Chapter Three: Red and Black, Green and Gold

Author's Edit: This chapter was originally titled Red and Black, Green and Green. Once I realized all witchers have the same eye color, I realized I had to change it.

The party rushed towards the unconscious witcher. They began searching for potions to help him out with. "Find his swallow potion, it's the one that looks orange!" Triss barked at the mages. She didn't know terribly much about witcher potions, but she remembered that Geralt always kept swallow on him for healing.

"Found it!" Beata exclaimed, handing it to Triss. However, before she could open the bottle and feed it to the witcher, Fendar was already giving the man a different potion. It was in a much smaller bottle, and the liquid was a pure snow white. "…what…what are you doing?' Triss asked, apprehensively. She knew Fendar wouldn't try to hurt the man, and he obviously knew more, but she figured that swallow was the safe bet.

"White Raffard's Decoction. Strong stuff, but it's much quicker and much more effective then swallow ever is. Someone get out a jug of water, the man's going to need it shortly." With that, Fendar finished giving the man the bottle and laid him on his side. Within a few short seconds, the witcher's body started convulsing. At first it was small twitches, but it changed into full body movements. He started moving all over the place until he was on his back. His body froze with his chest pushed towards the ceiling, his legs holding the ground as tightly as possible. His muscles were pulled so tightly they looked like steel.

He stayed in that position for a few long seconds, before his eyes shot open. His eyes were a bright golden yellow, sharply contrasting the dark green of his armor. They were bloodshot, and they began darting around. His chest slammed into the ground, and he began gasping for air. He started coughing, panting.

"Water….need…water…" He croaked, barely able to get words out, his hands grasping around. Triss handed him a jug, and he proceeded to drink the entire thing in a single shot. He lifted himself up, and laid with his back to the wall again. He kept blinking and breathing, slowly trying to bring himself back to normal. "Thank you. All of you. I owe you lot my life." He panted between each word. He looked around at all of the people in the room, inspecting them all. His eyes lingered when he saw Triss, and a small smile broke across his face. But when he looked at Fendar, his complexion changed immediately.

"Master Fendar, I am so sorry. I didn't realize you were here!" With that, the witcher gave Fendar a strong handshake, and his face had a massive sign of relief. He looked around at the different potions on the ground around him. "You gave me White Raffard, didn't you?" He asked, with a knowing look on his face.

"I always told you I preferred it to swallow. Harder on the body, but I prefer to see my witchers annoyed and alive, not satisfied and dead."

Triss looked at the two men, glancing between them. "You two know each other?"

The witcher looked at Triss, realizing he should explain himself. "Indeed, Master Fendar would often preform experiments at Kaer Nyseen. He helped administer my Trial of the Grasses. He worked with us witchers for years."

"Damien here has been a witcher of the Griffin School for what…fifty…"

"Sixty years. The years are wearing on you, old man." Damien chuckled.

His eyebrows scrunched up. "You live as long as I have boy, the years will wear on you too. But it's good to see you. So what happened to you? We were sent by the king to help you clear out the mines."

"Rode into town, got a contract to fight some monsters in a mineshaft. Nothing special, standard witcher work. Set about scouting the area, and I found a totem pole not too far from the mines. Realized there definitely a leshen, but it was different. The totem was tall, signifying strength, but definitely new. The wood was fresh and the markings still raw. I knew something was going on, so I spoke with the villagers. They clearly did not know what was going on, so I set out again in search of totems. Found two more, destroyed them, and fought the leshen near the entrance."

"We found the head. It was quite large, even for a leshen." Fendar was listening intensely, trying to piece together what he knew with what Damien was saying.

"Headed through the mines, fought a ton of monsters. Earth elementals, gargoyles, arachas, werewolves. I kept finding trails of magic connecting them all, but I couldn't find where it was coming from. I've never seen something control that many types of beasts at once. But then I found the fiend." His face went dark. "I've fought fiends before, but never that big, never that strong. I'd spent days in the mines, my armor was damaged, my swords were dulling. I made some bad mistakes, and the fiend threw me against the wall. Fairly certain he cracked some ribs, almost broke my back. I'd gotten some hits on him, so he ran away once he'd thought he'd taken care of me." He winced, thinking of the pain he had been in and was still in.

"I crawled into this inlet and tried to patch myself up, but I could barely keep consciousness. I tried to find my bottle of White Raffard, but I could hardly see. I grabbed some Golden Oriole, drank it, and everything went dark. Next thing I knew, I saw you lot."

"Smart decision. That Golden Oriole probably stopped any poison in you from killing you. You might not be alive if you hadn't done that." Rendar started cleaning up the potions, and handed Damien swallow and something else that Triss did not recognize, but had a murky white color.

Damien drank the swallow, waited, and then drank the other potion. "I am so sorry, I should introduce myself. I am Damien of Oxenfurt, the Silver Blade of Hengfors, witcher of the school of the Griffin. And who are you lot?"

"I'm Albert Winograd." Albert pipped up quickly, clearly in awe at the witcher.

"I'm Beata of Berniken." With that, she flipped her hair, trying to show an air of flippancy and disregard.

"I'm Emily." The girl's voice could barely be heard, and her eyes could not even meet the witcher. She was clearly star struck with the man in front of her, and her hair blocked her face.

"And I'm-"

"Triss Merigold, the Fourteenth on the Hill. I know you." Damien's golden cat eyes stared right at Triss' face. His interruption threw her off, and she looked up to see the man staring directly into her eyes. His gaze was intense, and his smile infectious. They shared a long moment, before Fendar broke the silence.

"Well, I think it's time we took some rest now. We all need it, including you Damien, right?" Fendar tried to get Damien's attention with his tone, but the man would not take his eyes off of Triss, who didn't even hear what Fendar had said.

"Of course Master Fendar. Why don't I take first watch? I haven't been up in days, and I have armor that needs repairing." His gaze and tone implied to Triss that he wanted her to stay on watch with him.

After the quarters were set up, Triss and Damien sat down opposite one another in front of the rest of the group. Triss could see the witcher's face clearly from the torchlight they had lit, and she couldn't help but be lost as his hands ran over his plates and chains over and over again, hammering out dents and reconnecting broken pieces.

She remembered what Beata had said earlier…If I were you, he'd be more than just a friend…

"Something on your mind, Miss Merigold? You've been staring quite intently at this chest plate for quite some time now."

"No it's just…" and she could find herself able to finish the sentence. That I can't believe what is going on in this mineshaft…That I'm terrified not one of us will make it out alive…

That I can't get the image of you without your shirt on out of my mind…

"I get it. Witchers aren't really good talkers too, for the most part."

Triss wasn't really sure what to say. Goddamnit Triss! You're better than this. You're not an adolescent girl anymore, you're a fierce sorceress with nothing to hide and nothing to prove! Act like it!

How do fuck do the others keep their calm so well?

"I…I was just wondering how you knew who I am." Triss asked, trying not to look at Damien directly. "I don't think we've ever met before."

Damien looked at her, smiling. "No, not really. But I have seen you before. I visited Vizima once when you were still their court advisor. I only saw you for a moment when I visited the throne room. I was there on marginally important business, which is why we never spoke. However, I have to admit, even then, you struck my eye as something else entirely." Triss blushed with that. "I hope that's a good thing." She retorted back.

Damien decided to respond to that with a raised eyebrow. "But anyways, all who travel on the path have heard the classic tales, including that of the brave and admirable Triss Merigold, whose fire hair burned almost as hot as the flames that flew from her hands." Damien's hands were outreached, pantomiming a dramatic poet, causing Triss to burst into laughter.

"What? Bard Dandelion's words, not mine."

"I know, I know, Dandelion can be quite overdramatic. But still, you've heard my story?" She was intrigued to find out what this witcher knew.

"Of course! From Sodden, to your time in court, to what happened at Loc Muinne." He face saddened upon the thought of the horrors. "I wasn't really sure what had happened to you until I heard about the mage flight to Kovir over a year ago. Half the North was a buzz about it; Triss Merigold, the charismatic leader of the mages of the North! You should hear what they have to say about you in some parts. Some see you as the symbol of the good magic can bring."

Triss couldn't help but think back to what Geralt had said all that time ago…They don't have anyone else…

"I mean, it didn't have to be me…It could have been anyone…" Triss tried to be modest, deflect some of the praise, but Damien wasn't buying it.

"Not sure what tosser filled your head with that nonsense, but the way I see it, the mages would have only rallied around you. People trust you more than any other sorceress."

Is Geralt really a tosser?

It would certainly make things easier if he was.

"But enough about me. What about you, Damien of Oxenfurt? What's your story?" Triss threw Damien a curveball, trying to put him on his feet.

He was surprised by her sudden question, but responded quickly. "Born the son of a Novigrad whore. Never knew who my father was, but my ma died of Catriona when I was seven. Lived in an orphanage in Oxenfurt for years, until a witcher saved my guardian's life from a katakan in the streets. Invoked the Law of Surprise. I was waiting for him to come back and read me another story, so sure enough, I was the first thing he saw when he came home. The witcher took me to the Kaer Nyseen in Malleor. Spent years training, survived the trials, and became a witcher." He sounded less bitter than some other witchers Triss knew, but had the same fatalistic tone when taking about their path to becoming who they were.

"And the name? Silver Blade of Hengfors?" Triss asked, curious as to what that meant. "I've only ever heard of the Blade of Hengfors."

Damien chuckled to himself, and a broad smile filled his face. "That's an interesting story. Started out I was hunting down a serial killer in Hengfors. Got the guy in the end, but managed to piss off one of the major mercenary captains of Hengfors. He didn't appreciate me trespassing in his territory and damaging his property chasing down the killer. So he forced me into his fighting crew in the pits. You know how those work, right?"

"Of course." The fighting pits of Hengfors was, in theory, a crucible where young talented fighters could create a name for themselves, and get recruited into one of the major mercenary armies of the Hengfors League. In practice, however, it turned into a place where random outlaws, prisoners, cutthroats, or even normal citizens who had managed to piss off the wrong people went to die. However, surviving the twenty trials of the pits made one a Blade of Hengfors, an incredibly honorable title that automatically made one a Knight of the League. Doing so, however, was borderline impossible.

"Through a combination of skill, luck, and some strange sponsorships from noble ladies, I managed to survive all twenty trials, and freed myself from the captain. But as a witcher, I couldn't take the sworn position-"

"Because of the witcher's code, of course." Triss had remembered Geralt's use of a supposed witcher's code. As far as she could tell, it just meant to stay out of politics, but she was certain it didn't actually exist and just served as a useful excuse whenever one was needed.

"Exactly. So the Lord of the City decreed me a Silver Blade, to signify my success in the pits, but my lack of direct allegiance to the realm. To be honest, I'm just glad he didn't simply order my execution."

"Don't belittle yourself. That's quite the accomplishment." Triss was indeed impressed. The man was most certainly talented.

"Indeed, but Fendar would probably tell me that it was unwise to anger such people and that I should avoid getting myself into places like that. So how did Triss Merigold end up in some dry and disgusting cave in the middle of nowhere with a witcher desperately attempting to get her to lighten up?" He asked, as he put his armor away and started oiling his swords.

Triss waited to respond, partially because she wanted to think before answering. Partially also because she liked seeing her reflection in the blade as Damien slowly coated it in blade oil and began cleaning it.

"The option was either let one of the generals put the area under martial law and risk dozens if not hundreds of lives, or send in Kovir's newly acquired corps of mages. After all that has happened to mages in the North, I suppose I wanted to prove that we are still a help. This was my opportunity to do so."

"Also, what makes you think I'm not lightened up?" Triss asked defensively.

Damien shrugged. "You just look tense, is all. And while tension can be useful, right now it's going to make it difficult for you to sleep."

"I suppose so." Triss lowered her shoulders, looked at Damien, and tried to just stay calm.

When Albert finally stirred, ready to take second watch, that how he found them. Damien silent, the only sound the sharpening of his blade. Triss breathing quietly, staring deeply at the witcher. The torches' flames licked at the corner of Albert's vision, and from it he saw the two of them, illuminated with the fire. It seemed to accentuate their likeness and difference.

Together, they were red and black, green and gold.

End of Chapter Three