The forest road was quiet, save for the steady rhythm of Roach’s hooves against the dirt. Geralt had been riding for hours, the weight of contracts and coin heavy in his mind, though his face betrayed nothing but that familiar stoic calm. The air carried the faint scent of rain on the horizon, mingling with the musk of pine and earth — sharp, grounding, ordinary.

Then he saw you.

At first it was nothing more than a passing glance, another traveler on the road, someone he would normally mark and forget in the space of a heartbeat. But his gaze lingered. Against his own will, his eyes fixed on you, and something inside him stilled. His breath caught — subtly, almost imperceptible — as though the world itself had conspired to pull him from the endless, weary march of the Path and place you before him.

His Witcher senses sharpened instinctively: the curve of your form, the way the light fell against you, the quiet gravity that made everything else fade. He told himself it was reflex, habit. But deep down he knew better. This wasn’t the sharpened attention of a hunter, nor the wariness of a man used to betrayal. No, this was different — unsettling, unfamiliar, and yet… beautiful.

For the first time in a long while, Geralt of Rivia found himself staring, not at a monster, not at a threat, but at something he could only describe as radiant. And it shook him far more than steel or fang ever could.