Criminal?

"Halt!" - an armed soldiers in a blue outfit adorned with white lilies stepped in front of two horsemen, preventing their path forward with crossed halberds.

"What might be the case for you to stop us?" - asked a man with deep even voice, holding on the reins of his horse and leaning slightly forward. That way he can easily unsheathe sword and protect the girl currently sitting in front of him.

"Remove your hoods, we are searching for a dangerous criminal." - said the soldier, but then his eyes shifted to the side of the horse and traced an armored hand holding one of the two swords idly. And here it goes... only an idiot will be fooled by lazy attitude, as the pair of swords that had a wolf head adorning their top, clearly belonged to a witcher.

Temerian soldier looked up and saw cat like eyes and white hair. He gulped sown his saliva in nervousness, as he knew who the man was. Still, witcher seems to be uninterested in their plight and removed the hood, following by his passenger and another man, no, a youth on the horse by his side.

When soldiers saw them, they almost visibly tensed up, holding their weapons tighter, which made both riders frown.

"So, can we pass?" - asked Geralt, but before he received an answer soldier suddenly stepped back staring at Alan.

He said something to his man by the side and the later sped away, making both riders bored and annoyed. After several seconds soldier came back with the fat person in some noble clothing, who had a parchment with him.

First, the man opened it and looked at Alan several times, before nodding and clearing his throat.

"That's the criminal, who committed capital crime against the crown! Apprehend him immediately and escort to the King himself! Order is given!" - the messenger screamed and whole battalion of them moved forward with weapons, but just as they were to attack Alan's horse they rammed into invisible shield he created.

It was one of the variations of Protego Isu he spent much to develop after a night battle and it seems it works wonders at least on people. Albeit it can protect only from physical attacks and intrusion, for the regular army it was more than enough. But... it lost ability to defend against magic and channeling a two layer protection was too cost ineffective.

So it was like a result in the middle of research.

"Let us talk politely." - said Alan. - "First, can I know what crime I am incriminated with?"

"You stole the property of the crown! Namely two items!" - said the fat man with slight fear.

"I never even was to Wyzima, how can I steal anything?" - Alan was very perplexed about all of this.

"Everything on the territory of Temeria belongs to the king!" - said soldier proud with his flawless argument and youth just sighed in frustration.

"So everything I have, even this horse is stolen from the King of Temeria the moment I cross the border? Maybe I should reconsider entering it." - said Alan with a smile that was quite threatening to the eyes of soldiers.

"You stole two items! Namely, a sword, that was found by Order of White Rose and a Sphere the Order of White Rose used to valiantly defeat the Monster of Maribor!" - declared the soldier.

Alan really stared at the soldier wide eyed now.

"Oh, so it is the Order who accomplished all that now, huh? And what about testimony of Triss Merigold, Lambert, witcher of Wolf School and Coen, witcher of Chimera School?" - asked Alan evenly. By mentioning this Geralt already understood what is going on and scowled inwardly. Whoever was doing this went way above the norms and customs of the North.

This is blatant robbery and in the name of the King of Temeria, no less.

However, Alan watched closely the reaction on the names and found none. They didn't seem to be implicated in all this mess or weren't found yet.

Messenger began to fidget a bit.

"Fine, whatever. Show me the direct order of a King for my detention."

"I have an order signed directly by the Hand of a King duke of Ellander, Herewald."

"Meaning it not the Kings order, but some duke using the name of a King to gain personal benefits? Perhaps he thought he can easily rob a youth? Is he an idiot?" - scoffed Alan and raised his hand, using accio. The whole manuscript directly teleported to his hand. - "Wow, this is big, using a name of a King on a forged charge to rob a traveler and a witcher to boot. Do you even know that I can go directly to your king and ask for official Trial of Blood? Which is technically just a duel to the death. Your duke Herewald seems to be so damn tired of life, huh?" - Alan was really angry this time. - "Let alone the Sphere you shits are talking about is my family heirloom, and the sword is this very silver sword of Dragon School. A witcher sword, you kretins! So tell me, creature, do you dare to apprehend me? If you dare, I will let you do just that, but you will not have anything from me." - with that Alan waved a hand and sword just disappeared. Go, prove that he stole anything. - "And if by chance your King wants to see me for this matter, I will humbly accept, but I hope that with me he will also make sure to invite and have as guests the other three people from my party, as, I'm sure, King Foltest as a benevolent and righteous individual and capable ruler of the country, will want to know the real picture before making decisions over the case."

The fat man sweat a bucket and just looked at Alan opening and closing his mouth like a fish on a shore under the scorching sun.

"I... I need to report it!" - he finally squeezed a semblance of an answer.

"Awesome, you report and we will be on our way. Right?"

"Y-Yes?" - he said something incomprehensible, but Alan didn't listen, only turned to Geralt and Ciri when they already resumed their way. - "It seems I will have to go to sort out some loose ends in the future."

"Need help? I am acquainted with Foltest." - than Geralt remembered something and added. - "Not the worst King possible."

"Some compliment to get from you. No, I won't go there now, no reason to do that, actually. It is not like anyone is in danger and Herewald can't be so idiotic to assault us. I'm in no rush." - smirked Alan and saw very curious gaze of forest green eyes. - "What, our princess is craving to know what happened?"

"No." - she turned with a huff and went a bit red. Somehow for some time she started to ignore Alan directly, but he can feel her gaze on him from time to time.

"I don't mind telling. One hell of a story and the reason I hate teleportation and portals as a whole." - Geralt immediately grew interested, as he didn't hear the whole story, only a very short version. And the hate of portals was personal matter to him. He finally found a like-minded individual.

With that Alan started to narrate the story and duo listened, starting from meeting Coen for the first time, then to the girl in spider form to which Geralt frowned as a professional and Ciri outright cried.

Innocent soul.

It went to meeting Lambert and escaping Dillingen, by that time they stopped for a night camp and Ciri sat very close to him, while listening to his adventures like some fairytale. He talked about some laughing matters about Lambert, his nearly unstoppable love of booze and several task they completed on the way and ended it with the story of Maribor, where the four of them were separated.

"Wow... it's like stories I used to listen from my grandma..." - then Ciri sadly looked to her little boots and pretended to be very enthralled by their dirty state. Suddenly a hand landed on her head and ran through her hair. She normally would have shoved it away already in angry denial, but this particular hand felt warm and right. It birthed only vague comfort and slight pleasure inside her. Pleasure one would feel being pampered by someone accepted as close person.

So despite her strong front and rebellious character, Ciri just leaned over, placed her head on his knees and quickly fell asleep.

"Geralt." - Alan asked softly enough to not disturb little girl on his lap. - "Why do you hate portals?"

"Saw how they malfunctioned. Several times. Once the man walked out, missing half of his body. He was feeling lighter for several seconds before death." - said witcher bluntly and seeing curious gaze sighed, continuing. - "The worst case was during the start of my witcher career. Back then for a short time all the nobles, golden youths and just rich people have a strange fashion for portals. They paid huge money to use them to arrive for their parties. Well, one such day I saw how a lover of this method of transportation walked out of the portal cleaved symmetrically in half. And then all his innards were all over the floor."

"One of the stupidest ways to say goodbye to you life." - said Alan marveling over what people will only do to keep appearances. How fake and full of lies can it get? No wonder Geralt hates such gatherings to the bone.

Nowadays honesty is frowned upon. Times are like so.