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[thelibertybelle]

y'all know what to do

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[wolfdogwitcher]

He gives her a baffled look before he gives their campsite a once over, decides it's sufficient for them to leave and swings his massive form up onto Scorpion's back.

"I wouldn't ask you to get one for me." He explains. "I don't even want your hands in the box. I keep my shit pretty clean but I wouldn't want you to touch something you shouldn't."

He gets the feeling, however, that she's not going to leave it. He sighs and shifts the bag around so he can take a bottle out to show her, explaining as they go.

"This is Swallow, it's a healing potion..."

------

As he said, they came within eyeshot of the sprawling town as it was getting dark.

"I think we can make it, since we can all see." Eskel decides. "Just keep aware of your surroundings. Sometimes the wolves get a little curious at this hour, even this close to town."

[thelibertybelle]

Stephanie pays close attention as they walk, splitting her gaze between the ground beneath her feet and the various little bottles held in Eskel's massive hands as he explains what each one contains and what it does to him. Honestly, she'd feel better if she had a notebook so she could keep notes on this all, but her memory is basically eidetic, so she doesn't need it. Still, she takes his explanations seriously, asking questions about ingredients as they go, and apart from wrinkling her nose a few times at some of the more gory bits, keeps any and all opinions about it to herself.

They keep walking through the day, stopping occasionally to let Scorpion rest and to nibble on some jerky, and by the time dusk starts to gently pull across the sky, Eskel indicates the town coming into sight ahead.

"I'll be fine," she tells him, hiking a smirk in the corner of her mouth. "I've got one here to protect me, don't I?" Yes, she's noticed the medallion around his neck.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Hm? Oh. Right." He laughs sheepishly, touching the snarling silver beast on his chest. "Aren't you lucky I'm relatively tame." He says, steering Scorpion on toward the torchlights of the first civilization Steph's seen since her arrival. The closer they get, the more people they start to see and she might get a look at the condition of things in this world. She may have been spoiled by encountering an unusually healthy, unusually clean, unusually pleasant specimen.

[thelibertybelle]

"I think I'm lucky for a lot of reasons," she points out with a little smile, reaching up to pat Scorpion on his neck as they make their way down the road towards the town growing steadily larger up ahead.

Stephanie grew up during the Depression. She knows intimately how poverty looks, the way it changes your posture, your face, your overall bearing. Watching the people they pass eye her suspiciously, she feels like she understands them in a way Eskel might not expect her to, the way the villagers clearly don't expect her to either.

She's grown used to the way modern people look, with their clean drinking water and their orthodontics, with the glow that comes from abundant food and shelter overhead and more or less reliable access to warm water whenever you want. It's a little jarring to be back in a place where none of that is guaranteed.

[wolfdogwitcher]

And they certainly look back at her with a mix of curiosity and wariness. Some women gather their children closer to their skirts. Eskel garners similar stars, and if she looks at him she might note he keeps his head down somewhat, his body language tense. Eskel garners curses and glares and at some point someone hisses at them in passing.

"Keep the children back."

"What a monster that one is. Face like a nightmare."

"As if a Witcher ain't bad enough, he's got a witch in tow!"

Eskel reaches down for her shoulder, his gaze fixed straight ahead.

"Don't go anywhere I can't see or get to you, okay? Shit's gotten a little tense since the last time I was here."

[thelibertybelle]

Stephanie can't help the way she bristles as the people they pass mutter to each other, most of the ire directed at Eskel, but a fair amount of it thrown her way as well.

She hadn't planned on drifting away from the witcher and his horse, but feeling Eskel's hand settling on her shoulder has her lifting her hand to press it against his, lifting her chin to look up at him.

"You weren't kidding," she says lowly, trusting his claims at excellent hearing to be true enough that she doesn't need to raise her voice.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"It'll be better when there's more people around." He promises. "More people who know a thing or two about the world, not these sheep-fuckers." All the same, he stays on his guard.

It is a little better once they pass through the gates. It's not that there isn't muttering and pointing, but it's easier to drown out on the bustling activity of the town. The innkeeper at the establishment Eskel steers them to even greets him by name, even if he's merely professionally cordial and offers him "the usual", which turns out to be a small room tucked back towards the kitchens.

"Bed's yours." He says, setting down his gear and shrugging out of his jacket.

[thelibertybelle]

She doesn't point out that she's not so sure the people in the town are going to be much better, both because he knows this area better than she does, and also because she mostly doesn't want to disparage people who've very clearly had hard lives when she doesn't know anything about them, but it's tough to hold her tongue. She's never done well with bullies, and Eskel's done nothing that she's seen to warrant such treatment.

She's slightly more mollified once they find the inn Eskel's obviously steering them towards, even if she does still get a fair number of speculative stares as they make their way through to the room that's being offered to them.

She sits down on the edge of the bed when Eskel indicates it and frowns at him.

"Is it always like this?" she asks, watching him divest himself of his spiked jacket.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"No." He says, rubbing the back of his back as he hangs up his jacket. "But I won't lie to you and say it's unusual. Sometimes it's worse. I've been spit at, had stuff thrown at me. Had to leave town to avoid zealots and witch-burnings. Sometimes I get turned away from inns or not allowed in town entirely. Witchers get hurt or killed all the time." He shrugs. "But it's not all bad, even if you'll probably find that hard to believe while we're here. Usually the people here aren't so uptight, something must have happened since I was here last. Hopefully they'll still sell me the winter supplies I need." He shakes his head. "Ah well, the guy who runs this place likes my coin well enough, we'll at least get good food and you'll have a decent bed."

[thelibertybelle]

Comforting is definitely the wrong word, but there's something...almost comforting that racism is the same across universes. One group will always find reasons to hate another group, it seems, and it's frustrating that it seems they'll never be able to get away from it.

She may not agree with witchers taking children and mutating them into monster hunters, but Eskel was right when he told her that the alternative was worse. And if the monsters he's been telling her about are real, then these people should be grateful that witchers are around to protect them.

Scowling, she resists the urge to cross her arms. It's uncomfortable in the suit.

"You should take the bed. You didn't get to sleep last night."

[wolfdogwitcher]

"I'm fine. We do this thing that's basically sleep but I can do it sitting up and with all my senses intact. And I'll sleep." He points to what little open floor there is. "Bedroll fits just fine right there. Besides, it's a single bed so there's nothing to be done about it. Impropriety aside, I don't think we'd both fit."

He gets his gear settled and then stretches his shoulders.

"We gotta get you some clothes." He says. "That stuff's too flashy. They think you're a sorceress."

[thelibertybelle]

"Basically sleep isn't actually sleep, Eskel," she points out, one eyebrow lifting. "I can sleep on the floor."

He has a point about her clothes, though. She looks down at herself, at the skin-tight pants and equally tight top, the armored panels doing little to disguise the shape of her body.

"Yeah, I figured when they kept calling me a witch. I can't do any magic," she points out, wiggling her fingers. "Not even card tricks."

She should have asked Scott to teach her. God. Is she ever going to be able to get home? Will she ever see her team again?

[wolfdogwitcher]

He pursues the clothes angle so they don't have to argue about who's sleeping where. "You're wearing weird clothes and you're probably the most beautiful, healthy-looking woman in town." He laughs. "That's all they need to think you're a witch. So stick close. If you're not too picky, we can probably get you a shirt and pants before too many things close down. Can get everything else in the morning, and you'll be able to move around without attracting too much attention."

[thelibertybelle]

Part of her wants to look up and make a teasing comment about him continually calling her beautiful, but she's not stupid. The serum enhanced all her positive qualities while dimming the rest, and even in her own world, she's still held up as a standard of beauty. Here...

"Are witches all unusually beautiful, then?" she asks, standing up once it seems that he's settled all his gear where he wants it. "Where I'm from, it's usually the opposite."

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Oh yeah." He says, with a sheepish smile. "The most beautiful women in the world. They make themselves like that. Perfect hair and skin, perfect bodies." He makes a gesture indicating a trim but curvaceous figure. "They kinda...glow when you look at them." He snorts. "I'm not into it 'cause I know better but men usually lose their minds whenever they're around. I mean, you'll see-- I gotta get at least one to help get you home." He huffs. "And whichever one shows up, you'll see what they're like: gorgeous, but they're all nuts." He jingles his coin-purse, weighing the contents and then he herds her gently out of the room.

[thelibertybelle]

She hums, letting him herd her out the door, considering that information.

"I suppose if you can cast magic, you can change anything you dislike about yourself," she allows. The serum hadn't necessarily been tailored for beauty, as she understood it, just peak human performance. It made her taller, it made her healthier, it made her muscles work more efficiently. She's considered beautiful, but she's also muscular, athletic, built to take a punch and dole one out in return. There's very little about her that's soft, apart from arguably her chest. Some men on the internet have very strong opinions about that.

Thankfully, she doesn't give a shit about those opinions.

"So beautiful women don't do anything for you?" she asks him, smirking a little slyly at him as they exit the inn onto the street. "Do you prefer men, then?"

Maybe that's why he's been so awkward around her, so insistent about protecting her virtue after their disastrous meeting.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Huh? What? No." He says, shaking his head. "I just don't prefer those women. Learned my lesson." He says, as his scar twinges. "No, I like...well, it doesn't matter what I like. Forget it, we gotta find you some clothes." He says, steering her past staring people in the dining room.

[thelibertybelle]

There's definitely a whole story there, one that she sort of wants to hear the details of, but she'll wait to press him on it another time.

"Well, I don't know where to start looking, because I can't read any of these goddamn signs," she points out, though she probably could figure it out based on pictures drawn on said signs or what's visible through shop windows. "My dignity's in your hands, pal."

[wolfdogwitcher]

"I'll take good care of it." He promises, his bright eyes scouring the storefronts and market stalls until he spots one with a lot of ladies' shirts hanging beneath it's awning. Steph seems like she might like simple but nice things. And maybe something made of soft wools and linens after she's been wearing and sleeping in her armor?

What the fuck do you know about women and what they do or don't like? His own voice snarls from the back of his head. He shakes it off. It's not like he's shopping for her, just guiding her through an unfamiliar market. She can make up her mind when she sees the shirts.

[thelibertybelle]

As she suspected, if she'd been given enough time, she'd probably have figured out just where she could find some new clothes. Purchasing them might have been tricky, what with her not having a single worldly possession in this universe apart from what she's wearing, but she probably could have traded her armor if she had to.

The shirts look simple and homey, rural in a way that she's not used to after years and years of modern patterns, and some of them even have charming embroidery along the cuffs and collars, colorful flowers that make her think of some of the girls she met in Europe during the war. The needlework is impressive, but she passes them over after a moment of admiration, because surely that's more expensive than plain, and she can't lean on Eskel's charity too much.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"What, you didn't like that one?" He asks, watching her toy with one of the embroidered blouses and then pass over it. The woman running the stall, though she looks a little wary of the witcher and his strange companion, at least respects the coin.

"She likes it very much, I'd wager. Stared at it long enough. Don't you like it, dearie? My old ma does all those flowers herself. Won't find anything made with such care in a city shop, I'd wager!" Even though Eskel was pretty sure this was one of the merchants who would haul their goods down south to the real cities as soon as the spring thaw came.

"If you want the shirt, you can get it." He says. "Think of it as a souvenir for when you get home."

[thelibertybelle]

"Liking has nothing to do with it," she starts to tell him, only to be talked over by the shopkeeper, whose shrewd eye has clearly decided that she's an easy sell and she doesn't care where the payment comes from as long as it's good.

Stephanie can't blame her.

"It's beautiful," she tells the seller, smiling at her and fully intending to turn her down again, but then Eskel gives her a gentle verbal nudge and she finds her determination wavering.

She looks at him, her lips twisting a little. "When, hm?" His conviction is reassuring, but she's still not sure if she can ask him to spend what money he has on something she really doesn't need. What would her ma say?

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Yeah." He says, nudging her shoulder, pressing a coin into her hand. "Get the shirt."

How would she know what anything costs anyway, as long as he doesn't hand her any especially shiny gold prices to tip her off to some great expense.

[thelibertybelle]

The coin means nothing to her; it looks like a large quarter, maybe, a dull dark silver that could be any number of alloys; she has no idea how much it's actually worth. The seller seems happy enough to take it, which makes her wonder if maybe they're overpaying her, but she doesn't know the culture well enough to feel confident haggling, and besides, if the way some of the other townspeople have treated Eskel is any indication, this might be the warmest reception they're going to get for a while.

Sighing, shooting him a look under lowered brows, she hands the coin to the woman and takes the shirt with the blue and red flowers embroidered along the collar, a red cord cinching up the neckline so it won't gape off her shoulders.

"Thank you," she tells the woman, folding the shirt over her arm.

Waiting until they're slightly out of earshot, she sighs and elbows him in the side. "I'm going to pay you back for this."

[wolfdogwitcher]

He shakes his head, walking resolutely among the stalls.

"Sure." He says, knowing full well she's unlikely to have the time or the means. "You can start by humoring me and picking out some pants and maybe some boots so you don't stick out like a sore thumb and get yourself hurt, okay?"