RUSELM'S BESTIARY
CHAPTER TWELVE ─ WHAT IT MEANS TO NOT KNOW
Note: Please leave some comments on this chapter, I'd love to see what you guys are thinking about this story so far! Silent readers are cool and all but I much prefer to interact with my audience. Let's have a conversation or something! Also, we're at 3.55k reads since I last updated months ago? How amazing is that?
Poem Credit: "The Beast Within" by Jean Monahan.
Dedication: lovebvg

"WHAT IN LILIT'S name—" Ruselm whipped back around to Roach who was chomping at her bit eagerly now, the metal clashing against her teeth with every bite. The Nazairian looked more than surprised at the horse's obedience to his command, jaw slack. He glances back at Geralt with a dumbfounded expression manipulating his features. "I don't understand...? How is this possible?"

And even the witcher was perplexed.

How was it that Ruselm Jurren, a simple and completely non-magical, ordinary man from Nazair, was able to communicate with Roach? Was there something in his voice she liked hearing? Was it dumb luck or just an instance of mere happenstance? Geralt was tempted to think the latter, but he didn't tend to believe in coincidences.

There was an explanation for this.

There had to be. There must be something Ruselm was doing, whether he realized it or not. Roach was responding to him in ways she had never exhibited with Geralt.

"I—I don't know."

"You don't know," Ruselm repeated blankly.

Geralt didn't respond.

"How can you not know?" he questioned, voice raised now. It was clear he was beginning to panic. "I mean... have you seen this happen before? Is there something wrong with me? I-I swear I've never done anything as outlandish as this before, Geralt! I—"

"Take a deep breath," Geralt instructed, much in the same manner he had when they first encountered each other in Sodden. That moment felt like years ago by this point, and Geralt still didn't know Ruselm any better than he had then. It was maddening, to not instinctively know things about people around him and to be left guessing. This puzzle only made it all the worse.

Ruselm paused but obeyed with wide eyes and a quivering lip.

The witcher listened closely as his racing heartbeat began to plateau with every good, deep breath he took. It seemed to help, in a minuscule way, that Roach had finally stopped chomping at her bit. Instead, she was taking interest in their environment rather than the situation, although Ruselm could do nothing but stare at the mare like she was an oddity never discovered before. His eyes were transfixed, glued to the source of his disbelief and Geralt very badly wanted to know what he was thinking.

"Ruselm," Geralt began.

He wasn't listening.

"Ruselm."

The man looked up to him, reluctantly.

Eye contact, finally. Geralt hated when a man's eyes wouldn't, or couldn't, meet his. There was nothing more frustrating than talking to someone who constantly lowered themselves in comparison to you. Naturally, many people did this around Geralt because they found him intimidating but that wasn't to say he ever grew comfortable with it. He merely tolerated this.

But Ruselm had no problem meeting his eyes when he wanted to.

"There's nothing wrong with you."

"How do you know that?" Ruselm challenged.

"You're not as fucked up as I am," the white-haired man said with all seriousness. He wasn't surprised to find that he actually meant the words when he said them. From what little he knew of the man, it was certainly a safe bet to wager. "It's perfectly normal to be different from other people, that doesn't mean anything is wrong with you. Understand me? This has an explanation, if we care to find it."

Ruselm appeared unsure about the witcher's words, the edges of his eyes crinkling with scepticism and the corner of his mouth tipping in the slightest downwards direction. Geralt could see him processing, working things through in his mind. He was thinking really hard over something the witcher didn't even view as a problem. Perhaps Geralt had simply grown used to surprises like this, but for someone who had never dealt with the unknown...

It was a mystery, if anything. Not a curse.

Quite literally, it was not a curse. Not one the witcher had ever encountered before, anyway. Most curses ended with men turning into beasts or girls being in mysteriously unwakeable comas, not men having the ability to communicate with beasts in the way Ruselm just had. This was unheard of in every sense.

There were, of course, tales across the lands of young girls and fair maidens (sometimes princesses, yes, but not always) often being said to commune with the animals around them, although Geralt had never heard of this unique ability being in the hands of a man. Maybe their children inherited it at times, but never the boys. Never the boys. Perhaps with good reason, too. In this world?

Yes, this world. Where men were so cruel; where they not allowed women to speak their minds or killed the innocent for the merest mention of pocketing a few coin for the job. The notion that Ruselm, who clearly did not fall into this category, could be significantly different because of his newfound ability and possibly his parentage wasn't very far off. It just left the question of how.

"Maybe nothing's wrong," Ruselm finally relented, promptly drawing the witcher from his ruminations. Geralt was inclined to smile before the dolt opened his mouth again and this inclination vanished faster than a hare dashing into the brush. "But something is different about me," he murmurs. "And I need to know what. Why am I able to do these things? Why me? Why now? This... this just proves I've been stuck this entire time!"

The witcher frowns instead. "Stuck?"

"Forced to be someone I'm not."

"I don't think that describes your situation at all—"

"Doesn't it, though?" the Nazairian lets out a breath of air between his cheeks, eyes drifting away from Geralt's to the ground again. "When I began this journey, when I first left Nazair... everything was so hard, Geralt. Adjusting. Living. Surviving. I adapted, of course—how could I not?—but seeing the senseless violence, the misdirected cruelty... I've been different. Changed."

Geralt remained silent.

Ruselm had placed his hands low on his hips now as he paced back and forth beside Roach. His nervous energy was feeding into the horse's and Roach quickly grew concerned, shifting her weight from side to side as if she were ready to take off for the nearest hills. It doesn't take but a moment for Geralt to arrange his fingers in the Sign of Axii above Roach's head. The last thing he needed was to lose control of his horse.

The mare instantly calms, although Ruselm has continued talking even without the witcher's rapt attention.

"... it's like there's this vice gripping my heart, Geralt, and squeezing it so tightly at times that all the blood stops pumping through me. I think about it often now. The darkness of its nature. I never worried about this when I was in Nazair; I never had to, but now it's sometimes all I can think of when I'm alone, like it has been festering inside of me all these years. It happens when I think about the creatures that have been unjustly hurt—Obil, the Old Bear, even the she-warg."

"She would've killed you." Geralt is surprised by how sharp his voice cuts through the air. It instantly grabs Ruselm's attention, making the man stop his pacing and turn his eyes up to the witcher's once more. There is sadness within them. "That warg." He continues. "She would've eaten you piece by piece, and thought nothing of it. I saved you from that fate."

"Yes," Ruselm nods. The faraway look in his eyes fades. His eyes flicker away from Geralt down to Roach, who has extended her head to him once more. Almost guiltily, he strokes her nose as his thoughts are inevitably turned back to his mother's own fate. "You saved me."

With nothing more to say, Geralt watches his horse enjoy Ruselm's attention as the atmosphere fades into an easy, although troubled, silence. A bird trills in the distance, resembling the sound of a finch in Geralt's mind. Its mate responds in the next instant. He can hear their wings flutter even from a distance, much in thanks to how the Trials had altered his body.

Oftentimes, Geralt would enjoy simply listening to his surroundings. The birds, the trees, the water. Heartbeats. Snatches of conversations he'd never participate in. Men haggling with each other. Animals and beasts living and breathing and carousing about in the shadows. But the only thing besides the finch that he could focus on was Ruselm.

His heartbeat was wild. It was so loud it was hard for Geralt not to listen to him.

He felt a small twinge in his chest as he realized Ruselm was upset, and struggled to find something to say to offer solace. Anything would have helped the situation. Any word or comfort he could have bestowed would've been better than the silence he gave the absolutely foolish author. Admittedly, he just couldn't find the right thing to say at that moment.

A witcher, caught unable to speak. This wasn't the first time he'd found himself too distanced to do a damn thing about what bothered him and it wouldn't be the last.

Roach presses her nose further into Ruselm's palm, pulling at the reins to get closer to her new friend. Geralt releases some pressure by placing his hands in front of the saddle along her neck, allowing the mare better access to Ruselm. Geralt supposed it had to be life-changing to suddenly come to realize that you could communicate with animals and Ruselm was no doubt struggling with this and other feelings this had stirred within him.

The one about darkness was particularly troubling.

Geralt opens his mouth to speak, slowly. He wasn't sure if his next words, coming as a complete surprise to him, would be of any help at all. "I know some people I can ask about this."

Ruselm doesn't even look up from Roach, but spares the witcher a nod.

"They might have some answers. Or, at the very least, they can tell me if they've ever seen something like this in a man before."

"Okay."

Uncomfortable with how stiff the conversation was revealing itself to be, Geralt shifts in his saddle as he realizes what place he now has to take the conversation before Ruselm becomes entirely unreachable. There was too much light within him for Geralt to standby and allow it to flicker and dim. "It's normal, Ruselm," he tries in a low voice. "To feel hardened in this part of the world. There are bad people, as you may have noticed, and bad things that happen without provocation."

Silence.

For once, the man filled with words was left with nothing but silence. The very man who'd chased paragraphs deep into the woods and was constantly running new sentences of his bestiary through his mind was completely and utterly silent.

Had he said the wrong thing?

"Ruselm?"

"Yes, Geralt?"

"Your lack of a response troubles me."

"Oh. In what way?"

Geralt grimaces. "When a man who has done nothing but jabber and prattle since I've known him becomes bestilled with quietude, I often wonder what he could possibly be thinking to have no response."

Ruselm cracks a small grin, a flicker of his joyous nature providing Geralt a shining example of how he should be at all times. "You think of our conversations as mere prattle?" he tuts as though disappointed in Geralt's observations. "Oh, dear witcher, you've wounded me."

"Hmm." Geralt looks away into the distance. "Cute. You ignored my words."

"I did not," Ruselm argues. "I chose not to address them. Despite your fears, Geralt, I am nowhere near the darkness like you think. I can simply feel it within me; there is a difference. And I don't know what to say or do about it, so there's that, too."

Now it was Geralt's turn to absorb the other's words.

With a sigh, the witcher takes up Roach's reins once more and nudges her flanks until the mare begins walking again. Ruselm keeps pace beside them, casting curious little glances at Geralt every so often, although he allows the silence between them without interruption.

I am nowhere near the darkness like you think. I can simply feel it within me.

Geralt looks down at Ruselm from the corner of his eye, watching as he walks along, head buried in his journal once more. The tip of the quill scratches aggressively against the page, held by a graceful hand skilled in its use.

Scratccchscratccchscratccch. Geralt narrows his eyes and takes more interest in the page. What was he writing? Scratccchscratccchscratccch. Scratccch. With his superior eyesight, the witcher can make out what's not being covered up by Ruselm's hand as he writes.

In all of us, a beast lays waiting,
in the dark part of our soul.
It waits in the shadows
to blacken out heart,
wanting us to do
its dark bidding here.

Some are overpowered
by the beast within,
their dark deeds are everywhere.
Others control its craving,
quelling its black thoughts,
leaving it locked in the dark, in which it dwells.

We have heard of the battles,
good versus evil,
light versus dark.
Therefore, we must be strong,
and never let it out,
that beast that lies within.

"Poetry?" Geralt wonders aloud. This earns him a surprised look from the author, his dark eyes darting up conspiratorially. "You've never mentioned poetry before."

Ruselm promptly snaps the journal shut, tucking it under his arm as he manages to look offended. "You don't really know me then, do you?" he asks. "Come to think of it, I don't really know you, either, witcher."

"You know enough."

"How much is enough?" Ruselm frowns. "And what if I want to know more?"

Geralt laughs mirthlessly, turning his gaze to the road once more. Know more? He knew what would happen once Ruselm knew more about him; he didn't even have to think about it. Witchers were close to noone and nothing, and for good reason, too.

"You should let me come with you."

"Excuse me?" Geralt pulls back on Roach's reins, signalling her to stop. "No."

"Why not? You could teach me about monsters, Geralt!"

"Absolutely not."

"What better source for my bestiary than a witcher?" Ruselm exclaims with excitement. It is only now, after knowing the history of Ruselm's quest, that Geralt can sense his desperation to fulfill his destiny. "Please!" he begs shamelessly. "Allow me to accompany you on your travels. Teach me what you know. Let me see things as they are, and let me remedy what has already passed. I beg of you, witcher."

There was such passion behind Ruselm's delivery that Geralt found it hard to deny the man what he wanted, but he knew what his answer had to be. He knew what would protect the Nazairian from a fate like his mother's, and he knew how much it would hurt Ruselm to hear Geralt say no.

But he had to say it.

For Ruselm's sake, if not his own.

"No."

"Geralt, please!"

"I said no," Geralt grunts. "You'll do nothing but get yourself killed. I told you witchers travel alone for a reason and I meant it. No ordinary man could witness half the things we see when we hunt, nor could he withstand a blow if he were to get in the way. No means no, Ruselm, I'm sorry."

"But!—"

"No."

As if in pain, Ruselm forces a nod and swallows any further argument he might've had lingering on the tip of his tongue. He turns away from the witcher to find a fork in the road just ahead of them, which Geralt had stopped just in front of without thought as to which direction he should take. Without a further word to Geralt, Ruselm picks a path and begins to walk down it.

I'm doing this to keep you safe, he wants to say. But the words don't come out. They can't. Geralt doesn't have the energy to force them, either, so he turns Roach down the opposite path and nudges her along.

Witchers travel alone, that is how it is meant to be.