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Tales of monsters haunting the village reached her ears long after the true danger began. From her little hut on the edge of the forest, it was easy to know when the beast began to prowl. She had reinforced her wards and kept herself very far from its usual trail. The village had collection plate going around to hire someone to deal with it. They had asked for a donation and she had given, though she wondered when the Lord planned to actually help his people.
Her little hut- the witch’s cottage- squatted in a glen on the edge of an unending wood. Where spooks and spectres lurked, where ghosts and ghouls wailed through the night. She had a reputation for healing, but only in the daylight. The few brave souls who had dared try to breach her door at night had seen a very different witch.
Smoke and mirrors. Necessary. Small towns bred small minds and she had no intention of letting them get the idea that they’d be better off without her.
It was so very tedious to start over.
The first she heard was that the mayor- in name only, for he was as dirt poor as the rest of them- had managed to find a foolhardy soul to send up against the beasts. A man and his bard companion, each likely to die. She had thought of them as little more than a sacrifice. A sacrifice meant to sate the appetite of monsters and keep the villagers alive one more night.
She had built a good life here. Simple, outcast, not quite belonging, but good enough. Townsfolk left her mostly alone until they had a problem they couldn’t fix on their own, and they made good deals when they asked her out of her hut. Nobody wanted to end up in her cauldron next- for as the rumour went, she would kidnap those who angered her and cook them for her dinner.
Quaint little stories and she did nothing to dissuade them. It kept thieving hands out of her garden at the very least.
From her hut, she had heard the fight. Bloodcurdling death screams of the beast, ending in resounding silence. She had sighed and peered out her window to judge the time. Still hours until daybreak. She didn’t expect visitors until the sun penetrated her shadowy glen- that is, if the mayor had been a good sport and delivered her message.
Without knowing what manner of monster lurked, she had no idea what it would be good for. Such a mystery rankled, and she had paid a hefty sum to ensure the monster’s corpse would be delivered fresh and bleeding in the morn. If the Witcher was gone by then, she wouldn’t complain. Especially if… rumours of white hair and golden eyes had flown over her head. Deliberately, perhaps. It had been over a decade since they parted ways and she had heard little of him since. If she was being honest, she had been glad of the reprieve. He was intense, he was overwhelming, and wherever he went tended to change just by his presence.
As if on cue, there came a horrid pounding at her door. Followed by pleading screams and muffled curses, the desperation pulled her from her languid chair. She peered through the window at the shadowy men waiting outside- a smaller figure holding a much larger, clearly unconscious one. The younger was the source of the noise. The other hung like a fresh kill off his back.
No monster, though.
With a disappointed click, she opened the door. “Please!” the young man cried, the moment her light spilled across his face. “He’s hurt, we need your help!” And he shifted his shoulders to reveal his burden. White hair, rugged face, familiar in all its lines- her heart stilled for several uncertain beats. He was pale- almost as white as his hair- and as he hung off his friend’s shoulders, she could see the pool of blood gathering beneath him.
She blinked herself into action. “Bring him in, quickly,” she said. With a wave of her hand she cleared space before the fire, laying out an old rug she didn’t mind ruining. “What got him?”
The signs had all been there. All the cats in the village mysteriously dying, one by one; the dogs growing stronger and fiercer with the proximity of a leader. Packs of wolves roaming closer, hunting livestock like it was their right.
“Werewolf,” said the boy, who looked doubly pale now that he wasn’t the only thing supporting the Witcher. “It had friends.”
She paused. “Friends?” she asked. If there was a pack of them- it wouldn’t bode well for the village. One cursed lycanthope was enough, but if the cursed one was deliberately infecting others… “Werewolves?”
“I don’t know,” the boy’s voice shook a little. “But there were so many.”
Her mouth twitched. She used to tease, when they were younger, that all he would never be rid of her. All she had to do was follow the corpses- monster and human alike- like following the rainbow for a pot of gold. Funny how the world worked. She stopped chasing him only to have him stumble upon her. The only gold at the end of her bloody rainbow was in his eyes.
Eyes that were currently crusted shut with blood, while the rest of him seemed determined to bleed out on her floor. The bard who had dragged him here- young, eager, but desperately unqualified for the life he had chosen- stood by the door, fighting the vomit rising in his throat.
She looked up at the boy, narrowed her eyes, and pointed at the door. “Fetch me water from the well, just outside, and a handful of dandelions and peppermint from the greenhouse beyond. Hurry!”
He nodded and was gone. With his nervous energy gone, she refocussed on the dying man. Her hands shook as she pressed them over his wounds. Deep and oozing, smelling of rot and death- she had not missed this smell. It would be another scar painted on his body, another story of a thankless task. In his younger days he had celebrated the scars. Another tale, another dead monster, another bag of gold at his hip. But people were rarely thankful for long.
Witchers were, by their very nature, unsettling to behold. Creatures able to stare into the black expanse of the void and kill the monsters lurking within.
She flattened her hands against the worst of the cuts and began to mutter a chant. She could feel the healing begin to take effect; her own body taking the brunt of his hurt to heal him faster. Between his gifts and hers, there would be naught but a scar in just a few days.
“Do you have a fucking death wish?” she hissed, at the first sign of him stirring. One golden eye cracked open, swept the room, and settled on her. The groan he made might have been pain if she didn’t know exactly how much magic was in his system. His head fell back on the threadbare pillow.
“It’s good to see you, Flissa.”
“Fuck off, no it isn’t.”
Geralt’s mouth twitched. “You sound stressed.”
She resisted the urge to smack him. “You bring it out in me,” she said sharply.
“My apologies, then.” His eyes remained closed and she listened to the rhythm of his breath until it levelled, and he slipped into a true, deep sleep. She allowed herself a moment to study his face. Unchanged, but that was hardly a surprise. Magic was in his blood as sure as it was in hers. They did not age or change as a normal human would. Still a rugged jaw, a strong nose, his long hair as white as virgin snow.
Her eyes dipped to the hem of his shirt, torn to ribbons. Beneath was an expanse of skin she had once known by heart. Years ago, she could have mapped his scars with her eyes closed. She wondered how many new ones he had earned since then- and promptly tore her mind from the subject. He was not hers to know like that, not anymore.
Knowing him like that had been the thing to drive her off. Terrified of what it meant to connect that deeply with another, refusing to let it grow between them. She had run, she had left.
And he had let her.
The door opened with a swift bang and she was on alert at once. Geralt didn’t stir; perhaps a more worrying sign than his bleeding. The depth of his slumber did draw her concern.
The returning bard dropped a pail of water at her feet and held out a large bunch of dandelions. “Are these enough?” he asked, anxious. “Will he live? Do you need anything else?”
Flissa took the bundle in both hands and nodded. “That’s fine. Sit down, boy, before you pass out.”
The bard refused to move without an answer. “Is he going to be alright?” he asked again, firmer.
“Yes,” she said; and he sank into the nearest chair in relief, holding his head in both hands. Flissa’s heart panged with empathy for him. She was him, once, before she mastered her craft; a terrified companion to a man determined to fling himself through death’s door at a moment’s notice. The singular reason why she became a healer was Geralt of Rivia.
Flissa set the dandelions in a bag and hung it in the window. She fetched dried leaves and added the fresh water to the kettle, setting it on the fire to brew. The rest of the water she heated with a whispered spell and returned, cloth in hand, to Geralt’s side. Getting the blood off his skin was significantly easier than getting it out of his clothes.
How very fortunate that she had kept a shirt in his size.
“Help me get him up,” she said to the boy. He was still pale, still shaking- in shock- but he reacted instantly. His arms under the Witcher’s shoulders, hers under his legs. Somehow, between them, they moved the man to her bed. “Where’s his horse?” she asked.
The bard raised an eyebrow. Connecting the dots at once, he had the sense not to ask but this one was a damn sight smarter than the average. “At the tavern, three days paid.”
“When the sun rises, bring him here.”
“But the wolves…”
“Are gone,” she assured, gentling her tone if only slightly. “With the Weres dead, the rest will scatter.” She returned to the kettle when it began to boil. Dandelion tea with peppermint- to calm his nerves. Flissa slid the steaming mug onto the table beside him. “Sugar and honey are behind you.”
His head rose. Eyes lingered on Geralt, then to the tea. “Thank you…?”
“Flissa,” she said, taking the hand he offered.
“Jaskier,” he said.
She lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “Bless you.”
His mouth twitched. “My name is Jaskier.”
“You are welcome, then,” she nodded. “How does a bard end up travelling with a Witcher?”
“I wanted adventure and he strolled into town. I’m still not sure he likes me.”
“He’s like that with everyone.”
A pause, in which the boy stared at his friend. “You do know him,” he said quietly; curious, without wishing to outright ask. Flissa could see the questions bubbling but his reluctance to anger her held his tongue. The villagers likely warned him off coming anywhere near her. As if the ‘witch in the woods’ asking for a dead monster corpse wasn’t warning enough.
“For years,” she confirmed. “I used to travel with him.”
“Why did you stop?”
She shrugged, gestured to her little cottage. “I fancied myself suited to the quiet life.”
Jaskier smiled in acknowledgement, but there was a glint in his eye when he asked; “And does it suit you?”
“It’s… very quiet,” said Flissa, but that little pause said it all.