RUSELM'S BESTIARY
CHAPTER ELEVEN ─ ROACH
Note: We're entirely back to my own work now! If we ever divulge or intertwine with Sapkowski again, I'll put a disclaimer at the beginning of the chapter again. Thank you guys so much for all of your support, I really appreciate it! We're currently at 1.9k reads and this blows my mind, honestly.
Dedication: Ace
THE WITCHER WAS astride his horse, contentedly leaning back in the saddle as Ruselm walked beside them, nose buried deep in a journal he hadn't stopped writing in since they'd left Blaviken behind as a mere speck on the horizon. The Nazairian hadn't spoken a word since their departure and Geralt hadn't prompted him to speak, though he was curious as to why the man had come looking for him in the first place. There were only two kinds of people who sought out witchers: those in need of a very specific skill set and those looking to maim, or kill.
Ruselm didn't look like the type to harm others, though.
Geralt settled on the idea that he must be, in his vast experience, one who falls into the first category. In need. That only left the question of which monster Geralt would be directed to next.
Despite this tidbit of knowledge he had worked out for himself, he wasn't very fond of people trying to track him down. Although, Geralt had lived long and seen many circumstances that could constitute such measures. With no small measure of reluctance, the witcher opened his mouth and said, "Ruselm."
Summoned by his name, Ruselm hummed quietly to show he was listening, white quill scratching eagerly across the page. Geralt wondered what he was writing.
"Why did you go to Blaviken?"
"I wanted to find you," Ruselm didn't even raise his eyes from the page. He stepped nimbly over a small rock. "Why did you go to Blaviken?"
Geralt didn't answer. "What did you want to find me for?"
Ruselm glanced up.
Finally.
There was a small measure of annoyance in his brown eyes. "To tell you about Thetdow," he bit off the answer quickly, looking back down to the words in his book. Geralt could smell the ink from his position on Roach. It was strong but soothing; the first scent he had noticed on Ruselm back in Sodden. "And to inform you that despite what those people say, they brought their monster upon themselves. It would be a waste of your time, witcher."
"Hmm."
It became silent once more.
Geralt had, in truth, some idea of what Ruselm was suggesting about Thetdow. He'd heard of villages which damned themselves because they acted so cruelly and evilly, with corruption, that their punishment was inevitable even with the help of a monster slayer. He'd even been the fool to waste his time at one or two of those villages in his earlier years where he found himself immersed in every person's problems and schemes—the corruption and greed of small towns was surprisingly overwhelming, how could any sane person live in that environment?
The witcher much preferred isolation.
Ruselm cleared his throat quietly. "You never answered," he pointed out.
"Answered what?"
"Why did you go to Blaviken?" He closed the journal, keeping one finger between the pages to hold his place in the book. Ruselm's eyes were focused directly on Geralt now, unwavering. He abruptly stopped walking.
Geralt pulled Roach to a halt about two paces ahead, half-turning in his saddle to look down at Ruselm. "It was along the way," he answered gruffly. "I put a kikimora to the sword, figured I would get paid for my trouble. I was wrong."
The Nazairian's eyes lit up at the mention of the kikimora. He stepped closer to Roach, head cocked to the side with wonder. Everything about his body's rigid stance and facial features screamed curiosity from the way his eyes widened to the tension coiling inside of his body, unspent. He held his arms close to his core, shoulders back and chin high.
From atop his horse, Geralt could even hear the way Ruselm's heart began to beat a little faster.
"Tell me about the kikimora!" Ruselm made an extempore gesture with one hand, waving it to the side. "Spare me no details, please, Geralt."
The witcher's catlike eyes narrowed.
He remembered Ruselm telling him he was writing a bestiary, although he had no idea the obsession went this far. He shouldn't be surprised, anyways, with how the author had rushed headfirst into danger just to see the warg of Sodden. Still, though, he'd had some amount of hope that the near-death experience would snap Ruselm out of this otherworldly fascination that wholly captured his attention. It would be quite a shame to see someone so innocent and carefree laid to permanent rest over a mad obsession with very dangerous creatures.
Especially when that someone was as defenseless as Ruselm. He might be a fully grown man, Geralt soundly decided as he admired the Nazairian's build, but he was softer than the petal of a flower or the fragile wing of a moth.
Geralt, however, would indulge him. Once.
"Fine. Tell me first what you already know."
Ruselm's eyes became suddenly brighter, alight with the flame of knowledge sparked by his excitement. He spoke rapidly to get his piece in, staring up at Geralt. "A kikimora is pretty nasty to look at, sort of like an insect, some would say. Sort of like a spider, others attest. Could be both. They steal children and other small prey to feed themselves, but they don't hunt maliciously. What have I missed?"
"Vulnerable to silver."
"Yes! And?"
"They're like termites, usually living in some sort of colony and always under a queen. That's why they're compared to insects, especially ants."
"So the one you killed near Blaviken...?" Ruselm tilted his head, trying to understand. "There's more near it? A queen, even?"
Geralt blinked. "Possibly."
"Shall we investigate?" Ruselm suggested the idea far too brightly, as though he went monster hunting every day. His exuberance would be the end of Geralt.
The witcher turned forward in his saddle once more, nudging Roach's flanks with his heels. She continued on, thick tail swishing over her sides to brush off the flies. "No." He answered bluntly, unwilling to say more on the subject. There was no reason to encourage him, after all.
Ruselm paused for a moment, brow furrowing at Geralt's actions. The Wolf briefly wondered what Ruselm was thinking about as he found himself unable to look back and assess his annoyingly abstruse visage, the features of which shifted within moments of each other and formed entirely new emotions every second he talked.
Without a further word, the olive-skinned man followed after Roach and her master, keeping one eye on the path ahead and the other trained steadily on Geralt's back. It was silent for a moment. Only a moment, nothing more.
"Why not?"
He's persistent, Geralt noticed.
"Because."
"Because?"
"You've no business to; you're not a witcher; you'll get both yourself and I killed if you follow through with such an inane desire." Geralt sneered. "Shall I continue on with the list or is it satisfactory enough for you?"
The Nazairian's speech came to a doleful conclusion and Geralt kept his eyes focused forward, on the muddy road ahead. Roach plodded on steadily, one ear flicking back in the direction of Ruselm before turning forward again as she took in their surroundings. The pair fell under a weighty silence, neither willing to break the warfront because the damage had already been done.
Geralt wasn't bothered. Ruselm, on the other hand...
He knew he was being nasty, though the witcher felt no remorse for it. Who was Ruselm to put himself in senseless danger? To ask Geralt to risk his life over a stupid curiosity which didn't matter in the end? The question wasn't one which kept the witcher awake at night wondering whether there were more of the kikimora's kind in hiding. And it wouldn't be a question he asked himself unless they began killing more innocent children.
Beyond that, they were free to exist as they wished.
Geralt also wasn't fond of the idea of being responsible for someone else's life when he didn't have to be. Saving Ruselm's life once should have been enough. Did he have a death wish?
The matter was entirely different when he was working, but in his free time (of which Geralt was getting plenty of nowadays, with his jobs being spread few and far between) the witcher actively chose not to be tied down to that responsibility; or any liability as far as he was concerned. As charming as Ruselm was, the trouble wasn't worth the potential peril.
What if Ruselm was severely injured?
What if Geralt went down in battle? Who would have his back then when it was clear Ruselm was no kind of fighter? The man ran at the first sign of trouble. He—
"It is... satisfactory enough." Ruselm's lowered voice drew the witcher from his thoughts, making him want to lean closer to listen. He sounded upset.
Geralt chose not to respond.
Instead, he asked a question to draw them away from the previous conversation. It was clear that it was a touchy subject. "Where are you going now that Blaviken holds no more mystery?"
Ruselm's voice was stiff now, losing its previous gentle quality. His tone was rougher. "It was never Blaviken that held mystery for me," his words immediately drew the attention of Roach, who flicks one ear back at the sound. "Like I mentioned before, I only wanted to find you. 'Mighty witcher,' they said. 'Gone off to Blaviken.' I merely followed the whispers."
The witcher didn't like his tone. "All for the sake of telling me about a town I have no care for?"
"All for the sake of telling you, yes." Ruselm's frustration was easily read in his voice. Geralt didn't have to look to know there was a fire behind his dark eyes, he could hear it in the way Ruselm spoke and feel it drifting in the air between them. "And also for the satisfaction of knowing Thetdow will pay for their sins. Even Melitele herself would offer them no forgiveness after the way they slaughtered the Old Bear, Geralt. I simply wanted to ensure their fate. Hence, I looked for you: their one lifeline."
There was something behind those words. Geralt didn't turn around, though he was nearly convinced to.
"What did they do?"
"They're guilty of more than just what I witnessed, though they almost killed me if that tells you anything. It's a bit of a story, Geralt. I'm not sure you even want to hear it considering it's all just a big part of my 'inane desires,' right?"
There it is.
He'd known the comment was coming. It was deserved, but his feelings remained unharmed. Geralt picked a leaf from Roach's mane. "I'm willing to listen."
The lack of a reaction must have frustrated Ruselm even further, for his voice was sour as he indulged Geralt. "There was a bear," he began, sighed, and the anger left his voice before he started over again. "There was a bear... who was in the wrong place, at the wrong time."
"Hmm."
"These people were inducing fear to go through the entire village, they were saying things to fill their simple minds with false validations for senseless slaughter, slaughter which only furthered their agenda and drew away from the fact that they were only making their overall ordeal with the hellhound even worse." Ruselm's tone was bitter, but this time it wasn't directed at Geralt. "They wanted to kill him, Geralt. For no reason. I asked what crime the bear had committed and they could not answer.
"They tried to make it sound like a preventive measure, but it was murder. I went to the bear, I arrived at the cave before them—"
"Of course you did," Geralt interrupted. "You don't know what danger is, do you?"
Ruselm scoffed rudely. "And you don't know what good manners are, do you?"
The witcher remained silent.
He had to bite back a sharp reply, reminding himself that it was technically rude to interrupt others when they were talking.
"Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. As I was saying, I got to the bear before they did. I thought he was going to hurt me, I won't lie to you about that, witcher. Even so, I tried to scare the bear off but he wouldn't leave. He just..."—Ruselm choked up a little—"he wouldn't go."
Geralt really wanted to look over his shoulder now. He kept his eyes fixed ahead.
"And it's all I've been thinking about, Geralt," Geralt was suddenly very fond of the way his name came from Ruselm's lips, of the way his accent caressed every sound carefully and gently. Even with the Nazairian being unhappy with the white-haired witcher, he still said his name as though it were a precious belonging. "The way the bear pushed me down, and took the arrow which would have killed me straight to his heart. I just... Why would an animal do that?"
It took him a moment to realize Ruselm was asking a question.
Geralt finally looked just over his shoulder at the man walking beside his horse. Ruselm's head was down, chin tucked slightly in towards his chest, fingers playing with the edges of the rough paper in his journal. Entirely different from a few minutes ago. There was a stiffness in his legs now, a tense quality to the upper muscles of his shoulders. He looked quite helpless, but even his weakness was pleasing to admire.
"Perhaps it wasn't a mere animal."
Ruselm's gaze shot up faster than an arrow, fixing Geralt with a dark look. Now was not a time to play. "What do you mean?"
The witcher wasn't even completely sure what he meant, or what had brought him to say such a thing. The situation reminded him of one he had encountered years before. "There have been cursed men to exist in the past... and werebears... and, then again, animals of supreme intelligence. Maybe your Old Bear wasn't just a bear."
"That..." the Nazairian shook his head with uncertainty. "Are you sure? Geralt, that would change everything."
"Well, he's dead now," Geralt's reply falls curtly as he forces his eyes forward in an attempt to avoid Ruselm's beseeching expression. He couldn't bear to look at Ruselm's pleading face. "It changes nothing in the end whether he was or wasn't simply an animal. They'll pay for his death all the same. I'm not going to Thetdow."
"It matters—"
He stopped, suddenly sighing.
Geralt waited for Ruselm to continue, but the young man remained entirely silent. This quietness, unlike before, was resigned and weary.
"Geralt," Ruselm began. "Do you think there's eternal retribution? For people like that?"
An odd question. One, the witcher thought, that revealed Ruselm entirely. What an innocent thought, the whisper of desperation. He remained noiseless for more than a few minutes, allowing Roach's soft little whinnies or nickers of interest to fill the space between them.
She caught sight of a white rabbit darting across the road ahead of them, nearly stopping on her toes as she watched the fluffy creature dash off into the grasses. Her ears pricked forward, head smartly raised, sides shivering with each breath. Roach liked rabbits. Geralt lay a hand on her neck, just in front of the saddle, before gathering the words to speak.
"I'm not sure."
"As in, you're not sure if punishment exists, or the whole thing?"
Geralt's lips twitched into a frown. "The whole thing."
Ruselm nodded a little, as if he were in agreeance. "I've always been on the fence. I like to think there's something, but it's not as if the answer is out there somewhere in the world. I guess it's something we just have to experience when we get there, then."
"At the rate you're going, that'll be sooner rather than later."
"You can't have reward without the necessary risk," Ruselm said breathily. His voice hitched a moment, he was unsure if he wanted to be talking about this. "That's what my mother used to say to me."
Geralt looked over to Ruselm. "Used to?"
"She died."
The witcher could see a quiver in Ruselm's lips as he spoke, the way his hands began to shake as he flipped open the journal in an attempt to distract himself. That's what it was—Geralt could tell by the way his eyes glossed over and remained unmoving on the page in front of his nose. It was a feat that the man didn't trip over his own feet during this vulnerable moment.
He wasn't sure what to say. Did he ask how? Was he supposed to be quiet, or offer his condolences? Geralt didn't know how to talk to other people when it didn't pertain to witcher's work.
After a short mental deliberation, Geralt chose to remain quiet.
Ruselm picked up the slack, soberly clearing his throat. "That was a long time ago, though. That's actually why I'm out here, Geralt."
"What was her name?" He couldn't help the curiosity as he tried to seek out Ruselm's eyes, only to be met with the side of his face.
"Halla."
"I... I'm assuming she was taken by monsters."
The Nazairian took a deep, shuddering breath. He nodded once. Then twice, as if to reassure his own answer. "It was a fiend. In Nazair. We weren't very far from the blue rose bushes when it happened, I remember smelling their sweetness in the air and dragging her closer." Ruselm spoke with a softness that made the witcher lean over Roach's side to better hear him. He could tell this is where the heartbreak was going to happen.
"I wanted to pick a rose for her, Geralt."
"Did you?"
Ruselm was trying to play tough, Geralt could see it in the way he tensed and took a moment to correct himself. "I did. I don't know what provoked him, Geralt, I swear. She screamed. I heard it growling. Before I knew what was happening, my mother was dead and the fiend was gone."
The witcher righted himself in the saddle. "It didn't kill you," he remarked. "That's not very common."
"I don't know why," Ruselm admitted as he eased the journal shut again. He looked up at his witcher, sadness weighing him down. He walked slower now. "Things have always happened around me, and I make it out all the wiser. It's... it's scary, sometimes."
"What about the fiend?" Geralt found himself asking before he could stop himself. He had to know. "Does it still live?"
"No," the Nazairian shook his head. "A witcher came by nearly a year later, Morains was his name. Morains of Ravelin. He had a cat's head medallion, I remember because it was so unique. I'd never seen another like it until I saw your wolf's head. Have you ever met him?"
Geralt searched far within the reaches of his memories. The name sounded familiar enough, though the witcher wasn't certain he had met this Morains in person. Perhaps he had been mentioned by Vesemir before, in passing.
And a witcher from the School of the Cat? He'd gladly had no association with any such rogues and hired assassins. Geralt did have a sense of honor.
"No." He answered simply.
Better to leave politics and history out of it. It was far too long and complicated to explain in one conversation. Although, perhaps Ruselm would be interested in a history lesson from the point of view of a witcher.
Ruselm hummed in response. "I figured."
"I don't often run into other witchers, we stay far apart for a reason."
"Nevertheless," he shrugged. "Morains is out there somewhere, and he killed the fiend. My father paid him very handsomely, even offered him a place with the Jurrens if he ever needed to stay somewhere. I've never seen him since."
Curious.
"You said," Geralt was thinking again. "Things have always happened around you? What kind of things?"
Ruselm hesitated. "Just... things. Odd things."
"Such as?"
"With animals," he sounds unsure of himself, voice wavering. "Like the Old Bear. I talked to him, and he listened. He must've been listening, Geralt, because I don't know what else he would be doing. There was this, this intelligence in his eyes. He knew what I was saying, but he didn't heed my words."
Geralt frowned. "That could be a number of different things."
Ruselm nodded, lips pursed. "That's what I've been telling myself."
"You could test it right now if you're unsure," Geralt pulled back on Roach's reins, leaning slightly in the saddle. The mare pulled up to a stop, ears flicking back to Geralt and Ruselm. She was listening. "Talk to Roach."
The Nazairian stopped walking. "You want me to... talk to your horse?"
Geralt shrugged and ran a hand through Roach's mane, admiring her waves with an appreciative eye. "Why not? Put an end to your questioning, at the very least. I do it all the time."
Ruselm struggled to hold back a laugh. "You talk to her?"
"Roach is very attentive."
"Unlike people, I assume."
"Half the time, she's smarter than I am. So, yes. Unlike people."
The olive-skinned man tried to contain his smile as he approached Roach's head, extending a gentle palm to her neck. He handed the journal off to Geralt, who paid it no mind as he held it between his hands. The leather was worn but tough, ink wafting up from the pages he dared not look at. Roach turned and greeted Ruselm with a muffled sound of interest, shoving her nose toward the Nazairian's neck.
Ruselm smiled brightly, instantly brightening after the darkness they left behind them. He looked genuinely happy, the same way Geralt felt when he talked to Roach sometimes. He watched wordlessly as Ruselm whispered to his horse, able to hear every word as clear as day with his witcher's senses.
"You're quite the beauty, aren't you, Miss?"
Roach puffed a breath of warm air onto Ruselm's neck.
"I bet you get all the compliments," Ruselm went on, reaching his other hand up to straighten the mare's messy forelock so it was out of her eyes. She raised her head, rubbing Ruselm's hand on a spot just behind her left ear where it itched. "What do I say to her, Geralt? I'm not sure how to test this."
"I'm not either," Geralt shrugged slightly but folded his hands together in his lap. The sight of Roach being so kind to this near stranger warmed his heart. "Tell her to do something," he suggested. "Something specific."
Ruselm's brow furrowed. He was quiet for a moment, then spoke in a voice that was nearly inaudible even to the witcher's ears. "Chomp at the bit, Miss Roach. Just a few times, would you?"
For a moment, Roach did nothing.
She turned her head to stare with one large, dignified brown eye at Ruselm. With a small snort, Roach looked back as far as she could to Geralt in the next moment as though she were asking for permission to chomp at her bit.
The hesitation itself piqued a curiosity within Geralt. Had Roach listened?
"Go on," the witcher urged his mare. "You listen to him, now."
She nickered but said nothing more.
Roach lowered her head and shook her mane out, scattering the smoothed hair of her forelock all over again. Ruselm turned to Geralt when it looked like nothing would happen for them today. He shrugged casually, about to open his mouth to say something when the mare, as if to not draw attention to herself, quietly began to play with the bit in her mouth.