With a Witcher

f i v e

They ate dinner in silence. The roar of the fire was one of her favourite sounds. It had the same cathartic effect of hearing rain patter as it falls. However, this time it only made the full room feel emptier with the way the sound echoed around.

The fear of impending danger struck her the greatest. The others had experienced that before but it was a first for her. She had mostly lost her appetite but the stew could possibly be her last good meal for a while so she ate as much as she could stomach. Geralt stayed beside her the entire night as if it were to make sure that she knew that he was there for her through it all. His fingers brushed her side, his thigh touched hers, his presence was warming.

The pain in her cheek has mostly subsided bar the times in which she'd move her face. It gave her some sort of reality to hold onto, though. Between the fear she had for Geralt, the soldiers and sleeping with him, she needed something to remind her of reality. Something tangible that she could feel. That pain. It kept her in her place and let her know where she was.

Geralt explained to Cirilla and Jaskier her run-in with the soldiers as she found all of the dried meats and fruits in the house and packed them. She took as much as they could carry without being slowed down. She had some orens saved for a rainy day and by that point, it was more than a rainy day. It was a storm. The type of storm that shook every fibre of her being.

*

She tried to convince them to leave the following day as they had travelled for days and it meant that she had time to prepared some potions for Geralt and dry more food. It would have also given her more time to do something about her animals.

Geralt agreed that they could stay until after she sold all of her livestock. She did not have a plan for her cat, however. She did not want to part with it but there was no way that it would be able to travel with them. It was also not feasible to just leave her cat there when she was not sure when she would return.

Her tabby was in Geralt's lap. It was unsurprising to her by that point. It pained her to have to say good-bye to it. The creature that kept her sane. The one that brought her comfort and eased her loneliness. Her companion. She scratched the cat's head which elicited a low purr and it was like the tabby knew that they were going to part ways.

Nobody spoke. There was too much to say and far more to ignore. The air suffocated her. Too much was happening for her to truly comprehend the magnitude of it all. Her entire life would be uprooted. Her home abandoned. It was the price she had to pay to be with Geralt.

She got Geralt to slaughter a number of her animals so that she could smoke them. It would provide sustenance for a while. As she dried and smoked two lambs, Geralt destroyed the furniture. He wanted to make the place look ransacked so her disappearance had some merit.

He wanted to make it look like the soldiers had scared her from her own home. Made her fear for her safety so badly that she escaped the town.

He slept with her that night. His arms wound tightly around hers. He kept her grounded. Reminded her that she was not alone. Not anymore. Never again. Geralt was going to be there for her when she needed him, when she didn't need him, and even if she didn't want him there.

He knew that he had a lot of making up to do and he intended to spend the rest of his life doing so. He held her all night and would not sleep until her muffled sniffles and cries stopped and she stilled in his arms.

*

She left for the market early in the morning. The sparse light gave her a little cover but it also gave her more time. It took a while to round up her animals and she had to take them all herself to avoid any suspicion. The walk was beautiful, as always, but she took the time to take in every detail one last time.