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The rain is so bad, it drives him inside.
He’s lucky, he thinks, that for once in the middle of nowhere he’s found a barn where he can duck in from the storm instead of just sitting miserably with Roach under a tree. He pushes his soaked hood off of his head and shakes his hair, sending droplets everywhere. Roach snorts and follows suit, shaking her entire neck and flinging water even farther. It makes Geralt laugh.
“Made it, huh?” he says, patting her affectionately and reaching up to slip her bit and bridle off. She spits it out gratefully and immediately bows to start snatching half-moldy hay off of the dirt floor. Geralt grimaces, casting around in the low light, but the place is run down and out of use. There’s nothing better to offer her.
“Sorry, we’ll get oats at the next inn,” he promises, and hangs her bridle on the saddle.
There’s a smell of snow on the air slipping between the cracks in the sad structure, and Geralt is just considering how he might safely build a fire without smoking both of them out when he hears a rustle. Turning quickly, hand already on his sword, Geralt falls into a defensive stance and looks up, narrowing his eyes as he surveys the hay loft. At first, there’s nothing, and he focuses his senses, taking a full breath in through the nose and letting it flow back out over his tongue: tasting the air.
His brow furrows, eyes glinting in the light. The smell is….human.
“I know you’re there,” he says, keeping one hand up for signs, the other on his weapon. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s used this in at least a year, so my guess is you had the same idea I did. Show yourself, and I’m sure we can agree to share.”
For another few moments, there’s nothing, then the shuffling comes back and a tousled head pokes its way over the edge. Vibrantly green eyes peer at him in the bad light, and Geralt immediately drops his hand, startled. His competition for shelter is a child--a scruffy boy no older than nine.
No, not scruffy, disheveled but actually well dressed.
A child in something more than rags hiding out in an old barn is odd enough, though they aren’t so far off a city that this couldn’t just be a bold runaway. He flashes back to Ciri in the wood suddenly, a princess determined since she could walk to be something else, and he lets his other hand slip to his side as well.
No, the child isn’t what’s truly making him stare, it’s the child’s expression. It’s hatred. Fear, Geralt understands. Uncertainty, curiosity. But those green eyes are looking at him like a he’s responsible for every ill the child has ever suffered.
“Hey,” he tries anyway, raising both hands and frowning. “I’m sorry, I thought you might be a bandit. I won’t hurt you. Why don’t you come down?”
The boy shifts his grip, and Geralt realizes he’s clutching a dagger. As the blade catches a thread of light, Geralt sees a tiny flame etched into the metal.
He presses his lips together, brow furrowing farther. “I’m really not going to hurt you,” he says again, eyes flicking from the blade to the boy. “But you don’t believe me, do you?”
The boy’s expression is dark, and it’s only when he shifts to sit up that Geralt can see him falter, tremble.
“I got here first,” he says, keeping the dagger outstretched. “You can leave.”
“Storm’s pretty bad out there,” Geralt says, taking one step back, keeping his hands up. “I don’t think either of us deserve to be out there.”
“You do,” the boy spits, and Geralt feels a deep sadness root into his slow heart. He blinks once, lowering his hands. Children are never born angry, and Geralt wonders what blind parents taught this one to hate so fiercely while still so young.
“What makes you say that?” Geralt asks, feeling the temperature drop around him as the rain turns to sleet. His breath has started to mist gently, and he knows with the boy’s thin tunic he’ll be in trouble if he intends to hide out all night.
“You’re a mutant,” the boy says, his dagger dropping to his side with an indignant slap of metal against the wood of the loft. “An abomination to the eternal fire!”
Geralt hums, nodding once. He glances around and when he sees no good place to sit, he pats Roach and strokes her neck, watching as her ears quirk towards him, waiting for his voice. “Lay down?” he requests, pressing gently on her withers. She snorts a great cloud of steam and tosses her head before complying. Geralt settles next to her, leaning his back against her warm side. He can feel the boy watching him, and he is careful to be calm and move slowly.
“It’s going to get colder,” Geralt says, stroking Roach’s nose where she’s craned her neck around to nuzzle his side. “That tunic won’t keep you warm enough to make the night.”
The boy’s nose wrinkles. “I won’t come down there with you. The eternal fire--”
“The eternal fire is going to let you freeze to death,” Geralt says bluntly, patting his mare. “Come down. I have a blanket and my horse is gentle. She can keep you warm until dawn.”
The boy’s expression turns sour, and he curls his lip. “Mum and Da say if I touch a heritic, I’ll be filthy for eternity.”
Geralt feels the sadness deepen, and he shakes his head, pulling the blanket from a saddlebag. “You’re willing to die to avoid that?” he asks, spreading the blanket over his legs and settling it to pool in his lap. “Besides, my horse isn’t a heretic. Only fire she knows is the one I would have built tonight if it hadn’t started pouring.”
The boy doesn’t answer to that, only brings his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. Geralt pretends not to notice as his breath grows more visible and the boy begins to shiver. Instead, he goes into another saddlebag and starts to pull out a meal. A block of hard cheese, some bread, and an apple. Roach’s ears quirk at the apple and her nose quivers, but Geralt shoves her away affectionately. “This one’s mine, you ate the entire bushel.”
It’s not much food, but Geralt has survived on less and he knows how to make it last. He pulls a short knife from his belt, watching the boy out of the corner of his eye as he begins to cut away pieces of the apple and eat them with the cheese.
The sleet is turning their shelter into a capsule of ice, and Geralt thinks he’d may have to re-evaluate the chances of a fire.
For a long time, there’s silence and Geralt starts to worry as the boy’s shivering grows worse that he really is going to die because of how he was raised. He can still feel those bright eyes on him, and it’s amid lost thoughts of Ciri that he blinks and realizes the boy has moved to the edge of the loft and is watching him even more intently. He looks up.
“Your breath,” the boy says, and his words shiver. Even in the dark, Geralt can see his hate has melted into uncertainty.
“My breath?” Geralt asks.
“It steams. Like...like a man’s.”
Geralt holds eye contact, but he doesn’t say anything for a long time. “I am a man,” he says, pulling the blanket up over one arm, loosening his sword belt and shifting his swords to lay at Roach’s side. “I wouldn’t know how cold you are right now if I wasn’t feeling it too.”
“But--” there the anger is back, but it’s tinged with the fear Geralt had hoped was behind all of it. “The warmth of a man is given from the eternal fire! How can the cold bother you?”
“Because I’m warm inside just like you, and I need to stay that way,” Geralt answers. “Which is why I’m cuddled up to my horse and seriously thinking about using that wall as kindling.” He nods to a wall of a former stable that’s mostly splinters anyway. “How is the cold not bothering you?” he asks, gesturing. “You’re shivering like a sapling.”
“I’m fine,” the boy insists, again clutching the dagger that must feel like raw ice itself at this point. “I will be rewarded.”
Geralt blows a breath out in frustration, and it fogs thickly. It’s simply too cold, and he growls, pushing his blanket away and getting up. The boy scrambles to his feet, but Geralt doesn’t approach him. Instead, he turns back to the stable wall. “Dammit, kid,” he mutters, and sets to breaking it apart.
In ten minutes Geralt has a pile of wood stacked beneath a particularly leaky part of the roof where the moonlight is catching on ice and snow has started to drift through.
“If I light this, will you come sit by the fire?” he asks, gesturing to the pile. “It’s a fire. I’ll stay on the other side of it and you can pray I’m not about to smoke us both out.”
The boy’s knuckles are white with cold and the harsh grip on the handle. Geralt keeps eye contact for a moment longer and then forms igni. The brittle wood blazes up in seconds and light swells with the heat.
“How--” the boy’s eyes are wide, the dagger suddenly slack in his grip. “You’re a mage, too?”
“I’m a witcher,” Geralt says, settling back down and pulling his blanket up again before holding his hands out to the fire. “We’re trained to do simple magic, but magic is in my blood. My mother was a sorceress, so by your beliefs I’m even more damned. Got a question for you though--you really think summoning fire is something the eternal fire wouldn’t like?”
He can see the question bothers the boy, and he picks up the last chunk of apple he’d been waiting to eat, holding it out. “Please come down. I don’t want to watch you die up there, and the weather isn’t gonna get any better.”
The shivering is too severe now and the boy hesitates only a moment more before stiffly making his way to the ladder and climbing down.
He’s still holding the knife when he stands just inside the light of Geralt’s fire, and Geralt watches him through the thin smoke.
“Here,” he says, and tosses the chunk of apple through the flames. The boy catches it on instinct, and looks down at it with a torn expression.
“I know you’re hungry. Just, come sit where the fire will actually help you and eat it. You’re not a heratic for taking care of yourself.”
A few steps forward, and finally a kind of surrender sinks the boy to sit across from Geralt. He clutches the apple, but doesn’t seem ready to dare eat it yet. He’s watching Geralt, a peculiar expression on his face.
“It really surprised you that my breath is warm, didn’t it?” Geralt asks. “Did it surprise you when I ate that apple too?”
The boy looks down at the apple, his brow furrowing. More of the child is slowly emerging, Geralt thinks. He can see the quivering of a scared soul behind the iron of his parent’s religion. “I thought you ate souls or--or maybe…”
Geralt sighs, tossing another chunk on the fire and causing sparks to flare up. “Children?”
The boy pales, then nods.
“I’m a monster hunter, not a monster,” Geralt says softly. “I have a daughter of my own, actually. Rescued her from centipedes when she was younger than you.”
He frowns. “But mutants can’t have children,” he says, almost accusing. “That’s why you steal them!”
“I adopted her,” Geralt corrects gently. “After her city was ransacked and she was orphaned. You’re right, I can’t have children, but it’s not because I’m cursed or forsaken. It’s because someone else put me through things I don’t want to tell you about when I was your age and I lost that choice.”
The boy frowns deeper, drawing his knees up and tucking his arms behind them, staring into the fire. “Mum says that life came from the eternal fire. The fire in each of us is from the eternal flame. She says mutants can’t have children because they have no fire to pass on. She says you’re heartless and cold and only do things for coin.”
Geralt hums. “What do you think?”
The boy is silent for a long time, and then, slowly, he swallows hard and begins to eat the apple.
A small, sad smile manages to cross Geralt’s face and he waits until the boy is finished before holding up a flask. “This is watered-down wine. From a vineyard in Toussaint,” he says, tossing it over the fire as well.
Gradually, he can see the tension leave the boy’s shoulders and offering by offering, he manages to get a meal into him. Even keeping the fire up, Geralt can see the boy is uncomfortable, and he holds up part of the blanket. “Come over to my side, we can share,” he suggests. “Don’t have to touch me, and Roach can help keep you warm. Her body heat is more impressive than mine, anway.”
The boy seems uncertain, but he also looks exhausted, and Geralt knows his resolve is crumbling. “Your horse is named Roach?”
“Every one I’ve had,” Geralt nods. “And my name is Geralt.”
Chewing his lip, the boy shifts onto his knees and dusts off his hands. Quietly, head ducked, he moves around the fire and sits tentatively next to Geralt, careful not to touch. Geralt nonchalantly offers him the edge of the blanket and the boy shuffles under, glancing back at Roach before settling against her side. Roach barely pays him mind.
“I’m Garrett,” the boy says softly, and Geralt looks down at him. Garrett is staring into the fire, fingers clenched tightly on the blanket. This close, Geralt can hear Garrett’s heart pounding.
“Garrett, nice to meet you,” he says, leaning his head back against Roach and regarding the boy with a soft, gold gaze as warm as the fire. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid,” Garrett says quickly, tossing his head in a way that reminds Geralt so of little Ciri.
“No? My mistake then,” Geralt murmurs, a small twitch of amusement in his expression. “So why’s your heart beating so fast?”
Garrett’s eyes widen. “You can hear that?”
“Oh yes. Hard not to, right now.”
“Well,” Garrett blusters, hands clenching harder on the blanket. “How do you know I’m not angry?”
“Because my heart beats like that when I’m afraid.”
Garrett’s expression is incredulous. “You get scared?” he asks, dubious.
Geralt nods. “All the time. I’ve been in danger more times than I’ve had hot meals, and when the people I love are in danger, that scares me even more.”
Geralt expects some other kind of reply, but Garrett seems too full of conflict and there’s little but the crackling of the fire between them for some time.
Geralt is starting to get sleepy, the weight of the day and the warmth of Roach’s body seeping through him, when he realizes Garrett has been studying him. He glances over, searching the boy’s face until he decides he simply cannot read it.
“What?”
“You do have a heart,” Garrett says, and he says it with such a broken confusion that it twists the organ up in Geralt’s chest.
“Of course,” he says softly. “What changed your mind?”
Garrett points, gesturing to the snowy line of Geralt’s jaw. “I can see it--flickering in the firelight.” His brow is furrowed deeply, like he cannot quite understand what he’s seeing. “And...and you are being kind to me.”
He seems ashamed now, and Geralt reaches out to touch Garrett’s shoulder. “Your parents can only know what they’ve been taught,” he says gently. “They’re afraid too. Most people don’t understand us, and it’s easy to be afraid of something you don’t understand.”
The hurt etched into Garrett’s expression is something Geralt wishes he could erase, but he knows ultimately, this will be better. Maybe Garrett can rescue his parents too, if he ever gets back to them.
“How did you end up out here, anyway? Where are your parents?”
Garrett’s eyes are cast down, and he hugs himself. “Bandits attacked our wagon. I...I ran.”
“So you don’t know.”
He shakes his head, and though he tries very hard not to, he begins to cry. Geralt slowly slips an arm around Garrett's shoulders and pulls him into his side. Exhausted, Garrett doesn’t resist and is soon sobbing in earnest against Geralt’s armor.
Geralt hugs him, hushing him quietly and stroking a hand across the boy’s head. “I’ll help you find them, come dawn,” he promises. “For now, you think you can sleep?”
The boy sniffs, pulling away slightly to rub at his red eyes. “I...I don’t know.” He peers up at Geralt, worrying his lip as he stares at the strange eyes up close. Geralt blinks slowly, knowing the glowing membrane in his pupils had to have caught the firelight at least once by now.
“Do I still scare you?”
Garrett wipes his nose on his sleeve and shakes his head. “I...don’t think so.”
Geralt nods. “Then try and sleep. Things will be better in the morning.”
Garrett sniffs once more, and then curls up, resting against Geralt’s side. Geralt cannot imagine leaning against his armor is very comfortable, but Garrett seems entirely unwilling to move now so Geralt rests an arm protectively around him and pulls the blanket over them both before closing his eyes.
In the silence created by the snow muffling everything, Geralt can hear Garrett’s rabbit heart has calmed.
“I can hear yours now too,” Garrett says just when Geralt is sure the boy is asleep. “It’s slow...You don’t sound afraid now.”
“Because there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Geralt says softly. “Rest.”