Cursed Blood
The Witcher One Shot
Pairing: Reader x Renfri
Other Characters: —
Warnings: mentions of violence & death, alcohol
Summary: The entire Continent sees Renfri as evil, cursed, monstrous. But you don’t. You only see the woman you love.
Word Count: 1,760
A/N: i have already mentally prepared myself for this to get 2 notes as all my one shots do but. it’s okay. i love renfri too much to care bc every hour on this blog is missing renfri hours.
please reblog/leave comments, they’re very much appreciated!
Cursed. It was all Renfri ever knew, all she was ever told. A screaming child born under a shadowy, black sun, absorbing all light and casting rays of evil darkness upon soil. The planets aligned just to curse her blood, to fill her with venom and hatred that spit over her growing bones.
Her name didn’t matter. Any identity she would try to forge would never matter. All that she was to the world was a girl born in the eclipse, a girl that would bring the world’s end, sink her teeth into it with a bloodied smile. The planets had made her cruel, twisted and broke something inside of her, or so some old mage under a dusty robe had claimed. Renfri scoffed to think about the men who had ruined her life, as all men do, robbed her freedom from her and branded her the descendent of a demon goddess, an entity of the night as dark as the Black Sun she was born under. Renfri knew her existence was a threat, her existence meant she was a gateway for Lilit to walk the Earth, to bring death at her fingertips and obliterate the entire human race.
She felt as though her boots were always stained with blood, no matter where she walked. It was prophesied for her, after all, to engulf kingdoms in blood, to watch innocent people choke and splutter before they drowned in the crimson oceans.
She heard about the other girls like her. Girls snatched under the winking stars by Stregobor, to be locked away for his experimentation. Growing up, she knew she was always under his watchful eye, him prying for any excuse to brand her a monster. Violence bubbled up inside her, boiled over, stung her skin, but it wasn’t because of the Black Sun bullshit that had been retold time and time again. No, her anger stemmed from something else, from being a child who grew up without love, who grew up finding comfort in violence when no one else would hold her. She learned to hold herself, learned to be the only person she could trust.
And her life of loneliness was sealed when Stregobor sent the man to follow her into the woods. Stripped of her princess title, stripped of any royalty or allegiance that never belonged to her, Renfri almost felt pleasure when she jammed her mother’s brooch into the thug’s ear, piercing it into his brain.
Life became all about survival. Kill or be killed. Starve or steal. From one village to the next, home was a foreign concept. Perhaps she was a monster, she’d wonder, with each man she’d kill in order to survive another day, but how was she to know? Where did the lines between monster and human lie, and who defined that line? A paranoid mage who believed in old curses? That hardly seemed fair to her. All that she knew was that all her emotions felt so real, so palpable, they had to be human. To be human is to be joyous, to be melancholic, to be furious. To be human is to feel.
Love was an emotion she had never felt before, an emotion that lingered in the back of her head, made her wonder if she was truly human if she had never loved. She wondered what it felt like, if she would be able to recognize it if it was handed to her on a platter, but she figured petty things like love did not matter. If she had survived her whole life without it, how important could it be? Not important enough to concern herself with when she spent every waking moment trying to track down the man who had robbed her life from her. Her hunt for Stregobor was unrelenting, her taste for revenge bitter in her mouth each time she got close.
You were the one who found her one night, drunk at an inn after she came close, so close to finding Stregobor and ending him once and for all. The wizard had slipped through her fingers, again, and she swore it would be the last time. Her face was buried in her hands, her dark locks obscuring her face, her breaths heavy as she struggled to grapple with the disappointment and anger that swirled inside her. She didn’t mean to pull her dagger on you, grab your wrist and yank you towards her in a motion so swift you didn’t even comprehend what was happening until you felt the cool blade at your throat. You had taken her by surprise, trying to clean up the various pitches of mead she had emptied and left strewn across the oak table. Renfri’s eyes bore into yours, perplexed by the fear and curiosity that stared back at her, before she let you go, dropped her dagger onto the table as her fingers released your wrist. Her fingertips burned against your skin, but in a way that you wished she would touch you again, give you another adrenaline rush that electrified you. You cleared your throat, straightened your apron, joked about it a rough night. Renfri didn’t respond, still eyeing you up carefully, intrigued as to how you hadn’t already scrambled away in fear. After the ensuing silence, you gathered the pitchers and left, only to return a few minutes later with a new one that was filled to the brim.
Perhaps it was the tiny act of kindness, a gesture Renfri had never experienced before, or perhaps it was your sweet smile that she caught a glimpse of before you turned away, but Renfri knew she couldn’t let you go without at least getting your name.
You sat with her for the rest of the night, talking until the first rays of dawn. You had seen all sorts of customers, the drunks, the adventurers, the dangerous ones, and yet you couldn’t quite understand Renfri. She didn’t talk about her past, wouldn’t tell you where she was travelling from, instead choosing to listen to your story. Learned about the inn in which your family owned, watched as you pointed your mother and father out to her, your younger and older sister. She laughed over stories you’d tell about uproarious customers who’d pass by, felt her heart flutter at your smile, that sweet, endearing smile. When she knew it was time to go, she tried to pay you, yet you tucked the coins back into her palm, insisting that her company was all you needed. She didn’t understand how you could be so kind, so soft in a world that was anything but to her, but she fell in love. With you, with your kindness, with the gentle manner in which you treated everything and everyone around you. She couldn’t let you go, couldn’t let go one of the one good thing in her life, the one person whom she’d ever felt love for.
So she told you to come with her, to join her on her travels. She didn’t expect you to agree, yet she was euphoric when you did. You felt the same magnetism, felt the same pull to Renfri as she felt for you, and you knew you couldn’t let this one night be the one and only with Renfri. You were destined for many more nights, destined for so much more time together.
You trekked through the forests together, walked alongside the babbling rivers and under chirping birds, and the world felt sunnier with you by her side. Renfri swore that the sun seemed to brighten, that the trees were greener when you skipped amongst them. She knew she had to tell you where you were going. She knew she had to tell you who she was, but for the first time in so long, she was afraid. She spent her whole life being unapologetic for who she was, learning to own up to her identity and embrace it, but with you, she feared scaring you off. She feared not being accepted by the one opinion in the entire world that mattered.
When she first kissed you, it was at an old inn, on a creaking bed you stayed the night on before continuing on your journey to Blaviken. You insisted on just paying for one room to save Renfri’s coin, claiming you could sleep on the floor if Renfri didn’t want to share the bed, but she laughed, teased you for being so foolish as to think she’d let you stay on the floor. You were both drunk, swaying, words slurring and bodies too close to one another, crossing lines you would never be able to uncross. But when Renfri leaned forward to kiss you, closing the gap between your bodies, both of you knew that crossing this line was something you’d never regret. Your kiss was feverish, desperate, loving, hands running through hair, bodies tangling in thin sheets as you unlaced your shirts, wanting to feel her skin against yours.
You held her in your arms that night, running your fingers through her hair as Renfri rested against your shoulder, pressed kisses to your collarbone and smiled each time you giggled. It felt nice to finally be held, she thought, to love and be loved. And in her moment of softness, of vulnerability, she told you the truth. Told you about the eclipse that haunts her, told you about her cursed blood, about the poison that runs through her veins. Told you the reason you were travelling to Blaviken together. She forced herself to look at you, wanting to see every emotion that crossed your face, but there was not even a hint of fear. Not even a hint of you wanting to run from her. You pressed a kiss to her forehead, down her cheeks, to her lips, and your tone didn’t waver as you swore to her, that if she wasn’t the one to slit Stregobor’s throat, you would do it yourself.
You would? she asked you, voice low and quiet, her hand reaching for yours as your fingers intertwined. She wasn’t even sure if you could fight, if you knew how to handle a sword, yet she didn’t question the determination in your tone.
Yes, you reaffirmed. Because I love you.
She kissed you in response, mumbling against your lips that she loved you, too, repeating the words over and over again like a mantra. And every time you kissed her, you swore it was impossible that her lips could be poison. And even if they were, they tasted oh-so-sweet.
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