Chapter 5: Dreams
The trail out of the swamp was a blur of agony. Each step sent a jolt of white-hot fire up Thorn’s leg from the deep gash, and the lesser cuts and bruises sang a chorus of misery across their body. Their glimmer held, but it was a brittle facade, a thin sheet of ice over a seething, painful reality. They stumbled, for the third time in as many minutes, their hand shooting out to brace against a moss-slick tree trunk.
Geralt stopped, his broad back a silent judgment. “That’s it.”
“It’s nothing,” Thorn bit out, pushing off the tree and forcing their leg to obey. “A little stumble. Keep walking.”
They took two more steps before their knee buckled completely. Geralt moved with that unnerving witcher speed, catching them before they face-planted into the mud. His arm was like an iron bar across their chest.
“You’re leaving a trail a blind man could follow,” he said, his voice low and flat. “And you’re about as useful in a fight as a newborn kitten. We stop.”
“I don’t need to be caried,” Thorn snarled, trying to shove him away. The effort cost them, their vision spotting at the edges.
Geralt didn’t argue. He simply shifted his grip, one arm hooking under their knees, the other supporting their back, and lifted them as if they weighed nothing.
The indignity was a fresh wave of pain. “Put me down, you overgrown brute!”
He adjusted his hold and started walking, his pace steady and relentless. The forest began to thin, the ground rising slightly away from the bog’s clutches.
“This is undignified.”
“Dying from an infected claw wound is also undignified,” Geralt replied, not breaking stride. “Pick your poison.”
Thorn seethed, the anger a useful fuel against the throbbing in their leg. They let their head loll back, staring at the tangled canopy. “You know, for a man who hates touching people, you’re awfully handsy.”
No response. Just the steady crunch of his boots on the forest floor.
“If you wanted to hold me, you could have just asked. I might have said yes.” Their voice was light, teasing, but it was a thin veneer over a core of raw, exposed vulnerability. Being carried, being this helpless, was a sensation they had spent centuries avoiding.
After a long silence, they spoke again, the baiting tone gone, replaced by something quieter. “Have you ever been completely open with anyone? No masks. No… glimmer.”
Geralt’s steps didn’t falter. “Witchers don’t have that luxury.”
“A shame. It’s terribly freeing.” Thorn closed their eyes, the memory of their true form shifting unbidden to the forefront of their mind—the lilac skin, the sharp nails, the unvarnished truth of what they were. “I embraced my… less savory gifts a few centuries back. Stopped pretending for the small folk. The result?” They let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Most people, most creatures, they sense what I am. They become fleeting adversaries. Or toys.”
They tilted their head to look at his profile, at the hard line of his jaw. “You’re a fun toy, Geralt. Predictably unpredictable.”
He glanced down at them, his yellow eyes unreadable. “I’m not a toy.”
“Oh, I know,” Thorn murmured, a genuine smile touching their lips for the first time since the fight. “That’s what makes it fun.”
He found the shack as the last of the daylight bled from the sky. It was a sorry structure, leaning heavily into the embrace of a thicket, its roof sagging like a broken spine. He shouldered the door open, the wood groaning in protest. The air inside was cold and still, thick with the smell of damp rot and something fainter, metallic—old blood.
Geralt set them down with surprising care on a rough-hewn bench near the cold hearth. The silence that descended was heavier than the swamp’s mist.
Thorn watched as Geralt moved through the single room with a predator’s efficiency. He checked the corners, the lone window, the stability of the floorboards. He found a stash of dry-ish firewood tucked in a corner and knelt before the hearth, his movements economical and sure.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Thorn said, their voice soft in the quiet dark.
Geralt didn’t look up from arranging the kindling. “Which one?”
“Have you ever been open with anyone?”
The flint struck. A spark caught. A small flame bloomed in the hearth, painting his sharp features in flickering orange and deep shadow. The light caught the silver of his hair and the ancient gold of his eyes.
“Once,” he said, the word short, final. He fed a larger piece of wood to the growing fire.
The single word hung in the air, a story he would not tell. Thorn understood that kind of silence. They respected it.
Geralt stood, brushing the dust from his hands. He walked over to them, his presence filling the small space. “The leg.”
It wasn’t a request. Thorn hesitated, the instinct to shield themselves, to maintain the illusion, warring with the pragmatic need for treatment. The glimmer was a drain they could ill afford. With a slow exhalation, they let it fall.
The shift was subtle. No dramatic transformation, just a cessation of effort. The human-seeming smoothness of their skin deepened to its natural, dusky lilac tone. The line of their jaw seemed sharper, their ears delicately pointed. They watched Geralt’s face for a reaction—revulsion, curiosity, anything.
He showed nothing. His gaze was clinical, detached. He simply knelt, pulled a waterskin and a roll of clean bandages from his pack, and set to work.
His hands were surprisingly deft. He cleaned the ugly, weeping gash on their thigh with a cool, practiced efficiency. The pain was a sharp, clarifying burn. Thorn gripped the edge of the bench, their knuckles turning pale, their sharp, glass-like nails digging into the soft, rotten wood.
“This will need stitches,” he stated, not looking up.
“Just bind it tight,” Thorn breathed, their voice tight. “It’ll heal.”
“Not fast enough.” He was already threading a needle with a length of gut from his kit. “This will.”
Before Thorn could protest further, he set to work. The first puncture was a white-hot spike of agony. They jerked, a hissed curse escaping their lips.
“Hold still.”
“Easy for you to say,” they gritted out, squeezing their eyes shut. Each pull of the thread was a fresh violation. They focused on the feeling of the rough wood beneath their hands, the smell of smoke, the sound of his steady breathing. Anything to separate themselves from the pain.
He worked quickly, his touch impersonal and precise. When he tied off the final stitch and cut the thread, the relief was immediate. He smeared a salve over the wound—the same sharp-smelling stuff he’d used before—and began wrapping it firmly with a clean bandage.
Thorn opened their eyes, their body thrumming with spent adrenaline. They looked down at his hands, now stained with their blood, tending to a body that was not entirely of this world. The contradiction of it was staggering.
“Why are you doing this?” The question was out before they could stop it, stripped of all pretense.
Geralt finished securing the bandage and looked up, meeting their gaze. The firelight danced in his wolven eyes. “You’re a means to an end. I need you functional to get to the keeper.”
The answer was so brutally, typically Geralt that a weak, shaky laugh escaped Thorn. “Right. The end.” They leaned their head back against the wall, exhaustion finally overwhelming them. The deep, ancient cold that always followed heavy magic use was seeping into their bones. “Wake me when it’s my watch.”
Geralt didn’t reply. He moved to the doorway, a solid silhouette against the deepening night, and sat, his silver sword resting across his knees. He was a statue, a sentinel in the dark.
Thorn’s eyes fluttered closed. The last thing they were aware of was the faint, almost imperceptible vibration of the wolf medallion against Geralt’s chest, a silent warning humming through the stillness of the shack.
The vibration intensified from a hum to a persistent buzz against his sternum. Geralt was already moving, a dark shape uncoiling from the doorway as Thorn’s eyes snapped open. The night outside, previously silent, was now filled with the sound of heavy, purposeful footsteps crushing the undergrowth.
“We have company,” Geralt said, his voice a low rumble as he rose into a crouch, silver sword gleaming in the firelight.
Thorn pushed themself upright on the bench, a sharp gasp escaping as the stitches in their leg pulled taut. “If it’s more of those swamp-dwelling needle-mouths, I’m formally resigning from this partnership.” Their attempt at levity was undercut by the way their hands braced against the rotting wood, their lilac skin looking wan.
The footsteps halted just outside. A moment of oppressive silence pressed in on the shack. Then the world exploded.
THE DOOR SPLINTERED INWARD.
A massive, shadowed form filled the doorway, hulking and broad. It wasn't a Swamper. This thing was armored in patches of thick, scaly hide and rusted metal plates, its head a brutish wedge with a single, milky eye burning with malevolent intelligence. It held a crude, spiked maul that had clearly been the door’s demise.
Geralt met the charge without a sound, his sword deflecting the first brutal swing that would have pulverized him. The impact sent shards of wood and splinters flying like shrapnel.
Thorn flinched back, their mind scrambling through a drained well of power. They could feel nothing, no spark, no pull of energy—just a hollow, aching void where their magic lived.
A second, smaller creature, wiry and quick, darted around the giant’s legs. It scuttled along the wall on all fours, its limbs moving with a broken, insectile rhythm, heading straight for Thorn.
“A little help would be appreciated!” Thorn yelled, grabbing a piece of broken chair and swinging it wildly. The wood shattered harmlessly against the creature’s bony shoulder.
Geralt was a whirlwind of controlled violence, his blade a silver arc forcing the giant back. He couldn’t disengage. “Use your gifts!” he growled, parrying another deafening blow from the maul.
“The well is dry, you idiot!” Thorn shouted back, desperation clawing at their throat as the wiry creature lunged. They barely dodged, its claws tearing through their sleeve and scoring a deep line down their arm.
The pain was sharp and clarifying. It was also a catalyst. A final, desperate spark, drawn not from life force but from pure survival instinct, flickered in their core. Their eyes flashed a brilliant, violent crimson.
They didn’t have the strength for a blast or a shield. Instead, they focused everything into a single, sharp command, pouring their will into the very air around the scuttling creature. “Stop.”
The thing froze mid-pounce, its body locking up for a single, crucial second. It wasn’t magic. It was sheer, overwhelming compulsion.
It was all the opening Geralt needed. He feinted high, drawing the giant’ maul up, then dropped and spun, his sword severing the wiry creature’s spine at the neck. It collapsed without a sound.
The giant roared, its single eye fixed on Thorn now, understanding the true source of the threat. It ignored Geralt completely and took a thunderous step toward the bench.
Thorn’s compulsion broke. They slumped back, utterly spent, their world graying at the edges. They saw the maul rise, a final, definitive shadow against the firelight.
Geralt didn’t try to block it. He lunged forward and drove his silver sword up under the giant’s arm, through a gap in the rusted plating, deep into its chest. The creature shuddered, its roar cutting off into a wet gurgle.
The maul fell from its grasp, crashing to the floorboards an inch from Thorn’s feet. The giant followed, its bulk shaking the entire shack.
Silence returned, thicker and heavier than before, broken only by the crackle of the fire and Thorn’s ragged breathing. Geralt wrenched his sword free, his own chest heaving.
He looked at Thorn, who was pale and trembling, clutching their newly bleeding arm. Their crimson eyes were wide, the glow fading back to a exhausted, terrified lilac.
“Functional?” Geralt asked, his voice rough.
Thorn let out a shaky, incredulous breath that was almost a laugh. “Barely.” They looked from the dead giant to the splintered ruins of the door, letting the reality of their near-death sink in. “It seems your ‘fun toy’ still has a few surprises left.”