Reincarnation ➵ The Witcher

xix.

THE birds sung as they made camp for the night. Edith couldn't stop a grin from forming as Geralt made conversation with Roach as he unsaddled the creature.

"You know what Vesemir would say," he began, Edith sat near the warmth of the fire, ""Witchers shouldn't play at being white knights. We shouldn't try and uphold the law. We don't show off.""

Edith snorted, "You aren't doing a very good job of that, are you, White Knight?"

"I'm not talking to you, girl."

Edith's eyes rolled voluntarily behind Geralt's back, "My mistake. You were talking to that horrid horse of yours."

"Not any less horrid than you, Edith." Geralt rasped.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, I suppose." Edith sighed as if she didn't believe his words, watching him briefly over her shoulder with a rise of her eyebrows. He stared back for a moment, ashen hair acting as a small shield for his eyes that shone like beacons.

"Hm." Geralt shook his head, folding Roach's saddle blanket before continuing, ""We get paid in coin." And he's right."

"I wish I was getting paid."

Geralt's golden eyes surveyed her figure, before smirking at the thought, "Doubt that would ever happen."

"What's that suppose to mean?"

"You can't even hold a sword, let alone kill anything with it, girl."

Geralt came to sit beside her on the log of tree, her moving to grant him more space, "You never know, a white haired prick could teach me sometime." She gazed at him innocently, as if that would make him grant her the wish. She watched as Geralt shook his head at her, his white bangs revealing his centered gaze.

"That's not happening, Edith." She rolled her brown irises at him, and said nothing further on the matter. He gazed at her still, and watched as she blatantly ignored him as if he was the annoyance, and not her.

Geralt attempted to divert the topic, "Want to hear about my first monster?" Geralt immediately gained all of her attention, "Wasn't 50 miles outside of Kaer Morhen. He was huge - Stinking. Bald head. Rotten teeth." Geralt began listing, and Edith couldn't help her gaze flicker down to his lips. Fuck. Stop it. It was like a gravitational pull was urging her towards Geralt, and she didn't know whether or not it was because he was handsome or because of his centered gaze piercing through her own.

He continued, "He pulled that girl from the cart, tore her dress off infront of her father and said, "It's time you met a real man." I told him it was time he met one, too." Geralt watched as Edith's face approached his own, slowly, cautiously, as if a skittish animal, "It took two strikes to kill him. They weren't clean. But they were spectacular." Geralt paused his sentence, Edith's face inches away from his own. Her gaze stayed locked onto his, as if both were stuck in a trance. Geralt's golden irises sung to Edith, and her eyes sung to his. She approached him slowly.

"What are you two talking about?" Edith flinched back as if she was stung, eyes glancing to Renfri stood meters away in the forest. What the fuck just happened? Edith's face turned crimson straight away, but Geralt's gaze stayed locked onto the side of her face. His hands grasped the bowl next to him on the floor, attention no longer kept.

"Uh.. we were talking about nothing, actually," Edith began, awkwardness settling over the once tense atmosphere, "I-I was going to fetch some water from the river before you, uh, arrived." Renfri watched Edith skitter off into the direction of the river, a blush coating her cheeks. Geralt's gaze stayed directed onto the mortar and pestle, jaw slightly clenched as he watched her leave.

Renfri's attention switched onto the Witcher once Edith left, and Edith wasn't sure how she'd face Geralt again without an infinite crimson spreading across her cheeks. Why on earth did she do that? She asked, but she didn't know the answer. In those few moments she almost felt drawn to the white haired prick, and she was almost sure he'd felt the same way until the tension dissipated into nothingness.