The Girl in the Woods

Chapter 21

A/N: Just a tad more fluff before it all goes to shit. Enjoy.

           It was the next day a raven with beady violet eyes made a visit to Kaer Morhen. Around the bird's ankle was a rolled up piece of parchment containing a sprawling feminine script. The bird had all but attacked Geralt as he was doing solo training in the courtyard, swooping low and attempting to gain his attention.

"What the fuck?" He exclaimed, almost slicing the raven in two with his sword before noticing the message and the striking eyes. 

             The paper also carried with it the unmistakable scent of lilac and gooseberries. It was a message from Yennefer and it must be important to send to him this way. He could tell the bird was some kind of magical manifestation by the way his medallion reacted to its presence.

                   The Witcher unrolled the paper and began to read the contents of the letter. She began by thanking him for his work with the Djinn, something he had very much wished to put behind himself. She then went on to tell him that she was indeed able to regain her choice and was now pregnant with some sorcerer Geralt had never met but seemed to be awfully important to her. This was all well and good but did not interest Geralt in the slightest and he was starting to wonder why the gods she had bothered to write him all the way in the mountains.

               After another few paragraphs of her fawning over her lover and her excitement for their child she finally revealed the reason for her message, she had made a breakthrough on Beth's problem. Though he was starting to not want to see the fact that Beth was here in his world as a problem. She had been able to create a small portal, nothing that could transport anything yet but it was at the very least a window to Beth's world. She described the wondrous sights she had seen, how there were strange machines and something about horseless carriages that moved faster than a war stallion.

                  His slow heartbeat hitched almost to that of a resting human, it was going to happen, by the time the snow had thawed and the Winter was over Beth would be going back home. When he began to involve himself with the strange human he had imagined it would be just a bit of something different to entertain his usually monotonous existence. He expected her predicament would be impossible to solve or not real in the first place and she would just remain on the Continent. That she would have a warm body and soft lips to keep him company for a while and they would part ways soon after as he was used to. The only other companion that ever showed interest in his actual well-being or sticking around because they actually enjoyed being around him was Jaskier.

         He hadn't expected to care for her as he did before their lips could even meet and certainly not as much as he did when her warm body became his. Because that was what she was to the Witcher now, Beth, whether she knew or not, was his. Geralt made a choice then and with a flash of Igni the parchment was spent to ashes blown away by the cold mountain wind.

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                  As the days had passed with all the Wolves back in their den the sense of apprehension the other Witchers had of Elizabeth waned. As crass and annoying as Lambert's sexual jokes and loud interruptions were, even he was beginning to dig a spot in the blonde human's heart. Eskel had been nothing but a gentleman since his arrival and their meeting and continued to do so. He was a patient and understanding ear to talk to and she enjoyed listening to the stories he would tell her about Geralt when they were all younger. Vesemir was a protective voice of command when needed, sometimes interacting with the other Wolves as if they were still his young students in training. But none of them seemed to mind the way they were with each other. Vesemir also very much enjoyed Elizabeth's unwavering curiosity. They spent many hours talking about monsters and magic and the history of Witchers. The wide green eyes of the young woman sparkling as she took in as much information as she could from the older man.