Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
❝ A gift from the gods, perhaps. ❞
Geralt of Rivia
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The world felt completely still when I finally woke. Everything felt stiff. Pain erupted through my body, my skin burned. My wrists were tightly bound together and my back was completely straight. Rope dug painfully into my skin from how tightly it bound my torso against the tall tree.
My dress had been removed and the only thing which covered my chest were strips of cloth. The strips were soaked red, stuck to the wounds beneath. The make-shift bandage around my right forearm was in a similar state.
I was still at the brook, the familiar babbling soothing my mind and though not my pain. It did not look like how it did when I arrived, however. The sun had begun to set for the night, the forest already darker from the shading of the trees. A small fire had been made with water boiling above it in a small, metal pot. The dead carcass of the black wolf lay at my feet.
Down by the stream, a fair distance away from the camp, I could make out a hunched form. It was crouched by the brook's edge, gathering something from within the water. I could not see what. I could hear the distant murmuring of voices. Whoever was down there, wasn't alone.
I calmed my breathing as I focused on the words being said.
"If I tell you, Witcher, that I can neither forgive Stregobor nor renounce my revenge, is that it? I admit I'm a monster?" I could make out the soft voice of the person I could not see.
"Yes." The gruff voice of the hunched form spoke as he rose to his feet. Yes, it was definitely a man's figure. "Or you can leave Blaviken and finally live. You choose, Princess."
I heard the loud snaps of twigs under boot approaching the camp and the huffing of a large creature. It wasn't long until the trees revealed him to me. I recognised the horse before I recognised him.
Roach walked alongside his owner, the stranger I had first met outside of the Lord's Inn and then later outside of Irion's Tower. His black cloak and his armour were thrown in a pile at the other side of the small camp he had made during my time of lost consciousness.
