Sleeping Beauty Reloaded | By : dschinny Category: +S through Z > Witcher 2, The: Assassins of Kings Views: 1883 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own the Witcher, this is purely for fun, and not profit |
Chapter 10 - Like a Bat out of Hell
It was the coldest of the night in the fourth hour, when Velita got up, wrapped herself into her mantle and went out silently to rekindle the flames in the adobe oven. Little she knew that she had been watched as she vanished in the bushes to pee. When she emerged from the bushes, a halberd was pointed at her chest immediately. “Show yourself!” - “It’s just Velita, the gardener,” she pulled the mantle tightly around her and bowed, “Good evening, guardsman.” But he wouldn’t allow her to scurry off after a friendly greeting. He blocked her path, “Show me your hands.” – “I’m not armed,” she reassured him. To fulfill his request was a bit tricky, but she managed to slide her hands out one by one, clutching at the overlap to keep it close.
The guard immediately guessed that she was naked underneath the mantle. He was visibly amused by the thought and his own imagination, “I caught a slave outside during curfew.” – “I’m just minding the fire and go back inside, as you wish.” – “I’m not going to start sloppy around here. Choose your punishment; shall it be the pole or the ground?” – “Please be a little flexible about the curfew, the Count’s guest who I’m hosting,” she appealed to his common sense, “he needs to dry stuff, therefore I need to keep the fire burning all night. C’mon, it’s not that I tried to run off or did anything wrong.”
“A guest should stick to the house rules, but I’ll support hospitality and let you put on the logs for him,” the guard let her pass him and she hurried to oblige. The halberd was in her back as he added, “afterwards I take you to the whipping pole.” – “Pardon me?” she knew from the carriers there was a pole in the training ground between the back of the chevalier’s house and the outer wall. When she arrived, she had done worse than ignoring a stupid rule under different order. But she had never been taken there. So far she had considered that pole a scarecrow, it was there but of no concern. Was this new guard serious?
He gave her a quick shove towards the piled up fire wood “I‘m curious if you can count to ten silently while my belt kisses you,…” he breathed down her neck, “or if you’ll end up screaming and waking my colleague so he will punish you for breaking nightly silence as well as the curfew…”
‘He is serious about that, it’s a strategy to provoke me, then hand me around to that other man Bianca scared away,’ she recognized ‘if he would just compromise a little and hand me over to the right person, I wouldn’t be so scared…’ She silently put the wood into the fire opening thinking, ‘Please Geralt, you’ve got fine ears, I know you are awake, just come around and tell him off.’
The guard prodded her lightly with the halberd’s pommel, “…or if you decide wisely and ask me to apply the female exemption rule.”
“Yes, an exemption should be possible,” she agreed to buy time, “If you really think I deserve punishment for mending a fire, please ask Sir Geralt to do so it in the morning. I will go inside silently and accept any punishment he chooses once you have informed him.”
“The one exception there is a conversion that allows female perpetrators to maintain their beauty while they pay for their transgression. It’s in the handbook. I’m not a monster, I won’t require you to grovel in the dirt. The table there will be ground enough for me,” he explained the custom patiently, “You bend over with your thighs well apart, lift your skirts and ask me to temper justice with mercy.” – “Which mercy?” - She was so obtuse, he decided to put it bluntly, “to fuck you and keep your skin intact.”– Velita pushed the fire opening close and stood tall, “As his servant, I would be at Sir Geralt’s mercy, not yours.” – “Wrong. I caught you outside - you get to chose among pole and ground only.” – “Let’s ask SIR GERALT for HELP…”
She was grabbed by the back of her neck and tried not to lose her hold on the mantle as she was dragged over the workbench. He showed he truly meant it and pushed her over the countertop, face down. She just managed to bring her hands up to protect her jaw from crashing on the wood but the edge still bruised her hips. “Second transgression; screaming. Hands the choice to me.” The guard noted matter-of-factly, and then listened up. “Hear that...?” he eased up on her, raising a hand to his ear, “…was it the stable gate?”
She lifted her head and strained her ears. It helped to ignore the bulge that had formed in his pants as he humped against her butt. She so wished she had dressed properly.
“Oh no,” he completed the jest, “It’s just the quiet sound of disinterest. The whoreson is done with you and it is my turn,” the guard leered. He leaned his halberd aside to unlatch his pants while her heart sank.
Little did he know that the witcher had retrieved his steel sword and climbed up the trap door onto the hayloft silently. One story above, he had slowly swung open the loading hatch and leaned out soundlessly under the crane wheel, holding the rope with one hand to lean out as he just waited for the loose mantle to be thrown up over Velita’s head so he could take a swing that would take the head off the armored man who forced his bedmate onto the workbench below.
In the witcher’s experience women usually reacted hysterically when splattered with blood, even if it was just enemies’. Especially arterial blood in the face was a big spoiler for his romantic advance. Pity his prey was taking an agonizingly slow approach, bunching the fabric of the mantle under Velita’s arm. The leering guard had deliberately exposed her calves and now her side to the night air, had made his malicious intentions clear. Worst of all he continued to twist her hand up cruelly, right up between her shoulder blades where that hold became torturous.
Time to prove that a witcher could do deliberate precision as well as full scene bloodshed.
The guard felt the slave submit, growing limp and pliable underneath his grasp. “You know exactly how this works. You are a well used whore, it won’t hurt a bit,” he assumed as he bent over to secure his catch under his superior weight. He was about to shove the remaining fabric aside and make way for his prick. He had rubbed himself to hardness when he felt a cold hard touch right between his neck and collar guard, followed by sudden warmth that trickled down into his collar and seeped into the gambeson. He reached up with his free hand, why the hell was he bleeding?
The voice above sounded as raspy as the steel scraping along the dome of his helmet “This is going to hurt a bit before it punctures your belly plate from the inside, but you’ll get over it soon.”
The guard’s knees buckled in reflex and he threw out his hand to grab for the halberd, but it had dropped out of reach while he had forcibly adjusted the female’s position to his convenience. More blood tickled down his earlobe where he had just cut himself on the razor sharp blade.
“Apologize to Velita” – “Ah, apologies, I’ll let it pass, you may go slave.” He eased away from the woman, holding out his hands in a peaceful gesture, but the horrid blade remained unshaken at his neck, as light as a feather but unmoving as if it was glued on. - “I won’t let it pass.” - “Just take her, what do you want from me?” – “Kneel, apologize for being an ass. If she accepts, swear to her that you will treat her with the same respect as any town’s woman, that you let her do her job and protect her like a guard should.” The guard didn’t dare to turn his head again to look up, just felt the burning pain go deeper into his muscle. He sank on his knees quickly, they had been buckling anyway but even kneeling wasn’t sufficient to get out of the long sword’s range that had come from heaven.
A heavy weight landed on the sturdy work bench above his head, but all he could see now was the slaves’ bare feet underneath the fraying hem of the mantle as they turned to him, protruding from wooden clogs that stank of dung. “Apologies, Velita. It was my fault entirely. You’ve done your duty. I respect you like a …honorable woman and gardener. I will not longer apply the slave-regulations from the handbook on you and I will protect you from harm on my watch…” – “And off duty,” came the prompt reminder from above – “…and off duty.” The small feet shuffled uncomfortably. “Please, may I go now and see to my wounds?”
The tip of the blade burned worse when withdrawn, but he felt instant relief not to feel it go though his lungs and down in his belly. The gravel on his other side crushed low under far larger bare feet. His gaze went up the muscular pillars of his attacker’s legs as they took a wider stance to execute him with that razor sharp sword.
“Hm?” The witcher grunted low. At that altitude, the blood spray would fertilize Velita’s garden… which was probably acceptable at her degree of experience.
Finding neither mercy nor escape on that side, the guard quickly averted his gaze and scooted closer to the woman who had been so pliable a moment ago. Even if she wouldn’t accept, it would be safer at her feet than at his. He could still throw his arms around her ankles, beg and cry and kiss her feet to avoid that blade coming for his neck.
“Your decision if that was good enough for you, Velita,” the witcher explained evenly. If the now groveling guy dared to touch her again, he would slice through both thigh artery with a figure eight of his sword and let him bleed out in thirty seconds. The next rain would wash it into the gravel.
The gardener of the mansion took two steps backwards from the guard-turned-frog, cleared her throat and inquired, “What is your name?” – “Sean Brody,” was that really him? He wondered, not quite recognizing himself. – “I accept your apologies and your promise, Sean Brody of the Midville city guard. You may go and tend to those cuts,” she finally dismissed him.
Sean didn’t look back when he scurried of, just yelped when the pole of his own halberd hit him in the back flatly. “Don’t forget your stuff.” – “Yes, sir,” he crouched and turned to grab for the pole arm. A tall man towered high behind Velita’s mantled back, hugging her close. The woman didn’t spare him a glance over her shoulder, but the witcher’s yellow gaze was just the more piercing. This was no man. Like an ancient ghost, his white hair flowed with the moon light over square shoulders, shiny like the sword in his right hand. Immortality that wielded death. Sean grabbed his halberd and fled.
Once his foe was gone, Geralt dropped the deus-ex-machina-move and kissed Velita on the top of her head, “Put your arm around my shoulder.” He parted the fingers of his right hand on the hilt to safely turn the long sword backwards. He lowered in his knees until Velita could reach over him. He held her close and felt her bare skin melt against his equally bare chest, the mantle draping halfway around them already. “Cover me, Velita,” he picked her up easily, balancing the back of her knees on top of his sword arm while she clung to his neck and enfolded his torso fully in the threadbare fabric, “Word will go round that the witcher can fly, I feel no need to inspire anything beyond that.” She wrinkled her forehead in astonishment, as he carried her around the stable to the gate with swift long strides, and there she cracked up laughing. “True, that should stay among the two of us.” He set her down to open the gate for him and his tall white silhouette vanished in the black maw of the gate.
-oOo-
In the chevalier’s house, Sean entered as silently as possible, going to his room. He rummaged around in his bag for bandages as the damn halberd he had leaned against the small table fell against the adjoining wall with a crash. “Dammmnit,” he shivered, and threw down his helmet as well. More blood ran from his shoulder and seeped into the gambeson underneath the collar plate. He sat because he was shivering, the stress of the near execution taking its toll. “Kevin!” he yelled. His hands were full of blood and he needed to get out of that armor. By now, any move of his right arm hurt like hell.
The younger guard’s trampling came from the day-squad’s quarter, and then Kevin rushed in, having just taken the time to jump in his pants. “What happened, Sean?” – “The witcher almost stabbed me like a pig. I’ve got a cut at my neck, help me to out of this armor. I can hardly move my arm.” Kevin checked, “It’s deep, but you will survive. We have to stop the bleeding.” Kevin unlatched Sean’s iron armor and cut through the seam of the gambeson to peel the blood soaked garment off. “Can you walk? It’s too cold in here, let’s move things over to the oven bench.”
Alfred met them in the corridor, limping after them. “What happened?” - “The witcher, that happened. Can we please stop the bleeding first?” Sean grumbled and pulled the shirt off his shoulder for Kevin to patch the stab wound. “Now now.” Alfred had fired on the tiled stove, “You even lost a very thin slice of your ear. That butcher really knows how to maintain a blade.” The captain pulled himself a chair over and leaned his forearms on the backrest. “Didn’t I tell you guys to stay out of the stable and leave his bitches alone?” – “I wasn’t in the stable. I was just doing my rounds to stay warm and caught a slave lurking in the bushes outside in the dead of the night. From there I went by the book.” – “Which one? We’ve got five.”
”Velita Gardener.” – “Go figure. That one became quite self-sufficient in the past weeks. Was she just out to pee or did she flee the witcher’s forceful attention?” – “I wasn’t sure. When I called her she had just vanished among the bushes. She pretended she wasn’t going far and just out to mend the fire, but she had gone into the bushes with nothing but the mantle on.” – “He he, what’s there not to like?” – “After listing for hours to the moaning and groaning coming from the stable I certainly didn’t mind the view, but it’s a transgression nevertheless: Slaves leaving their quarter at night, being noisy at night, yelling in general and not following orders. It’s five to fifteen lashes, so I compromised with ten and allowed her to mend the fire before taking her to the pole.”
“Oh c’mon, don’t you know about the exemption rule?” – “She complained that she had a guest and heated extra for him, then she was argumentative to the point of yelling around.” Sean shrugged, “I explained things to her patiently and the witcher did not show up at the ruckus. Since she had piled up so many transgressions, I considered it safe to make her work off one by the exemption rule to warm me up for the rest of the night and then decide about the other punishment in the morning.”
“Oh yes, it’s always exemption rule with Velita. I think I never even asked. I slapped her into line when necessary, but as suicidal as she was, she might have chosen the whipping just to ruin herself and stop the fun we had with her tight ass and juicy pussy.” – “It’s the transgressor who should beg for mercy.” – “We didn’t overdo with the rules, Sean, it’s just guidelines. Transgressions of all sorts come to mind on a boring afternoon when you just wanna fuck, and what would a slave know?” – “Did you make her beg nicely?” Kevin inquired. His interrupted attempt to feel her up was still egging him on. – “Oh yes, she begged to be punished in the morning, but only by the witcher. ‘I will accept any punishment he chooses’ she said.”
“Aww, that’s so cute. You say she has piled up some?” – “Uhm yes.” – “To fulfill her own demand, we could shackle her to the pole. Then we let the witcher chose one punishment after the other, and watch him perform, see if he’s got two pricks to go with his two swords.” - “I said her shackles are in production, her small hands would just slip out of what we’ve mounted at the pole,” the captain amended practically. – “Standard size would hold on her ankles,” Kevin snickered, “helps her skirts to stay down!”– Sean felt uneasy; this sideline wasn’t going in the respectful direction he had promised to take. He had to give them an idea what the witcher was capable off without looking the coward who shat himself in the face of death, “Well, I never agreed to that, just had her over the workbench to screw a bit when the witcher jumped me from nowhere, shoving his long sword into me from above.”
“You tell me you were standing when you received a vertical wound from a long sword? Are you kidding me, he’s a big guy but not three meters tall? Did he bring his horse to the garden for cavalier attack or did he just fly in like a bat?”
“I guess he was rappelling from the stable roof somehow but his blade didn’t waver a bit. He’s extremely fast and athletic and the swords are sharp as razors, unlike the ones we use in the battlefield. By now the cut burns like hell, but at first I didn’t even notice the cut itself.” – “And then?” – “Well, I know when I am bested. I eased away, let her up and apologized. I had no choice but then, I didn’t rape his mate, just pushed her around because of a misunderstanding. He made me promise to Velita that I would no longer treat her like a slave. So if you decide to punish her, I can take no active role. He would have slain me on the spot if she hadn’t accepted my apology. After they let me go, he lifted Velita up and carried her back into the stable like she was his precious bride.”
“That amount of attachment is a gift.” The captain smiled, “You can stick to your promise while working here. It does not matter. We finally found a lever. Let’s get back to bed. I’ll give the count the good news over breakfast.”
-oOo-
Velita secured the stable gate from the inside while Geralt strolled right into the saddle chamber, got a cloth and sat on the bed to clean his precious blade. He was annoyed by the nightly disruption of peace by that guard but glad that Velita was strangely amused, not hysteric. A good laugh would make her strong again.
Velita put her mantle on the peg and twisted her shoulder on the way into the room, then stopped in her tracks at the blade that was between them. “You actually cut him,” she stared at the blood. Next she had to wonder where she was supposed to stay in her little home that was a quarter saddles, a quarter oven, a quarter bed and a big nude man with a gleaming sword in between them. All the warmth had been vented out to the night sky. Goose bumps spread over her naked skin. Geralt had not been relaxed about his blades and her, not since she had told him the truth, that she had attempted murder.
The witcher knew better than to tell her that he would have rammed the blade right down through the guard’s body and felt as much grief about it as a cook shoving chicken on a roasting stick. His concern had been on her reaction and still was, “Forgive me, I’m on my third beer,” he decided to add a rueful smile for good. While the number was correct, the intoxicating effect on his physique was non-mentionable.
“There is nothing to forgive, Geralt. I’m not squeamish, I’m glad you helped me.”
“How’s your arm?”
“I can still feel the pull, but with a little warmth, it will be alright.” She proved herself climbing up the holders through the trap door on the hayloft, closing the loading hatch and then the trap door in the saddle chamber’s ceiling before she climbed down again.
Geralt hat put the sword back into the tall package he always kept in reach. “The crane wheel and the hatch’s hinges need fat,” he commented.
“I wasn’t thinking of that option, Geralt, though I expected you to rush around the corner any moment.”
“Come here, Velita.” he sat back, pulling up the blanket around his shoulders and held it open for her to sit beside him. She was coming to her senses, yet he was unsure if she could accept male nearness right now. “I heard every word you said,” he put his arm around her. - “Sorry to drag you into this, I didn’t expect there would be a night watch since the guards were killed, no one was out at night for weeks. It is like the Count worries about security.” -“I’m glad I could help. You were holding out nicely but he was just bent on being an ass.” – Velita shrugged, “I don’t even know the rules the new guard mentioned, and nobody ever showed me that book.”
“You can read?” Geralt was surprised. Common people, especially women usually could not read in the northern kingdoms. – “Yes, Geralt, fluently. I spend twenty years in a monastery and my Lady and her friends loved entertainment from the library… but please, keep that among us,” she hushed.
“Fuck that rule-book. If that is the common behavior of the captain, I’m not surprised you tried to take his knife to him.” - “Now that you’ve come to know, can you feel safe with me again?” Velita inquired. - “With you, yes. With him next door, not so much.” - “I agree it’s was suicidal on my part and to no avail.” she sighed, “I tried to be calm, convincing instead. And I hoped that you would wake up to tell him off, but I could not create a ruckus or pile up further trouble.”
“I heard you say you were at my mercy, requested him to tell me to punish you.” She wanted to hug him but he held her at bay, a firm hand on her shoulder, “Velita, I cannot do such things. I do violence, at times I even enjoy it, but I’m neither cruel nor irrational. I respect women and children, no matter what local custom says.”
She could see how her proposal had insulted him, and tried to explain, “I was just buying time, Geralt, after the straight line failed. After all, he did not know that I have no fear of you. I’m at your mercy like I am of any higher force, like fire, wind, rain and earth …so what? I sometimes think you are the personification of a god’s mercy sent to my aid, and then I must remember you are just yourself, independent and truly free. If I ever make a mistake, I am not afraid of you to punish me, Geralt. Because I know that there are choices you won’t make and because I trust you. I knew you would have found a solution to whatever request the captain would throw at us in the morning.”
“Let’s see if Sean keeps his word,” he replied flatly as he felt the honor her explanation bestowed on him was too much. A childish part of him was sad she would not ask him to run away with him, while the grown-up part’s respect grew. She had seen it all but she denied to use him like some clients would. She was bent on handling her own life. “You’ve got to work on your voice. Make it carry, otherwise Gernot cannot hear and save you from harm once I’m gone.”
“Gernot… can’t do just everything. I don’t want his brother to beat him up again or the newly hired guards to kick-in his teeth. He is a good man, but they are many and I would rather accept… when that guard said, it would not hurt, it was almost true.”
The witcher felt his hackles rise at her resigned chuckle. “Don’t judge me, Geralt, let me explain,” she adjusted her seat beside him, their knees touching as she faced up to look into his stern expression with a thin smile, holding his amber gaze with laughing brown eyes, “Imagine that guardsman as he bends over his catch, totally convinced of his rule set and his mighty ego and his punishing rod as he draws blank.”
From Geralt’s perspective, that had not been funny at all. “Hm,” he grunted at the rising urge to take another stroll outside, put his own rules on hiatus and fix that problem permanently.
“Like that.” She raised her hand between their faces and pointed a small distance between her thumb and forefinger, “And the little adventurer goes to plunder the jeweled cavern between the two mountains where a mighty dragon had made himself at home,” she wagged her little finger, “The little one would stand there all by himself and call ‘echo?’. When his word came back at him after a looong time, he would feel so very lonely,” Velita cracked up again, “I bet he would withdraw soon and never feel big and mighty again.”
That woman’s point of view was too much for the Geralt’s peace of mind, but he wouldn’t scream like a girl hit by blood spatter. He was a witcher and he was glad she was laughing.
“Respect needs two sides. Sean promised to do better and maybe he will make the most of it. I’m not going to tell why, but I will walk the courts with a smile.”
“Good. Let’s turn in for another hour,” she scrambled backwards under the sheet and he turned to lay by her side, rubbing the muscles along her spine gently, providing her the warmth she required.
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