#I picture Geralt always rescuing these too-smart too-cantankerous horses from boredom and understimulation

[castillon02]

She bites things, worries them between her teeth and doesn’t let go, chews until the tree branch---shreds; the fence post---mangles; the rope around her neck---snaps. 

After the rope incident, they don’t take her out at all except for plowing. Dusty-man taught her plowing, firm and gentle, apple slices or turnips when she pulled well, sometimes even a gallop to a new field. The man and woman who one day came to the farm instead of Dusty-man only shouted and shoved. She started biting. 

She walks circles in her little paddock. Looks for things to gnaw. Walks more circles. Bites. 

The rotten-things, when they come, make her scream. Death-scent fills her mouth. In the sunny turnip field nearby, the people run, fall. She smells blood. A rotten-thing snaps its teeth at her. Her hooves flail, keeping it at bay. She strikes and strikes again, forces the rotten-thing to the ground, tramples it until it stops moving. Her legs are strong from walking. Her hooves are shod in iron. 

A strange onion-scent makes her bare her teeth. A man with a sword faces the rotten-things, makes them scream the way she screamed, fills the field with more death. He jumps the paddock fence and walks toward her. 

She rears and stomps on the trampled rotten-thing, fear-sweat itching her coat. She’ll use her hooves again if she needs to. When Onion-man is in range, she snakes her neck out, clamps his sword arm in her teeth. A warning.  

He doesn’t shout. He only waits and talks to her, low and calm, until her sides stop heaving. His free hand finds her neck and he rubs her there.

She relaxes her jaw and lets his arm go. 

“Good,” he says, “good,” and other soft words she doesn’t know. When he throws a rope around her neck, she lets him walk away with her, and they go to new fields. She tastes new grasses. 

When she starts chewing on a branch, Onion-man clicks his tongue at her and takes her for a trot, or teaches her to come when he whistles, or shows her to run away when he uses his air-shoving trick. He makes her mind go to a warm, slow place, and then she lashes out with her hooves when he says a certain phrase; the more they practice, the more the fear of the rotten-things fades, replaced by triumph. She is strong. 

Every night, she gets a good brushing and often nice scratches on her withers. Onion-man finds her a comfortable saddle and gives her half of every apple.

Through it all, he keeps saying a new word, one she hasn’t heard before: “Leave it, Roach,” “Walk on, Roach,” “Kick up, Roach.” 

Roach. 

Roach is her. Roach is a horse who walks new paths instead of circles in a paddock, a horse whose gallop is getting faster, a horse who can keep herself safe while Onion-man fights monsters. 

No more branches. She saves her teeth for people who try to harm Onion-man, now. She’s Roach, and she’s going to keep him safe, too.  

#castillon writes #roach #the witcher #from the prompt 'worries' #(I wonder if Witchers name their horses odd things bc then they'll know the horse hasn't heard the word before #and won't have any prior associations with it) #honestly? the kind of horse who would make a good witcher's horse #is probably one who is like 'welp that monster was scary but also the most interesting thing to happen in my entire life' #'oh you want to find another one? not gonna complain tbh' #I picture Geralt always rescuing these too-smart too-cantankerous horses from boredom and understimulation #Roach headbutting Geralt after they've been in the same place for a few days: NEW FIELDS. TIME TO GO. #also fuck. axii must be an AMAZING training tool. #I always end up thinking that Witchers MUST have had a herd at kaer morhen #maintained by those who are off the path bc of permanent injuries #and then I think that young Geralt must have hoped he'd get to do that some day #but that option was taken from him #I hope he has a nice stable of horse friends at Corvo Bianco!