"Are you mad at me?"
A/N: Akela is 11.
Summary: Geralt remembers the day he found Akela.
"Are you mad at me?"
The words broke the silence, and subsequently Geralt's musing. He glanced up, confused, and noticed Akela staring at him. She had a dejected look about her, an uncommon loneliness written in her eyes, and he realised for the first time since they'd set up camp that he'd been inadvertently ignoring her.
He blinked, righting himself, attempting to show her he wasn't mad at all, and straightened, offering a half-smile. "Have you done something to make me mad?" he asked.
Akela shook her head from her place on the ground, sat on his cloak.
"Then you have your answer."
She bit at the inside of her mouth, chewing to calm her nerves, but didn't say anything else. Geralt stared at her and watched her pick up a stick to trace hazy shapes in the mud. He swallowed something down, a lump of anxiety and wistfulness, and shifted his feet, clasping his hands together. "These are the woods I found you in."
Akela's eyes brightened, and she glanced around. "Really?"
"Right over there, by that tree. I remember it."
"You remember a tree?"
"No," he told her, "but I remember the placement of the trees. There's a river not far from here, where the town's fishermen pass through. I'd finished killing a monster, and—"
"Killing what?"
"What?"
"You can't just say you killed a monster. What was it?"
Geralt hummed. His kid, for sure, there was no doubt about it. "A drowner," he said, a shiver fizzling up his spine at the memory of that particular creature on that particular night. "You haven't seen one before," he told her when he noticed her eyes light up. And you never will, he mentally added.
Akela's attention was fixed on him, her stick discarded to the side as she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
"I'd finished killing the drowner, and on my way back to the town to collect my payment, I heard you." He frowned then, tilting his head. "I never did get that money."
There was a brief quietude, before Akela burst into laughter. Geralt turned back to her and rolled his eyes, fighting his own smile. "Anyway," he spoke above her giggles, "I didn't mean to be so quiet. I was just remembering."
"Is it a good remembering?"
"What do you mean?"
"These woods," Akela clarified. "Finding me. The trees and the lake. Are you... happy with remembering it all?"
It took him a total of three seconds to mentally evaluate his life and what it'd been like since that day eleven years ago. Then, he decided quite easily that, yes, he was happy. As happy as a witcher could be, that is.
He stretched out an arm and she moved over to him, fitting against his side. "Do you think if we asked the mayor, he'd give me the money I'm due?" he asked, and Akela's laughter made him smile.
