Hello internet,

I wrote this story because I had this idea in my head and needed to write it down to get rid of it. Since it didn't fit into the summary, here is a spoiler-free table of contents that says very little about the story and a lot about what's going on inside my brain.

The one with the yoga pants

The one with the hipster-accusation

The one with Jane Oyster and a lot of denial

The one with lunch magic

The one with the magic mud

The one with Kintsugi and the Swayze-thing

The one with the interlude

The one with drunk snacks and romance

The one with the confused pufferfish

The one with the starfish that needed its face

The one with the nilfgaardian bat that brought gifts

The one with the monochrome horses

The one with the half-assed alchemy class

The one with the friendlier interrogation

The one with the sex

The one with the Captain Marvel-revelation

The one with Marty McFly

Update: While the story ends with chapter 17, I'll be adding bits and pieces of what happened between chapters 16 and 17 whenever inspiration strikes me since there is a pretty big gap that just lends itself very well to this. But you can just stop reading after chapter 17 and be done with the story.

The one with the yoga pants

The night was still warm even though the sun had set hours ago. A breeze carried the smell of lavender from one of the nearby fields. It was peaceful and quiet, the cicadas were chirping in their usual rhythm, seemingly the only beings awake at this time of night - apart from the lonesome rider and his horse.

Roach found her way on the now familiar roads of Toussaint effortlessly. The witcher did not bother to take the reins and let Roach go on at her own speed. The dry roads were merely illuminated by the full moon and the spectacular night sky that was densely packed with shining stars.

They both deserved a break after an eventful day. They had been tracking down a leshen in a forest near Beauclair and found it just when the sun started to set. The fight was short but intense and the tired witcher yearned for a bath to wash off the sweat and monster goo from his body. Of course, that would not happen tonight. Barnabas-Basil, the always reliable majordomo of Corvo Bianco, who would usually order people around to have a bath drawn, was probably already fast asleep. Geralt considered taking a dip in a nearby river when his eye caught something unusual. A few paces ahead, besides the cracked road, lay a body. Now, that was not unusual: The area was populated with many vineyards and the people often overestimated their tolerance for alcohol, thus ending up as beer corpses on the side of the road or occasionally falling asleep in the middle of a field. Had it not been for the unusual clothing, he would have passed the unconscious body without a second thought. He was, after all, a witcher and not a collector of drunk people. Ever since he had decided to stay in Toussaint, the area had become much safer. Especially in a wide radius around his home, Corvo Bianco, there had not been a necrophage, an apparition or any other kind of non-human monster in quite a while. Therefore, there was usually no harm in letting the drunk sleep away their inebriety.

But in this case curiosity got the better of him. He dismounted Roach and approached the sleeping figure carefully, silently. Roach shook her head, not questioning her master's strange behavior, and focused her attention on some bushels of grass which had defied the heat of the past few weeks.

Geralt on the other hand was tense. Not because he expected danger. The human shape, as he quickly realized, was that of a young, slender woman. What threw him off was that he could not make much sense of what he saw. Her breathing was calm, her heart beat slowly, just like it should. But she looked like she did not belong. Her skin, as far as his enhanced vision allowed him to perceive, was pale but rosy. Paleness was very unusual for a sunny place like Toussaint. Even the noble ladies needed make-up to cover their skin in order to reach the fashionable degree of paleness. But neither was this woman wearing make-up nor did she seem to be associated with the highborn lords and ladies. Her blonde hair was braided to the side but not in a style worn by the locals. It reminded him a little of braids that he had seen in Skellige but surely that was not where she came from. Her strange garments would have left her freezing in the harsh conditions. She was wearing high waisted pants and a matching top, that was long sleeved but at the same time cropped at the waist, exposing some part of her belly above the navel. What an odd combination, he thought. The material looked wholly unfamiliar. He could see that it was woven and while he certainly was not an expert on fabrics, he knew that he had never seen any type of cloth that clung to the body so tightly. He could see every curve, every shape her petite body had to offer. Not even the sorceresses he had surrounded himself with in the past had worn this sort of simple but at the same time somewhat extravagant type of garment. The color was interesting too: There was a gradient from white to green, as if it had been partially dyed and afterwards the color had seeped through some parts of the fabric. In stark contrast to that were her black shoes with white soles. He wondered why anybody would put white soles on shoes since they would get dirty immediately. Again, the material felt strange, like nothing he had ever touched before.

The witcher then took her hands into his. They looked so small compared to his as he was still wearing thick, protective leather gloves.

Her fingernails were cut short but neither the nails nor her skin showed any marks that would suggest physical labor. On the contrary, her skin looked quite soft. This was something that he did not come across very often. Nice skin was a privilege held by noble ladies who were able to afford all the lotions and creams they deemed necessary. Or sorceresses who took advantage of other methods.

And finally, there was her smell. It was somewhat fresh and fruity but at the same time strange. He could not identify any particular component of it even though his senses were heightened and usually very reliable. If he had to, he could identify a person by their smell and follow their traces around town for a while without ever losing sight, or rather smell, of his target.

The witcher shook the woman carefully, trying to wake her up. Her lips parted, revealing a row of neat white teeth. For a moment it appeared as if she was about to open her eyes but she never did. A barely audible sigh was all he got.

He contemplated what to do. His medallion still did not show any reaction. And yet everything about this woman screamed that she did not belong here. Geralt decided to take his mystery find home with him - he could not just leave her there, it felt wrong to him. But he also knew that he was much too curious to not try to figure her out.

He scanned the surrounding area. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Not a hint as to how the woman got there.

Carefully, he placed her on top of Roach and, without any effort, jumped into the saddle behind her.

"Okay Roach, let's go home." He reached around the woman's waist with one arm, his other hand took hold of the reins. He silently prayed that nobody would cross their path - a witcher with an unconscious woman by his side was not a good look. The people in Toussaint had been much friendlier to him compared to what he had experienced elsewhere which was one of the reasons he had decided to settle here. He did not want to risk reminding people of all the wrong ideas they had about witchers. His life was easier as long as he was in Anna Henrietta's good graces. It was her who had given him his home, the vineyard Corvo Bianco, and while the Duchess was quite honorable and stuck to her word, she was also easily infuriated.

For most of his life Geralt had owned what he could fit into the saddlebags of his horse. Most nights he had slept outside, often unable to afford a room in a tavern or inn. While setting up camp somewhere to the side of a road, or on a clearing with only the stars as his companions, had something serene, he also had had to sleep with one eye open to avoid being mugged. Most of the time he had barely scraped by, earning just enough to eat and fix his gear, as most of his contract work was not paid very well. And in those rare instances when it was paid well or other forms of comfort were to be had, there were usually strings attached. There were rare instances even when he had gone hungry and where he would have stayed that way, had it not been for a bout of luck or someone who took pity on him.

The path – that was what the witchers called their life on the road. Geralt had always thought it to be a very fitting description. The word path indicated that there was an end to it. For a witcher that was usually to die. Maybe during a job, clawed by a monster. Or perhaps after the threat had been defeated and the villagers, who hired him, realized he was not needed anymore and that they had better use for the money. Every winter when he returned to Kaer Morhen he wondered which of his fellow witchers he would meet and which ones would never return again.

It had been about a decade since he left this particular path and he had no intention to ever return to it. It took the comfort of having a home, of being given the means to leave that damn path behind him, just to realize how much this way of life had exhausted him. As a witcher he had always been too rich to die but too poor to live. Anna Henrietta had changed that. And he would do everything for things to stay that way. Geralt would rather die than return to that cursed life of a witcher.

That was not to say that he did not still occasionally hunt monsters, but his motivations were different now. He wanted his home to be free of the monsters that endangered his livelihood and the people who worked for him. And sometimes he did it to earn the goodwill of the other vineyard owners as in his case, goodwill was as good a currency as gold.

He was not fighting for survival anymore but for his home. But he was well aware that any kind of rumor could break his neck, destroy everything that he had built over the last decade. Geralt knew that he could live for another 100 years and never touch a sword again and he would still not be accepted by everybody. Fear and hate were always louder than reason.

Hence, he considered himself lucky that nobody witnessed how he travelled the roads with an unconscious woman beside him. Their uneventful journey found its end shortly after midnight. Geralt carried the sleeping stranger up into the unused guest room that was located upstairs in Corvo Bianco's main building. The woman was still sleeping soundly. Geralt took off her shoes, wondering how they were so impossibly light while weighing them in his hands. He arranged the shoes next to the bed and covered his strange visitor with a thin blanket. He left the door ajar and let some candles burn on the big dining table downstairs. If she woke up in the middle of the night at least she would not be completely left in the dark. She would probably be terrified enough as it was – waking up in a strange place usually did that to people.

On his way back to the stable, he picked up a carrot for Roach that she happily crunched on while he removed her bridle and brushed her dark brown fur, all under the watchful eyes of a fat black cat and a slender grey one. Two pairs of eyes, not unlike his own, seemed to follow his every movement but kept a safe distance from him for cats did not like witchers. Even after all these years of living on Corvo Bianco, the furry creatures had not warmed up to him.

"Any suggestions as to where our strange visitor is coming from?" the witcher asked his horse. Roach shook her mane and neighed. "Yeah, thought so. Good night." He gave her a pat on the neck and left the stable. Geralt pondered for a moment before he walked to the small river behind the house, undressed and washed off until he felt clean.

He woke the next morning when his sensitive ears picked up light steps on the wooden floors of the dining room. He quickly threw on a linen shirt and trousers and bound this hair back, before cautiously opening the door of his bedroom. The door creaked, just like it always did, but in the silence of the morning it appeared to be louder than usual. The woman who, for some reason, inspected the lower parts of the walls, startled and held a hand to her chest when she saw Geralt emerge.

"It's okay, no need to be scared," he said while he raised his hands in an appeasing gesture. Big blue eyes looked at him from under a pile of messy blonde hair. Her braid had halfway dissolved during the night.

The woman hesitated before she answered: "You know, that is a lot to ask from someone who just woke up in an unfamiliar environment with no memory of how she got there." Geralt smiled at the unexpected sass. It did strike him as odd that she neither screamed nor looked like she was about to lose her nerves. Her behavior was fittingly peculiar and matched the whole situation perfectly.

"Found you by the road last night. Tried to wake you up but you wouldn't have it." He raised his hands defeatedly. "Maybe I was wrong but I figured you'd much rather wake up in a bed than halfway into the jaw of a wyvern." He looked at her expectantly.

"Wy- what?" She shook her head as if trying to clear her confused thoughts. "Yes, thank you, that was very considerate. But I've got to ask… Where on earth am I? And where is my phone or… anything?"

"There wasn't anything else where I found you. We can go back, but I'm sure that I didn't miss anything."

"I am so confused. Seriously, where are we even?" She was suspicious, ready to bolt if she had to, but hid it fairly well. Geralt did not blame her. In fact, he rather admired her for staying this calm.

"You are at Corvo Bianco, my vineyard."

"I'm sorry, I have no idea where that is meant to be. I know nothing about wine, I prefer my grapes fresh and unsquished." She apologetically shrugged her shoulders.

"We are close to Beauclair," he explained. When he still saw only question marks posted all over her face, he added: "In the duchy of Toussaint, belonging to the empire of Nilfgaard. South of Velen and Novigrad."

"No." That is all she said while shaking her head profusely. "What country is that supposed to be in? Toussaint and Beauclair sound French, so are we in France? Or maybe Belgium? I guess Switzerland would also be an option?" She gave him a questioning look. Geralt could easily pick up on her elated heart rate that did not match her calm demeanor. She was a good actress, he noted. Just from looking at her you could not tell how uncomfortable she was.

"These names I'm not familiar with. I don't think any country on the continent is named France or Belgen." Geralt replied. His mystery find became stranger by the second. An idea started to settle itself into his brain but it was so absurd that, at least for the moment, he was not willing to give it any room to grow.

"Belgium," she sighed. "The continent? What continent? There is a whole bunch of them! Europe, the Americas, Australia maybe?"

"No, just the continent."

"So, there is just one? And you guys didn't even name it? That's a level of laziness I have never come across before. I assume this is some kind of sick joke but nobody bothered to write a proper script for it?" she sneered and looked at him like something was clearly wrong with him.

Geralt was not sure how to respond. "If this is a joke they are playing it on the both of us. I found you and thought it a good idea not to leave an unconscious woman out there." He was irritated. She should have given him answers instead of more questions.

He sighed. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Maybe we start off with something easier? Care to tell me your name?"

She cocked her head. "It's Kit."

"Kit? My name is Geralt."

She nodded. "And now?"

Geralt interlaced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes for a second.

"Don't know. How about a walk?" he suggested. Again, she just nodded. She did not bother to hide her suspiciousness anymore. Geralt wondered how he would have reacted in her place, being a small woman confronted with a probably terrifying looking man. People had run away from him, screaming at the mere sight of his eyes.

"Follow me then, if you please." Geralt turned around and opened the door to the outside. He held it open for Kit to go through who did not even give him so much as a quick glance. It struck him as odd that she did not in any way react to his looks. He practically had 'weird' written on his forehead. In most cases that meant people would ostracize him. To a few others he was some sort of sex trophy - two extremes and nothing much in between. Hostility or obsession, he hardly knew anything else. He wondered which category she belonged in. Now, standing behind her and looking at her bottom which was wrapped quite formidably by those strange pants, he hoped she would lean towards the latter.

"Well, I've never been abducted to a more beautiful place." The sun over Toussaint had just started to rise and tinted everything in red, warm light.

"You have been abducted before?" Geralt asked mildly surprised. That would explain her calm demeanor.

"No."

"You made it sound like you had experience in this field."

"No, I'm new to being… an abductee. That doesn't make my statement less true though."

Geralt smiled against his will. She is masking her fear with humor and she is clever, he thought. Very unlike most of the people he encountered. He was certain that a vast majority of them would have started screaming or tried to run away immediately. It would take time to figure her out, that much he could tell already.