PSL Injuries and Patching up with Monsterbytrade

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier was not font of this particular hamlet, he decided. The lands were bleak, the people were bleaker, and there was a pervasive stench of bog that crept into everything. The sheets (the beds were fairly nice, he would give them that, but the feather mattresses all stank of bog water), the curtains, the wood, the people--everything smelled of still water and mold. It was enough to drive him to distraction.

He suspected it annoyed Geralt as well, but the Witcher had only given him a cursory grunt when prompted about it.

The town, apparently, had need of a Witcher to clear some terrible beast from the marshes nearby. Jaskier couldn't hope to pronounce the name of it so, until Geralt felt like describing the thing, he was out on a limb about whether to make a song of it or not. Apparently, it was dangerous enough that Geralt had actually deigned to request he stay behind, instead of just ordering it, and Jaskier had agreed without hesitation.

It was an unspoken agreement. Anything truly cataclysmic or terrible, Geralt would grit his teeth and be cordial about what he required and Jaskier would agree without argument. It was a nicety they both extended...unfortunately, that meant that Jaskier was left standing in the road, staring off into the night, pacing as he waited for Geralt to appear out of the darkness like a spectre of death.

He did not.

The night crawled on and Jaskier's pacing got a little antsier, a little less controlled, he started talking--to himself and to Roach, who waited patiently by the roadside. He bitched about Witchers, about whatever this thing was, about the town, about the smell, praised Roach for being a good girl, damned Roach for not being psychically connected to Geralt (that he could prove), and then sighed and just leaned his head against her neck as he waited.

It was just before dawn that the Witcher appeared on the road. He moved very, very slowly and Jaskier stared in horror as he watched him approach.

He didn't want to pry, to be more of a nuisance than he was wont, but Geralt didn't--that wasn't how he walked. He had brushed Jaskier off before, knocked aside hands and insisted he was fine when he was not...but the bard had never seen him move like that. Had never seen the way his legs seemed to drag, to move ahead only to catch himself. He was falling forward, repeatedly, more than he was walking.

"Damn it all," Jaskier cursed and abandoned Roach to run to the Witcher's side.

The stench of blood was--truly remarkable. It took him aback and that, alone, said something. His armor was destroyed, cut apart and gnawed free, and the dark splotches on his clothing--it was impossible to tell where Geralt's blood started and where the gore of the creature ended. He had one of his swords in hand, held in a tight immobile grip and in the other he held a grotesque severed head of something that resembled a mummified woman made of corn-husks and a layer of teeth stolen from children's heads. He nearly vomited at the sight of it.

Geralt kept walking, almost like he hadn't seen the bard come up, and Jaskier's hands fluttered as he considered how to--what to do.

"Geralt? My friend? Are you--oh you're looking a bit unwell--" His voice was very high all of a sudden. Was that a solid chunk taken out of him? Melitele's tits he could see through that hole in Geralt's side. Could see clear through him. That was very bad. There was a huge gash across his back, across his legs, he was a mess of holes and bites and Jaskier's heart felt very near to stopping.

He made a decision then and snuck himself under Geralt's sword arm. He drew the tense limb over his shoulders and lifted, took some of the Witcher's weight, and tried to lead him to Roach.

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[monsterbytrade]

Children had been disappearing.

Surely Geralt himself always cultivated the impression that he was a heartless monster, his services only offered if there was coin to be had, the actual organ such a shriveled, blackened thing as to be non-existent. It was what he was taught. It was what all witchers were taught. Build your walls high and strong because the world hates you and will try and use you. They see you as a weapon to be loosed at a target, but that was wrong-- witchers were loyal to no one, beholden to no one, and swayed by no moral or emotional judgement. They were their own weapons. And if people believed that such power could only be purchased for silver or gold, well then, there was never any need for a lesser evil. And yet.

In the last decade rumors had begun to proceed the White Wolf. More people begged his mercy, less people offered coin. The world was shifting, yes, but he had somehow settled into a different orbit entirely, one that would have made Vesemir blow breath through his moustache in that way that meant he would have taken Geralt over a knee if he'd still been young enough.

Children had gone missing. And the town was poor, unable to keep the crawl of the marsh from their doors and beds and grain sacks. Whatever idiotic ancestors had set up the first ramshackle houses so close to such a pervasive bog had doomed the future generations of idiots to come. They should have left, packed up to a man and gone elsewhere but of course they wouldn't. Instead of taking his advice they offered him a meals and beer for him to fix their problem, along with a purse of coin hardly heavy enough to buy a sack of potatoes. But still they'd sat and ate the tough, gamey stew, drank the beer, and Geralt had listened to Jaskier complain too loudly. He'd only grunted in response. When the alderman explained the details about the thing had been plaguing the town Geralt had known exactly what it was; he'd used the elder-tongue word for it then because sitting in a crowded, moldy pub with downtrodden, moldy people missing their children, even he had the decorum not to say the words skin-eater.

The fight had been longer than he'd expected, or intended. Geralt had counted out his potions carefully, putting them into the small pouches at his belt as Jaskier flitted around while absolutely failing to cover his concern-- whether it was because Geralt had nicely asked him to wait or because he had accepted the job without real pay, he wasn't sure. He wasn't listening. He was breathing, listing the things he had, the things he might need. When he was done the sun was low and deeply orange. Geralt patted Roach on the neck and gave Jaskier a sigh and headed into the tree cover of the marsh where the footing was terrible and the stink was worse than the town.

Unfortunately for Geralt, he was not the preferred meal of the beast. Which meant not only a hunt but a lethal and prolonged game of hide and seek without the moon to guide him. When his cat potion wore off and the night swallowed him for good he was already sluggish from bloodloss, his sword too heavy in hand. The small, baiting strikes had grown bold when Geralt began to fumble in the darkness. The skin-eater would slide, a silken, chittering nightmare, released from the mud that caught at Geralt's boots and tear away chunks of his armor, his jerkins, his hide. There had been little choice in the end; all his little vials had been emptied, all of them down the hatch together because it was either risk death later from the toxins or risk death right then at the hands of the creature.

It worked. He wasn't dead. Yet.

And underneath the shambles of a man that walked out of the marsh at the edge of dawn, there was a faint smile on Geralt's mouth. That it was he carrying a head and not the other way around, well, that was that. No more children sacrificed.

He was moving forward and then something was swaying in front of him but Geralt didn't understand what it was as his ears roared and his eyes refused to focus properly-- he only knew that he was still pointed the right way to get to his horse and his feet were still moving. He needed to keep his feet moving. After a while the shadow that had flitted back and forth settled against his side and the moving forward was easier. That was fine. Even though his skin was burning faintly and there were a few pains that together were so enormous as to almost render him numb, he'd find Roach. And then. Huh, then. Something.

Geralt's stomach lurched and his knees buckled as he dropped to the grass near the road and heaved up little else but bile tinged pink with blood. After his stomach was empty his body continued to spasm for a few long moment and by the time it was finished both his momentum and his energy had gone. He swayed on his knees and night crept back in around the edges of his already-blurred vision.