Chapter Text
Everyone has heard the tales of how when humans were first created by the gods they took a piece of clay and broke it into two pieces to make a bonded pair of humans. The myth of the soulmates. There was someone out in the world who was the perfect match to you, just waiting for you to find them. A gift from the gods. An example of their merciful love. Folklore and novels are filled to the brim with the stories of soulmates meeting throughout the ages in desperate romantic legends. How from the second you are born the color of your soulmate’s eyes is the only bright spot in a sea of grey. You go through your life, varied shades of grey with only the spark lighting the way to your destined one. Then one day, fated in the stars according to the stories, you would feel the pull towards some random stranger with color sparkling in their eyes. Time freezes in that magic moment of first touch when the world of grey melts away as you are reunited with the other half of your soul in a magic breathtaking moment.
At least. . . that’s how the stories and legends always painted it.
A life of a witcher never left much room for fairytales.
Geralt was five years old when he finally asked Vesemir about the brilliant color of the sky. A gentle smile and a small book were provided to answer the question, but nothing more. Not a lecture about dangers or advantages that were constantly being discussed as each new kind of monster was described to a child. Not a detailed tome of magical practices. Not an hours long practice round with his blades in the courtyard. A small smile and a meaningless child’s book. His question had not been dismissed, but it was also clearly not something of value. Not something a witcher should pay much attention to. And so Geralt shrugged it to the back of his mind. He had a soulmate somewhere, but his training seemed the much bigger and more present obstacle in his path. A witcher in training could not afford distractions.
And yet, on the nights that were particularly cold and long. The nights when either his own injuries kept him awake or those of one of his brothers, Geralt would gently turn over the fact in his mind. He had a soulmate. Someone somewhere out there was meant for him. Once he completed this training he would go out into that world. And yes, he would be looking for monsters to kill and protect humanity, but he could also keep an eye out for that special individual with blue in their eyes.
Geralt is 17 when he feels as if his very being is being torn apart. No amount of reading. No amount of hours in the yard with a sword in his hand could have prepared him for this. This burning, scorching, all encompassing, blinding, consuming. Slowly every part of him was touched. Every aspect of his being was being scraped out of him by branding rod. Every thought every belief pulled away into nothingness. This could not continue. There would be nothing left. A shell where Geralt had been. Burning. Floating. Disappearing. Geralt had never seen the colors of a typical fire. A flickering warmth called red and orange he was told. But he had seen the deep flickering blue of the fire of a blacksmith’s forge. A heat one could feel from meters away. But he wasn’t meters away. The heat of a blue flame was inside him consuming him from the inside out. And he could not endure. He could NOT. The promised blue of his soulmate the very thing that was tearing him to pieces, melting him into ash.
But blue was not only the heat of a flame. Blue was the gentle brush of warmth as the sky shone down on the earth without a cloud in sight to block the color as he sat reading a book beside Vesemir. Blue was a cool splash of water from Eskel from a barrel after a long sparring match. Blue was his family, a common spark connected throughout his memories. But above all else, blue was a promise. A promise of better days. A promise that someone out there would be for him. Blue was hope and love and dreams. Slowly the fire of blue receded from Geralt’s bones as he clung to the blue he wanted to believe in.
Geralt is 19 when he straps his bags on his new mare for the first time. The world is full of white melting into lighter greys as the grass and plants begin to slowly break through the snow of the mountain. The sky a stunning blue to match as Geralt rides out, the promise of warmth, and adventure, and possibility just waiting for him to find. He had survived not only the Trial of the Grasses, but even greater tests. The shining promise of blue guiding him throughout the pain, even as his hair bleached from its familiar dark grey almost black to a pure white. He endured and overcame and now he was being sent into the world for the first time. He had studied and trained all with that one promise is his mind. Now he could finally head out and see about finding it. Finding the blue eyes that guided him and comforted him without any knowledge of the person behind them, but he couldn’t wait to meet them.
He isn’t even a few days from the castle when he stumbles upon the scene. A young girl struggling and kicking with a high wail as she is pulled by two dirty men away from the shining carriage. Dark shadows of dirt, hunger, and sleeplessness shadow the faces of the men holding the girl. A darkness to the lightness of her skin and hair. A quick squeeze of his legs and a toss of Roach’s head and he is off sprinting across the snowy field towards the commotion. Vesemir’s voice rings lowly in his mind lecturing about human affairs and what a witcher should involve himself in, but it is easily drowned out by the thud of Roach’s hooves on the barely thawed ground. A witcher was made to defeat monsters and these men clearly fit the description.
Geralt’s commitment to his involvement is only strengthened when he is close enough the make out more of the scene. The men are rough and hungry but not starving. They live off the land preying on the weak, but it is of their own volition not starvation that drives them to this. The sharp smell of attraction flowing on the breeze from the men, coupled by the sharp smell of the girl’s fear further cements Geralt’s opinion. Finally the thud of Roach’s hooves must become apparent to the people below as two sets of dark eyes dart up towards the rapidly approaching witcher as well as two blue. The promise of blue in a girl’s eyes.
A sharp kick to one as he leaps off of Roach’s back and the swift uppercut of a sword to the other. One last swing down towards the man on the ground and in three moves, two strikes of his blade, the fight is over. A draw. A pull. As promised. Geralt turns to the young girl. Heart beating faster than it ever has since the trials. His promise that had gotten him through all those years in the cold mountains. His promise that had beaten back the fire of the trials and it could be fulfilled right here right now.
His new eyes, sharpened by the trials, turned into a lighter shade of grey than before but still only grey to him dart up to meet the blue of the girl. The smell of fear instead of fading seems to only grow until the entire air burns with the acrid scent. There was no shining moment. The pull seemed to disappear as soon as it appeared. The girl’s face twisted not into a smile but into a full out scream as she scrabbled back from her savior. A splash of dark blood stains the light of her face with a dark shadow. Blue eyes that he had dreamed and hoped for stared at him not with the promised love but with fear and revulsion. One single word left her lips and with it Geralt’s promise, his dream shattered.
“Monster”