#int.w/arros.troupe1

[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.