Lilac and Gooseberries.
The warm water relaxed her muscles and cleared her mind. Months had passed and she hadn't had the chance to take a decent bath, but with Winter close, she finally could return to Kaer Morhen, the Keep of the witchers of the School of The Wolf for centuries, and leave the Path behind her for at least a few months.
"You must hurry, Ciri will start to get impatient, and I wouldn't like to deal with that" her companion pulled her out of her meditation, but she knew that she was right.
Truth was that since the moment she arrived at the Keep, Ciri hadn't stopped begging her to train together, and everyone knew that she couldn't say no to the little girl. It had to do with the fact that since the first time that she saw her, she knew that Ciri would change her life forever, and the most important thing: that the girl became like a daughter to her.
Fate was a funny thing, and when it bound them through the Law of Surprise (an ancient custom that witchers demanded as a way of payment) it knew what it was doing. Brittany never imagined that by taking a simple Contract, like in uncountable occasions, she would obtain a girl, and not just a simple girl, but the princess of Cintra, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.
Years passed until she saw her again, but when she found out what had happened at Cintra, she decided to take Ciri with her and do what all witchers did with children given to them: take them to Kaer Morhen and prepare them to be the next generation of witchers.
"Come on, Britt, the more you wait, the more possible is for her to start training alone, and you know what Shelby says about that."
Brittany groaned and maintained her eyes closed. She was enjoying her bath so much.
"Maybe she can wait a little bit longer, and you and I could make up for lost time, what do you think?"
She heard how her companion laughed, she could imagine her dimples and how she was comfortably laying on the couch, with nothing but the towel that she used to dry her hair to cover her naked body and a book on her lap. "I missed you too, but we have all the time in the world, now go, I'll be right here waiting for you."
She didn't need any more motivation than that, nevertheless, she extended her time in the bath. The water was still warm, surely because of a spell casted without her knowing.
Leaning on the edge of the bath, she got up, feeling the drops of water fall through her hair to her naked back; after finding her training pants and boots, she was almost ready to get out of their space free of interruptions by every one of the Keep's inhabitants, yes, that's how they had named it.
After finding the key of the room, she made her way downstairs, not without lingering on the beautiful view being gifted to her one last time. To think that I was so close to losing all of that. She shook her head to dispose those awful thoughts, it wasn't the place nor the time to think about that.
As she was entering the study room she heard a… snore? If Shelby had fallen asleep it could only mean one thing: Ciri was already training with the Pendulum, a structure built in one of the Keep's walls. It didn't have any protections and it was built with various circular pieces of wood, every one of them separated by 15cm, and a big pendulum that forced everyone who trained there to have a very fast footwork to avoid being thrown out. It had become Ciri's favorite thing to train with since she started to do it with her eyes closed, something that adds so much fun, Britt.
Brittany was sure that Santana wouldn't agree.
She cared more for Ciri than for herself, and she was against the whole witcher training thing to begin with, so the guilt for any accident that could happen would fall upon Brittany, she was sure of it. That's why she hurried to the interior yard of Kaer Morhen. When she arrived, she found out that her suppositions were right.
"You must have a faster footwork, your balance point is wrong," that was the first thing she said when she was close enough for Ciri to hear it, making her trip over her feet; but Brittany wasn't concerned, she was well aware of Ciri's non-magical abilities, and a little stumble would only cause her to regroup her thoughts and realize what was she doing wrong.
Ciri was a dedicated student most of the time, but when she got bored of reading the endless books about the endless monsters she had to encounter on the Path, it was a different story. Brittany understood her. There were fascinating monsters, monsters from which one could make posions, beverages and even food with every part of their bodies, and there were others that simply existed to bother common folk, those were the ones that bored Ciri, but to know about them was necessary.
"You shouldn't be training alone, that way you don't have someone to tell you what you're doing wrong and you'll only get worse. Get down here."
"I've heard that countless of times," replicated the young witcher while taking the bandage covering her bright green eyes and getting down with a double flip.
"Why do you still do it, then?"
Ciri shrugged, apparently preparing herself for a lecture that Brittany was going to give her, but she wasn't going down without a fight. "I read all of Ghuls and Alghuls, and since Shelby fell asleep, I thought it was a good time to train with my sword."
Brittany sighed. Some fights she just couldn't win.
"Fine, if you're finished with your chores and are anxious to train, let's do it. Sugar and Mercedes should be in the training yard." she swore she caught a glimpse of that lopsided grin that was all Santana in Ciri's face when she took off running to the yard; she didn't know why she was surprised.
"That little she-devil, I swear I was just resting my eyes, I thought she would take her time doing the essay that I asked her to do about Ghuls and Alghuls" Shelby was by her side.
"Knowing her, I'd tell she lingered on purpose so you'd get bored."
"Yeah, I think we've spoiled her. Let's catch up with her."
When they arrived at the yard, Ciri, Sugar and Mercedes were talking lively about all the essays that Shelby had given them, sharing experiences and opinions about the boring books that they had to read.
"Next time we'll study with the doors closed, Cirilla, and you'll have to give me your work before I let you out of the room."
Ciri just smiled. "As you say, Aunt Shelby."
"Now, let's begin the training, to be the best you must train like the best, and you know you have a lot of potential, but for now you'll train with the dummy, that'll be your punishment. Go."
Sugar and Mercedes began to train as well, and Brittany paired with Shelby.
They trained for a while, until the helmet of the dummy Ciri was training with went flying behind one of the walls and she took of behind it.
"Ciri! Come back!"
Brittany received no answer.
Suddenly, the wind became icy, frost covered the training yard, and a big longship could be seen outside the outer wall of the Keep. It could only mean one thing, the Wild Hunt was at their doors, and they wouldn't stop until they had what they wanted: Ciri.
She woke up with a start.
It's been years since she last saw Ciri, and certainly she hadn't dreamt of her, which meant things were changing, and not necessarily for good.
First that letter and now nightmares about Ciri, what's happening?
And, on top of her nightmares, she had been looking for certain sorceress, certain sorceress who had never put a foot in Kaer Morhen.
With every day that passed, they were closer to their destiny, of that she was sure, but she couldn't stop the thoughts in her head that made her feel they were losing the trail again. Since that letter with smell of lilac and gooseberries arrived, she hadn't had a good night's sleep; she wouldn't allow herself to have a good night's sleep until she found her. After all those years she finally had the chance to see her again, and the mix between nerves, anticipation and happiness made her insides a mess.
Some said the witchers breed didn't had feelings, that all those mutations and tests made them vanish, those same mutations and tests what made them the monster killers that they were. But Brittany wasn't so sure about that. Not when she was feeling so many things inside of her that sometimes she just couldn't tell one from the other. All those feelings were, more often than not, caused by one single person.
"Let me see the letter again, Britt."
Her companion's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Shelby had been traveling with her since the letters arrival. She had told her numerous times that it wasn't necessary, that she could stay at Kaer Morhen, but Shelby refused. She had always been like a mother figure for her and her fellow witchers, Mercedes and Sugar. They were the last ones graduated from their School, and no other School of Witchers had accepted new recruits in more than a century; it helped that witchers could live a very long life, there were stories about witchers who lived for more than three hundred years until some monster killed them.
Brittany didn't know what use would have handing Shelby the letter, they had read it hundreds of times, it was precise and did not revealed anything more than the location in which they were supposed to meet. Their destiny, White Orchard, was half a day, and they were hoping to find a fresh trail. The horses were exhausted, so they decided to let them rest a little bit longer that night.
"Well, the only thing surprising about this thing is that it still smells of lilac and gooseberries, and that, apparently, she still has the unicorn… what's that about?" asked Shelby with curiosity.
Brittany smiled.
"It's a disecated unicorn, we used it as a bed some times."
The postscript was the only thing that seemed out of context: I still have the unicorn.
"Ah, I see, I really don't want to know more details of your sexual life, thank you for a little bit of decency."
After talking a little bit more about weather Mercedes and Sugar would return to Kaer Morhen for the winter and the love-hate relationship that Mercedes and Shelby still had after all those years, Brittany's thoughts returned to the reason of that journey, and smiling, she remembered some of their best moments in the company of that unicorn.
When they retired to get some rest, Brittany's dreams returned to the same endless nightmare.
The sun was about to return, which meant they could go to White Orchard and finally have a real shot at reuniting with the sorceress; maybe Brittany could tell her about her dreams.
A ghuls pack attacked them before they could follow their path, but that was nothing compared to the griffin that they found farther. Fortunately, Brittany's silver sword wounded the beast enough for it to retreat, not before leaving Shelby a memento in her shoulder.
"Let's go to the tavern, maybe they can help us with your wound and with information."
Shelby accepted without a fight, that damned monster got her good.
When you are different, you'll not be accepted by everyone, and humans have a nasty tradition of discriminating those who don't share their ideas or, in this case, their human status. It didn't matter that witchers were the bridge between humans and monsters, so to speak, they were still treated poorly; it didn't matter how many lives they saved, there would always be people who view them as trash or simple bounty hunters.
That was the main reason for them to avoid taverns.
The incidents were more frequent in times of war, like the one they were living. Lucky them, the tavern was almost empty, with a group of what seemed to be mercenaries in one side, a lonely merchant in a corner and a student from Oxenfurt University bragging about how good he was at gwent on another table near the entrance.
"Why don't you go ask if someone has seen her while I tend to my wound?" Brittany nodded and contemplated her options.
If she were to ask the student first, she was sure he would force her to play with him; she didn't have the time for that.
If she were to ask the mercenaries first, she was sure they would try to fight with her, a nonsense fight; she didn't have the time for that, either.
Seems like the merchant is my best choice, who knows? Maybe he did see her.
She made her way to the merchant's table and asked him politely if she could take a seat. He just nodded and pointed the seat in front of him with his finger.
"Gaunter O'Dimm, a pleasure"
"Brittany Pierce, likewise."
"I had understood that all witchers had yellow eyes and cat like pupils after the mutations, but I had heard about you, you're different," there were times in which she didn't like to have the two witcher's swords hung in her back (steel for humans, silver for monsters) but she needed them, and there were times in which she didn't like having all the fame that she had.
"Mutations affect us in different ways."
"Yet, it's strange to see a blue eyed witcher," he said while studying her closely, something that she was used to, because unlike her friends, she was the only one who maintained the original color and shape of her eyes.
"I like to think that I'm ending with the stereotype," Brittany replicated. "But I'm not here to talk about me, I'm looking for a woman."
"Aren't we all? We all look for a woman, or a man, I couldn't care less about other peoples' preferences."
"Yeah, but she's not any woman, mine smells like lilac and gooseberries, dresses always in black and white, she should've passed through here, but I've lost her trail."
"Ah, this starts to get interesting; let me guess, you're looking for the sorceress of Vengerberg."
Brittany was surprised, but tried to answer calmly.
"How do you know that?"
"Because of Michael Chang, the great bard, of course!" he said joyfully "I'll tell you what I know, but before I do that, I want you to answer one question for me: is that really what you want? To find her?"
"That's a very weird question."
"Oh, come on, humor me, a simple merchant like me can only dream of adventures and romances of such caliber. Because it is love, right?"
"Of course it is," she answered without hesitating.
That seemed to be the right answer, for the merchant seemed very pleased with it. He ordered two shots, one for each of them, and Brittany supposed that it wouldn't hurt to take it, after all, she had been traveling for weeks and it was the first tavern that they crossed.
"You see, I've been here a while, tending some of my business, and yes, I did see the sorceress, but in that moment it didn't mean anything to me, I've heard every single one of the songs that master Chang has written about you two, so of course I was suspicious when she passed through here, dressed in black and white, with that peculiar perfume, but I never thought that I would be lucky enough for her to be her…"
"I'm sorry, I really don't want to be rude, but I need to find her immediately. If you have any useful clue, I would really like you to tell me. Please," she interrumpted nervously. She didn't like to be rude, but she was sure that if she let him, Gaunter O'Dimm would spend hours talking about silly things.
"Oh, yes, of course, I'm so sorry, it's just… things like this never happen here. Anyway, you should go to the Nilfgaardian Fort, it's north from here. She stopped there for a night and then she left."
At last, Brittany thought, at last I have a solid clue.
"You don't know how much I appreciate that," she tried to not sound too enthusiastic, she had a reputation to uphold, after all.
"It is nothing, Brittany Pierce, I just hope that, if some day I'm in the need to ask for your help, you'll be there to give me a hand," said Gaunter O'Dimm, getting up and paying for their drinks so he could leave, giving Brittany a strange look before leaving.
Brittany frowned. The way that he had said that sounded like a promise and a threat.
She decided to inform Shelby about what she had found out, discharging any other thoughts for some other time.
"I've a clue."
"And we have a problem," before Brittany could ask what she meant, she saw with the corner of her eyes the mercenaries approaching their table. Shelby had been watching them for a while, Brittany supposed. She really hoped not to get her armor dirty again, it was a lot of effort to clean it.
Preparing for the worst, she turned around, not surprised when she was nose to nose with the one who seemed to be the boss.
"We were leaving."
"Oh, yes, you are leaving, but not before we kick your asses, fucking freaks."
Brittany felt how Shelby was stealthily getting up from the chair, drawing her steel sword and distracting the three men enough to give Brittany the opportunity to do the same.
The fight didn't last long. The tranquil tavern that they entered minutes before was long gone, Brittany should've been used to that kind of reaction to things out of the norm, she knew that the possibility to end up kicking some assholes in the face was always there, even the possibility to, like this time, cut some bastards' throats was there, but it was still hard for her to understand humans and their fear of the unknown.
"And here I was, hoping to stay out of trouble this time," Shelby's commentary pulled her out of her thoughts.
She only nodded and did a quick look over: every single one of the customers were hidden under the tables. But the looks of fear and disgust were the ones that affected Brittany the most.
"Get out of here and never come back… monsters," exclaimed the inn keeper.
Shelby took Brittany by the forearm and guided her to the exit. Brittany looked up as her feet touched the loose soil, and the first thing that registered her eyes was four nilfgaardian guards, who probably came from the Fort that she was headed to before that useless fight.
"They started the fight, I wanted to try and talk to them, really, but they didn't gave me the chance," she was starting to rant and she knew it, but she didn't want to get in troubles with the Emperor's soldiers; he hated her for the simple fact of existing, she didn't want to give him any other motive.
"You don't need to rant, Britt-Britt, you know that I always found that very endearing."
The world stopped at lightning speed.
"S-Santana?" she said as she searched for her, just in time to see her making her way through her scort, all mounting pants and black and white tones, and that smell so characteristic of her. Just as I remember her. "How come you're here?"
"Oh, you know me, I've never been patient, and when one of my friends here arrived with a report of someone asking for me, I knew it was you," Brittany could notice the happiness in her eyes, but she also knew that Santana would never act upon it with all the others around, she wouldn't allow herself to show weakness. "I'm very glad to see you, I'd even embrace you, were you not covered in blood and if this outfit weren't new."
There's the Santana that I remember. It was the best she would get for now, any compliment or act of happiness were covered by a not so nice comment to divert the attention.
"Now that we're here and that we went through so much trouble to find you, I think it would be best for you to tell us why you were looking for Brittany in the first place and why when we find you you're with a nilfgaardian scort," Shelby was not Santana's number one fan, but they respected each other, so that was something.
"It's good to see you too, Shelby. I'm sorry for all the trouble you two encountered, but that was out of my control," she gave the soldiers a sign and they started to prepare the horses for their departure. The moment they left, she turned her attention to Brittany. "I can't tell the reason why I wanted you to find me, Britt, we'll have to do that at Vizima, Emperor Emhyr wants to talk to you."
This has to be a goddamned joke.
"You know perfectly that the White Flame Dancing On The Graves Of His Foes and I are not the best of friends, San."
Santana tried to hide the smile that formed on her lips after hearing the nickname that she hadn't heard in such a long time and the blatant sarcasm that Brittany was capable of. "I know, and I wouldn't oblige you to go if the Emperor didn't have such an important proposal. I didn't refuse, I just couldn't."
That was intriguing. Santana hated to be under someone else's command, and there were only two people for whom she would give up her freedom; one of them was in front of her, the other one had disappeared many years ago.
Brittany just looked her in the eyes and nodded, being enough to tell her that she understood the importance of the proposal, whatever it was.
"It seems that this is as far as we'll go together, Britt, I'm sure Emperor Emhyr didn't extend an invitation for me."
Shelby was right, but it didn't make the goodbye easy. "Thank you for everything, Shelby, you don't know how much it meant to me. Good luck on the Path, we'll see each other in the winter" Brittany grabbed her mentor's forearm and gave her a quick hug that Shelby reciprocated before grabbing her horse and making her way north, to Kaer Morhen.
"Is Tubbs in good shape?" Brittany used to call all her horses the same way, Santana was one of the few people to know that and that little gesture made her feel wyverns on her stomach and heat in her cheeks. And other places.
"Yeah, but, what's the rush?"
"I'd like to be out of curious looks and in the comfort of the palace as soon as possible."
I'd like to be in a safe place as soon as possible was what she practically wanted to say by the restless look that she could see on Santana's face. Something was making her feel on high alert, and Brittany didn't like that at all. Her favourite Santana had always been the relaxed one, the one with her walls down, but clearly she wouldn't see her for some time.
They got out of White Orchard at full speed.
"I had a dream about you."
"Oh, really? Knowing you, it probably involved us with zero clothes." Santana replicated with that lopsided smile that Ciri had inherited.
Unfortunately, Brittany didn't had the chance to answer. While she was forming the first word, Brittany saw her own breath, and being in the middle of the spring, such violent changes in the temperature wouldn't have to happen, unless…
The first hound of the Wild Hunt appeared practically out of nowhere, taking the soldier by her left by surprise. Covered in frost and with a diabolic appearance, the hounds were faster than the horses, but thanks to the distraction given to them by the fallen soldier, they took a little advantage.
The Riders of the Hunt could be seen in the distance, getting closer by the minute, and beheading a second soldier, that in an act of heroism or stupidity, tried to save his comrade.
Two other soldiers fell, giving them enough time to reach a narrow wood bridge that, after passing through it, Santana destroyed with a white lightning bolt that came out of her hand, taking with it two of the Riders and one hound.
"Why the hell did they appear here?" Brittany was agitated, and not precisely because of the race, after riding for almost a year with the Wild Hunt, seeing all kinds of death and destruction that they left behind them, the simple fact of seeing them up close again caused her to panic. Thank Gods for the mutations, I don't know how much worse this anxiety would get without them.
"I'll tell you tomorrow after the audience, then you'll understand why they appeared here," there was certain fear in her voice, and she understood.
Brittany wasn't the only one who suffered in the hands of the Wild Hunt. After all, she did a trade with them: her life, her soul, in exchange of Santana's.
Hi!
So, this was my apportation to the Second Anniversary of our dear Brittany and our dear Santana. This is my first fic about them, and my first fic written in english, so I'm sorry for any mistakes. This idea was stuck in my head because one day, after playing for almost six hours The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I had a dream and for some strange reason, all Witcher characters were replaced with Glee characters. When I couldn't stop thinking about it, I knew I had to do this, so here's the result.
Based on the answers that this gets I'll post more chapters, even if there's few people interested but those people want to know what happens next, I'll update this story, you just have to ask me. I don't know how many chapters I'll do, and they're not going to be 100 % based on Wild Hunt's story but I will borrow a lot of it. Any comment, doubt or suggestion are welcome.
Thanks for reading!
Dany. (02/20/2017, 15:10)