Soft winds sweeping through the eastern eves of Flotsam forest evaporated minute amounts from the droplets beading on Nira's bespeckled cheeks. It sent a cool rush over his firm, blushing skin. He had read once that such coolness comes from heat being absorbed from the surface of the skin into the water, that water being whisked away by currents of the air. It seemed such a simple premise, he pondered. But it had taken such a long time for people to understand such a simple facet of such a trivial aspect of life as why a breeze feels cold on a wet face.
Nira wiped the folding razor on his trouser leg, as that was the only garment in which he was currently clad. He folded the blade and returned it to a buttoning pocket at the side of his thigh. His hands dipped once again into the warm waters of the Dyfne, felt them rush over his calloused skin, through the ridges that had raised in the pads of his fingers like the valleys and crags which it had originated in at the foot of the Blue Mountains, and pulled out a small sampling of them in his cupped palms. Flicking his lengthy hair into the wind and out of his face, he splashed the water around his mouth and chin. He wished not for his hair to have to dry once more, he had already combed it five times that morning after his bathing.
Rising from the sandy bank, he ran those same soggy hands over his now smooth face, dripping down onto his well defined but horrendously scarred chest. The breeze kept up, softly changing each droplet's course, and carrying his naturally crimped champagne coiffure out like a flag behind him. He sent a whistle into the wind, and shortly a dappled brown horse approached from behind. The animal pushed his face through the witcher's hair and snorted into his exposed ear. Nira flinched not, but raised a bare hand to gently scratch the muzzle now brushing up against him. The short, coffee colored fur was soft. The breath emanating there from battled the wind over whether his right cheek should be cold or warm. Nira turned to the beast, and began to walk to his flank. The animal was massive, standing with his shoulder meeting the very tip of Nira's own scalp. As he walked, he used a finger to drag the silvery fringe out the the horse's dark eyes. It too fluttered in the wind like Nira's own mane, as he allowed the animal as many haircuts as he did himself. A soft 'clip' sound, and a minor vibration of the earth piqued Nira's attention, and he furiously dipped his head down to find which hoof the horse had just scuffed the moist earth with. Luckily, the pure white feathering concealing the creature's feet had not been discolored. The witcher had spent far too much effort to wash the gelding in the river to allow it to be marred by the nag's insolent boredom.
Nira inserted a booted foot into the stirrup hanging around the horse's ribs. His high leg pushed hard, and with a jump he grabbed the pommel of the saddle, too high for him to reach without. The leg swing required to get him all the way over the saddle required the witcher go dexterously into a full split. In Dol Blathanna, seven years earlier, he had bought the creature as a foal, sired of some traveling northerner to the local farmer's plow horse. The plow horse was of a size, but none could be said of the father, so Nira thought little of how large the animal could become. Thus he allowed it to stag, and reach its full height. Only when the horse hit sixteen hands at barely a year old did Nira finally castrate the beast, and even then it still grew larger. Now the blonde witcher sat just small enough for the disproportion to be glaring, and gently nudged the beast back towards the trees.
If one were to travel straight through the trees, and cross the Dyfne over again, they would end up in the cesspool of Flotsam. Nira spat on its name, now that he had been informed of the recent pogrom. The forest itself, however, he found beautiful. Atop his horse, he gently approached it's outermost boughs. His coat, and the thin jerkin he wore underneath, were hanging there in the branches. The horse slowed to a stop, and he removed them. A few leaves followed, detaching from their mother plant. They were red around the edges, preparing to fall soon in any case. It had been weeks now that he had spent among the carpet of them, dead and rotting like a compost heap. His camps had been there, under the guise of removing endregas, nekkers, and drowners on the banks of the river. While he did a small bit of these tasks, in truth, he had been an agent of the Scoia'tael, and of the revolution. They had funneled a small amount of coin to the locals to put up a few contracts that he may show the Aedirnians should they come poking around his business. Once the night fell after their satisfaction with his purpose, the Squirrels would sneak down through the forests, and he would report on the movements of the soldiers in question. He expected some sort of a reward for his service, if but an acknowledgement. However, perhaps a nation to retreat to when genocidal tendencies flared and mutants were not crossed off of the list of non-humans was reward enough. But perhaps he could ask the mysterious one eyed Aen Seidhe and his unspoiled dragon slaying mistress about this consideration. Dragon slayer. He had slain a dragon before as well. In Nazair. It was green, but still a dragon.
As he wrapped himself in the garments, the seal fur lining tickling what bare skin it touched, he led the horse onto the dry, dusty gravel road. This was the first time that he had been comfortably out in the open in quite a time. But the Elves had come a night ago, and told him that the revolution was won. There were no Aedirnians for miles, no life in fact, for miles. Excepting the bear schooled witcher of the far north and his enormous mount. With the late morning sun on his right cheek, and the wind blowing crossways into the forest, Nira of Malleore set off at a walk in the free state of Vergen.