𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐍 // 𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀

03 ✟ 𝕹𝖔 𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝖋𝖊𝖊𝖑

"You want me to what?!" Astrid widens her eyes, palming her hand to her forehead at her friend

"Come on Astrid.. I'll give you a third of the crowns!" Valerie desperately tries, wandering around the little tailor shop.

The light's are dim in the evening and as cozy as ever. The sheets of fabric are placed nearly onto the wooden shelves and the needles and thread in their boxes. A snug scent is lingering in the room.

Like newly rinsed laundry; stacked and icy cold, waiting to feel the warmth of a body again.

Like a crackling fireplace; casting a glowing dim amber light against the walls of a cottage, warming the skin of the people around.

The ambience of the store feels like home to Valerie, just as Astrid does.

Astrid Knight is Valerie's only friend. Only friend friend.

'Trust no one' is virtually Valerie's motto, and she never does. She never trusts, and it has taken Astrid years to break through the rock hard facade of the Assassin, who no one but her knows the identity of.

If Astrid wasn't in Valerie's life, Valerie probably wouldn't be in it either.

"I'm not one to seduce a man for fun! Why can't you do it yourself?" Astrid runs a hand through her thick hair, placing herself on the little stool behind a table cluttered with fabric. She is right, Valerie would be the one of the two to seduce. Seduce and destroy.

"Because Astrid, i'm the one that's going to kill the guy. And I wanna do it from afar!" she grins, throwing her hands in the air. Leaning her head against the wall, she slowly lets her thoughts wander. Letting her mind dissolve into a pool of wanderlust, forgetting the existence of reality for a few seconds.

That's the only way to escape it. To play hide and seek with reality; sit under a blanket and wait until it will get ripped right off and you'll be blinded by all the horrors of the real world. But while you're under that blanket, things are comfortable. There are no blinding lights. No horrors; only if you imagine there to be. Because you don't know what goes on outside the blanket.

Stuff like that drifts in Valerie's mind when there is a moment of silence. But eventually a voice or an action will rip off the blanket like so:

"So you're asking me to seduce a man into the forest, so you can assassinate him in the funnest way possible? I'm in" Astrid rolls up her white cuffed sleeves as a punctuation to her words.

Valerie's slightly taken by surprise. She expected Astrid to give in to her at some time; Persuasion is after all one of Valerie's greatest talents, but to go as far as like the idea?

"Who's this dark person?" she jokes, looking at her friend with smiling eyes - something unusual.

"I am not dark in any way, Val. Why are you so delighted today anyways?" Astrid wants to change the subject from killing and darkness. "Please don't say it's because you're going to kill someone" she sighs, as Valerie opens her mouth to answer.

Valerie scoffs "I actually don't know" her brows furrows in confusions of the newly found happiness that had appeared throughout the day. Nothing special had happened, yet she felt a wholesomeness in her gut; Something she hadn't felt in decades.

"Well, let's get to work shall we" Astrids arm is stretched towards Valerie with her cherished blood-red cloak in her hand. "We shall" Valerie jerks the cloak to her like she desperately needs it -which she does- and enters the dull streets of Novigrad's center alongside her friend.

☆

"So Geralt, let me ask you something" Jaskier sounds, wakening the Witcher from his slumber. They had no luck finding an overnight inn, partly because of Jaskier being banned from nearly half the Continent, and partly because of Geralt's strikingly uniqueness from the rest of the crowd.