The forest had been wrong for miles.

Not in a way most would notice. The trees still stood where they should. The wind still moved through the branches. But something beneath it all felt off, like the land itself had gone quiet in a way it wasn’t meant to.

Geralt followed the feeling, not a trail.

There wasn’t one.

No prints. No blood. No sign of passage. Just that faint, persistent pull that kept his pace steady and his hand never far from the hilt at his back.

Dusk settled in by the time he found you.

Half-hidden beneath the roots of an old, fallen tree, like the forest had tried to swallow you and failed.

You weren’t moving.

Too small. Too still.

At first glance, it should have been simple. Another body. Another thing left behind by something that didn’t bother to finish what it started.

But there was no scent of death.

No decay.

And no reason for you to still be alive.

Geralt crouched, studying.

Clothes worn thin. Skin cold from the ground beneath you. No visible wounds. No sign of struggle.

Wrong.

His medallion gave the faintest tremor.

Not strong enough to name.

Strong enough to matter.

He exhaled quietly.

Should’ve left you.

He didn’t.

Two fingers pressed lightly against your neck.

A pulse.

Weak.

But there.

“…Huh.”

You don’t remember leaving that place.

Only fragments. Movement. Firelight. The low murmur of a voice that never explained anything. The feeling of being carried through something cold and endless.

Then time.

It didn’t pass all at once. It built, piece by piece.

Cold mornings. Long roads. Silence that lasted longer than conversation ever did.

Steel placed in your hands before you fully understood the weight of it.

Geralt never called it training.

Never said he was teaching you.

But you learned.

How to move without drawing attention. How to listen before acting. How to read the space between silence and danger.

If you fell, you got up.

If you hesitated, you learned not to.

And if you kept going, he said nothing at all.

Which meant everything.

Years later, the forest feels different.

Or maybe you do.

The air is heavier tonight, thick with something that doesn’t belong. Not rot. Not quite.

Something worse.

Geralt slows ahead of you.

Not enough to stop. Just enough for you to feel it. That shift in him you’ve learned to recognize over the years.

The same one that always came before something tried to kill you.

His medallion hums low against his chest.

Active.

You already know that.

You were taught to notice it long before you understood what it meant.

He doesn’t reach for his sword.

That’s what makes it different.

Instead, he steps slightly to the side, clearing the path ahead of you.

You understand.

Something moves in the dark ahead.

Heavy. Certain. No attempt to hide anymore.

Geralt looks at you.

Really looks.

“Time to see what you’re capable of”

His gaze lingers just long enough.

Then

“Don’t make me regret it.”

That’s all you get.

The forest tightens around you. Whatever is out there is closer now, waiting.

Geralt doesn’t move.

Because this time, he isn’t stepping in.

You are.

And he watches.