I'm Not Human
The dark night sky was lit with the scattering of a million stars and the cold north wind caused the fire to flicker about in a dancelike motion. Triss Merigold sat a short distance away from it warped in here sleeping pack and resting after the day's Journey. Her body ached not only from the walk but from the tender mercies of Nilfgaardian interrogators that had captured her, she felt satisfied on a deep level to hear that Geralt had killed most of them. She turned and looked at her lover, he was sitting with his back to the fire as not to lose his night vision his long white hair hung loosely about his head in the fashion of the elves. His swords of steel and sliver lay close to his side ever ready to be drawn and used. She could stair forever at him and never completely understand every emotion that crossed his face, every scar on his body and soul.
But she could tell there was something different about him a seeming sense of peace that she had not seen about him in ages. His memories were back she supposed that could be it but something told her it was not, it was as if he had found his place in the world and was content with it. Even as these thoughts twirled about her mind a light music started to flow about the air, she glanced over to Iorveth sitting on the other side of the fire playing his flute letting the air ring with low haunting music. It almost made her want to reflex around him even though common sense told her that this was a dangerous killer that should not be trusted.
The only problem was that Geralt seemed to trust him completely there had been some talk between them and from what she could tell Geralt considered him a friend. She had only heard snippets of what they had been through something about a fourth level curse and saving a dragon. She would get everything out of Geralt later but for now she just wanted to rest and recover enough to use magic again.
"Gwynbleidd?" Iorveth said breaking the silence and ending the sweet music.
"Yes?" asked Geralt turning to face the elf wavering his hand in the igni sign causing the fire to shirk allowing the witcher to look at the elf without ruining his night vision.
"I never asked you this, why?"
Triss stiffened listening "Why what?"
"Why did you help us?"
Geralt's eyes went a little distinct "It was what seemed right, I looked at the two side there faults and ugliness, there virtues and beauty and I choose you and those like you."
"Just like that knowing that you would turn yourself against nearly all of humanity."
A sad smile graced the face of the witcher "I told you once I'm not human that part of me died that day I became a witcher." The smile vanished "Let them hate me let them fear me if that is what it means to be in the right then so be it, I've endured worse."
His words were like daggers to her heart, not human when did he start thinking like that, sure she had heard him mention it but there it had been more like and irony or a joke but now he was serious. "Geralt?" she asked pain evident in her voice "What do you mean not human."
He looked at her for a moment before shifting his gaze away to the blackness beyond their campfire, "Answer me Geralt, what do you mean? The only thing you are is a fully evolved human."
"No Triss" he whispered "Not human, I am a witcher."
She wanted to cry then maybe it was because the stress was finally catching up to her or that she was tired but here emotions were starting to fray. "Please tell me why Geralt."
He closed his eyes and sighed "What does it mean to be human Triss? I've looked and searched this land over, I've visited towns and cities, countryside's and mountains and what do I see? I see a world where bringers of destruction are worshiped while creators of beauty are shunned. I see a world were humans enslave their own kind and others simply because they can. I've seen rape and pillage, fire and horror, war and genocide because some king could not keep his pants zipped. I've seen human vice summon demons and monsters that boggle the imagination, hell I've killed them and got to experience first hand the things that summon them. I've watched children killed simply because they are tainted with non human blood, I've watched entire cities turn anyone who not normal. I've watched people so drunk on blood and death that there are more monsters than the ones I kill!" his voice was getting louder and deadlier " I've seen pride and vanity used as an excuse to kill and that's when people even give an excuse at all! For every one person I save I have to watch twenty die because that's all I can do, for every mob I stare down there are five that massacre somewhere else. I've held so many children as they draw there dyeing breath for the one crime of being born. I get to watch as those people decide that living like animals is too much to take and try and change it!"
He was shaking by now "And then I watch as the ones with noble ideas of freedom spiral down as they match atrocity for atrocity as the entire world burns around all of us! And all of this because humans can't stand the thought that there might be something better than them, that maybe just maybe there way is not the best and there is still much to learn."
His voice quitted to low voice only a little above a whisper "I've seen the goodness in some humans and they are people worth protecting but the darkness far overshadows any light I see. So long I struggled wondering what I was, wondering if I was human through they all said I was not, or I that I was not human and therefore nothing."
His voice returned to its normal tone "But I found my answer, I found it when I asked myself what it meant to be human I looked at all I had seen all I had experienced and found that for the most part being human meant becoming so close to the monsters that I kill that there is almost no difference. And since I was not a monster that meant I was not human and in that I had my answer."
A silence fell over the whole camp and Triss let tears stream freely down her face she wanted so badly to tell Geralt it was not so that his harsh words were not true. But from his experiences they were, the distant scholar could look at the events described and say with complete truth that it was not the race at whole which was monstrous but the people leading and instigating the events. They could rightfully point out that if left on their own the avenge human would give or offer little violence and evil.
But would not have felt the things Geralt felt, seen the destruction and death it caused. They could look at a mob and see that most of it was people being swept up in the moment a explosion of tension and anger. But Geralt had seen the bloodlust in the eyes of the mob he had fought them tooth and nail only to watch as people died around him.
In the end she could see why he thought the way he thought why he acted like he did, he was a witcher a man who risked his life and soul to face down and kill terrors that no human would dare face. He had saved countless lives only to be shunned. He had saved kings and lords had protected the lowly and the downtrodden only to listen to the whispers behind his back to hear the thinly veiled disgust in the average person's voice. He and others like him had been created to stand vigil against the terrors in the dark the guardians of all races. And for it he had been shunned by one of the very races he had protected.
She knew he did not think of it this way but in the end he was right, he was not human he was not like her or any other human on the planet.
He was too good to be one of them.