#modernity.

Reject Modernity. Embrace Tradition

needs a pick up.  the bag has been getting too heavy, geralt thinks, eyes closed as he sags deeper into the bench beneath him.  still even as roach shifts precariously upon his shoulders,  her claws digging into fabric and a hoarse mew leaving the feline’s throat.  one hand comes out to scratch at the back of her neck.  the other remains sagging.  relaxed.  until a foreign scent strikes at the back of his throat, thick and rapidly approaching.  

undeniably human.  of course.

http://www.bwthornton.co.uk/moorcroft.php

HOW OFTEN IS GERALT paired to new agents as anything kindly?  so often it’s a punishment when the older agents know him well enough to sit back in their vehicle.  rest their sore bodies and aching minds as he hunts down the creature and disposes of it for them, returning with a skull or fluid.  a spine or flesh.  whatever they want for study, for proof to earn him cash enough for rent and food over a few more months.  but last trip out with agent kay has earned him nothing but disdain.  

if the fbi was brave enough to slap his wrists, they would.  too many fears keep them from punishing a witcher in any overt way, however.  half his fault and half their own imaginings.  

instead, a new agent.  new to him at least, with deep set, dark eyes and the hair to match.  almost like dandelion if he wasn’t serious down to his core instead of being full of nonsense.  geralt has little hope for dry humored small talk.  less hope for another sentient monster to be saved so long as they’re each other’s shadows.  

best to handle it before.  call them when he’s finished, yennefer as a go between if she has the time.  only problem is the lack of any beforehand knowledge.  just a town with regular folk who flinch at the sound of geralt’s vehicle.  no bad scents.  no blood in his eyes or his nostrils, no fear on nearby faces.  his backpack swings onto his back, his cat following next and his motorcycle beginning to cool down, parked on the main street.  geralt feels a few glances here and there.  nothing he doesn’t expect -- beyond one cutting, digging deep enough into him that geralt turns to take in the kid those eyes belong to.  

trouble, geralt thinks, doesn’t usually like to be blatant.  not at first.  he shifts roach until she lays down with legs hanging like a loose, angular scarf around his neck.  

“spare a smoke?”  he asks with mustered politeness that nears on personable.  “ran out on the road.”

he can’t help a sigh from tearing out of his throat.  there are no good answers for questions like those, no good assurances for statements like this one.  he shifts his sword from one hand to the other, a weight familiar yet impossible to ignore.  guilt.  should geralt feel that as well?  a young woman dead at the feet of a monster all because one of them, both of them were a bit too slow in their hunt.  she has no real identification on her.  maybe too young for it, maybe forgot.  a brunette.  for that, selfishly, geralt can be thankful.  blonde women losing their lifeblood are too familiar -- too close to someone else.  

“people,” geralt finally says after a moment, “die.  we can’t stop that every time.  they don’t teach you that, wherever you’re from?”

he doesn’t add that he thinks he could have.  that’s just blind ego, the self assurance every witcher needs to face insurmountable odds.  they only admit to weakness when the beast has already rent their flesh, pried their organs into the cold air and dirty ground.  there’s blood enough from his own veins to cement a bit of doubt in geralt’s mind, a weary hesitation as he reaches into his backpack and pries a small bottle of rich, bloody fluid from an inner pocket.  

the cap is well worn in his teeth from other bite marks.  spit out into geralt’s hand as he adjusts his grip on the bottle and angles it, dripping a quarter of its contents into four jagged gouges across his left thigh.  “fuck.”  he spits at the acidic burn that spreads through torn flesh and broken veins.  an exhale follows.  head tilting back to the sky, starless under the light pollution, and then back to the stranger besides him.  

a good quarter of his body hasn’t come back together.  hard to tell what wounds are hidden there when the blood hasn’t finished appearing. 

“can’t say it takes a fool of a man to fight a fiend.  you’re not a man.  begs the question of just what you are, doesn’t it?”