Hunters Anonymous (OPEN)

[righteously]

WHO: Dean & Open - Mingle it up!
WHEN: late May
WHERE: the Horizon - Roadhouse Edition
WHAT: Starting a Hunters Anonymous Support Group
WARNINGS: drinking and murder, mostly.

( It starts out with just a couple of people. Dean, obviously, because it's his bar. Eventually Geralt, followed by one of Geralt's other hunting buddies — and then another, and then before you know it there's a handful of hunters all swapping stories about the crap they've seen out in the wilds.

It's about the time Dean makes to take out a notebook and honest to god start writing some of this crap down that two things hit him — First, this is actually really freakin' useful. Second, it feels right. The Roadhouse here may be fake, but this is what the real one would've been like. This is what it was meant for. This is the most real this place has been since he got here.

So he runs it by Geralt, and puts out an APB.

Harvelle's Roadhouse is officially open for business — and not just of the drinking variety.

Mind the jukebox. )

NOTES: This is an open mingle, so feel free to top-level below! The idea here is to open up the Roadhouse for hunter-types to use as a central meeting place or base of operations for anyone who desires to, so feel free to use it as a backdrop for any threads whenever. Obviously non-hunter people are welcome to see the message and wander in whenever they want, too! Info on the Roadhouse can be found here. Hit me up at paingravy for anything you need any time.

Comments

[gynvael]

[ Geralt did indeed invite Jesper. At the end of the day, it's also a place to drink and throw a few knives. (Possibly more than a few; last time he and Dean partook, the board filled up quickly.) And he can admit he's a bit curious about Jesper's skill. There's a difference between knowing how to aim and knowing how to slay a monster, but he always finds it worth knowing what someone can do.

Unlike Jesper, Geralt looks exactly as he does out in the world. Less dust in his hair, maybe.

He shifts in his seat when Jesper speaks up from by the wall. Good question. It's a game he introduced to Dean, but one born of decades wintering inside a decrepit fortress with a lot of men trained to kill and thrice as many blades.

Geralt picks up one throwing knife and lets it loose. It flies straight, without rotating through the air, and pierces a black square. ] No spin. [ The second knife to white makes a half-rotation before it hits its mark. ] Half spin.

[ Simple, until you're a few bottles in and start running out of room on the board. Because no: the knives also do not come out once they go in. Aiming between the growing chaos is part of it. The Horizon grants infinite knives. May as well take advantage. ]

[itookashot]

[ Jesper's skills are ones he boasts about often, but he doesn't exactly have an opportunity to show off the physical ones as much here. He's been using his magic so frequently these days, for work and for gifts, but he loves the option of getting to let loose on this again. Some day Geralt will have to come to Jesper's Horizon where he has an entire shooting range in the fancy part with a mountain of different weapons, and the Crow Club with its many card games and darts and knives.

He watches Geralt throw and yes, now it makes more sense! He is much more of an observer than anything else, so most instructions aren't as helpful as witnessing. He grins and flips a knife up, doing the opposite of Geralt. A half-spin to the white, and no-spin to the black, and both of them hit barely an inch away from Geralt's own. In these cases, he doesn't need his powers at all. He has a very easy flick of the wrist. ]

I grew up with the best shot and hunter in our area, my mother.

[ It used to be the very thought of talking about his mother was too painful, Jesper never did, not even to the people he loved most. But if there was anything good about the memory experience, it was that being forced to address the subject of his mother over and over again meant that dam broke. ]

I was hunting and skinning by age five, shooting by age six.

[ His hand unconsciously moves to touch his revolvers, he does it a lot as a reminder it's his real ones here, and he inherited them from her. After she died Jesper didn't stop; he only did it more, now with him having to do much of it since his father was not really the type. Which he didn't mind. Jesper only got better at it with time to the point he is now, as good as she was once. ]

Not monsters, obviously, so still not one of you.

[gynvael]

[ He leans back on one hand, bottle in the other as he watches Jesper take his turn. The boy is good, he'll give him that. He takes a drink, as required, though he isn't especially playing for competition. A way to kill the time, more than anything. What the fuck else is there to do when a handful of hunters congregate?

Hunters and hunters-adjacent, so to speak.

A thoughtful noise. Geralt takes another sip. He does not miss Jesper's hands shifting to his weapons. He makes no comment on it. ] No one should desire to be one of us.

[ The remark is wry, casual. There are a small handful who hunt because it's the simplest way to utilize their skills here, in this world. Not much different than hunting a bear or a wolf. They know how to kill fine, but they don't know the life and all it truly entails. Then there are people like him and Dean. Raised so deep in it, they can't imagine being anything else whether they asked for it or not. When he says us, that's who he means.

He throws the next blade. ] What was your first?

[ First kill, first hunt. Everyone recalls their first. ]

[itookashot]

At least it's sometimes exciting. I haven't felt adrenaline in months, and it's my favorite feeling.

[ Seriously, Jesper would take it over almost anything else. Probably the only exception is lust, but it's close. It's what led him to the life he led back home, and while he was preparing for a less interesting life with Wylan, he knew he could always go running back to Kaz for occasional jobs when he was feeling restless. Here there is no real end to that restless feeling. At least it isn't for the same reason as before, his addictions soothed enough to be manageable. But he's a man of action.

He is making enough coin now it's not about that. Although he can always, always find more reasons for coin. Greed is a favorite sin, but it's from this feeling that he'll never have enough to be safe. Never enough to end up on the street again, humiliated and lost. But generally. He's making plenty of money here.

Jesper throws the next blade, asssuming they're taking turns. ]

Rabbit. That's what Mum started me on. Felt pretty bad, hit it in the wrong place that first time, so it suffered.

[ The rabbit didn't have to suffer long, they were pretty quick, but young Jesper took it to heart. Jesper may be a killer, and he is one despite his light demeanor, but he does not enjoy suffering of anyone. Not even his enemies, he's not Kaz Brekker, who would make then die slowly. He'd shoot them in the head and be done with it, quick and easy. ]

After that, I always went for the head.

[ He glances over at Geralt. ]

And you?

[gynvael]

[ Geralt only shakes his head at that. The thing he desires the most when he's working is the lack of excitement. A couple of days watching a nest under the blazing sun, split the giant bird or lizard in two when it shows. Take the eggs for the evening's dinner, if there are any. Remove any parts he thinks will fetch good coin at the shops. It's routine and that's how he prefers it.

He's too old for adrenaline. ]

No one's first kill is clean. [ He's no longer thinking of rabbits and deer precisely. His expression is contemplative for a moment before he seems to put aside what was on his mind.

He flips the knife in his hand while he waits for Jesper to finish his turn. ] A boar. Decent game in winter. Pain to carry the fucking thing up a mountain slope, though. It was nearly bigger than I was.

[ Then he still had to skin and butcher it when he was home. Fairly certain his fingers nearly froze off. Maybe they would've if he'd been human. ]

[itookashot]

[ Jesper gets that same contemplative expression, briefly, a little more obvious on his face as he's expressive. He's thinking about his first human kill, a few years ago. It was clean, in terms of how fast and easy it had been, but not in terms of how he necessarily felt about it. And then the numbers went up so he learned to live with it. Now he'd even call it desensitized. He would kill someone tomorrow if he had to. ]

My father is the opposite of her, he hates violence of any kind. I'd do all the hunting, skinning, cooking. Not everyone has the stomach for it.

[ He learned that much, at age seven, when she died. Colm Fahey is a good man in a lot of ways, and a complicated man in many others. He still doesn't have the stomach for any of it, and while he understands his son better now, he still will never really know the extent of what he's capable of. And that's for the best.

Jesper flips the knife easily and raises an eyebrow at him curiously.]

Up a mountain? You lived on a mountain? A snowy one at that? Saints I hate snow.

[gynvael]

[ Hm. There are a lot of questions he's not yet asked. In some ways, he isn't certain he needs to know. But he wonders suddenly if Jesper's parents are aware of what he does. The truth is, the thought of Jesper's family never quite crossed his mind until Jesper brought it up. Some part of him, he realizes now, had assumed Jesper was orphaned like so many who take a certain path in life are. ]

Not everyone. [ Perhaps that's for the best.

He throws his blade, where it pierces the wood board, dotted with marks from use. His smile is wry. ]

The entire Continent is northern. No place it doesn't snow. [ This? The desert, the heat, in Cadens? That's completely foreign to him. It's taken him awhile to adapt. He no longer hates it, now that he knows how to work with the land and what he has, but he misses snow. Cold. Hot springs and easily finding rushing streams and lakes. Trees that reach the skies. ] In the winters, the lakes would freeze over. Made for good sliding.

[itookashot]

[ Jesper's father only recently found out what he does, and to say he was displeased is an understatement. It's a point of serious contention with them right now. They're working through it, but he really thought Jesper was at the university, becoming some great thinker who would do great things, when he was running the streets shooting his way out of trouble. He's a soft-hearted man, and that is not something Jesper wanted to change. Disillusionment can be very difficult. ]

That's probably for the best. The whole world can't be fighters or it's all we'd do.

[ It's what they already usually do! He does the half-spin one, it's probably his favorite since it's showy and Jesper is very dramatic like that. He'd probably love a three spin just to show off. ]

No thank you. Not long before I came here, my crew and I had to break into an ice prison. I thought I'd never be warm again.

[ Fjerda's so cold, no wonder they want to take over the rest of the world, maybe to feel warm for five actual minutes. He used to joke that he could see what Matthias would be so serious, he had ice in his veins from birth. At one point they also were naked and he had deep concerns about his important body parts. ]

We're a port city, it gets cold with the sea wind, but rarely that cold. Though there's very little green in a port. A middle ground wouldn't be so bad, that's what I grew up in.

[ But he's always hated being cold. Yuck. ]

So did you grow up a hunter?

[gynvael]

[ Ice prison, is it. Geralt lifts an eyebrow, but he doesn't ask. He's gathered Jesper appears to have spent most of his life getting into trouble, which surprises him exactly zero amounts.

Port city reminds him of Gors Velen. It's true it's warmer there, where they're closer to the sea. Winters not quite so harsh. One day, Jesper might stumble onto his mountains in the Horizon and see exactly what he means.

Geralt pauses the game to take a drink, setting the blade beside him point-down into a hunk of wood. ]

Mm-hmm. Witchers start as boys. Or we did. There aren't any more being made.

[ He's one of the last. Mostly, he thinks that's for the best, too. The price for more of them is too high. And the world does not need them. It doesn't. That's been true for a long time. ]

[itookashot]

[ Getting into trouble is one of his best skills! Or it was, until he came here and he's been squeaky clean since. So embarrassing. Jesper's been all level-headed and normal, what a disaster. Being here only makes him wish he could get out there more, be in the action, the way the hunters are. This feels closer to what he's used to than Cadens has been, with the every day hundrum. ]

Being made? So you weren't born this way?

[ Jesper knows that Geralt has supernatural gifts himself, not that he's come out and talked about it much. Maybe because he respects his privacy, or maybe it just hasn't been a good segway conversation yet. He does sound surprised though, he thought he was born different, like the Grisha. He wonders if people would make more Grisha if they could. Certainly the Ravkans would, to get more power to their army, he wonders how long before the Fjerdans did too to have their own supernatural force. ]

If you could change it, would yoU?

[gynvael]

Mages created an alchemical process to mutate us. It's been lost since.

[ It's less a matter of secrecy, and more a matter of complication. The history of the Witchers is a long one, as is the history of the Continent itself. Mostly, Geralt hasn't much cause to get into it. Most people know at a glance he isn't human, or else he tells them fairly quickly. It is not something he wishes to be mistaken for. Beyond that, the details are unimportant.

He finally throws the dagger. Jesper is not the first to land on that question. Geralt gives a dismissive glance over his shoulder before he takes another drink. ]

It can't be changed. What I would or wouldn't want makes no difference.

[itookashot]

That's interesting. Why did they make witchers in the first place? As their soldiers?

[ Geralt says they trained as boys and he's obviously a highly dangerous badass. He assumes it's about hunting, since that's what he does, but usually when people make something, it's to use it in some way. That's why the Summoned are here. Sooner or later they'll be coming to call them for use, he knows that much.

He is deeply interested in whatever story is here. The Grisha have always been born, you can't become one. Jesper doesn't know if people would pick to be. He thinks Kaz would, if he could pick what kind, so he could be more lethal. ]

Yeah, I get that. I tried my best not to be Grisha for the past ten years. It didn't go well.

[ Understatement. Jesper made himself sick doing it, although it was not clear until recently how that illness displayed in him. He's always been physically very healthy and sturdy, so it didn't make sense. Now he knows not all sickness is physical. ]

I don't know if I'd change it. Kaz, my boss, wouldn't have taken me into the Crows if I had no powers.

[ He flicks the next knife easily. The Crows are everything to him. ]

[gynvael]

No. [ Not soldiers. They are far from soldiers. He studies the knives embedded in the board. ] Monsters overran the Continent once. We were made to kill them. These days...

[ These days, there's been little to kill. Monsters no longer infest the Continent in every corner, lurking only in darkened woods and overgrown paths. But he isn't there anymore, is he? He's here. More to hunt in Abraxas than there ever was back home. Making a living has been simpler. Existing as a whole has been simpler.

He picks up his drink. His foot rests on the seat of a chair. He's never asked, precisely, what Jesper means by Grisha, but it isn't difficult to guess from what Jesper's already told him. An ability he possesses that he's been hiding most of his life. Something like a mage, though not quite. ]

We are what we are. [ It reminds him of Ciri. Her desire to run from what she is. Jesper is right: it doesn't ever go well. ] How long did you hide it?

[itookashot]

What happens when there aren't any more monsters? You all retire?

[ Jesper knows that is very unlikely so it's somewhat of a joke. Geralt isn't the retiring sort. And he knows he went on to be a hunter here, obviously, so he has no reason to stop. He doesn't seem to like what he does though, not really. Maybe it's because he was made to do it, rather than chose to do it. Jesper got to choose his path, well, choose is a rough version of what happened. But he could've gone to school and been a good boy. As if. ]

Mum died when I was seven. She was training me. Someone came by not long after to tell my father I could go train, but he said I didn't have the gift so they wouldn't take me away.

[ He remembers it well. Colm asked if he wanted to go, but there was no way he could agree to do that. He was a child, and his father needed him. At that point he was grieving and couldn't do most things for himself, Jesper had filled his mother's shoes with the hunting and cleaning. He is older now, he understands what an unfair position both of them were in. ]

I used to play around with it but he made me promise to stop. So I'd say I didn't use it for around seven years, until I met Kaz. He must have noticed my aim was too perfect.

[ Jesper smiles at him playfully, a comparison to the more serious way he's explaining. He twirls the knife between his fingers, which is not the type of thing powers can really do, so this part is all skill. ]

The thing is, it makes you sick when you don't use it. We didn't know that.

[ He can't believe that his father would still have forced him to hide it, if he knew what it was doing to Jesper. ]

Sometimes people get physically sick, some people get mentally sick.

[ Considering Jesper looks incredibly healthy, it seems pretty obvious which one he ended up. ]