#eskhan

He walks.

He walks as long as his feet will take him, then long past that. 

Monsters flit past his peripheral, grinning their feral smiles and revealing a forest of glinting fangs. We’ll get you, they whisper, and each year, they edge a little closer. The first had stood down the street—an old man dressed in tattered bloody clothes—staring at him with hunger on its lips. When the foul creature raised a finger to its lips, the gnarled thing was too long and too clawed. The boy had been too young to even have a name then, but old enough to have demons. The second monster had made herself known at the orphanage when the broken boy was finally christened Johannes. She took that name and gobbled it up. You’re mine, now, she promised. 

(Did you know? To bind a demon, one must know their real name.)

There are too many of them to count now, shifting shapes with horrifying vividness. He’d never been able to remember the face of his mother or father, and he would never know the expressions worn by those around him, but the monsters—oh, he sees them well. Just as well as they 

see

him.

His bones have ached every single day since the Trials, like a sharp cold air has replaced his marrow and gifted him with agony. The pain is real. The blood on his bare feet as he trudges forward endlessly is grounding. It reminds him that he is here and he is alive, just like the rabbits that skitter out of his path or the deer that cocks its head in his direction. Soundless as a ghost, the animals can still sense the dread cloaking his shoulders.

The wildwood is a fantastical place in the North of the Continent cupped by perilous mountains that rise up like angry claws of long-buried horrors. Some humans still think of them as Old Gods—progenitors to monolith and myth—but Johan does not care. He must walk.

When the snow falls, the sun hides away behind snow clouds. A light flurry coats the ground with white, then a light veil and finally, a thick blanket of snow. His ankles pinch with needling cold and he thinks he’d very much like to see the sun, even if its warmth would never reach him—even if it would deem him unworthy of all the wonders its light would bring. He longs for something, anything, to cut through the whorling madness of his mind because for every abomination he sees, a symphony of chaos follows. Each chitter accuses him of crimes he can’t remember committing, beckons him to carry on this path and feed, feed, feed.

“Stop,” he croaks, voice rusted from disuse. Never has he spoken to them or acknowledged them with more than stares. 

That would invite them in, he told himself a decade ago. 

Oh, yes, let us in, they cheered.

“Stop.”

Fingers dart to his temples in hopes of finding blissful unconsciousness if he applies enough pressure. Exhaustion frays at his inner conflict, an acceptable alternative to knocking himself out. In a coup of desperation, he could—and would—have rammed his skull through the thicks of the oldest oaks he can find. Johan grasps at his head and changes tacks, now trying to contain his mind that bubbles and threatens to burst with madness. He’s tired, but his unsteady feet keep walking.

A light up ahead beckons him closer. It must be a trick. His eyes are not reliable. There is no crackle of fire and no scent of smoke. Whatever it is blinds him, more than he already is. He basks in the halo before, in the angel that has come down to save him, before his mind has time to defame it. Johan reaches for it, but his legs give way and his consciousness plunges straight into darkness.

⤮

The Trials are a set of ritual experiments performed on young boys to mutate them into magic-wielding monster hunters. 

1. The Choice must be made by all Witchers. No child is forced into this life. It is all chosen by free will. Should the subject acquiesce, training must begin along with a stringent diet of PSILOCYBE, moss and herbs.

(if you live, you’ll be safe.

if you die, you’ll be free.)

2. The Trial of the Grasses modifies the physiology of the subject, the most recognizable change being the slitted pupils. Administer the initial dose by tea. Then, a concentrated dose of REDACTED shall be delivered intravenously. After three days, a final injection of REDACTED is required directly into the pupil.

(it’s here where the bones are broken, where they leave you in the dark and let you feast on would-be friends.)

3. The Trial of the Sight—widely known to other Schools as the Trial of Dreams—further enhances the Witcher trainee’s inhuman abilities and awakens any latent psychic abilities in Viper witcherlings. The process is overseen by Druids or Mages with the former inducing visions by concoction and the latter through esoteric psionics.

(there is no time to bid farewell to your mind, what little scraps of sanity you had in this world. they throw you to the monsters and let them see where you are.)

4. The Trial of Stone requires each subject to take on a companion animal should they survive the previous trials. They must be encouraged to care of it and overcome the Witcher limitations of emotions. The Trial ends only when they complete their training and kill their companion animal.

( but you were found gnawing on the bones of your cohort in the Grasses; there is no heart to turn to stone)

⤮

Johan wakes with a start beneath warm blankets. The fire he’d been looking for dances beside him, the wood aching inside its heat. And the light— The light endures, he realizes with held breath. It’s right, straight across, blazing brighter than the flames between them. 

“Hey,” says salvation, voice made of warm gravel. “You alright?” The words are clipped and grunted, a straight bludgeon of axe in wood. They find the point and remain embedded there until an answer is given. 

Johan sits up, blinking once, then twice. His confusion is muted and gentle, like most of his personality when tamed. He stares at the starlight for a long time, trying to unravel the mystery before him when it finally clicks. It’s quiet. The only thing he hears is the gentle concern from the sun-kissed stranger before him as he repeats his question.

A smile slithers upon Johan’s face.

I am now.

⤮

“Back already?”

The voice like gravel carries through the trees like a warm embrace. Johan lurks behind a large oak, feet chilled by the snow. He reveals one watchful amber eye, trained on his saviour. He doesn’t want to scare him away, but the carcass in his hand is growing cold. Blood dries on his hands and face in crusts, yet none of that discomfort dislodges him from his safe place.

“You can come closer. It’s better by the fire. Warm.” 

The man had introduced himself as Eskel a day ago. Johan hadn’t the words to say anything in return, except drift back into restful unconsciousness. “Thought you’d left. Can cook the deer on the fire, too, if that’s what you like.” Raw is fine. Better, even. It’s what the school instructs. No time or resources wasted in what would be the Great War to come.

He’d promised Johan that he had no intentions to hurt him. How sweet that was, just like the lifeblood that dribbled down his chin from the deer. The only danger here is a Viper with a shattered mind, just barely keeping the shadows at bay. Where the light of the fire stops, they wait. He can feel spindly fingers tap- tap-tapping against his spine in relentless reminder.

Eventually, he does move from the tree with a strange gait that comes with frozen feet. They’ve yet to blacken with frostbite, just a lack of circulation. Johan tosses the deer towards Eskel where it lands on the ground before him with a hardened thump, then slithers back to the makeshift sleeping spot he’d been using.

The other Witcher says nothing, getting to work on skinning the deer and removing the internal organs. It was a messy kill, but no comment is made on that fact. He works simply and honestly, portioning the food and roasting decent sized pieces over the fire. Grease trickles down the piece of wood speared through the meat and the scent is enough to make him salivate.

Johan’s belly speaks for him, a squawking hunger in the quiet night. Eskel laughs in response, holding the cooked food out to Johan which he takes eagerly and devours quickly. He hadn’t planned to eat. The deer was a gift. It’s… not right to take back what was given. When the next piece of meat is held out to him, he just stares blankly at it, making no move to take it.

Eskel waits a beat before eating it himself and cooking more pieces. 

“S’alright if you want more. Take what you need. Go at your own pace.” It’s the second time he says that, a secret blessing for a young man who could never meet the standards of those around him. Johan finds comfort in those words. 

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. S’alright. Just do what you need.” Sometimes what’s needed is quiet. Other times, what’s needed is company. When all Johan does is stare, Eskel fills in the blanks. “My brother’s like that, too. The words don’t come easy, but he speaks in other ways.” His voice is starlight in his word of darkness, each word winking in appreciation of his attention. The comparison, on the other hand, twists Johan’s expression into anger. His dark brows furrow over bright amber eyes.

Different, strange, monstrous—

The boy belongs to no one, left to wander the streets of the city he was named after. He is unlike anyone or anything in this world, a diseased host for demons.

Is there someone like him?

He’d come to accept a world in which he would never be a part of. He lives on the shores of madness, across a dark sea that no one would reach, yet here is Eskel, holding out his hand in kindness. Take your time.

“Johan,” he whispers beneath the crackle of the fire. His name sounds like nothing at all.

Eskel perks, a smile blooming on his features. “Pleasure to meet you, Johan.”

⤮

They cannot hide in the forest forever. Their masters will call, later than sooner, for they are weapons with a purpose. 

He tracks his prey through the darkness. The woods thrum beneath his feet, looming around him like sentries. You do not belong, whispers the breeze. In the night, he thrives, seeing haunts for what they are—sanctuaries for monsters. Magic calls to him and beckons him closer.

“Caught you,” Johan breathes, quiet as a breath. He slots his chin over Eskel’s shoulder, peering at the tracks on the ground before them. With this, the hunt can end. Follow trail and reap the rewards, it is so simple. It always has been, but he has always struggled to see it. His eyes flutter shut as he inhales the scent of his  Wolf and basks in his warmth, pulling him close. 

“I thought you were going to stay at camp.” Eskel had insisted that he does, actually. Disobedience doesn’t stop the huff of amusement that escapes him; he just thought it would be safer for him. Wolves hunt for months at a time and this is very much a part of his Trials as running the Killer. From what he gathers, the same isn’t true for the Vipers. He doesn’t know how much Johan can handle, but the state he was found in those months ago does not bode well.

The Viper doesn’t answer, he simply presses close and waits for the next move. Eskel sighs, patting his arm before getting up and stalking forward. He allows the comfort and the proximity, but chooses not to encourage it. The end is coming. They can both feel it.

Down the snowy ravine, the crunch of bone can be heard along with tearing of flesh and the rhythmic sound of wet chewing. The algouls have amassed in their den, a mass graveyard in its own right. The presence resounds in his chest, multiple specks of deadness where life would otherwise thrum. Johan breathes in the pungent scent of rot. Yes, here. He motions to Eskel, pointing down towards their prey with little care for his own safety. He stands in a way that carries his own scent down wind, stirring the devils below.

“Johan!” Eskel’s rough fingers lace around his frail wrist, pulling him behind him and away from the danger he so clearly ignores. (He is untrained; he doesn’t know.) Johan’s too old not to know something as simple as the way the wind blows, but Eskel wastes no time lingering on what should be. “They can scent you. Alghouls have an endless hunger. They’ll chase you until one of you dies.” They don’t care for villages or armies. All they care about is feeding.

“I’m not afraid.”

“It’s not about being afraid.”

There are some ill-suited boys who are taken and made into Witchers. Eskel wonders if Johan is one of those poor souls cast into a life that will kill him sooner rather than later. The least he can do, after saving him, is teach him how to protect himself. He’s barely into his own Path, but it’s better than leaving the Viper for dead when he returns to his Keep.

They crouch beneath the bushes and Eskel motions at the pit. “The big ugly one. That’s the leader. The smaller ones are ghouls. Less intelligent. Kill the pack leader, the rest should scatter in the face of a stronger opponent.” He knows his Bestiary well enough to recite the big lines. “You need a silver sword. Your school should provide you with it when you’re ready to walk the Path.”

Eskel traces a shape in the air and the sight of it makes Johan bear his teeth. The Wolf raises a questioning brow, but when no explanation is provided, he carries on. “Axii will buy you time. Have you learned to cast spells?” 

Silence.

Johan stares at Eskel for an eternal moment before getting to his feet and launching himself towards the pit. Eskel swears at himself, drawing his sword and chasing the other boy. This is how he dies, then? A victim of his own bleeding heart.

“Gods above, get behind me!” But Johan refuses to do that. He refuses to listen. Instead, he walks up to the Alghoul in the centre of the graveyard. He’s smaller than Eskel. Paired with the malnourishment from walking all the way from the Midlands to the North, the Viper is no threat.

The ghouls circle them with bloodied, salivating mouths. They’re worse than starved hounds. Emboldened by their superior numbers, they snap at Eskel and test his defenses. He’s trained his stance and his parry for all his life, but that was in the safety of Kaer Morhen. He cannot waiver. He cannot be distracted, not even by the thick magic that begins to pool in the air. It weighs on him like heavy summer heat. What? What is that?

In the corner of his eye, he sees Johan hold his hand out. Nothing about him looks different, yet everything that he is shifts. Like a dark cloud crashing to the ground around them Johan summons a magic like he has never seen before. Not in Witchers and not in any mages he knows. His eyes widen, but he can’t watch the snake for too long, lest he give the ghouls an opening.

“ Kill yourselves.”

The School of the Viper operates on one rule: to kill monsters, you must first make monsters.

⤮

The pieces fall into place. The mindless wandering, unable to stop until his body gives out. The awkwardness, which might be more than just a personality quirk. The strongest of their kind have always been different in markable ways, but not Johan. He sees how the boy looks past him, more often than not, to glare at things that are not there. He’d checked time and time again if there was anything on their trail or circling their camp. Nothing. Otherwise, all Eskel could find was a strange negligence in his training. That’s all.

Strange, how everyone around Eskel seems to be gifted in some way and he is a mortal man caught in  their storm. (Mortal in the metaphorical sense. He has no longing to be special, only a niggling curiosity in what he can do, were it up to him. To conjure magic like that—his teacher always said he had an affinity for casting, but he could never match what he saw.)

Laughter filters through the bloodshed, over the renewed symphony of cracking bone and torn flesh. Johan watches on with a light to his eyes that wasn’t there before, like his soul has returned to his body for just a moment and he is completely, wholly, present in this moment. Crimson splatters across his features, turning the handsome into horrific. Throughout all this, he laughs. He laughs openly and wildly as the ghouls devour one another until there is nothing left.

Johan had collapsed shortly after his awesome display. Eskel had picked him up and carried him back to the camp, nestling him back beneath his furs. He watches over the Viper, a task he has grown all too familiar with nowadays. He has to get back. The winter will get worse and he needs to be behind Keep walls to complete his training.

“You did this to yourself, didn’t you?” The question comes not as an accusation, but as a revelation. It’s the first thing Eskel says when he sees him stir from slumber. Not one to dance around the point, he simply asks what he wants to know. “You cast a spell, I’m guessing your master shielded himself and it deflected to you.”

Either the Viper doesn’t know what happened to him or he doesn’t want to answer him. He just pushes himself up and blinks at Eskel with wide eyes. 

“S’alright, wasn’t blaming you.” Most of their camp has already been packed up, save for Johan’s furs. “You can keep those. Wear ‘em on your journey back.”

Back? Panic flutters in Johan’s chest, a caged animal wanting to break free. Where is he supposed to be going? Where is Eskel going? Whatever the destination, it’s together, right? He wears a frantic expression as he chases the words around his mind, trying to catch them and push them past the tip of his tongue. For the past month, Eskel has been his peace. He has not had to face the madness of his own mind, the darkness of his barely seeing eyes. Before him, Johan had never known the light of another’s eyes, he had never understood the way lips could speak without saying a single word. It had all been a distant fog keeping him from ever understanding the people around him.

Without Eskel, he will never know peace.

“When will I see you again?”

“I,” Eskel starts, surprise lifting his dark brows. “The path is different for everyone. Ours may not cross.”

“Please,” Johan breathes, rising to his knees. “I need to see you again.”