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The first time Krasa laid eyes on the infamous witcher known as the Wraith, he was surprised to learn that she was little more than a girl. She was slight, with piercing eyes that dared the people of Carsten village to voice the thoughts their sneers and their mutters displayed.
Perhaps if he wasn't in the height of his own adolescence himself, he might have had enough sense to not fall in love with her. He may as well have been infatuated with a storm for all the good it did - she was distant, cold, and uncaring and all he could do was bear witness and watch as she cut through a group of Drowners with inhuman speed and grace.
She had saved his life that day at the pond, and he was too overwhelmed to say anything of consequence even as they made their way back home and the village elders paid her for ridding them of a dangerous nuisance. He remembered thinking that her hair was made of starlight and that she was the most beautiful, lethal creature he had ever seen, but he couldn't recall if he ever plucked up the nerve to even thank her properly.
The second time they met, she didn't remember who he was. True, it had been years, and he had grown into a frame that promised to one day rival his barrel-chested giant of a father's but was all stretched lanky limbs and hands and feet for the moment.
She was clearly weary from a long day on the road, and so he bought her a drink at the village inn and challenged her to a game of Gwent. He could picture her as she smiled at him for the first time, the - bright, intelligent eyes in a small, sharp face that was lit up with excitement at meeting a worthy adversary. They spent two hours at the table and he used the florens he won off her to buy them three more rounds of drinks.
"That's twice you've been here to the middle of nowhere, Carsten, mistress Wraith. Are you thinking of settling down in the countryside?"
The drink settled on his mind like a thick blanket, and his perception was all blurred edges and bright lights.
She smiled a small smile then as if the idea was actually a good one and not the ludicrous ramblings of an infatuated dolt. Her reply was so soft that he barely heard her.
"My kind don't get to live that kind of life. I go where the money is, that's all."
His response, if there was one, must have been incoherent because sleep took him soon after. When he woke up, pale rays of sunlight snuck through the gaps in the windows and his mouth was filled with cotton.
He asked around after her, but nobody remembered seeing her leave or if she said anything about where she was headed or if she'd ever return. The only trace of her left in the village was an extra card in his Gwent deck that wasn't there the day before. He ran his fingers over the smooth paper of the Clear Weather card. It was a picture of a quaint little village nestled between clear skies and golden farmland. It looked very much like Carsten.
As the years passed, their chance encounters crisscrossed a subtle pattern across the tapestry of their lives. He left to be a student of medicine and herblore in Novigrad, and news of her comings and goings reached him as part of the distant narrative of his childhood home. The witchers cleared a nest of Nekkers that had taken root by the crossroads, and the Wraith had charged the mayor a pretty penny for her services. There was news of growing tension in the region, too, of wars being fought and of men dying. He felt this more keenly, for the clinic he worked his apprenticeship at under the stern tutelage of Master Ludlow was always thronged with soldiers and adventures.
He was left alone to clean up and lock up on the night that she came knocking on his door. It was snowing outside, and yet she wore nothing more substantial than the regular leather studded clothing he always saw her in. Sturdy and practical for light autumn, certainly not for the dead of winter.
Her shirt was ripped to tatters and covered in blood.
"Moving up in the world, farm boy? Good for you. Now get me a damned poultice and some hot water." She grimaced through the pain.
His practiced hands were gentle as they washed and dressed her wounds slowly and methodically. Her arms and shoulders were covered with deep gouge marks, and it was a while before the bleeding was brought under control. The fact that she was on her feet after the ordeal she must have been through was testament enough to her tenacity, her witcher endurance notwithstanding.
"Bad day at the petting zoo?"
Her snort turned into an involuntary gasp as he began to stitch one of her wounds, and she gripped his arm tightly.
"Wyvern," she said finally, relaxing her grip.
"Did you win or lose? It's honestly hard to tell."
"If I lost, I wouldn't be here." She swatted his hand away irritably as he made to begin stitching up another wound that was more shallow than the worst of her injuries. He gave in after a moment with pursed lips and began cleaning and packing away his supplies.
"You'll need to be more careful with those wounds if you won't let me stitch them up." He told her, trying to insert as much doctoral authority in his voice as possible. It didn't seem to do a lick of good, because she jumped off the stool and dug into her pocket for gold.
"How much do I owe you?"
"Come back in two days. I'll need to clean and dress those again, you can pay me then."
"You're going to get taken advantage of if you keep that up in Novigrad, farm boy."
"I'll take my chances. Besides, all I need to do to get money off you is challenge you to Gwent."
"Be careful, you don't want to bite off more than you can chew."
"I'll be careful to bite just enough, then."
She smiled at him then, a slow, cat-like grin that set his heart pounding.
"Goodbye, farm boy."
"My name is Krasa," he said, but she was already gone.
He didn't expect her to return two days later, but to his surprise, she did. He had dozed off over a particularly dense textbook on the preparation and uses of fungi when she waltzed in through the back door of the clinic. He bumped his elbow against the desk in his haste to straighten up.
"You're back. Hello."
She sauntered up to him and sat on his desk.
"Hello."
She unlaced the trappings of her vest, and he hastily looked away and busied himself with the nearest vial of liquid and wad of bandages he could find as she began to unbutton her shirt. When he looked back towards her, determined to be a professional, she had her shirt held up against her chest and her arms bare. His eyes widened at the sight of her skin, smooth and perfect.
"I told you I don't need stitches." She said to him.
"How?" He reached towards her and gently ran a finger over where there had been deep wyvern claw marks just two days ago. There was no trace of the wounds there anymore.
"I'm not human," she said wryly. "There's a reason everyone fears and despises us."
There was something in her voice that made him look at her, then, to truly look at her. This was a woman - no, a girl no older than he was himself - born to a life of violence and killing and fighting for survival, with nothing to look forward to but contempt and hatred from the very people she fights for.
"Your ability to heal is terrifying, you're right. I'd be out of business if every one of my patients was a Wraith."
The shirt she held between them dropped to the floor as she pulled him to her by the collar, and his hands were on her cool arms and in her hair even as his lips were hot against her mouth. Her legs were wrapped around his hips and pulled him closer, closer than he ever imagined they could be, and yet not close enough. She groaned into his mouth, and it was such a sound of pure pleasure that it nearly undid him.
Later, when they were entirely spent and she was lying on top of him, lazily tracing shapes across his chest, she kissed him again, and this kiss was different. It was full of terrified, gentle yearning in a way that was so different from the fevered madness of before.
"My name is Sivo" she whispered between breaths, and he kissed her back, savouring the word between their lips.
The worst of winter passed and turned into clear summer skies. They saw each other often that year, and the year after that. Towards the end of their third summer, he had learned all he could from his apprenticeship.
They were lying on the grass on the outskirts of the city, paying no attention to the disgusted looks those walking past them along the road threw their way. He pressed a battered card into her hand. Her eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at.
"Is this - ?"
"Clear skies. Why did you leave this behind?"
She paused and looked at him in the solemn way of hers when she's considering something he's said to her. He loved that about her - she was never rushed with her words and thought everything through before she said them.
"I'm from the witcher school of the Griffin. It's up in the mountains, and there was a well down by one of the valleys that were ridiculously difficult to get to. But if you do, and toss in a token of something precious you hold dear, then your wish will be made true. I suppose that's what it was to me."
She looked up at the sky, and her smile made his heartbreak.
"You were a charming boy in a beautiful little village that I could spend a fun evening with. It was a life that I wanted so badly, somewhere I could put down roots and find peace. For that evening, you were my wishing well."
The last time he saw Sivo, she was sat beside him on the bed, the light peeking in through the curtains of their cottage forming a halo against her platinum hair. He felt drunk, delirious from the fever. It was difficult to focus on the details of his surroundings. She smiled, but he knew every plane of her face like the back of his own hand and he saw the strain and the grief in the lines around her eyes and the stiffness of her mouth that she was holding back for his sake.
"Do you want me to send for more Celandine tea?"
"That stuff is foul. Get me some whiskey so I can die happy."
He grinned at her, the pain in his chest an agonizing fire. The sickness had struck suddenly, and worsened quick. At least he didn't have to suffer for very long - he was a doctor himself, and understood what was to come. He'd had two decades more than he had ever allowed himself to hope for with her, and he had made his peace with it.
She didn't reply, but a ghost of her usual smile twitched at the corner of her lips. He reached out and cupped her face.
"You don't look a day over 30, but it feels like we've lived lifetimes together."
"Good genetics." She said and burst into tears. He held her close then, his weak fingers idly playing with her hair and her scent enveloping his entire world.
"I was a wraith, and you showed me how to live. You can't leave, it's not fair. It's too soon."
"You were never a wraith. Wraiths don't dream, or rescue scared boys from drowners, or play Gwent." He kissed her hand. "Badly," he added and she hiccuped a laugh.
Darkness crept into the corners of his vision, dimming the brightness of the day so her face was the only light in his field of vision.
"Everything about you...the good, the bad, and everything in between. I've loved all of it from the moment I knew you. You're the brightest thing in the world." He smiled
"You were never a wraith."