#witcher steve

Benny had pointed him toward the burlap heap without comment on the first night. Hopper had watched him, measuring his intent without a word. Dustin had hovered in the doorway with a sheaf of notes and a stare full of questions he had not yet asked aloud.

So Eddie stayed.

He rose with the kitchen fire each morning. Benny gave him chores without much explanation, and Eddie completed them without complaint. He had learned early that a man without coin survived only by making himself useful. That knowledge had come from a town farther south, where the tavern master had chased him with a broom after discovering Eddie had slept in the stable loft without permission. He had slipped out before dawn that day, hungry and humiliated, wishing for a place where people looked at him with something other than suspicion.

Hauekinge, unexpectedly, had not asked him to leave.

He played quiet songs in the evenings. They were simple things, shaped by winter breath and soft plucking. He played not for an audience but for the room itself.

Dustin listened with sharp attention. He corrected every inaccuracy with seriousness rather than mockery.

“That isn’t how their claws work,” he would say. Or: “No, they don’t hunt that way.”

Eddie took the revisions without irritation. He almost found them comforting. The boy clung to accuracy like a lifeline, as though naming danger correctly could keep it from devouring what remained of his world.

Eddie had lived by stories once. He had traded them for meals, sold them for shelter. The farther he traveled, the less people cared whether the tales were true. Truth did not sell as easily as drama. Eventually, rumors began to twist his songs—whispers that he glamored beasts with music, that he summoned trouble wherever he went.

There had been a village where those rumors caught up with him. A contract had gone wrong. A fiend, half-starved and half-mad, had come down from the hills. Eddie had seen it first and shouted for the hunters, but they had taken too long to respond. A woman had died. The villagers had blamed him for the shout, for the fear, for the way they claimed his singing had brought the monster down the slope. He still remembered the pitch of their voices, the way a lie hardened into truth when enough frightened people repeated it. He had fled in the dark before they could decide whether driving him out was punishment enough.

He never returned to that valley.

Hopper watched him now with a steadiness that reminded him of the few men on the road who had offered warning rather than cruelty. Not trust, but fairness. Eddie did not take the scrutiny personally.

Snow deepened in the woods. Eddie gathered kindling most mornings. He felt the shift in the air before he understood it.

He stopped under the pines, breath misting faintly.

A shape moved in the trees. Its limbs bent oddly, its eyes gleamed too bright. Eddie knew the feel of wrongness. He had felt it years ago, on the night he heard a shriek near the Kaedweni border and found himself staring at a thing that had no business being alive.

That time, he had run.

This time, he held still. Running had gotten him far enough to survive before, but he doubted it would help now.

The creature stepped closer.

The blast that followed shook the clearing. Snow leapt from the ground. Eddie staggered backward, his boots slipping.

When his sight steadied, Steve stood just beyond the trees.

“You should not be out here alone,” Steve said.

Eddie’s throat tightened. He thought of the fiend in the valley, of the weight of a blame he could not outrun, of the fear that had clung to him for days afterward. His voice came out rough.

“Didn’t reckon I’d meet something like that.”

“Trouble does not care what you reckon.”

Steve checked the creature’s body with swift expertise. Eddie followed him back without question.

Later, inside the inn, Dustin’s raised voice startled him more than the morning had. Eddie heard the boy defending him, sharp and confident, as though Eddie’s choice to hold his ground meant something. Steve responded in low, measured tones. Eddie pretended not to hear.

By the time night settled, the tavern had quieted. Hopper remained by the hearth with a blade across his knees. Eddie sat with his lute, trying to tune it. His fingers trembled. The sound that came out was thin and hesitant.

He closed his eyes.

Another memory pulled forward—the night he had hidden behind a stone fence in Rinde, waiting for the sound of pursuit to fade. He had been accused of stealing coin from a lord’s messenger after singing at a feast. Someone else had done it, but the lord’s men were not interested in untangling the truth. They had chased him through the streets until he lost them, and he had spent the night freezing behind a wall, too frightened to light a fire. That fear had stayed with him for weeks afterward, jumping awake at any sound, unsure whether he was outrunning lies or the weight of being unwanted.

He breathed slowly now until the tremor eased.

A quiet melody formed beneath his hands. A tune shaped from memory, fear, and the strange relief of surviving something he hadn’t been sure he could face. Hopper did not comment. Eddie took the silence for acceptance.

He played until the shaking settled, then returned to the storeroom.

The cold pooled along the floor. The inn creaked beneath the night. Eddie drew the blanket up to his chest.

He thought of Steve then—of the way the Witcher had stood in the clearing without fear, without surprise, carrying whatever loneliness a life like his demanded. Eddie knew men like that. Men who walked from place to place with nothing to ease the weight they carried. Men who learned early that what the world took, it almost never gave back.

Eddie wondered how long a man could carry that kind of solitude before it began to wear through the seams.

The thought lingered as the tavern settled around him.

Outside, the high passes were beginning to soften beneath late-winter sun. Travelers on the Path would already be listening to the weather, reading the snow, and preparing for the long descent home.

Eddie felt a strange pull in his chest, something restless and expectant, a quiet sense that the world had begun to shift.

He closed his eyes, unaware of how close returning footsteps already were.

tags:

@dame-zoom-a-latte @wheneverfeasible @queenie-ofthe-void

He quickly stabled Beam in the lean-to, dismounting and loosening the girth as she drank greedily from the half-frozen trough.

As he made his way towards the house, he cataloged more changes; the porch was swept, the broom stood neatly upright against the wall, and the latch didn’t stick when he opened the door.

It had been fixed.

On their own, these weren’t notable exceptions; however, altogether, they sharpened his suspicion.

Dustin typically avoided sweeping the porch, doing the bare minimum before tossing the broom aside to work on whichever topic or experiment he’d had set for the day.

The latch had been sticking for some time before he’d left. Hopper had grunted about it, mentioning he was waiting for the local smith to get a supply of iron nails in to repair it properly.

With the passes being as they were, it was strange that they’d managed to beat him here.

Though his senses were not warning him of any danger, Steve still was poised for a fight when he entered.

Inside, the fire burned low and steady, a pot hanging from the hearth hook, steam lazily curling from the lid in thin streams that showed it hadn’t been boiling long. The warmth sank instantly into his boots, making Steve bemoan the chance to take them off immediately.

The air was fragrant with the scent of familiar spices—Benny’s stew.

Dustin was at the table, head bent low over a scattering of notes. He looked up as Steve entered, giving him a wide grin that showed off his newly grown teeth.

“You’re back!”

Steve softened slightly. It had been years since Dustin toddled behind him and the others, but he still remembered every time the boy gave him that formerly gap-toothed grin.

“I got lucky. Wasn’t sure I’d beat the melt.”

A voice he didn’t recognize said, “You didn’t.”

He looked over and caught the shape of a man standing near the pantry shelves. Bootless, with sleeves rolled up and a cloth tucked into his belt, he seemed aware yet not tense.

Steve, however, was staying in his spot by the door, one hand flexing as if to grab a sword.

Dustin cleared his throat before making the introductions. “That’s Eddie. He’s staying at the inn.”

Eddie gave a short nod of greeting. ‘You must be Steve.”

Steve looked at the fire; someone had stirred the pot not long ago. The ladle was hooked wrong, backhanded, and side wet at the rim.

“You’re new here.”

“Well spotted! Delighted to see that your keen senses aren’t frozen over.”

Ignoring him, Steve looked at Dustin. “He’s a friend of Benny’s?”

Dustin shook his head, “No. He came in off the ridge during the first blizzard. Benny’s been letting him sleep in the storeroom.”

Steve exhaled once through his nose and keeping every movement slow and deliberate, uncoiled enough to hang his cloak. Snow melt dripped from the hem as the fire crackled merrily.

“You eat?” Dustin asked.

Steve shook his head.

Dustin shifted at the table. “I can get you a bowl if you’d like. Should be ready to eat.”

Eddie moved to get his boots, pulling them on. “I’m going to head back, just wanted to drop the stew off. Didn’t mean to be in the way.”

He pulled the door open and slipped out without waiting for a response. Cold air swirled in and vanished just as quickly as he did.

Steve didn’t watch him go, finally stepping out of his boots and taking a seat.

Dustin ladled stew into a bowl and handed it to him without a word.

It was over-salted, and the potatoes were cut too small, yet still the best thing Steve had eaten in too long.

After the stew was finished and the house was quiet, Steve rinsed the bowl and set it aside to dry. The pot hung idle now, steam and contents long gone.

The door opened behind him, and he turned.

Hopper stepped in, stamping the slush from his boots. Without speaking, he shut the door and then tugged off his gloves, moving close to the fire.

“You’ve returned late,” Steve commented.

“You’ve returned early,” Hopper replied.

That was the full measure of their conversation.

As Hopper sank stiffly into the closest fire-warm chair, Steve leaned back against the table, arms folded.

“Don’t remember an Eddie in the tales of Dustin’s new friendships,” Steve said, more than asked. “He new?”

Hopper nodded. “Benny, let ’em have the storeroom. Didn’t ask questions.”

“You didn’t either?”

Hopper rubbed his thumb slowly. “Watched. He’d come in during a bad storm, half-frozen. And Benny’s always been tender-hearted.”

When Steve didn’t argue the point, Hopper added, “He works. Carries the water, helps with the wood, doesn’t ask for anything beyond a meal and a place to sleep.”

“He talk?”

“Some. Says he’s a bard,” Hopper said. “Didn’t try to charm anyone though, no clever words. Dustin started correcting his songs. Monster lore. Detail stuff. He let him.”

Steve looked at the fire. Someone had shifted the pot hook back one notch. Eddie, probably. Right-hand dominant. Confident, but not trained.

“So Dustin adopted him,” Steve said.

“As much as he does anyone.”

“He’s not dangerous?” Steve asked.

“Not yet.”

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s not.”

The coals shifted. Hopper stretched his leg out carefully like it hadn’t stopped hurting in months.

Steve glanced at him but said nothing, choosing instead to focus on the fire like it held all the answers.

Despite the restlessness that skittered its way like static through his bones, Steve didn’t go far the next morning.

Instead, he split kindling into a pile too small to burn clean, checked Beam’s hooves for any damage from the trek, and reset the stacks of grain as if they’d been touched in the few hours since his return.

Nothing helped.

Dustin had left early, tumbling from their shared room in a flurry of mumbles and tugging on clothes, mentioning something about a delivery of salt. Steve didn’t stop him to clarify.

By midday, Steve had run out of even the barest of excuses and made his way into town. The square was soft with thaw, mud, and ash mixed into the corners, doing little to muffle the noise.

Steve stood just off the proper path, near the well, half-shadowed in its frame to avoid any who would think to greet him. Boots dragged mud across the square, and the wind moved unevenly through the alleys. He heard every change in weight, every gate latch.

He smelled the inn’s chimney first; peat smoke and barley bread. Something sour, too. Turnip stew.

Then he heard Dustin.

The boy’s voice carried unevenly in fast, clipped phrases. No edge. Steve tracked the movement—pacing, then stillness.

He shifted just enough to see.

Dustin was sitting on the back step of the inn, notes curled against his knee. Talking fast. Animated. His voice carried faintly—something about claw width, from the sound of it. Nesting habits. Probable regions.

Eddie didn’t interrupt. Just let him talk. Asked a question once, softly, Steve barely caught it.

Dustin answered like they’d done this before.

Dustin’s gestures had that edge they got when he cared too much, something Steve had remembered seeing often as he trailed the Alchemist or Hopper, describing some new lore or experiment he wanted to bring aboard.

Steve didn’t move.

He scanned their posture. The line of dust at the hem of Dustin’s cloak. The scrape of rock on the corner of Eddie’s boot, likely from the night he arrived. The faint brine of Benny’s stew on Eddie’s sleeve.

Nothing in their posture said intrusion. But everything in it said time.

Steve stayed in the shadow.

They’d never found out why the Keep had been attacked, but Steve knew it was the same story as told by many mouths. Men feared what they didn’t understand, what they couldn’t control.

And now one sat beside Dustin, bare-headed in the wind, smiling like the boy beside him had never scraped blood from a blade.

Dustin bumped Eddie with his elbow. Eddie grinned and flicked his page.

Steve turned before they noticed him.

His boots were damp by the time he reached the house.

Later, he found Eddie behind the inn.

Not far. Just past the rain barrel, where the stone wall still held some heat. Eddie was sitting on a crate, back to the stone, boots off, fingers quiet in his lap. The lute case was shut beside him.

He looked up. Didn’t smile.

“You get lost?” Eddie asked.

Steve didn’t answer.

He stopped three paces off, close enough to speak, far enough not to offer anything.

“You’re quiet for someone watching from across the square,” Eddie said.

Steve didn’t react.

“You always do that?” Eddie asked. “Track people like they’re prey?”

Steve’s eyes didn’t narrow, but they stayed on him.

“Only when I don’t know what they are,” he said.

Eddie nodded. Not defensive. “Fair.”

Silence.

Steve shifted. Not enough to show discomfort. Just weight, redistributed.

“You’re still here.”

“Snow hasn’t cleared.”

“You close with him?” he asked.

“Dustin?”

Steve didn’t respond. Eddie shrugged.

“He talks. I listen.”

“He talks a lot.”

“Not to everyone.”

The breeze shifted, and Steve caught the sour scent of sweat under Eddie’s collar, the old lute oil on the wood case, and the dried berry on his breath.

“You don’t belong here,” Steve said.

Eddie didn’t flinch. “Neither do you.”

More silence. The sound of a shutter creaking in the next alley. One loose hinge.

Steve’s hand curled against his side. Loosened.

“He corrects your songs.”

“They needed correcting.”

“You let him.”

Eddie’s gaze didn’t change. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Steve said nothing.

“You looking for a reason to ask me to leave?” Eddie asked. “Or just trying to find out if you can.”

Steve stared. Measured his posture, his stillness, his balance. No threat posture. No pull toward a blade. Just presence.

Steve’s hand flexed near his side. Then stilled.

“You don’t ask for anything,” he said.

“No.”

“You don’t leave either.”

“No.”

“Why.”

Eddie leaned back against the wall. Let his head rest there.

“Because no one’s told me to,” he said. “And the quiet doesn’t mind me yet.”

Steve stared at him for a long time. Then he turned and walked back the way he came, footsteps deliberate in the thawed dirt.

The door didn’t creak when he opened it.

Inside, the fire had burned low to gleaming coals. The pot was off the hook.

Steve stepped out of his boots. Hung up his cloak.

The air held the heat from the fire and the faint scent of vinegar from the clean bowl on the table. The kettle had been moved, and its base left a dry ring in the ash. Someone had lifted it left-handed.

His pack was still against the wall. He hadn’t touched it. No one else had either.

He sat, the chair creaked different than before, something had shifted in the joints. Slight, but new.

The parchment near the candle had Dustin’s hand—notes about anatomy in tight lettering as if he worried he would run out of space before ideas. The margin held a second set of marks. Ink darker, lines angled, clipped.

He didn’t read them.

Nothing had changed in the house, not really.

And that was the part he noticed most.