Polyanna: A Witcher's Mage

8 | Freya's Garden & Spoons

In all the years that they're known each other, Geralt had never seen Euphemiya cry. It was unsettling to see her face etched in sadness. For decades, it had been smiles and laughs. Positivity radiated from her even when she was asleep.

Now she was silent. Cheeks wet and lost in her own thoughts. Thoughts he wasn't sure she would be willing share.

He watched her closely for the next hours. He surrendered his bed to her for the rest of the night, despite her protests. He wanted her to be as comfortable as possible and he knew that he tended to sprawl across an entire bed, so he slept in the chamber nearby.

In the early morning, Geralt returned to her, silent as a cat, and settled in a chair nearby to wait until she woke up. He spotted the ointment Ermion rubbed on her feet, took it, and carefully screwed it open. Her small feel twitched at the removal of the sheet. 

He knew he had woken her up the second he touched her. Though, he didn't expect it. Euphemiya was a very heavy sleeper.

"Hmm?" she hummed quietly, lifting her head to look at her feet. She spotted Geralt and smiled slightly at the sight of him. "Morning." She wiggled her toes, urging him to continue.

"Morning." He continued. He finished spreading the medicine over her burns and stood up.

"C'mere," she said softly, sleep heavy in her voice. He hesitated before joining her in bed, careful not to hurt her.

"You sleep okay?" He asked. She looked away and nodded. "Button. Did you sleep okay?"

She sighed and shifted to get more comfortable. "It was difficult to fall asleep."

"Hm. Can I ask you something?"

"About?"

"How did the witch hunters know?"

She was silent for a while. After a moment she sat up and asked: "What are we doing today?" 

"Me and Yen are following a trail. You're on bed rest," he said casually.

"Ermion said I'm good to walk if I rub ointment on my feet, which-" she lifted her feet in the air- "I believe you just did."

He chuckled. "Exactly. You woke up from a massage, you don't need anything else for today,"

"I'm sorry, but that's a silly argument,"

"Silly's your specialty,"

"Wow, that's a way to speak to your injured best friend,"

"Oh, now you're injured? When it benefits you?"

"Oh my gosh, don't say it like that!" She looked at him, wide eyed, unable to stand the idea of him thinking she was using a serious injury to convenience her, even if he was joking. He just laughed.

He turned his head to look at her. "Do you really want to come?" She nodded. "Fine. Get dressed."

She smiled widely and carefully stood up, with Geralt keeping a vigilant eye. It seemed Ermion's medicine had helped. Usually, a burn like that would take weeks to heal, but, thankfully, she was able to stand with very little pain. It was only slightly uncomfortable in a few areas once in a while.

Geralt had left to change into his armor, leaving Euphemiya alone. She sat at the vanity table, silent and still to allow her magical brushes to dust her eyelids and paint her lips and eyelashes. She stared at her short pink hair, suddenly unable to stand the sight of it. 

Slowly, reluctantly, she separated her hair in two parts, clutching each part with her fists and stared intensely at it through the mirror. She tugged, causing brown patches to appear at the crown of her head. She pulled again, though more carefully, and her hair began to grow independently. Her brushes stood still in the air, as if shocked at the sight, but Euphemiya continued to stare at her reflection. She pulled until her hands were at her hips, then she took a pair of scissors to remove the small piece of pink at the end of her hair. 

Geralt lightly commented on it when they met up at the Bridge to Kaer Trolde, but she just smiled and climbed on her horse. They met up with Yennefer on Hindersfjall, in a little village named Lofoten. They were to investigate a magical happening. 

The trio entered Freya's Garden, a sanctuary north of Lofoten. It was abandoned after the priestesses were almost all butchered by a bandit named Morkvarg. Euphemiya's stomach became heavy at the thought alone. 

Geralt went to follow a trail of blood, Yennefer stayed at her place to keep guard of their surroundings, and Euphemiya followed a separate trail of blood. 

Euphemiya walked towards a little house with its door torn off. She traced the thick scratch marks on the door, wondering if the creature that did this was nearby. She entered the house and spotted large blood stains on the floor, old and new, along with a wolf-like paw attached to a chain by the ankle. The human remains all around the house were untouched. 

The monster didn't feed on them. Strange.

"Hrrr hrrrr it grrrrew back... it always... grrrrows back...."

An enormous werewolf stood outside the house, clothed in ripped garments and covered in dirt.

"Hrrr wish to hearrrr a storrrry?" He asked. She gulped quietly and nodded. "Warrriorrrs came, hrrr... They knew they, hrrr, could not kill meeee... So they, hrrrr, laid a trap... chained me down, hrrrrrr, locked me in herrree... Know what I, hrrr, did? Hrraaa I bit my leg off, hrrr, to frrrree myself, hrrr..." 

Euphemiya glanced at the discarded werewolf foot on the floor. Her eyes followed the bloodstains all across the house. 

"Everrrry bite brrrrought pain and, hrrr, howling. I vomited blood, hrrr... It was torrrturrrrre,"

"I see," she said quietly, her heart heavy. 

The moment she saw him she felt a strange presence following. At first, she thought it was just her medallion infecting her emotions, but she later realized it was beyond that. The more he spoke, the brighter the light inside of him became. It was his soul; rotten to the core. 

"You cannott, hrrrr, kill me... cannot stop me, hrrrrrr... The curse... frrree me or, hrrr, leave! HRAGHRR!"

She jumped slightly at the last growl, but didn't leave her spot. 

"I'm looking for a man named Craven. He apparently came here to kill you," she asked softly.

"Hrrr, seems, hrr hrrr, it didn't work out! I've shrrredded many!" 

The curse could be read like a book. A book you could physically delve into. He and his crew sailed the seas around Skellige, pillaging and raping as they went and none seemed able to stop them. Morkvarg was said to fear nothing, except the wrath of the gods. In order to dispel that rumor as well, he and his crew sailed to Hindersfjall  to ransack Freya's Garden.

Einar, one of Morkvarg's crew members, cursed Morkvarg. Disgusted with the atrocities Morkvarg committed against the gods by defiling the garden, Einar transformed Morkvarg into a using a cursed wolf pendant given to him by his father. The curse not only bound him to the garden for eternity, it also gave him an immense hunger that no food or prey could ever satisfy as it immediately turns to ash. Even trying to consume his own flesh would cause him incredible pain. If he is killed, he invariably is resurrected and returns to the garden where the cycle begins anew.

"You are an abomination," she said simply. "And I-"

Before she could utter her next sentence, the werewolf disappeared from her sight. She lurched forward, confused, but didn't sense any other living presence besides Geralt and Yennefer. 

She turned to look inside the house again, maybe any evidence that Morkvarg existed, but his paw had disappeared too. Instead of a foot in chains, there was a wooden spoon in the large chains. Slowly, carefully, she bent down and retrieved the spoon to inspect it. 

Hadn't she woken up with a wooden spoon a few days earlier?