Golden Fields

unhallowing vision

“I dunno, Da was just always worried someone would.” The boy whimpered, pressing his hand against his side.

Geralt had not noticed how pale the lad had gotten, in a jolt of concern, he ripped the Boreu’s shirt open, and was meet with a hideous wound snarling and bubbling blood. With the energy he had left Geralt tugged Boreu to his feet. He stumbled and fell against the Witcher. With as much gentleness Geralt could muster, he lead the boy back towards their camp.

He could not be responsible for the death of the last feather of Jaskier ruined by his bloody hands and mindless mistakes. He held Boreu closer. Hoping his own warmth and support would offer some relief to him.

It did not, the boys temperature continued to drop, and he radiated the smell of copper and stomach vile. In response, Geralt lugged the boys weight on his shoulders and speed up. Praying that he could get the boy back to the camp and cleaned up before infection set in. But knowing the ghouls, infection lied deep in the fingernails that are used for ripping the dead.

Quickly they made it back to their way back to roach. Geralt swiftly deposits Boreu onto Geralt’s own bedroll; the boy groaned in response.

“Lay still,” Geralt demanded, pulling a medic kit from his bag, not much is fit for a human, but the boy has witcher blood, he should survive it Geralt decided. He begun to pull Boreus bloodied clothes away. Where a gruesome wound should have been, Geralt saw fresh, tender pink skin. Had it not been for the dried blood plastered across the boys torso one would not have known there was ever an injury at all.

“how?” Geralt breathed, brushing over the skin.

“I dunno, Witcher blood maybe?” Boreu said as he sat up and looked t his skin baffled.

“Hmm. Perhaps.”

“I’m gonna go get cleaned up. If I scream come save me,” Boreu spoke, standing up and heading towards the river a hundred metres away.

“Seems you are the one doing the saving,” Geralt grumbles, watching the young boy creep through the darkness.

Geralt sat for a few moments, recollecting the events of the day. Jaskiers body had been devoured by the undead. He didn’t even get the chance to join the earth. Geralt, Geralt had almost meet the same fate. Yet he was saved by the son of the most useless warrior on the continent. Witcher blood must be strong in his veins.

Nevertheless, geralt had been rash, had almost killed Boreu for his idiocy. Everything he touches dies. Not in the way one expects, he does not pick a flower and have it die from fright. No, death came different for the Witcher, every seed he had ever tried to sow within Jaskier perished, Jaskier himself had passed before he could ever be loved properly by the Witcher. Love and death dance hand in hand around Geralt.

Together, they make his ears bleed, fill his head with the sound of war drums. Leave him broken, bloody and aching. Jaskier was his last battle, it was full of fighting, running, war cries. He wished, begged his pass self to lay down his sword, to commit himself to the bard until marriage til death do us part. But instead, he had chosen a world of dirt and solitude. The battle never ended, Geralt was just to afraid to continue; thought he would triumph regardless.

But now he sees Boreu and wonders what could have been his, could Boreu have been his? What had the boy faced that Geralt could have saved them from? Geralt had spent too long chasing hungry beasts through the country sides to know, smell what life flourished in his absence. Life that could have been his.

He could have built them a house. He could have forgotten any reason to fight. What he missed could have been enough to do so. The corpses he had made could have fed the big green trees around the house. He would take up a faith and pray for it if it wasn’t too late.

But now that house is just a burning dream. Instead he stained his hands with blood and condemned himself a murderer, a monster. Now songs and scars are his history. When he could have had a son, children. Had he only asked Jaskier to plant the seeds in his heart, he bloody hands would have been to gruesome to tend to them. But his blood, the blood that pumps through his heart could have sunstained them.

Geralt shook what could have been from his mind, there’s no place for that. He had been sitting for a while. Boreu was not yet back. Concern blossomed like a dandelion in his chest. He stood and made his way towards the river.

He heard the Witcherling before he could see him. Geralt froze when he heard the beginnings of a song. The boys voice was similar to Jaskier’s, but the words that left his lips were definitely Jaskiers’.

“When I laid my head,
I did not sleep,
Nor could I say I thought,
For all my heart could do was bleed…

I saw a vision of you,
Unhallowing vision,
You laid in the dust and earth of Something not yours,

You showed no signs of life my love,
The sight possessed my mind,
I could not sleep,
I could not see,

Did you receive payment,
For how you mocked the creator,
You're a blashempise creation my love,

I saw a vision of you,
Unhallowing vision,
You laid pale in the dust and earth of Something not yours.

I half willed life then love,
For I could not shake the treachery commited against you, my heart love,

The vision filled me,
With horror, doom claimed my throat,
Oh! I'm no longer human love,
Not without you,
The loss of you violates all morality my love,

I saw a vision of you,
Unhallowing vision,
You laid pale in the dust and earth of Something not yours,

My body falls,
Heavy love,
I lay on the earth,
I lift my head,
My head past reality,
I see the other, another, a creator,
But there's no life without you love.”

Even in Boreu’s lips the song was heavy with whatever feelings were weighing down Jaskier at the time of its composition.
“What is the song about?” Geralt spoke without meaning too. Demanding answers on who the song is about.

Boreu looks up from where he stands in the stream. “My father.”

Geralt nods once. Not him. Good, he could not bear to know Jaskier would write such a song about him.