The gravestone thorns bloomed in the longer winters, where the barrier of night pushed over and invaded the creeping light, begging for a fracture of attention, of space and warmth. Behind Azaras' resting place, with a torn cloth tangled into it, the rusted bush had grown so much it cast a snaking shadow on the disturbed snow and ice below. Wind hit it against the stone still stained from a sweetly strong wine that painted red deeply into the punctures of time and stark structures.
Azaras' back hurt.
Horse riding, uncomfortable beds and plenty of rolls and throws in fights have finally bruised inside so much that even moving became a pain comparable to the womanly monthly days she once had. Hearing of her pains had not been easy for Geralt, because for the past few days in which they had worked together to earn some coin wherever Witchers were not yet shunned away, even during fugitive lessons and breaks of air, Azaras hadn't complained.
Not until she was tossed on the ground as a ragged doll by a Fleder. Then, she couldn't stand up on her own anymore and Geralt knew for sure that something was wrong. Even teary eyed from the sudden pains, Azaras tried to deny it as much as she could, testing ever single nerve of patience on the edge of concern that the Witcher could muster.
The Fleder couldn't die sooner and he couldn't care less about getting back to obtain the bounty off of it, because he'd rather focus on kneeling beside Azaras, taking her hand. A small debate happened in the silence of his reaction: if she hurt her spine with the fall, surely she would heal sooner, but much slower were he to move her in order to check.
"Ease the frown, Geralt," she then laughed, as tiny as he condition allowed her without gasping away a grimace. "Backpain comes and goes, I just need a moment to catch my breath."
"Hmm." Hearing Geralt's usual uncertain reply eased her into a abrupt sigh, from which she did not expect to feel his grip on her hand tightening. Geralt pulled Azaras up, in a spur of deciding that she would be better on her feet, just to see how bad the injuries were.
Observant, he watched the amount of pain her expression held, then patted his free hand on her back. "How long did you have that pain for?"
Azaras stared in shock at his face. She'd been plenty weary about just how long their peace would last in this synergy of being part of each other's lives. Between the overall enjoyment and safety she experienced each second by his side, Azaras had a constant dread it will be gone were she to become a burden.
Though Geralt had not ever undervalued her company, weren't Witchers supposed to be travelling alone? She worried, that sooner, rather than later, they will be forced apart and it will end up hurting her more than it hurt him.
Seeing that hint of genuine fright dance upon the ambers of his eyes was an easy read that calmed at least half of Azaras torching spirals of doubt. "It's winter and it's cold," her voice softened too, reassuringly. "A draft must have tensed my muscles."
Geralt did not find her words too convincing though, because he propped Azaras wordlessly in Płotka's saddle, threw his heavy cloak over her as a fleece as well, then proceeded thinking about what he was about to share. All the coin he claimed for the exterminated monster which terrorized this city's outskirts got spent away in no form of hesitation at yet the best place Geralt learned on his own could turn to steam any cramps or soreness from the daily battles.
He, himself, found the need from time to time to just sit in a public bath, relax on warmed stones and inhale impossible heats. Witchers rarely needed medical attention, as their mutation tended to enhace their healing speed, so he was sure, laying naked, save for a towel, would unlock the flexibility of Azaras's muscles faster.
Indeed, nothing could quite match the steam's impact on a cold traveller in the continent's long winter midst. Azaras almost melted as soon as, wrapped in a thin and hardly clean towel, she stepped into the actual baths. Luckily for them, or at least for Geralt's heart, this particular city had a history of holding nothing against orgies, so they never got around banning men and women sharing the same rooms in such facilities.
He cought an arm around her before she'd slip off buckled knees and down the slippery floors. Amongst mosaics of strong walls, stood columns of spiralling designs, of sirens drawn with depictions of the outside baths in lakes or rivers, as some stories and songs glorified the imagined vulgarity of. In heat, the place caught an orange aroma and the walls almost seemed golden.
No molded scent escaped the heat nor did ugliness manage to transcend the sound of low laughter, of quiet water splashing on the walls or floors, between the burning of some coal somewhere underneath some tables.
And there was privacy in public too, not just because their chosen time happened to be a quiet evening for the baths, but also because the columns to the sides of the room at which centered came a squared pool, formed compartments that from certain angles concealed whoever decided to sit on the polished stone benches drenched in water.
Heat licked their feet as a low little table held together molten coal. The scent was spirited with firewood and pleasant stings.
Azaras face was red and Geralt's hair already formed thick strands in its let down state, before they even sat down on one of those more private benches. First they sighed.
At their left, on Geralt's side, was a sink and a bucket. The sink only had hot water running and the bucket was only as big as his palm, but it was a perfect way of getting washed or having the blood pump faster.
"I'll give you a massage." Geralt did not offer. He announced.
He reached out for the little bowl and filled it with water, returning to the position of waiting for Azaras to get comfortable. She turned her back to him but in the process, her elbow knocked over his hand and all the hot water instead poured over his bare chest, pooling into the short towel he wore around his waist.
His grin growled and Azaras looked over her shoulder especially for it, along with the river flow going down pristine on all the brazes and the hairs, litte marks that made Geralt... well, it made him himself. Around his neck, forevermore, she glanced at that medallion.
With that image of his eyes rolling briefing, Azaras finally settled to turn around. Her towel was short too, too short to even remain underneath her while she sat, far less likely to stay put while she crossed her legs and pulled them to herself, to be able to sit on the bench, facing the wall. Instead, she undid the towel completely in what meant her back. She held it to her chest, brushing over her brests and covering her front. With one hand, she swept underneath her black of hair and gathered it on only one shoulder.
Geralt helped with that one part. He pushed one thumb on her bare skin, on the middle of her spine, twisted it slowly upwards, under her forgotten strands of darkness formed in thicker veins. He felt the smile on his own lips, the slowness of his heart at peace, all at the sight of her goosebumps, leaving even the scars she had gained to momentarily fade.
Azaras bowed her head forward. The red of her cheeks no longer belonged just for the warmth and for once, she felt like his silence could mean adoration as what he showed each time their bodies fell aligned. Little do you know, what you do to my heart, she shighed deeply while the strands have been pushed clear off her back.
A stream of hot water pulsed down her back and she arched forward in a little unexpected sigh of relief.
She did not realize just how cold she has been feeling until that water burned her back. Immediately after the ache came the soothing brush and pressure of Geralt's left hand, returning that sigh of hers into straightening up again.
In a moment of closing her eyes, Azaras almost forgot to hold her towel to her chest.
She quickly remembered as soon as she started focusing on Geralt's gliding hand, on his knuckles, and fingertips, on the circular motions, on the water he kept washing her with and all those gentle brushes he carefully tipped over her scars. He too had scars and she counted them all, each time there was time for breaths in their various beds.
When he was touching her, Azaras felt loved. Every single confession she made him felt justified along. And when his hands left her body, a spark flew too far away from her soul and the flame he ignited died along with it in cold.
Geralt's hands flinched back and not even a secone later, Azaras felt an excruciating pain bow her over her knees, hand gripping her towel so tight she pinched her skin. "Damn it, Geralt, what did you do?"
All ectasy she felt drowned away into a spasm of pain rivaling, at last, the way the Trials of the Grasses felt for her. After the stabbing sensation began to fade and all she heard was the concerned hum of the Witcher, Azaras felt a second blasting terror in her spine and this time she gasped before she even had the forced idea of gritting her teeth.
Azaras, from humane instinct, twisted one arm back to reach her hand to the source of all this ache and suffering, but instead, Geralt's wet hand stopped her wrist at a safe distance, aside. "Geralt-," she warningly spoke his name.
"There's something..." Words left him. He did not know how to describe what he was seeing, how to think past the only fear which could panic even his trained heart at rest.
"For fuck's sake, speak up!" Azaras shouted, her voice growing in pitch. She once again bowed forward.
The bones of her spine outlined through her skin but that was not the only shape slithering and moving. A worm-like creature lurked under her skin, twisting around her ribs, only on her back, swirling just a little bit faster, moving upwards.
It likes the heat, Geralt recognized immediately.
"The drowners," Geralt spoke, nothing of which Azadas expected to hear, "did you drink any water during the fight?"
"I inhaled some," she answered reluctantly in the breath in which she felt no pain. Geralt watched and noticed that whenever the head of the worm dug under her spine, on the inside, it raised her bones upwards. If only he heard close enough, he could hear the cracks of teeth feeding off of her from the inside.
"You took a parasite from the water," he concluded.
"A parasite?!" Filled with disbelief, while Geralt got up, Azaras reached back and felt just the head of the thing crawling from under her ribs and around her nerves. Her eyes widened at the disgusting feeling and the image she suddenly could attach to the excruciating pains.
When the wave hit again, Azaras felt it double, making her lose sense of balance. Geralt caught her from falling off the bench and sat her leaning forward. He pushed the towel back on her and took a step back.
"I'll get the potions. If your blood turns to poison, the thing will die."
He was in a hurry. Last time her life depended on his promptness to open a bottle, she died into his arms. Geralt felt his hands shivered, his calm heart galloped and sweat built way past the heat.
Azaras moved her head to the side to see him through tears she no longer controlled. The warm was halfway up her spine and now it unsettled her breathing. "What happens if it doesn't die?"
Though she did not word it that way, Geralt knew a realer question went about such: What happens if you don't get back to me in time?
Like a candle blown out, his expression fell still and cold. "Then it will twist around your throat on the way to the brain and suffocate you."
Azaras shivered visibly and turned her head away.
I'm not letting that happen, Geralt swore silently and turned around to leave. The towel around his waist hanged a lot better still than the one of whoever it was that he knocked into on the way out. That woman's cover fell faster than the first leaves of autumn at a windy storm.
"Oi!" Her husband, most likely raged at once, red in the cheeks. Whoever were the rest of the men there with him, shut the door behind them closed and glared at the Witcher.
"Fuck," Geralt sighed, defeated by the absolute worst joke fate could lay out for him.
All of a sudden, he couldn't care less if they hit first or not. The second the husband tried to shove him away, Geralt grabbed him by the throat and tossed him into a column, knocking out at least two of his teeth.
The thing about steam was that it clogged even his senses. Not even half way done with that man, another threw a pretty sturdy punch and Geralt's jaw, making him lose thr tempo. Another swing knocked the balance off his right knee, but motivated by something beyond them, Geralt refused to be knelt.
True it was that he held no weapons with him. He had only himself and that self-conscious towel, which meant he had to remember the fights from before he was trusted with a sword by Vesemir.
Geralt twisted around and dug his fist so strong into the abdomen of an attacker than not only was he raised off the ground, but he also felt the light pulse of his stomach. He stepped aside, right when the man regurgitated everything he ate before coming to the baths. That one fell into his own vomit, slipping even attempting to get up.
One look risked into gazing back across the middle pool at Azaras scared Geralt's heart into a rapid beat; the worm was under her skin, coming up to her shoulder level. That was when the third guy tackled him into the wall next to the door, punched into the Witcher's side ribs and earned himself with Geralt's heavy hands crushing in on his skull from both sides.
He struggled to be as non-combative as he possibly could, yet any marble of control was lost between grunts and fears. Geralt pushed his forhead down on the man's head, then switched their places, breaking his skull onto the wall. The husband he first threw had crawled back to him with a metal bar left under a table to stir the burning coal.
The Witcher cought the burning end, slid his hand down and kicked that red metal back with his elbow into the guy's face. By mistake, the thing went through his eye and he screamed worse than a woman giving birth. He was knelt and from stupidity, pushed the metal bar through his brains, while falling over.
Geralt got out of the baths and returned with his pouch of potions, already halfway through opening one of the bottles. He dropped the rest beside the bench on which Azaras was barely shivering anymore, holding herself steady with her forehead pressed on the stone wall.
He guided her to lay down into his holding and his heart broke in a million pieces from all the fast beating as Azaras amber eyes found his in an instant, while her hand grabbed pointlessly over his knee.
Being a Witcher comes with a shit load of bad luck, Azaras had decided through the pains of feeling that parasite wrap around her throat on the inside, squeeze and eat at whatever it found there and she didn't want to think a single second of. She had sealed her lips closed, because once she opened her mouth for the potion, she immediately gave voice to cries and tremors.
Geralt wasted no time in making her swallow those thick dark sips. He made it in time this once, watching visibly frightened how her pupils dilated and a certain dark shade of grayness pursued a hue of content posion to her skin. Finally, Azaras convulsed to a standing poistion and let go of Geralt's knee to take a firm hold of her neck.
Her towel fell around her front and between her open legs she spit out all that was left of the burnt alive worm: a sticky green spot.
Relief sighed out on Geralt's sighed immediately and he finally knelt down. His own forehead rested, at last, on her warm thigh, leaving an aery kiss, not even as tender to her skin as it was fearful to harm or to disturb.
His hands had stopped shaking, while he got startled to look up by Azaras' hand on the back of his head. She wanted to thank him, which was why she got his attention and even smiled. Throughout all that pain, which could have truly been the end of her simply because she chose to ignore it for days, Azaras had a doubt in Geralt which she shouldn't have had.
He watched her open her mouth and only a throaty hiss come out. No words, no palpable sound. She was as confused as him by the quietness they faced each other with.
chapter dedicated to kacper