Disclaimer: the witcher games trilogy is a property of CDProjekt Red while the books belong to A. Sapkowski.
A/N: work inspired by the fixed the Cahir Gwent card thread at reddit.
Voices from the past:
Hanza
The witchers' see-in-the-dark, cat-like eyes were a thing. The legend has it that Geralt once killed the rat throwing fork at it, yet no one saw it happening as it was a pitch-dark corner of the room.
At this point in their friendship Roche could believed that. Heck, he believed that wholeheartedly. He repeatedly saw the witcher sitting in the darkest part of the camp tending to his prized possessions.
No, they weren't his witcher swords or money.
They were his Gwent cards.
As every collector, Geralt spent great deal of his free time taking care of those wax-covered, magically protected pieces of hardened paper. As every player, he carefully sorted those cards into decks, traded doubles, checked how many he misses for full set and arranged them for easier access. Temerian, Nilfgaardian, non-humans, monsters… just as every Gwent enthusiast Geralt wanted to have them all.
Nothing out of ordinary.
Except it wasn't.
There was another deck Geralt carefully folded in leather and tucked away under his armour. He kept the bundle away from the rest, so it wouldn't mix. It was just four random cards in total, every card from the different set: one monster, one Nilfgaardian, one non-human and a neutral or something along those lines.
There were times, mostly windy and unpleasant, when the White Wolf would take out the mysterious deck and flip through them. Sometimes he would chuckle at the neutral card, trace his fingers along non-human and shake his head over the monster card.
It was a bizarre sight, as if those cards were his long lost friends. One day Roche couldn't resist the urge anymore. He approached the White Wolf took the card from his hands and inspected it.
"you know the guy?" He asked casually, squinting to better inspect it in the semi-darkness
"more or less" the witcher admitted "The quote fits him rather well, but…"
"But?"
"not well enough"
"What quote would, then?"
"I dunno…" the White Wolf scratched his chin "something along the lines of for fuck sake, I'm not Nilfgaardian"