Chapter Text
Since she was small Milena has dreamt of a cottage tucked away in a hidden valley in the woods. It's small, and certainly nowhere near ostentatious enough for her parents, but every detail carries with it a gentle warmth that tells her this is a home not just another place to rest.
She longs for that sense of safety and comfort before she can even put it into words. Somewhere she can see the touch of skilled hands in every detail, from the garden to the delicate carvings around the mirror. She can almost see the ones who live there, waking with their names on her lips and a feeling of loss when she can never remember what she was about to say.
But Milena also knows, from just as young, that she is not destined for a tucked-away cottage in the woods. She is a daughter of the nobility, and she will marry for the glory of her father and her home. Her tiny cottage in the forest is nothing more than a comforting dream to hold onto through the worst nights, when her father's temper is too much to shoulder on her own.
Then her father announces her betrothal to Duke Velen and even her dearest dream isn't a comfort anymore. The guards her father sends with her swear to see her safely tok her wedding, but they all know they stand guard at night to ensure she does not run away more than to prevent harm from befalling her. But Milena has no intention of running, nor bringing harm upon her family by making a scene, not until the innkeeper's daughter at the latest town meets her eyes as she delivers her meal.
“Be careful of the woods, my lady, the ones north of town. They say there's something alive in them, and they don't release what they take. If you venture inside you'll never make it to your wedding, so be sure you steer clear.”
Milena looks into the young woman's eyes and shivers, nodding and thanking her for the warning. Then she dares ask if she might have a bath sent up to her rooms. The innkeeper's daughter nods and carries up the tub and bucket after bucket of water. At the end she also leaves a small pack of cleaning things, and Melina is able to close the door with her guards on the other side.
When she checks the pack there's a small wrapped cheese and some waybread beneath the soap and towels which she carefully sets aside. Grabbing a change of clothes and her sewing kit, she slips on her sturdy walking dress and boots before shouldering the pack and considering her options. In the end she settles on the window, and though she has had little cause to practice such a think she is able to climb down without issue. She makes it as far as the forests edge when she hears the shouting start and plunges in before she can change her mind.
She runs until she can't hear the town anymore, then walks until dark, stumbling out of the fog into a large clearing. Something hunters in the center, making a low yowl that brings her to a halt, before her vision clears and it resolves into a battered building. And on the porch is a misshapen cat crouched low as it voices it's displeasure.
Milena inches forward, trying to get a better look and thinks she sees scars before the creature vanishes under the porch. Poor thing. The building is dilapidated enough it's likely been on its own for some time. She leaves some of the cheese out for it before going inside.
Inside is bare and dusty, but more ournless out of the wind and rain and she curls up in a likely looking stretch of floor to pass out before she can think better of it. She's sleep before she can even consider eating dinner first, and it's not until dawn that she wakes to something poking at her hand with a cold nose.
Milena blinks awake slowly, finding herself face to face with the ugliest cat she's ever seen. It ducks back as soon as she get a look at it, only to slink forward again a moment later, rubbing it's head under her fingers like it can’t remember quite how. She risks curling them, running her fingers through matted fur around the creature's cheek and the resulting purr startles them both.
“You are much sweeter than you sounded last evening,” Milena tells it, and shares her chese again, eating the bread herself. “Let's see what we're working with, shall we?”
From the outside the house looks less dire than she first thought at first and in the yard she can just make out the shape of berry bushes ringing the all but empty field. In fact, if it wasn't for the lack of the sprawling garden it would look almost like the clearing from her dreams.
“I am unused to much of the work that is required to make such a place liveable,” Milena tells the curious cat batting st her shoelaces. “But I imagine the next step must be to secure a source of water. What do you say?”
The cat in turn perks up, chirping a wheezing sort of call before trotting around the house to an ancient water pump. When Milena tries it the handle it resists but eventually relents, issuing a spirt of red-brown water. The next attempt is less discolored, less difficult, and the third comes easily and clear enough to risk drinking. Milena cups a hand underneath the flow to sate her thirst, then holds a palm full foe the cat, smiling at the sandpaper of it's tongue as it drinks.
The rest of the day she spends gathering berries and cleaning the house as best she can with only the bucket and rags she found in one of the rooms. She sups on berries and bread, giving the cat the last of her cheese before falling asleep again.
When she wakes the next morning the cottage is in significantly better repair than Milena remembers. Several of the loose boards have been replaced and the whole thing has been scrubbed clean. A makeshift mattress of braken and sweet smelling grass has been built along the back wall as well, covered by a threadbare sheet she hadn't seen in her earlier explorations.
The cat looks better too, it's fur still patchy between the scars but no longer matted and filthy. In fact the only dirt seems to be soap residue on its paws and a few stands of grass woven into its fur. Milena runs her fingers over its back, gently detangling the grass as she thinks. Ultimately she decides to leave it be, not questioning her good fortune. She presses a kiss to the top of the cat’s head with a whispered thanks, then rises to go about her day.
The rest of the week follows in a blur of trial and error. She survives off summer berries and apples from the small orchard she found along with the last of the waybread, just where it should be, cleans the yard as best she can and the space the shed was in her dreams, but she knows she can't continue this way indefinitely. The cat, at the very least, deserves food it doesn't have to hunt in exchange for the work she suspects it's doing every night and she needs to find a source of food that will last beyond the summer.
She decides to risk returning to town to exchange the few coins she managed to gather for more bread and cheese. The cat seems distressed by her decision, weaving around her legs as she passes the berry bushes as though trying to herd her back to the cottage.
“I won't be gone long,” she reassures it. “Just to town and back. And I'll return with more of that cheese you like.”
Nothing she says will console it, and it yowls at the edge of the deep woods as she leaves it behind, pacing back and forth in distress. Milena almost turns back immediately, but forces herself to keep walking. She isn't abandoning it, but nothing will prove that until she returns.
She's not yet halfway to town when she stumbles on an unfamiliar basket tucked into the roots of a tree. Covered in a scrap of oilcloth and containing more waybread, cheese, and one of her dresses with a piece of paper folded on top of it. The paper proves to be a contract promising a reward if she is found and returned to the Duke's men. Milena freezes, peering into the woods, but no soldiers materialize to drag her away so it wasn't a trap, but a warning.
She feels odd taking the basket without payment, and so leaves her handkerchief in return, hoping the embroidery might be worth a little in repayment for the kindness she's been shown. Then she hefts the basket as best she can and hurries back.
The cat is ecstatic when she returns, ignoring even fresh cheese to stay by her side. And the next morning there's a foundation laid out for the shed where she knows for certain there wasn't one before.
“You're a Grimalkin, aren't you?” Milena asks as the cat purrs under her hands. “A helpful spirit who takes the form of a cat when anyone is looking?”
The cat does not reply, rolling over in her lap to have its belly scratched. But she supposes that's an answer enough all its own.
“Thank you,” she tells it instead. “For everything.”
The cat purrs harder.
Milena's next foray into town is interrupted by another offering. Like the first there's some small packages of cheese and bread, with a precious package of salted pork and several loops of wool thread in blue and orange. On the top is a contract for a Witcher, to hunt a monster in the forest who is kidnapping women.
Milena leaves the first basket in exchange, a small bounty of summer berries wrapped in the oilcloth scrap, and hurries back to the cottage instead of continuing on. The idea that a Witcher might hurt her Grimalkin scaring her more than the idea that she might be hurt herself.
The first Witcher’s arrival, if it can properly be called that, isn't even due to the contract. Instead Melina looks up from her attempt at an embroidered bluebird on her spare kerchief when the cat starts a low threatening yowl on the far side of the cottage from town. It tries to push Melina away when she gets close, but not soon enough to stop her from catching sight of the figure collapsed at the base of a tree holding his chest in pain. She freezes for a moment at the idea of a wound grievous enough to stop a Witcher, but then she's stepping forward again in spite of the cat's complaints.
“Master Witcher? Is there aught I can do to assist?”
Cat slotted yellow eyes blink open, snapping up to her face with nearly human shock before the Witcher realizes he'd blacked out briefly before she called. He swears under his breath, quietly enough she can at least pretend not to have heard it in spite of her burning cheeks.
“And fuck, you're serious.” The Witcher finishes, growling faintly under his breath before subsiding. “Thread, if you have any to spare. Whatever food you're willing to part with, and hell a fucking roof to sleep under for the night if you feel like being generous.”
“I can provide all of these,” Milena agrees, mildly baffled by the assumption she would choose to offer only thread. “One moment.”
She returns to her embroidery for a thread and the leftover orange as there is more of it remaining. She threads the needle with hands that do not shake, though the rest of her is, then hurries back to the Witcher, who begins the messy process of sealing his torn skin as she hurriedly turns away and goes about gathering the leftover berries and last of the bread from lunch, leaving them within arms reach before she turns to the nearby bushes to start gathering more.
When she finishes everything she can gather within easy reach she looks up to find the Witcher watching her with a frown.
“The fuck you doing?”
Milena finds herself straightening at the sharp tone and has to bite back an instinctively cutting reply, reminding herself that he is, in fact, injured and as such not in the best control of his words.
“You requested what food I could spare. And as I have been mostly subsisting off of wild berries for the last few weeks I must gather more should you wish to make a full meal out of them.”
To punctuate her point she stood, dusting off her skirt before moving the basket beside him.
“Why are you out here eating nothing but berries? Wait, fuck, that came out wrong. Shit. I can gather my own damn berries, you don't have to do all that.”
Melina's rage fades at that, oddly charmed by his fumbling. Still, she shakes her head. “I do not know overly much about Witchers, but I would imagine that you are not supposed to move around while being held together by thread. So I must insist that you allow me to gather them on my own for now.”
The witcher blinks up at her, bemused, before huffing out a disbelieving breath.
“Uh… Sure? You, uh, mentioned a roof?”
“Of course. Can you stand on your own or would you like assistance.”
The witcher frowns, taking in her slight form with increased bafflement.
“Can I fucking--? Uh, by myself. Thanks. I think I'd crush you, and then your cat would kill me.”
Melina considers the still grumbling grimalkin at her feet. “Perhaps you are right. Very well, right this way Master Witcher.”