shok_ebasit_hissra | (no subject)

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Bull took a deep breath and closed his eye for a moment, debating the course of action he was about to take. There was something out there getting into people's heads, making them do things they wouldn't normally do. It had happened to him, which shook him down to his bones.

But he could not take himself out of this equation, not yet. He could not hunt something down and kill it if he was dead. He couldn't leave Dorian and Krem without first giving them the chance to figure this out, to help, to end it.

All he knew was that he'd had something in his head, and he'd lost control of himself. Even if what happened was ridiculous, he couldn't let it go.

So he sat in the woods, away from home and away from Dorian's shock or horror, with an awl he used to repair leather and a length of strong cord. He did not want any more corruption coming out of him. He took another breath, and with a resolve that came from years of pure belief and knowing, he used the awl to pierce both lips and draw the cord through.

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"Mmhm," Geralt promised flatly. If there were others around to handle it, he would let them. He wouldn't deal with it without a king's ransom. He was, after all, a witcher.

"There was a massacre, years ago. Pogrom marched on the keep. Killed everyone that was there that winter, only witchers that survived were traveling. Happened at every school eventually that year. Killed most of us, a few hundred in all. Out of fear."

He left his thoughts on fear at that.

"You ever hunted harpies?"

Edited 2018-05-04 03:50 (UTC)

"I understand the fear," he said, though he hoped his tone made it clear that he did not condone the murder of the witchers, just as he thought it was a bad idea to keep mages under lock and key until someone felt rebellion was the only choice. "But it should not have happened."

He shook his head and rolled his shoulders as Geralt shifted the subject. "No, not that I know of. Something tells me I'd remember if I had."

Bull was respecting Geralt's disappointment in humanity, and that was all he cared to look for. He stood again and gingerly lifted his sword from his back. The silver-shod wolf emblem of the pommel glittered in the dusk light.

He tossed it to Bull.

Bull needed to work it out.

"They attack from the sky with talons. They scream. They'll vomit and shit on you. The vomit's corrosive, the shit's shit."

Bull caught the sword - the silver one - and made a face at the description. "Are you suggesting we go kill one right now?"

Made him wish he'd brought more to the woods than this small kit. He didn't think an awl would be useful against this harpy.

"Suggesting we go kill a nest of them right now, for money. You don't want to take that mood home."

Geralt nodded Bull up after him. The nest was nearby, at the top of the hill overlooking the farmland and briar fields. It would be a pretty spot, actually, once the nest was burnt.

"Not chicken are you?"

The witcher doubled down on his deadpan.

"Bawk bawk."

Edited 2018-05-06 23:27 (UTC)

Bull stared at Geralt after the most deadpan chicken sounds he'd ever heard. Then he laughed and with a grunt he got to his feet, balancing Geralt's silver sword over his shoulder. He looked up hill, wondering about the nest.

It'd be good to kill something that needed killing.

"You know if this witchering thing gets old, you could be the voice of one of those animal noise toys for children. Anything else I need to know about them?"

"Figured I'd just become an apple picker."

He chose a path up the hill that was shortest, rather than following the game trails or hiking paths. He knew the qunari could follow. With strength, if not the witcher's puma grace.

"They've started picking off livestock nearby. You'll be helping your boy out, even if he doesn't realize it."

They weren't far. He could catch the carrion stench on the breeze from the purple horizon.

"Krem is no one's boy."

Even if he knew Geralt didn't mean it in any particular way, Bull felt compelled to say something. He'd been protecting and building Krem up for a long time.

"But he would prefer his sheep and goats stay alive."

He could smell death and rotting as they climbed the hill. Death from battle smelled different, he decided. Then he wondered if Geralt noticed any different - his senses were more keen. "Hey, you ever think battle death and hunting death smell different?"

At Geralt's age, anyone under the age of fifty was a boy. But he understood where Bull was coming from, and respected it.

His foot dislodged a few small rocks and dust that trickled down behind him.

"Battle death smells like blood and rage and fear. Monster nest smells like rot and bad dreams and regret."

Bull moved, avoiding the tumbling rocks. He listened, and something about Geralt's comment made him tip his head, made him curious. It was easier to think about things like this; easier to ponder monsters in the world than the ones that might be in his head.

"Why would a monster nest smell like regret?"

"All of the cheapskates thqt got eaten because they got the idea they could save money by not hiring a professional."

They crested the hill a small distance away. The nest reeied. It was filthy, brown, red and white, the glint of bones, human and sheep.

Geralt pulled his crossbow off of his back.

"I'll get them down. You finish them."

He put himself to Bull's bad side.

Bull huffed a laugh when Geralt told him to finish off whatever came down. He was vaguely concerned about being a rank mess after this, but it wouldn't necessarily be the first time he'd striped in the back yard to avoid offending Dorian with clothes covered in monster viscera.

He really did like helping Geralt hunt.

He adjusted his grip on the sword and held it ready, his good eye focused on the nest. It smelled foul, and he imagined the harpies, whatever they were, weren't going to be much better.

"Ready," he rumbled low.

At the Bull's ready, Geralt snaked a hand to his belt and whipped a grenade toward the nest. The flash and bang scattered the creatures. They looked like the corpses of old hags, with huge talons and mangy wings.

He aimed for the first to locate them and pulled. The evil-looking bolt made its mark, biting into the harpy's wing.

It hit the ground heavily and skidded toward where Geralt stood. The witcher avoided it by springboarding, cat-like, from Bull's shoulders.

Bull turned his head to avoid looking right at the flash, but he did catch sight of the harpies. They were horrifying, and Bull suddenly had no qualms with killing them.

He grunted when Geralt used him to get out of the way; in a single, surprisingly quick movement, Bull swung the sword to catch the harpy's neck as soon as it was within reach, trying to avoid those talons and failing wings.

Maybe there was a trick to killing them, but he figured hacking off a head was a solid start.

Like a huge cat, the witcher folded himself over with an inhumanly agile spine, turning his momentum mid-air to hook the harpy head with the crook of his boot. It flew with deadly accuracy, knocking another of the creatures from flight.

He fell to the dirt. The wounded harpy fell atop him, struggling. Limbs tangled. Flames sparked angrily from Geralt's palms as he pressed it away.

Geralt fought with reflexes that Bull rarely saw used together. Like dancing, but with killing. The flash of flame brought him back to the moment - Geralt had a harpy on top of him, and Bull had to imagine that was uncomfortable. And putrid.

With a grunt he kicked the strange monster as hard as he could, intent on getting it away from Geralt without hurting him with a blade.

With a quick somersault, Geralt put Bull and the silver sword between himself and the harpy. While it was true that Geralt had a witcher's healing, Iron Bull was a wall of muscle. Geralt was too pragmatic in the heat of violence to not use that as part of the battlefield itself.

He reached for the bow and bolt he'd dropped and took the bolt in hand. The last harpy had landed, surrounding them.

"Thanks," he muttered, before rushing the bird, jamming the bolt into its eye socket until he heard it scrape.

Bull swung the sword as he spun; it wasn't as heavy as the weapons he was used to, which he usually used to build momentum. It was good for hitting multiple targets, and it was good for making them move where he wanted them to move. He swung hard at two nearest to him, trying to make sure nothing came for Geralt's back.

He stopped depending fully on his eyesight at some point - he was moving too quick, and it was getting too dark to focus easily with just one eye. But he could hear them, and he could smell them, and he could feel them. That was all he needed.

Geralt dropped the harpy, twitching but braindead, and turned to Bull again to see he'd cleaned the field with the sword, using an armspan Geralt could only envy. A witcher sword was light, true, but razor-honed.

Geralt looked away for a moment, panting strangely. His body was made to fiht more viciously and frenziedly the longer he fought. It was only age and experience that kept him from simply turning that frustrated energy on his ally, a skill younger witchers, like Lambert, usually hadn't fully managed.

"Nice downswing. Try not to break it next time, though. I'm poor."

For a moment Bull didn't answer the comment, just watched Geralt. He was breathing strange, and Bull knew a thing or two about battle frenzy. He was ready.

Still, eventually he turned his focus back on the carcasses.

"Been a while since I worked with a weapon this light," he admitted. It was a longsword for someone Geralt's size, but it was less so for him.

Soon enough, he had control over his endocrine system again. Geralt knelt by Bull to pull an undamaged harpy eye from a socket, before grabbing two carcasses by one wing each and dragging them toward the befouled nest.

"Time for some housekeeping."

Before tossing them on, he examined the nest, looking for something.

"Lots of fawn. Horse. Sheep. Human. Ah -- there it is."

"There's what?" Bull asked as he came closer, curious. "And you grabbed the eye, what for?"

Just because he had an bred-in distrust of magic didn't mean that he didn't occasionally get curious about things, like when Dorian gleefully asked someone to harvest various monster parts after a fight.

"Extracting genetic material. A mutagen can be prepared from it. Administered to a witcher, it makes them temporarily more ... harpy. They stink, but they have excellent eyesight."

Geralt scrubbed at the back of his head with a bloodied hand. Then, carefully, sifted through the detritus to pull out a gold crucifix on a chain.

And, more importantly, a faintly humming moonstone cabochon set in silver. He tossed it to Bull.

"Smell familiar?"

Bull made a face. He knew that all of Geralt's decoctions and mutagens gave him impressive advantages in the field, but still. "Sounds rough."

He'd seen the witcher when the toxicity started getting to him.

He caught the bauble Geralt tossed to him. "Smells like harpy. But it looks - and feels - familiar. Can't wait to see Dorian's face when he finds out where we found this." His voice softened, gentled at the mention of the mage.

"It's a living," Geralt deadpanned. Because that was what it was. He got paid well to torture and pervert himself in pursuit of his quarry.

He pulled the carcasses onto the nest and lit the thing on fire. It discouraged resettling -- and corpse-eaters.

"Didn't think I found you by accident, did you? See. I care."