#int.w/arros

[witchertorsten]

@arr0s location: Nornwatch Keep notes: starter for the witcher witchers

( tw: butchery )

Hide parted from flesh and musculature, the sinew severed, Torsten's knife remained fixed into the surface of the table as his gloved fingers wrenched at the thick layer of fascia and fur. The felled boar had taken most of the morning to hunt, this barren wasteland held little in the ways of game, and with every passing day the refugees grew hungrier. In a fortnight the Legion's grainstores would deplete completely, and there's be no provisions left for the people sheltering at the edge of this battered world. Blight had sunk into the earth beneath their feet, and as Torsten wrenched back the hide of the seemingly healthy beast, the deep, purple marks of the taint were glaringly obvious. Foul, poisonous meat.

"Fuck!" Torsten cursed as the hefty beast was hauled from the table, "Half a day wasted hunting for another morsel of this blight." His lip curled before he managed to take a steadying sigh, wrenching his knife from the table before running the length of it with a rag to sheath a clean blade. The First had not made it out of Iskaldrik, the High King was still ill and wreathed in madness - the witchers had no direction but what they could decide among their own, and the direction that Ormir had given them. No oaths of fealty bound them to obey anyone, but in this time of doubt, Torsten resigned himself to his belief in their path and the promise to protect the best interests of Iskaldrik and the royal family. However that personal vow may appear.

Torsten didn't need to explain the direness of the situation to Arros, the temptation of putrid, foul meat and stores would soon become more promising than once more sleeping on an empty stomach. Children. Infants. Sick and more. "I'm going to look for any signs of anything else we can hunt, will you join me?"

[witchertorsten]

"One can hope," Torsten said, hope wasn't a lie when passed from the lips but it was one peddled to the heart. Their truth was that this domain was withered and dead. Battered as the Iskarans that had made it through the pass, only to gradually waste away at this frozen edge of the world. It was maddening. All that could be done was the perpetual act of putting out the small sparks that were catching fire. A plagued raven overhead brought down, a ghoul in the night and found their throat slit before they could feast on a wailing child.

Tension and fatigue were written across Torsten's features, but the witchers were conditioned to survive off of little and thrive under harsh conditions. That did not translate to the rest of the Iskarans. With The First either dead or imprisoned in Iskaldrik, and the High King still seeped in madness, they had nothing but their independence to guide them. The witchers, the tortured youths grown from arduous soil - safeguarding their captors was their inheritance.

"How long do you think they can survive here?" Torsten asked when they were out of earshot of the listening walls: too many would bend their necks to try and listen to a conversation held between witchers. Fear was as great an enemy as the blight, and there was enough of it rampant without the Iskarans hearing it from those who'd sworn to protect them.

Watching Torsen work from where she stood on the other side of the butchers table. Her eyes following the blade to the unnatural taint of the purple marks were bright against the ridges of flesh. This wasn't some mould on bread that you could scrape away. This went through the whole animal. It felt as though the group of refugees were fighting a losing battle. If the enemy didn't kill them, then starvation and the cold certainly would. They had only just returned with this catch - the area surrounding was seemingly barren, like most of the animals had started to flee the same as them.

A sigh escaped her lips as she looked up to meet determined eyes. "I'll join you, but I don't think we'll have much luck." But, anything was better than sticking around the hungry and irritable survivors. Picking up her bow and slinging it over her shoulder - there was a lot of weight on the Witcher's shoulders, not just Torsten who happened to be part of the kings guard, but a lot of the civilians they had huddled in their makeshift encampment. Not many folks knew how to hunt or fend for themselves, naturally their survival instincts would turn to those such as the witchers for some guidance. Arros wasn't one to guide - yet responsibility kept being thrust upon her. For Torsten it seemed to suite him. He took the leadership role naturally

Nodding her head towards the door as though gesturing, "here's hoping we have a nice fat untainted deer waiting for us." It was said to be a joke but her voice neither rose nor fell with any sort of cadence; it was an attempt at least.