The White Wolf and the Black Nightingale

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 10

((a/n: Now we gettin' into the drama yeet))

~~~

All Shaela wanted was a decent night's sleep. Especially with the hangover that was starting to form after her somewhat aggressive drinking just a few hours ago. 

Alas, when she had approached the room she shared with Geralt, the noises from inside were enough to tell her it was very occupied. And even now at the ungodly hours of the night, she could still hear the high-pitched moans from whats-her-face.

The dark-haired female wouldn't have had anything against it if Geralt opted to indulge his desires with one of the tavern wenches for the night, given he would have gone to one of the special rooms set up in the basement of the inn, but the woman that had been clinging onto his arm clearly hadn't been a tavern wench at all.

The girl had long blonde hair and bright blue eyes that nearly seemed to glow (and Shaela could have sworn they did when the girl had glared at her as she and Geralt left). The dress she had been wearing had appeared to be made of the finest and most expensive light blue silk. It was almost as if the girl had stepped straight out of a fairytale.

Then there was the case of Geralt who had been acting rather strange. If one could call blatantly ignoring the person he had offered to travel with strange.

He had barely acknowledged Jaskier and Zoltan, only giving them a short nod in greeting and introducing the girl clinging to his arm as Lilith before they left towards the rooms of the inn. He hadn't even spared Shaela a single glance.

That had ended up with Shaela's aggressive drinking. She probably would still have been drinking at this point if it weren't for Zoltan having to take away her eleventh or twelfth mug of beer from her. 

And when she had wanted to go to the inn room to sleep off her drunkness and unavoidable impending hangover, she didn't even have to get close to the door to hear the noises coming from inside. So she ended up spending the night on the roof like she often did back home when she couldn't sleep.

With those thoughts, she fell into a restless slumber, which honestly only lasted like an hour or two until a rooster had the audacity to screech as loud as it could when morning came around.

~~~

"You feeling okay, Shaela?" Jaskier asked with a worried look, glancing at the girl sitting at the table in front of him. Said girl had her head laying on top of her arms, a glare permanently on her face and clearly having had way too little sleep for the night.

"I'm gonna murder Geralt when he shows his face" she mumbled, glaring at the untouched plate of breakfast set out on the table. Her threat, however, was empty, brought on from her irritation of not having slept and dealing with a hangover.

As if the world was against her, the Witcher just had to appear at that exact moment, the girl from the previous day still clinging onto his arm. The pair passed the table where Shaela and Jaskier sat, not even give either of them a second glance or anything.

The dark-haired female glared after the two as they left the inn. Something wasn't right about the whole situation. She had half expected the girl would have been gone by now, yet she was still clinging to Geralt's arm and Shaela got a bad vibe from her.

Without a word she abrubtly stood up, still not having touched her breakfast, and made her way up to the room she shared with Geralt to get her stuff. Luckily she had already paid for a room for herself while getting breakfast so she could finally sleep in a bed for the night. 

She nearly gagged at the heavy scent of sex hanging in the room, scrunching her nose and trying to breathe as little as possible as she hurriedly grabbed her bag and left the room, heading a few doors down the hall to the other room. She looked through her bag for a book on various monsters that Yunna had given to her a few years ago.

"Come on, there must be something in here" she mumbled to herself as she looked through the book, grinning as she found the page she was looking for. With the information found, she headed back towards the tavern area where Jaskier was still seated at the table.

She placed the book down in the middle of the table, the word Selkie written in fine writing at the top of the page followed by a good amount of info on the creature. The bard simply rose a brow at her, not understanding what she wanted.

"There's something off about that Lilith woman. Geralt has been acting strange since he showed up here with her. So I did some research and I found this" she pointed at the sketch of a rather hideous looking creature.

"You think she's a Selkie? She looks nothing like whatever that thing is" the bard scrunched up his nose at the sketch, softly shaking his head.

"Besides, Geralt told me that Witchers are immune to the control of monsters" he added on, leaning back in his chair while crossing his arms over his chest.

Shaela pursed her lips as she skimmed over the text in the book. There was a point to Jaskier's word, remembering the things she had learned about Witchers from her adoptive parents.

"Right. Geralt wouldn't be easily controlled by a Selkie, amd even if he was she would have brought him to the Selkie queen already. Unless..." she frowned as she read further on the monster.

Jaskier watched her with raised brows, not really understanding what she was saying given he barely knew anything about monsters.

"Selkies seek out human males, put them under a trance and bring them to their queen. The queen uses the human male as a mate to produce more Selkies and then feeds him to her Selkies" Shaela explained as she noted the confused look on his face.

"Selkie queens are much more powerful than the normal ones. I'm pretty sure Lilith is a Selkie queen. But it doesn't explain why she's on land since they usually just stay in the waters and let their offspring do all the dirty work."

With a sigh and an inaudible mumble under her breath, she closed the book and stood up, leaving the inn without another word.