multiitis asked: deep. ( YOUR PICK. ) Prompt Meme: (Accepting)
bass. my muse going deep (interpret as you want).
There’s not one man at the end of his sword, but three. Lined up neat like ducks in a row, all the way up to the hilt. The tip of his sword is stuck in the door to the abandoned church and there’s a shaft of sunlight coming in from where the door is cracked.
These were no monsters, these were just men. No need for a silver sword, just meteorite steel and iron scented blood falling in fat droplets to the floor.
Jaskier has sung about him besting a dozen monsters. Selkiemores and alghouls, cockatrice and basilisks. He’s painted Geralt in the bright light of his romantic heart, making him out to be the hero.
But there’s falsities in all of those songs. Little details plucked out and replaced by sweeter words to make for a better story. And those little lies have built a pedestal beneath his feet that was doomed to fall at some point.
Jaskier would see him at his worst, one day or another. That day just happened to be today.
The men are Nilfgaardian. Boys, really. In a hurry to put on their country’s colors and go to war. They were barely trained, probably the sons of farmers and fishermen given swords and horses and sent on a holy quest.
They never stood a chance against a creature like Geralt who was a head taller, twice as fast and three times as strong. The Trial of Grasses saw to that. Geralt could no more call himself a man than a fish could call itself a bird. Both had eyes, and that was where the comparison ended.
The sword pulls free with a wet sound, and the thud of three bodies tumble one after another. One of them’s lost their bowels in death, the stink of it fills his nose so much it makes his eyes water.
A part of Geralt is grateful. He doesn’t have to smell the acrid stench of fear on Jaskier, because he cant’ smell anything but death.