𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍 | ❝Monsters don't get happy endings.❞
Rennen of Skellige was a cold-blooded killer, an assassin from the mysterious Dark Brotherhood. She liked to think that a life of blood and bruises was what she was made for, a life that was...
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ CHAPTER FOUR ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ the bard in the tavern
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IN THE DISTANCE, SHE COULD SEE the dense forest that had once belonged solely to the elves. Greenery that was the beginning of spring, with tall trees full of fruits and flowers and memories woven between the rings inside the trunk. Behind them, the tall Blue Mountains with their whitened tips that appeared alight by flame whenever the sunlight touched them. She watched the mountains with an unwavering sight, wondering what rested upon the bluish-grey lands. There were rumours the free elves had made home there.
Rennen inhaled through her mouth and laid her arms at the edge of the barge, focused on the hints of the valley at the very foot of the mountains—Dol Blathanna. In the elven tongue, it meant the valley of the flowers. She had tried to do her research of the kingdom in the days she had spent riding from the Sanctuary, the book nestled in one of her bags in the saddle of her mare, but all she had come to know was that the kingdom had belonged solely to the elves. Until the human arrived.
She had come to understand, ever since she was a small child, that humans had a deep hatred towards anything and everything they did not understand. Elves, dwarves, gnomes—even witchers. Monsters were hated. Rennen always wondered if others knew the date of her birth, of what flowed beside the harsh winter in her veins, would they hate her, too?
Dories and wooden crate rafts floated in the river as the barge passed by. Their owners gave the barge disgruntled looks, waved their hands with a hint of hatred or annoyance. The fish that had been there disappeared as the barge pushed by. Rennen spat overboard and rolled her eyes at one of the fishermen who made an obscene gesture towards her. It was his fault for fishing so close to the small harbour, where not only the dories and the rafts came by but large barges full of merchants and travellers from all over the Continent. Her, included.
She was no merchant or traveller, but an assassin on her way to finish a contract.
The words the Listener had told her before she left still rang in her mind, the way he stared at her as if he had seen her entire life unfold in those few seconds. Careful words spoken to him by the Dread Mother, her winter-harsh voice slicing in the entrails of his mortal brain like a lullaby one did not desire to hear. Cold words. Deadly words. Did the Dread Mother whisper to the Listener words that could destroy kingdoms?
Yes.
The barge came to a steady stop by docks; a rope was thrown, the loud commotion to welcome those in the barge began as soon as the wooden plank was thrown down and the workers began to pull things from the ship. Rennen went towards her mare, grabbed her reins, and pulled her down with a steady calmness as her eyes were solely focused on the little hamlet in the distance. Upper Posada.
The hamlet was built within and around large rock formations that appeared like small mountains. Wood wrapped around the face of rocks and inside, old and new combined for the simplefolk and those that passed by. Wood and rock, just like the Sanctuary in the insides of an abandoned elven temple. The green of the forests around the hamlet was full of fruiting and flowering trees and shrubs, sands all around—memories of when the elves had been the sole beings in that little place. Merchants stood by their tents and yelled loudly for her to buy their wares as she passed by atop her mare; fishermen and hunters passed by with baskets full of their catch so they could feed their families and sell at the market.
