A/N: So. This is 100% a filler/fanservice chapter that came from some jokes one a Witcher stream on Twitch, but I am desperate to get this story moving again so hopefully this is at the very least entertaining.

"By the way," the rose-haired man drawled into his pint, slapping another card onto the table, "what the everloving hell are you wearing? That is not the armor I made for you." He gulped down the rest of his beer, looking Gajeel over with nothing short of disdain.

The Witcher scowled at the card the man had laid down and eased back in his chair. He was at least six pints in, Natsu somehow ahead of him, and he couldn't tell how long he had been here drinking. Only that the streets outside were orange with the sunset. Gajeel played his own card, and then looked back up to Natsu, who was waving over at Cana for a refill. "Ran into an endrega nest, fucked up the polish. Had to lift a new one," he replied with a small shrug, slurring his words only slightly. The prickle rippling through the blacksmith was just as satisfying as he'd expected. "Ya wanna give me a new set, then be my guest."

Natsu snorted, eagerly reaching for the new pint provided to him by the now very busy barmaid. There was a loaded pause, one that was not lost on the Witcher. "If you got the coin, you know how this works," he said, arranging his lines of cards but looking not the slightest bit pleased with the spread. He looked back and forth from Gajeel's side to his own, then eased back a bit. "Fucker," he hissed.

Gajeel chuckled, leveling a satisfied stare at his rival. "I could either clear out yer pockets for that, or ya could show me whatever it is that you're avoiding mentionin' from the shop," a wry smirk, and the glare from his companion confirmed that there was definitely something worthwhile.

The blacksmith grumbled into his beer as he took another swig. His disgruntled attitude melted away quickly and pride flickered in his eyes. Quickly, a toothy grin spread on his face. "Got somethin' that might suit you, finished it months back and ain't had a single person who can afford it or was even worth selling it to. Come by in the morning and I'll show you; that is if I don't roast you before the night's up."

The Witcher chuckled into his drink. "Why don't ya try."

"OI!" Cana's immediate shout across the tavern had both of their hands up in appeasement, muttering unheard apologies, while keeping their gazes on each other. The challenge still very much hung between them, but they dropped it for now. They could have at it with each other another time.

"Me kickin' your ass aside," a mocking grunt answered him, "There any runnin' specials on that armor?"

"Aside from what I'm already givin' you for winning? God damn Gajeel, Witchin's made you greedy," Natsu replied. Gajeel merely shrugged, but remained quiet, waiting for an answer. He eventually sighed in defeat, looking upwards. "Nothing special. The drowners are acting up where my material supplier usually docks, I figure the residents have started dumping dead livestock there and it's making it harder for him to make my deliveries. Clear it out, and make sure it stays cleared, and I'll knock off another hundred crowns." He didn't need to tell Gajeel that his particular supplier couldn't possibly dock in Novigrad's port. Either because whomever this supplier was, they were nonhuman, or because what he delivered was just too risky to be caught with.

Gajeel fought off the urge to bark back two hundred, reeling himself back in seeing as he already thrashed the blacksmith in gwent. "Where's his spot?" he asked simply.

After a brief moment, Natsu grinned devilishly, "There's a small dock, on the northeast point of Farcorners."

Gajeel stared at him quietly for several seconds to see if the man was kidding, but he was only met with an expectant, amused, and unbothered smile. He didn't know how Natsu got the idea that Gajeel would be tempted to get back to the see the sorceress, maybe because somehow the blacksmith has a connection with his own and understood the intrigue. Gajeel wanted badly to ask more about his own connection, but that would open the door for Natsu to ask him about Levy, and that was a topic he was trying like hell to keep from landing back up on. After a few more beats of silence, "Done," he answered, knocking back the rest of his drink.

"Not now, I hope. Be a waste of a good armor if you go and get yourself killed for trying to fight drunk."

"Wouldn't ya love that, Salamander," he retorted. Gajeel bore his teeth slightly, wanting so badly to hit him square in the chest with an Aard, but he restrained himself. He couldn't afford to piss off Cana again and owe her for a hole in the wall… again. But there was always such a thrill in going against the blacksmith and the alcohol never helped. They'd known each other for decades, and drank and fought for each one of them. Friends, rivals, he'd never been able to pin one of them but he knew that he got endless amusement from riling up and antagonizing him. Only because of what he knew crawled beneath that deceptively human skin and that he couldn't actually unleash it to annihilate him. But tonight he knew better, and he needed a place to sleep by the grace of the tavern's owner.

That, there-not-there smoke wisped form the corner of Natsu's mouth at the name, but he let it go, changing the subject. The previous competitive aggression flickered off his face in a heartbeat and instead he looked at Gajeel like he was actually a friend. "So, you gonna tell me what you've been up to aside from romancing the Lodge?" he asked with a toothy grin, and though Gajeel rolled his eyes, he happily transitioned into stories about recent contracts, rare beasts he'd encountered, and pointedly avoided any mention of the blue-haired sorceress. They spoke late into the night before both finally called it and hobbled off, drunkenly, to their respective places to sleep.

For being on his best behavior, Cana had agreed to let him rent out one of the rooms for the night; and one of the best ones at that. The Rosemary's rooms were modest compared to many others, but to him he may as well have been in a manor compared to now he was used to sleeping. On the hard ground, under a tree, hoping it didn't rain or something didn't creep up on them in the night. Here he had a bed, a warm hearth, and what made this room the best: his own tub.

Steam billowed off the hot pool, and he had already leaned his swords against the bed and laid out his soon to be old armor on a chaise. His head swimming in alcohol and a steady buzz already forming in his ears, the Witcher eased himself into his first bath in weeks that wasn't a cold river. As he immersed himself in that heat, so did he immerse himself in his thoughts.

As much as he tried to tell himself he was done with his contract, that it was time to move onto the next one, he couldn't shake her from his thoughts. She had latched on, settling herself in such a way that he swore he felt a tug in his heart to seek her out. His mind locked down and gobbled up every detail of her, unwilling to lose a single shred. Gajeel told himself it was simple infatuation. He was a man's man, and as Lily and his other acquaintances liked to tell him at times, he was a simple one. Not simple as an insult, necessarily, but he knew what he liked, and typically if he wanted it, he went after it. Gajeel had no reservations admiring the beauties of the flesh, and as a Witcher his basest desires were some of the only emotional inclinations that were left after the mutations had taken their holds on him.

But this, this felt different from infatuation or lust, as little as he was able to distinguish between emotional nuances. And learning of the strange connections between Radovid's movements, the activities here in this very city, and knowing she was just outside the walls of Novigrad where her hunter was currently docked, had his head spinning. He'd taken her exactly where she wanted to go, and yet he had taken her to such a dangerous place. Radovid had no need to commune with the Nilfgaardians to hunt down the sorceresses. He was well within his means to do it himself without stooping to cavorting with the enemy, so what was different now? Why would both sides work together to gain access to the five remaining sorceresses of the Lodge?

Gajeel groaned, dragging a wet hand through his now unbound hair. He leaned his head back against the smooth wooden rim of the tub, then sunk in, submerging himself completely for several moments. In the silent, immersive heat, his drunken mind wandered down simpler paths. He thought again of that night after the Fiend, sitting in front of her fireplace as she tended to his wounds, touched his skin. A burning in his chest forced him back up to the surface, and with both hands he wiped his face.

The Witcher groaned again into his hands as that memory took on a mind of its own. He thought now of how much he would have wanted her to touch more of him. He could feel her eyes on him, hear her breath hitch and hear the change in her heartbeat when he took off his armor and tunic. Gajeel knew she was looking at him, at the bare skin, and now more than before, he savored that. He imagined her trailing her fingers along each scar, featherlight touches sending chills through him, asking him how he got each one. A wayward spear or five, a gryphon's claws, a werewolf's teeth, an endrega's acid. She would outline each one with her fingers as he told her, moving to the next, wondering if she should kiss them...

I wonder if she has any.

The sudden thought rocked him back to the present before he could finish imagining doing the same to her and he nearly choked, mouth completely dry. "Fuck," he hissed. The Witcher shook his head, scattering water from his black hair. "Fucking dog," he scolded himself. "Fucking beer." With everything she had to face now, she was of course not thinking of him. He was just the Witcher who'd happened to find her twice, and each time he served her a purpose and that was the end of it. This was the end of it. She hadn't a thought to spare for him and he would do best to stop sparing them for her.

What was more, he didn't know her at all, just who she was and some of what she could do. He knew she was a skilled sorceress, he knew she was kind, he knew she was plucky and smart, and he knew she was beautiful. Only a handful of things, and all very basic. There was so much more that made up a person and he only had a handful of details. She had even less of him: he was a Witcher, and good at killing. That was it.

Gajeel growled deep in his throat and threw his gaze up to the roof. Stick with the brothel girls, that's so much simpler. I don't have time for this bullshit. He had a job to do tomorrow, and then he would take himself, and his new armor, out of this shithole city.

After cleaning himself off, he rose from the now lukewarm water, illuminated by the candles about the room. He grabbed a towel off the chair nearby and absentmindedly used it to dry his hair, hardly bothering with the rest of his crafted body.

He padded, dripping, over to the nearest window and didn't give half a shit who saw him as he gazed out on the dimly lit city. From the top floor, he had enough of a view to see several blocks, and though he knew he could not see all the way to Hierarch Square, he could see the orange aura, and the sparkling columns of smoke rising from whomever they'd caught that night. Someone drunk and careless, having run into the wrong sort of people. His gut twisted uncontrollably as every wet muscle tensed for a few seconds, knowing that in every realm of possibility, it could have been her. As he turned to fall into bed, he refused to acknowledge even a kernel of that possibility.

Gajeel fell into sleep almost immediately after his head hit the pillow, and that entire night every one of his dreams was consumed with her, and everything he'd started to think of that his conscious mind wouldn't fully allow.

'You two continue as you have, together.'

'We will.'

The words twisted, the first voice becoming it's own, and her voice, the two words, becoming two separate threads. Their ends wove into each other, forming a knot, and she could feel a tug around her heart, staring at the tie. Beyond it, in the dark, she saw the silhouette standing there, back to her. The twin hilts peeked over his shoulder, and she didn't need to see his face to know who it was.

Weakly, she reached out into the dark and wrapped her fingers around the knot, pulling lightly. The silhouette of the man she knew faltered slightly, turning so slowly to look over his shoulder at her… or through her. There was no recognition in his face, only surprise and a searching gaze.

She knew they were not alone. She could feel the other presence, but even as she kept her grip on that tie, the thicker thread of the three lead off into pure black. Nothing, but something attached. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, pure silence surrounding her until…

Until those two statements repeated themselves one more time, and she felt the tug once more in her chest.

The sun had barely started to light up the horizon when Gajeel stalked along the shore, looking for the dock Natsu had mentioned. His body churned through alcohol faster than a normal man's, but he still felt the effects of the many beers he downed that very night. Still, his senses were more acute than a human's, keenly listening for the signature gargle and choke of any drowners.

It took until he got closer to where Natsu had told him the dock would be for him to start to hear the sound. Along with wet crunches, the sound of something tearing, and quick squabbles between multiple beasts. A dumped carcass, or they got a hold of someone else, he thought. The Witcher walked quietly, slowly, his yellow eyes nearly flaring in the low light as he focused ahead.

Everything in him stilled, every thought left his head except for what he came up upon now. Gajeel reached behind him, grabbing the hilt of his silver blade. With a soft hiss, he pulled it from its sheath, the pink dawnlight sparkling on it's brilliant edges.

All the sounds along the shore stopped instantly, and a wicked grin spread onto his face. They knew he was there, but no Gajeel did not pause, he held no reserve. In many ways, he wanted them to know. Drowners were simple. They would not flee, they would not strategize. They picked up on signs of new prey, and swarmed. It was only a matter of drawing them all to him. Something that his heart leapt at, that surged blood through his veins and sharpened every one of his senses. He could smell them, hear every sound creeping towards him, and could feel the vibrations in the sand at his feet.

Gajeel spun his blade once, stalking forward enough to see their slick, blue and red bodies around the bend. Each one of them already faced him, brandishing claws and gnashing bloody teeth. He could see why people thought they were born of drowned men, having the same shape as a human and looking as though they crept out of some fairytale. It was some feeble attempt at coming up with reasoning for the monstrous bodies produced by the cataclysm so long ago.

There were only four total, trotting towards him with heavy, wet slaps on the sand. He laughed under his breath, feeling one of the other few, base emotions that Witchers could still manage: predation. Gajeel was a perfect hunter as he allowed them to approach, allowed them to take the first swing that he spun around on the balls of his feet. He spun a full rotation, slicing his blade straight through the back of the first monster with little resistance. Gajeel stomped his foot down to stop the turn and with a spray of sand quickly changed direction to swing back in the opposite direction, sinking his silver sword into the face of a second drowner.

Too quick, a third met his swing with a slash of rot-covered claws, sharp enough to pierce into his armor. Gajeel bit out a growl of pain, dropping his wounded arm but swinging a heavy fist over his shoulder with his other hand. It was enough to knock back the monster, but Gajeel had to jump backwards to avoid the teeth of the fourth, just as the third hauled itself up. He swung to hurl blood off his blade and regained his footing and his stance, beckoning them both to come for him. His silver blade was gripped in his right hand, and his left hand was poised up in front of him.

Both remaining drowners crept towards him, sounding like they were choking on their own saliva. One barked out a snarl and lurched forward, just as Gajeel drew a single sign in the air and a wave of fire flew outwards to met them. Both shrieked in complete agony, stumbling backwards while pawing at their faces. They could not see the Witcher charge at them, twisting to the side enough to swing out a stroke with that blade so wide that it tore through both of them.

The two bodies dropped, twitching, into the sand with a wet thud, and Gajeel turned his gaze to the not-so-distant homes that surely must have been roused from sleep by this. The homes, with their small pig pens and goat yards, must have been the ones disposing here. The Witcher looked to the bodies, leeching black blood into the sand freely, and grabbed the nearest body. He dragged it through the sand as much as he could before the ground beneath it ran clean again, and grabbed another to do the same. He did this with each one of the bodies, and by the time he finished, Gajeel climbed up the bank several paces to observe the scene behind him.

Smeared messily, but still legibly into the sand with the bodies, was a simple message: 'we eat.'

Ought to be enough to make them second guess it, Gajeel thought with a grin to himself. Gruesome? Perhaps, but it was a clear enough message and he was not about to start preaching himself to the people that lived here. He turned abruptly, ready to collect on his reward from his friend's forge.

The Witcher found himself pausing, however, as he knew he would. She was here. This was where her friend lived, and where she was staying. Hopefully concealed and safe from the Witch Hunters. Gajeel rallied all his willpower to not go in her direction. He knew he would be tempted to do so, and he knew it was useless to try. It would be an affront, and it was none of his business to seek her out again. What would he even say, or offer to her? Some half-baked concern or desire to help? He was a monster hunter for hire, not a body guard and certainly not guard to the Lodge.

Gajeel huffed out a breath, rolling his shoulders and trying to focus on the new armor he was about to attain. Hopefully more comfortable than this ensemble he'd looted off a dead bandit. Leave it. Leave it alone and just move the fuck on, damnit, he scolded himself, his nerves still alive with the fire his dreams had ignited them with. He'd awoken in a very cold sweat that morning, remembering every detail his mind had decided to conjure up. He had been so entrenched in dreams so brazen that even his conscience must have caught up to how out of place it was and it jerked him awake so violently he felt as though dragged by his chest, heaving and sweating. He swore to himself in that moment that he was already too deep. Gajeel told himself to just let kingly plots take their own course. Witchers were not political figures, they were not kingslayers(despite public opinion), and the war between two territories and their conspiracies had no place for him. He knew this. One any day he knew this.

And with that, he resolutely made his way back the way he had come, back through the southern gate to seek out his friend and cash in. Gajeel focused on the intrigue of whatever awaited him in that shop. As much as he clashed with Natsu, the man was a damn good blacksmith and could create finer wares than any he had encountered thus far. Granted, the blacksmith had an edge, being what he was-or wasn't, to the rest of the world-and if he said he had something good that he would not sell to just anyone, then it had to be extraordinary. That was enough for him to fixate on, a small part of him growing eager at the prospect and what he was about to attain.

The streets were quiet, save for the march of guards and grumbles of the Witch Hunters, maybe a few sickened drunks, at this time of the morning. He savored the quiet and the uncrowded streets as he made his way towards Natsu's forge. On the way, he could not help but pass through Hierarch Square, and could not help but stare at the burned shells of former beings on the pyres. A halfling, and the body of what had clearly once been a male judging by the broad shoulders. A tension he hadn't known was there released from his shoulders, and with a small huff he continued onwards through the streets.

The sign for Natsu's forge was only just starting to be lit by the morning light, creaking every so softly on its hinges in a gentle morning breeze. Outside the city the air was fresh but here, near this forge, it smelled of smoke and the city's own unique aroma of filth. The Witcher squared himself in front of the door and a wicked grin spread on his face as he pounded his fist, loudly, on the door four times. With his sensitive hearing, he heard a jump and the clatter of several dishes, knicknacks, etcetera. A harsh swear, shuffling, and the spitting of his name. Among other profanities and titles.

It took several moments for the door to rip open, and Gajeel hardly flinched as the surly blacksmith lurched out of the doorway and grabbed him by the front of his armor. He could almost feel the heat spreading from where the grip was.

"Witcher…" he snarled, dark eyes glaring up at the morning's offender, "do you have any clue what time it is?"

"I'm here to collect," Gajeel replied simply. "Your dock is clear."

Slowly, with a gaze oozing hatred, he looked to the drowner blood flecked on his armor. So it was. "When I said… to come by in the 'morning,'" he began, but the Witcher interrupted him.

"It's mornin.' Not my fault ya can't bounce back the morning after like I can," he said with a shrug, still grinning down at the furious man, eyes bloodshot from too much beer and not enough sleep. "I did what ya asked and I got money in my pockets, ya gonna show me this armor or not."

Another tense moment, and the blacksmith loosed his tense breath, letting go of the armor. He turned from Gajeel waving over his shoulder, "Come in already. Don't touch anything," he growled, earning a 'yeah yeah' from the man who had heard this many times before. Natsu led Gajeel through the chaotic, cluttered space to the back of the shop where he had several large mannequins to display different armor sets.

Many of them looked like what Gajeel had already seen before from him, nothing particularly unusual but certainly his handiwork. But then his eyes fell upon not one of the mannequins, but a neatly folded stack of armor and pants, with the boots and gauntlets laid next to it on the counter. As though Natsu had taken the time to set them out the night before. His heart tripped a beat at the sight of it, the metal of blackest black all so intricately crafted and layered that it was no wonder he wouldn't sell it to anyone else. "Ain't this just the sweetest thing. Ya made it just for me," the Witcher crooned, and Natsu immediately snorted.

"Oh shove it, Black Steel," he retorted, turning to stand by the armor and face his friend, resting his hand on the dark armor. "Best materials supplied straight from Toissant. Fire resistant, enhanced against slashing or tearing," he paused and pointedly moved his gaze to the drying blood on Gajeel's right arm, around the torn sleeve, "and sturdy enough to soften a hammer's blow. It's not indestructible, even though I know that's all you just heard, but damn if it's not some of my finest work. I'd normally charge over three thousand for the whole set, but for you…" he paused, thinking, "Nine hundred."

Gajeel pondered the price for several quiet moments, unable to tear his gaze from the set. Damn if it wasn't the nicest thing he'd wear in a long time, and the price was a steal. "Got one more thing to offer ya," he started, reaching for a pouch at his hip that did not contain his coin. Protest started to rise in the rose-haired male, but Gajeel cut him off waving his free hand. "Cool it, I ain't asking for more money off, just gonna sweeten the deal for ya. Keep up our good faith."

Natsu's brows rose, waking up just a little more as he seemed to pick up on what Gajeel was offering. "What did you bring? From what?" he asked, eagerly, as the Witcher pulled out a bundled scrap of cloth that had been balled up to hold something within. He handed it over to the blacksmith, who opened it up to reveal what looked like a long, moss-stained shard of wood.

"Spriggan contract a few weeks ago. The smoke from that oughta knock ya on yer ass," he explained with a small smirk as his friend sniffed at the piece. Gajeel told himself that this was largely why the blacksmith continued to put up with him, aside from the steady flow of coin for his best wares, because it certainly wasn't his shining personality or wicked left hook.

Natsu may have been trapped in a human body, but there were ways he could just touch, brush against what he used to be. Nothing that would break the curse, but more of a high that fisstech could barely touch. Burning any sort of enchanted, otherworldly wood produced smoke that to anyone else was nothing different, but to Natsu, it allowed him to hallucinate memories that he didn't have access to anymore. Memories that had been locked away with the curse to keep him from reaching for any sort knowledge that might help him out of that body. Natsu had discovered it by accident nearly two decades ago, and it was how he had remembered he was even cursed to begin with.

He'd already known Gajeel at that point-who for the life of him couldn't figure out why his medallion hummed around Natsu-and struck a deal with him to bring the materials, in exchange for cheaper prices off the best, mastercrafted armor he'd ever get his hands on. Spriggan wood gave him almost a full three minutes, leshen wood just a hair less. And the wood of any trees that had been enchanted or possessed gave him only about a minute. He could never know what he would get, what memory, and how valuable or useless it would be, but if he wasn't reliving a life far better than that stuck as a simple human, he was searching for anything he might have known about breaking curses. Or the words used to deliver this curse to begin with.

Natsu nodded deeply, genuinely, to the Witcher. "Consider yourself forgiven for wakin' me up at the ass crack of dawn," he grinned, flashing too-white teeth. He wrapped the wood piece back up in the cloth and stuffed them into the pocket of his trousers. "You remember where the back room is, go get yourself in it and I'll make sure it fits. You look like you been putting on weight so I'll have to double check."

Gajeel clicked his tongue, dropped his coin purse on the counter, and scooped up all of the items to head off into the back. As he removed his old armor behind the closed door, he inspected the once-deep gouges the drowner had given him, already healing. The scar forming at the edges of the tears was bright pink, fresh, and a new story to add to the spread across his skin. He halted himself from thinking again about scars, and instead focused on getting himself into the new armor. Not surprisingly, it fit almost perfectly and was leaps and bounds more comfortable than the older set.

He looked down at himself, moving in different ways to test the fit, admiring the harsh points, angles, and scale-like plates that rose up from his shoulders and spread across his chest. Typical, he thought, amused. The blacksmith certainly had his trademark, and the more he remembered about himself the more his armor style evolved. For the better.

Gajeel looked at himself in the small tabletop mirror and grinned in approval. He'd be a force to be reckoned with in these. The Witcher tied up his black main into a ponytail once again with a long strip of leather, and rolled his shoulders after to assure himself of the fit.

More than pleased with the weight and the feel of the armor, he gathered up the old armor and proceeded out of the room. He had already started to speak when he just barely heard a door open at the front of the shop, "Ya want these old ones for inspiration, right?" he taunted, looking up from his arms as he rounded the corner and saw Natsu holding the door open. In the doorway were two hooded figures, one slender male with orange hair, the other a noticeably shorter female, dull brown locks peeking out of the hood.

Both looked to him quickly, and he could see their eyes widen in the shadow of their hoods, as Gajeel's mouth went dry.