‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ CHAPTER FOUR ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
the bard in the tavern

   IN THE DISTANCE, SHE COULD SEE the dense forest that had once belonged solely to the elves. Greenery that was the beginning of spring, with tall trees full of fruits and flowers and memories woven between the rings inside the trunk. Behind them, the tall Blue Mountains with their whitened tips that appeared alight by flame whenever the sunlight touched them. She watched the mountains with an unwavering sight, wondering what rested upon the bluish-grey lands. There were rumours the free elves had made home there.

   Rennen inhaled through her mouth and laid her arms at the edge of the barge, focused on the hints of the valley at the very foot of the mountains—Dol Blathanna. In the elven tongue, it meant the valley of the flowers. She had tried to do her research of the kingdom in the days she had spent riding from the Sanctuary, the book nestled in one of her bags in the saddle of her mare, but all she had come to know was that the kingdom had belonged solely to the elves. Until the human arrived.

   She had come to understand, ever since she was a small child, that humans had a deep hatred towards anything and everything they did not understand. Elves, dwarves, gnomes—even witchers. Monsters were hated. Rennen always wondered if others knew the date of her birth, of what flowed beside the harsh winter in her veins, would they hate her, too?

   Dories and wooden crate rafts floated in the river as the barge passed by. Their owners gave the barge disgruntled looks, waved their hands with a hint of hatred or annoyance. The fish that had been there disappeared as the barge pushed by. Rennen spat overboard and rolled her eyes at one of the fishermen who made an obscene gesture towards her. It was his fault for fishing so close to the small harbour, where not only the dories and the rafts came by but large barges full of merchants and travellers from all over the Continent. Her, included.

   She was no merchant or traveller, but an assassin on her way to finish a contract.

   The words the Listener had told her before she left still rang in her mind, the way he stared at her as if he had seen her entire life unfold in those few seconds. Careful words spoken to him by the Dread Mother, her winter-harsh voice slicing in the entrails of his mortal brain like a lullaby one did not desire to hear. Cold words. Deadly words. Did the Dread Mother whisper to the Listener words that could destroy kingdoms?

   Yes.

   The barge came to a steady stop by docks; a rope was thrown, the loud commotion to welcome those in the barge began as soon as the wooden plank was thrown down and the workers began to pull things from the ship. Rennen went towards her mare, grabbed her reins, and pulled her down with a steady calmness as her eyes were solely focused on the little hamlet in the distance. Upper Posada.

   The hamlet was built within and around large rock formations that appeared like small mountains. Wood wrapped around the face of rocks and inside, old and new combined for the simplefolk and those that passed by. Wood and rock, just like the Sanctuary in the insides of an abandoned elven temple. The green of the forests around the hamlet was full of fruiting and flowering trees and shrubs, sands all around—memories of when the elves had been the sole beings in that little place. Merchants stood by their tents and yelled loudly for her to buy their wares as she passed by atop her mare; fishermen and hunters passed by with baskets full of their catch so they could feed their families and sell at the market.

   She stopped by one and bought dried meat and fresh fruits. She stopped at another and bought five loaves of fresh bread. The last stop she made in that little market was for cheese and a little glass bottle of perfume that smelled of freesias and apricot.

   As she came closer to Upper Posada, the merchants began to disappear until a trickle of people with their wares on the main road came to and from. Children ran past her with wooden swords and laughter at their tongue, songs leaving their mouths like the enchantments she had heard as a child.

   Children, to the assassin, were a bad memory.

   "We'll leave soon enough," she said, unsure whether she spoke to her horse or to herself.

   The horse responded with a huff and a shake of her head.

   She left her mare at the stables, paid a hefty sum to the stable boy for him to take care of the horse as if it were a child, and pushed forward to the tavern. The sole tavern in Upper Posada, right across a wooden hanging bridge, where everyone that lived and visited that little hamlet spent their gold. She glanced down as she passed over the bridge to see more greenery and rocks, a dusty road that lead to Lower Posada.

   The tavern was full of life when Rennen walked in. A bard stood by the fireplace with a lute, his voice weaving through the tavern, like tendrils of light swirling around, the deeper she stepped into the warm room. He sang of Upper Posada, of old Nan the Hag and her potions. For a brief moment, she could taste the concoction of tansy and silphium on her tongue.

   "Abort yourself!" a man yelled, throwing something towards the bard. Others followed.

   "Fuck off!" the bard groaned, stepping back near the fireplace and away from the food being thrown. "I'm so glad that I could bring you all together like this."

   Rennen passed by the man that initiated the throws and kicked the leg of his chair. She stared down at him when he stood to glare at her, hands on his waist and mouth prepared to hurl insults. "Sit down," she told him, pushing him down by the shoulder until his butt hit the seat. "You look prettier with your mouth shut and your ass on that chair."

   The man sneered, hands closing into fists on his lap. "Bitch," he said between his teeth.

   She chuckled and patted him on the shoulder once, left her hand there and allowed her nails to dig into the skin as she leaned down to look into his eyes. They were blue, bloodshot and sunken with lines of ageing at their corners. "Care to repeat that?"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

   "N-no," the man hissed, trying to pull away from her hold.

   She only tightened it. Her nails pushed through the fabric of his blouse until they met skin, and the gentle trickle of blood began to push through the blue fabric. The scent was metallic, like the steel in her dagger or the iron in her blades.

   "S-sorry!" He tried to push himself away from her hold, his back pushing the table back until it hit the wall with a thud. Only then did Rennen let go of him.

   Her nails were red with his blood. She stared at them for a couple of seconds, made a face of disgust, and wiped them on his blouse as her eyes focused on his. "You look prettier with your mouth shut," she repeated.

   The murmurs and conversations had ceased into a silence that allowed the wind to be heard, the steady hit of her feet against the wooden floor as she made her way to an empty table. She sat down and leaned her back against the wall, eyes focused on the window that held hanging herbs and vases for decoration. The conversation began.

   As soon as the barmaid set down her drink and food, the bard took a seat on the empty chair in front of her. He focused on her, solely on her as she dipped her bread onto the soup and almost swallowed it whole. He cleared his throat and laid his hands atop the table, his fingers intertwined with each other. "I love the way you just. . .came in and almost killed a man," he said, nodding.

   Rennen looked at him and raised a brow. "Did you think that was an invitation for you to talk to me?"

   The bard cleared his throat and shook his head. "Of course not! I wanted to, uh. . . No one else hesitated to comment on the quality of my performance, except. . ." He glanced around the inn, one finger out as he pointed to all the patrons until it fell on her. "You."

   "I don't have a comment."

   "You must have some review for me!" the bard insisted. "Three words or less."

   Rennen pushed the last of the bread to her mouth and leaned back against the wall as she slowly chewed, staring at the bard with her head tilted slightly to the side. He was a handsome man, she couldn't deny that. Tussled brown hair that was perfect for her to run her fingers through, deep grey eyes that reminded her of hazy winter mornings, the beginnings of stubble on his chin. Her eyes traced down his neck, to his broad shoulders and the hint of chest hair that escaped his shirt.

   A quick chuckle left her mouth, her eyes continuing their assessment of the handsome man. "I'm not one for music, bard."

   His mouth fell open. "Not one for music?" He laid his hand on his chest and gasped several times. Sarcasm and adrenaline dripped from his mouth like honey, with wickedness that made the assassin feel strange in the chest. "That is the most preposterous thing I have heard!"

   "You should ask someone else." She reached into the gold pouch on her belt and pulled out a handful of ducats, laid them on the table and pushed them in his direction. "Don't stuff bread down your pants, bard."

   "Jaskier," the bard said, smiling. "My name's Jaskier."

   The assassin eyed him. Handsome must have been a special bonus to the man because he also had a generous smile that she had seen only on a few men. A rare thing. Generosity and men were a strange combination, she had come to realise. She nodded once at the bard. "Don't stuff bread down your pants, Jaskier. I hear it's uncomfortable."

   The beard's cheeks reddened as he grabbed the ducats. "Yes, well. . ." He cleared his throat and stood, bowed his head at her, and walked to another corner of the inn.

   Rennen's eyes followed after him, and once they slowly fell towards his ass. There was something charming about that bard, from the way he carried himself around the inn with no care to the way his voice had carried a gentle melody. She had to agree that his voice was pleasant to listen to if it weren't inside a full tavern in Upper Posada. The bard did not belong there. No, she could imagine him singing in the big cities, like Novigrad or Vizima. And then, she imagined herself in his shoes.

   As a child, she had adored hearing the skalds sing about heroic deeds in front of a hot fire during the cold nights. The shrill sound of the bagpipes, the skald performing a ballad about her greatuncle's slaying a giant in Undvik. She had listened intently, watched the way his fingers moved against the drones and his arm squeezed the bag. Once, she had even thought of becoming a skald in order to escape Skellige and tell her tales in every inn and tavern in the Continent.

   Those were the dreams of a child. 

   "You're the witcher!" The bard's voice echoed through the tavern and a silence settled once again. It was different than the silence they had given her, more dangerous. For a moment, she thought she could hear someone's heart beating against their ribs. "Geralt of Rivia."

   Rennen let her eyes wander across the tavern unit they landed on the man with milk-white hair. It was the same witcher she had seen at the whorehouse in Blaviken, the man with the amber-coloured eyes and the stern look he gave her with his arms crossed against his broad chest. She remembered his eyes, out of everything else. They had scrutinised her with the simplest glance, had watched her leave the whorehouse just like she had done the same to him when he left Blaviken.

   She pulled her hood over her head and waited until the witcher left the tavern, the bard right after him like a puppy. In the past few weeks, since she left Blaviken, she never imagined seeing the witcher again. His amber eyes did haunt her dreams, there were times when she thought she could see a hint of milk-white hair in the distance, retreating just like he did when he left the country town. To see him once again. . . A shiver ran up her spine as she left several gold ducats on the table and pushed her way out, feet silently hitting the ground as she made her way to her horse. 

   A pull inside her chest lead her somewhere, away from the tavern and the merchants. To the mountains. She stopped at a fork in the path at the mouth of the mountain, one leading up the mountains and the other to Gulet. The pull came from the mountains. Steady—the stream of a creak coursing through the rocks and pushing pebbles. She clicked her tongue and breathed in once the horse began to move. 

   Her eyes stared at the surroundings, the grand mountains that surrounded her and their tops reaching to the sky like fingertips. The air was fresh, the scent of cedars and earth and something old. There was magic in the air. It moved with a current, through and against her. She could feel the fizz, the tingle of it, right on her tongue the closer she got to a clearing full of tall rocks.

   She left the mare at the edge and stepped in. Her hands pressed against the rocks, felt their power of old, as she followed the current of magic. She tried to swallow as she saw the opening to a cave but stopped short. There was small conversation coming from inside the cavern, soft words full of annoyance and harshness and tiredness. Out of everything, tiredness was the most prominent thing. They were tired, and they wanted more.

   Rennen would give them that.

   She stepped into the cave silently, one hand on the hilt of the dagger at her waist as her feet followed after those that spoke. The conversation was full of anger that had been there for many years, formed through whatever they had been through. She was familiar with that kind of anger, it swarmed through her alongside the blood and the harsh winter in her veins—she had tasted that kind of anger raw. 

   The cavern led to an opening at the other side of the mountain. Dwellings had been made out of the rock, windows that let in the sun to warm them up. And through all of them, she could feel magic. She followed the current that was the strongest, the one that would direct her to the one who prayed.