When the White Wolf meet the Red Fox

Lullaby of woe

The people who would say that we were living peacefully - and there were not many of them - and safely were seriously wrong.

It was close that Geralt, Jaskier and I avoided the rope around our necks because of two things. The first, a snobbish rich merchant who was scandalized to see his beloved daughter making out with a simple penniless bard. And the other, a lawless man who went to sell me to the guards for "witchcraft and black magic" when I refused and defended myself from his heavy advances and also from a potential rape.

So, we had come to leave Oxenfurt and avoid it for the next few years, taking all our stuff quickly hoping that we had forgotten nothing. The threat of the gallows was a very good motivation to pick up and pack up all of our stuff in a couple of minutes. I think Sleipnir and Roach had never rushed so quickly through the narrow streets of Oxenfurt to get deep into Temeria.

During our journey the autumn gave up its last leaf and the winter covered the dead leaves with its blanket of snow. The acquisition of the hooded coat that I had bought in Oxenfurt has never been so beneficial to my body and health before. The winter in this world was awful, although the snow was beautiful, that was the only good thing. Food and water were rare, death and starvation were far too present. Cold was the enemy of all and only a good fire, warm clothing, or a furred or human presence kept it away.

They were the only solutions for the evenings we slept on the covered roads. Fenrir, who was now more than the average size of a warg, was a good way to sleep warm at night, when he wasn't hunting at night. When I was chatting with Geralt about Fenrir's size, the witcher couldn't make any assumptions about his mysterious growth and imposing size either. He had become so enormous that I could theoretically use him as a mount.

Sitting against Fenrir, I vigorously rubbed my gloved hands in the hope of increasing the temperature a few degrees, but the only sources of heat seemed to be the small fire created from the damp branch picked up by Jaskier and the spark created by the Igni sign invoked by Geralt. My belly was twisting from hunger as we had finished our provisions a few minutes before.

Large snowflakes were falling gracefully to the ground and their numbers were increasing. The wind became more and more sharp, cutting and violent; a snowstorm was brewing. Geralt seemed to suspect it, too; his head raised and his cat-like eyes staring deeply at the snowflakes. A deep sound echoed from his chest before he got up, making the snow fall on him to the ground.

"If we stay here tonight, death is inevitable..." Informs Geralt.

I stood up, my knees hurting, before going to help Jaskier who seemed to be in the same state as us, if not worse. With effort we got back on our mounts. Given the weather, I invited Jaskier to ride behind me without Sleipnir having a crisis, we were all tired and too cold for a thing like that. Fenrir followed us silently and would occasionally shake off the snow from his brown fur.

Geralt had lit a firelight, as a landmark in the blizzard that raged that night. My body was shaking frantically without any control. I had never been so cold; despite Jaskier's body on my back and his arms around me. We might have looked like lovers if it wasn't for the frozen weather that was raging.

I couldn't say how long we had been travelling until we found a village, I lost the trace of time for a long time now, I was only focused on staying awake so as to not freeze to death; all I know is that we had been outside for too long, enough time for my lips to turn purple, the feeling and sensation of no longer being able to feel my fingers became intense, and a fever took hold of my body.

Fortunately, when we arrived in a village, we were received by the innkeeper, his wife and some prostitutes. The innkeeper only cared about his money, but his wife and the ladies of the night were a bit more worried when they saw my condition and Jaskier's condition. Our group was split apart, and I found myself in a narrow room with the innkeeper's wife who forced me naked into a bathtub full of steaming water. The hot water seemed to burn my icy veins and I tried several times to get away from this necessary torture.