Chapter Text
After slamming Vesemir’s door shut, Lora walked straight past her door, wiping the hot tears spilling down her cheeks. She grabbed a satchel and went into the kitchen, filling it with food, chastising herself the whole time. She had been so stupid, so foolish. Her vision was blurry with tears as she grabbed apples and bread, stuffing them into the bag. Why did she ever let herself think that Vesemir would help her? She had expected too much, she became too hopeful. The worst part of it was that he was right, he couldn’t go about helping everyone, why did she think she was special? She had just imagined that Vesemir and her shared a connection.
“I’m just a silly naïve little girl that has to depend on people,” Lora whispered to herself, “well, not anymore,” Lora grabbed a cloak and sword a witcher had left behind by the fireplace. She looked at the crate of selkie cloaks that Milos had left in the main hall and hesitated. If she took those cloaks with her, Milos would definitely hunt her down. Maybe she could just go back to Aedd Gynvael and take back her selkie cloak from Reymus. She shook her head. It would be selfish of her to only think of herself right now, she couldn’t turn her back on her people. She would never forgive herself if she at least didn’t try. She was leaving tonight and she was taking all of the cloaks with her. She would take back what was hers and find any survivors from the massacre. Milos and his men were murdering her family and she was no longer going to sit back and let it happen. She didn’t need anyone else. She was fully capable of fending for herself. She would be the one to help her people. She wrapped the selkie cloaks in paper and carried them out to the stables. She tied her bags to the saddle of a horse, strapped the sheathed sword to her back and climbed into the saddle.
She galloped through the forest back down the trail, wary of the areas that Vesemir had shown her on their way up. On horseback, she would arrive in Aedd Gynvael in the early morning if she rode all through the night. Determination burned within her. She had all night to think about a plan on how to deal with Reymus Linden.
This was the most alive she had felt in years. She was no longer the vulnerable girl who needed to rely on others. When Vesemir rejected to help her, it set off a spark, and that burning flame was growing higher and higher by the second. It was time for the hunter to become the hunted.
The night sky turned to a lilac hue as Lora strolled into the forest just outside of Aedd Gynvael. She dismounted from the horse and foraged for some of the berries that were growing on bushes there. She picked up a couple of sprigs of hemlock too.
She tied her horse to a tree and walked into the city centre, the hood of the cloak hiding her face. It was still quiet, not a soul could be seen within the town. She passed through the gate to Reymus’ house and unlocked the back door with the spare key she grabbed from the bird house. She stole into the kitchen and placed the sprigs of hemlock into a pot of water to boil. She gathered the ingredients from the pantry to make scones, rolling it all into a balls of dough and placing the dollops on a baking tray to put into the oven.
The kitchen smelled of cinnamon apple scones and filled with steam rising from the boiling sprigs of hemlock. Lora turned off the stove and poured the water into a teapot. She set the kitchen table, ready for breakfast for herself and Reymus, all she had to do was wait for him to wake up.
She sat down at the table, drumming her fingers against the wooden table. She then started scraping off the white wax that had pooled onto the wood in the middle of the table where the candle stood. The floorboards above her creaked, then the stairs, and then the door to the kitchen.
There Reymus stood, in all his pot-bellied glory, the little hair he had left stuck up in all directions, his cheeks were ruddy and his nose veiny.
“I’ve come back,” Lora said, teary eyed, “I know this isn’t enough to make up for it, but I beg you forgive me!” A tear slipped from her eye, “I was silly and foolish, I know better now, I promise!”
A resounding smack echoed throughout the room as Reymus slapped her. He grunted and sat down at the table, digging into the scones she made.
“I’ll pour you some tea!” Lora poured him a cup.
“Pour a cup for yourself.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You think I’m daft? How do I know you didn’t tamper with it? Pour a cup and let me see you drink it.”
Lora poured herself a cup and gingerly sipped on the bitter green tea. After watching her, Reymus did the same. The two sipped on the tea and ate their scones in silence. Reymus pushed the plate full of crumbs away from him and walked over to Lora.
“You thought you could run away from me?” He leered, bending down to Lora’s height. She could smell his repugnant breath as he breathed. “I’ll have to teach you what happens when you run away from me.”
His hand struck her across the face once again with such force that she fell to the floor. He knelt down over her, grabbing her by the throat, squeezing tighter and tighter. Lora struggled for air, as the seconds went on his grip constricted her airways more and more. She kicked out with her legs, she scraped at his fingers. Soon, she thought, he had to stop soon.
She could no longer suck in any air, her lungs were on fire, her whole chest was ablaze with pain. He had to stop soon, she thought again, he couldn’t keep on with this. His hand slipped from her neck, leaving Lora choking and gasping. Reymus started convulsing, falling to the floor behind her. Oh good, it’s kicked in, Lora thought, still gasping for breath. Now it was Lora’s turn to leer at him as she kneeled over him.
“The tea was boiled with poison hemlock. Your muscles will become paralysed and soon you won’t be able to breathe, and you’ll die of asphyxiation. Of course, I can drink it and be fine. I’m a healing selkie after all,” Lora rummaged about in his pockets to find the key she was looking for. Reymus’ breath came out hot and shallow. She pulled his keyring out of his trouser pocket, the jangling was a sweet melody to her ears. It meant she was close to getting her selkie cloak back.
She ran up the stairs to at a time and turned into the bedroom where Lora had been staying the past several months before she escaped. She threw open the door to the wardrobe and pulled open the secret compartment at the bottom where he kept her selkie cloak locked away. She took out the small chest and placed it on the bed, her heart leapt within. This was it. She would finally be able to return to the sea once her cloak was back in her arms. Her clammy hands struggled to grasp the keychain as she tried several keys at once. The rush of adrenaline was making her movements clumsy and shaky. After the 5th try of ramming and rattling a random key in the lock, it popped open. Lora looked inside and wailed. It was empty. She ran back downstairs to see a very purple looking Reymus.
“Where did you put it?” Lora screamed, “Where did you put my cloak? Who did you give it to?”
Reymus croaked out the words ‘fuck you’ and spat at her.
“You bastard! I can heal you if you tell me where it is! Just tell me where you put my fucking cloak!” Lora grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him. “No, no! NO!” Reymus closed his eyes and his body went limp. Lora cursed. She wiped the spit of her cheek with her sleeve and stood up. This was not part of her plan. Well, him dying was, but not being able to find her selkie cloak wasn’t.
She ran through to the study and started tearing the place apart. She flipped through opened letters, read through pages in notebooks on his desk. She tore pages out of books from their bookshelves, she opened up drawers and emptied their contents onto the desk, she smashed vases and plant pots on to the ground in case there was anything hidden there. But she found nothing. She put her head in her hands and screamed in the wrecked room filled with crumpled paper littered around the rug, soil spilling onto it, shelves falling off their hinges. Her mouth ran dry, her hands clutched her throat, the feeling of large hands crushing her throat came back again, her whole body was shaking. She sat down on the floor and curled up, she squeezed her eyes shut and a stream of tears fell. It felt like a thousand needles were piercing her heart. She howled in pain for what she had lost. Her family. Her home. Her cloak. The salty taste of tears mixed with her saliva and made her cry harder. She would do anything to be back home in the ocean, saltwater lapping at her lips, the sea breeze playing with her hair.
“Calm down, calm down,” Lora raked a shaky hand through her hair and breathed slowly out through her mouth. She took several deeper breaths until the tears slowed and she could think more clearly. She had to think methodically. First, she needed money. And Reymus had lots of it, being an intimidating man, he managed to bully a lot of people into owing him debts and favours. She knew he kept coin in a safe he hid away in the attic. She climbed to the top of the house and pushed open the door to the dark and dusty attic. A musty smell hit her with full force, the wooden floorboards were covered with dust and cobwebs coated the extra furniture Reymus didn’t want. Lora shimmied her way through the crawlspace, trying her best to ignore the spiders that were scampering across. The only thing that was similar to a spider in the ocean was a crab, and at least they were cute. Whenever Lora so much as glanced at a spider, she shuddered. She arrived at the end, the silver safe in front of her. The clatter of keys could be heard as Lora slotted them in one by one. The door swung open after final last try, Lora let out a triumphant laugh.
In the safe lay a large bag of coin and a book. Lora took them both and wriggled her way back out of the crawlspace, her clothes smeared in dust and cobwebs. She ran back down stairs and slumped into the chair in Reymus’ now wrecked study and opened up the book. Each line was filled in with numbers and names in Reymus’ scrawled handwriting. It was a ledger.
“And why would you be hiding a ledger?” Lora murmured to herself, her face still red and puffy from the tears. She looked at the list of items he had bought, “Fisstech? Reymus? A drug addict?” He’d bought it from someone under the name of La Framboisette. Lora looked at the last entry for items he had sold, written down were the words ‘one cloak’. She followed her finger along the line to see who the buyer was. ‘La Framboisette’ was all that was written and then in brackets ‘shipped to Novigrad’.
Lora snapped the book shut, the sound echoing round the room. Another little spark had set off within her. She had a name and a place. That was enough for her.
“I guess we’re going to Novigrad then,” She walked out the back door, stepping over Reymus’ stiff body and grabbing a scone before leaving. She did make some delicious scones after all.