WARNING: This fic was updated a few hours ago with a chapter that you might have missed; if you haven't yet finished all parts of "The Last Wish", click back a chapter and do so.

Summary: SEVENTY-FIVE DUCATS, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? GERALT, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

THE LAST ENEMY

II

1251, September
Three Day's Ride From Lyria

Dandelion growled, or made a noise he thought sounded like a growl. It was a closer to a cat being strangled, to Geralt's ears.

"Seventy-five ducats, split between the both of you!?" he was incredulous, spitting mad, and throwing a child's tantrum in the modest shack they'd been given for the night. It would have been a funny sight if Geralt wasn't just as angry himself. Nevertheless, he nodded. The truth was the truth, and two witchers were being paid 75 ducats for the head of a griffin.

Next to Geralt, Harry shrugged, and ran a hand through his greying hair. "It's a backwater. Did you expect them to be flush with gold?"

"I didn't expect them to offer seventy-five ducats for a griffin! Insulting!" Dandelion huffed, and shook his head. "Never mind these skinflints, we'll shake the the dust of this miserable fucking village off our feet and find proper pay for proper work in Lyria!"

"Unlikely," said Geralt. "If a major city like Lyria had beast trouble we would've heard of it by now."

Dandelion clucked his tongue. "At the very least, I might be able to scrounge some work in Lyria, and I know it'll pay a damn sight well more than seventy-five ducats!"

"Yes, Dandelion, the contract was for seventy-five ducats, you don't need to keep telling me," Geralt sniped.

"And I hate to admit it, but we're just as poor as these 'skinflints' here at the moment," said Harry, reminding all three that their current finances sat at an amount equivalent to twenty-two ducats total. "The pay for this is terrible when considering the danger involved, but we need money to get to Lyria before you can dream up playing for nobles, and seventy-five will do that much, at least."

Dandelion, somewhat moved by elder witcher's logic, sat down on his bed, which was more a sack over a few bales of hay than a proper bed. "If you're willing to die for such a paltry sum, then so be it. When do you start?"

"Tomorrow morning," said Geralt. "We've been riding all day, and I don't think I can flog Roach any further than this tonight."

Dandelion nodded. "Good. Well, then. For the night, we'll entertain each other with stories. Good ones, this time," he said with a pointed look at the Bear School Witcher.

"Are you never going to shut up about that?"

"Why would I? It was a terrible story. Everyone in it but you and that Baron was a bastard, nearly everyone died, and you didn't even get the girl, who, by the by, was no Saint Lebioda herself. How am I supposed to sell a story like that to anyone? It's awful!"

"It's what happened."

"What happened," Dandelion mocked in a way that Geralt knew he reserved only for close friends, "audiences don't care for the truth! They don't care for realism. The world is an awfully bleak place for most people, and they want an adventure! They want a romp! A swashbuckling adventure where the hero saves the day and ploughs the girl to their happily-ever-after!"

"If you want comedies, you shouldn't be writing about the lives of witchers. We're not exactly a popular subject, anyways," said Geralt, logically.

"But don't you see, that's why I need witchers for my ballads," replied Dandelion conversationally. "There's nothing original about brave knights and crafty mages. People love them and they're bloody boring. Witchers, on the other hand... no one has sympathy or love for you lot." Harry raised an eyebrow, and Geralt rolled his eyes. "What? Am I wrong? Because I don't exactly see people throwing parades for you when you come to town the way they do for sorcerers."

Geralt had to admit that was true, and evidently, his comrade-in-arms agreed, if the slight nod of the head was anything to go by.

"See? Even you two admit it," Dandelion smiled brilliantly. "So, think, if I could write a stories about witchers that would make a Skelliger cry and a Nilfgaardian laugh, then I am, undoubtedly, the greatest bard to ever walk these lands."

"Uh-huh," Geralt said, clearly interested.

"I'm sure you would be," agreed Harry, equally as sincere as the other witcher.

"But there's one thing I would need before that. And that is a story that is worth telling. So far, you've provided me with none. Well, except for that one Geralt told me about the man-bear. Now that's a story."

Geralt squinted. "No, by your logic it should be terrible."

"Huh? Why's that?"

"Nearly everyone in it was a bad person, and the girl died."

"But it was romantic, and you can never deny the effect that an honest romance can have on the punch of a tale. Three things a great tale makes: adventure, romance, and a moral. It has all of those."

Harry looked amused. "So what would you like then, Dandelion? An adventure, a romance, or a story with a good moral?"

"Preferably one with all three, but if I had to choose one, an adventure. Morals are for the people who read my ballads, not myself, and I'd rather not talk romance in the company of two men, if it pleases you."

"How about a story of Skellige? It has pirates, and nymphs, and murder, and intrigue. As swashbuckling as can be," said Harry.

Dandelion looked disinterested, but Geralt could tell otherwise. "I'll be the judge of that. Go ahead, tell me the story."

Harry smiled, and reclined. In a moment, it seemed as though he'd retreated into his own world, and the older witcher's eyes brightened with the prospect of a story to tell. For all their bickering, Geralt thought, Harry and Dandelion did not differ greatly from each other. The Bear paused for a short moment, the words half-formed in his mouth, deciding how best to start his story.

Then he spoke, and they listened for a long while.

A/N: So, I guess by 'out soon', I meant in a couple of hours. The next arc, "Hail, King That Shalt Be" will take a bit longer than this to start, however. Aen Saevherne, the arc that was originally supposed to be next, has been pushed back because I think we need a slight breather arc from the big boys, and Aen Saevherne is definitely going to be one of them.