The day was grim and rainy, with the taste of sea water attacking traveler's noses as they went about their business.

"We should have enough coin for now, we've covered provisions and Kelpie's passage with this last contract." The duo was back after an extensive hunt around the entire beach area next to Caelf, drenched in monster blood and a few cuts and bruises provided by their relentless streak of contracts and treasure hunting; Ciri was panting, dead tired on her feet and she couldn't believe Leon was still up and about, even though he was groaning and complaining every other minute now.

"Need. Sleep." He voiced out his sorrows once again, tickling Ciri's patience and sinking it further. This had been going on for over an hour now and she was growing tired of it.

"Why don't you go ahead and rent a room around the Inn?" She tried asking with a calm tone, even though she was about to snap, "I'll join you once I'm done delivering this" She lifted up the small note of a lost lover, one that had cost them precious hours in finding and fighting for.

Him shaking his head in denial only increased her annoyance a little.

Leon was stubborn, head strong and adamant of leaving her alone on the streets, almost making her feel insulted. She'd been in worse places than this trash hole, and she damn well could take care of herself. If anything, he should be the one-!

Oh, right.

"Never mind, stay right here, we'll be done with this soon enough and you'll rest, child"

Caelf was nothing like any of the towns that they had walked around before, it was gray and without much youth in it, most of the villagers being old and resentful towards anything that wasn't related to their own persona. There were gangs hanging around openly on the streets, eyeing any traveller that had an unknown face without a care in the world, and since most of the guards had decided to join the group of dark souls, there was no safety whatsoever.

Even though Ciri's patience was growing thinner than a fishing line, she couldn't leave Leon in a place like this alone even for a single second.

"Not…a child" He murmured a half assed response, reaching up and pressing the top of his neck before audibly popping his bones, making Ciri cringe and let out a low growl.

"Could you-!...not do that? Please?" She praised herself for stopping her snap at the dirty haired kid behind her.

Leon just made a face against her glare and averted his eyes, eyeing the boring houses and businesses that one could find around the town, effectively shutting down her attempts to fight or argue.

Suddenly her nose wrinkled and-

"Hurry up, it's gonna start pouring any second now" Leon managed to catch on even before her and forced Ciri to clench her free fist in frustration.

He was doing this deliberately, as if he had a reason to take revenge on her.

She growled one more time and turned around as fast as a feral animal, "We'd have been done by now if you weren't dragging your fucking feet like a damn crawler!" She finally snarled his way, throwing daggers towards the archer while he just stared back with a half lidded eye, not having any energy left to keep his other eye open.

She turned around one more time, taking big steps towards the sorrowful lover's house as she muttered to herself.

A thought ran through her head.

"Look, maybe-", She stopped on her feet, not letting the stupid words come out of her mouth for once.

Maybe what?

Maybe he shouldn't be joining her in hunts? But that would mean leaving him out in the open to dangers, and she half believed Leon would just sneak up behind and help her either way.

Maybe she shouldn't be teaching him how to fight back? How to stand his ground against dangers? She couldn't do that; if anything happened to her it'd be his doom, and possibly the end of their journey, of their sweet adventure.

…Maybe-

"Maybe what, Cirilla?", She flinched, not used to-, never used to, that fire of rage behind his voice. Of hurt and betrayal; Gods, he was reading her mind again. He always did that, always knew what was going on inside her head, what she was thinking, what she was feeling.

His stare dared her to continue with her sentence, to let it out and cripple their relationship like she always ended up doing, adding more weight to her throat and sinking her in conflicted feelings. If only she was more patient…if only she knew how to muster empathy-

He sighed after a whole minute of staring at a muted Ciri, popped his neck one more time before averting his eyes away.

"…Fine, it's my bad, I won't complain again" But then Leon coughed, not a something stuck in my throat, kinda cough, and then coughed again.

And her stomach sunk deep into her.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Leon was sick. He was sick, trembly and bed ridden, attached to the Inn's cold and hard bed as Ciri paced around the small room endlessly, guilt flowing around her stomach like a waterfall as she walked in circles like a trapped mouse.

This was her fault. She had overdone it; she had magical reinforcements on her, preventing her from falling to any simple illness, but Leon was only human, and he had bared it all this past few days as if he already had the training she did.

And now he was down, panting heavily and gasping for air every other second with his mouth once he remembered his nose was just not going to work for a while. He had his eyes closed, half asleep and half fighting off the feeling of weakness illness brought upon anyone, groaning whenever it hurt too much to cough, frowning every time his head knocked onto him like a hammer.

All the complaining, all the groans and bone popping, they were warnings, they were ways of his body telling them both that he had been going way past his limits. While she was growing annoyed he was growing tired, weak and sick. Now Ciri was found hating herself once again, resting her back on the edge of the bed as she sat on the floor, right next to Leon.

She felt like a stupid child, wanting to cry and throw a tantrum towards her own ignorance, but her worries didn't let her. Anything could be happening to Leon right now and she had no idea, not really having the decades of experience Geralt had and therefore not knowing every nook and cranny of medical information he knew.

She just knew Leon needed some sort of remedy, and she needed to apologize once he was back on his feet, lest this feeling of dread and regret managed to eat her alive.

After an hour of solely worrying and reading through one of the many books that could have the answer to her problems, Leon's breath hitched, giving her a clear sign that he had finally woken up.

"…I feel as if a-", He coughed drily and Ciri rose up to her feet and reached for the glass of water she readied on the table, "A carriage went through me…"

She sneaked a hand under his head and gently lifted him up just a little bit, "Leon…you're sick" She poured the water into his mouth, hoping he wouldn't have much trouble swallowing.

He finished the glass and coughed before letting out a dry chuckle.

"H-How did you figure that…out?" Even in his worst moments, he remained witty and sarcastic, managing to bring out half a smile out of her.

Her gaze hardened and she pushed Leon down onto the bed when he tried lifting himself up.

"No. Don't. You need to rest." Leon stared at her with tired eyes but didn't argue, "I'm still searching for a remedy, I've got plenty of books about it and-" His troubled chuckles interrupted her.

"I-It's clear you've never…gotten sick before, darling." Her eyes widened out, perplexed. It was true, she couldn't remember the last time she felt this way, or even coughing something that wasn't blood.

He closed his eyes and managed a deep breath for once before continuing.

"You need to find some lavender…it-it's not too hard, I got rose petals in my backpack already…bring back half a garlic from it as well…I don't want us to spend gold but-"

"Anything" She interrupted him this time, her eyes pouring with determination, "I'd do anything, even spending all of our earnings, to heal you up." Leon's pale skin exploded in a hard blush, apparently taken aback by her devotion towards his recovery.

It took him a second to reincorporate himself before smiling softly.

"Helenium…tends to do the trick most of the time, but it's hard to find, it'd be better if you just buy it" Ciri nodded, already having a mental list of everything he had mentioned.

"I'll go get that stuff and we'll have you back on your feet in no time, alright?" Leon nodded weakly and Ciri leaned forward, pressing her lips on his forehead. His skin felt hot on her lips.

Walking outside, she realized how late it had come to be. Last night had been spent quietly in between the two of them, her not really trusting her words to amend whatever she had done, while Leon simply dozed off the moment his head touched the bed. At the time, she'd thought his actions were out of spite and not really wanting to talk about anything, but now she realized he must've been feeling horrible. Then she had spent the entire morning worrying about him and how he'd not wake up, bringing her to this cloudy afternoon.

People were staring at her as she walked, clearly uncomfortable with both her swords and her pendant on display as she searched around the place but it mattered little.

The Witcher exited the small town without much trouble and started scanning around for purple petals; she may not know much about herbs, but Leon had been voicing out whatever facts he could at a moment notice in their journey, and knew very well that Lavender was purple and had a pine-ish style to it.

After a whole hour of searching, she finally found a small bundle of prupleness a kilometer away from where she'd started searching, and with an annoyed huff, she made her way back to the town.

She walked around the place endlessly until she gave up trying to find the herbalist on her own-, half believing there wasn't any herbalist to begin with-, and walked towards a lone person around the streets, clearly minding his own business.

"Hey" She tried taking the Leon way, nice and easy, but the cold stare the bald man gave her already let her know this would be a lost cause, "Happen to know if there's a herbalist here?" The man's eyes squinted, judging her.

"What's it to ya'?" He retorted with a rough voice, crossing his arms in front of his chest in denial.

"I got a sick person and I need some herbs to help them out" She tried explaining and the man scoffed.

"That your lil' boyfriend fell ill has nothing to do with me, lass" Was this a poor damn village, or a network of spies?, "Y'all should take yer shite and leave, before it's-…before-" With a small flick of her fingers, the bald man's eyes blanked away.

"Will you tell me where the herbalist is or not?" The now drooling man merely nodded and pointed behind him, infuriating Ciri. The stupid place was literally next to them, and this guy didn't have the decency…

She'd never know why Leon bothered so much with these people.

"Thanks, now when I leave you'll forget everything that's happened in the last minute, got it?" He again nodded stupidly and Ciri merely skipped ahead, letting him free as soon as she was out of his sight.

The store was as quiet as it was half empty, without much stock as one would expect from a herb store; there were few herbs inside small bags displayed, but all were recognizable and easy to get, forcing a frown out of Ciri.

Perhaps they didn't even have what she was looking for in here.

"Missus, what can I help ya' with?" An old lady of big complexity greeted her once Ciri made her way into the store completely, fiddling with some pots behind the counter as she stared without much care.

"I'm searching for some specific herb, my partner has fallen ill and we'd like to fix that as soon as possible" The old lady merely nodded at Ciri's explanation, making the Witcher wonder if it was even necessary to explain herself to begin with. "I believe it was called…. Helerum?" The herbalist chuckled quietly before nodding and reaching below the counter, leaving it clear that Ciri had actually gotten the name wrong. Not that it mattered.

"I believe you meant to say, Helenium , dear" She placed two bundles of beautiful orange flowers.

"Right! Exactly" The white haired Witcher clapped her hands in delight, thankful of her task being almost over, before reaching for one of the three pouches of money Leon and her had collected over the past two weeks. Her eyes invited the herbalist to name her price.

"To be honest, these sorta' flowers are hard to come by around the wilderness, and are very easy to confuse with many other orange coloured flowers…" Ciri gulped, fearing the worst, and the herbalist chuckled in response, "Luckily for you, I grow my own stash around me' backyard either way, so the price will be fair" She pondered for a second, "Twenty five coins each bundle, how's 'at?" The Witcher sighed internally.

Double the price for two jugs of water, or even three full nights inside an Inn, but she still felt as if it could've been way worse.

"Sounds fair" She took out the coins and took both bundles, not trusting her own judgement that one would be enough.

"Just a heads up, lass" The herbalist lifted her hand as Ciri walked her way out of the store, "Folk here ain't too fond of strangers, betcha' already knew that, huh?" Ciri deadpanned and nodded reluctantly, "Word says they'll be running a witch hunt tonight, not towards ye' of course but...if they see you, they might as well kill two birds with one stone, ya' know?" Ciri frowned hard and the herbalist lifted her hands up in the air, faking surrender, "Oi, I don't really approve of this folk's antics either way, which is why I recommend y'all to stay indoors tonight...or leave the town as it is; there's a witch in 'er, so it's best to get outta this town as soon as ye' can"

Ciri blinked twice as she assimilated the last piece of information. A witch, here in the middle of nowhere, not in the port city nor closer to anywhere with actual profit to make?

She gulped hard again and nodded towards the herbalist before dashing out of the store altogether, ignoring the confused stares the villagers were giving her as she rushed towards the Inn, a gut wrenching feeling attacking her every sense. Witches always had something to do with Ciri, since the beginning of time. It was a deal of fate, and the missing smell that she kept on looking with her nostrils only reassured her of that fact.

Kicking the door to their rented door open, she felt her heart come to a stop.

Leon was nowhere in sight.

I'm sorry this came out so short, I'm running on low motivation at the moment and work is keeping me busy, but soon I should be able to pick up the pace once again!

Thank you for all the reviews!