edith's mind flickered back to her dreams. Yellow eyes, crimson coating her view before darkness swallowed her. She frowned at his brief answers, a craving to know more swallowing her thoughts.

"Why?"

"What's it with you and questioning everything I do?" Geralt snapped, but answered anyway, "She was out of balance, girl.. She was too much chaos and not enough good."

Edith's eyebrows raised stubbornly, "Who gets to make that choice?" At Geralt's silence, she continued on, "At what is 'enough' good?"

"There is no good in this world, just a lesser evil."

Edith didn't truely believe that. There had to be some good out there, whether or not Geralt would like to admit it, there had to be. Because after all, there can be no evil without good and there could be no order without chaos, so somewhere nestled between the stars and the galaxies, she knew good was there, waiting to finally be revealed in the nights sky.

"I don't believe that." Edith admitted, and Geralt's golden eyes glimmered beneath his white hair.

"Sometimes there is just too much chaos for the world to handle, girl. People kill the things they don't understand."

"..Is that why people don't like you?"

"Hm." Geralt's hands tightened on Roach's reins, the horse following obediently behind them. The sound of the stream trickling filled the silence, and as they walked Edith would glance around the tranquil environment in a state of eunoia.

Geralt's words still grinded in her brain like a water mill, moving, invading all of her other thoughts into nothingness. She still felt that she knew Geralt before she met him, and that plagued her mind like a disease. Geralt had stopped at some distance down the stream, tying Roach onto a protruding branch on the ground.

He knelt down near the water edge, and watched Edith mirror his movements. Edith brought the water up to her face, washing away the days dirt as Geralt unrooted a plant.

"Where are we going next?" Edith questioned.

"Away from here." Geralt rasped, and watched Edith send him a small smile. His golden eyes almost seemed hypnotic to Edith, which the spell broke from the sounds of twigs snapping behind them. Geralt already knew who it was, but Edith didn't contain the same luxury.

Edith yelped, seeing the cloaked figure of Renfri appear seemingly out of nowhere, "Fucking hell!" Her heartbeat resonated through her eardrums, the appearance unexpected, "Give a girl a warning next time, Gods."

Renfri failed to reply, gaze locked onto the Witcher crouched beside her, "The girl this morning, she took you to see Stregobor, didn't she?"

Geralt's figure rised, turning to face Renfri before walking a distance away towards Roach, "I know who you are, Renfri."

"You know that I want to kill Stregobor, then."

Edith stayed quiet, hands repetitively shrouded in the streams water as if she was busy.

"I used to be a princess. Did he tell you that?" Renfri called at Geralt's retreating figure, "Until he sent a thug into the woods to kill me."

"You killed him."

"With my mother's brooch." Her eyebrows raised at Geralt in challenge, but he resumed his task at the waterbed.

Renfri sighed, crouching down near Edith, hands crossed together, eyes seemingly lost in a memory, "Stregobor's man raped me.. robbed me and let me go. No more princess," Edith's gaze locked with hers in sympathy, "I had to survive. I stole rather than starve, I killed rather than be killed. Nohorn and the others saved me. And they'll be by my side at the market as I get my revenge Lilit help me, I will take down anyone in my way."

Renfri's head tilted, eyes diverting to Geralt, "Unless.. destiny intervenes."

Geralt stood knowingly, "You want me to kill Stregobor for you."

"It's the lesser evil."

"So I keep getting told." Geralt's gloved hands fiddled with Roach's saddle, gaze briefly locking with Edith's as she watched the exchange without opening her mouth. Smart girl.

"Stregobor asked you to kill me too," Renfri stated, "'Cause I was a girl born during an eclipse? I could've become so many things. Queen Calanthe of Cintra, she just won her first battle at Hochebuz.. But here I am trying to convince you I'm not-"

"A monster," Geralt finished, and he'd be lying if he said the conversation didn't remind him of the one he had with Edith before her death, "Are you?"

"How am I to know? When I cut my finger, I bleed. That's human, right? When I overeat, my stomach aches. When I'm happy, I laugh. When I'm upset, I swear. And when I hate someone for stealing my whole life from me, I kill him."

"Hm."

"People call you a monster too,"

"A mutant." He corrected.

"What if they come after you?" Her eyes stayed narrowed on Geralt, but Edith stayed quiet. Let Geralt deal with it. She kept repeating, "Attack you?"

"They have."

She approached him further, "Why not kill them?"

"Because then.. I am what they say I am." He rasped, watching as Renfri's gaze faltered.

"If I tell you, Witcher, that I can neither forgive Stregobor nor renounce my revenge, is that it? I admit I'm a monster?"

"Yes." He replied without hesitation, and Edith winced at his blatantness.

Edith cut in, "Do you want to be a monster, Renfri?"

"It doesn't matter what I want." She confirmed.

"Or.." Geralt began, "You can leave Blaviken.. and finally live." Renfri debated his answer, eyes locked onto his golden irises in thought .

"You choose, Princess." Geralt's eyes met with Edith's, and she rised in understanding. Now was time to go. Edith gave one last look to the stunned women, attempting to offer a brief smile that wasn't returned.