His hands wouldn't stop trembling.

The man glared down at his trembling hands, old allies that now betrayed him. With a great effort, he focused on the gloved fingers, he tried to force them to be still, but the more he focused, the more they shivered. A far cry from the confident, steady hands of the past.

Kneeling next to the small campfire, the tall figure turned his eyes toward the flames, trying to find focus there. At his side, an empty bottle lay in the dirt, its contents long since exhausted. He sighed, closing his eyes. Old meditative techniques flickered through his mind, but silence evaded his focus, a myriad thoughts rising up to distract him. He clenched his eyes shut, wrestling with his mind for a long, long moment, before finally allowing his eyes to snap open with a frustrated groan.

The man was tall, easily towering head and shoulders over most men. His frame was powerful, but lean. Skin pale as fallen snow gleamed an inhuman hue, with thick, dark veins close under the surface of the flesh- mutations that hinted at his true nature. That nature was only further confirmed by the gleaming yellow eyes, their vertically slit pupils expanding and narrowing like those of a cat. Around his neck, a silver medallion moulded into the form of a snarling wolf's head bared its fangs at the world, rubies gleaming in its eye sockets. To those who recognised such features, the truth of the man was apparent- a Witcher, a mutated monster hunter. However, few if any of the common folk could have truly known who they were looking at. This man, so weary, bearing the weight of so many hard years, was Raven, Grandmaster of the School of the Wolf.

The Witcher's trembling fingers reached for a pouch on his belt, pulling a small glass vial from there. His tongue clicked against the back of his teeth as he lifted the vial to his eyes, noting the scant few white grains that remained within. Spent. He'd need to acquire some more. Without it, the cacophony of noise within his mind grew too loud to bear. Maybe, when he returned to Kaer Tiele...

The thought of the old castle brought a surge of emotions rampaging through his heart and his head. Sorrow, guilt, frustration. His School, his grand design for a better future, a stronger Guild of Witchers. A vision that had been bought with blood and suffering. A dream whose roots were fed on treachery and horror. An ambition gone awry.

Bitterness seized the Witcher's throat as memories assaulted him. The rush of blood in his veins. The pounding pressure in his skull. The screams. The booming silence that followed. The growing realisation that slithered into his soul, how he had been played for a fool, his ambition turned against him.

More images rose in his mind, unbidden. The bloody visages of his Witcher brethren in the aftermath. Svar, his blades dripping with crimson. Meinard, veins bulging with Alchemical chaos as his eyes glowed a fearsome, sickly yellow. Gregor, hands blackened from arcane fire. The others, just barely restraining the bestial wrath that boiled within them, heightened by potions, adrenaline, and the unpredictable nature of their mutations. His own hands, stained with the lifeblood of the final victim of the assault.

The tremor in his hands was growing worse. Stubbornly, the Witcher Grandmaster banished the thoughts from his mind. He needed to find peace, to escape from the dark gloom such memories threatened to drown him in. The Path would provide. It was why he had left Kaer Tiele behind, at least for a little while. He'd hoped, perhaps in vain, that being here, out on the trail of a monster, doing what a Witcher was supposed to be doing, that he might find some respite.

The Witcher reached for his swords, carefully wrapped in a bundle by the fire. He uncovered the long, sleek blades, pitted with age, although their edges remained fearsomely sharp. Even after all this time spent sitting in the castle, seeing to the running of his School, the Grandmaster would not allow his blades to go uncared for. He wrapped a hand around the hilt of the silvered blade, lifting it before his eyes. In his mind, the motions of combat began to flicker, countless stances, ripostes and counters. He'd been a master of the blade, once, and those instincts remained deeply ingrained.

Slowly, almost trance-like, he rose to his feet, tracing a small practice drill. He thrust, stepped back, dodged and jabbed in a swift series of motions, the blade spinning around him in a blur, tracing a silver orb that utterly encircled the Witcher. His burning eyes closed, raw intuition taking over as he ran through the almost meditative routine, centring himself.

A sudden, low growl echoed through the forest. Deep, powerful, escaping from a throat large enough to swallow a man whole. Somewhere close by, a titanic beast lumbered through the forest. Raven's eyes opened at the sound, looking about warily. His prey was close by. The blood in his veins began to pulse just a little more quickly, the excitement of the hunt rising. Even so, he couldn't help but feel a little apprehension. His target was dangerous, to say the least. Few Witchers would dare to take on such a foe. Regardless, the Grandmaster of the Wolves was determined.

The Witcher quickly reached down to his belt. A single vial sat in a small leather pouch there, the liquid inside gleaming a dull red colouration. Antivenom. Raven hoped that he would not need it, but had known it would be wise to be prepared, regardless. His brothers at the castle had known exactly what would be required for a hunt like this, and he had listened to their advice.

Tensing his muscles, the Wolf Witcher turned to face the source of the noises, preparing himself to square off with the oncoming monster. He tightened his grip on his sword, and braced himself for the impending fight, ready to look death in the eye and strike it down.

His hands wouldn't stop trembling.