(no subject)

[worstsin]

There was something wrong happening.

At first Geralt had avoided the woods, because it felt like that off-ness was concentrated there. The birds and insects had gone quiet at first, and soon after they'd started to flee to the forest's edges. Though autumn had barely begun, in some areas Geralt found trees turning rusty, leaves dying off.

That had been at first, and from there things had gotten wronger.

When Geralt realized what was happening, he went to the woods. He worried it had no longer become an issue of protecting himself until he managed to leave Darrow, but of protecting Darrow potentially from himself.

Whatever corruption existed in the forest, growing and spreading, it affected his body, and his mind. It had twisted itself around the witcher mutations, had expressed them in new ways, or simply more.

And so Geralt was back at his old camp. Hiding, biding time, and keeping a baleful eye on the situation. He ought to do something about it, but what? What could he do, when he didn't even understand what was happening to himself?

He sat beside the fire, hunkered over an evening meal in a foulest mood. His skin was paler than usual, dark veins standing out against the white. All of his senses screamed. He gripped his dinner in hands that had begun to end in blackened, pointed nails, that reminded Geralt too much of Regis. That was the bruxa in him, no doubt, a fact that he wanted to put little thought into, if he could avoid it.

The canines that filled his mouth too much more than they used to, those were likely more attributable to a manticore mutagen.

And the fact that he had made dinner of a squirrel, and had not felt the bother or desire to cook it, that Geralt wanted to put thought into even less.

Comments

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina didn't like bad dreams. She had always been blessed with fairly restful sleep, whatever happened to her, but lately that hadn't been so.

She knew Inej was unquiet, and she could see and feel the tension in other people around Darrow - some more than others. Her tailor seemed exhausted; a young man she'd seen a few times looked downright haunted.

And she hadn't really seen Geralt in a week or so. She hadn't thought too much of it the first day or so: maybe he was out monster hunting. But his visits had been so regular before, and more frequent since they had decided to start a relationship, of a kind, that his absence was noticed.

He didn't answer his phone, either.

Finally Nina grabbed her shawl and headed out to the woods. Autumn had finally come to Darrow and the leaves crunched underfoot as she made her way to Geralt's camp. She had only been to it a handful of times - usually he came to see her.

She smelled the campfire and before long she caught the familiar rhythm of his heart... but something felt off, somehow. Nina grew more cautious as she approached. She wore a long, comfortable red dress with a dark cardigan to help keep warm. She didn't bother to try to hide her approach, not wanting to startle him.

"I should be mad at you," she said as she approached the fire. "Making me traipse all the way out here to make sure you aren't dead."

[worstsin]

"You probably shouldn't have come here."

It wasn't leave or stay back, because Nina didn't deserve that, and anyway, it was too strong a statement for what Geralt was actually feeling, which was a sort of twisting, antisocial resignation. He simply didn't want to be seen.

Geralt dropped his head, hiding his face from Nina, and quickly wiped his hands in the leaf detritus at his feet where he sat on a dry log.

"I should have called you, Nina. I don't have an excuse."

[every_blossom_blooming]

"Probably not," she agreed. "But here I am. I brought you some things."

Maybe Geralt didn't need anything from her, and maybe she should have just trusted that Geralt had good reason for vanishing. But she had worried, and now she had to see for herself that he was alright.

He wasn't.

She slid a bag off her shoulder and slowly came closer to the fire, though for the moment she kept it between them. It threw light on Geralt, for one thing. His fingers looked blackened and she could see the pallor in him even as he tried to hide his face.

"What's wrong?"

[worstsin]

Well. She was here now, and Geralt knew enough about both caring and human nature, that he knew that if he tried to hide the truth, Nina would search it out. And the harder he tried to hide it, the more doggedly she would undoubtedly look for it.

So he shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands, his fingers that ended in what looked more like thickened claws than a man's flat, neat fingernails.

"Something's happening out here. Some kind of magical corruption. The mutations have gone unstable. At least, it seems like it."

Geralt felt sick to the stomach for a moment. It was a cruel reminder of how very, very little he knew about his own body, and what had gone into making it that way. Every witcher alchemist had died in the pogroms, every witcher who had been at Kaer Morhen when it was attacked was gone.

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina's eyebrows drew together and she moved around the fire to get a better look. She set her bag down: it had apples, a heavy blanket, sachets of tea, a tin of ginger snaps.

She sank down next to him and pulled one of his hands into her lap, unafraid. She let her fingers brush over his, feeling the bones in his fingers. Slowly she lifted her gaze to his face, the same concerned look there.

"This must be terrifying," she said quietly, full of sympathy but not pity. Geralt told her of his mutations, but feeling his body change like this, out of his control, must have been disconcerting at best and frightening at worst.

[worstsin]

Was he terrified? He wasn't. Ought he have been? Possibly. He didn't feel calm, but neither was it terror. Instead, he felt lost, and tired. Too many nights of pondering over what could become of his humanity.

"This has happened before. Twice. The first when I was eleven years old. I think I might have been terrified then, but ... "

He stared at his hand in Nina's lap. It felt like it didn't belong to him sitting there, but it was his.

"I've got work to do, and this is going to make it that much harder."

[every_blossom_blooming]

A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth at the mention of working.

"Work?" she echoed. "What work?" Was there some contract or had he just found a way to keep himself occupied?

This close she realized his scent had changed. It wasn't unpleasant, per se, but it wasn't the same and that alone was worrying, never mind all the more visible changes in him.

[worstsin]

"Contracts," he said. "Witchering." What else was there? Geralt's life wasn't the sort that allowed for much straying. Whether the world was crumbling apart, or whether his body was, there was work to do on the Path.

"And somebody should be figuring out what's going on here, and fixing it. But that's ... I'm not suited to it, right now. There's got to be someone out there that actually understands all of this."

Geralt grimaced and pulled his hand away from Nina.

"It was hard enough getting people to cooperate enough to make things easier for me before."

Now, he dreaded leaving the cover of the trees, even if they seemed to be dying.

[every_blossom_blooming]

"Let me help," she said quietly. She didn't try to keep hold of his hand but she didn't break eye contact, either. Geralt seemed more monstrous but she had worked with monsters before - ones that looked perfectly human and were capable of deep wickedness. Whatever was happening to Geralt, she still trusted him and she still cared for him.

So she wasn't going to just abandon him to suffering if she didn't have to.

[on_mans_road]

Something was wrong. She couldn't even find solace in Cabeswater and after leaving the magic forest she felt... she felt off. She hugged herself as she walked through the twilight wood, looking far more concerned than a girl who was also a unicorn should look.

Her pale hair, her moon-white skin, and her white dress caught the dying light of the day when she caught the scent of fire, and of Witcher. But something was off there, as well. She had not encountered Geralt at his campsite in some time and she was surprised to realize he was there now, when the nights were chilly.

She changed course through the wood until she found the fire proper and his lean to. Even at this distance she could tell there was something different and she approached with natural caution.

[worstsin]

He knew that it was Amalthea from far too long a distance. She seemed to stand out even more to his senses than usual from the background. Perhaps it was because everything else seemed more decayed, that she seemed to be even brighter. Geralt could swear in his present state that he could not only smell her, but that primeval forest she had come from worlds away as well.

It made his blood surge behind his temples, and it made him hungry.

He gripped at his knees, thick nails digging in painfully. It was grounding, just enough.

"Amalthea, you should leave the whole forest. Get out of here."

[on_mans_road]

"Where would I go, Geralt?" she answered quietly, certain he would hear her. "There is no where I can go that is not touched by... whatever this is."

She felt it even in the city; she felt it in her dreams. Even those had become more persistent: dreams of running and running and the heat of the fiery bull on her back. The cold feel of the surf around her legs. A castle falling into the sea. A prince.

She wished she could forget all of it.

"What has it done to you?"

[worstsin]

Nowhere. She was right. There was nowhere she could go to escape what was happening, any more than Geralt could. So there he was, and there Amalthea was. He had no authority to tell her to leave him be.

He raised his eyes to Amalthea. They were no more alien than they usually were, a single truth that Geralt found comforting. But his face had an even more unnatural pallor, a grey, where it had once been pink.

"Nothing that wasn't already done to me by men."

And that was the truth. Whatever was being expressed was already inside of him. It was no different, in a way, than balding, or freckles. An outward manifestation of a genetic truth.

[on_mans_road]

She came closer to the fire because she was feeling the chill of the creeping evening. The girl sank to the ground near Geralt and drew her knees to her chest so she could rest her chin on them. She stared at the flames.

"Men have done their worst to both of us," she murmured. "All in the name of what? Being helpful?"

Amalthea rolled her eyes and squeezed her arms around her legs.

[worstsin]

"Someone has to sit in the middle. The world needed a mediator, so it made one. Maybe it was done selfishly, but it was done. I know my lot."

But Geralt could hear Lambert in the back of his mind, his anger, his hatred of all of the injustices that boys were brought to bear at Kaer Morhen. Destiny? That's bullshit, Geralt, and we both know it.

He picked up a long, thin stick of green wood and used it to stir the coals in the heart of the fire. He stared into it, pupils narrowing until practically disappeared in the yellows.

[on_mans_road]

"A magician thought he needed to save me... save me from what?" She frowned and shook her head, bitter in her memory of Schmendrick. She knew it was unkind, and perhaps uncalled for, but she felt so thoroughly unsettled and she could not escape it. Not in this body, and she couldn't escape to Cabeswater, either.

She was trapped, and cages frightened her.

"Why can't they leave well enough alone?"

[worstsin]

"I can't tell you from what," Geralt murmured. He watched Amalthea with eyes that were both hungry and sympathetic, cold and tender. One nature warring against another, though both had always been part of him. Geralt had never seen Amalthea so distressed, so -- he thought in a way that made him feel strange -- human.

"Magic. Magicians. They always want to know, even when they shouldn't. And they always want more, even when they shouldn't. The good ones. The bad ones. The ones just surviving."

You could not trust them. Even the ones that you loved. But Geralt did not say so out loud, not to Amalthea, not tonight. It would have been far, far too cruel and uncharitable toward Yennefer, and she was not there to defend herself.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

He'd hurt Dorian. He could have killed him and he hadn't even realized he was doing it. He wasn't in his right mind.

Bull wasn't sure what was going on, but it was bad, and he feared madness more than anything in the world. He had been over the edge of it before and he could not go back. This time it wouldn't be a nest of Tal Vashoth: it would be people he knew and cared for. He couldn't let that happen.

So he found himself in the woods. Some part of him argued that he should go home, but what if he slept? What if he dreamed like that again? What if he didn't stop this time?

No, maybe this was better for a while, even if Dorian was certain the lyrium might have caused it and had gotten rid of it. Bull wasn't sure he could take that chance.

The scent of wood smoke caught his attention. He ended up following it and he lingered outside the light of it, his good eye reflecting it as he looked at the camp site on the other side.

"Geralt?"

[worstsin]

"Unfortunately."

There had been people that had visited Geralt in the last few days. He'd wanted to hide from them, all of them, send them away. Even if, in the end, he did not. A product of too many lectures, over the years, about not isolating himself, about how the people who cared for him could never think ill of what he was.

But the man who approached, Geralt had no intention of sending away. He was no Regis, here to offer a philosophical and kind ear, but Geralt could hope for little better here in Darrow. The Iron Bull, he knew, would not judge him, in this state or any other.

It did not improve his mood, however. He guessed that it was partly simply the instability of the mutations.

"Not sure what's brought you out here." Though Bull's place wasn't far from Geralt's camp, simply closer to the city and further from the woods.

"But you may as well have a seat by the fire. Was about to ... cook."

Eat, he meant. About to eat.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"I'm concerned I'm going to go mad and kill people. I figured not being near so many might be a wiser choice."

He moved closer to the firelight; as the light crept up his body, the heavy shadow behind him was revealed to be his maul - a fossilized dragon claw - balanced on his shoulder. A large jug hung from his other hand. He lifted it.

"Want a drink?"

He'd found the maraas-lok in his trunk. He was pretty sure Geralt was the only other person in Darrow that might be able to handle more than a few shots of it.

[worstsin]

"It's going around," Geralt said, dull voice deep with irony. He looked up to meet Bull's eyes and away from the rabbit and squirrel he was now busy skinning completely. Geralt wasn't using a knife to do the work, but hands tipped with impossibly sharp claws.

His face was a greyer shade of pale.

The smell of whatever was in the demijohn at Iron Bull's hip met Geralt's nose, and his nose twitched as he tried to place it. He couldn't, though by the smell it was stronger than a dwarven spirit from Mahakam.

It might not be Regis' mandrake cordial, but it would do, certainly. He was up for being a drunk that night.

"What have you got?"

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"Maraas-lok," he answered. "It'll put some chest on your chest."

With a quiet grunt, Bull set the maul down on the other side of the fire before he moved closer. He eased down, left leg stretched out and the brace reflecting the firelight. He was close to Geralt, close enough at least that they could pass the jug back and forth. He worked the cork out and offered Geralt the first drink.

And as he did, he looked closely at the witcher.

"What happened to you?" Those claws wouldn't be out of place on Bull. But he remembered Geralt looking... mostly human.

[worstsin]

Geralt thought that he could perhaps use some chest on his chest; he'd always felt too drawn and sinewy, though Yennefer had never complained, not about that and not about the scars.

He watched the fire glitter off of Iron Bull's metal brace, almost in a trance for a heartbeat, before finishing up with the animals and skewering them to roast on a makeshift turnspit over the fire. Normally, Geralt preferred stew to roast, but he didn't have a pot ready -- he'd been about prepared to simply eat the animals raw, had even wanted to.

It happened, from time to time. He would even indulge in raw liver some nights while on the Path. But not so powerfully.

"Something evil is happening in the forest. It's focused on a place called Cabeswater. That's all I know. Whatever it is, it's destabilized the mutations. Changed the way they're being expressed."

He couldn't remember if he'd told Iron Bull about the mutations. If not, it didn't matter now, he supposed. He took the demijohn and tipped it back, taking a long swig.

It burned his throat on the way down. It was almost pleasant.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

Bull nodded some, accepting that something bad was happening. Of course it was. He knew that. Seeing the red lyrium had solidified the notion that it was something at least somewhat outside himself messing with the normal state of things.

He rubbed his forehead.

"I've had bad dreams for as long as I can remember. Got worse after Seheron, worse after the Chargers were wiped out. But I could handle it. I had the Qun. Here?" He shook his head and he accepted the bottle when Geralt passed it over.

He took a long drink and growled at the burn. Good.

"Here I have madness licking at my mind and none of my people."

[worstsin]

Geralt gave the Bull a look of deep sympathy, as much at any rate as his eyes -- viper-like, thin slits in the close firelight -- could convey. He'd been having the dreams too, though not so bad as it seemed it was occurring in others. Maybe that, too, was an attribute of the mutations.

But he was tired, of dreaming about Ciri, dead. Of the Naglfar overhead and the White Frost and destruction.

Something occurred to Geralt.

He leaned closer to Bull, nose nearly in the pit of the man's arm, and inhaled deeply.

"But you're not having any physical manifestations?"