He wasn't the horse I learned to ride on, but he was the first animal I ever had that was mine, really. Even before that, I never had any little pets like you get kids, hamsters and shit. Closest I ever had before that was a goldfish I won at the fair, and that thing died the same night. [ As goldfish kept in plastic bags tend to do. ] Ridley was mine though. Whenever I couldn't go to the farm for a week or so, then came back, he'd almost knock me over from nudgin' so hard, and he'd cry if I walked away from him before dinner time. My uncle would always say he could smell me on the wind, 'cause he'd paw up a mess before I could get out there.

[ She chuckles at the visual of a frustrated old witcher wrangling a bunch of little boys; she knows it's probably nothing like she's imagining, given what she's gleaned about their origins, but kids are kids everywhere, right? A group of them is enough to drive absolutely anyone insane, and she can hardly believe that giving them superpowers (her grasp of what constitutes "mutations" is tenuous at best) makes it any easier. ] If he wasn't completely off his rocker, then yeah. You ever tried to make a bunch of kids listen to you? You'd have better luck herdin' cats.

Kaer Morhen. [ The sounds are just the tiniest bit off in her accent, vowels too rounded, the rs just a touch too sharp, but at least she didn't read it first. Jaskier had been visibly perturbed by her initial assumption of how to pronounce his name. ] Does that mean somethin'?