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The man smells so strongly of magic—oddly familiar but failing to carry the distinct scent of a mage or sorcerer, divine through subjugation—and his medallion agrees in his senses’ assessment, almost phasing through his leather-plated armour with how forcefully it’s thrumming. As Geralt steps further into the square, loose gravel crunching under his boots, their eyes meet, snapping together like pieces of a wooden puzzle.
Golden ichor greets shallow sea blue, as clear as a warm summer sky, curious and welcoming and so open they seem to suck all the air out of the small courtyard. The wind picks up exponentially—unnaturally—winding dust and fallen leaves in dizzying, spiralized shapes.
The villagers back away with haste, flattening themselves against walls and into corners, some ducking under stalls and carts for protection as they cry out fearfully.
Geralt has some mind to be concerned with these reactions, but a majority of his attention is captivated by those eyes, barely aware of his own sure steps towards the stranger; before he can reach the man, hands unconsciously flexing at his sides as if fighting not to reach out, a door flies open mere feet away.
“Witcher, you return at last! Your silvered blade is needed to exterminate this… this fiend!” The alderman crows, glancing over the captive with hard, beady eyes.
“Mind your words,” the stranger scolds tersely and the alderman flinches back, reeking of suspicion and fearful apprehension. “I am much more considerate than any mere fiend. What a rude mortal you are.” Mortal, Geralt’s mind catalogues automatically. Strange.
“Do not speak to me, monster,” he spits in a sudden rage, fire in his eyes as both the man and Geralt flinch back minutely. They watch as the alderman takes an unsure step back, stumbling slightly over some loose cobbles just outside the lip of his doorway, then pale with a ragged gasp before barking out—“The fiend has hexed me! Quick! To your weapons, men!”—and rushing off towards the tavern with naught but a harmless, withering glare; likely to rally any able villagers into a hasty defense against the assumed threat on their livelihoods.
The man sighs tiredly as he turns to Geralt, ignoring the townspeople screaming nonsensically in the background. “I can promise you this, Master Witcher; I have never cast anything of any magical sort upon this village, much as I am inclined to. It’s that damn Radowit still spreading his vitriol from beyond the grave, the cursed bastard.”
From beyond the grave, he repeats internally, thinking hard. But the Kaedweni King is still alive… unless!
Geralt draws his sword—silver, for monsters—and holds it against the base of the enchanting stranger's neck, forcing him to tilt his head back to prevent being swiftly beheaded by it. “Assassin,” he snarls, pressing slighter harder; enough to leave a thin, deep-red line across the curve of that pale throat.
“Not really,” the man choruses back, too cheerfully for someone with his lifeblood threatened by someone else’s hands. “The senior Radowit died of his earthly ails, not I—and nothing I fostered either, don’t misunderstand me. His son lives on, continuing his father’s legacy of falsified truths, hatred and fear.”
His blade slowly lowers, taking in the information. That is true, he reasons. Young Radowit the Second still survives, inciting the merciless slaughter of innocents Othered by society just as his father did.
“Who are you?” He growls, not unkindly, almost directly in the man’s face. He’d feel sorry, but that can wait until after he has some answers.
“Well, well, Geralt,” he lilts. “I thought you’d never ask.”
In an instant, the blade is back up—this time, pressed firmly against the bobbing apple of the stranger's throat. “How do you know my name? Stregobor—he sent you?”
“Quite the contrary, my dear,” the man corrects tunefully, a warm, barely-there grin upon his lips. “She did.” He gestures widely to the open air and upwards at the sky.
“She?” Geralt’s blade drops slightly before tensing. “Who?” The man merely arches an eyebrow, looking at the Witcher expectantly through dark lashes. “A name,” he murmurs, significantly gentler than before, tacking on a barely audible ‘please’ to seal the deal.
The stranger's face softens almost imperceptibly, eyes glinting in the fast-fading light of the setting sun like foreign jewels. “She is… ” he starts voice taking on a reverent note. “She is like the sun, warm and encompassing and ever-constant. Fickle as the sea, steady as a mountain—there is no life without her, without Destiny.”
“She is called Destiny?” Geralt confirms, confused and disoriented by the conversation, and the flurry of overwhelming sounds clashing like a church-bell ringing directly in his ear. With the look in the man’s eyes, it was likely he was a religious scribe or scholar—couldn’t be a monk with that style of dress, his hair too long and clothes too bright—regaling his figurehead with a tender fondness.
“One name of many.”
to be continued...