#meaning geralt and dandelion might have died from those hawkers

[hanzajesthanza]

we need some more of those geralt’s company journeying through the marshland “what-if”s: the alternate routes they had expected or planned for, but ultimately didn’t take.

like what if: milva decided to go through with the abortion, and had to wait it out in a village as she expected. natural abortifacients are pretty brutal, and what follows, too, so regis would have had to stay with her, potentially splitting the company? or would the rest of the company also set down their quest for weeks and stayed with her. and villages at this time were none-too-safe either, what with the nilfgaardian invasion…

or what if: they indeed went through ysgith as previously planned. would dandelion have gotten eaten by a man-eating orchid? would milva still have miscarried, but this time from being exposed to poison gas? how would have geralt’s animosity and distrust towards cahir played out when things hungering for human flesh are all around them and it would be really easy to push him into that swamp? how would the pain in geralt’s knee play out in this humid environment? would they get a free pass by some monsters, if regis looked back behind the company with a stern, disapproving expression?

or what if: they couldn’t all cross the jaruga like geralt expected, and according to his plan, he and regis had to be the only ones that crossed and ventured on, alone together to go see the druids (which were farther away than they planned)? what would have happened to milva, cahir, and dandelion, left behind? if they didn’t participate in the battle of the bridge, then the rivian troops would have fled, and so nilfgaard wouldn’t have been driven back from the jaruga—affecting trade routes as the war carried on?

or what if: they didn’t stop in riedbrune and were not warned of the attack, and went straight to belhaven, walking right into the planned ambush by nightingale? would angoulême have indeed shot geralt in the back with a crossbow? or would his witcher senses have allowed him to pre-empt the attack? what if they really got captured by nilfgaardian agents then?

what if they never stayed in beauclair, or left early as geralt had inclined. they would have all frozen to death in the mountain passes (or, well, all of them save for regis, who is invulnerable to freezing)

there were a lot of uncertainties along their journey.