WOLVES WITHOUT TEETH ( geralt of rivia.. )

002. the heavy mark..

"You seem much closer to him," he tried to explain further, nearing the very concept he tried to touch upon without rising any defenses.

Azaras looked around, one glance to the emptiness of the courtyard drowned in white and deep ocean blue, before, bemused, returning a half smile to Eskel. Her hands hid away their big thumbs under her waistband. "We fuck more often, if that's what you mean?"

Eskel straightened up, unsurprisingly embarrassed by the take Azaras abruptly took with the talk. He had no interest interfering with fellow Witchers' "sleeping" patterns; that was a problem each could solve for themselves. It was the attachments which worried him and ultimately, he knew would worry Vesemir as well, were he there instead.

"No, not that," he finally shook his head to Azaras. "I meant that you and Geralt seemed to have formed a special bond, magical perhaps..."

What Eskel did not know and Azaras was not gonna slip past her passive opening towards the subject was that Geralt asked of her, after being questioned on the same thing, to keep quite about their vows, at least for a while. He didn't explain why, nor did she need further information to know she will respect his choice.

Before Eskel now, Azaras shrugged naturally, "Do I look like I can do fancy spells, Eskel? Please... I don't even know what you mean by that. Is this bond something bad?"

"In theory, no," unsuspecting, Eskel sighed, "it's quite beautiful really. But it can turn bad."

"Everything has the potential to turn to something worse, rather than better," Azaras was dismissive and carefree enough to smile. Speaking of such things only solidified what she was trying to ignore: her own fear of Sylvain's choices, away from her.

Reading her on that thought perfectly, with a last breath turned to steam in the air around Eskel's deformed face, his amber eyes worried, "How are you holding up on the news about your home?"

A knife-like pain twisted in her heart and Azaras' smile quickly became as bitter as a lemon. It's a test, she convinced herself, just to avoid it and worry everyone, to see if I am loyal to the Witchers now. "Sylvain is his own person and I am apparently dead to Arcapan."

"That doesn't answer-"

"Heard you're taking the night watch," Azaras interrupted. "I'll go sneak in a sleep while I can so I can cover for you after midnight and towards the morning, alright?" With a hand clasping his shoulder in a fugitive pat, she did not linger any longer, no matter how needed Eskel felt their conversation to have been.

Steps threaded away from foul scents and into molded hallways, lost amongst many chambers, some so desolate, their roofs have given in and snow had taken refuge inside, risking to collapse in were the cold to ever leave Kaer Morhen to the mercy of melting mountains. By what she learnt from the ones patient enough to answer curiosities, Witchers hardly ever remained in the fortress for too long between hunts, hence, their hay beds have been improvised by the ingenious Lambert.

He did not take into consideration how each two bedded room will be smelling of stable. Indeed, through the silence of the almost eternal night of winter cold, Azaras and Geralt slept in separate beds, his further inside the room, making him face the wall and dig his head into a false pillow towards the carving of a ventilation window, always open.

Geralt has been hunting all morning, all the way into the late afternoon, when he dragged the corpses of several monsters from the roads he had roamed around the fortress with Lambert, cleaning the land of the filth sent for them. In the courtyard, he barely glimpsed at a small moment of seeing Azaras sparring with Eskel, using her speed as he many times wished he could see her do, without grave danger around them.