#but she's cute - wraith actually breaks your ankle

[lots-of-little-pink-clouds]

You know, I got the Wraith for the first time the other day and. I wasn't expecting to like her as much as I did?

I saw the art before I actually did the route and had a bit of a luke warm reaction to it. The art's amazing, of course no question, but she's one of the more monstrous Princesses and I guess that made me hesitant since I'm pretty meh about the Beast.

Then when I actually played it just. Idk what it is. But I think she's one of my favourites now?

[rederiswrites]

Greyhair

It was an easy job, as much to keep active as anything. Not that it wasn’t tragic--family homestead wiped out by the vengeful wraith of their cook. But you had to imagine that at least some of them had deserved it, if they’d pissed off their servant that much. The surviving cousin who’d hired him didn’t know the whole story.

Geralt had been checking the abandoned stable when he came across a cat in the last stall. Nothing strange about a cat in a stable, so he went on checking that no more wraiths were going to sneak up on him.

But the cat had followed him, which was very strange. And what's more, it was winding between his feet, yowling, evidently trying to break his neck.

After several failed attempts to shoo the beast, he decided to look for a different approach an squatted down to eye the cat.

“Why don't you hate me, cat?”

The cat mewed stridently--but definitely not angrily, if Geralt was any judge. Which he was willing to grant he probably wasn’t.

Geralt blinked, and golden cat eyes nearly the same shade as his blinked back. The rest of the cat was sort of grey-on-grey stripes-- Geralt thought people had names for things like that, but he'd never had any reason to know. It clearly wasn't a stray--if its well-padded figure hadn't told him that, the tooled leather collar would do.

“Damn, probably the family cat, and now the family's gone. Maybe you're hungry? Thought cats were supposed to be hunters.”

“Meoooow!”

Sighing, Geralt slung his bag around between his knees and rooted through it, digging out a slab of dried fish. He broke off a chunk and held it out, and the cat snatched it with a “mrrp!” noise he'd never heard out of a cat before. Of course, that was because they were mainly busy hissing at him.

“Huh.”

The cat devoured the next piece of fish, surprisingly noisily. Geralt snorted. “Maybe you're just really, really hungry.”

Experimentally, Geralt reached out and ran his hand down the cat's back. It was softer than he'd imagined. No coarse guard hairs. The cat didn't look up from its food, but made the “mrrp” noise again and pushed up into his hand.  

Huh.

So he did it again.

“Kinda cute when you're not trying to trip me up.” He stood up. “Well, I'm off. Now that this place is cleared out, I expect the family will be by soon, so you just hang in there, Greyhair.”

Geralt gave Roach her lead, and she sauntered toward home and her grain bucket with the barest guidance from him.  Sunset poured, molten, over the Toussaintois hills, and Geralt turned his mind to leg of mutton. Marlene had mastered the art of getting the fat crisp and the meat juicy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Geralt woke in the night to an unearthly howling out in the hall, claws on his bedroom door. He was up, sword in hand, before he formed any conscious thoughts.  And yet...was that…? He shifted his grip on the sword and turned the knob.

As soon at the door opened a sliver, a small grey blur streaked into the room and headed straight for his ankles. Geralt relaxed and let his sword tip droop to the floor.

“Are you kidding me? You followed me home?”

The cat chirred, butting Geralt’s ankles in a paroxysm of affection.

“How did you get in?” With a sinking sensation, Geralt remembered the window in the kitchen--the one Marlene kept open to dissipate the steam of cooking.

Sure enough, the window was open. And on the table below it, the neatly slice mutton set aside for his breakfast was uncovered, half of it on the floor and mauled over. Geralt glared at the grey tabby, yellow eyes glinting in the light of the banked coals.

“You could at least have eaten what you took.”

“Mraowww?”

“What am I supposed to do with this? What am I supposed to do with you?”  Sighing, Geralt picked up a slice of mutton that had stayed on the table, sniffed it, shrugged, and put it back in the dish.  Then he grabbed a plate and transferred the rest of the meat from the floor onto it. After a moment’s hesitation, he headed for the front door.

“Come on.”

Greyhair followed, chirruping and miaowing, out the front door. When Geralt closed the door , the cat didn’t look up from its feast. Geralt closed the kitchen window, and went back to bed.

The cat mewed outside the door on and off for the rest of the night. Geralt pulled the spare pillow over his head and stalwartly ignored it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regis stopped in the archway, caught midway through waving a tattered piece of parchment.

“Geralt. Is that a cat?”

Geralt looked down at his feet, where the animal in question had finally curled after repeatedly being refused a spot in Geralt’s lap.

“Hope so. Though if it isn’t, that’d explain some things.”

“I have been under the impression that felines were not fond of witchers.”

“Never met one that liked me before. Though--actually, there was that cat of Tamara Strenger’s--the Bloody Baron’s girl. It didn’t act all...clingy like this, though. Had some dignity.”

Settling into his usual chair, Regis leaned back and contemplated the novelty of a cat drowsing contentedly at a witcher’s feet. Geralt went back to stitching a replacement buckle onto his brigandine.

“And where did your new feline companion come from?”

Geralt could hear the smothered laughter in Regis’ tone.

“It’s not mine. Just made the mistake of feeding it. Can’t get rid of the thing.”

“Ah, naturally. All beasts are susceptible to the lure of bribery. And yet, I have seen how they customarily react to your presence. Perhaps--hmmm.” Regis trailed off. Geralt snorted softly through his nose.

“If I were to theorize...it is believed that cats, like dragons, naturally detect magical energies.”

“Which is why they don’t like witchers. What’s your point?”

“But unlike dragons,” Regis went on, ignoring Geralt, “the cat itself is not a magical being. We can suppose, then, that perhaps the cat merely senses magic, as it would sense a smell or use its whiskers. And if a cat can be blind, or possess no sense of smell, then it seems only logical that some might lack the ability to perceive magic! Thus, Puss here knows only that you gave it food when it was hungry--and roast mutton at that,” he added, sniffing pointedly.

Geralt grunted. “Guess that makes sense. The more important question is what am I supposed to do with it now?”

Regis smiled broadly enough to show fangs. “Why, nothing, I should think. You have been adopted. Such things are not for the human to decide.”

“My ass,” Geralt objected.

“Consider it another waypoint on your road to domestication.” Regis laughed and swayed out of the way of a hurled strap end. Greyhair, disturbed by the motion, yawned hugely and stretched before curling over the top of Geralt’s stocking foot. “Sir Geralt of Rivia, owner of one fine, fat grey tabby.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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