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Chapter Text

It begins when a deserter bangs on their door one night, and though the late fall air is frigid and still, he can already smell the alcohol wafting in through the cracks. Mother smiles feebly at him, and she mouths go inside your head, baby.

He takes a deep breath and tries, but he's not very good at it, not yet. He can't stop himself when the man stomps in, grumbling about the early chill in the air and pushing Mother up against the wall. She makes her usual sounds of pleasure, little sighs at the back of her throat, but she also tries to speak. "Good sir," she breathes. "The usual rate is fifty for a lay, and half before -"

His backhand is shockingly swift, for someone who's swaying on his feet. "Shut up, whore, I'll pay you when you've done your job."

Mother touches a hand to her lip, though she has not made a sound. It hasn't happened in awhile, but it's not uncommon. It's usually soldiers who like to do the hitting, and Eskel has seen worse. I'm not here, he thinks to himself fiercely, even though he can't take his eyes off the scene before him. He presses his back more firmly into the corner, his breath held.

"Get on that lousy excuse of a bed," he growls, and Mother goes down easy, her head bowed. She never looks Eskel in the eye when this happens, but it's the best she can do. They're lucky to even have this little shack at all, far enough from the town that they don't get trouble, but close enough that they're not wanting for customers. 

Mother makes more practiced sounds as her clothes get tugged off or shoved aside, then the man is grunting more alcohol breath into the air, his upper lip curled as if he can't decide if he's angry at Mother or at himself.

Eskel must have moved by accident, because all at once the bloodshot eyes are on him and the man jerks in surprise.

"What the fuck," he snarls, and jumps back quick enough that Mother's eyes shoot open in confusion. Then she gasps as he grabs her hair and drags her off the bed just like that, all with one arm.

"I din' pay for a bleedin' audience!" His spit makes a visible cloud in the air, then he's slapping Mother across the face with his other hand.

Mother wheezes and tries to catch her breath, clawing at the hand in her hair. "M'lord," she slurs. "Plu-pluh..."

He hits her again, then aims a few kicks at her stomach until she's curled up on the floor and retching. "Fuckin', fuckin' loose wench, get that - that whoreson -" he misses the next kick, then staggers back and knocks his head on the shelf behind. 

"The fuck," he roars. A sharp sound of steel, a dagger's in his hand. "Still lookin' at me, boy?"

He hoists Mother up by her hair again. Eskel looks at her face - and he knows, she's gone inside her head herself, and he tells himself it's okay, it's okay, let it be over. But he can't look away.

"You like to watch, huh? Y'like to - to - watch this, cunt," the man hisses.

Eskel watches as the dagger glides across Mother's throat, gentle like a caress. He watches the skin tear open and the blood spurt out. Go inside your head, he tells himself desperately, as Mother falls to the floor and does not get up.

The man is laughing wetly, and his form is growing and growing. Then he realises - no, he's not growing, but coming closer. The sloping shoulders block the light behind him and Eskel keeps looking. Then he's grabbed roughly by the shoulders and thrown across the bed, and now his body responds automatically, scrambling away, but the man is faster. The man is still raving, something about bastards and whoresons and other disjointed curses of no meaning. The hand around his wrist grips so tight that Eskel yelps and thrashes, but he's always been small for his age, and even if he weren't, he's no match. He struggles anyway, blinded by fear, then something wrenches free in his shoulder and he lets out a whimper and goes limp.

He tries to catch his breath, and his heart is going rabbit-quick in his chest, but he's flipped over and now the man is looming too near, and there's a ripping sound and a thin, hot pressure at the base of his spine.

He screams then, a thin high trembling sound, and he doesn't know if he will ever stop screaming because it hurts so much, and there's too much movement, and there's the smell of sweat in the air and the taste of blood in his mouth, and he doesn't know what's happening or why, only that he wants it to be over.

Eskel runs out of breath, eventually, and goes quiet. His vision darkens and brightens intermittently, and then suddenly he jolts awake and all the pain is back and the man is laughing and he must be screaming again, but he can't tell for sure now.

Suddenly, there's a discordant crunch sound that cuts through the noise, and the man drops his entire weight onto Eskel. He moans and shoves weakly, fingernails digging, before he realises that the man is looking at him unblinkingly, and that one eye is completely gone with a crossbow bolt sticking right out of it.

Vomit bubbles up his throat and he does pass out then.

When he opens his eyes, he's not in the house anymore. He's shivering on the cold ground outside, half-covered by a rough sheet and aching down to his bones, and he feels like he can't move his fingers and toes, but more importantly:

A man with cat eyes is leaning over him.

He screams and rolls away, or at least he means to: his body manages a shudder and a weak mewl.

The cat eyes gleam lamplike in the dim light from the now-vacant house, but the edges crinkle with something soft like worry. The cat-eyed man is whispering something like a prayer in a different language, but Eskel can barely stay awake. He can feel the world spinning around him and glowing brighter, his insides going numb and light.

Then the man says, it's over, boy, you're safe.

Eskel exhales and closes his eyes, but he's cried so much that there's nothing left.

This is all I can give you, the man murmurs, and if it kills you may it be quick. A finger coated in some tincture shoves messily past Eskel's teeth, and the potion burns and burns. He coughs and chokes and feels it eat at his lips, his tongue, his throat, but he has nothing left to give, so he lies on the floor silently shaking through the throes of it. But after the burning it feels like a thick wooly blanket has been thrown over all his hurts - they're muted now, like a pain he can see from far away and can only guess at. Finally, Eskel sighs and falls into a long, dreamless sleep.

The worst night ends when he blinks awake slowly, days later. He's so surprised he almost falls right off the horse immediately, but the man seated behind him hooks a forearm around his waist and holds him in place.

"What - where -" Eskel tries to say, but stops. His voice comes out in reedy, thin wheezes of air, as if someone has sewn his throat shut from the inside.

"Don't try to speak," the man grunts. "You'll probably heal in a week or so. Dunno. Never tried Tawny on humans before, heh."

The horse falters a little as they turn up a narrow path towards the mountain. Eskel feels it all the way to his stomach, shifts and whimpers with each movement. It feels as though his entire body is a bruise. He struggles again, weakly, squirming and putting elbows everywhere until the man lets them dismount.

"Stop that fussing," he grumbles eventually, shoving a waterskin in Eskel's face. Eskel grabs it but doesn't drink, just looks at the man properly: he's lean and a little on the thin side, with scars cutting through his right eyebrow and disappearing up into his hairline. His armour's old and worn, and he's wearing a curious chain around his neck of an animal Eskel has never seen before.

"Your captor's dead," he assures Eskel. "I'm bringing you to the wolves, since it's close enough. Looks like you might actually make it there alive." He grins like something is funny, but the humour doesn't reach his eyes. "Well, if you survived your ordeal, you'd probably survive the Trials."

Eskel doesn't understand a word he says, but he relaxes slightly and lets the man scoop him back onto the saddle. "Thank you," he whispers, remembering his manners and how Mother had taught him. Smile and thank them, no matter what they've done to you. Or we don't get to eat.

The man barks out a laugh. "Don't thank me, boy. You'll be cursing me in a few years yet."

They reach a fortress in the mountains before dawn three days later. It's only when the man announces himself that Eskel realises that he doesn't know who the man is.

"Merten, School o' Manticore," he calls out to the gatekeeper, who scowls back at him.

"Heard there were no Manticores left," the gatekeep says.

"You must be daydreaming up ugly old men all by yourself, huh," Merten shoots back, reining his horse in. "Keep your tits in, I'm not here to winter with a bunch of mangy dogs. Go on, boy."

Eskel dismounts obediently, wincing, squinting up at the high wooden gates. Is this a castle?

The gatekeeper steps forward cautiously. "How old is this one?"

"Ask him yourself. Tell the old asshole I said 'suck my cock'."

Eskel turns, mouth half-open, but Merten's horse is already cantering back down the slope. "Wait!" he shouts, desperate: but his throat just flutters around air and he makes a soft airy shriek instead.

The gatekeep is muttering something about grumpy old bastards, but he grabs Eskel's shoulders with firm hands to give him a once over. Eskel flinches but doesn't look at his face; he feels tears coming to his eyes again. The man leans closer, staring intently at the acid-burn scars around his lips, then his eyes go wide. "Fuck, did he give you a Witcher potion?"

The watcher all but drags him into the building, which is blissfully warm at least, but Eskel can't stop shaking. By the time he's thrust under the nose of another cat-eyed man with grey hair, he's wheezing and doubled over, as though trying to hide from the pain blossoming all over his body. The man in front of him stands firm like a statue, tall and old and austere. Eskel shudders and looks off into the middle distance: Go inside, go inside, go inside.

"Vesemir, got something for you."

Vesemir stares unblinkingly for a long, hard moment, then says flatly, "What the fuck, Varin."

"Another witcher dropped him off, I don't know the rest of it," Varin shrugs. "Said he was from the School of the Manticore, I didn't catch his name..."

"Merten, the old bastard," he murmurs, still looking warily at Eskel. "He say anything else?"

"Er," Varin draws up awkwardly. "In his words. He said, 'tell the old guy to suck my cock'. Sorry."

Vesemir lets out a sigh. "Yeah, that's Merten. Just like him to dump a half-dead boy on my doorstep and tell me to shove it."

Varin shifts restlessly. "Well? Should I put him up with the Bastion boys?"

"How old are you, boy?" Vesemir asks, not unkindly.

Eskel blinks under the weight of his gaze. "Eight, good sir," Eskel whispers, like how Mother taught him to.

Vesemir raises an eyebrow. "Would've guessed six. Well, at least you look like you've already been to Hell."

"Pretty sure Merten made him drink some Tawny too," Varin mutters. 

"Looks like," Vesemir intones lowly, frowning as he peers at the damage done. He drags a gentle thumb along Eskel's lower lip curiously. It's only then that Eskel reacts: yelps and scuttles a few steps back, colliding into Varin's knees and shaking all over.

"Whoa," Varin gasps, grasping Eskel by the armpits and jarring his torn shoulder. Eskel rasps and twists wildly.

"Whoa," Varin says again, gentler this time, his hands hovering but not touching, like he's trying to calm a spooked horse.

Vesemir's face darkens. "One of those, then," he sighs, sadly. "Alright, get him a pallet with the others. He'll probably be fit enough to start in a week or so."

Chapter Text

Eskel doesn't get out of bed for more than a week except to wash and relieve himself, until someone comes to check on him by upending a bucket of icy water over his head. 

Chapter Text

Everything whirls in black-white-brown and the sour taste in his mouth is still fresh. He stumbles blindly as he's pushed up the steep tower steps. There's a bang, then a gruff and annoyed, "What did I say about involving me -"

Two amber orbs are floating in front of his swimming vision. Vesemir waves carelessly in Eskel's face, and mutters, "Calm down. You can stop crying now."

The words wash over him, cold and clear and convincing. The effect is instantaneous, and Eskel's hiccups cease. He gulps lungfuls of air, blinding and shuddering. It feels as if a part of him leaves his body, and he's gone inside his head for real this time, but can clearly see everything that's happening. He keeps his eyes on Vesemir, entranced, awaiting further instruction.

"He almost killed another," Varin says shortly. "I've stopped the bleeding and sewn him up, but his brain... well, it's bad."

"Which boy is this? How old?"

"Squirrel."

"Damn." Vesemir stalks away a few paces, then sits down on his chair and scrubs a hand over his face. "I keep telling myself not to care so much. Then shit like this -" He sighs. "Early Trial might save him. Fuck, he's too young, isn't he."

"Thought of that too," Varin says, rubbing at his jaw thoughtfully. "But either way he's dead, so we might as well try."

Vesemir nods mutely. "Maybe just the wild rye and speargrass, should be enough to give him a chance. He survives, he won't be a witcher, but at least he'll have a name. And we could put him to work."

"Yeah," Varin murmurs. "I'll ask Sorel to start brewing. This one though -"

He turns back to Eskel, who's still gazing intently at Vesemir. There's a feeling in his head that feels like a faint pull, like it's a born instinct to follow what he says exactly. He watches Vesemir attentively, eager to please. He's being calm. He's being good.

"Tell me what happened," Vesemir commands.

It's like a switch flips inside his head, then the words pour out, clear and even, though some part of Eskel feels like he should be stammering. "We were practising an' Squirrel was hitting me, an' it hurt a lot but I din' wanna drop my sword, or we'd all get punished, so I went inside my head an' it stopped hurtin' so much, an' he's smaller than me so I knew I could win, so I tried to be strong, an' I hit him back..."

"Did you mean to harm him?"

The question nudges him and more truths spill out. "No, sir, I jus' wanted to be good."

Vesemir traces a shape in the air again, and Eskel blinks out of his haze. Everything slides back into sharp clarity, and he almost opens his mouth to ask what happened. Instead the heavy fear in his gut grows again, and he feels himself shrink away slightly, casting his eyes to the floor.

"A witcher is never bested by human emotions," Vesemir intones, his voice rumbling and surprisingly gentle. "Least of all fear."

Eskel nods, though he barely understands. Tears brim his eyes again, but he tries his best not to blink. "'M sorry, sir, please forgive me, I'll do anything," he says meekly, staring up beseechingly.

Vesemir shoots a sharp glance at Varin. "He keeps doing it," Varin grumbles, shrugging. "Trust me, it gives me the creeps, too."

"Trust Merten's whoremongering arse to multitask. He pluck you straight out of a brothel?"

"What's a brothel?" Eskel blurts, then ducks his head again, bracing for a blow that doesn't come.

Vesemir sighs again, ragged, then turns away. "Whip him into shape, or I will," he tells Varin, but it comes out tiredly.

Varin nods and leads Eskel out wordlessly, and Eskel trails after him all the way back to the boys' rooms.

"Will... will Squirrel be okay?" Eskel finally asks, when they reach the door.

"We'll find out soon enough." Varin points Eskel in. "You're to stay in this room and think long and hard about what happened today. Get in bed."

"Okay, sir," Eskel agrees, and starts to slip his tunic off. His mind begins to drift a little.

The blow knocks him so hard that he falls against the wall, ears ringing.

"No. Don't do that - NEVER do that again," Varin barks, his yellow eyes slitted and startling. His hand is still raised. "I meant - you're grounded, don't leave, this is a punishment. Melitele's fucking ballsack," he snarls to himself, then he's gone, banging the door shut behind him.

Rubbing at his temples, Eskel crawls under the covers, then he spends the remaining hours of the day thinking about Squirrel's twitching body and tonguing at the sore bitten spot on his lip.

It's well past sunset when the boys spill into the room, chittering in excited half-whispers. Eskel barely gets to blink out of his half-dozed state when Geralt leaps completely onto him and lands with his knees digging into his stomach.

"Ow, gerroff," he gasps weakly, kicking out.

"Did you hear?" Geralt asks, squirming to avoid Eskel's kicks. "Squirrel's goin' t'be a witcher!"

"No, he's not, he's going to die," Clovis sighs.

"You don't know that," Hare shoots back, his hands already curling into fists. "Don't say that!"

"'S true, though." Jarian flops onto his bed dramatically, sprawling on his back. "You gotta be at least nine years old, and I heard Oswin say that Squirrel can't nearly be eight. And Reynar and Dirram and Jakob are taller than him and they're nine."

Hare hisses in discontent, but he has nothing to say about that, so he burrows into his own bed and throws the ragged covers over his face.

"He's not gonna die," Geralt insists loudly, patting the mound of sheets clumsily. "It's okay, Hare. Don't cry."

"Fuck off, baby," the sheets mumble. Then, "He already had a name picked."

"What for?" Eskel asks, but the lump just grumbles something unintelligible, then Hare throws the covers off and his icy eyes glare at him.

"D'you think we were gonna be named after animals forever?" he sneers derisively. "You think I like being called a rabbit? D'you like it when we call you Ducky? No? How about I call you murderer instead?"

Not waiting for an answer, Hare buries himself in the covers again and rolls out of reach. Eskel feels his lip tremble, but some part of him remembers Vesemir's voice saying you can stop crying now, so he doesn't. He slumps back into his pillow. Murderer, he mouths to himself over and over, feeling the way his lips wrap around each syllable.

The boys settle and drop off to sleep one by one, and before the moon is high in the sky, the lamp oil burns out. Eskel's still awake, running his tongue over his lip again. If he strains his ears, he thinks he can hear the distant echo of a cat yowling.

"I hear it too," Geralt says, his voice carrying in the dark.

Eskel shushes him quickly as some of the boys stir. "Go to sleep," he whispers.

"Can't sleep, it's too cold," Geralt complains, and Eskel finds he has to agree. With winter fast approaching, the nights have been getting steadily colder, and their straw pallets on the cement floor do next to nothing to prevent the cold from seeping into their bones. Geralt fidgets and thrusts his icy toes under Eskel's ankles, his eyes gleaming cheekily as Eskel flinches from the touch.

"You're warm," Geralt points out in explanation, and Eskel shifts over grudgingly as he wriggles his way onto Eskel's bed, sighing happily as he shoves his knees into Eskel's side and tucks his cheek right where it tickles.

"You're cold," Eskel complains, but fidgets about until he's comfortable enough that Geralt isn't such a dead weight against his limbs. The points where their skins touch feel bright and hot and he sighs gratefully, shifting a few more times to revel in the warmth of the friction.

Close up, even the air that's exchanged between them feels warmer, less dry. The boys blink sleepily at each other, alternating between dozing off and jolting awake from the faraway howls.

"I didn't mean to hurt him," Eskel says finally, insistently. The word murderer sits heavy on his chest.

Geralt blinks slowly back, too sleepy to respond for a moment. "'S g'nna be 'kay," he mumbles, drooling into the crook of Eskel's elbow.

They don't see Squirrel for three more days. On the fourth, he joins them at dinner like nothing has happened, though he drags himself through the doorway like his leg is dead weight.

The boys crowd around him excitedly, bombarding him with questions they've been asking each other every night.

"Can you see farther?"

"What happened?"

"Did it hurt?"

Eskel hangs back, unsure, but Squirrel beckons at him gently. There's still a bandage over most of his face where Eskel has struck him. When Eskel creeps closer, he sees that Squirrel's eyes are unchanged, just the same soft brown as they were before, though one of his eyes is completely bloodshot in the white of it. 

"Squirrel, 'm sorry," Eskel blurts, tearing his eyes from the bandage. His hands hover over Squirrel's shoulder, unsure if he's allowed to touch.

"'S okay," he replies softly, lisping a little. Eskel notices that his face is a little lopsided; his mouth turns downwards in one corner like it's too heavy to lift. "But my arm, and my leg..."

They learn that the Trial of the Grasses, whatever little that Squirrel was subjected to, had helped keep his brain from bleeding and swelling, but it had lasting damage. Squirrel could no longer grasp a spoon firmly in his right hand, nor walk without a limp, let alone run. But he had survived the Trial nonetheless, which means he had earned the right to choose a name.

"'S okay," he repeats, and grasps Hare's hand as if to reassure him that he's alright. Then suddenly he grins, half his face turning upwards. "And my name is Leo."

Chapter Text

When true winter hits, even the trainings stop. Most days, the wind howls through the narrow slats of the fortress walls, and nobody stays outdoors for long except the older witchers, and only if they have to. By the end of the year, the snowpiles against the walls are three feet thick and tightly packed.

The boys are kept busy as their chores double: most of the time they're cleaning this or repairing that, and it's just as tiring as the regular training, but at least the bruises on Eskel's limbs are finally allowed to fade.

Today they're tasked with cleaning up the unused rooms that aren't occupied by witchers coming back to spend the winter at Kaer Morhen. The room is chilly and dark when they start, but it doesn't get much better even after dawn breaks weakly through the thick clouds. The world seems washed with a blanket of blue-grey. Geralt pauses while wiping the glass panes of the tower, pressing his nose right into the window.

"Look! It's Aubry and Tjold!" His breath fogs the glass immediately.

Eskel slides over and wipes at the glass to see for himself. Outside, two older boys are trudging back through the inner gate. They'd already passed most of their Trials, and Aubry, already twenty, is so tall that he looks like he's a full witcher already, albeit without the scars and tired eyes. A huge deer is slung across Aubry's shoulders, fresh blood still dribbling onto his thinly-padded vest. It's so cold outside that the kill seems to steam from its wounds. The other boy is most definitely Tjold: he's the only one in the keep with sandy hair, though now it's darkened and matted with melted snowflakes. Tjold is sparsely dressed too, though it seems all the firewood he has stacked high on his back is enough to protect him from the worst of the cold. The smaller logs in his arms come up to his nose, making his gait a little awkward.

"They don't get cold at all," Eskel says wonderingly. Aubry sets the deer carcass down and they can hear his muffled calls, then Hare and Jakob and some other boys start running out into the yard to help drag it indoors. Aubry shoos them away quickly as Tjold grumbles something at him.

"They're so strong," Geralt sighs, and the window fogs up again.

"Gods, the both of you," Jarian drawls from the other side of the room. He doesn't lift his gaze from polishing a huge silver plate, though from the way he drags his cloth across it, he may as well not do anything at all.

Eskel ignores him and wipes the window patiently, holding his breath so that he can see clearly out of it.

Aubry takes his time unloading the wood from Tjold's back one by one as he stands there helplessly, his hands still full, until he finally snaps loud enough for them to hear: "Lebioda help me, I will string you up - "

His barking laugh echoes a little, then Aubry's pulling off his gloves and shoving the logs out of Tjold's arms. He grabs Tjold's face and kisses him full on the mouth. Tjold yelps and struggles, then drops the rest of the firewood and grabs back at Aubry's face. They push and pull at each other and eventually fall over onto the forgotten pile of wood, then he can't see Tjold any more, just the way his legs twitch under Aubry's, like an insect trying to break free.

Geralt huffs in surprise and the glass gets blurry again, then Eskel drags him away from the window. "Don't look," he mutters, and he feels like his insides have dropped away. He blinks and his vision is still blurry, like there's a pane of glass right in front of his eyes and someone's breath has gotten all over it. Warm and hot and smelling like sour ale, all up in his face, and his throat closes and he sits down. His ears are ringing and he can't breathe, so he covers his ears but it keeps going, it doesn't stop, he's not stopping, and he can feel the weight of a dead man pressing him to the floor -

His mind goes blank and he stops feeling, stops thinking. He's alone, and then he's not, and there's someone talking to him and shaking him lightly, but he's not there. He crawls right to the back of his mind.

The sharp green smell of fool's parsley penetrates the fog of his brain and he blinks hurriedly, his eyes beginning to water. The world slides back into focus. Varin blinks back at him, owlish, his eyebrows knitted together. He's holding a fistful of crushed herbs right under Eskel's nose.

Eskel looks around: he's still in the same room. Jarian is just behind Varin, his arms crossed, but he shifts uneasily. He can hear Geralt wailing from a few rooms away.

"Sorry." Eskel clambers to his feet. The final feelings of heaviness fall away, and he feels almost normal again, and very foolish. "I must've fallen asleep. M'sorry."

Varin presses the leaves into Eskel's palm, and he lifts it back to his nose, inhaling deeply. Then Varin rests a hand on Eskel's forehead, gently, like he wants to say something more, but then his hand is gone and he's turning away. "Come."

Eskel hastens to follow, exchanging nervous glances with Jarian, but the boy simply shrugs and gets back to work. He quickly realises they're going towards Geralt as the crying gets louder.

"Calm down, we can't understand you at all!" Someone - likely Tjold - raises his voice above the sound. Then, "Stop laughing and help me!"

The wailing increases and Eskel winces at the noise, but it's joined by Aubry's unmistakable guffaws.

The laughter dies down soon enough when Varin pushes the door open and barges in. Even Geralt gives a startled hiccough, his wails reducing immediately into stifled bleats. Then he sees Eskel and runs right at him, clinging tight and wetting his top all down the front.

"Thirty seconds," Varin says shortly, levelling a glare at Aubry that makes him swallow and shuffle his feet a little, despite the fact that Aubry is taller than Varin.

"I don't know what happened," he says quickly. "We'd just come in from outside, and I was - helping Tjold with his firewood - "

Varin's eyebrows shoot up. Tjold splutters and elbows him hard. "Aubry knocked into me, he was helping me pick it up - "

Varin holds up a hand. "Is it enough to say that I don't want to hear what the both of you were actually doing," he hisses through gritted teeth. 

"It was nothing," Tjold interjects hurriedly. "I mean, we didn't know we had an audience, okay," he adds, rolling his eyes as Aubry makes a small noise of dissent. "And it's not like we had our clothes - "

"Skip this part," Varin snaps. "Twenty seconds."

"Right. So we were just - picking up firewood - "

Aubry snickers. " - and then this baby just starts going off his head, you'd have thought a siren was in the tower - "

" - so anyway," Tjold cuts in, glaring at him, "I draw my sword and start running upstairs - "

" - and this boy runs straight into us going on about how someone wouldn't wake up - "

" - so we dragged him in here and we've been trying to calm him before he wakes the whole keep... but it looks like, well, it woke you up anyway," Tjold finishes lamely. "Sorry about that. Sir."

Varin grumbles something under his breath, shaking his head. "Well?" He barks, rounding on the both of them. "Everything's fine now, are you done crying?"

"I t-thought he d-d-died," Geralt moans miserably, his elbows digging into Eskel's ribs. Eskel grips him back equally tightly.

"I saw him, he was... they were fighting," Eskel whispers, his eyes on Aubry. Then he looks at Varin, confused. "He was attacking Tjold."

"I what," Aubry blurts, then he dissolves into laughter, holding his sides. Tjold narrows his slitted viper eyes at him, and Varin just looks like he deeply wishes to disappear.

"I am a seasoned witcher. I kill monsters. Yet I ended up here, in this moment," Varin mutters. He points a finger at Aubry and Tjold accusingly. "Fix this."

Tjold staggers under Aubry's weight when he falls onto him, still laughing and wiping at his eyes. Rolling his eyes, he shoves Aubry to the side and crouches beside Eskel and Geralt. "Eskel. What we were doing - Gods, shut up, Aubs - we were completely happy about it and nobody got hurt, okay?"

Varin swears a little more and leaves the room abruptly. Aubry closes the door behind him and collapses against it, still giggling.

Eskel hugs Geralt a little tighter, frowning. It doesn't make sense, but Tjold looks sincere about it, and he isn't scared or in pain. "It... didn't hurt?" he asks, his voice small.

"Nah," Tjold says, smiling and ruffling Eskel's hair. "I look happy enough, don't I, Geralt?"

Geralt nods shyly and ducks his head.

Eskel relaxes a little, though he scrunches his nose. "So you just... do that? For free? But... why?"

"For - " Aubry chokes a little, but this time it's mirthless. His gaze gets sharp, and his mouth turns downwards a little. "We take care of each other. Have done for years. Just like you." He nods at their hands, which are clasped tightly together. "Don't need money to change hands for you to do it, do you?"

"Yeah," Eskel says slowly. He does take care of Geralt, and makes sure that the others don't laugh at him so much. And he tries to help when Geralt is crying and missing his mother terribly. And Geralt takes care of him too, in his own ways: like when he kept his sweetcakes for Eskel because he knew Eskel really likes them; like when he was close to giving up during course training and Geralt repeated it with him so he wouldn't stop.

"Though it'd be nice to get paid to put up with his shit," Tjold mutters, and this time it's Aubry who shushes him with a glare.

"Now you know, right?" Aubry prods, his brow still furrowed. His gaze is intense, now that he's stopped laughing, and his voice is low and rough and sure. "You'd never hurt Geralt. Just like I'd never hurt Tjold."

Eskel finds himself nodding tentatively.

Tjold rolls his eyes. "Thanks so much for the clarification," he quips, cuffing Aubry on the head, but his eyes are crinkled and warm. Aubry cracks a dry smile at this, then his mood gets considerably lighter again, like a passing summer storm.

It takes about ten more minutes for Geralt to calm down enough to follow him back to the room they were cleaning. Aubry waves them out and shuts the door quickly, then a few muffled sounds follow, like they're dragging furniture around.

"Come on," Eskel says, tugging at Geralt's hand. They still have the rest of the room to clean, and if Jarian's doing it alone, they'll never get it done, and that means no breakfast for either of them. His stomach rumbles suddenly, and he feels a little bit dizzy. He fishes out the damp herbs from his pocket and inhales.

"What happened just now?" Geralt asks, plodding up the staircase reluctantly.

Eskel shrugs, swallows uneasily. "Before I came here..."

Geralt perks up and crowds close. He's never volunteered this information before. "You drank a witcher's potion," he says in a staged whisper.

"I guess... something bad happened to me. I don't really know how to talk about it. But sometimes it feels like it's happening again. Or like it's still happening."

Geralt frowns and thinks hard about it. "But it's not," he points out, jutting out his lower lip.

"I know," Eskel says miserably. "But I can't just forget it, it's not that simple. You know what I mean, right? There are things that you just can't forget. Will you forget how you ended up here, at Kaer Morhen?"

Geralt's eyes widen and he shakes his head, looking resolute and a little bit angry. "Never."

"See. You get it now," Eskel says, nudging him gently with his shoulder. They arrive outside the room. The faint sounds of Jarian's half-hearted sweeping is scratching through the gap in the door. "Come on."

He steps in, and Geralt follows.

Chapter Text

Eskel doesn't realise that spring has come until a short blast of a horn sounds early one morning, when the sky is still dark outside.

The boys give a collective groan but crawl dutifully from their beds, and Eskel follows reluctantly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "What's happening?" he croaks, though his throat is almost completely healed already. Now it's just rough from grogginess, and he punctuates his question with a wide yawn.

Geralt ignores him, obviously upset about having his sleep disrupted, and plods miserably to the door with the rest. Eskel trails after him, eyeing the nest of his hair falling over his eyes and past his shoulders. Instinctively, he tugs on the ends, trying to flatten them out. "Hey."

He pulls away, making a noise that sounds dangerously like he's close to tears, so Eskel stops and repeats the question to the room in general.

"It's Bastion day," Clovis mutters from behind him.

"I hate Bastion day," Remy hisses fervently, but this doesn't help Eskel understand anything at all. He sighs and shuffled along resignedly.

They file into the courtyard, shivering in the low fog lingering near the ground. Varin's feeding and brushing his horse like it's a normal thing to do at this hour. Eskel's teeth begin to chatter and he clamps his jaw shut until it hurts.

A light breeze blows past and the boys shuffle closer instinctively.

Varin finally turns around to look them over. "Gonna have to reshuffle," he says, more to himself than to them. "Hare, Damon, Aster."

The three boys file to the side. 

"Jakob, Sebastien, Geralt."

Geralt's whine is expected, but the boys wince all the same. "But I wanna go with Eskel," he starts, but Jakob pulls him aside and mashes his palm against Geralt's mouth, so Varin continues as though he hasn't heard.

In the end, Eskel is placed with two of the older boys, Oswin and Elias. They smile reassuringly at him and lay firm hands on his shoulder, gripping tight. He casts a look around: it's obvious that Varin had tried to make sure that the younger boys like him were accompanied by the older ones.

"Well, you know the rules," Varin says, turning back to tend to his horse. "Take any shortcut you know. The last group to reach the Bastion gets it. Or if I reach before the last group..."

"...everyone gets it," the boys respond miserably.

Eskel glances at his teammates, his insides going jittery. "I don't know the way," he admits.

They exchange a look, then Varin's horn sounds again and the boys scamper off, pushing and shoving.

"Come on," Elias says, and then they're running too, down the pebbly winding slope. Elias skips along sure-footed, dodging loose stones that keep rolling under Eskel's soles. Once or twice he feels his ankle threaten to twist, then he catches himself and keeps going. Oswin jogs easily beside him, a hair faster to help Eskel keep pace. By the time they're close to the divergence in the path, most of the groups have gone their separate ways: Eskel looks longingly after Geralt's group as it peels away before the path ends.

"Where are they going?" he asks, squinting after them as their heels flash in the pale starlight, disappearing into the fog.

"Probably going to cut through the quarry and scale up the steep end," Oswin says, shaking his head. "They're all good at climbing, but we have a safer way."

"Yeah, we do," Elias says brightly. "Stay close, it's not far."

They run straight through the split in the path into the light undergrowth. Eskel pants as he tries to keep up, but he's still confused. "We're going the opposite way from everyone else," he points out.

"Trust me, it's the easiest route," Elias calls over his shoulder. He stops for a moment, pointing in the distance, where there's the shadow of a hill. It's only just taking shape, as the sky is slightly brighter there. In an hour or so, the sun will rise behind it, but now it's a murky blob of black on indigo. "The slope is gentler on the other side, you see."

Eskel can't see, but there's not much time to argue. He's learnt enough that he knows he doesn't want to be the punished group for the day. They set off again, their pace picking up where the way is clearer. Eskel's ears and nose start to grow numb from the biting wind, and the sweat that breaks out at his hairline seems to freeze on his skin.

The ground slopes further and further down until it gets slightly sticky underfoot, then the trees open to frame a small section of a rushing stream about twenty feet across. It looks harmless enough that fording it doesn't seem difficult, even though Eskel knows he hasn't ever tried to swim before. Eskel looks beyond the frothy white surface at the bank beyond it. It's a little steep and rocky, and there's still some ice crusting the edges, but beyond it there are fewer trees, and in the half-light before dawn, he can make out the lower sloped section of the hill that Elias had pointed out earlier.

He looks at the water and back at the boys, worrying at his lip, but they look unperturbed.

"We'd better take off our clothes, or we'd get too wet," Oswin declares, already pulling his tunic over his head. Elias starts stripping off his breeches as well, so Eskel does the same, already shaking from the chill rising from the water.

Elias reaches out to help him wriggle out of the last of his clothes, and in no time, the three of them are naked and shivering violently.

"Go on, we'll be right behind you," Oswin says, pushing at the small of his back.

Eskel pauses, eyeing the rushing water, and there's a question on his lips, but he steps in anyway. The water is shockingly cold, so much colder than he ever expected, that it hurts. The current tugs at his legs as he takes another step and slips in way too fast: there's a sudden drop in the riverbed, and he's all at once up to his hips and soaked, straining against the flow. The water swirls and rushes and stabs, and Eskel can't help but cry out.

"It's too deep, we can't - " Eskel turns and sees the two boys purpling with laughter.

Then Oswin says, "Swim for us, Ducky," and kicks out at Eskel:

He tumbles backwards. The cold water slams into him like a brick wall, black and bubbling. It grips at his limbs and he thrashes desperately, breaking the surface and gulping in a mouthful of air, but the current is too strong and the water is so cold and heavy that he can barely move at all. It pulls him under and away and he struggles.

Everything is dark, and the water gets up his nose as he tries to surface and take a breath again, but it's still pulling him away, and he doesn't even know which way is up, and he tries to grab at anything to make it stop, but his arms and fingers are so numb and frozen that he can't do anything. He chokes on the gripping cold and inhales sharply, involuntarily: then of course he's inhaling nothing but water, and he's coughing against it because his lungs are burning, but there's just so much water and he's tossed against a bend in the stream and he feels his shoulder scrape some rocks.

With a last desperate effort, he forces his hands up in front of him to scrabble at the darkness in front of him - his fingernails catch on a jagged surface and a tangle of water-weeds, and he claws at it as his lungs burn and burn, then suddenly his head breaks the surface of the water and he's clinging desperately to some stiff branches by the water, his legs securing holds on sharp rocks in front of him to keep from getting pulled away by the current again.

He coughs and hacks out mouthfuls of frigid water, and it feels like every breath he takes is a stab in the chest. He coughs until his eyes water and until he throws up a few more mouthfuls of water, then somehow musters the strength to pull himself all the way out of the water right into the scratchy prickly bush. The stings and scrapes are distant, detached pricks of pain: the heaving of his chest is still the biggest hurt of all, and he takes a long moment to catch his breath and calm himself down.

The sky is less dark by the time Eskel comes to his senses enough to take stock of himself: he's scratched up all over from the thorny shrub so he crawls out of it gingerly, sobbing uncontrollably when he feels the tiny needles bite into his skin. Somewhere along the way, a branch snaps and a sticky sap oozes out onto his arm, burning and itching so badly that Eskel rushes back to the stream to dip his arm in and wash it off. It's mostly ineffective and the sticky sap raises angry boils on his forearm, smarting the most where he's scratched up. His arms and legs had borne the brunt of the damage from the rocks, and there are thin long lines of scratches everywhere where he'd tried to get a proper grip.

But most of the cuts are shallow. Eskel's more concerned about the growing numbness in his limbs. Already he finds he can't move his fingers without crying out in pain, and his jaw is chattering so violently that he's sure he's bitten his lip and tongue numerous times, though he's too cold to feel it himself.

"Come on," he says, though he feels like complete shit and there are tears streaming from his eyes. "Eskel, come on." He knows he should keep moving, so that maybe he won't feel so cold.

Thankfully, though Oswin and Elias were outright bastards, they weren't lying. Soon the path clears enough for Eskel to see the way to the Bastion. It's a craggy but manageable route to a low ridge that leads upwards, with enough trees to provide some wind cover, but not enough that he could lose his way.

Sunrise is near but the sky is overcast, so the sky just lightens further to a pale lilac then dull blue. With shivers wracking his body, he weaves and jerks drunkenly up the path, but he keeps his eyes on the Bastion with a kind of stony determination.

There are only two things on his mind: that he can't stop moving, and that he doesn't want to be punished. By the time he reaches a narrow verge of grass growing out of a cut in the rock, forming a straight path all the way to the Bastion wall, his whole body is pounding with a sort of numb pain, and he doesn't even know why he's still going, only that he needs to get there. At least the shaking is lessening, though his feet are too cold to enjoy the relief of soft grass. He just keeps putting one foot in front of the other mindlessly, until suddenly he collides with the solid brick of the Bastion wall in front of him.

Oh, he thinks dumbly, I made it.

He's on the wrong side, and he can't think straight enough to go around the front, but he doesn't care: he's here now, like he's supposed to be, and he can rest. He curls up into a tight ball and shuts his eyes.

He doesn't get to rest for long, though. There's a commotion and then someone grabs him roughly and half-drags him. He's too weak to do anything about it, so he just stumbles along and leans into the strong form that's blessedly warm, sighing happily. Eventually something's thrown over him and there's a hot rush of air in front of him, then his eyes widen: it's an old brazier at the foot of a flight of stairs, blazing happily; he moans and sags forward, coming dangerously close, but it's not hot enough, he needs to be closer -

A whine escapes his throat when he realises someone - Varin, his brain supplies pointlessly - is pulling him to a safer distance. Varin tilts Eskel's head back and forces him to drink some water, and when Eskel realises how delightfully warm the water is, he gulps at it gladly. He's shivering again, harder this time, so when he's done he pulls the cloak around him closer and just shakes and shakes.

A moment later, someone shoves their way in through the folds of the cloak at the bottom, wriggling insistently until their bodies are flush against each other. Nose to nose, Geralt blinks and grins at him. His body is a furnace and Eskel presses himself back gratefully.

"Varin says this'll help you feel better," Geralt whispers, rubbing his palms together and wrapping them around Eskel's neck.

His small hands feel like hot stones that have been lying out in the sun. Eskel sighs and closes his eyes, letting his forehead fall forward to knock Geralt's. "Yes. Thanks."

"You made it here the last, but Varin's not punishing everyone," Geralt continues. "Just Oswin an' Elias, because they lost you."

"Oh." Eskel feels vaguely relieved.

"It's a good thing you showed up," he continues. "Varin's been so mad, just yelling an' making us do runs up an' down. I think Oswin and Elias've been hanging for hours now."

"Hanging?" Eskel asks, aghast, finally raising his head to look around. He's seen hanged men before, on the bare trees by the road just a few ways away from his home.

He finally spies the two of them dangling over the training area from bits of broken wooden rafters, their arms trembling from the effort. Elias keeps having to adjust his grip, his palms slipping every now and then, but neither of them can let go unless they want to end up with both legs broken. Not like hanged men, then, he thinks, oddly thankful.

"I've never seen Oswin cry before," Geralt says cheerfully. "How long d'you think they can stay up?"

Eskel swallows and shakes his head. Not very long more, that's for sure. "Sir," he calls out weakly. "I'm okay now."

His voice is soft, but Varin hears him all the same. He stalks over to them, his mouth twisted sourly. "Tell me what happened," he commands.

Eskel shakes his head again, his eyes on Elias's red face. Oswin yelps as one of his arms drops, his legs flailing weakly. "They took my clothes and pushed me in the water," he says quietly. "But I'm okay now, please stop punishing them."

Varin looks at him hard, then clicks his tongue and barks out more orders. The other boys climb to the upper levels and pull the rafters in. Even from below, Eskel can hear their gasps and whimpers of relief as they're hauled over the ledge.

"Why'd you do that? They were mean to you," Geralt says, annoyed. He rubs at Eskel's cut-up hands, which are still pale and blue.

Eskel shrugs, but an idea has already caught hold in his mind. "I'll tell you later."

Soon, Varin calls Geralt back to the drills and Eskel huddles in the corner, still naked under Varin's cloak, watching Oswin and Elias struggle to hold up their swords. He imagines that their hands must be full of splinters, and their shoulders must ache terribly from the strain, but his elbow is still itching something fierce from the thorny spikes of that plant, and he decides that he knows what to do about it. 

After a full morning of unpleasant exercises, Varin rides off on his horse and leaves the boys in the dust to trudge wearily back to the keep. Oswin and Elias are the first to slink away.

"We match," Geralt declares. He'd tripped and fallen during one of the runs, tearing his hands up in the sandy stone. He shows Eskel where his palms are scraped; the skin is peeling away, muddy around the edges. Eskel blows on it sympathetically and holds his hands out for comparison. The long scratches are already scabbing over, and the sun is strong enough that he's properly warm again, even though it's a cloudy day.

"Yours hurts more," he concedes, and Geralt nods sadly. "Let's wash it first."

They split off from the group and Eskel retraces his steps back to where he'd pulled himself out of the water. Geralt's eyes widen as he looks at the rushing water.

"You swam through that?" he asks, awed, and Eskel shakes his head.

"Nope," he replies curtly, staying well away as Geralt thrusts his hands in.

Despite his thrashing around on it all morning, the thorny bush at the bend remains stubbornly stiff and intact. Eskel inspects it carefully as Geralt yelps and complains about the cold water off to the side. The broken branch where the sap had touched him looks innocuous, and the sap has long dried. He'll have to take a new one, and be careful not to touch it.

"What're you doing?" Geralt asks, when he starts snapping the branches gingerly.

Eskel shows him his elbow where the sap touched: the skin is still angry and weeping where he couldn't help but scratch.

"Ow," Geralt says emphatically.

Eskel flinches away when he reaches out curious fingertips, but he's used to it: Geralt has a habit of wanting to touch everything he sees. "Come on, help me with this," he says.

They carefully break off a long enough branch, avoiding the thorns and the sap, then carry it between them like a dangerous bomb all the way back to Kaer Morhen.

"What're you gonna do?" Geralt asks curiously, when they're nearing. The other boys have already finished washing and there's the unmistakeable sound of their footsteps trooping towards the dining hall, but Eskel pulls Geralt in the opposite direction.

"Shhh," he says, and he smiles again at how devious his plan is, but as far as payback goes, this is the best idea he's had in his life. Together, they steal back to the sleeping quarters, and Eskel tells Geralt his plan.

"We're gonna put this in their beds, and they'll have sores all over tomorrow and they won't even know why," he says lowly, chuckling when Geralt looks thunderstruck.

"That's really funny," Geralt giggles, his eyes shining. He hastens to help. They break the branch into small sections and smear the sap on as much bedding as possible. It dries down to nothing, and Eskel's not sure this is going to work, so he puts as much as the branch can give. Geralt does the same, plucking out the thorns and scattering it artistically, and they're more excited than careful now. Soon their fingertips are blistering and burning and both boys are groaning in discomfort.

"Okay, okay, that's enough," Eskel gasps, trying valiantly to wipe the sticky sap off his hands. Geralt's eyes are brimming with tears but he's breathless with laughter too: their hands are smarting and swollen now, but they can both imagine the effect on Oswin and Elias' entire bodies, and soon they're bursting into the bathrooms laughing and crying, running cold water over their hands for some relief.

"We can't get caught," Eskel says, determined, so they join the rest at the end of the meal and try to cram as much food as they can into their mouths, wincing at the terrible pain in their fingers but shooting each other triumphant grins.

Surprisingly, at the end of the meal as they split off to do their various chores, Elias corners Eskel. He sort of looks at Eskel, but not really meeting his eyes, and says, "I didn't wanna leave you there. It was Oswin's idea."

Eskel presses his lips together, his heart thudding. He doesn't know what to say, so he just nods. He actually starts to think that maybe he went a little too far putting the poisonous sap in his sheets, but it's too late to fix it now.

At first he thinks his plan failed, because at night when they all turn in, nothing happens. He hides under the sheets with Geralt, both of them staring at each other with their breaths held, but the room slowly fills with the quiet sighs of sleeping boys, and Eskel lets out a breath.

"Maybe it only works when it's fresh," he mutters, half disappointed but half relieved, then all hell breaks loose.

There's a lot of yelling, and it's way more arresting than when Geralt's doing his usual crying fit. They stuff the sheets in their mouths to stifle their laughter, then some of the boys are crowding close and before he knows it, they're jumping away as well, itching or pulling out a random thorn. Eskel and Geralt just sit frozen on the spot as the chaos unfolds, watching in mounting glee and trepidation as Oswin writhes and clutches at his face. Elias is hopping on one foot trying to pluck thorns from his rear and scratch his heel at the same time. Off to the side, Reynar and Dirram are cradling the boils on their hands, looking perplexed.

There's a sound like thunder at the door and Sorel limps in. "What's this racket," he snaps, then takes one long sniff and stiffens. "Bryonia sap?"

It's like he can almost see the scent of the sap in the air. Eskel watches, terrified but pinned to the spot, as his yellow eyes shift from Oswin's bed, to Elias' bed, to Eskel. Geralt clutches Eskel helplessly as he instinctively shoves his hands out of sight, but apparently there's no fooling Sorel.

Varin comes in then, dressed in just a loose shirt and even looser trousers. "What the fuck, boys," he starts tiredly. Then he must catch the scent as well and he blinks and shoots Sorel a confused look.

"Did you give them some?" Sorel demands.

"The fuck would I do that," Varin snarls back, then he throws a glare at Eskel as if he reeks of the stuff.

Eskel swallows but tries his best not to look away, and definitely tries his best not to look at Elias or Oswin, for fear of bursting into uncontrollable laughter.

Varin's eyes flash dangerously in the low light of the room. "No more pranks," he announces. "Or everyone hangs next week."

He makes to leave, dragging Sorel with him, but Oswin bursts out into pleas. "Gods help me, it burns," he yelps, reaching out to Varin like a dying man.

Varin sidesteps him. "It'll wear off eventually," he says airily. "Just try not to scratch your eyes out before it does."

When he turns to close the door, Eskel catches the smallest glimpse of a smirk on his face as Varin looks back at him. Then quick as it comes, it's gone. The boys are on their own again, muttering unhappily and returning to their beds after giving Oswin and Elias a wide berth.

Eskel lets out all his breath and dives under the covers again.

"Shhh," Eskel whispers, when Geralt gives a small titter again. This is so much better than he imagined, and the sores on his hands are completely worth it. "Go to sleep, shhh."

Geralt squirms against him, his eyelashes fluttering on Eskel's cheeks, then he presses his damp lips on his chin. "G'nght, 'Skel," he sighs.

It makes Eskel feel funny and warm on the inside, though just that same morning he had been feeling like he'd never be warm again. "That's my chin, silly," Eskel laughs, and smacks his lips right onto his right eye.

Off to the other side of the room, Elias gives a muffled groan from where he's lying on the floor. Eskel and Geralt dissolve into another fit of giggles, and continue trading sloppy kisses.

None of the boys sleep well that night, but Eskel doesn't mind.

Chapter Text

As the last of spring fades into the bright golden days of summer, the keep empties. Soon it's just the boys with Varin, Vesemir, and Sorel. The youngest lot of the Witchers were one of the first few to go. Eskel had gotten nothing more than a friendly shove in parting as Aubry heaved himself onto his horse and set out. He and Tjold had only exchanged nods in farewell, their faces grim.

"Don't worry, you'll see them again come winter," Eskel had told Geralt, later on as he pushed his food around at breakfast and shook his head when Eskel offered him some pilfered dried fruit from his pockets.

One blessing is that their chores are greatly lessened, though training gets impossibly harder. Eskel feels his arms and legs go thin and wiry from the constant drills, though he can hold his own comfortably now. Still, Varin is relentless with his punishments, and each day Eskel feels a new kind of ache in his body like never before.

Then one morning, the boys awake to see Varin saddling up his horse and riding off. The buzz of anticipation and excitement is immediate as they do their routine laundry washing.

"No more training!" whoops Clovis, flinging soapy hands in the air. Geralt laughs and imitates him.

Jarian scowls. "He'll be back soon enough."

"No he won't," Bastien chirps. "I saw him, his saddlebags were fully packed with at least a week's worth of food."

"A week of no training," Remy breathes, his eyes shining. There's a puff of soap sud in his hair. "I think I'm going to cry."

Eskel listens to the boys titter on excitedly on all the fun they're going to have for this week. "But there's still Sorel and Vesemir," he points out.

Elias groans and rolls his eyes. "Trust Eskel to be the wet blanket," he says snidely, aiming a scoop of dirty water down the back of his neck.

Eskel wriggles away, sopping wet, and throws a cupful of powdered soap in his face in retaliation.

Hare leans in conspiratorially. "Sorel's an old cripple, he only ever does the Trial of the Grasses. And we en't old enough for them yet."

"An' Vesemir don't like to deal with us Bastion boys. So he'll probably leave us alone," Remy adds.

"Why not?" Geralt pipes up.

"Stupid baby," Oswin mutters, then slinks away when he sees Eskel's hand go for the soap again.

"Because," Jarian sighs, put-upon. "Because, only three in ten survive the Trial of the Grasses. He knows most of us are gonna die."

Geralt splashes the water indignantly. "That's not true."

"Is," Dirram shoots back.

"Isn't," Geralt snipes, then a small fight breaks out and within moments the sopping wet laundry is strewn on the flagstones. There's a lot of heated "No, YOU'RE gonna die" thrown around, and everyone is shouting at the same time, in indignation or maybe just in fear. Eskel tries to get Geralt to stop, but he's so riled up that Eskel actually needs to use his whole body weight to pin him to the wall. It's barely enough to keep him from jumping onto Dirram and scratching his eyeballs out.

It suddenly grows quiet and when Eskel turns around, he sees why: Vesemir is standing at the wooden gate leading to the courtyard, looking down at their fight with an odd expression on his face. It takes Eskel a beat to realise that it's a sort of anguished sadness. That's when Eskel knows it's true: when Vesemir looks at them, he sees a group of young boys that won't live to see their thirteenth summer.

Bastien sniffles audibly from where he's sitting on the floor. "I don't wanna die," he mutters, turning to his twin and hiding his face in his elbow. Remy pats his hair lightly, saying nothing.

"Clean up the mess," Vesemir says finally, his voice ringing out over them. "No more playing around, or you'll all go hungry until Varin comes back. And our training begins at three o' clock."

---

All their feelings of hope and happiness are stomped out soon enough. They had shown up with their practice swords in their hands, forming up diligently and awaiting orders, but Vesemir just made them keep the weapons and walked them out of the keep, round the back, and on and on until they hit a small clearing with a few tree stumps scattered around.

He sits on the ground, leaning up against a stump, and waves a hand at the axes laying about. "Firewood stock's just about empty," he says gruffly. "Get on with it."

The boys shift about uneasily.

"Varin says we're not s'posed to wield any real blades before the Trials," Jarian says. The other boys nod shyly, the younger ones exchanging unsure glances with each other. Eskel's eyeing the rough handle of the axe not three feet from him: it's easily longer than Geralt's whole arm.

"Then you'd better be careful with them," Vesemir says, shrugging, leaning back and already letting his eyes droop.

Oswin bristles and bursts out, "But this isn't training! We've already done today's chores!"

Everyone falls silent with bated breath then, as Vesemir cracks open his viper eyes to look at them coolly. "This job not challenging enough for you, boy?" he asks. "Think you're going to be a mighty witcher, slaying dragons and sitting on gold? The Path isn't about good deeds and heroics. It's about getting the job done. No matter how bothersome, or tiring, or meaningless."

Oswin bows his head, still scowling unhappily.

"But if you feel like this is too simple, so be it," Vesemir continues, in his same soft voice. "You will climb to the top of that rock and back down for every tree you fell."

Eskel swivels in dismay: he hates climbing. The rock that Vesemir had nodded to is not very high, but he still has to crane his neck to see the top, and his palms ache just looking at the rough surface. The other boys groan but keep to glaring and elbowing Oswin for his insolence.

Sighing inwardly, Eskel quickly steps forward to pick an axe with the smoothest handle. The weight of the head is much more than he anticipated, and he helps single out the smallest hatchet for Geralt to use.

"Watch where you swing," he says, as Geralt immediately runs to the nearest tree with it. He leaps back as Geralt throws his whole weight into the swing, missing the tree trunk by a foot and almost catching Eskel right across the gut. He sighs and tries to show Geralt how to do it proper, though he barely knows it himself.

It seemed simple enough when Vesemir said it, but chopping down the trees takes a lot more than anything Eskel ever expected. He'd seen other witchers do it easily in maybe five good swings from a full-sized axe, and Varin had once done it in three spectacular hacks and a well-aimed kick, but Eskel sees no progress after hacking at the trunk for the better part of an hour, and the blade keeps getting stuck in the trunk. It takes forever for him to get it out, which he eventually manages after chiseling around it with Geralt's hatchet.

The others fare no better, though Jarian's close: the trunk that he and Aster has been working on is already mostly sliced through. They had been working at it from opposite ends, and now the middle is the last part, though the cuts are rough-hewn and not perfectly aligned.

Having given up on their own trees for the time being, the other boys stand and watch, calling out pointless tips about how hard they should be swinging, or what angle they should try next. 

"Go round the other side," Dirram suggests.

"It's going to fall," Eskel mutters absently, looking at the way the treetops are moving with the wind. Vesemir is still dozing against the stump, a hand resting lightly on his hip where his blade rests. He's well within the radius of the tree, if it happens to fall in that direction. Eskel wonders if he should shout a warning.

"No, it's still too thick in the middle, it en't gonna give," Clovis says distractedly.

"S' almost there," Geralt says. His eyes are wide, and there's sweat dripping off his ears. "Here! I'll help!" he cries out, then he dashes forward suddenly, waving his hands at Aster as he swings back with all his might.

The shout leaves his throat as Eskel reacts instinctively: he lunges forward, trying to grab at Geralt's shirt collar to pull him back, but it's too late, and his fist closes on air. He feels something inside him lurch in horror as Geralt stupidly runs headlong into Aster's backswing, knocking him to the ground.

Geralt groans and holds his head in his hands, rolling over in agony. Then there's a deep crack and a round of cheers go up: the tree makes ominous creaking sounds, like a chain reaction has been set off.

"Get away!" Eskel screams, and it's easy enough to shoulder Aster aside, but Eskel throws himself forward at the dirt, skidding on the rough sand on his knees and grabbing Geralt by the shoulders.

The cheers turn into cries and the shadow of the tree looms over Eskel, and he can't think, but Geralt's still squinting in pain, with a small crescent-moon cut on his temple. Eskel can't lift or drag Geralt out of the way, so he closes his eyes tight and cradles Geralt's head in his arms as the ground grows dark around him.

The pain he anticipates doesn't come. There's a shuddering boom that shakes Eskel to his core, but nothing more. He opens his eyes and Vesemir is standing there, right between them and the tree, and his hand is out: they're surrounded by a thin golden bubble that shimmers brightly in the air, which the fallen tree is now slowly rolling off of. Vesemir whips around the moment the danger is gone, seeing to Geralt himself.

A breath of relief escapes Eskel and he sags gratefully. Geralt stirs and lets out a small delirious laugh, blinking in bewilderment.

"Ow," he moans retrospectively, then stills when he sees that it's Vesemir peering at him closely. Vesemir just nods and walks away, barking orders at the rest, making them scatter and go back to their task.

"'Ow'? You could have died," Eskel hisses, tugging him to his feet. The split second of worry is melting away into a seething anger. "For once in your life, Geralt, use your head."

Once the excitement has died down, the boys resume sullenly chopping at the tree with their axes. Vesemir stomps off to rest at another stump, muttering under his breath about how useless they all are.

"Did you see how fast he moved," Reynar says, wonder in his voice.

"I didn't," Bastien adds reverently. "I jus' blinked and he was there."

"It's witcher magic, what he did with his hands," Clovis says. The boys shiver in excitement at that word. Magic.

Jarian rolls his eyes like this is old news. "We've already seen Varin do it plenty before."

"Yeah, but he only lights fires for when we're out camping," Reynar points out. "That's boring."

"Fire's not boring."

"Blocking a whole tree - "

"If you set something on fire - "

"If you useless maggots are done gossiping like ladies in a court," Vesemir calls over, "there's a rock there needs climbing. And you're all staying out here for as long as you need to cut that tree up and bring it back to the keep. I don't care if it's dark out, or if morning is coming."

The boys drop their axes and take off for the rock face, kicking up the dirt with their heels. Eskel trails after them miserably, so that at least he can watch them and copy their handholds as they climb.

Vesemir stops him with a hand on his elbow, but he draws back quickly as if he hasn't planned to do it. "Good thing you did there," he says in the end, though he doesn't exactly smile at Eskel. "You're smarter than you let on, aren't you?"

Eskel blinks and shrugs uneasily. "I... I don't..." he has nothing to say to that. It's not like he's special or anything. It's just that the others can be so stupid sometimes, but of course he can't say that to Vesemir of all people.

Vesemir just shakes his head and turns away after that, so Eskel scampers off gratefully to battle the rock on his own.

He was right about the climbing, anyway, Eskel thinks grimly, as his hands get badly scraped from the climb. It's almost painful enough that he wants to let go, but it's bleeding hands or broken legs, so he has no choice.

By the time he returns to where he'd left his axe, he wants to cry. His hands are stinging and skinless, as are his knees. The other boys are just as dispirited as the sky grows dark and the tree remains a solid mass in front of them. When it gets too dark to see, Vesemir finally lights a small fire with a few branches that they'd put aside. Since the wood is fresh and still damp, there's a lot of smoke and it gets to Eskel's eyes.

With a rumbling stomach and an aching throat, Eskel keeps his head down and chops and chops, occasionally glancing back at where Vesemir is sitting. He watches them serenely, munching on a handful of dried fruit, his lamplike eyes glowing in the firelight.

"I want Varin to come back," Geralt finally mutters, and everyone chimes in soft sighs of agreement.

It has to be the early hours of the morning by the time they get back, their arms piled with however much wood they can carry. 

Vesemir follows them from behind, barking out occasional threats. "Faster," he'd said, "or I'll make you do multiple trips until all of it is back in the keep."

Some of the boys are openly crying by the end of it, their arms shaking from the weight of the wood. Vesemir has something to say about that, too.

"A Witcher never betrays his emotions," Vesemir says roughly. "Stop crying. You're not getting any pity from me."

It's enough to make Eskel's vision blur with unshed tears, but he swallows it up and plods on.

He makes them arrange the wood neatly instead of dumping it in piles, after which - thank all the Gods for this mercy - he lets them stop. "We continue at first light," he warns, but the boys hear the dismissal loud and clear, and it's good enough for now.

Eskel sags in relief, wanting nothing more than to crawl into his bed. His hunger is a long-forgotten problem, and even the throbbing of his skinned knees have ceased to really bother him. Like the others, all he really wants to do is curl up into a ball and never move again.

Geralt isn't too tired to keep from crawling into Eskel's bedroll, though he's already sobbing desperately before he's all the way in.

"I don't wanna do it again," he wails into Eskel's shoulder.

"I know," Eskel says, leaden. He doesn't want to either, but there's nothing he can do about it. Across the room, he can hear Sebastien and Jakob sniffling loudly too, but they're quiet about it, like they know they're too old for this. He wonders if Geralt will ever grow out of it.

"Shhh. At least we can sleep now," he whispers. "Don't cry, you'll feel even worse in the morning."

Geralt nods miserably and tries his best to settle. Together, they fall into a fitful, tired sleep.

---

Varin doesn't come back for almost two weeks. When he finally does, the boys are so beaten down and exhausted that they can only smile weakly at the gates opening: they know better than to stop their training with Vesemir watching them like a hawk.

Eskel keeps his head down and continues trying to pry the floorboard loose. They were supposed to have finished mending the stairs before noon, but like all the unreasonably difficult tasks Vesemir has assigned them to do, it's taking longer than expected. 

"Fuck, Vesemir, I told you not to run them ragged," Varin growls, stomping over to wrench the hammer from Aster, whose hand is so badly blistered that he can barely grip it. 

Vesemir shrugs. "Life is hardship. They'll have to learn it eventually."

"They're just human." Varin swears a little more. "You always forget. And they're just children."

They have a heated exchange about their teaching methods, ending with Vesemir stalking off wordlessly, then Varin sinks down with a sigh on the nearby bench.

Only then do the boys abandon their tools and crowd around Varin, wary but curious. He's sporting a fresh scar along his jaw, the skin still raw and pink like melted wax. The worst of it is still oozing and cracked, like the skin has been forced to break with every movement he makes. It extends all the way down his neck and past his collarbone, and Eskel follows the trail and notices that it even reappears down his left arm, ending at the crook of his elbow.

"You're hurt," he blurts.

Varin grunts. "Fuckin' humans. First they tell me it's a cockatrice. Was a fuckin' slyzard. And the pay. I could earn more sucking c - " But then he cuts himself off, shaking his head. "Bring me my pack."

He unwraps something in his hands that turns out to be huge chunks of honeycomb, scooping the honey out in fistfuls and slathering it on his face and neck. Then he eyes the waiting boys. "What?" he snaps, though without any real heat.

"Are we gonna have training now? Sir?" Jakob asks timidly, his lip wobbling.

Varin snorts. "What does it look like?" he gestures at himself, then sighs and tosses the rest of the honeycomb to them. "Go wild, have the day off. Leave me alone."

There's a mad little scramble as they all try to break off the biggest pieces for themselves, then scatter before he can change his mind.

Eskel takes his share and he and Gerald run off behind the stables to enjoy it in peace. The honey is thick and sticky and so sweet, better than anything he's imagined. Geralt finishes his piece first, and of course Eskel can't sit there savouring his while Geralt watches greedily, so he breaks off more for Geralt and they stuff the honeycomb in their mouths, chewing and blinking lazily at each other in satisfaction. 

It's a long time before they're done. He's careful about licking every last bit off his fingers, and Geralt has plenty smeared all around his mouth and in his hair, somehow. Eskel laughs at how he tries to pull at the ends of his hair and suck the strands into his mouth.

Unthinkingly, he leans forward and presses his lips to Geralt's, and is delighted by the taste of the honey there. Geralt gasps and giggles, and Eskel feels it too, like a burst of buzzing electricity, sweet and warm on his tongue.

"Do it again," Geralt says, his brown eyes bright. His sticky hair is still clinging to the sides of his mouth, and Eskel laughs and licks it away playfully.

"You taste like honey," Eskel says, stupid from it, but he doesn't stop.

"You too," Geralt laughs, clear and sweet as water.

They lie back on the grass, revelling in the late afternoon sun. There's a low hum of insects in the air, and the fragrance of honey mingles in the warmth of the grass, hanging low all about them and making their eyelids heavy.

"Tell you a secret?" Eskel whispers. "I don't wanna be a Witcher."

Geralt stirs against him, warm and sleepy and soft. "Why not?"

Eskel shrugs. "Seems a hard life. And they're all so... angry. And sad."

"Hm," Geralt agrees, sucking at his teeth thoughtfully. "I don't think we'd ever be like that."

Eskel shrugs again, thinking about Varin, how he speaks so bitterly of humans. Then there's Vesemir, never cracking a smile and never letting up on them, and Sorel, who locks himself in his tower most of the time because his injuries pain him too much to do anything else. Even Aubry, quick to laughter, had that shadow that crossed his face when he'd set out on the Path in spring. "Name one witcher who's happy."

"Hm," Geralt considers. "Yeah, actually. 'S a good point."

"I don't wanna end up like that."

"Hm," Geralt hums again. "You won't."

"We'll see," Eskel says. He touches his fingers to Geralt's brow. He tries to imagine him becoming a witcher, but the image doesn't match up. Not this Geralt, with the soft doe eyes and wispy baby hair, his nose and cheeks freckled and peeling from being in the sun too long.

"Promise you won't be like that." Promise you won't die in the Trials.

"Promise," Geralt sighs.

They stretch out in the sun and doze off, sticky and content. It will be their last restful afternoon for the summer.

Chapter Text

It's early September when Eskel realises that their routine hasn't been changing much. In the mornings they run laps and finish at the Bastion, then they practice their drills until sweat is pouring into his eyes and the sun is high in the sky. More often than not, Varin ends their training early so that they can all go back to wash up and rest. The boys are delighted by this and don't complain, especially since Varin's been getting more unpredictable with their sparring. On some days he's attentive and all up in their faces, correcting their stances and adjusting their grips, ranting energetically about how important it is not to break form. Then a switch flips and he's yelling at them and beating them black and blue for not moving fast enough.

"These days I'm not sure he's all that much better than Vesemir," Jakob mutters eventually. He presses the edge of his tunic against his lip, wincing as he blots away the blood that wells up.

Eskel sighs sympathetically, wanting to agree, but on the other hand, the taste of honey is still bright in his memory.

On hot days, they can see the extent of his injury from his latest contract when he peels off his shirt, wincing. Even half-healed, it looks terrible, like the skin has come back all wrong, stretching across his joints like the thin layer of gelatin on the surface of cold soup. Geralt had asked him about it, shyly, one day when he just had just decided to sit in the shade and not move an inch.

"What did he say?" Eskel asked him, as he came back reporting that they were all just supposed to run to the Bastion and back twenty times. Eskel sighed when he heard it; that would take them all day if they were quick about it, but if Varin weren't paying attention, they could maybe get away with fifteen.

"He just said it hurts too much and we should leave him alone," Geralt whispered sadly. "An' he was messing about with some powder, but he told me that I shouldn't tell anyone about it."

Eskel had nodded and kept his mouth shut, but now he thinks maybe they should tell someone about it. When the peak of summer passes and the days begin to get shorter, Varin's scars finally seem to heal up enough that it's just more ugly marks on his seasoned Witcher body, but his mood doesn't improve. If anything, he gets more unpredictable. One moment he's his usual grumpy self, perfectly reasonable, and then the next he's spitting mad and accidentally hitting Aster so hard that he's out cold for ten minutes, then he's apologising profusely and letting them off early. He disappears for three days after that, much to their dismay, and much to Vesemir's chagrin. He sits in for their training again, though he isn't as hard on them as he was last time. Eskel even summoned the courage to ask Vesemir where Varin went, but his jaw only tightened at that.

"You should ask him yourself when he's back," Vesemir had replied darkly, unconcealed rage sitting right behind his eyes, so Eskel had hastily backed off and not asked anything else.

Varin reappears looking a few stones thinner, his cheeks hollowed out like a skeleton's. But his eyes are bright and he acts as if he never left at all, and Vesemir just grunts at him and starts avoiding them again. Their training with Varin resumes, and though his mood swings are more frequent, the boys do their best to endure. It's not all bad, really: they begin to get even more rest days when he randomly disappears.

On a day when there's a rare thunderstorm that keeps them all indoors, the boys have nothing else to do but more tedious chores. This time it's skinning potatoes with Leo, who's delighted to have the company and the help at least.

Jarian has just challenged Hare to eat all the potato peel. The boys are gathering around excitedly as Hare eyes the knee-high pile of scraps with trepidation.

"If I do this, you're to help me wash my bedding through winter," Hare warns, and Jarian waves a careless hand and shrugs.

"I think Varin is sick," Eskel says, apropos of nothing.

Nobody hears him. Hare chokes on a particularly tough piece that still has mud on it, but makes a face and carries on. Dirram and Remy are laughing so hard they're crying, and off in the corner, Leo and Geralt are having some kind of private challenge of their own, wincing while trying to eat a whole potato raw.

Eskel drops the subject and sits back on his heels, watching the chaos unfold. "You're all idiots," he says, loud enough for them to hear him.

It's later on after dinner that he has the chance to bring up his concerns again, because half the boys are having bad stomach aches and Hare looks like he would much rather do laundry for everyone than suffer like he's suffering now.

"You could've at least washed the stuff first," Eskel says to him cheerfully.

Hare groans and shows him two middle fingers. "Wise-ass," he hisses.

He has no sympathy for Geralt either, who just pouts and refuses to talk when Eskel tells him he should've known better.

Now that most of the wild energy of the group has fizzled out, though, he sees his chance again. "Has anyone noticed something wrong with Varin?"

"Yeah," Jarian says, his eyes widening. "He's really, really ugly."

"I mean lately," Eskel says, rolling his eyes.

"Now that you mention it, maybe," Bastien says. He scrunches his nose up in thought. "Remy an' I spent our drills just hitting the straw dummy at the same spot and he din' say anything."

Oswin sits up at that. "What," he says flatly. "An' we were all working so hard for nothing?"

"I know he barely eats anymore," Leo pipes up. "I used to have to cook so much for him, he always ate enough to feed three grown men. But now he says he's not hungry, so I get to eat all of it."

"That's not fair," Clovis points out immediately.

"How 'bout I cut off your arm, if we're talkin' about what's fair?" Leo shoots back.

"Should we tell Vesemir?" Geralt wheezes thinly from under his pillow.

"No," everyone chimes in automatically. At least, everyone but Eskel.

He sighs and shrugs. "We're going to regret this," he mutters, but he lets it go for now. Maybe Varin is just getting lazy with training. Either way, he can't imagine things actually getting better once Vesemir is in charge of them, so he chooses not to say anything else about it.

---

Through autumn, it seems that Varin gets better. On some days he actually smiles at them. One memorable day the boys just stop what they're doing completely because Varin had let out an ecstatic whoop and shouted "Good job!" when Geralt had managed to parry a double attack from Clovis and Bastien, then do a spectacular jump off the raised stone curb to end up in the perfect position to put Clovis in a headlock.

The praise is the most frightening thing they've heard in awhile. All the boys stop and stare at Varin, eyes wide and fearful, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he waves at them to continue, looking pleased with himself.

"Sir," Eskel mutters later on when he gets close. "Your nose is bleeding."

Varin blinks incredulously then swipes at his upper lip. "Hmn," he says, vaguely surprised, but signals them to continue.

---

"He was singing to himself the other day," Dirram whispers, confusion written on his face.

---

It's early December when some of the older boys are called up to undergo their Trial. They don't get any warning at all, just Sorel stomping over to them during breakfast one day and asking them all to stand up.

He jabs a finger to Oswin, Elias, Hare, Aster and Jarian and tells them to skip dinner and come to him the next morning. Everyone falls silent as he trudges away, dragging his lame leg behind him. 

Elias sinks back into his seat, his face white. He pushes his food away and shakes his head when Eskel asks if he wants to finish it, so Eskel takes the rest of it.

The other boys don't know what to say. They can hardly offer words of comfort, so they finish breakfast in stunned silence and go through the day's chores mechanically. Even Jarian doesn't have anything clever to say about it, but he smiles at Geralt when he gets pestered about it. "Tell you what," he says finally, tilting a rare smile at Geralt and mussing up his hair, "If I die you can have my bed by the fireplace."

That distracts Geralt enough that he's annoyingly chipper for the rest of the day.

Varin doesn't indicate that he knows anything that's going on at all. "Sorel what?" he says distractedly, squinting at the blade that he's halfway through sharpening. "Shit, fuck, shit," he adds, after he runs his whole hand across the blade without even holding the whetstone. "Stop distracting me," he barks at them, sucking at his palm and reaching for his pack.

"We just wanted to know what to do now," Dirram says tentatively, shifting his weight.

"How about get out of my sight," Varin snaps, so they scamper away and try to entertain themselves in secret, so that Vesemir doesn't catch wind of it and give them terrible chores to do. 

It doesn't go that well, because everyone is nervous about the Trials the next day. They end up sitting in a circle in a small glade not far from the keep, talking about what would happen if they survived the Trials.

Mostly, they just pester Hare about the name he's chosen for himself, but he shakes his head resolutely. "You'll know after I survive," he says, his eyes determined.

"Yes, but if you die, then we'll never know," Aster says desperately. "Come on, tell us."

Hare presses his lips together stubbornly.

Oswin stares at his hands. "I won't die," he says forcefully, like a promise. "I'm gonna become a Witcher, an' I'm gonna leave Kaer Morhen and go back to Lindenvale."

Geralt wrinkles his nose. "What's Lindenvale?"

"Where I come from."

"That's not really what Witchers are supposed to do," Eskel points out.

"I'll do it anyway," he whispers hotly. "The first monster I'm gonna kill is my father."

"Oh," Eskel says, shocked. There's a long pause and the other boys shift restlessly. They're suddenly all thinking about it then: monsters and men and who they would like to kill, if they had the chance to do it.

"Can I kill Vesemir, then?" Jarian drawls, laughing mirthlessly. He tells them all why he's even at Kaer Morhen at all: Vesemir had unwittingly claimed him under the Law of Surprise, when he was not much older than Geralt currently is. "Wouldn't be here if it weren't for him."

Hare huffs. "He'd kill you first."

"Probably," Jarian concedes. "Maybe Varin, then."

They suddenly start a heated debate on who would be more difficult to kill.

"When you die, can I have your share of dinner?" Geralt asks suddenly. Eskel elbows him.

"He's not gonna die, Geralt, don't be horrible," Eskel says.

"Yeah, why not," Jarian says nonchalantly, but then the group falls silent again. Jarian's face twists suddenly and he gets to his feet, turns, and walks off.

"Vesemir would probably beat Varin in a fight," Reynar blurts.

The others shrug in weary agreement, then sit in silence until the sun goes down behind the mountains.

---

It's three days later and Vesemir is building the pyres behind the keep. The boys watch mutely from the tower windows as he moves slowly and deliberately, arranging the wood in perfect piles, criss-crossing at the corners to allow airflow. It's probably the wood that the boys had helped bring in, Eskel thinks distantly.

After the third mound, he pauses, then drinks deeply from a bottle until it's empty. He looks at his work for a moment, then chucks the bottle at the pile and kicks at it until it's just scattered wood on the ground again.

The sounds of the bottle breaking and the pyre being destroyed are completely muted through the thick windows, and the boys continue to watch silently. It's been an unspoken competition to see who can last the longest without crying, one that Geralt lost immediately. Eskel knows it's pointless, though, because he knows that each of them has taken a secret turn to cry while the others aren't looking. He himself hasn't been able to keep it in, but as long as he doesn't look at their empty beds, he can manage all right.

Vesemir stops as suddenly as he starts. He begins clearing up the mess as if nothing has happened, stacking everything beautifully again. It's a dull day, windy and grey, so the sky doesn't lighten even as he works until well past midday. 

Varin trudges by when he's almost done, leading his horse with one hand and bowing his head like he doesn't want to see it. Vesemir stops him anyway, and they have a shouting match that's almost loud enough for the boys to hear. They inhale sharply after Varin actually draws his sword and advances on Vesemir, using it to point at the pyres and the tower and back at Vesemir, but he doesn't bat an eye or even step backwards.

Whatever Vesemir says to Varin makes his sword arm falter, though, then he's slinging it back over his head and riding out of Kaer Morhen in a flurry of dust.

"D'you think he'll come back?" Remy rasps, but nobody replies.

Vesemir carries the bodies out one by one, already draped in black cloth, so they can't tell who's who. Something in Eskel's chest aches when he sees all five of them lying in a neat line, like maybe they should be there. But Vesemir doesn't call for them, so they simply watch from the tower as Vesemir carries out his ritual. They can tell he's saying something, laying his hand on each head, then when he's done with all of them he pours a bottle of Mahakaman spirit all over them and sets them on fire with a spell.

There's a lot of smoke. Eskel feels the tears well up in his eyes again, and the others sniffle as they watch. Some of them turn away, not wanting to look anymore, and huddle together quietly.

It's past midnight by the time the pyres burn low and Vesemir heads indoors.

---

Over the next few days, Vesemir's clearly in a bad mood, but he surprisingly doesn't give them anything very difficult to do. Instead, he teaches them how to build snares for rabbits and tasks them to set the traps in hidden places around the keep. He doesn't answer when some of the bolder ones demand to know where Varin went, just closes his eyes briefly and continues like he hasn't heard the question. 

Finally, close to a week after the day with the pyres, Leo tells them what he's learnt, a muscle in his jaw jumping nervously. "Sorel says Vesemir banished him from Kaer Morhen," he tells them in secret, two days later over dinner.

"What?" Eskel demands, aghast, whipping in his seat to glare at Vesemir, but his own seat has been empty for many days now. "Why?"

"He said something about him stealing things from the weapons store to sell for fish tack. What's fish tack?" Leo says, shrugging.

Eskel shakes his head dumbly, but Jakob sighs heavily. "You mean fisstech? Makes sense."

"What is it?" Geralt prods sullenly.

"Just some white stuff. My mother used to sniff it up her nose. Said she couldn't live without it." Jakob sighs again. "She sold me off for two packets of fisstech."

Remy shakes his head and pets his shoulder awkwardly. "Doesn't mean he won't come back. Kaer Morhen is his home."

"Vesemir will kill him if he does," Leo says, wringing his hands.

Eskel thinks about how Vesemir had cradled the bodies of his brothers gently as he laid them on the pyres, and how he had performed the last rites, all by himself. He thinks about how his eyes were red-rimmed for days after.

"No, I don't think he will," he says softly.

---

Winter rears its head and the keep is covered in snow by the time the Witchers start to come in again. Eskel recognises some returning faces, but doesn't know their names; Aubry and Tjold, though, don't show, much to Geralt's disappointment. Some of the Witchers even bring along a boy or two.

Soon, the empty beds in the room are filled. Even Jarian's old bed, which Geralt refused to take even though it had been left for him, is filled with a new boy.

They hold out hope for the whole winter, waiting for Varin to return.

Chapter Text

By the end of December, the keep is almost full of the Witchers that have trickled in from the Path. There's no news of Varin, though Eskel thinks he hears some of the older ones muttering about him under their breath. They stop soon enough when they realise Eskel is eavesdropping, telling him to shove off and giving him a mundane chore to catch up on.

The weather is surprisingly mild for the end of the year, so their trainings continue on most days unless it's exceptionally windy. Vesemir had gladly handed them over to any Witcher that happened to glance in his direction, so their routine is strange and inconsistent with the handful of Witchers that grudgingly share responsibility of the boys over the weeks.

The first one, Max, looks no older than Aubry, but is a lot broader and his hair is cropped short. He definitely seems a younger Witcher for the full head of dark hair and the lack of scars on his face, though his teeth are noticeably crooked. It makes him look like he's always about to snarl, and given his indifferent and grumpy demeanour, this happens more often than not. He also doesn't really care about what the boys do or whether they're actually trained properly or not. Mostly he sits around drinking from a weathered flask, watching them fight and using a long stick to whack at them if they stand still for more than two seconds.

Whack. "You're dead," he'd state bluntly. Whack. "Lost your sword arm." Whack. "Dead again."

More than once, Eskel finds himself on the verge of blurting that it's not fair, what kind of monster could hit them from behind if they're already fighting it head-on. Dirram beats him to it, which earns a derisive laugh from Max.

"Not fair," he mocks, still raining blows upon them mercilessly.

"He's just sad that the other Witcher died," Geralt says cheerily over dinner. His eye is swollen and purple from a particularly nasty hit, but better eye than nose, Eskel supposes miserably. The rolls of gauze that he'd stuffed into his nostrils will need to be changed soon, and if it keeps bleeding he'd have to see Sorel for a potion, which he really does not look forward to. He can't complain, though, because the new group of boys that just came in had suffered the worst of the hits.

There are six of them in total, one more than the number they'd just lost: Kovac and Nell, who claim to have been rescued from a ship of slavers bound for Zerrikania; Mason, who had run away from home and was probably the happiest to be here of them all; and Jeb, grudgingly won in a game of Gwent. Buggy didn't even have a name, but Damon had called him Buggy on the second day and it stuck. Judging from his size and the way he speaks, Eskel guesses he might even be younger than Geralt. The last boy is around Geralt's age and build, but slightly taller, with black hair and blue eyes like chips of ice. He'd spit at Reynar's face when asked for his name, so the boys mostly just ignore him. During trainings, though, it gives all of them a thrill of pleasure to beat him within an inch of his life, though it only seems to make him angrier. Now he sits at the far end of the table, scowling down at his already empty bowl, like he wants nothing more than to throw up its contents out of pure spite. 

"Whtuderwtchr?" Clovis sprays some food onto the table.

"When he came in, he went to the Room," Geralt explains, tilting his head meaningfully. "You know. Where they keep all the medallions for the final Trial. He was returning a medallion."

"Hope it's not someone we know," Eskel says darkly, thinking about Varin.

"Wonder who it was." Dirram stirs excitedly, looking around as if taking stock of the people around him.

"Dare you to ask," Bastien shoots back.

The boys consider it for a moment, then sigh helplessly and resume their eating. The stew is rich this time, with all the fresh hunts that the returning Witchers have brought back for the winter. They spend most mornings helping Leo and the others to gut the kills and salt some of the meat. This morning, they had watched Max slaughter a goat deftly and systematically, and the memory of it still makes Eskel's stomach turn.

"If we looked in the Room..." Geralt suddenly whispers conspirationally.

"No," Eskel cuts in bluntly, rolling his eyes. 

"I just want to know," he hisses, sulking. "What if it's Varin? Or Tjold?"

Eskel sighs as the other boys whisper up a plan. "When you get caught and you're crying again, don't come crawling into my bed," he warns Geralt.

Geralt sticks his tongue out at Eskel. "I won't."

The second Witcher charged to look after them becomes their favourite very quickly. Like Max, he has dark hair, kept short and shaved very close above the ears. The similarities end there. There's a small set of crescent-moon scars around his temple, as if someone had dug their nails in, and there's a thin white slice high on his neck that makes it look like someone had tried to cut his throat, once. He always speaks in an even, smooth voice like that of a singer, except when he and Max cross paths. It's clear that the two hate each other, even from the looks they exchange. Klef is kind to the boys, though, and never hits or threatens them, so it's easy to ask him questions that the others would not normally entertain.

"Why does Max hate you?" Geralt, ever bold in his innocence, asks during one of their leisurely hikes to the caves. These hikes are rare given the changing weather, but the air is crisp today like it's still late autumn. Klef has Buggy sitting on his shoulders after Buggy had cried about having a splinter in his toe, so they wind through the woods calmly, with Klef pointing out interesting rock formations, or occasionally asking them to listen to the sound of a certain animal in the distance.

Klef takes his time to answer the question. Up ahead, the angry spitting boy thrashes through the undergrowth, cursing a blue streak. "Perry, don't get too far ahead," Klef calls absently. "Can't reach you that quick if the Drowners hear you."

Then he frowns thoughtfully. "He doesn't hate me," Klef says eventually. "There's just something we haven't agreed on in a long time."

"Is it because of the dead Witcher?" Geralt says pointedly, even as Eskel shoves at him in warning. Thankfully, unlike all their other trainers so far, Klef isn't quick to anger. He seems no less surprised by the sudden question, though. After a moment, he shakes his head, then stops and turns to Geralt very seriously.

"Don't ask about that again," Klef warns, his voice still smooth and soft, but his words are heavy. Eskel feels himself shrink under the weight of them.

Geralt freezes then nods mutely. Eskel can only sigh inwardly, and they resume at a slightly quicker pace. The moment passes quickly, and soon Klef is his usual mild self again, showing them the safest way to gather Nostrix and how to find a clump of verbena by its smell. They start back for Kaer Morhen as the daylight fades quickly, laden with various bags full of herbs for food and potions.

It's only when he assigns them the next task when everything starts to go wrong. It's a simple enough instruction. "Sort them into these jars," Klef says, pointing to a shelf. "Then label them neatly, use big lettering; Sorel's eyes are going and I don't want to hear him complain about it all winter."

The boys just stare at Klef incredulously as he turns to the door. He pauses, his hand on the doorknob. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

Eskel unsticks his tongue. "We don't know how to label things," he says tentatively. "We've never done that before, sir."

"Well, alright, do it now," Klef says, waving a hand at them, amused but faintly bewildered.

"I don't know my letters," Jakob mutters.

"Me neither," Bastien blurts quickly, turning so that he's shielded by his brother.

Klef's smile falls away a little, then all at once. He looks distantly horrified. "Do you mean to say... that nobody has taught you to read and write?" 

"My ma did. But I forgot." Clovis shrugs.

"But you're almost ten," Klef says, more to himself than to Clovis. Geralt makes a sad noise of disagreement at that. "Oh, fuck, Vesemir is going to have a fit."

He all but runs from the room, leaving the boys with the bags of herbs and the empty jars.

"What now?" Reynar says, pushing at the piles of herbs half-heartedly. The others end up looking at Eskel.

"What?" Eskel says, annoyed. 

"You always have a plan," Bastien says moodily.

"I can't teach you letters," Eskel points out. "I don't know how to read, either."

"Wouldn't expect you to," Perry sneers suddenly from his corner, his mouth twisting. "Whoreson."

Eskel frowns. It's not a secret, where he'd come from, but then again, this is the first time anyone has used it against him. "I haven't done anything to you," he points out slowly.

Dirram lets out a low whistle, sidling out of the way. "Hey, angry, the last few who messed with Eskel are dead now, so watch it."

Eskel huffs a laugh. "Don't say it like that."

Perry bares his teeth, his fists curled, but he's smart enough to stay where he is. He's still green, after all, and even Bastien can take him in a fight easily, with all his size and lack of finesse.

What they do find out, soon enough, that Vesemir is predictably furious that they don't know their letters, and even moreso at Varin, for not teaching them. Thankfully, he doesn't teach them himself.

Thus the third Witcher put in charge of their learning becomes the one they see most often, especially once the snows come in hard and fast all through January. He's one of the older ones, with the hair closest to his eyes wiry and grey, and the rest of it held back by a leather cord and falling past his shoulders. The first thing the boys notice is that his eyes aren't the golden yellow orbs that are characteristic of the Witchers and Kaer Morhen; rather, they're a darker amber that can almost pass as hazel. His medallion is noticeably not a wolf. He sees them staring at it on the first day, then sighs. "Bear school," he explains gruffly, pointing at his chest. "If I'd known Vesemir would make me pay for my stay in this way, I would've chosen to winter in a cell at Temple Isle."

He doesn't really remember how letters are supposed to be taught, given his age, but he draws up a whole list that they have to remember in one afternoon. At the end of the day, when the sky is already dark and the candles on their tables are guttering on their last inches, he tells them that they can only leave when they have written his name correctly. "It's Korahm," he repeats slowly for the twentieth time, the muscle twitching in his jaw the only indication that his patience is wearing thin. "Kor. Am. Ahhhhm."

Remy presents his little bit of parchment with an air of dejection. Korahm snatches at it, squinting. "That's close. First part's wrong, and you're still missing a few letters. Korrrrr. Ahm."

Eskel tries until he's close to tearing his hair out. It's mostly guesswork at this point, and it doesn't help that apparently Perry did have something to be smug about, because he had gotten it right the second try and strolled out of the room smirking like a little shit.

"Show me," Geralt hisses at Remy.

"No copying," Korahm warns.

Eskel stares at his own paper, which says CORM in a shaky hand. He's fairly certain there's nothing wrong with it, but he doesn't know what. 

Nell's candle flickers out and the room smells faintly of smoke. Korahm sighs. "Six letters, lads, it's not difficult," he snaps.

Eskel exchanges a weary look with Geralt and adds another R and M to his piece. His stomach gives a loud rumble. He can almost smell dinner from where they are even though it's probably all in his head. Leo had told them that today's meal was gizzard pie, and knowing that Perry's alone and enjoying as much of it as he wants right now makes the situation all that much worse.

"No," Korahm says fervently, covering his eyes with his hands and turning away in exasperation.

Remy lifts his paper and Eskel catches his work in the dim light: CORAM. Eskel scribbles it quickly.

"First part wrong, missing letters," he mutters to himself. Korahm almost smiles when he sees Eskel's KORAM, but still shakes his head. 

"All right," Korahm gives up in the end. "Eskel's the closest so far, all of you look at his work and figure it out together. I want a break too."

Of course by the time they actually figure it out, it's completely by chance because they've tried all other possibilities, and it's past ten at night.

They race to the dining hall, only to see that the food left out for them is almost stone cold, and not even the pie they'd been looking forward to. Eskel miserably stuffs his mouth with stale bread and hard boiled corn.

"Perry must've eaten all of the pie," Geralt seethes. "I'm gonna beat that asshole up the next time we have training."

"Whoa, slow down, Varin," Eskel laughs, mussing his hair. "Here's some corn soup to wash that filthy mouth."

"I'll help you hold him," Mason mutters, picking the corn apart kernel by kernel with his fingernails.

---

He's being shaken, roughly, and he can taste the salt of his tears on his lips before he even opens his eyes. "Sorry, sorry," Eskel mutters reflexively, then he's blinking fully awake. His back is covered with cold sweat.

"Happened again." Geralt blinks back at him with his liquid-soft eyes, so close that his lashes flutter against Eskel's cheek. 

The last few images of his nightmare flicker away as he breathes in the cold reality of Kaer Morhen and its strong stone walls. The feelings linger - the hands in his hair, on his neck, gripping his kneesankleshipswrists. The smell. The pain.

Eskel shudders and pulls away from Geralt, his skin tingling. "Sorry," he says again, "Just don't - don't touch me."

"Okay," Geralt says quietly, unmoving. Eskel can feel his breath on his neck, tiny little puffs of warmth. The other boys have rolled over and gone back to sleep, already used to having to deal with Eskel's occasional night terrors.

Finally Eskel stops shaking enough to take deep breaths to calm himself down. It's all in your head, it's not real, he tells himself firmly. He's dimly aware that Geralt is talking, under his breath so that the others aren't disturbed.

" - an' I keep running but the path always gets longer and darker, but the worst part is I can't stop."

"What?" Eskel rasps, turning his head.

"Oh. I was talking about my dream." Geralt yawns widely in Eskel's face. "What was yours?"

"Same as always," Eskel sighs, trying to sound like it wasn't that bad. It shouldn't be that bad. It's just a dream, anyway.

"Same like - the big scary men? Or your mama?"

"Geralt. Drop it."

Geralt sighs and squirms around, trying to get comfortable without getting closer. "At least you remember your mama," he says sadly. "Every time I dream of her, I just see the back of her head. And she won't turn around to look at me. She's always just... walking away."

Eskel reaches out and curls a finger around Geralt's. His dreams of his mother are no better, often silent pictures of her screaming, with blood running down her front. But when he thinks harder, it's the blood that he remembers the most - even the face is blurry, like it's hidden on the other side of thick glass.

"I don't remember her," Eskel admits. "Not really. Only how she died."

"Can I come closer now?" Geralt whispers. Eskel flexes his hand, faintly surprised to find Geralt clinging to his arm with both hands and knees.

Eskel sighs.

"It's cold," Geralt explains, already rearranging himself to fit right into Eskel's side like soft putty.

"Don't see the other boys complaining about it," Eskel says, grudging, but he melts into the familiar embrace and puts his nose in Geralt's hair.

The rest of his sleep is dreamless and warm.

Chapter Text

Before the turn of the new year, the keep gets snowed in completely with the late blizzards that ravage the vale. Eskel hasn't seen Kaer Morhen this packed full of grouchy, grizzled men trying to get about their business within the walls. The boys are awed when they open the doors one morning and the snow is packed so high that even Max has to crane his neck to see over it. There's nothing to see anyway, and he swipes the door shut with an unhappy huff. Eskel feels a trill of excitement, that maybe he will just stalk off to do whatever Witchers do when wintering in Kaer Morhen, but he just sucks on his crooked teeth and whistles at them.

"Go out back, the stables need cleaning."

Buggy pouts and whines, but Max immediately silences him with a sharp slap to the ear. 

"Come on," Jeb says moodily, and they file away to grab their cleaning tools.

Eskel isn't all that sad about it; he likes the horses, and they like him. He takes a detour to the kitchens to sneak away some apples and carrots for the horses, inhaling the warm smell of bread baking in the ovens.

"Hey, where are you taking those," Silas says sharply from behind the larder door. Like Leo, he's not a true witcher, though he's already older than Max at this point. When it had been his turn, he dropped out of the murderous Changes very quickly after some terrible side effects. Looking at Silas always throws Eskel off with his one yellow eye, but everyone knows Silas is harmless because of his bad back and arthritic knees. 

Eskel stills and swallows. "Uh, Vesemir asked for the horses to be fed."

"No he fucking did not," he says, jabbing a small wooden ladle at him. "You put those - hey!"

Laughing to himself, Eskel dashes off, careful not to drop anything and taking the stairs two at a time.

He slams into a solid wall of leather with a yelp and almost falls all the way down, saved only by a strong hand gripping him by the upper arm and hauling him forwards. Eskel feels something in his shoulder grate ominously, and his mind screeches to a halt.

"Stealing from the kitchens?" Klef frowns down at Eskel disapprovingly.

Eskel twists desperately to get free. "Stop, let go, please - "

"All right." Klef drops him.

Eskel finds his feet, gasping, then blinks and looks at Klef properly. "Sir, I'm sorry - it's - it's just for the horses," he says quietly. He rubs at his shoulder and rotates it a little, testing the joint gingerly.

Klef shakes his head, smiling a little. "They're proper warhorses for Witchers, not show ponies," he says gently, but he helps Eskel pick up the last apple and hands it to him. "Save this one for the blue gelding. His name's Beef."

Eskel wrinkles his nose at that, and Klef laughs, pinching his cheek playfully. "What? I like beef. Go on, before a meaner Witcher catches you."

Eskel dashes off gratefully and sees the others already milling about half-heartedly. Somehow the winds and the heavy snow has made a small part of the roof cave in, and the horses are snorting unhappily about it, the air around their noses steaming. Most of the snow that managed to come in has been trodden into a stinking brown mush. Eskel spots the blue roan right away: slimmer and slightly shorter than the others, but no less magnificent. He tosses his head proudly as Eskel comes closer to stroke the tip of his nose. "Hi, Beef," he whispers, holding up the apple. The horse nibbles at it gingerly, then plucks the whole fruit from his hands and chomps it down.

"Quit messing around, 'Skel, I'm not cleaning this shit alone," Jakob grouses, then he drops his shovel and takes a carrot from Eskel. "Here, horsey." He swings it at the biggest horse, a giant black stallion that's pawing the ground and almost snarling.

"Careful, that one looks nasty," Remy calls out. It catches the carrot in mid air and spits it back out.

Jakob sighs and shrugs. "Big and mean. Bet it's Vesemir's horse. Hey, Buggy, leave it. That thing will kick your skull right out of your body."

"He just doesn't like the cold," Eskel says reasonably, eyeing the black beast from afar. It's the closest to the hole in the roof, anyway.

"We should bring them in, it's so much warmer in the keep," Geralt pipes up, tiptoeing to jab his questing fingers at Beef's nostrils.

"We should," Clovis echoes sympathetically. "Then we could clean this place out proper, and get enough space to repair the roof too."

"Alright." Jakob heads to the nail near the door where the Witchers have hung up their reins.

Eskel eyes the pile uncertainly. He's never saddled up a horse before, much less ridden one, and though Jakob seems to know his way around the stable, he's no taller than Eskel either.

"Here, let me lure them in," Eskel says, waving his one remaining apple and making clicking sounds with his tongue. Beef flicks a lazy ear in his direction. "There's a good horse," Eskel murmurs, unlatching the door and letting the horse bumble out slowly. It sniffs at his face and hair then lunges for the apple in his hand.

It works like a charm. The horses seem eager to leave the drafty barn and follow Eskel calmly into the quiet warmth of the keep. Soon all the horses are safely indoors, except for that one mean black one still foaming at the mouth in its stall. The boys circle the door warily, not daring to draw near.

"Maybe we should just open the door and run for it," Dirram says finally, and there's a beat where all the boys consider the chances of success, but their thoughts are cut short by a sharp voice.

"What the FUCK is going on," Max says from the door. "Don't touch Weakling!"

The boys scramble to form a line against the wall, exchanging alarmed looks. Inside the keep, Eskel picks up several raised voices, then some of the younger trainees come streaming into the stables looking perplexed.

"Why are the horses in the keep?" Vesemir barks from behind them, shoving his way through and stopping when he sees the line of boys blinking fearfully at the ground. His frown deepens, but his voice lowers as well. "Do I even want to know," he starts tiredly.

"It was Geralt's idea," Clovis mutters, and Eskel aims a kick at his ankle. He grunts in pain but doesn't move away.

"Yeah, the Baby did it," Reynar adds quickly.

Eskel can feel the wobble of Geralt's lip even without looking. He braces for the wail and the tears, but this time it's just a small sniffle.

"It's not my fault," Geralt says stubbornly, tears sliding down his cheeks. "They were cold an' hungry an' they just want to feel warm -"

At the back, peeking in curiously, Korahm starts to chuckle. "Can't fault that," he says helpfully, chewing on the end of a pipe. In the distance, there are echoes of more shouts of surprise and no small amount of swearing.

"Get out, Bear," Vesemir snaps without heat, then his eyes crinkle into something resembling the beginning of a smile. "Alright. You didn't do wrong, this time. Only we don't bring horses indoors to shit where we eat, understand?"

Eskel feels something in him unclench in relief and he nods along with the rest.

"And you, boy, stop standing there being useless," Vesemir barks at Max. "Lead the horses to the antechamber below the library. Yours causes any trouble, my blade's sharp as ever."

Something about seeing a huge Witcher like Max cower under Vesemir's gaze makes Eskel want to laugh, and the others are pressing their lips together too.

"Yessir," Max says through his teeth, already grabbing the reins and turning to his horse, speaking to it in another language. 

"And fix this ceiling when you're done," Vesemir adds over his shoulder, leaving without waiting for an answer.

The boys relax and pick up their tools again when he's gone, eyeing Max with undisguised interest.

"He called you 'boy'," Kovac titters delightedly, watching as Max strokes the sides of his horse slowly.

"It's funny 'cause you're at least twelve times older than us," Damon explains.

Max growls low in his throat, slinging the reins over his horse. "You lot are by far the dumbest batch of Bastion boys yet." He leads Weakling away, scanning their faces with scornful eyes. "And you wait for my next turn with you at sword drills."

---

Max's threat is quickly forgotten as the snow doesn't let up, coming in so thick that the windows are dark for a few weeks. Even in the day, they burn candles while studying hard at their letters. It would be more bearable if Perry would just stop sitting right up front being smug and answering all of Korahm's questions the quickest. Geralt's the most annoyed by this, given how much he lives for praise, but being one of the youngest he's naturally slower at picking it up.

Eskel squints at the note Geralt's written to him. "You write half of your letters backwards."

"I do not." Geralt snatches it back and looks over it anyway, a small line appearing between his eyes. "So what, you know what it says, what does it matter?"

Perry lounges back in his seat, turning and mouthing baby out of the corner of his mouth. 

Eskel takes the note back and smooths it down on the table. The instructions were simple: write a note to your friend about anything. 

Dir Skell,

Wean I grow up I want toby a big min wechr lik Vis Ves Vasemer.

I aso want a catten.

"You can't be a big mean Witcher," Eskel laughs. "You're Geralt. You're small and soft." He pokes under Geralt's arms to prove his point. "And you spelt 'kitten' wrong."

"It's not wrong," Geralt says indignantly. "It's a small cat, so it's like this - cat-ten."

"No, I'm pretty sure it's 'k'."

"You don't spell cat with a 'k', shut the fuck up."

"Language," Korahm murmurs, half asleep at his table, as Eskel and Geralt fight over the pencil to scratch out the word. They end up poking a hole in the paper.

"Well, let's see yours," Geralt says grudgingly, snatching up Eskel's work to the flame. 

Korahm rimes with golem, which is a kind of thing that Wiches kill.

"What's a g-glomelm?" Geralt asks. "Did you just make that up? That's not allowed."

"I saw it in one of the books Vesemir keeps leaving all over the place. He was writing something about killing one, and it's called a glolem." Eskel finishes smugly, plucking his note out of Geralt's fingers.

"It's a golem, you idiots," Perry cuts in, tilting his chin haughtily. "And you can't kill a golem, everyone knows that."

Geralt snatches the pencil up like a knife. "Vesemir can," he snipes, making a jab-slash-twist motion with his wrist.

"Alright, alright, enough," Korahm says boredly, getting to his feet. He comes around and collects the scraps from the boys, pausing and laughing at each one of them. "Oh, Vesemir's gonna love this," he says to himself, pocketing Geralt's.

"No," Geralt blurts, making an abortive motion to snatch it back. "No, you can't show that to him, Korahm, please."

"Why not? Freya knows that man needs a good laugh or twenty."

"He'll kill me," Geralt whimpers.

"Vesemir? Nah. Don't you worry about that dour old man. Guy cries at the sight of a sunrise."

"Sure it's not the other way around?" Eskel says under his breath, and Korahm guffaws.

"You. I like you."

Eskel feels his whole body light up at the praise and he turns away sheepishly. Korahm's already rambling on, unaware of the effect of his comment.

" - always drinking, laughing, making sure everyone felt welcome. That's what I like about Wolf school, y'know? Bears are just a bunch of animals waiting to fight each other to see who's boss. Kind of a drag. But I haven't seen him like this since - hmm. Maybe a hundred years ago, give or take."

"He scares me," Bastien blurts.

"Ah, he's always tended to take things too seriously." Korahm waves a careless hand like swatting off a fly. "Couple'a green ones die, it's just the natural order of things. He'll get over it."

"He made Varin leave Kaer Morhen," Remy adds sadly.

"Hrmph. There's a name I keep hearing all winter. A little harsh on him, for sure. Been up to my eyeballs in Blizzard before, it's no fun. The Bears just locked me in a cell until I was back to normal."

"What's Blizzard? Is it like fisstech?" Jakob says sharply.

Korahm blinks a few times. "Hey, what the hell am I teaching you boys," he mutters. "Come on, let's read this together - " he picks a random slim book off the shelf. "Alright, here goes. Wondrous World of Insectoids."

---

New Year at Kaer Morhen is a lively affair this time around, the idea of celebrating drummed up by a few of the younger Witchers that are still relatively unscarred. The boys huddle at their little table off to the side, polishing off the remains of the feast they helped prepare for hours before. Apart from kitchen duty, nobody has bothered them today, and off in the corner, Vesemir reluctantly knocks his tankard against Korahm's and drinks deeply like everyone else.

Eskel's on edge, his knee bouncing erratically as he watches the Witchers get drunker and louder. He knows, logically, that he's safe here, but the smell is the same and the voices are loud. Off in the corner, a glass shatters and someone roars in approval. He flinches and grips his knees tightly to give his hands something to do.

"Relax, Skelly, it's the New Year," Clovis bumps shoulders with him. "Geralt, dare you to sneak us a bottle of what they're having."

Geralt sits up straighter at the challenge. "Dare you to finish it if I get it," he counters, his eyes already flicking back and forth, tracking the best route.

Eskel grinds his teeth unhappily, but Geralt isn't looking at him.

Thankfully there's a commotion that sidetracks their stupid plan, an uproar where a group of them are staggering to their feet, slamming their cups down and shaking their arms out.

"No fighting in the dining hall," Vesemir calls out wryly.

As drunk as the Witchers are, they obediently shuffle out through the double doors, shoving and growling at each other.

"A real Witcher fight," Damon says with relish, and this they've got to see: Eskel follows them, his own fear shrinking to a dull throb as his curiosity mounts.

The snow's still way too thick to go outside properly, so the Witchers end up forming a tight ring at the base of the staircase. Eskel and the boys peek over the railings at the racket. It's Klef and someone else they haven't met, someone who looks a little older. From this distance, their eyes gleam like little gold mirrors in the shadowy hall.

"No weapons," someone calls, so Klef unsheathes a dagger from his hip grudgingly. He pulls his belt free and winds it around his wrist and knuckles, never taking his eyes off his opponent, who just takes off his shirt and smirks as he watches Klef pace.

"Idras, no signs," someone else warns, and his mouth twists in grudging acknowledgement.

"Don't need 'em." Idras grins at Klef. "Your move, pretty boy." And the fight begins.

Eskel watches with bated breath as they duck and whirl at a speed that he's never seen before. The fighters themselves are quiet, only letting out gasps and grunts as they block or take hits. The others crowding around them also quieten, sometimes calling out moves right before they happen, or whistling in approval when one of them does something impressive.

There's something deliberate about the way Idras moves, like he's taking his time right until the last second before he shifts his stance or blocks a jab. It makes it virtually impossible for his next move to be apparent until it's too late to counter, yet Klef is quick enough to deflect most of the hits. The way they both move almost thoughtlessly, without pause, makes Eskel feel like he can't afford to blink at all.

Like flowing water, he decides, watching Klef's footwork and how he darts lightly on the flagstones. Like a dragonfly. That's what Max meant when he'd told them to keep moving during a fight, and he can see its merits now: as unpredictable as Idras' next move is, Klef's positioning is so transient that it's difficult to land a proper hit as well.

Reynar inhales sharply as Klef manages to slide behind Idras for a split second and swing a hard elbow into his side, but he loses precious time finding his feet again and Idras recovers quickly.

Idras seems to catch Klef's tempo after a few feints: he blocks three swings in a row and catches Klef right on the nose, his hand whip-fast. He chuckles as Klef rears back with blood smeared on his face. "Guess Gardis didn't teach you that," he says slyly, then curses when Klef lunges at him and they both go to the ground. Clovis leans all the way out over the banister for a better view, dangerously close to tipping over.

Taken down and on his back, Idras has the disadvantage, and he takes a few mean punches from Klef's wrapped fist before his hand shoots out to grab Klef's hand on the third go-round. "Never repeat your moves," he breathes, and with a deft twist Klef's wrist emits a soft click. Klef lets out a strangled groan, then Max shouts a warning and suddenly he's there locking Klef in place and twisting his other arm back. Eskel realises with a jolt that there's a flash of a silver blade in his palm.

"Fight's over, Klef, drop it," he hisses, as Klef chokes and thrashes.

Idras is on his feet again, calmly rolling his shoulders out. Apart from the small patches of blood gleaming on his skin, the small cuts and bruises already look a few hours old. He laughs easily as Klef finally opts to drop the knife instead of have Max dislocate his shoulder. He pushes Max away, his slitted eyes still on Idras. "It's not over," he hisses. "Turn around, turn the fuck around, come on - "

"It's different, isn't it, without your daddy around to protect you now?" Idras says, his voice soft and savage, his face lighting up again as Klef looks stricken. "Yeah, there're no secrets in a keep full o' Witchers, pup." He leans in and whispers other things they can't hear, but it has the others murmuring nervously and pushing themselves between the two. Max and Klef stand stock-still, trembling with barely concealed rage.

"All right, back to the drink..."

"Leave it, he's just baiting you - "

"Shut the fuck up, Idras, gods damn, that's crossing the line."

"Are we done here?" Vesemir's voice rings out from right behind Eskel. He jerks in surprise and Clovis almost falls over the parapet, but Vesemir grabs him by the back of his shirt and hauls him back, dropping him carelessly on the floor without sparing him a second glance. "Want to kill each other like Cats, winter in Stygga next time. Otherwise, clean yourselves up and learn to get along. It's going to be a long winter and I'm done burning corpses."

The Witchers murmur their assent and start moving off, some of them heading back to the dining hall, others splitting up and returning to their quarters.

"Took it too far, Idras," Vesemir murmurs as Idras trudges up the stairs.

He snorts, shrugging. "You stood by and let that kid get mindfucked by a twisted child molester. And now you have him teaching this lot. Talk about taking things too far."

Vesemir's nostrils flare. "Gardis was a good man."

"Oh, did he Axii you into saying that too? Losing your touch in your old age. Heard you'd stopped caring, but didn't think you'd ever fall this far. If you just bothered enough to stop wallowing in your own head for the last twenty years or so, maybe you'd be able to figure out why Berengar chose to leave."

The boys watch on silently, their gaze flickering from Vesemir's shuttered expression to Idras' form disappearing down the corridor.

"Who the fuck is Gardis?" Geralt bursts impatiently.

Vesemir whips his head around and stares at Geralt like he's a stranger for a moment. "Go to bed, boys," he says, his voice distant, then turns to go to his own quarters, his footfall on the steps heavy and tired.

---

"Who's Gardis?" Geralt asks Max two days later, even after they've all been beaten to the ground with Max's stick of death. 

"Ask Korahm," he says tersely, twirling the stick warningly.

---

"Who's Gardis?" Remy asks Korahm, interrupting his dry reading of The Twelve Lesser-Known Uses of Arachas Venom. Most of the boys' notes are covered in random scribbles and unrelated drawings, scratched-out spiders skittering across the margins. Eskel had given up on the second use the moment Korahm had said "alcohol intoxication" - five syllables too many and impossible to spell - and is now trying to draw a fancy sword design for himself. He looks up in sharp interest at Remy's bold question, anxious to catalogue Korahm's reaction.

He snorts. "Ask Vesemir."

---

So the boys don't really learn anything about who that is or what the fight was about. They gossip and come up with the most outlandish theories when they're supposed to be sleeping, which goes on for several nights because they don't have anything else more exciting to talk about.

"I'm telling you, he's probably the person who trained Klef and Max," Perry says impatiently, then looks furious at himself for even bothering to participate.

"No, he's a werewolf and he bit Klef's face, you can see the teeth marks," Jeb counters.

"Yeah, an' Max killed him, that's why he and Klef are enemies," Jakob chimes in.

"Klef is a werewolf!" Geralt declares shrilly.

"That's not right," Eskel says, looking up from another journal he'd lifted from one of the piles Vesemir never seems to tidy up. "It says here that if you're bitten by a werewolf, there's only a very small chance you turn into one. But you could be a natural werewolf if your father was a werewolf."

"Gardis is Klef's father, that's what Idras said," Mason says.

"They're both werewolves," Geralt breathes, his eyes shining.

"That's not what I meant." Eskel closes the book in frustration, throwing Geralt an annoyed look as all the boys start talking about when the next full moon will be and how Klef will turn.

"This theory is stupid. Witchers can't be werewolves. And Max and Klef aren't enemies either, they were on the same side in that fight," Perry points out sullenly.

Eskel points to him and nods. "That's right, don't forget Max, he defended Klef. He can't have killed Gardis."

The werewolf theory sticks, though, because it does admittedly make a more interesting story than the fact that he could've just been another trainer at Kaer Morhen.

They're not subtle about confirming their theory. Somehow they manage to pester Korahm into switching days with Klef, Buggy using his baby voice to complain about being too sore from Max's drills to stand Klef's right after.

They were half right, anyway, because being stuck indoors for weeks on end has an effect on Klef's mild mood, and his temper seems to flare up more often after the fight from that night. He makes them do runs up and down the winding stairs to the observatory, until Eskel's lungs ache and his knees threaten to buckle with every step. By nightfall they're watching him closely as he demonstrates how they can use a paring knife to properly shred the root of a Crow's eye. "A key ingredient in improving Maribor Forest. And I said it last week, who can tell me what Maribor's for?"

The boys stare blankly back at him.

"Hey." Klef snaps his fingers. "What's with you lot today? It's not even close to bedtime, come on. Damon."

"Uh, extra strength?"

"No. Eskel."

He hurriedly turns away from the window, where he's just spotted a sliver of the full moon peeking out from behind the dense cloud cover. "Maribor... energy?" he guesses wildly.

Klef slams his hand down on the table irritably, then stops and slowly rubs at his wrist, scowling. "Why are all of you looking at me like that?"

"It's full moon," Buggy points out obliviously. "It means you're gonna turn into a werewolf soon."

"A what," Klef says, aghast.

"It's a curse," Buggy explains, his reedy voice earnest. "Eskel says - "

"I know what a werewolf is," Klef cuts in impatiently. "Why in seven hells would any of you think I'm a werewolf?"

"They think that Gardis was a werewolf and a Witcher, and also your father, and that you were bitten on the face, and that Max had to kill Gardis to save you, and that's why you both don't get along, because he killed your father," Perry drawls lazily, smirking and leaning back in his chair.

Klef gapes, puts his head in his hands, looks at the ceiling, and closes his eyes, muttering to himself. "Trust a group of Bastion boys to come up with the sort of nonsense I avoid royal courts for."

He takes a deep breath and looks at them again. "None of that is true," he says finally, his voice flat and expressionless. "Gardis was a Witcher. He trained me... and Max. And he was butchered by a mob of fanatics from Kovir that put out a fake contract to lure Witchers to their town."

"But Idras said he was your father," Nell says.

"Idras pretends to understand more than he actually does," Klef says curtly. "He was not my father. That's enough questions."

"Were you close? Like Aubry and Tjold?" Geralt asks quickly.

"Crow's eyes," Klef continues, jabbing at the root too viciously and causing the juice to splatter into Bastien's hair, "are good for Maribor, which is good for making sure you can fight tirelessly for hours." He finishes off and stabs the sharp end of the knife into the table, causing Nell to jerk backwards. "Maybe if you spent more of your energy learning than gossiping like ladies, you'd know not to ask such stupid questions and just do what you're told."

He throws the sliced pieces into a waiting bucket with an air of finality. "I expect all of this to be perfectly chopped and labelled before any of you leave," he says softly, still looking at the bucket like he wants it to catch fire. "And in that time, think long and hard about how very short most of your lives will be and how best you'd like to spend it."

The door slams shut behind him, shuddering on its frame.

"Look what you've done," Dirram says sadly to the room at large.

Subdued, they pick up their knives and start their long task for the night.

Chapter Text

Vesemir was right: it's a long winter, longer than the last one, though Eskel already finds it difficult to remember his first winter at Kaer Morhen.

It definitely wasn't as cold as this.

It's almost mid January when the snows let up, but the hidden path into the vale is all but blocked from small avalanches during the worst storms, and the ground is close to solid ice. The temperature drops even lower and the boys welcome the tougher trainings, for at least it gets them warm after half an hour or so. The Witchers are uncertain about letting them out, though: Nell caught a terrible chill from one of their early morning drills and still hasn't shaken his chest cough. The wheezing, together with the immovable cold of the stone walls and floor, keeps Eskel up late into the night. One of the days, though clear, is so cold and windy that Eskel feels shards of ice forming on his lashes after mere minutes outside.

The harsh weather poses a problem for their food as well. Because of Varin disappearing right before winter, the supply was under stocked to begin with, and there are a lot more Witchers that came in than expected, not all of them bringing in their own share of supplies. With the way in and out blocked, some of the younger Witchers take turns to go out with shovels and pickaxes to clear the path, but it's slow going, and that's just the path closest to the keep. The icy ground is barren and yields nothing. The surrounding woods are bare except for a few stringy hares and geese that the Witchers quickly hunt down. The river surface is so thick that it barely creaks when the boys go at it with the pickaxes. A few minutes of wild and dangerous swinging leaves nothing but frosty pinpricks on the surface.

"Alright, stop," Max says, frowning and plucking the tool out of Buggy's hands when he raises it high over his head again. "This bastard isn't going to give." He tries it himself anyway, a little farther off: one sharp swing through the air has the pick whistling and slamming right into the ice. For a moment Eskel thinks that he's finally done it, but Max curses and tosses the wooden handle to the side. Most of the head is buried within the ice.

"No fish tonight," Max murmurs stonily, and turns back to the keep. The boys follow him wordlessly, eager to get warm by the fire again. They pile up in front of the hearth outside the kitchens, dusting off the light flecks of snow in their hair and dragging the furs around themselves.

"Roast hare's not so bad," Mason says, falsely bright. He draws a thick grey-wolf pelt around his neck. Reynar makes a small noise of assent and squeezes in with him.

"Better than dried fruit," Eskel agrees gloomily, his face already burning numbly in the heat of the fire, but his nose still leaking from the cold. The faint memory of not having enough food back at home flickers at the corner of his mind: he's done this before, back when he was in a small house in the middle of nowhere with his mother hugging him close to keep them warm late at night. But now the hunger is keen in his stomach and somehow feels so much worse.

It's not often that the hearth is lit, these days, so they huddle close, savouring it while it lasts. It's something Eskel can get used to: wiggling his toes under Bastien's thighs, with Geralt draped over his back and breathing into his ear, while idly tangling his fingers into Remy's thick hair to warm his fingertips. Only Perry doesn't pile in with them, just sits a little way off scowling stubbornly and calling them dogs.

"At least we're warm," Jakob says simply, curling around Dirram and stuffing his hands under Dirram's jerkin. He yelps at the cold and tries to shrug him off, to no avail.

"Remember that time we had roast hare with potatoes?" Remy says, wistfully. "Maybe that's for dinner tonight."

"With radishes," Bastien adds, staring dreamily off into the middle distance. "And plum sauce."

"And apple juice," Kovac whispers.

It's nothing like what they hoped for. The brace of four rabbits is barely enough to feed all fifteen Bastion boys, much less Leo, Silas and the other eleven Witchers. In the end they're boiled into stew, and each boy is given a small leg for dinner. The dining hall's empty except for them and the kitchen crew; as hungry as they are, they eat it slowly so that it lasts longer.

"Where's everyone? Why aren't they eating?" Damon asks quietly, hunching over his little bowl like someone might take it from him too soon. Eskel glances around at the empty seats uneasily. They know that Klef had left two days ago to check the passes and hunt for more food with the other Witchers, and now that Damon has mentioned it, they haven't seen Vesemir around either. Apart from Max and Sorel, they don't know where the others have gone.

"Didn't make any for them," Silas says shortly, shrugging. "Don't you waste any of this, lads."

"Are we going to starve?" Perry demands. "Why isn't there enough to go around? Where I was raised, the servants -"

Silas flicks his arm out, catching Perry right in the face with a loud smack. "You shut your highborn trap," he growls. "Don't care where you were raised or who your noble father is. You're in here, you're a Bastion boy, together with the rest of us beggars and orphans and nameless whoresons. Eat your damn soup and thank Melitele for the Witchers out there trying to hunt for you."

Tears of rage well in his eyes as he sits there mutinously, the print on his cheek flushed red. Eskel almost expects him to launch himself across the table to hit Silas back, but Perry just stares and says nothing, his pale eyes hating and hating.

"He's right, you know," Eskel says lowly, nudging Geralt's foot under the table. "I know it's a little tasteless, but you should finish it. It's probably all we're going to get until tomorrow night."

Geralt presses his mouth into a stubborn line and says nothing, pushing his spoon around.

Sighing, Eskel puts the last piece of meat he was saving in his mouth and holds it there. The table is silent from Silas' outburst, except for Buggy's occasional sniffles as he cries into his empty bowl.

"When will we be able to get more supplies?" Clovis asks Silas timidly.

"Shouldn't be long now. Path'll be cleared enough for the cart to get through in a few days. By then, gods be good, it'll be warm enough that the wheels don't freeze up when I cross the river." He pauses, then stabs at his bowl. "That's assuming the mountain path is clear. Storms like these, likely the pass caved in. Gods know that ridge been waiting to crumble since Sorel was a Bastion boy."

The doors open with a groan, bringing in a cold draught. A couple of blue-lipped Witchers carry in huge blocks of ice to be melted into washing-water in the kitchen, but Eskel doesn't know who they are. They sniff in disapproval at the boys as they pass.

"Wait," Geralt bleats softly. "You must be hungry too. I - I saved you some soup."

One of them pauses, rolls his eyes, and trudges off, but the other stays, staring a moment, then shakes his head. "Finish it, little boy. Humans eat first. Vesemir's orders." He walks off, chuckling under his breath.

Silas turns his mismatched eyes on Geralt, his mouth working like he wants to say something nasty. Instead he says, "No need for kindness, boy. Just eat your damn soup."

---

The night is bitterly cold and they're more miserable than ever even though they're all huddled tight as much as they can. Bastien's all elbows, his wiry hair getting in Eskel's eyes, and Eskel tries to move so that he can at least breathe.

The silence is punctuated by the odd gurgle of their empty stomachs, and Nell hacking up a lung into Mason's shoulder blade. Off in the corner, Perry's wrapped up in his own covers, barely thicker than an old grain sack, his chattering teeth a constant thrum. It's a wonder he hasn't worn them down yet.

"Come on, Perry, don't be an ass," Remy says kindly. "You can share the furs with us."

"You'll catch your death," Clovis adds. "Ma used to say that."

Perry snorts, his pale lips stretched into a sneer, though they're going blue like his eyes. 

"It's warmer inside," Buggy chirps, wriggling around to stick his head out. Kovac groans and shoves him aside.

"Stop that, you're letting the cold air in," Eskel says as a tussle breaks out. It ends with Reynar curled up and groaning.

"My balls," he whines. "Buggy, you got me in the fuckin' balls. Din't do anythin' to you. Owwwh."

Buggy bites his lip. "'M sorry, sorry. I thought I was gettin' Kovac."

"The fuck you were," Kovacs declares, rolling over and grabbing at Buggy, who yelps and crawls right over Eskel's ribs, jabbing him roughly.

"Ow," Eskel manages, then suddenly Kovacs is on him, the furs are getting twisted up, Geralt is pulling at it and Bastien tugs back, and the covers are over his head and someone's knee is pulling at his hair, then -

"Fuck," Eskel gasps, all the air punched out of his gut. "Those were my balls, Kovac." Bent over and breathless, he reaches out blindly to hit back, and now the room is filled with yelps of pain and cursing. He sinks his teeth into someone's hand when it grabs at his wrist, and struggles when another boy pins an ankle down.

Jakob lets out a sharp shout as Dirram catches him in the groin too.

Predictably, the door creaks open. "Hey, keep it - " Max stares. "Why are you all naked?"

"Cold," Clovis bites out through clenched teeth, clutching himself in pain.

"Kick ball," Mason mutters grimly, looking equally uncomfortable.

"What - bloede sheyss," Max hisses, catching Buggy's ankle as he aims a kick between his legs and hauls him into the air upside-down. "You little rat."

He drops Buggy into the heap in disgust, sweeping a disapproving look across the room. "One night of peace. Just one fucking night. Is that too much to ask? No." He spies Perry in the corner, shaking uncontrollably now.

"Pile in with the lot, boy," Max says, rolling his eyes.

"N-n-n-n-no," Perry stutters. "You're f-f-from Nilfgaard."

"No I'm not," Max says shortly, his mouth turning mean again.

"T-t-t-take me back," Perry whispers. "I hate it h-h-here."

"Everyone does, you're not special. And you're freezing, get up, let me see you."

"C-c-c-can't," Perry mutters, his eyes fluttering shut. Eskel swallows a lump in his throat. He knows how the cold must feel right now, imagines that it's difficult for Perry to even breathe.

"Don't be useless, it's not that cold," Max grumbles, but he sounds unsure. He strides over to haul Perry to his feet, roughly turning his head this way and that, checking his ears, his fingers, his toes.

"Shit," Max says to himself. "Feel this?" There's suddenly a small knife in his hand, pricking at Perry's fingers one by one. Eskel watches, fascinated, as the blood wells up in tiny beads. His fingertips are bone white, almost blue. Perry flinches reflexively, then frowns and shakes his head slowly.

"Shit, shit, shit," Max continues. In the end he sheathes the knife and sweeps Perry into his arms. "Why didn't any of you say it was too cold here? Why's the fire not going?"

"It's cold everywhere," Dirram says softly, unsure.

"We're not allowed to take firewood from the store," Geralt adds.

Max utters a string of angry words - probably Nilfgaardian - and stomps off. "Come on," he snaps, and they scramble to throw on their clothes and follow him.

"What's wrong with him? Looked fine to me," Clovis mutters, his voice muffled by his tunic as he stuffs his face through it.

Eskel helps Buggy up, checking his elbow where he'd banged it. "You're fine," he says, pulling the tunic over his head and tying up his breeches with practiced hands. "Stop fussing."

"It still hurts," Buggy whines, twisting to try to look at the back of his elbow. Eskel whaps at his hair softly.

"That's what you get for trying to play kick ball with a Witcher. What were you thinking?"

"Wasn't," Buggy mumbles.

"That's right, you weren't thinking. You -"

Dirram tsks impatiently from the doorway. The rest have gone already. "You coming or what?"

Eskel pulls on his own clothes and hurries off to join the rest. They have to half-jog to keep up with Max's long strides as he leads them to a part of the keep they haven't been to before. The stone walls get closer, the flagstones like ice that Eskel can feel through the worn soles of his shoes. The corridor slopes downwards, and there are no longer any windows. The corridor is lined with torches hung on low brackets on the walls, but they're not lit. Max snaps his fingers briskly to light one and thrusts it at Geralt, who's closest to him. Without saying another word, he continues down the pitch black corridor. Geralt hesitates, holding the torch as far away from his face as he can. 

"What do I do with this?" he says uncertainly, looking from the torch to the blackness that just swallowed Max's receding figure.

"Come on," Reynar says impatiently, dragging Geralt along. The boys huddle closer now that they have just one source of light, and it's even warm. As far behind as they are, it's not difficult to find their way: the path winds and twists and leads steadily downwards, but doesn't split.

"We're going into the mountain," Jakob whispers. The walls whisper back. Mountain, tain, tain. 

"How do you know?" Clovis challenges.

"I'm smarter than you," Jakob retorts.

The air is incredibly still and close, pressing in on Eskel's ears. It's damp, too, and Eskel realises that it's not as cold as it was awhile back. His breath comes up in clouds in front of his face as they patter onwards.

Soon, they hear voices ahead, but it's difficult to distinguish the sounds with all the echoing. They round a sharp bend and suddenly the corridor opens into a deep round room filled with warm steam. Beside him, Bastien lets out a low hiss of delight, and Eskel feels it too: he's already relaxing. For the first time in weeks, he feels his muscles unravel, as if they'd been bunched up with cold the entire time.

The light from the torch fills the cavern easily, bouncing off the curved high ceiling. Still, Idras' eyes give off a cattish gleam as he scowls at Max and emerges from the deep end of the pool, his scarred skin glistening in the flickering light. There are no bruises from his fight with Klef anymore, as far as Eskel can tell, and the only thing he's wearing is his Witcher medallion. Eskel restrains a gasp when he sees a huge gash right across Idras' gut, right below the navel, so deep it looks like a huge mouth carved into the flesh. The outer edges are lightly scabbed, but the deepest part of it is raw and pink like uncooked meat, only just held together by a row of haphazard dark stitches pulling the mouth shut. "They're not supposed to be here," he points out, wiping himself down with a washcloth without looking at them or Max.

"Your kid's gonna lose his fucking fingers, shut up," Max retorts.

"He's not my kid -"

"I'm n-n-n-not his kid -"

"Shut up," Max repeats, waving his hand impatiently at the rest of them. "Get me a tub."

It's sitting by the corner, and heavier than it looks. It takes Eskel, Remy and Jakob's combined efforts to drag it across the uneven stone. The other boys stand awkwardly by Geralt's torch, awaiting instruction.

"Water's too hot for him, you'll burn his hands right off," Idras says helpfully. 

"I know, shut up and let me think," Max snarls back, smacking Perry as he tries to resist Max divesting him of his clothes. "And put some clothes on, I've seen enough cocks for today."

Idras huffs and drapes a robe loosely around his shoulders, ignoring Max. He grabs the torch out of Geralt's hands and places it in a high bracket, then moves his hand quickly. A circle of torches crackle to life. He points the boys to a low bench by the wall. "Sit. Don't touch the water."

"Why?" Geralt whines plaintively, the only one bold enough to voice the question on the tips of all their tongues.

"Now's really not the time, Tiny," Max grits out. He thrusts Perry at Idras, then picks up the tub like it's nothing and fills it from an old tap set into the wall.

The warm steam of the room makes Eskel feel a little drowsy. He breathes in the thick fumes that smell faintly of salt and metal and hugs Geralt close. He can feel Geralt twitch and shift as if he's contemplating rushing forward to put his hands in the pool in front of them. It's tempting, it's true: The vapour rising from the surface makes Eskel's eyes water with need. He wants to dive right in and not get out until summer. But there's something about it that strikes a soft warning in his chest: something about the way its rust-red surface trembles in the still air of the room, and Eskel is sure that if everyone were to stop moving and breathing right now, he'd be able to hear something like a hum emanating from the water. He shivers as he contemplates the deep pool cut into the rock, but he's no longer cold. He huffs again and melts into the wet warmth of the air.

Idras maneuvers Perry expertly until he's completely trapped and incapable of struggling. "Don't make me tie you up," he warns, and it's clear he's made good that threat before, because Perry finally slouches and gives in, moving only with the shivers that force his body to jerk uncontrollably. "Shouldn't have come here," Idras says again, looking over at Eskel and the others. Eskel blinks back at him sleepily. Geralt fidgets again, and he grips harder.

"Don't," he warns Geralt, but really if Geralt tried Eskel wouldn't be able to stop him: the steam and fumes are getting to his head, and he can feel his limbs go loose and heavy. He's a breath away from turning into a puddle and flowing to the floor. To his right, Bastien lets out a long sigh and babbles nonsense words to himself.

Max casts a look at them, following Idras' gaze, and shakes his head. "They were freezing, let them warm up just a bit more."

Idras makes a sound like he still doesn't think it's a good idea, then throws Perry over his shoulder. Perry yelps in protest but doesn't try to escape, his face getting red and patchy from humiliation. Eskel watches as the two take turns silently testing the temperature of the water, being very careful to add not more than three bucketfuls of steaming water into the tub. The way Idras lowers Perry in is surprisingly gentle. "Don't move, don't swallow any water," Idras warns quietly. He shoots a laughing look at Geralt, then adds pointedly, "You'll get poisoned or go blind."

Geralt freezes and Eskel can finally let his arms drop.

"See," Eskel slurs. "Don't be an idiot." Geralt makes a small noise and falls uncharacteristically quiet. He feels heavier than normal.

The room gets really warm really fast. One moment he's watching Perry's stricken expression as Max pushes him down to the ears, the next he's staring at the ceiling, someone else's hair is in his mouth, and the floor is rotating very slowly. He notices that he's sweating now, and panting like he's run ten miles. His tongue feels thick.

"I'm, I'm gonna," Buggy says off to the side, and he belches and there's the sound of liquid splattering on the floor. 

"Okay," Max says. "Time to go. All warmed up now."

Eskel struggles to sit up, wondering why it's so difficult. Somehow, he's no longer on the bench, and neither are the rest of them, except maybe Nell, who looks like he's fallen asleep on it. The ground is all soft, and it makes noises when he presses down. In the tub, Perry's out cold, his head tipped back all the way like he's in a dead faint. He looks thinner like this, vulnerable with the pale stretch of his neck a bright stripe against his hair. With his face slack and eyes closed, he looks almost cherubic. Eskel stares, mesmerised, at the curls of black hair sticking to his neck and temples, and the soft pink bow of his lips.

"Oh, no, I'm not helping you," Idras is saying, smirking. He's dressing his wound carefully with some bitter-smelling salve from a tin that even Eskel can smell through his haze of confusion. "Your fault for bringing them here. Clean up the sick when you're done."

Max growls under his breath, probably cursing a blue streak in Nilfgaardian again, but he moves efficiently, carrying Perry out of the tub and wrapping him in a spare robe so long that he ends up swaddling the boy like an overgrown babe. He then grabs Buggy and Geralt and throws them over either shoulder, making more displeased noises as Buggy wipes off his mouth on his neck.

By the time he's almost done carrying them all back to the huge brazier by the main hall, Eskel's clear headed again. He and Damon were left to the last, being the tallest of the boys, and they mostly stumble along beside Max on unsteady feet.

"What happened to Perry?" Eskel asks, his tongue still loose. On a normal day, he would have kept his question to himself.

"Frostbite. Or the beginnings of it. He'll be fine." No longer moving urgently, the passage is longer than Eskel remembers, or maybe it seems that way because his head is still spinning slightly.

"Is he really Idras' son?" Damon adds.

"Of course not," Max says, but it's like the night's ordeal has made him less stern, like he's too tired to remember to be harsh. "Not sure if it was Law of Surprise either. Heard he took the boy off a woman hiding from the law. Dunno. Idras isn't exactly an open book."

"He's funny," Eskel says automatically, then has to pause to think about what he's saying next. "Someone almost opened his stomach, though."

"I miss Varin," Damon admits, then trips and grabs at Eskel and they both tumble to the floor. Max pulls them both back up, marching them onward up the slope. This stretch is particularly narrow and steep. Eskel doesn't remember it being that way.

"Yeah," Eskel agrees, a few minutes later, after he registers Damon's words. "Yeah, Varin was nice."

"Nicer than Max," Damon sighs.

"I am. Right. Here," Max grunts, shoving them both forward a little faster.

"Sorry, sir," Damon says quickly. "It's that - that room. I'm thinking funny things."

"Funny water," Eskel adds, then suddenly feels the urge to laugh. "I could feel it tingle." He wiggles his fingers.

Max makes a soft noise of approval. "You could feel the magic, huh? You're not wrong. Long ago when the mages and herbalists were still experimenting with mutagens for Witchers, they found this mountain. Those were the days when the mountain was still next to a sea, and in this cave and many other caves like it, all manners of creatures lived and died. And their bodies were embedded in the stone for thousands of years, together with all the magical herbs and roots. Now all of it is buried under so much rock, and so close to the centre of the earth, that it comes up in the hot water. The other springs have dried up or caved in; this is the only known spring left. The water's potent, and would probably kill a human if they stayed long enough, or tried to drink from it. Great for healing for us, though. Soothes hurt, gentles scars. You'll be coming here again, if you get past the first round of the Trials."

This is the most Eskel's ever heard Max talk, and he drinks it in greedily; in the dark his voice carries all the way down the corridor, though his tone is distant and quiet. If he closes his eyes it feels like the mountain itself is speaking to him. He tries, and steps on Damon's toes instead.

"I think some of it got in my eyes," Damon whispers worriedly. "Is it... will I..."

"That was Idras' idea of a joke," Max says shortly, then twists Eskel's ear viciously when he starts giggling. Then they reach the pile where the rest are either dozing or being sick off to the side. He pushes them onto the pile and turns away, then stops. "If the fire gets low and it's cold, you can take more wood," he says slowly, deliberately. Then he stomps off grumpily, probably to clean up Buggy's mess in the hot spring.

"You look fine," Geralt says accusingly as Eskel flops down beside him with a sigh. He doesn't look covered in vomit, though his expression is pained and his face green.

"You're just weak," Eskel says, patting Geralt's hair sympathetically. He swats the hand away, snarling angrily, and Eskel laughs all loose and easy.

"I feel great," Eskel adds smugly, just because he can.

"I will puke on you," Remy warns in a strangled voice. He's lying flat on his back, his palms pressed into his eye sockets. 

Perry wakes slowly, then all at once: he's barely blinking his way to consciousness before he lurches to the side and spills a few sticky mouthfuls of his dinner, banging his head on a table leg while doing so. 

Eskel pats his back lightly, waiting for his breathing to calm down. When Perry realises, he flinches and for a minute Eskel thinks he's going to have to fight, but Perry just relaxes again, looking grudging and defeated. He flexes his fingers, now glowing bright pink and taut like the skin might burst.

"Still there," Eskel assures him, his voice low.

Perry makes a soft sound, and doesn't move away. It's long moments before he manages to compose himself, then he looks at Eskel, really looks at him. Eskel stares back, his thoughts all gone. Vaguely, he notes a little corner where Perry's eyes are not quite blue, like a shallow bank of sand in a clear lake. His mouth is pressed into its usual obstinate line, hard like always, but Eskel feels like touching them all the same.

"I don't belong here," Perry says, his voice guttural. He looks away like he thinks he might cry. "I don't want to be here."

"It's okay, Perry," Geralt says, putting his chin on Perry's knee. "I didn't wanna be here too."

"No, you don't understand," Perry says, his voice forceful. "I'm not supposed to be here. That Witcher Idras stole me from my home. I'm not an orphan, or a slave, or anything that Witchers are made from. I have a family." He whispers his story of how the Witcher had shown up after his father had put out a contract for the monsters on the outskirts of their estate. Their servants were disappearing, especially the ones that strayed too close to the old cemetery. Idras had gone out to take care of them, but when he came back, he had a fight with Perry's father. Perry's mother had hidden him away from that, but later that night she had shaken him awake, tears streaming down his face. She thrust Perry at the Witcher without looking at him, still crying. I can't watch this, she'd said, covering her face with her hand. Please just go. then she'd turned and closed the door.

"Why did she do that?" Eskel asks quietly, frowning and trying to piece it together, but his thoughts are still scattered.

"He wanted to take revenge on my father. After the fight, I'm sure of it. He decided to steal me from my home as payment, send me to the far North. For his only son to become the same monster he hates. I can't let that happen."

"Even if that's true," Clovis drawls, out of boredom or maybe still under the effects of the spring. "We can't leave. It's impossible."

"Yeah, I've tried," Remy mutters. "Remember when Sebastien and I first came? Here to the Bastion's easy, but we got lost beyond that. Runnin' in circles for a week before Varin brought us back. Never been so cold and hungry in my life. An' there were wolves and drownsers and Leshens."

"There aren't any Leshen near Kaer Morhen," Eskel says automatically.

"Shut up, 'Skel," Clovis says impatiently. "And Remy, you were here before any of us, so we can't remember that. Point is, we don't know the way. Only Witchers know the way."

Geralt sighs. "Silas prob'ly knows," he says, offhand. "Comes and goes all the time, right?"

Perry goes still like he's just scented prey, just as Geralt sits up, his eyes round.

"Oh, no. No. No," Eskel says firmly. "No."

Bastien sniffs miserably. "I hate to agree with him, but it's a bad idea. It's safer here. There's nowhere else for us."

Geralt isn't having it. "We just hafta sneak onto Silas' cart. It's easy. We'll be in the next town in two, three days maybe?"

"And what town is that?" Eskel challenges. "You don't even know where you'll end up!"

"Nobody asked you to come with us," Geralt shoots back, looking mutinous.

"Stop being a child," Eskel snaps back, heat rising to his cheeks as he clenches his fists.

"I am a child, I'm six years old!" Geralt says shrilly.

"You're not six, you said the same thing last year!"

"It's true," Clovis interjects lazily. "He's been saying that since at least last last year."

Eskel stares at him, breathing hard, something hot and tight rising in his chest. He swallows it down as much as he can. "Geralt," he says quietly, but he doesn't know what else to say. How long has it been? How old is he, how old are they? Just a few minutes ago he was sure he was almost ten, but nobody's been counting. It's always been his ma, telling him when to celebrate his birthday, sometimes with a new pair of shoes or a sweet tart from the market. How old is he? How long more do they have?

Klef's words come back to him like a punch to the gut and he sags back, unclenching his fists.

"I have a mother too. I know she's still alive," Geralt says, his eyes terrible and bright. "An' if Perry's going off to find his parents, I'm going too. You can stay here yourself an' read your stupid books an' tell people what to do."

"Geralt," Eskel says again, but the word gets stuck in his throat. He watches dumbly as Geralt staggers to his feet and drags Perry along with him, disappearing back down the corridor leading to their room.

Chapter Text

It feels a lot like the sun has gone out, even though it's already been cold for the past month and more. Geralt avoids him even at night when they all sleep together to keep warm, choosing the far end of the group and always making sure there are at least two boys between them. It hurts, it really does, but Eskel will be damned if he's ever going to admit it. It feels like a hundred fresh cuts in his lungs, every time Geralt turns away or ignores him. He starts doing it back, too, just to spite him. Little jabs and cutting words like Geralt does, but where he should feel satisfaction, there is only pain. Like in trying to hurt Geralt, he's hurting himself instead. So he stops.

When he sleeps, he dreams his flesh-coloured nightmares of grabbing hands and sneering voices. There is one night where he screams himself awake, so loud and sharp that he sits up. For a moment his heart hammers hard and he tries to think of who had made that sound, but the others' puzzled faces makes him realise that it must have come from him. He's filled with shame then, under all their questioning gazes, like he's a rag turned inside out, scrubbed and wrung out shapeless, but still dirty. Bastien reaches out blindly, still half-asleep: he's a heavy sleeper. But the feel of his fingers near Eskel's neck makes his hair stand and he feels like throwing up, and he crawls out of the warmth and puts himself at a distance so that they can all go back to sleep.

So most nights, especially when it's warmer, he sleeps apart from them, the new outsider looking in. Perry still stays stubbornly at the edge, but welcome in the group nonetheless, and warm. Thankfully it's not as cold as Perry was that night because now they get to light the fire in their room, and because the weather is getting very slightly milder, one day at a time. More often than not he seethes as Geralt presses his face into Perry's wild raven hair, or when he notices that their ankles are intertwined, but he can't tell who he's angry at or why. He just watches from his isolated sleeping position, grinding his teeth until he falls asleep.

 He doesn't know what to feel, as the lone boy now. He should probably hate all of them, for so easily casting him aside, but he can see why. Nobody invites Eskel back in, not after the screaming and certainly not after he'd punched Kovac upon waking. He understands. 

Geralt would have invited him back.

He almost asks Geralt. He doesn't even know what to ask, only that he wants desperately to talk to him again, just to ask him something, just to get a response. You can be friends with me, Geralt had said, all those years back when he'd first come to Kaer Morhen. What's there to say? I thought we were friends? Eskel feels stupid even saying it in his head. Obviously Geralt would say no, and that would feel like another hundred cuts. He's fine with all the hurt he's already feeling, and it seems pointless to give Geralt more chances to twist the blade.

But it's clear that the warmth of their friendship was what kept Eskel in the spotlight. Now he's faded into the background, back to his silent awkward self like when he'd first come, unsure and second-guessing everything. Geralt talks and laughs with the rest, invents new games. During training even the older ones seem to follow his cue like they can't help themselves. Like basking in sunlight, or like moths to a flame. Everything Geralt does is delightful and dangerous, reckless in a way that makes them laugh like they're alive. Eskel knows how that feels, but Geralt was right; Eskel isn't like that at all. He's never been like that. He's all quiet when Geralt's noise, he's hard where Geralt's soft. He's nothing. All he does is read and care about following the rules. 

Somehow, Eskel finds that he's not so sad about that. He likes to read, likes it better than the rest even though Perry's obviously better at it. And he likes the rules, likes to be good, because good boys get presents and rewards and they don't get into trouble, or beaten. And good boys keep still, and avoid being seen, and could have stopped that man from killing Mother.

Be a good boy, and you can even enjoy this, if you want to, a faceless someone says in one of his dreams, and Eskel gives in like he should.

It's alright, fading away, and being in the dark. He can be alone. He's been alone all his life, and he's never had any friends. At least now he has his books. He keeps one close always. It's easy to ignore everything around him when he's reading: like going inside your head, but with stories.

The book he keeps nearby isn't a story. The Horse Whistler is just a simple guide about breaking in and training a mount. It doesn't even have pictures. 

The bond between horse and human is unbreakable. A good horse is intelligent and independent, yet never deserts its rider in dire circumstances.

Books and animals. That's all he needs.

---

"I can't, I can't..."

"Shut up." The sound of wooden stick on flesh. 

Eskel is so hungry he can barely think. There's a pain in his side that feels like it goes all the way to his spine; he knows he'll be pissing blood for the next few days at least. He grits his teeth and gets to his feet sluggishly, his mind a whirl of thoughtless air. "I can't," he says again, through gritted teeth, but Max doesn't care, just strikes the floor in warning.

"Nobody cares that you can't," Max snaps, his voice grating. "Just do it."

Before him, Clovis shifts his weight uneasily. Months ago he would've gleefully pressed his advantage, but now he looks almost as miserable as Eskel feels, his movements halfhearted. He doesn't want to beat Eskel any more than Eskel wants to get beaten.

Clovis swallows. "Sir, can we -"

"You're not done," Max says. "Keep going. He's yet to knock you down." This is an old game, pushing each other to the limit: it only ends when Max says stop, and Max never says stop unless both fighters can't get up.

It's harder today, though. It's been harder these few days. There's the lack of food that has Eskel thinking about eating every waking moment. The worst part is that there's just enough for him to keep his appetite going - the moment he feels like he's used to the hunger, he gets food, and his stomach is awake again. The biting wind makes its way through one of the high windows of the room, moaning softly. Still too cold to do this outside. Too cold for their food stores to be restocked, too cold for Geralt and Perry to make a break for it and leave him for good in this place where he will most likely die before he's tall enough to ride a horse.

The other boys sit against the wall in a row, not really paying attention. They know that the longer this fight is drawn out, the more rest they get. Eskel prays to himself, a nonsense faithless prayer of please just let me win, and holds his aching fists up.

Come on, Clovis. Let me win. But he knows Clovis better than that, and he can even understand: he'd rather be in that position too, standing tall and winning the fight easily, the blow-dealer instead of the blow-taker. Eskel surges forward, careless with desperation, but he gets rebuffed again. The strike on his stomach isn't hard, but enough to get him wheezing. He grits his teeth and shakes his head again. "I can't." He chokes back a sob: Max hates crying, and he's already been beaten enough.

"You're not even trying," Max accuses, tapping the floor impatiently. If he'd used a sword, Eskel would be dead twenty times over. "You haven't landed a hit. Get up, you little shit."

Sometimes Eskel thinks Max calls them names on purpose, just to show how mean he can be. Or maybe he really just doesn't care to know their names, like Vesemir.

I'm so hungry. I'm so tired. Eskel knows that these are excuses that Max will never accept. Tears prick his eyes again. He darts a look at the other boys: Dirram is starting into the middle distance, rolling his shoulders back in anticipation of his turn. Mason is pressing his back to the wall like he wants to disappear through it to the other side. Geralt is -

- not looking at him.

If things were like before, he'd be stepping up to do something stupid by now. He'd volunteer to take over, he'd announce a change in the rules in his sweet childish voice and make this a full brawl. He'd do something, anything, no matter how stupid, just to put a stop to this shitty drill, even if it meant Max beating him black and blue worse than Eskel. They'd be punished for it, and later on compare their bruises, and all of it would be them, together, like always. That's what Geralt always does. That's what they are. They're supposed to match, both inside and out: they have the same eyes, the same hair, the same missing baby tooth that got knocked loose prematurely, the same dimple in the chin that precisely fits the tip of a thumb, pressing in gently. Only they don't match anymore. Geralt shadows Perry now, and they conspire and whisper away from him, planning their stupid escape that's probably going to fail and end up with them killed, or worse - Vesemir could catch them.

Eskel snaps his attention back to the fight a second too late: Clovis' foot catches him in the throat and sends him sprawling. Tears do spring to his eyes then, more from the force of impact than emotion, and he chokes them down as much as he can. Coughing, eyes watering, he pushes himself up on his elbows.

"Come on, Eskel," someone mutters, and he turns into the encouragement. It's Remy, though he doesn't make eye contact. He looks faintly embarrassed.

"You're thinking too much," Max says quietly. "Clear your thoughts. No emotions. No pain. No hunger. You can see your target in front of you. Strike fast. Strike hard. Strike or die."

Go inside your head, Eskel's brain says helpfully, but he balks. He can't do this. He doesn't want to, but he can feel it creeping up on him, like getting swallowed into a blood-dark chasm. No, he can't do this. His name was Squirrel.

He's thrown onto his back again, and he's so out of it that for a moment he forgets where he is or what he's doing. Is he standing or lying down? There are bright spots in his vision, then a shadow crossing into his field of vision. It's a man-shaped shadow, looming over him, and it gets bigger and darker.

Eskel breaks into cold sweat instantly, and the smell of alcohol suddenly surges up his nose. No, not this. 

"Get away," he says weakly, swatting at the air in front of him. The shadow pauses, then continues. Stretches an arm out - to pin him down -

Eskel throws both elbows over his head, cowering, shouting nonsense words, "StopdonthurtmeIdontwantthis!"

There's a ringing silence that Eskel doesn't register, over his own ragged breathing. He feels the blood return to his extremities slowly, as if someone is slowly filling him up again. The fleeting moment of emptiness is replaced by the familiar slow throb of pain that builds too fast and hits too hard. He slumps back, startling as he hits solid wall behind him. It's like someone has lifted him out of his body and dropped him back in.

Clovis is on the ground, looking winded but otherwise unhurt. He makes no move to get up. Everyone is staring at Eskel oddly now, their pity turning into something else - curiosity, maybe, or confusion. Eskel feels the colour return to his vision. He hadn't noticed that it had left.

Max is on his feet, his face clouded with what looks like rage. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Eskel shakes his head. "I... I didn't do anything." He looks at his hands. They're white and shaking, but he doesn't know what he expected. Blood? Splinters? Squirrel on the floor, his head cracked open like an egg?

Clovis grins, sudden and proud like he always does when Eskel lands a good hit on him. "You made me fall without even touching me."

"You're all dismissed," Max says, hauling Eskel to his feet. "Come on."

The boys linger, murmuring softly amongst themselves until Max shoos them away. 

"Can you walk?" Max asks shortly, but it's a rhetorical question, because he doesn't wait for an answer. Eskel grimaces and hobbles forward, trying not to double over. Can you walk, he asks, as if he wasn't trying to make a cripple out of me minutes ago.

To his relief, Max doesn't bring him anywhere special or make him do anything new. They end up in Sorel's apothecary like they always do after a bad scuffle. Eskel sinks onto a bed immediately, the pungent stink of herbs and medicines soothing his nerves.

"When is Vesemir due back?" Max asks Sorel.

Sorel sighs and mutters darkly to himself, mixing up his usual brew to speed up blood clotting. Then he thrusts the cup in Eskel's hands. "I'm not his keeper."

"This boy just did... something during training. I need to know."

"I'm guessing that's what training is supposed to be for," Sorel says calmly. "Something." He grabs Eskel's chin, and wrenches his eyelids open, one after the other, ignoring Eskel's pained whimper.

"It was some kind of magic," Max says, his voice strained like he's fighting to keep a respectful tone. "Like Aard. Threw another boy off his feet without touching him."

Sorel blinks slowly. "It's something," he agrees mildly, but he continues checking Eskel over like always. Grabs his hands to examine the fingers, rubs calloused thumbs over his sore knuckles. He makes a small noise of discontent.

"You clenched your fist too tight again," he chides Eskel unhappily. "Not even connecting at the right angle. That could cost you your fingers, next time. Or your wrist. What good is a Witcher who can't throw a punch? Might as well become a priest. Or a mage, since that seems to be in the cards."

Max huffs indignantly. "Well? Where's Vesemir?"

Sorel tests his elbows, and checks his shoulders, rolling Eskel's arms this way and that like he's a puppet. He tsks irritably when he hears the familiar click in Eskel's right shoulder, like it bothers him more than what Max has just told him. 

"He'll be back when he's done his job, I assume," Sorel murmurs. Eskel swallows another mouthful of bitter tea, only just managing not to retch it back up. Sorel makes another discontented noise in his throat when he sees the bruising in Eskel's back. His hands, rough as bark, rub thick layers of minty salve into Eskel's skin. 

"What if the Brotherhood comes for him?"

Sorel makes a funny sound that's almost a laugh. "Maximilian, are you afraid of a couple of sorcerers? They're not going to lay siege on a long-forgotten mountain just because one boy moved some air. I'm sure they have more pressing matters at hand."

"Yeah? Like what?" Max challenges.

"Don't know. I'm not a fucking mage. Nor am I fucking one." 

Max makes a sound like someone is strangling him, then he exhales hard and relaxes slightly, shaking his head like he's holding back a laugh. "Fuck you," he says without heat. "Some days I wish you'd let me die on that table."

"And leave Robin all alone in this cruel world?" Sorel's lips lift in a rare smirk.

Max goes stiff all over again, his relaxed manner freezing back up. "He's not Robin anymore. Chose a name for himself, did you forget?"

Sorel makes a noise that's not really a yes or no. "He'll always be little Robin to me, just as you're little Maximilian. What can I say, I'm an old man." He finishes with the salve, and checks Eskel's knees, then feet. This part always tickles, and Eskel tries not to squirm. Then he stops suddenly and levels a sudden glare at Max. "Also, that mage? Quite a step down from Robin. Do you call him Cliff, for short? Seems a bit similar to - "

"Shut up. We're going now," Max says abruptly, taking Eskel by the upper arm and hauling him up. "Don't know why I bother talking to you."

"Loneliness, probably," Sorel says bluntly, giving Eskel a critical once-over then nodding. "Probably going to piss blood tomorrow, Eskel."

"I know," Eskel mumbles miserably. Fortunately, the tea's already working, and the pain is muffled for now. Eskel still needs to hobble after Max, but he doesn't need to wince anymore.

Max doesn't say anything, but Eskel keeps turning his words in his head. "Sir," he says tentatively. "Is... is someone coming for me?"

A muscle ticks in his jaw. "Probably." Max is still angry at whatever Sorel had said to him, not that Eskel knows what the hell they were talking about.

"I didn't mean to do it."

"Hm," Max acknowledges.

"I - " Eskel inhales, steeling himself. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

Max barks a short, sharp laugh. "This is funny. One day we'll both laugh about this. Maybe in a few years, or fifty. If we're both still alive. Gods. School of Witchers. Yeah, no, let's not hurt anyone. Maybe make it our motto."

"I don't understand, sir," Eskel says breathlessly, as they ascend the stairs to the dining hall. Then, "Who's Robin?"

"Shut up," Max says, and he says that a lot, Eskel realises, like it's almost a reflex. 

Klef is standing at the top of the stairs, his eyes narrowed.

"Oh," Max drawls tiredly, like he's almost disappointed. "You're back."

"Found a hibernating bear," he says, but he still looks suspicious. "Were you talking about me?"

Wordlessly, Max pushes Eskel forward right into Klef's arms, then turns sharply and heads back down the stairs.

"Bastard," Klef mutters under his breath, then takes a look at Eskel and wrinkles his nose. "Did you even fight back?"

---

Vesemir does return before any mages visit, but Eskel can't decide if he's relieved or terrified because of it. Relieved because if anyone comes to take him away, Eskel is almost sure that Vesemir would protect him. Terrified because it means certain death if Geralt and Perry are caught. 

But Vesemir returns with bags of grain and salted meat, and even a wheel of cheese, and those things - together with the bear that Klef had managed to kill - are things worth celebrating, so Eskel pushes away the thought of Geralt trying to leave. The snows are still too thick for Sorel's cart. Maybe he'll forget or change his mind. 

With some food to last them the rest of the week, the other Witchers are free to sit and share the food in the dining hall too. Sorel and Idras are nowhere to be found, but Klef sits with Vesemir. They don't talk while eating, just two people sharing a table without acknowledging each other. Max is sitting with two other younger Witchers that Eskel doesn't recognise. They're not talking very loudly, but they look like they're exchanging stories and having fun.

"I bet Vesemir climbed over the mountain just to get more food," Jakob says, chewing at his jerky with relish.

The bear meat tastes strange. Eskel tries his best to like it.

"That's impossible," Perry says. "That'd take at least a week."

Geralt nods along. Eskel scowls. So he pretends to know things and you agree, but when I know things... 

"It's true," Dirram says. "He's Vesemir. He can probably do it without even stopping to rest."

"On one leg," Bastien adds.

"With no hands."

"Both eyes closed."

The air suddenly surges. Eskel jumps as he feels it crackle across his skin, turning in alarm. "What was that?"

But he's a shadow now and nobody answers him. Nobody has to, because there's a glowing hole that flickers into existence right beside Max's table. The two Witchers are already on their feet, their swords drawn, but Max stays frozen in his seat.

The hole disappears as quickly as it came. In its place is a tall man, almost as tall as Max, dressed in deep blue silk and soft boots that fit like a second skin.

"Max," the man says, sinking into a graceful bow and extending a hand.

"Radcliffe," Max says unenthusiastically, setting his food down sulkily and pushing the hand away. "Should've known it'd be you."

Vesemir is also standing, but his sword is still in its sheath. His hand is on his hip, but his stance looks more casual than cautious. "Don't they teach manners at the Brotherhood?" he asks coldly.

"My deepest apologies," Radcliffe sighs, sinking into a lower bow. "I tried the front door, but it's an avalanche out there, and I'm not dressed for this climate."

He doesn't look sorry, Eskel thinks, especially when he tilts his head away from Vesemir to look at Max again.

"That winter beard is a good look on you," he says, his voice as silky as his robes.

Max grimaces and steps away from him. "Vesemir, this is Radcliffe. We're... acquainted."

"Under the light of the Great Sun," Radcliffe says, leery. "If you get my drift."

Klef eyes him disdainfully. "So you've portalled yourself here just for a fuck, but you've got to announce yourself first?"

Radcliffe laughs, clapping his hands together. "I like your sense of humour, Wolf," he quips. "But no. I'm here on official business. The fucking is a bonus."

"Well maybe you can fuck right off," Max says through clenched teeth. If Witchers could get red, Eskel thinks he'd probably be redder than a bottle of Alcohest right now.

"How did you get past the wards?" Vesemir asks, looking steadily more and more unhappy with this exchange.

"Shortcut. Scrying is a lot easier when you already have a piece of what you're looking for." Radcliffe grins and slaps a pair of gloves onto Max's chest. He snatches it away quickly, his lips pressed together.

"Anyway, I'd love to stay and chat, but I wouldn't want to disrupt your feast further," Radcliffe continues, taking slow, bold steps closer to Vesemir. "Where's the boy?"

Vesemir frowns but doesn't move, just raises his eyebrow questioningly. His hand isn't even on his sword anymore, and he looks faintly bored.

Max shoots a look at Eskel, but Eskel shakes his head reflexively. No!

Of course, Max doesn't care. He steps up to explain what happened to Vesemir under his breath, then nods to Eskel when he's done. Vesemir turns to face him, his face unreadable, and Eskel shrinks under his inscrutable gaze.

"I didn't do anything," Eskel says, swallowing hard.

"A little brawnier than our usual lot," Radcliffe remarks, sidling over and peering at him like he's an insect under a viewing light. "But I see the potential."

"I didn't do anything," Eskel says, louder this time, but his voice shakes.

"What's going on?" Geralt's voice cuts through the tension, and Eskel sags in relief: Geralt's helping, he still cares... but when he throws a grateful look in Geralt's direction, Geralt isn't looking at him.

"Well, little one," Radcliffe says quietly, still staring right into Eskel. "It's your lucky day. Come on." He holds out a hand, like he did to Max, like he expects Eskel to take it. Eskel stares at his face, dumbstruck. He does have a pleasant face, clean-shaven and almost symmetrical, with a straight nose and cinnamon skin, and deep blue eyes like little reflecting pools. Eskel feels his body move almost automatically, like he's being pulled in.

"Stop. You have no right to take him against his will," Vesemir's voice rings out, and the spell is broken. Eskel darts a glance between the two men, mage and Witcher, unsure.

"Oh, I'm sure all these sweet little souls are very willing to be here," Radcliffe says lightly, smiling at all of them. Perry bristles. "Come on, Old Wolf, let's not draw this out. Generally our rule is seek parental permission, but I doubt a young Witcher in training has anything of that sort these days."

Vesemir is silent and immovable, like an old grey mountain. Then he says, softly, "Let him choose for himself."

What am I choosing? Eskel goes hot then cold, feeling his heart quicken in his ears. "I - I don't..."

"Mage or Witcher," Remy hisses. "You can choose. Mages don't have trials, Eskel. Mages don't die."

Eskel casts a desperate glance at Vesemir, but his expression is unreadable. Is he thinking about the pyres? About Jarian and Hare and...? Eskel has forgotten their names. Vesemir never knew.

Eskel could be next. Maybe the rest of the firewood in the store already has his name on it, all ready for Vesemir to stack into neat little piles to burn his body when he's gone.

Mage or Witcher. Life or Death.

"It's an obvious choice," Radcliffe is saying, his voice like honey. His eyes are unsmiling. Eskel doesn't know if they lie. The choice isn't obvious to him. His back still aches from where Clovis had kicked him days ago. This is what he knows. This is what he's lived for, at least for the past few years of his life. Does that mean he wouldn't get hurt anymore? That he didn't have to fight?

Tentatively, he reaches out his hand, but something makes him turn around. Maybe it was a small sound, or a sharp inhale.

He darts a look at Geralt, and for the first time in two weeks, Geralt is looking back. 

The shock of it feels like a rush of flames sweeping him from head to toe. It's like standing in the sun. He feels like he could be reborn from it. Geralt's face is hard and unsmiling too, but his face has always been an open book to Eskel. His eyes say don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare.

"Choose, boy," Radcliffe says from behind him, his voice firm.

Eskel looks back at him. His eyes are peerless gems, sparkling and pretty, but they don't say anything at all.

He lets his arm fall. He inclines his head politely.

"Thank you for the offer, sir," he says, "but I think I'll stay."

The words are light, but it hits heavily like a nail driven into a coffin. Eskel sits down from the weight of it, and from across the room, even Vesemir seems to sigh. In relief, in resignation, or in disappointment? He doesn't know.

His head feels stuffed full of cotton. Remy is saying something in his ear, but he can't hear it. Someone else is patting his back. Behind him, the adults are exchanging more heated words that Eskel doesn't quite understand, but it's just noise to him now; he's made his choice. Eskel glances in Geralt's direction again, but he's looking at his soup bowl like he wants it to burst into flames.

He doesn't know if he's made the right choice at all. But he knows that he's chosen Geralt, and will choose Geralt, from now on, and always.

Like a moth to a flame.

Chapter Text

After that night, the others take mild interest in him again. Reynar and Jakob mostly tell him how stupid he was for choosing to stay, but the others are too intrigued to think about the significance of that. They try to goad Eskel into showing them more magic again, as if he's a pet for them to command, but try as he might, he can't replicate what he did. Not even when Clovis sneaks up on him while washing and knocks him down, with some crazy idea that maybe Eskel will summon up some magic again on reflex.

He doesn't. He ends up skinning his palm on the uneven wall on the way down, after which he jumps up and hits Clovis so hard that he starts bleeding from the eye and can't see properly for days. The others lay off him then, preferring to make snide comments about him and dancing out of reach when he turns a snarl on them.

Geralt doesn't seem to take that much interest in Eskel's supposed magical talent. Eskel is less than the ghost of a shadow next to him, and he would have done any kind of magic if that meant getting his attention, if only for a second. He still isn't talking to Eskel much. Sometimes he nods or shakes his head, but he's stubborn through and through, and somehow he's gotten it into his thick head that he does not want to talk to Eskel, even though he's literally done nothing wrong. 

---

After that morning with Clovis, only Perry dares to try to taunt it out of him. Eskel doesn't even fight back because Perry is shit at fighting still, but that's an excuse too. He won't admit it, but Perry's jibes always make him feel a little bit less lonely. It feels better than Geralt's cold shoulder, or Dirram's sneers about witch pyres.

"Do you have Elf blood?" Perry demands, as they're busy boarding up a cracked window in one of the abandoned rooms. His hammer is pointing in Eskel's face, a little too close.

"I don't know," Eskel says, frustrated. Perry reaches out and pulls at the his ears, like he's expecting to find something else underneath them. "Ow."

Perry's fingertips are cold, but he feels his ears burn at the contact, suddenly extremely aware of how close Perry is to him. Eskel turns away quickly to pick up more nails, his stomach churning.

---

"Fuck's sake, Perry!" Eskel shouts, sucking at his knuckle where Perry had run his peeler across.

"No bleeding into the potatoes," Silas says distractedly, too caught up in plucking the last chicken that died the night before.

Perry watches him closely for a reaction, but Eskel just licks at his wound, confused and hurt, glaring back at him.

---

They're sparring together, with Klef watching from the doorway. "Show me what you did," Perry commands.

"No," Eskel pants, feinting to the left and going for Perry's knee. He jumps out of the way just in time - he's getting better at this, Eskel thinks, but Perry's still ill-disciplined and never learns from his mistakes. Eskel has him pinned within ten seconds, trapping his arm under one knee and pushing his face into the floor. Perry laughs and taps out, springing to his feet and rolling his shoulders back again. Like this is all a game. His eyes are cold and taunting, always sharp and angry, but fearless and so, so bright.

"Clovis," Perry calls out, almost pensive. "Come and fight Eskel again."

"Stop messing around," Eskel growls, landing a flurry of hits on Perry again, but they're at most controlled taps, just small warnings.

Clovis makes a strangled sound from the floor, grappling with Remy. It's messy. Eskel can't tell who's winning. "Shut up, Perry," he adds, his voice strained.

There's a thin trickle of blood going down the side of Perry's eye from his eyebrow, where Eskel's knuckles have torn skin. It's a small abrasion, but face wounds always look dramatic. It's not fair how it looks on Perry, the bead of crimson sliding its way down like it was painted there, skin purpling light underneath it like watercolour on tissue.

It's not fair how Perry ignores it and throws his head back in a careless laugh, all anger and delight, his teeth sharp and white. "Coward," he taunts Eskel, still barely deflecting Eskel's hits, then Eskel really goes for it this time, and he ends up on his back and gasping from where Eskel has struck him right in the chest.

"Don't need magic tricks to beat you," Eskel says softly, letting his mouth twist into something triumphant. Perry glares at him through his matted hair, too breathless to respond, but he grudgingly takes Eskel's hand as he gets back to his feet.

"Take a minute," Klef calls out from his corner, and all the fighting stops. The boys gather in front of him automatically, as he takes his time going down the line pointing out mistakes. It's a lot easier than training with Max; at least his main goal isn't just for them to fight to the death. When Klef reaches Perry, his anger is almost tangible as he glares down the obstinate boy.

"You need to take this more seriously if you ever want to survive a fight," Klef snaps, taking stock of his cuts and bruises. 

Anyone would shrink under Klef's disapproving frown, but Perry's face darkens as he looks away. "'S not even a fair fight. Eskel can use magic."

"I can't," Eskel hisses irritably. "I don't know how. I didn't do anything."

"Clovis - "

"That was one time! I can't do it again!"

"Enough. It's not a good excuse," Klef interrupts, rounding on Perry. "The rest can go. Perry, extra drills. Get the sandbag out."

The boys file out gratefully and quickly, before he changes his mind, but Klef claps a strong hand on Eskel's shoulder. He's learnt not to flinch already, but he still freezes.

"You went easy on him. You stay."

Eskel's heart sinks and he has no choice but to remain in the room. His punishment consists mostly of standing while he watches Klef run through the motions with Perry, not letting him get away with slacking off. He looks on unhappily. It's always Perry's fault. He finds himself silently cheering when Klef deals precise blows that bring Perry to his knees when he fails to block. The room gets a little warmer from their exertion, and Perry's hair is a mess of curls in his eyes. He snorts in satisfaction when he sees that Perry's eye is swelling rapidly. Not so pretty now, he thinks to himself.

"Look," Klef says when they're done and Perry looks like he's ready to collapse. "The ragging is getting old. You're not little boys anymore. Settle your differences and learn to get along, I'm tired of punishing the both of you."

"It's not my fault - "

"Perry's always starting - "

"Stop." Klef sighs, but Eskel is shaking with indignance. It's always been Perry, not him. There's a curved scab on the back of his hand where Perry had scraped his skin off with the potato peeler. It keeps opening and bleeding again with every new training, and it's a constant reminder for Eskel to keep hating Perry. This isn't his fault.

"I don't know what you've disagreed about, but you're at Kaer Morhen. We don't fight our own."

"You fought Idras," Perry blurts, and Eskel inhales sharply.

Klef pauses. "I did. And I was wrong. We don't always get along - me and Idras, me and Max. But we don't hurt each other. I've never been able to best him in my life, anyway. And no matter how much I dislike Idras, or how much Max hates me, we trust each other with our lives. You both need to learn to do this. You both need to stop fighting."

Eskel nods reluctantly. Perry rolls his eyes and looks away.

"Glad this is all cleared up," Klef says lightly, pushing them both out the door. "The next time I see you two fighting, you're both hanging. Yes, don't look at me like that, Varin trained me for awhile, too."

---

Geralt still needs Eskel to help clip his nails. It used to be either Jarian or Aster helping the younger ones, but since they're dead, it's Eskel's job now. The others manage just fine on their own, but it seems that Bastien, Buggy and Geralt are spoilt little babies. Geralt lines up behind Buggy and waits his turn just like always. Eskel feels a sense of satisfaction, that Geralt still needs him. He tries not to look smug about it, the same way he tries his best to avoid cutting too short or getting his skin.

"You know you're old enough to do this yourself," Eskel finds himself saying under his breath, trying to goad him into reacting. He'd said it to Bastien too - he's exactly Remy's age but still acts like he's five sometimes - but Bastien just shrugged and said, "I like it when you do it." 

Geralt twitches like he wants to snatch his hand away, but Eskel tightens his hold so he doesn't cut Geralt by accident. He doesn't say anything in reply, but Eskel can feel his eyes burning a hole in his head as he bends over to make smaller snips to round out an edge.

"I thought you'd be happy now, since you got what you wanted," Eskel continues. 

Geralt pulls his hand back then, sharp and shocked. "What do you mean, what I wanted? I didn't ask you to do anything."

"You did! You asked me to stay!" Eskel hisses, the satisfaction of breaking Geralt's resolve immediately soured by what he's saying. "Come here, I'm not done."

Geralt's shaking his head slowly. "I didn't. I was hoping you'd go."

"You - " Eskel stops, swallows. His voice sounds small in his head. "You didn't want me to - ?"

"No, that's not what I meant," Geralt says quickly, and Eskel unravels. But he continues, "You had a chance. You had the chance to leave and you didn't take it. Why? What were you thinking?"

He lets Eskel take his hand again. Eskel looks at his fingers one by one, examining the pink-tipped shells of his nails carefully, rubbing at the callouses on the underside.

What was I thinking?  "I was thinking about you," he confesses quietly, his breath coming out in a rush. He's still staring resolutely at Geralt's fingers. "You were looking at me like - like you were asking me to stay. I couldn't leave you behind."

When he finally looks at Geralt in the eye, he can't look away. It's like looking in the mirror. He can imagine how he must look like to Geralt now: quivering mouth, damp lashes, searching eyes. He feels flayed open, like an exposed wound raw and aching to be covered. He wants to press himself into Geralt and be healed.

"Come with me," Geralt says finally.

"Okay," Eskel agrees, easy as breathing.

---

Most of it is Perry's idea, and Eskel doesn't have as much a problem with his idea as he thought he would, because it sounds pretty good.

"Leftover paint from the back of the storeroom," Perry announces, showing Geralt and Eskel the rusty tin that he'd stolen. The dried bits that have sopped over the sides show that it's blue, probably the paint used to coat the doors outside, though those are so weathered that they've already gone grey a long time ago.

He explains that he'll tie the tin to the back of the cart and poke a hole in it. "That way we can follow the trail of paint when it drips, and then we'll know which way to go."

Eskel is grudgingly impressed, but he doesn't say anything. He'd already agreed that if he were to follow them, he wouldn't say anything to cause another fight between them. Besides, after Eskel had explained to Perry what Klef had meant by hanging, neither of them feel like fighting anymore.

They have to be ready to leave anytime. The three take turns waking up at daybreak to check if Silas is readying the horses or packing some travelling rations, though there were a few days when Eskel didn't manage to wake up. He'd just pretended he hadn't seen anything, and fortunately, Silas hadn't left without them knowing. 

The other boys vaguely know their plan, but they're more siding Remy and Bastien about it. 

"When you get caught," Nell says sadly, "Please tell them we had nothing to do with it."

"We won't get caught," Geralt replies, cock-sure.

Perry shakes Eskel awake early one morning, his eyes shining. "It's time," he says. Eskel runs to the second floor window to check: out in the courtyard, Silas is humming quietly to himself, shaking out his old travelling cloak and making his slow way to the kitchens to fetch something. The clouds still cover most of the sky in dreary grey, but it's patchy and thins out to reveal a light golden sunrise behind it. There's a fine drizzle in the air that's almost mist, and the flagstones on the ground look slick with melting snow.

Geralt and Perry steal into the stable to execute their paint plan while Eskel wraps some pilfered rations into a bundle. It's a lucky day for them, that they already have a task laid out since the day before. They just have to clean out a room and repair a leaky roof. The other Witchers won't bother them until midday, so they'll have that headstart at least.

"Eskel," Dirram hisses, before he steps out the door. Eskel turns, ready to ask what he needs, then stops. The boys are standing or sitting, in varying positions of just-woken-up, but their sharp gazes show that they all know what's going on.

Is this the last time he's going to see them? Eskel tries to think of something to say, but nothing comes to mind.

"Don't die," Jakob says stiffly. He grins awkwardly, though he isn't quite looking at Eskel.

"I'll try not to." Eskel almost smiles back.

"Here, take this." Kovac presses something cold into his hands. It's a small paring knife from the kitchen, one he's definitely not supposed to have at all. The blade is notched and not even sharp; Eskel remembers tossing it aside because it couldn't even cleanly slice the cheese.

"Thanks," Eskel whispers, his voice catching. He nods at them awkwardly.

"If you fail, you know where to find us," Clovis says, waving lazily.

Then Eskel nods again and leaves before he can change his mind. The faint clop of hooves sound from somewhere below. Geralt must be waiting.

---

They set off when the sky is much brighter and the early morning chill has dissipated, giving Silas enough of a start that he won't hear them crashing through the wilderness after him. Even the drizzle seems to have stopped. It's easier than he ever thought it would be: there's nobody around, no fanfare or horns blasting in warning as they slip out the main gate.

The three exchange nervous glances the moment they're on the path leading away from the keep. Eskel knows they're all thinking the same thing - that was too easy - but time is not on their side so they hurry off quickly, keeping their eyes peeled for the paint spots that appear every ten steps or so. They don't even need it for the first hour and more, because the trail goes in the same direction that they take to the Bastion. When the route finally veers away from their familiar path, they huddle closer unconsciously, as though the fear of the unknown presses them together.

The paint trail was a genius idea: Eskel would've never thought to go this way, where the path is barely a path, barely wide enough for a horse to fit through. At some sections, they have to walk it one after the other, and the ground is uneven with mud and snow piled up all around them. All of it is hard and packed after an extremely cold winter, and the horse barely leaves any tracks except for the occasional hoofprint, almost indiscernible in the dirt.

They plod onwards at a decent speed - running would probably cause too much noise, and their steady pace is just nice to keep them warm and energised to move quickly if they come into harm's way. Despite reading Vesemir's old notes to reassure himself that there aren't actual dangerous things in the vale, Eskel can't help but think about the possible creatures that may attack. He supposes Vesemir's definition of dangerous is very different from what they would consider dangerous. Three malnourished boys, one with no self defense skills at all, armed with just the clothes on their back and a knife meant for cutting fruit... even a wasp would be a credible threat now.

Thankfully, Eskel knows the wasps don't come out in winter.

The paint leads them over a precarious rocky outcrop that threatens to crumble under their feet. Eskel marvels at how an entire horse can go through with no problems, and again thanks Perry's sharp mind for coming up with a way of following it even on rock, where tracks are so difficult to come by. He finds himself recalling Klef's calm voice narrating their occasional hikes.

"You tell how heavy someone is from their tracks - not just in mud, but here, if you stand in the moss, you can see where it's broken and where it's pressed in further. You can tell if someone's limping, or crawling, or running - the shape changes, and the way it would tear - "

It's easier with him right beside them, pointing out everything they should be seeing. Now, Eskel just sees brown and grey and white, the dirt and snow mixing together as the snow melts and trickles down the slopes in thin rivulets.

"Damn," Perry mutters to himself, hours later. The sky is dark again, threatening either rain or snow. Maybe they're higher up on the mountain now, because there's a thin fog around them that Eskel assumes is some low cloud. He feels like he's been going in circles the whole time, with all the twists and turns they've been making. Just ten minutes ago they had crossed over a terribly unstable bridge with an actual hole in the middle - below it was nothing but rocky cliff all the way into treetops and what else, Eskel doesn't know. They hadn't said anything or stopped, but Eskel doesn't blame Geralt at all for getting down onto his hands and knees and crawling the last bit. He'd almost done the same, but Perry hadn't even flinched walking across it, so he didn't.

The worst part is, the trail has been getting increasingly sparse, so it's been difficult to stay on track. The impending question of what they will do when it disappears hangs above their heads.

"What?" Eskel whispers, though there probably isn't anyone around them for miles. The trees are thin where they are now, and their voices will easily echo into the valley if they aren't careful. 

Then he realises what Perry's staring at. The path slopes downward again, so narrow and steep that Eskel could probably just slip right off if he puts a foot on it.

"Silas can't have come this way," Geralt says, looking a little sick. "Perry, are you sure?"

The look on Perry's face screams no, but he doesn't say it. Instead he says, "There aren't any more paint drops in any other direction."

"If we stop and the fog gets thicker, we'll definitely fall off this mountain," Eskel says, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Maybe we should've brought some rope," Perry says lightly, then shrugs and just goes for it before Eskel can call out a warning. Thankfully, it's not as slippery as it looks, and Eskel grips the back of Geralt's shirt tightly as he goes down first. Ineffective if he actually fell, but it makes them both feel safer.

They end up standing ankle-deep in a stream, probably snow that's been slowly melting off the mountain tops. It's so vast that it hits the treeline and keeps going, extending into marshland.

"No trail," Eskel says, feeling his blood go cold. 

"We should go back up," Perry says uneasily. "This doesn't look like the way."

They can't go back up. They'd reached the bottom by jumping the last of it, and even if they tried to carry each other, there aren't any stable handholds for climbing. 

"Perry," Geralt says, his voice tinged with despair.

"We'll find another way." Perry grabs Geralt's hand and squeezes tight. Eskel does the same for Geralt's other hand. 

"First we get out of the water," Eskel says, shooting him a reassuring smile that feels more like a grimace.

They walk until Eskel feels the cold sink into his bones. His shoes are sodden, and his toes have lost all feeling already. The sky gets darker - maybe the sun is setting - and the fog gets more dense. Eskel doesn't notice it at first, but then he realises he can barely make out Perry's form ahead of Geralt's.

"Maybe we should stop and rest," Eskel suggests. He wants to say, maybe we should turn back, but it feels like they can't, at this point. There's no way they'd be able to find their way back any more than they can find their way to the mountain pass.

"Here," Perry says suddenly, surging forward and pulling them both. His face splits into a real smile, and it startles Eskel into realising that he hasn't seen this before. He points at what he's happy about. "Blue paint!"

The mountain echoes his sentiment excitedly, but they're too elated to care. Perry disentangles himself from Geralt and darts off, his eyes searching out other signs of the trail.

"Perry!" Eskel shouts, watching as his figure vanishes into the fog. Geralt pulls free and runs after him too, but Eskel snatches him back by the collar.

"Don't run off," Eskel chides, then bites his lip when he sees Geralt's expression. "Sorry, I meant - I don't want to get lost, alright?"

Geralt hpmhs knowingly, but takes Eskel's hand again. "Lead the way, then," he urges.

Eskel strikes ahead, his eyes and ears straining for some kind of sign. The fog is so dense he can almost taste it. He doesn't think he's ever experienced weather like this before. It's probably because of the rain -

There's a sound like a twig snapping and a sharp pain in his foot. "Ah," Eskel breathes, more from surprise than pain.

"Ah," he says again, louder this time, as he sees the thin line of blood well up. He stops moving.

"What? What is it?" Geralt says urgently, crouching to see.

"Snare," Eskel manages under his breath. The pain is setting in now, all at once: The thin, strong coil of wire is so tight around his calf that it's cutting into his flesh. 

"Oh, ow," Geralt says sympathetically, then he grabs the wire and pulls.

If there are any Witchers within ten miles, they can definitely hear Eskel's cry of pain. "Don't! Don't!" Eskel shouts urgently, feeling the wire bite deeper. "It'll only get tighter, you're gonna make me lose my leg."

Perry reemerges from the shroud of nothing to the side. "The trail picks up that way," he pants happily. "What's wrong?"

Eskel can't move and they don't have anything to cut him free. He bites at his fist to keep himself from crying out from the pain. "There's a small knife in the pack," he gasps, remembering Kovac's parting gift. There's a glimmer of hope where Perry fishes the small tool out and tries to use it to saw the wire apart, but the edge is too dull, and the wire is so tight that there's no room to wiggle the blade behind it. There's a sort of metal mechanism at the end of the wire, but it won't budge.

Tears spring to Eskel's eyes as he considers his options. There aren't many. "I can't go on," he says, more to himself than to them. "There's just no way."

"Shut up," Perry growls, feverishly rubbing the blade on a nearby rock in an attempt to sharpen it. Geralt sinks to the ground beside Eskel, still clutching his hand, staring wordlessly at Eskel's trapped leg.

"It's no use," Eskel says, trying to compose himself - he's sensible, this is common sense - "someone will find me soon, I'll be alright. You can keep going." He doesn't know if anyone will find him here. They're hours from the keep, and hopelessly lost. The Witchers may not even check the traps for weeks, not if Silas returns with more food. They wouldn't need to. Eskel doesn't say this, though.

Perry slaps him lightly on the temple. "Shut up and keep still." He tries and tries, sawing this way and that, to no avail.

The pain is so intense that Eskel can't hide it anymore. He whimpers when Perry kneads and pushes at tender flesh, swollen around the wire. Perry fiddles and plucks until his fingers are covered in blood, and Eskel isn't even sure if it's all his own. He curses as he rips a nail out trying to pick at it.

"Perry," Eskel says. "Perry."

When Perry finally looks at him, it's in anguish. His face is a mess of tears and some blood streaked across his nose where he's wiped at his face. "I can't," he whispers. 

Quietly, Geralt starts to cry.

It's getting dark around them. Eskel's entire leg aches so much that he finds himself wondering if it would feel better if it just dropped off instead. His shoe feels tight. The skin around the snare is turning grey under the blood.

They can't sit here forever with him. Eskel swallows around a painful lump in his throat. "Perry, you should go."

Geralt cries harder, his shoulders shaking. He grips Eskel's hand so tight it feels like a snare, too.

Perry shakes his head slowly.

"Come on," Eskel grits out, trying to sound light-humoured. "Perry, you can stop pretending to care about me, there's nobody around."

Perry swipes at his nose angrily, but his tears continue to fall. He runs his hands through his hair, then buries his face in his hands. 

"I'll be okay," Eskel says, sounding more sure than he feels. "Take Geralt and go."

Perry lets out a strangled cry and throws the useless knife into the fog. There's a distant sound of it clattering away into shallow swamp water. Clikka-clikka-tssshhh.

"You have to do magic now," he snarls, looming over Eskel and getting all in his face. Always so angry, Eskel thinks. He grits his teeth as Perry grabs at his head roughly, shakes him by the shoulders.

"I can't," Eskel says quietly. He's never wished so hard that he could.

"That mage appeared in the middle of the dining hall, out of thin air. You can do it, you can - make the magic circle in the air - "

Eskel can feel Perry's tears falling onto his cheeks, warm and salty. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, tries to pry Geralt's fingers from his. "Geralt, come on."

"No!" No, no, no, the mountain agrees.

"You need to go," Eskel says, tired. His mind is full of pain, too much to think about anything else. He blinks to try to clear it. It's like the fog is getting into his head.

As suddenly as he started, Perry stops raging. He pulls back, all the life sapped out of him, looking at Eskel for a long moment. Even in the dim grey light, his eyes are clear shards of blue glass.

"I've always really liked your eyes," Eskel says deliriously.

Perry touches Eskel's cheek with bloodied fingers, trembling. He leans forward, so slow and gentle, and presses his lips on Eskel's forehead. 

Then he gets to his feet, turning to Geralt. "Come on," he says, his voice sharp. "Geralt, you have to come with me. We'll find help and come back for him."

Geralt wails and shakes his head violently, burying his face in Eskel's side.

"Geralt, don't be stupid," Eskel says weakly, but there's only so much he can do. If he moves too much, the wire might get even tighter. The pain is so great that he feels himself drifting on the edge of unconsciousness, like fighting a wave of dizziness, or very heavy sleep. It's a good place to be. Hovering in this grey area, Eskel can almost pretend that the pain is not his own. 

"Let go!" Perry aims a harsh kick at him. Geralt curls tighter. "Don't make me drag you - "

Perry tries to, pulling at his shirt and his elbow and even his hair, ripping out a small clump, but Geralt thrashes like a fish and refuses to give.

"Fine," Perry pants, his eyes shining again. "Fine. I can't stay here. Geralt, you'll look after Eskel when I'm gone, alright?"

"Take the pack," Eskel says feebly. He's too tired to fight. Perry nods curtly and slings it over his shoulder. 

"I'll come back for you," Perry says fiercely, then he turns and runs into the mist before Eskel can reply.

Eskel puts his arms around Geralt. "Shh, it's okay," he whispers, and he keeps saying it until Geralt stops shaking.

Geralt doesn't speak for a long while, not even after he's quieted his sobs. Eskel watches the blood continue to seep from his leg. When it touches the murky snow-water, it blooms like dark flowers. His head spins from the pain.

"Look at us," Eskel says, brushing the hair out of Geralt's face, where it's sticking to his cheeks. It's been a long time since Geralt's cried like this, Eskel realises, running this thumbs across Geralt's cheekbones. No more baby fat. "What a stupid mess. Imagine what Max would say."

Geralt hiccups, swatting Eskel's hands away halfheartedly. "Pro'ly tell us t-to shut up."

"I hate crying," Eskel mimics. "Only the weak cry. You're not getting any pity from me."

"That's Vesemir," Geralt says.

"Mmm. Max said it too." Eskel sighs and pulls Geralt in tighter as the cold settles around him. Soon it will be so dark that they won't even be able to see the fog. "We're both stuck now, I hope you're happy. What were you thinking, huh?"

He feels Geralt's wet lashes on his arm, fluttering. "The other d-day you told me," he says, hiding his face from Eskel. "You told me you c-couldn't leave me behind."

"Oh," Eskel says, his nose in Geralt's hair. If he closes his eyes, it feels like they're back in Kaer Morhen, safe and unhurt.

They're so close that it's not really that cold. Eskel stops fighting sleep.

Chapter Text

Eskel awakens with a sinking feeling already settling in his stomach: some desperate hope in him had thought that maybe what happened so far was all just a nightmare. He'd wake up on his dry hard pallet with Mason drooling into his hair and his icy toes shoved under Geralt's knees. But the idea vanishes even before he's fully awake as his senses pick up all the things that are wrong with his surroundings: he's unpleasantly cold, the ground is damp and slightly soft under his elbows, and it's far too quiet.

Then the pain rushes back and he lets out an involuntary moan. His foot is throbbing fiercely, so much that he expects to see it glow from the intensity of it. But it's a new thing. Before this he hadn't been able to feel it at all. He could've sworn it was getting dull and grey. He wiggles his toes experimentally and is awarded with another rush of needle-biting pain.

"Where are my shoes?" Eskel rasps, pushing himself up on his palms. Geralt stirs, uncurling himself like a dark little cat.

"They were cold and wet, so I took them off."

Eskel hums and reaches down to rub at his ankle gingerly, marvelling at the blood flowing back down to his toes. From what little Vesemir had taught them about setting snare traps, he knows it's designed to be impossible to loosen or release, unless you have a set of wire-cutters. The more the animal struggles, the tighter it will get, he'd said grimly, pulling at the loop to demonstrate. Still, the evidence is right here, with his foot prickling like hell. "The wire's a little looser now. What did you do?"

Geralt sits up at that, though Eskel can barely make out his expression in the dark. "I was trying to figure out the catch," he says, peering at it closely again. "If you can reach in and lift that thing, the wire can slide through. But it's too small, I only managed a little before it got stuck again. The edges are too jagged."

"Thanks," Eskel says. "Maybe we could get a twig, force it open."

Geralt presses closer to him in reassurance. "Wanted you to wake up before trying to look."

Warmth rushes through Eskel and settles in his chest. "Thanks," he says again, grateful for the cover of darkness, because he doesn't know what his face looks like now. Something pitiful, no doubt. He touches his hand to Geralt's cheek, and is surprised to find it sticky with something that's definitely blood.

Alarmed, Eskel draws back and squints at Geralt's face. "What happened? There's blood all over your mouth..."

"Oh." Geralt ducks his head self-consciously, swiping his palms across his face. "Don't worry. It's yours. I wanted to try chewing the wire off."

Eskel huffs a laugh despite himself. "Very creative. You could've cut your lips up."

"Not that dumb," Geralt mutters, pinching Eskel's forearm. "Lost a tooth, though."

"Not that dumb," Eskel repeats, incredulous. "Let me see."

Geralt bares his teeth, tilting his face up as if there's an overhead light for them, but there isn't. They hadn't thought about the moon when they had set off on their journey, and it's just their luck that it's the night of a new moon. The fog would have held the slightest bit of moonlight well enough.

"Right in the middle," Geralt clarifies.

"Was gonna drop eventually," Eskel says, relieved. He's already had all his baby teeth fall out, but Geralt still has a few more to go. One less, anyway.

They huddle for a moment, shivering lightly in the night's chill. It's a very mild night, thankfully, and though the air around them is dense and wet, the water doesn't reach freezing point, which is better than anything they've experienced in weeks. The trees are not quite close enough to shield them from the wind, but the air is strangely still, so the cold is very bearable.

Then Geralt gives himself a little shake and gets to his feet, dusting himself off.

"Can you keep talking to me?" Eskel asks, already hating the needy whine in his voice. Geralt doesn't seem to care, just laughs softly and sets off to find something to use to fiddle with the trap. He circles Eskel in a neat spiral, moving slowly outwards as he scours the ground and the shallow marshwater. 

His shadow quickly melts into the rest of the night and Eskel has to content himself with listening to Geralt's feet splash about, and his sweet voice babbling nonsense from a distance.

"...so when we reach the first town, the first thing we should do is look for food. An' then maybe look for a job, because we'd need money."

"What kind of job?" Eskel manages, his mind drawing up a blank. He only knows of Mother doing one job, and making him do it too when they both needed it, but he doesn't really want to do that again, and he can't imagine ever letting Geralt -

"Dunno. Wash dishes at the inn, maybe," Geralt calls back, his voice faint like he's facing the other way. "Or apprentice at the blacksmith. Or you could work the stables. You're good with horses."

"Not really," Eskel says, unsure. "Weakling is the worst."

"You're good with good horses."

"Don't you have to be good with all horses to care for them?"

"I'm sure you'll learn," Geralt replies flippantly, somewhere behind him. "Ah, this might work."

He splashes through the water for awhile, then sighs. "Eskel, I can't see where you are."

"Oh. I'm over here."

More noises, then a deeper sploosh like Geralt has accidentally stepped into a pool a little deeper than expected.

"Fuck, that's cold. Keep talking."

"I don't know what to say."

"Just say anything," Geralt says, exasperated. Eskel hears him squelch in the other direction.

"Uh," Eskel tries, looking all around him for some inspiration. "It's really dark."

"I hadn't noticed," Geralt calls back, dryly. "You know, when you first came, we all thought you were mute."

"Really?" Eskel hardly remembers.

"I think Osbert was trying to get a wager going."

"I think you're going the wrong way," Eskel says helpfully.

"I wouldn't be if you knew how to hold a conversation!" Geralt's voice is louder this time, and closer.

Eskel grits his teeth and flexes his toes, which are hurting a little less. "I'm over here. My leg hurts. I feel stupid. We shouldn't have left. I'm worried about Perry. I only know one way to earn money. It's not fun."

"Keep going."

"I'd rather hunt monsters. Be a Witcher."

"Hmm."

"Wouldn't you?"

He thinks he can make out Geralt's soft breaths now. "Keep talking," Geralt says.

"I think you'd be good at it. Better than me."

"Found you." Geralt sinks to the ground and presses his hand into Eskel's. The stick he found is a little too short, but it's thin enough and doesn't bend easily. "I'll never be better than you," Geralt says, nonplussed.

"You're already better at climbing."

"I'm pretty sure that's nothing to do with being a Witcher," Geralt mutters darkly. "Vesemir just likes to watch us suffer and possibly die."

"You're better at swords." Eskel bumps his shoulder into Geralt's gently.

"We don't even use real swords. I'm better at sticks."

"Still counts."

"You can do magic," Geralt counters, his voice turning sharp and accusative.

"Not this again." Eskel twists around and tries to see what Geralt meant by using the stick to loosen the catch. The angle's wrong, and he can't see a thing, anyway.

"Here." Geralt snatches the stick and starts poking around. "Don't know why you're so afraid of doing magic."

"I'm not afraid," Eskel huffs indignantly. "I don't know how."

"You're just not trying," Geralt replies.

"You sound like Perry," Eskel accuses.

Geralt scrapes at the mechanism ineffectively. Eskel can imagine his tongue caught between his teeth, his brows furrowed in concentration.

"I hope he finds his way," Geralt says, his voice muffled.

"Idras'll be pissed." Eskel tests the coil around his shin, trying to wiggle his little finger behind it. The tug at raw flesh makes him hiss, and he tries to shift it to a better spot. It's tacky with blood. Maybe he'll grow around it if he stays stuck long enough, like a tree growing around rock.

"Why? Idras hates him." Geralt's hand slips on the catch, tugging it sharply back before he can stop himself. "Shit. Sorry."

"Fuuuuck," Eskel breathes, exhaling hard to control himself. "It's tight again." Not as bad as before, but enough to cut a fresh ring around his skin.

"Sorry," Geralt says again.

The wave of pain brings a strange bout of anger with it. "Give it here," he snaps. Geralt silently passes him the little twig, hugging his knees to himself.

Gritting his teeth, he tries his best to turn the catch towards him, the loop dragging through his sliced skin. He can't see anything in the dark apart from the dull metal glinting very slightly as he turns it this way and that. The angle is still awkward, and his back is all twisted. Soon he's panting from the effort, and some sweat actually starts to bead above his ears.

"This fucking sucks," Eskel mutters. His fingers are numb and slippery, and the twig gets steadily blunter from his attempts.

"If you can maybe stick it in far enough," Geralt suggests, making an aborted move like he wants to try again.

Eskel twists away. "Don't touch me."

Geralt closes his mouth with a click and rests his chin on his knees. It's good that Eskel can't see his face now, or he'd probably feel guilty.

After a good half hour more of fiddling, he feels something in the latch give and he only just manages to wedge the stick into the small gap before the spring snaps it shut again. Euphoria slams into him so suddenly he feels a little dizzy, and he takes the wire between his fingers, trying to twist it through the gap. 

For a magic moment, the wire glides a few hairs' widths.

"Geralt," he chokes, not daring to breathe. The wire moves a little more, then a whole inch, and the loop slides slowly past the widest part of Eskel's ankle bone, raking up everything in its wake. He's never been so glad to scrape his skin off before. A little bit of bone shows up, pale and strange in the dark.

"Go slow," Geralt whispers. He's gone completely still. 

Eskel's fingers lose their grip on the wire again. He's really sweating now, his heart hammering on his lungs and knocking his breath out in small gusts.

He doesn't know what happens next. Maybe he breathes too hard or blinks too long, but his hands twitch to the side and the wire gets stuck again.

"Shit." Eskel bends so low he feels his hip pop at the contortion. He feels for the end of the stick and twists it around again. It somehow had moved deeper, jamming the mechanism completely. Pinching it between his nails, Eskel tries to wiggle it free.

The stick snaps. Eskel drops the extra bit in his hand and feels around for the rest of it - right there, right inside, where his fingers can't reach. Flush and completely jamming the opening.

"Shit. Fuck. Fuck." He's never sworn so much in his life, not even during Vesemir's worst trainings. 

"What? Does it hurt?"

"No. Yes, but. It's not that." Eskel's still sweating and breathing hard. He digs at the tiny opening, trying to use his nails to fish out the stick, but there's nothing to hold on to. So close. He was so close.

He hooks his fingertips over the wire wrapped around his Achilles tendon, digging in and pulling. It wasn't so painful to have it scrape past his ankle, what's the rest of his foot?

Just get it off. He can't stay here. He won't stay here. Just get it off.

"Eskel, Eskel," Geralt chants, his fingers closing on Eskel's straining wrists.

Eskel jerks away, wincing as his movement is cut short and the wire bites deeper. "Don't touch me!"

Geralt doesn't let go. Panic blooms in his chest, in his head, behind his eyes, as all thought flies from his mind. He's just trying to see where the fuck that wire is, and he just needs to take it off, if he could only see it, if Geralt would just go away and let him breathe,

"Eskel," Geralt says, his voice low and imploring. "Stop it, you're making it worse."

"Just - needs - to -" Eskel drives his teeth into his lower lip. There's a thick smell of blood around him, clouding his limited vision. Bright spots dance in front of him, like he's squeezed his eyes shut too tight. Distantly, he hears himself panting hard and fast, gulping in air but not getting any oxygen.

"You need to calm down," Geralt murmurs urgently. The words tremble like he's about to cry, but he's trying his best. "Eskel, let go, look at me."

"I can't," Eskel says, panicking further. It's too dark. The fog. It's closing in on them, filling his hair and mouth and eyes. He's choking on it. 

"Let go," Geralt says again. "Please. You're hurting me."

Eskel glances down, blinking and blinking: he has Geralt's fingers crushed in a fist, pulling them back almost too far. Gasping, Eskel lets his arms go limp and throws himself onto his back.

The crushing pressure has returned to his foot. The wire's too tight again. Tears sting at Eskel's eyes, then flow down his temples, past his ears. He can't even see the sky through the fog. "I'm going to die here," he says finally. His mouth is full of the taste of his own blood.

"You're not," Geralt insists, stubborn like always. "You just need to calm down."

"I can't calm down, I can't breathe!"

"You can, you're breathing too much!"

"I'LL DIE IF I STOP!"

The echoes of Eskel's panicked shout are muffled by the trees and mist. Finally Geralt stops talking, and there's just the ragged sounds of Eskel choking on nothing but air. 

Cold fingertips touch his forehead, very gently. "Close your eyes," Geralt whispers, and Eskel knows just from the wet sound of his words that he's crying again. "You're not here."

Go inside your head. "'M not here," Eskel repeats, between gulps. "I'm not here."

He blinks and Geralt is gone.

The surroundings are vaguely brighter, and Eskel can pick out shapes around him if he squints. The trees loom in the swirling mist, purple and bruised in the almost-light. It must be almost dawn by now.

"Geralt?" Eskel calls, but his voice catches in his throat. Too dry. Too cold. He flexes his hands, testing his fingers. Testing his toes. Thankfully they still can move, even in his trapped foot, though it's pale like it belongs on a corpse. The exposed wounds and abrasions on his shin and ankle are covered with a thin film of watery substance oozing from underneath, with dirt clinging to the edges.

His whole body aches from lying on the cold ground. He moves stiffly, stretching as much as he can. All his energy is gone with his earlier panic. "Geralt, where are you?"

No answer, though the fog seems to shift suddenly as though it hears him. 

The sudden sound of steel sliding out of its scabbard is the only warning Eskel gets before he's knocked back onto the ground. He inhales a mouthful of soft mud in shock. The shadows shift and suddenly there's an unearthly gargling. The monster that appears just in front of him is stooped and twisted, its edges faded as if part of the mist. By the time Eskel makes a shocked sound, it dissipates to nothing again, right before a sword cuts through the fog. 

A huge figure tumbles through the gap and rolls to his feet. Wordlessly, he shoves something into Eskel's grip and it bursts into flame.

A mixture of relief and terror blooms in Eskel's gut as Vesemir's face lights up in the glow of the torch. His expression is a mask Eskel can't read, and he doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. A split second later, from right behind him, Eskel spots the thing leap at Vesemir's turned back, but his reaction is lightning quick too: he whirls back around, his sword cutting through the air in a graceful arc.

There's a sound of it slicing through flesh and bone, an answering shriek, then it disappears again. Vesemir gestures his other hand and the fog knocks back behind the trees. He starts a slow circling pace around Eskel as the fog gathers and reforms, then he's fighting the creature that's not even there: it reappears and disappears easily like blinking, until suddenly Vesemir throws out a wordless spell that forces it into full corporeal form. It shrinks away from the light of Eskel's torch, spitting and gurgling. Vesemir finishes it off with a clean hack right from above, cleaving its skull clean into two. It drops dead immediately like a sack of stones, completely immobile.

Vesemir crouches down, drawing a thin dagger to make quick work of the carcass. He doesn't even flinch at the stinking mess as he carves out the tongue and other grisly bits with the practiced calm of a butcher.

"Sir, my leg," Eskel pleads weakly. "Please help me."

Vesemir ignores him, still methodically wiping his blades on the cuff of his shirt. Finally he turns and looks Eskel over disdainfully. "Where are the others?"

Stricken wordless under his glare, Eskel shakes his head dumbly. The torch shudders in his hand as he shrinks away. At this moment, he doesn't know what's worse: being left here to die, or being found by Vesemir. His face burns with the heat of the torch, but mostly shame.

Vesemir looks even more displeased, finally crouching to look at the snare. Eskel bites back a whimper as he drags it all the way around for a good look, ignoring the fact that it leaves a deeper gouge. "Why did you let it pull so tight?" Vesemir asks. The disappointment in his tone is crushing. The unspoken words, I taught you better than this, lies heavy in the air between them.

"It's no good. You'll have to lose the foot."

Eskel makes a strangled sound, his head going strangely blank. "Sir - I don't... I'm scared."

"You should be," Vesemir snaps harshly. He gets to his feet, drawing his sword and tapping the edge to Eskel's ankle like he's taking aim. Eskel tenses up, tears streaming from his eyes.

"Look away," he murmurs, "and count to three."

Eskel moans and shakes his head desperately. "No!"

"So be it," Vesemir says, and swings:

The scream tears from Eskel's lips when he feels the air part before the blade. His heart lurches so suddenly that he immediately vomits, though his stomach is empty. A thin trickle of bitter bile dribbles from his lips.

There is no pain. Shaking, crying, Eskel raises his head to look. 

The latch is broken into three pieces, embedded hard into the ground where Vesemir had struck.

All his breath comes back in a whoosh, cold and clean and so, so relieved. Vesemir sticks his sword into the ground hard and grips Eskel by the shoulders. "Never do this again," he growls, his wildcat eyes so blown that they're almost completely black.

Eskel's too wracked with emotion to reply apart from tearfully shaking his head and crying into Vesemir's shoulder, too shocked to stifle anything. Vesemir doesn't scold him for it, though, just lets Eskel lean into his light armoured jerkin and wail while he gently unwinds the wire from around Eskel's foot.

By the time Vesemir has finished pouring a brown stinging tincture over Eskel's foot, Eskel's crying has reduced to light sobs. He retrieves Eskel's shoes, which are still cold and wet, so Eskel doesn't put them on.

"Th-thank you, sir," Eskel whispers. "Geralt -"

Vesemir doesn't seem to hear. "Can you walk?" he asks. He pulls Eskel up by the elbow. When Eskel tries, his foot explodes in a throbbing, numb pain and he almost falls over.

Sighing, Vesemir puts the torch out. He unslings his empty scabbard and extra sword from his back and puts them over Eskel's head, securing the straps snugly. "On my back. Hold on tight, and don't strangle me," he warns. "I need both arms free."

Eskel scrambles to obey, clumsy on one good leg. The sword is so long it extends over his head by a good two feet. "Geralt, he, he must be nearby - "

"Quiet. Let me work."

Eskel closes his mouth and swallows, clinging on for dear life with his hands and knees as Vesemir darts this way and that, examining invisible things on the ground and sniffing occasionally. He kills another monster so quickly and silently that Eskel only notices when it's dead: it had crept out of the fog, barely shimmering in the air, to swipe at Vesemir.

"What are they?" Eskel whispers, before he can stop himself.

This time, Vesemir doesn't take his time in looting the carcass. "Foglets. They lure travellers into their fog with tricks and deceit."

"The blue paint," Eskel says faintly. "That was...?"

"Silas never came here," Vesemir says shortly, striding ahead and forcing the fog back with another wave of his hand. 

"But... but they d-didn't attack us until you..."

Vesemir doesn't reply for a moment, scanning the surroundings again. "They usually prefer to wait for their prey to die. Not very strong in corporeal form."

"It attacked you," Eskel whispers.

"Defending its catch. I'm a threat. You're just a victim," Vesemir says dryly. "Quiet now, boy."

It's disconcerting how quiet it is around them as Vesemir keeps going. The sky has lightened a little more, almost imperceptibly, though the fog still makes it difficult to see beyond ten feet around them. Vesemir shifts easily from the mud into the ankle-deep water like it's nothing, barely making a sound. He could probably sneak up on a deer if he wanted to, Eskel thinks. 

Geralt would make a lot more noise than this. The quiet makes Eskel wonder. Maybe he did manage to find his way out, maybe he's so far away that even Vesemir's sharp Witcher senses can no longer hear him.

Vesemir stops suddenly. "Fake tracks," he mutters under his breath, sounding more annoyed than worried. 

A flicker from the corner of his eye catches Eskel's attention. "There's something there - a light - "

"Another trick," Vesemir dismisses, turning the opposite direction. "They think they're smart." He keeps going, his footsteps sure and unfaltering, until he spots something Eskel can't see and breaks into a run. Eskel yelps and catches himself in time, digging his fingertips into Vesemir's hard shoulders and fisting at the material as tightly as possible. It's almost as if Vesemir has forgotten that he has Eskel on his back, and he hopes Vesemir doesn't suddenly drop into a roll or something, and bring Eskel along with him.

Eskel gasps again as Vesemir suddenly misses a step over a sudden drop that was hidden in the mist, though he twists around and catches himself so fast that Eskel's almost thrown off when he jerks to a stop. His cry is cut short and his chin hits Vesemir's shoulder blade. He's holding onto the rocky ledge with his left hand, Eskel dangling from his back. Somehow, his other hand is still gripping his sword. He makes another displeased sound. "How far to the bottom?"

Eskel cranes his neck over his shoulder, his palms growing sweaty. "I - I can't see, it's all fog."

"Hold this," Vesemir says, holding his sword out for Eskel to grab.

Eskel's mouth goes dry. "I can't," he wails. "If I let go -"

"If you don't, we'll hang here until this rock decides to give," Vesemir growls. "I can't climb down with one arm."

Eskel hesitates, his knees digging into Vesemir's sides even harder.

"Hold this or I throw you off anyway," Vesemir warns, so Eskel grits his teeth and readjusts his grip, hooking his elbow all around Vesemir's neck. The sword is so heavy that he can't lift it over his head to sheath it behind his back, so he just has to hang off Vesemir's back awkwardly, pointing it down and away so he doesn't accidentally stab himself.

Turns out Eskel needn't have worried so much. He hangs on so tight that he probably does strangle Vesemir a little towards the end of it, but he makes quick work of the muddy slope and they're at the bottom by the time Eskel feels like he's about to slip off. Vesemir takes his sword back and repositions Eskel forcefully, finally showing signs of fatigue and rubbing at his throat. From the bottom, the top doesn't seem that high anymore, maybe about thirty feet.

"Smell that?" Vesemir asks, then he starts rooting around in the soggy undergrowth near the base of the slope. The water here's just a few inches high, but the mud is deep and sucks noisily at Vesemir's shoes with every step. 

Eskel doesn't smell a thing, but he sees Geralt the same time Vesemir does - lying in an unconscious heap and dangerously near a sharp rock.

"Geralt!" Eskel shouts, sliding off Vesemir's back without thinking. His foot screams in protest as it hits the ground and Eskel buckles; he crawls the rest of the way.

"Wait," Vesemir calls, from somewhere behind him. His sword is already up, but he'd turned in alarm when Eskel jumped off, and the Foglet crashes into him from the front.

He slams to the ground right beside Eskel, grappling with the sudden appearance of freakishly long claws inches from his face. His sword is the only thing holding them back. "Gods damn it," he grumbles, as the Foglet heaves against his sword arm, tittering strangely. Vesemir kicks at it with both legs, making it rear back for a moment, and when it lunges again it's straight into the end of his sword. 

Its death is slow and loud as it scrabbles at the blade sinking deeper into its gut, driven by gravity. A mixture of mud and pungent muck dribbles down, making Eskel gag, but he forgets it quickly and shakes Geralt hard.

"Geralt!"

"Get out of my way," Vesemir says gruffly, pushing Eskel aside. He leans over Geralt for a moment, cursing quietly to himself, then wordlessly motions for Eskel to climb back on. It's a lot harder to hold on now that Vesemir is covered in slimy mud, but he doesn't say anything because Vesemir looks angry enough. The air around them is a lot lighter now, the fog receding on its own as the sky lightens. Half-covered in mud, Geralt looks scarily pale and small.

"His arm," Eskel says, swallowing hard. It's definitely broken, from the looks of it.

Vesemir finally sheathes his sword and wipes the mud out of Geralt's face with his thumbs. His hand comes away bloody when he touches a palm to Geralt's scalp, so he scoops Geralt up in his arms. "We're going now."

"Perry," Eskel says suddenly, feeling terrible he'd only just remembered, "he's still out there."

"The others are looking," Vesemir murmurs. Geralt scrunches his face up, his eyelids fluttering, but doesn't wake.

It's a long way back to the keep from where they are. Vesemir alternates between muttering mindlessly reassuring things to Geralt and complaining about how it's completely Eskel's fault that he's covered in Foglet shit. Eskel holds on as best he can, eventually linking his hands around Vesemir's neck when his arms grow weak, and dozes off.

Chapter Text

He doesn't know what he'd been expecting upon returning to the keep. Maybe more yelling, and punishments they'd never had the misfortune of experiencing before. Maybe that would have been better than whatever this is. This silence, this chilly disappointment that presses down on Eskel as he struggles to find ways to explain himself, to apologise, to do anything that will make the lines soften on Vesemir's mouth. But Vesemir just dumps him unceremoniously from his back when they're in sight of the main gate.

Still sore-eyed from crying, half asleep and exhausted, Eskel limps after him listlessly, giving up when Vesemir quickly rounds the corner and disappears up the stairs. He makes his slow painful way to the healing ward alone. It's a little past midday, and the sun has chosen right now to show its blazing face, scorching the back of Eskel's neck and making him feel vaguely nauseous. He doesn't know where the other boys are at the moment, but he hopes fervently that he doesn't meet them. He doesn't want them to see him like this.

It's worse. He meets Klef, riding in hard from behind in a storm of hooves. Beef tosses his head proudly, his neck slick with sweat, pawing and snorting in Eskel's face.

Klef slides off the saddle, his gaze piercing and slitted, nostrils flaring like he's scenting for blood. It's like being pinned; Eskel flinches but can't seem to move. The apology is on the tip of his tongue, just about to spill out all weak and useless, then Klef slaps him, so hard his head spins around and he goes sprawling on the floor.

Eskel blinks back more tears automatically, his eyes aching. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't -"

"Get up," Klef snarls. It's terrifying to see him like this, face white and teeth bared in an almost feral way. Klef has been nothing but nice to the boys, but this is another side entirely that makes Eskel fear him more than Max or Varin or even Vesemir.

Eskel pulls himself back up as best he can. His lip throbs where he was hit, but he doesn't dare move a muscle. Transfixed by how Klef's fine features are so twisted in anger, he blurts, "I'm sorry, 'm sorry -"

He stumbles forward and Klef takes a step back, but Eskel just wants something, anything, and maybe Klef can hit him again if that would mean forgiveness, because at least he's back now, and someone's going to help him, and fix him up, and give him hot food and a hard bed of old apple crates to sleep on, and he's crying all over again, pushing his face into the stiff leather around Klef's waist. He's so bone-achingly glad to be back, that he can walk on his own two feet, and that Geralt was found and now he's back safe at Kaer Morhen too.

Klef doesn't move for a long moment, though he rests a tentative hand on Eskel's head. It's maybe minutes later that he pries Eskel off him, fingers firm and clinical, offering no more comfort than the hard exterior of his clothing. "Sorel will be waiting," he says, his voice distant, turning back to his horse and clucking softly at him. 

Eskel hesitates, wanting to ask if he'd found Perry, but can't work up the courage. He trudges slowly up the path, his foot screaming the entire way.

Eskel finds both Vesemir and Sorel leaning over Geralt, working silently. The fire is freshly lit so the room is still chilly. Sorel's cleaning the worst of the mud out of Geralt's hair with a wet cloth. He doesn't bother when the tangles snag too much, just snips away the knots and tosses the offending hair aside. Eskel blinks at the clumpy brown tufts collecting at their feet.

"Is he - is he - " Eskel whispers. He can't bear to finish his question. Everything in him aches to his bones, but anxiety gnaws insistently at his consciousness and he can't do anything but shiver. 

They don't acknowledge him at all, so he climbs onto the other table and waits his turn. The silence is deafening. Eskel stares at the little pink points of Geralt's toes as Vesemir eases one of this shoes off, careful like Geralt might break. Might break more.

"Ankle," Vesemir mutters, stopping at the other shoe, and Sorel makes a hmm sound, still working at Geralt's messy hair to expose as much of his head wound as possible. Vesemir makes a face trying to remove the shoe around the visible swell. 

It takes Vesemir almost ten minutes to get the shoe off. "Just a bad sprain," he says, more to himself than anyone else. "How's the head?"

Sorel shrugs, noncommittal. "Do the arm," he tells Vesemir.

Geralt stirs, his eyes fluttering as he leans his cheek instinctively into Sorel's palm. He looks dazed, half-awake but not really here. 

It makes Eskel feel almost sick to watch. Geralt's forearm is obviously broken, though he supposes it's lucky that the bone isn't sticking straight out. It's a misshapen bulge right beneath the skin, white and shiny like the skin just might burst if you touched it wrong. Even Vesemir looks uncomfortable as he considers it, his hands hovering for a moment.

A slight touch of his fingertips draws a plaintive moan from Geralt, then when Vesemir doesn't stop, he tenses up and jerks to full consciousness with a high scream.

Vesemir all but shoves a palm in Geralt's face. "Nothing hurts, you're alright, relax now," he says, all in a rush, then Eskel feels a ripple of it getting under his skin and stuffing his ears and eyes with thick cotton. He's on his back before he even realises that he's just dropped completely, with no use for any of his muscles anymore, his eyes heavy and uncooperative. The echo of Vesemir's words linger, nothing hurts you're alright, and he mumbles it back to himself under his breath.

"Really?" Sorel says, from somewhere far away, clearly irritated, but Eskel just smiles and closes his eyes. Everything's alright. His limbs are so heavy he could melt and fuse into this table and be completely content with it until the end of time.

The feeling lifts as suddenly as it came, like an invisible person suddenly getting off him, and everything slides back into sharp focus. The pain crawls back in from all corners: his lip, still stinging, his fingers, sore and peeling and sensitive where his nail had ripped off. His leg, much better now that the circulation has returned, but still oozing the beginnings of pus at the edges, still showing bone where the wire had rubbed the most. He hadn't even realised how nauseous he was feeling until it comes back to him. He sits up, head spinning.

"Can you feel your toes?" Sorel's prodding at Eskel's foot, testing the flesh, cleaning the frayed edges of his skin.

Eskel inhales like he's come out of water for air. It was like - did he fall asleep? He can't have fallen asleep, he's still sitting up. Vesemir and Geralt are no longer there. "Where - Geralt - "

"Can you feel your toes," Sorel repeats sternly.

"He was right here," Eskel mumbles, then yelps when Sorel uses the point of a sharp scalpel to answer his own question. "Yes, I feel my toes."

Without warning, Sorel pours a whole lot of stinging fluid over his raw wounds.

Eskel stuffs his knuckles into his mouth. "You - couldn't have done what Vesemir did?" he wheezes, then gasps again as another wave of pain burns deep. It feels like his entire foot is on fire.

"He's the best at Axii, but it's not some party trick to toss around carelessly," Sorel says disdainfully, then proceeds to clean his wound so roughly and thoroughly that he probably scrapes off even more skin in the process. 

Eskel can feel himself slipping again, from the pain and the fear and the sheer exhaustion of everything, blood pumping too thin through his tired body. He sinks back into it gratefully, his mind going blank. He's one step behind his body, peering in on an alien scene that is not his to experience. No pain, just disinterested observation.

Sorel suddenly flicks at his ear hard enough that everything comes tumbling back. "Ow," Eskel mumbles, rubbing at the soreness.

"Maeven of Cidaris."

"...what?" Eskel peers at Sorel tentatively from behind his hair, plenty distracted by the burn of disinfectant eating at his foot like acid, and the way the room is tilting like they're on a ship.

"One of the best Witchers in my time. Griffin school. Walked into a fiend's lair, left his swords and armour outside. Never seen again."

"Why?" Eskel gasps, fully distracted this time.

"Hm. Guess it's easier to let it gore you to bits after it hypno - "

"I mean, why did he go in? Was it on purpose?"

"Oh. He'd told me he wanted to do it, years before it happened. Thought he was joking, but of course when I'd gotten his letter it was too late." Sorel turns away to wash the rag. "Used to tell me how easy it was to kill when he just went somewhere else while it was happening. Sound familiar to you?"

Sorel turns back to look at Eskel grimly. "It started during the Trials, and continued all through his training. He killed another boy with his bare hands and didn't remember a thing. Nobody thought it was bad. Witchers are killers, after all, and he just proved to be the strongest. Earned himself quite a reputation. Never left a contract unfinished, but the people who died along the way... it wasn't a good reputation, in the end."

"I - I don't..." Eskel stops. Go inside your head. "I'm not like that."

"Yes, maybe not," Sorel says roughly. "Squirrel didn't die, after all."

Eskel frowns in puzzlement then gives a start, gasping as the guilt hits him. How could he have forgotten - Leo, with his shining eyes and the little gap between his teeth, telling Eskel something new he'd learnt to make in the kitchen, his voice still lisping a little from the nerve damage from the premature mutations that he'd had to undergo. Because of Eskel. Because he couldn't control himself, because he was a scared boy who was too weak and pathetic to face his suffering head-on, like everybody else. Eskel swallows hard. Would he eventually die like Maeven of Cidaris, walking to meet his own death because he could no longer continue living as the monster he'd become?

"The mind is a fragile thing, Eskel. No amount of mutations can strengthen it." Sorel forces a steaming cup of something foul into his hands, motioning for him to drink. He raps his knuckles against his own head. "Crack this open, no different than a human."

"I..." Eskel blinks dumbly. The cup trembles as he grips it with nerveless fingers.

"Drink," Sorel instructs.

He hesitates, already feeling his gag reflex react on the fumes of it.

"If it comes back up you're drinking that too," Sorel warns, even though his back is to Eskel. 

Eskel closes his eyes and downs it all at once, gasping as it burns all the way down. It feels terrible, and his stomach turns over warningly.

Sorel snorts. "I said drink it, not down it like a cheap drunk. Too hot?"

Coughing, Eskel nods. His tongue and throat, his lips, are completely scalded. So much pain, fizzling under his skin and everywhere else, too much and too bright. He goes light headed from it.

"Good. You deserve it. Describe it to me. How it feels."

Eskel mentally flails for words, his hands scrabbling vaguely at the edge of the table to keep from swaying. "Hot. Scratchy."

"Taste."

He shudders as he presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, feeling the residue of the tea and desperately wishing for some cold water to wash it down. "Bitter. Like - smoke?"

"Smell."

"I - I don't - this drink?"

"Focus. Tell me what you smell, right now, in this room."

Eskel inhales deeply, desperately. "Old clothes?" he hazards, wincing and hoping he hasn't gotten it wrong.

"What else?"

"B-blood."

"Name three green things you see."

Taking a shaky, fortifying breath, Eskel looks around, his eyes darting quickly. "Uh, that jar. The plant..."

"One more."

"That m - oh, I don't think that's green. The herb pouch in the corner."

Sorel's mouth twitches. "How do you feel now?"

"I - " Eskel stops and blinks slowly, opening and closing his hands. Everything still hurts but his breathing is more even, and he doesn't feel like he might throw up anymore. "Better."

"Still feel like you're slipping away?"

Eskel shakes his head wonderingly. "How did you do that?" He grimaces as he sees Sorel thread a needle for the worst of his cuts, but he's clear headed and the table feels like a reliable, familiar weight under him.

"It's a form of meditation," Sorel says, slapping his shin in warning when Eskel twitches from the needle. "Like an anchor. Look at your surroundings, always be present."

"Did Maeven of Cidaris do it too?" Eskel asks.

Sorel tugs sharply at the needle and thread, and Eskel yelps and stops asking questions.

---

Surprisingly, the worst thing about recuperating back at Kaer Morhen after their disastrous failure is the crippling boredom of it.

Apart from almost-but-not-quite losing a foot to a stupid snare, Eskel is fine. He's completely fine, it's been days, and staying up in Sorel's tower because of Vesemir's orders is beyond humiliating. It's bad enough that everyone knows they didn't make it out. 

Geralt's worse off than Eskel from his fall. He gets a little recovery room all to himself, with an enviable full-sized bed like all the other Witchers with actual sheets and actual pillows, though he whines that he's intensely uncomfortable because of the way his arm is set and the way his ankle is bound. Sorel had mentioned that even moving the slightest would cause Geralt's arm to heal poorly, and if it was bad he would never be able to hold a sword properly again, so Geralt has no choice but to remain in bed for the entire healing process, which could take weeks. The room smells a little musty and maybe like very old piss, but it even has its own fireplace and thick curtains at the windows that Sorel draws so that Geralt's brain can "heal properly".

"There's nothing wrong with my brain," Geralt mutters obstinately, though there's something different about him that Eskel can't quite put his finger on. He's quieter now, maybe, and laughs less often, but anyone in that miserable bed with that bad a haircut wouldn’t be laughing much either.

"It was coming out of your ears yesterday," Eskel points out, trying for casual, even though he'd screamed when he saw the trickle of blood going down his neck. They're mostly out of the woods, he's told, because Geralt still has most of his memories and can move his fingers and toes just fine. Eskel would be helping Geralt break the rules more readily if not for the first few days, when he couldn't keep any food down at all, and he couldn't even see out of one eye, which somehow he already seems to have forgotten.

Geralt makes a miserable noise like a half-whine and shuffles a little to the side. "Come up here."

"I'm not allowed," Eskel says, nervous. Everyone's already angry enough as it is. "What if I rattle that little brain and you go blind?"

Geralt glares and pouts until Eskel climbs up gingerly to squeeze beside him, careful not to jostle Geralt. Up close, he can see the ugly black row of stitches high up on Geralt's head, where Sorel had simply shaved off a patch of hair. The rest of the hair is choppy and uneven around it, but it's not so obvious when Geralt's lying down. He'll try to even it out when he's out of bed, Eskel decides.

"Hey, we match," Geralt giggles, wriggling his bound up ankle against Eskel's.

"Wrong foot," Eskel retorts, rolling his eyes, but he feels warm just from this small reminder of simply belonging, like they were always meant to end up here, side by side on this bed in this keep with this life. A hot rush of something fierce wells in his chest. "Yeah, we match," he says quietly, and he squeezes Geralt's hand. 

Eskel sits up and examines the wrap closely. It's so dense that he can't tell if Geralt's foot beneath it is still swollen. "Did it hurt when you fell?"

Geralt shakes his head slowly, then winces and closes his eyes. Eskel can tell that his head still hurts, or at least makes him dizzy, and that he still doesn't feel well, but Geralt keeps insisting that he's fine, so Eskel doesn't say anything about it. "I don't remember the actual fall. Just - running."

It's the same conversation they've been having every day since they got back. Geralt still feels guilty for leaving Eskel, but he remembered hearing voices and seeing lights in the fog -

"That was the foglet fooling you -"

"I know, but I didn't know then -"

- and he'd left Eskel lying there responsive as a log, while he sprinted away shouting for help and trying to draw their attention -

"That was stupid, what if you'd run into another trap -"

"You're stupid -"

Eskel lays back again, slotting himself carefully so that he's perfectly lined up beside Geralt, shoulder-elbow-hip-knee-ankle bandages. "It's over now," he whispers.

Geralt sighs softly, and they don't say anything for awhile, watching the sleet outside cover the forest in grey. The fire's already getting low, but the blankets are warm and densely knitted, trapping their body heat well. It's nice to be warm, Eskel notes. Again he feels a wave of relief that he's back here and not out there, like what happened a week ago was nothing more than a fever dream.

"When I close my eyes it's like I'm back out there," Geralt says, still watching the snow melt and drip off the windows outside. "I can still feel how it was so wet and cold. I was so - afraid. I don't think my hands have stopped shaking."

Eskel closes his eyes and breathes deep. The smoke of the fire, slowly dying out. The sharp-sweet smell of the ointment on Geralt's head wound. The distant rustle of the forest swaying in the storm. The wool catching on the callouses on his palms. "It’s alright," he says evenly, opening his eyes again. His heartbeat thrums consistently in his ears, steady and sure. He's here. "We're safe."

Geralt makes a small unhappy noise. "Perry isn't."

They stare at the grey sky outside. Only Klef had returned to the keep, apart from Vesemir; they assumed Idras had left to hunt his charge down, but he hasn't come back. Korahm and Max had left as soon as the pass cleared too, to return to their solitary life on the Path and probably far away from the responsibility of training them. They were all surprised but delighted that Klef seemed to want to stay on, though it clearly bothers him as much as everyone else that Perry hasn't returned home safe.

”Maybe he did make it to the next town...” Eskel murmurs, closing his eyes and picturing it. "He would've reached by the next morning. And maybe he passed a cart carrying some food and took some off it."

"Carrots?"

"Mm. And apples. And he went to - to the big stable outside the inn, where the horses are kept, and he picked out a nice little pony -"

"- called Kingfisher -"

Eskel cracks an eye open. "Why would anyone name a pony Kingfisher?"

"What's wrong with that? It's cool, like everyone knows it's a horse but it pretends to be a different animal. Then you can go 'round telling people that you have your own lion, or wolf, or..."

"Kingfisher is a bird, isn't it? Not very scary."

"Still sounds nice," Geralt says wistfully, his voice going quiet like it does when his head has started hurting again.

"So Perry gets onto his little pony called Kingfisher, and he asks a nice passerby -"

"What's his name?"

Eskel huffs in irritation. "It's a girl," he retorts spitefully, "and her name is... Marigold."

"Why?"

"Aren't all girls named after flowers or something? Stop interrupting me. He asks her, 'Which way to Nilfgaard?', and she likes him a lot so she says, 'I'll show you the way', and she gets onto Kingfisher behind him and they leave."

"Why would she like him?"

"Don't you like him?" Eskel asks, inanely. 

Geralt snorts. "No, he's mean. Especially to you."

"But you followed him -!"

"Because he's smart, obviously."

Eskel closes his mouth with a snap. "I'm smart," he mutters sullenly.

Geralt kicks at him with his ankle, and they both hiss in pain. They lie there contentedly until Sorel limps in, snarling empty threats and dragging Eskel out of the bed by the ear.

"Come again tomorrow," Geralt bleats plaintively.

"He bloody well won't," Sorel thunders, shoving Eskel out the door.

---

The sickness comes on slowly, then all at once.

Eskel is lying on his bed in Sorel's tower, just placed in a little corner of the main room where Sorel reads and does his work and mixes his brews. The air seems to feel a lot colder than it should, though the fire's roaring: Sorel's room is always warm, because of his bad leg, but Eskel is practically shivering right now. From here the room faces the other side of the keep where the real Witchers-in-training do their drills, and the sound of steel clashing rings loud in his head.

He doesn't notice how bad he feels until he tries to turn over and huddle into the covers and the room spins. Then there's the sound of Sorel coming over and taking a long sniff, then exhaling a quiet "fuck". 

The bandage comes off again and more dwarven spirit is doused over the half-healed wound, but it's then that Eskel can smell it too. The sight of his ankle confirms it: the swell is a sickly shade of yellow-green, all around the stitches. Sorel mutters under his breath about human infections and takes small hot scalpels to his foot to drain the smelly fluid. By then Eskel's so out of it that he doesn't even know if he's making sounds from it. The screaming is all internal, in his head, just the feeling of being so sick to his stomach that he can barely think about anything else other than wanting for it to end.

Later he finds out that he took almost a week for the fever to fully break, and there's another rumour that goes around the keep that Sorel had given him a Witcher potion just like Merten had when he first arrived. Eskel doesn't know if it's true, but there's a familiar burning sensation at the back of his throat and in his belly that makes Eskel sure that it's not just a rumour. Whatever it is, it's not strong enough to burn his lips or take his voice, and it's not strong enough to keep Eskel from running a fever so high that he mumbles nonsense through the day and night, sometimes to shadows of people just outside of his vision.

Sorel's always there, gruff but dutiful, calming Eskel through delirious bouts of night terrors and cleaning his wound more than three times a day. Sometimes Eskel knows Sorel's just in the room to keep an eye on him, just from the calm presence he senses, though he probably has better places to be than this dull half-apothecary of his own making.

He catches snatches of things that happen around him, his mind sharpening up especially during small periods of time when the fever goes down slightly - always right after downing the burning potion. Sometimes Sorel will just be sitting a little way from the bed, staring blankly at his feet. Other times he hums a small tune to himself, when Eskel is hovering on the edge of waking but not quite opening his eyes. 

Other times Sorel is patching up the small hurts of other boys and Witchers. He hears Jakob come and go with a harsh chest cough that won't let him sleep, and he watches through drowsy eyes when a young trainee from the other side of the keep comes in with his ear hanging off his head by just a thin strip of skin. He doesn't make a sound the entire time that Sorel stitches it back, just exchanges the usual banter and laughs when he's done.

Klef comes in very late one night, so quiet that Eskel thinks Sorel is talking to himself. They're speaking so lowly that Eskel has to strain his ears, even in the perfect silence of the room. It sounds like Klef is pleading.

"You know I can't do that," Sorel says finally, his voice raised slightly in agitation.

"You of all people," Klef mutters, his voice trembling, "would know how it feels to lose a limb."

"My knee's destroyed, but I can still walk if I have to," Sorel says. "If that wrist breaks one more time, you'll never wield your sword again."

"That's bullshit, just help me reset it properly and it'll heal!"

"I can hear it grinding with every move you make. It's basically splinters at this point," Sorel points out. "I was there when you first broke it. Just a boy. You wouldn't tell me who did it."

"Nobody did it. I fell down the stairs."

"Someone crushed your wrist to dust. There was a ring of black and blue for a week, I could still see the finger marks."

Klef falls quiet, his breaths coming heavy. "But it doesn't matter now."

"Doesn't it? I'm not going to re-break that godsforsaken thing one more time. It didn't work the first time, nor the second, or the third when you actually did fall off the ramparts training for the Trial of the Medallion. it's not going to work now."

"Maybe I'll do it myself," Klef mutters stubbornly. "Wouldn't be this bad if Idras hadn't gone for it on purpose."

"Idras is an ass," Sorel agrees, "but you picked that brawl."

Their voices go all quiet again as they argue in whispers, then Klef huffs a defeated sigh.

"Vesemir will have me caring for these doomed souls until I'm old and grey like him," Klef says bitterly. "Maybe I should just go back on the Path. Better to die with a sword in hand."

"You know that's not true. The boys could use your soft heart, Robin."

The harsh scrape of a chair being kicked back. "You know nothing about me."

The door bangs shut on his way out.

---

By the time the worst of it has passed Eskel is at least two stones lighter and weak as a bird fallen out of its nest. The other boys do their best to sneak in to see him, for reasons Eskel can't figure - it's fleeting and a little awkward but he's never been so happy to see Dirram's crooked smile or Clovis's put-on sneer as he dumps a hissing cat onto Eskel's chest in the middle of the night.

"What the fuck," Eskel hisses back at the cat, but all it does is dig its claws into his chest and hiss louder.

"Keep your voice down," Clovis snaps, his voice too way too loud in itself. "Geralt said it might make you feel better. He still can't leave the room without keeling over, so he said to give you something nice."

The cat is far from nice. "It's hurting me." Eskel pushes at the cat weakly, a hint of nausea tugging at his stomach.

"It does that." Dirram shrugs, plopping himself down heavily at the foot of the bed and jostling Eskel's injured foot unapologetically. "Was a right bitch to catch."

"Buggy calls it Vesemir," Clovis snickers.

Eskel closes his eyes and sinks back, trying to relax and make the cat-Vesemir go away. It's nice to have them come visit, though. "Thanks," he bites out, his voice a little strangled. "Have they... has Idras come back?"

No response. He should've figured as much. "How's training?" he presses.

"Same shit as always. Even Klef's taken to running us ragged. Probably making sure we're too tired to try anything stupid again."

"He's teaching us to swim," Dirram adds darkly. "But mostly he just pushes us off the high point down by the lake and watches us try not to die."

According to their grim tales, Nell almost drowned and brought Reynar along with him, but Klef had calmly dived in after them, fished them out, and made it a lesson about the behaviour of drowning folk and how they might act in desperation.

"They don't really care about any of us at all," Clovis says darkly, his lip curled. "Not even Klef. I doubt he'dve blinked once if the current had carried me away."

They do care, Eskel wants to say, but the effort of it is too much for him right now. You should have seen him when I came back, you should have seen Sorel press a cool towel against Eskel's neck every half hour when he was wild with delirium, you should have seen Vesemir wipe his face on his shoulder as the pyres burnt low...

The boys are chattering about something else already, Eskel realises as he comes back to himself. Cat-Vesemir's taken to prowling about the potions table, sidestepping tall vials of liquid and finally stretching out on a small pile of hellebore with a pointed mrrow and rubbing its face right in it.

"Are... are you feeling any better now?" Dirram asks awkwardly. "Klef says it's just an infection, but Varin used to say that humans are weak and can die from just about anything."

"The fever comes and goes," Eskel echoes Sorel's words airily. "I'm learning meditation, it helps a little."

"That's a Witcher thing," Clovis points out, sharp as a tack. "They only teach that after the Grasses."

"Not really," Eskel says sheepishly. "It's just - thinking about stuff -"

"So did you take another Witcher potion?" Clovis cuts in grudgingly. Dirram goes still as a rabbit beside him, and Eskel sighs when he realises belatedly that this is probably the reason why they're being nice.

"I guess so," Eskel hedges. "Feels the same as last time."

"What's it feel like?" Dirram crowds closer.

"Like... shit."

Clovis makes a disdainful noise, shoving at Eskel hard. "It's not enough that you're the oldest of us now," he says bitterly, "but you also have special magic, and you're the tallest - "

"- best looking -" Dirram chips in, rolling his eyes.

"- and now you're learning meditation, and you're most likely going to survive the Trials, especially since Witcher potions don't kill you like they should. Perfect little Eskel." Clovis throws him a sidelong glance, slitted and envious.

"If you've come here to fight me," Eskel mutters weakly, putting a hand over his face. "Can we do this another day?"

"Not gonna fight you," Clovis huffs, deflating. "Sorel would probably skin me. You're powerful. I want to be friends."

"...that's very practical," Eskel whispers, then leans over and pukes into Dirram's lap.

There's a lot of yelling and shoving and just gasping for air on Eskel's part, then Sorel comes slamming in and cat-Vesemir leaps ten feet into the air and starts yowling bloody murder for some reason.

"Vesemir!" Clovis shouts, diving after the cat, which just adds to the confusion, and Dirram forgets that he's covered in vomit and follows suit, and the table overturns with a crash. By the time Eskel catches his breath, the room is sour with the smell of sick and spilt potions, Clovis is cut up and bloody from skidding on broken vials, and Sorel has snarled Dirram into a corner, still clutching cat-Vesemir uncomfortably and getting scratched in the face.

"SEVEN FUCKING HELLS," Sorel spits finally, shaking with fury. Eskel shudders and flops back down with a moan. There isn't even that much time for Sorel to stand there and be angry because the mix of potions is so potent that Clovis gasps and starts trying to wipe it off on his breeches, but it only drives the broken glass deeper and the potion just gets smeared all over his skin, which bursts into a rash immediately. Then real Vesemir comes through the door and recoils.

"What," he starts, but instinctively moves to snatch Dirram away from the shards and growing puddles. "What -" the cat twists out of Dirram's arms and leaps at Vesemir's chest, all claws and raised fur.

"Get that motherfucking cat - !" Sorel shouts, actually unsheathing a dagger this time and straight out throwing it right at both Vesemirs.

With a low snarl, Vesemir swipes it aside like it's a fly, and it clatters uselessly to the ground. "Stand down," Vesemir commands, and it's like a blanket of silence is suddenly thrown over the whole room. Cat-Vesemir drops off his chest and lands on a dry patch of floor, slinking backwards into the shadows; Dirram's yells for the cat die down completely, and Clovis slumps back, cradling his elbow and biting his lip in pain.

Sorel stomps over to his knife and snatches it back, neither of them even shaken that the throw had been aimed right at Vesemir's chest. "Get your pups in order," he hisses. "My fucking potions. Where's that fucking cat."

He comes to loom over Eskel, though, feeling at his forehead and sniffing in displeasure. "I know, boy, it's time for your next dose, but it's all in the ground," Sorel sighs. "Stop it with your Axii overkill, Wolf, you'll make him feel even more sick."

Vesemir looks stricken for a moment and suddenly it's like all the air slams back into the room, and everything's spinning with a sharp clarity that makes Eskel reach out and cling to Sorel's wrist as some kind of anchor. His strong heartbeat, thrumming under Eskel's thumb. The bright pricks of pain across Eskel's chest, where the cat had dug in. The smell of - no, the smell is the worst -

Eskel retches again, but Sorel just thumps him and hands him a glass of water.

"What the hell were you boys thinking," Vesemir's saying from somewhere far away, his voice dripping in disappointment.

"Is Vesemir okay?" Eskel calls out blearily, dribbling water down his front.

Vesemir frowns, his mouth working to form the question already, but Dirram points silently to the wide-eyed cat that's pressed against the wall. "You named the cat..." Vesemir closes his eyes and exhales sharply through his nose. "Come here," he commands, he commands the cat, Eskel thinks weakly, am I still seeing things? And the cat actually walks out calm as anything and leaps up onto his shoulder like it's meant to be there, perching there with its tail swishing behind it. Eskel does see the resemblance now: the golden-eyed cat is a shabby, dirty kind of grey with white whiskers, a Vesemir if he'd ever seen one.

Then both Vesemirs turn to the trembling boys with unblinking eyes. "You will both clean up the mess in here and help Sorel re-brew everything that has been spilt."

Clovis visibly relaxes and nods, obviously relieved at the relatively reasonable punishment.

"And report directly to me for drills tomorrow morning."

Clovis pales. "But sir... my hands... and this would take all night... and tomorrow's rest day..."

"Inner courtyard. Before sunrise."

Dirram sniffles and nods helplessly, then Vesemir turns to leave again, muttering about how he never gets a break, and how the fucking cat is not even a tom.

It's a long night for all of them, and the bitter smell of badly mixed potions and bile lingers for days after.

Chapter Text

Vesemir brings Bastion day back way before Eskel is better. By the time Eskel is strong enough to join the day-long drills outside the keep, it's early summer and the weather is just as vicious as it was all winter, as though trying to make up for it. The new punishment of the sun proves almost as tough, more notably when Vesemir takes them out on cloudless days. Pale Reynar gets so terribly sunburnt that his clothes chafe his skin raw, and though Vesemir does excuse him from drills for a couple of days to heal up from that, they have to spend hours finding, then pounding up leaves and herbs into a salve for their peeling skin.

With Varin, punishments were more painful by far, but his rewards were equivalent to make up for it: rest days and sweet treats from the closest town when he was in a good mood. Vesemir is altogether a sterner teacher, harsh and unforgiving, never fully satisfied with the day's work. The most he's ever given them is a terse nod, as though it pains him to give even that bit of approval. It makes the boys so nervous and so eager at the same time, sullenly trying their best to jump through the figurative hoops he sets out, then glancing at Vesemir's unreadable face for some sign of having done something well. It's exhausting, and most drill sessions are tense and silent, each boy trying their hardest to come up on top and win Vesemir's single silent nod of the day. 

Today is not Eskel's day. He really did think he'd managed the tricky manoeuvre that Vesemir has them practising all week, but when he finishes it for the twentieth time and sneaks a hopeful glance in his direction, the frown lines on his face are just as deep as ever.

"Unstable footwork," Vesemir comments. "Other one could've sliced your sword arm off on the first turn." Then he turns away to tell Geralt something that makes him visibly deflate. 

Mason scowls from where Eskel has laid him flat on the ground, swiping at the sweat on his brow angrily. "Thought you did just fine," he groans, accepting Eskel's hand up. 

"Thanks," Eskel mutters, but he's just tired now and he wishes time would pass faster. His skin itches with the beginnings of sunburn too, and his throat is parched. He glares at Vesemir's back, but he's too busy talking quietly to Kovac. Whatever he's saying is making Kovac's lip wobble. "Buggy, you're up."

Buggy pouts, sniffling. "Head hurts. Thirsty. 'M so sleepy. 'M tired."

"I know," Eskel sighs. "Quit whining, he's gonna see and you're gonna get it."

Vesemir hates whiners. Master yourself, he'd say, in his soft tired voice, laden heavy with disappointment.

"He doesn't even know my name," Buggy pouts.

"Neither do you," Mason points out blithely, beating about Buggy's feet with his practice sword. "Come on, get up."

"Good lad," Eskel says when Buggy drags himself up, thumping him on his shoulder. 

He drops like a sack. Something in Eskel's brain short circuits -

He flinches away when something touches his elbow, but it's only Geralt, hair plastered all about his face and neck. "You okay?" he asks, and he looks so earnest and serious that Eskel suddenly feels the urge to ruffle his hair.

"Yeah," Eskel says, leaning instinctively into Geralt's touch, but his hand is already gone. He sits down hard, his head swirling as he tries to process what's happening. The sandy stone, hot beneath his palms. Sting of sweat in his eyes. Vesemir leaning over Buggy, who stirs weakly from where he's lying.

"I didn't do it," Eskel blurts, feeling something twist in his stomach. 

Clovis shoots him an accusatory glare above Vesemir's head.

"Heatstroke," Vesemir murmurs, then picks Buggy up like nothing. He sweeps a glance around at the boys' red, sun-exhausted faces, and Eskel pale and stricken on the ground. Vesemir's steely demeanour breaks, and he curses under his breath. "Water?" he asks, and they nod in muted relief; he leads them straight down the slope to the river - the same one Eskel almost drowned in, albeit a safer and shallower-running section of it. The boys break into a run when they see it up ahead, and throw themselves into the cool waters with subdued cries of delight.

"It's not so deep," Geralt says brightly, still eyeing Eskel cautiously like he might break into a million pieces.

Eskel musters a weak smile. "Go on, I'm too tired."

He stays at the edge with Vesemir, soaking his feet and scooping up the water in his hands to drink. It was nothing then, nothing he'd done, anyway: he didn't hurt Buggy with his clumsy hands and careless acts. Watches as Vesemir lowers Buggy into the water himself, frown lines on his face deep and harsh in the sharp sunlight.

Eskel ditches his shoes by the edge and plops into the swirling stream. The water is cool and clean, soaking through the seat of his pants. His mind clears, slowly but surely. 

"Varin says you're so old that you've forgotten what it's like to be human," Eskel says.

Vesemir levels a calculating look at Eskel. "Hm. Come a long way from that scared starved thing when you first arrived."

Eskel glances away quickly, ducking his head to gulp more water. The memory has long faded to something vague and formless, but the general sense of fear and panic that shook him to his bones still echoes somewhere at the back of his mind, when he tries to remember.

"He's wrong," Vesemir says.

"Sorry, sir?" Eskel says, tentatively.

"Age has nothing to do with it." Vesemir's yellow eyes gaze out at the group of Bastion boys, laughing and splashing in the cool shallows. Then they turn on Eskel with the intensity of twin flames lit by the sun itself. "Easier to be a monster than human. You'll find out soon enough."

His words are light and warm, just like the breeze, and not at all intending to be threatening, but it settles on Eskel's heart like a chill. Of course. The Trials. The boys have been whispering about it more often, on nights where none of them can sleep. The anxiety builds slowly and surely, every time they realise with a shock that they may be old enough for the Trials this fall. The boys say Eskel's the oldest, but he knows that his height simply makes it so. "Built like a Bear", Sorel had put it, like it was a bad thing, and Eskel has taken to curling his shoulders in to look a little smaller. Then there's Remy and Bastien, who came to Kaer Morhen too young to know their ages. Though they've always been small-boned the way twins usually are, they're easily the same age Jarian was, and their growth spurt has finally hit to show it. And Clovis and Reynar have started to grow hair around their cocks, though they try their best to hide and wash when the others have already finished.

It's not fair, Eskel thinks fiercely. He hasn't even seen twelve years yet, himself. And Geralt, growing stronger and smarter and more obstinate by day, still thinks he's the baby of the group, still thinks he's a long way off from the Trials. Maybe if he pretends more fiercely, they will overlook him, just for one more year. It's no question that if he survives he'd be the strongest of them all - everyone says it'll be Eskel, but they forget the easy way Geralt's body twists through sparring and the way he moves during drills. Like his sword is a part of him, like he's made of water. Even Vesemir doesn't have criticism for him on most days, just scowls and calls him scrawny.

"When the mage from Barn Ard came, you said - you said I could choose." Eskel rasps.

Vesemir sighs. "Not for this. The Grasses are for every boy in Kaer Morhen."

"Even if most of us will die?" Eskel presses. "Even then?"

Vesemir stoops to cup some water in his hands for Buggy, who keeps trying and failing to bring the water to his mouth because his hands are too small and he doesn't know how to curve his fingers properly to hold it all.

"It is our fate to be doomed to protect the ones that cast us out in the first place." Vesemir shakes his head, rueful. "Maybe one day you'll understand. You won't like it, but you'll understand in your own way, even if you don't want to admit it out loud. We all do in the end. You'll probably find a way to hate me for it, but that's inconsequential. We don't make Witchers out of love." 

"Inconsequential," Eskel repeats, turning the word over his tongue slowly. "Did I choose wrong?"

"Full of loaded questions, aren't you?" Vesemir muses. "Not you," he assures Buggy, dragging him to his feet and nudging him to join the others. He clambers away gratefully, still shaky on his legs and oblivious to their conversation. 

"There'll be a great many times you will regret your choice, down the road. Few hundred years and I can't say if I chose right, myself."

"You had to make the same choice?"

"Hm," Vesemir grunts, neither a yes or a no. Eskel feels like he knows the answer to this: he recognises the thrum of something in the way Vesemir holds himself and the way the others treat him; something in his glacial presence that makes the world go quiet and expectant, eager to obey. Eskel wonders if Vesemir had used the magic in his voice to tell Varin to leave and never come back. 

"Will you teach me how to use words like you?"

No response. Bleakly, Eskel tosses a stone into the water. It drops with a sploosh, sinking immediately to the bottom. "This is going to be my last summer, isn't it."

Vesemir snorts. "Overflowing with optimism," he murmurs sardonically. "We'll make a Wolf of you yet."

They make an odd pair, man and child, sitting a foot apart by the riverbank and staring out at the boys frolicking in the stream. They crowd around Buggy and roughhouse him up to his shoulders, laughing when he bleats out feeble complaints. Vesemir picks up a stone of his own and flicks it across the water surface, leaving a trail of ripples in its wake.

It's close to an hour later when he lets out a sharp whistle through his teeth, and the others come splashing back in a hurry. Vesemir’s trainings don’t get easier, but he brings along waterskins on hot days after that.

---

The nights are almost as unbearable. Eskel doesn't realise how well-insulated the keep is against the cold of winter until it's in the middle of a blistering summer with no end in sight, and they take to leaving the door and windows open through the night to get some form of relief. But the air is muggy and still and they're just inhaling the dense sweaty air and groaning about not being able to breathe properly, so it's even more frustrating when Geralt gets it into his head that he's welcome in Eskel's bed.

"Ughhhh," Eskel complains sleepily.

"Your back is sticky." Geralt fidgets and kicks and now Eskel's fully awake.

"Don't, it's so gods-fucking hot..." Eskel huffs and squirms when Geralt drapes himself over Eskel entirely, and their skin just sticks together. "I'm gross, get off."

"Can't sleep," Geralt says, ignoring Eskel. "You're salty."

"You're annoying."

"Shh!" Dirram hisses and throws something at them. It hits Eskel hard on the knuckle, and when Eskel gropes for it in the dark to throw back, he discovers it's a fork.

"Dirram," Eskel says loudly, "Stop sneaking food in here, you idiot. We only just cleared out the damn rats."

"Give it back," Dirram snaps. "I'm trying to sleep."

"You threw it here!" Eskel retorts, but chucks it back in his direction and flops back down in a huff, not caring when he hears it clattering across the floor in the other direction.

"Shut up, you're making the room hotter," Jakob mumbles.

Geralt hasn't stopped squirming. It only just occurs to Eskel how close they are, and they're both stripped down to wearing nothing because of the heat. Geralt's eyes are heavy-lidded and he's already halfway to dozing off, but he's rubbing his entire body along Eskel's sweaty back languidly, his cock digging uncomfortably into the small of Eskel's back.

"Geralt," Eskel whispers. "Stop it, wake up."

"Hnn," Geralt says. "'M awake. Feels nice."

Eskel twists around sharply and grabs Geralt's hips a little too hard, stilling him. "What're you doing?"

Geralt blinks lazily back, completely at ease, his mouth curved to the side. "Remy showed me, come on, it feels good." He punctuates his sentence with another bold roll of his hips, his cock sliding easily across Eskel's damp stomach.

Eskel swallows, half ready to push him away or punch him in the face, then blinks and he realises that he doesn't hate it. There's no old familiar taste of bile in his mouth, and his heart is beating steady. He breathes out slowly, feeling the heat of Geralt's body pour onto his skin. Fearless, beautiful Geralt, his mouth twisted in a wicked smile and his eyes hot with something challenging. "I'll show you," he says, a little breathless, humping slow circles like he was made for this. "What, you scared?"

That gets Eskel going and he tightens his fingers deliberately. "Scared?" Eskel snipes back, leaning in and grinning back. Chuckles softly when Geralt gives a small yelp and squirms a little. "I'll show you."

He never imagined that he would feel so light in this moment, so liberated. He's never dared to think about any of this for so long, this dirty thing that he somehow grew up experiencing as something vaguely shameful and wrong but necessary - just to keep warm, just for that nice meal that was promised, just to be good for his Ma -

He pushes that thought away and ducks down. This is different. This is him choosing to do it, and not steeling himself to do it while thinking about whether they'd survive till next summer. And it's a shit past that he doesn't want to remember, but the things he does remember, he uses to his advantage.

"Hey, wh - oh." Geralt's breath punches out in a short huff, and he grabs at Eskel's hair artlessly with his good hand. Then he makes a sound that's more like a squeal. "'Skel!"

Eskel pulls off with a smack of his lips, smirking up at him. "Shh, Jakob's sleeping."

"Not anymore," Jakob mutters sullenly, throwing his pillow over his face. Eskel ignores him and dives back down, batting Geralt's hand away and pushing his wrists firmly down onto the bed. They're mostly even at sparring and he knows Geralt could probably break out and knee him right in the face if he wants to, but he doesn't, and it sends a hot lick of want rushing up his spine. He's never felt so present, so grounded, as right now, with Geralt stifling the sweetest noises behind his teeth and the faint smell of their mingled sweat in his nose, then he rolls his tongue a little and Geralt is shuddering and twitching in his mouth, gasping like he's just broken the surface after a dive, and Eskel follows him right over, rutting hard against his shin until pleasure pulses through his body down to his toes.

He pulls himself back up and throws himself onto his back, turning his head to give Geralt a smug grin. The dazed look on his face is worth it. "What the fuck," Geralt breathes.

"Bet Remy didn't show you that," Eskel says flippantly, though he can't help but let some jealousy bleed into his voice.

"Asshole," Geralt mutters, but he grins and shoves his head onto Eskel's shoulder with a contented sigh.

"Can show you something about that, too," Eskel says distantly, already starting to drift off. They're both incredibly sweaty now, big droplets beading up and trickling down into the sheets, but now they're also dopey and loose-limbed and content, so it's not so bad.

"Spare us," Jakob groans.

---

Klef has invented a new kind of torture for training. After putting them through the paces of learning a whole sequence of attacks, or blocks, or whatever else he has in mind, he'd give them a wry smile and go, "Now mirror it."

It's bad enough that Eskel's left hand is so much weaker. He can't wrap his head around doing everything the opposite way. The other boys struggle with their grips, more sticks drop than ever, and it's just as bad as starting over from day one. Maybe not as bad because Klef doesn't beat them bloody for fumbling like Varin did, but maybe worse because Vesemir watches sometimes, and his comments always cut deep.

Geralt is somehow a natural at it, only taking a couple of seconds to mark through the moves on his left side, and he's off whirling and slashing like he's been training for both sword arms all his life, only that his actual sword arm is still swaddled in a thick cast from his fall. Bastien and Remy turn out to be pretty good at it after a few tries - something about the circus blood they have - but Eskel is complete shit at it.

It doesn't help that the others are also complete shit at it, because instead of clacking their sticks together and exchanging blows, it's more of them stumbling and poking clumsily where they shouldn't. The new grip tears his skin up like a grater to cheese, and on one occasion Nell almost pokes his eye out with the blunt end of his stick.

It's not a secret why Klef is making them do this. Sometimes he ends their trainings slightly earlier, at midday, then he heads to the other practice yard and spars with the younger trainees, just a few summers away from running their final Trial on the Killer. "Don't go easy," he'd snap at them, drawing his blade - Eskel is always awed by the brief shimmer of runes all along the side - then the dance begins, metal flashing and sending sparks. First it's obvious that Klef has the upper hand, even taking on two at once, but then his sword arm weakens as his wrist trembles from the effort of meeting their strikes. Then he changes his grip to his other hand and the fight resumes, the trainees beating him back easily now. Then in a split second he fumbles and drops his sword, failing to block and having to twist to the side to earn a slash on his side, narrowly avoiding getting speared. He has no choice but to use his bare palm to catch the other blade coming down at his face.

Everyone lets out hushed gasps, first at the dropped sword, then at the unmistakable snikt of flesh meeting a sharp edge. The few other older Witchers grimace, but nobody hastens to help him. Klef just picks the sword back up with his left hand and motions to continue, scowling. The trainees hesitate: there's more blood than there should be, dripping into the dirt from his open palm and blooming up the length of his thin undershirt like ink in water, but Klef strikes out again and they hasten to meet his blows. Vesemir just looks on with his same mask of faint displeasure across his face.

"Maybe he should get a mage to look at it," Mason whispers, wincing in sympathy when they see yet another bandage around Klef's wrist the next day. The other cut on his ribs is already scabbed over and peeling to reveal pink skin beneath. He waves them off when they ask him about it.

"Would that I was trained for both sides when I was your age," he sighs, and that's when his dreadful mirroring exercises begin.

"It's just stupid," Geralt hisses furiously at night, even as they rut against each other until it verges on the edge of painful. "He's just doing to us because he can't use his own sword arm."

Eskel nods sympathetically, feeling the pains of the day's training throbbing keenly through his muscles, but chasing the high all the same - they've discovered that everything feels even more exquisitely good when their cocks rub against each other just right, though their rhythm is unpractised and frantic most times. The others had quickly gotten used to this new development - it turns out Remy and Bastien were already going at it a lot longer than any of them, albeit more quietly, when nobody was paying attention. Clovis and Dirram have started mirroring what they do, egged on by the sounds because it's not like anyone can sleep through that racket anyway. The others watch with open curiosity, but by the end of the second week bedtime is nothing short of chaos, a whole mess of eager bodies and tangling limbs, and nobody gets any sleep at all until the early hours of the morning. 

Looking back, Eskel doesn't know how they even found the energy to do any of it after so much hard training, or how they managed to get away with it for so long before the Witchers got wind of what they were doing. He couldn't even bring himself to feel that guilty about it, not when he could reduce proud, brash Clovis into a gibbering mess just by crooking his finger just right. The boys looked to him for wisdom before, but now they just look at him with reverence, hoping to win his favour so that he'd let them into his bed if they asked nice enough.

Only Geralt never needs to ask, and he's never kicked out of Eskel's bed when they're done like the others are. The unspoken rule that they all know is Eskel still doesn't like to be touched without permission, though he did relent and let Reynar put his mouth on him and it felt a lot better than he imagined, so it's a work in progress.

The main problem quickly becomes how hard it is to stop.

Klef takes a look at their exhausted faces the next morning and frowns. "I let you boys off early yesterday," he says suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at Clovis because he keeps wincing when he walks. "What happened to you?"

"Uh." Clovis comes up short. "I, I stepped... on a stone."

Bastien snorts so hard Eskel swears he sees a small glob of mucus fly out. Klef sighs. "You all better not be coming down with some - summer fever, or something," he says warningly. But he puts the training sticks away and leads them on another one of his long, slow hikes that take them all the way to the top of a ridge. Eskel lets Geralt pull him along as he plucks as many bright wildflowers as possible, ignoring the task at hand.

"Klef said celandine, that's not -"

"Here," Geralt says, his eyes shining. He thrusts a handful of crushed flowers at Eskel's chest.

Eskel rolls his eyes. "What am I supposed to do with this?" He grimaces at the soggy bunch of tattered petals. "You just killed them all."

"Nell says first one to get the most flowers wins your bed tonight," Geralt explains like it's obvious, gesturing to his cast. "And it's not fair because I only have one hand. Come on, help me look."

"Boys," Klef says, exasperated, but he throws his hands up and lets them run wild. 

Celandine is much harder to gather when Geralt is throwing all kinds of weeds in Eskel's face, but he does his best to gather them properly and keep them separated. A slightly raised voice draws his attention and he stops short. Klef has Clovis cornered against a tree, but he's squatting down on his haunches talking in a low voice.

"No," Clovis says, visibly panicking, his eyes darting around and landing on Eskel across the clearing. "No, nobody forced me!" He's never seen Clovis go so red before, or look so trapped.

"Are you sure?" Klef presses, his voice gentle but unyielding. "Witchers can smell a lie, Clovis. Don't be afraid."

Clovis sends a pleading look at Eskel and Klef turns around. "Eskel," he says. "You too, come here."

His hands suddenly feel sweaty, but he steps closer obediently, trying not to meet Clovis' eyes. "Yes, sir?"

Klef frowns at Eskel, like he can smell his unease. "Do you know anything about what happened to Clovis?"

Clovis shakes his head frantically at Eskel.

"Yessir," Eskel says, swallowing, finding himself unable to tell such a bald-faced lie to Klef's face. Clovis's panicked face turns thunderous and he mouths a couple of curses at Eskel.

Klef stands up slowly, his palms out like he's trying to calm a spooked animal. "Eskel, listen to me. This is important. If someone is hurting Clovis, or anyone of the other boys, you need to tell me. I swear on my sword I won't be angry."

Despite himself, Eskel lets out a high, watery laugh, pressing his lips together. All his instincts are telling him to run, but he's pinned by Klef's keen gaze.

A soft snarl of frustration. Klef moves his hand in a now familiar sign, and Eskel feels a blanket of calm thrown over his senses.

"NO!" Eskel startles and the spell breaks like a bubble bursting. He blinks and realises he's just thrown his handful of flowers in Klef's face. Some of it is sticking to his eyebrows. Run, the voice in his head whispers, and he does.

---

"- then he runs me through a fucking swamp - " Klef shouts, bristling in indignance and pointing an accusatory finger at Eskel.

Vesemir holds up an arresting hand. "Master yourself, Robin. I'm not dealing with this."

"The hell you're not!" Klef barks, his voice bordering on hysterical. "When our batch started it, you -"

"I deal with the trainees. Not them. They're too young - I'm too old for this shit." Vesemir shoots a look at Eskel. "Get him cleaned up at least, he's scared to his bones."

Eskel twitches away from Klef, keeping his eyes on the floor. "You said you wouldn't be angry," Eskel whispers hoarsely. 

Klef recoils and ends up pacing back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists helplessly. "This is the worst," he mutters to himself. "I don't know how Gardis never killed any of us."

There's a small commotion outside and suddenly the other boys burst into the room, shoving to be first but at the same time scrambling to hide behind each other to avoid Vesemir's acid gaze.

"Please don't punish Eskel, sir," Geralt blurts, stepping forward boldly. Eskel looks up in a mix of surprise and horror, just to see Geralt shove Clovis forward.

"He didn't hurt me," Clovis mutters, his ears bright red. "I asked him to."

Vesemir closes the book he's writing in and stands up with an air of finality. "Not my problem," he says firmly. "Robin -"

"It's Klef," Klef hisses.

"- split them up, whip them, I don't care. I've told you my rules before. No nonsense during training, no fucking in shared spaces. Anything else, not my problem."

"These two are twins," Klef points out, and Bastien lets out a faint whimper and shuffles behind Remy. "That's a hangable offense in at least three entire regions of the whole Continent."

"Not my problem. Go talk to Sorel if you need a potion for delicate sensibilities."

"Fuck you too," Klef grumbles, all his fire gone out suddenly. He finally leads them all out of Vesemir's chambers, scrubbing a mud-caked hand over his face several times before he can figure out what to say.

"...I don't want to know what crazy shit you kids get up to either, you know," he starts, annoyed, then stops and makes a frustrated noise of exasperation.

"You made me say it," Eskel mumbles grudgingly, his brain still out of sorts and cottony from when Klef had finally caught him and Axii'd him so hard he couldn't even remember what he'd said. Judging from Klef's reaction, he'd probably said way too much.

Klef looks like he's struggling with himself for awhile. "I'm sorry," he bites out finally. "I promised I wouldn't get angry. I'm not angry."

Eskel exchanges a fleeting glance with Geralt.

"I'm not angry," Klef repeats, his voice measured now, and taking on the usual calm cadence that they're all more familiar with. "I was just... surprised. Don't know why I was, since it was bound to happen anyway, but - " he cuts himself short again, struggling with his words. "Don't get distracted. Don't get attached. A Witcher's life..."

He trails away, contemplating their stricken faces as if for the first time. "You know what, life's hard enough after the Trials," he says suddenly. "You might as well feel everything that you can now, while you're still able to. Just... don't hurt each other. I'm not going easy on any of you." He stares down Eskel and Clovis as he says this, and Eskel nods dumbly. "So if any of you show up in any kind of pain, know that it's your own damn fault and don't start crying if I don't let up. Got it?"

There's a subdued chorus of "Yes, sir" and Klef stalks away to fume somewhere else - the hot springs, maybe. Eskel finally heaves a sigh and goes a little weak-kneed with relief.

Mason rounds on Eskel. "Just so you know, I won the competition, so it's my turn tonight," he says flatly.

Chapter Text

When the days get windy and the trees a little less green, their days of training get more intense with the addition of chore after chore as the keep readies for another hard winter. They're expecting more numbers this year, Vesemir says, looking out over the Killer like he can already see them coming. Can't have another understocked winter like the last one. The other Witchers and trainees alike shift and mutter uneasily when it comes up. The usual trainers hadn't come back the previous few winters, apparently, and with Varin in the wind as well, there aren't enough proper Witchers to run errands to stock up for the winter. The trainees and the Bastion boys are inevitably included in the preparations to make up for it.

"A Witcher never regrets being too prepared," Vesemir would say for the thousandth time when someone sighs a little too loudly at their chores. 

At least for the boys, the chores take them to other parts of the keep they otherwise would have no reason to be. There was a week of them sitting in the armoury with oily rags, polishing swords and daggers and all kinds of weapons that Klef or Varin wouldn't have let them near. They'd even lasted three days before Nell somehow managed to almost slice off his entire thumb, and they ran all the way to Sorel screaming bloody murder. Sorel and Vesemir had an interesting shouting match about age appropriate chores, but the unexciting and tedious result of all the drama was another full day of them scrubbing the bloody trail off the flagstones. It's back-breaking but at least bearable, since the smell isn't that strong.

The worst smell is the days when they have to help with the skinning and tanning of all kinds of hide - Eskel's least favourite. The smell of the dead animal and the blood is enough to leave his head spinning, and sometimes the animals the older trainees bring in are still alive and bleating when they're brought back to be killed. On better days they're patching old gambesons and stuffing them with more down, or sewing fur trimmings to the collars, or braiding rope, mending shoes, and all sorts of other small things. They get the whole courtyard of space to do it too, so the other instructors can keep an eye on them while they train the ones who have passed their first Trials.

This day is one of those days. The boys work in relative silence, the warm breeze seeming to keep all tempers at bay at the moment. There's a faint smell of bread baking from the kitchens, the strangely comforting distant clatter of training swords clashing. 

"When I'm a Witcher I won't have to do this anymore," Jakob mutters, sucking at his thumb from where he's pricked himself. 

"You'll still have to, idiot," Geralt says, rolling his eyes. "Unless you wanna be a Witcher with holes in 'is smalls." The quilt he's patching is a mess of tangled thread, but he doesn't seem to care.

Eskel is meant to be stuffing a training dummy with Nell, but it's slow going because he keeps getting distracted and watching the trainees run through their drills on the pendulum. Occasionally the instructors bark out commands to correct their technique.

"Esk," Nell says, throwing a handful of hay at Eskel's face.

Eskel ignores him. "They're blindfolded," he points out, and it's hard to keep the awe from his voice.

The others turn to look. There are a few pairs doing their usual sparring in the dirt, but high up where the walls of the keep end there's a row of wooden poles and the trainees are hopping from post to post, ducking spiked swinging obstacles, all with a sweaty strip of linen tied around their eyes. 

"Faster!" Vesemir snaps at one of them, as he narrowly misses getting knocked right off and teeters dangerously on one foot. "Legs! Ground yourself!"

"Gods, he's gonna fall all the way down the mountain," Dirram whispers, stricken.

"Vesemir wouldn't let that happen," Eskel says, but he's not so sure. Saving Geralt from getting smashed by a falling tree is one thing, but from where Vesemir is standing, there's no way he can run over to the pendulum, vault over it and grab a trainee if he falls. He doesn't even look concerned, just wears his usual mask of emotionless displeasure, hands on his hips.

Just then, the trainee on the poles missteps and steps through the gap in the poles. Eskel jerks in surprise as he falls forward and slams chin-first onto the posts. Thankfully, he doesn't fall, just curls up on the precarious posts and clings tight.

"Up! Get up!" Vesemir shouts, whistling through his teeth. "You stay down, you're dead! Move!"

Right on cue, the pendulum swings back at his curled figure and swipes him clean off. He lands sprawled in the dirt, thankfully on the right side of the wall.

The boys groan in collective sympathy and resume their chores a little more diligently, glad to be doing this instead of suffering through training with Vesemir.

Klef wanders over to them to have a look at their progress. "Not bad," he says, his mouth quirking up at the sides. "Reynar, you've got to braid that rope tighter. That's just going to fall to pieces."

He settles down to show Reynar how, then there's a sound at the gate and the great big doors are opening with a loud creak. A Witcher strides in, walking with a bit of a limp, but Eskel would recognise that head of sand-coloured hair anywhere.

"Tjold," Klef breathes, leaping up and crossing the courtyard to crush the other Witcher in an embrace. "Been awhile, little brother. What's it been, three years? Feel like a real Witcher yet?"

Tjold suffers him ruffling his hair a bit and steps away, rolling his eyes. "Nekkers got my horse right before winter in Brugge, then I broke my leg and couldn't do anything for months."

"Hunt gone wrong?"

"No." Tjold scowls. "Was tits-cold and blizzarding outside, but the alderman wouldn't spare a room. Tried to find shelter in some abandoned house, but the fucking floorboards were rotten through. Fell right through the second floor to the damn cellar. Had to crawl out like a dog all the way to the inn, beg them to let me sleep in the stables."

"Damn." Klef shakes his head, staring into the middle distance like he's imagining it, then says more forcefully, "damn." He fusses over Tjold for a few minutes, like there are other hurts that he might be hiding, ignoring Tjold's weak protests and interrogating him further on what he's been eating, how he's gotten his money, who helped. When he's satisfied, he presses his lips to Tjold's forehead affectionately, and Tjold pushes him away with a growl.

Unperturbed, Klef eyes the loaded cart of apples he just noticed Tjold has pulled through behind him. "What did you do, raid an orchard on the way up?"

"Lifted some dumb kid out of a well. Wanted to pay me, didn't have money, you know how it goes. Aubry get maudlin all winter without me?"

"Dunno, didn't show," Klef says lightly.

Tjold pauses then shrugs, not meeting Klef's eyes. "Probably having too much fun in a whorehouse."

He brings the cart over to the boys, to their delight, and they go into a frenzy trying to choose the best and biggest apples.

"Look at all of you, growing like weeds," Tjold says. He tugs at Geralt's shaggy honey-brown hair, now well past his shoulders and getting into his face at every opportunity. "They need haircuts, Klef."

"Been busy," Klef sighs. "Vesemir's been running us all ragged, but there's still too much to do, and that's on top of the usual training."

He helps himself to an apple as well, continuing to update Tjold on how they're expecting the older Witchers to come back, since they've been spreading word that the keep needs more of them. "And the mages are coming too, for this lot," he adds quietly under his breath.

Most of the boys are distracted enough by the apples that they don't notice. Geralt presses close to Eskel and grips his wrist tight, his eyes wide. Tjold just huffs gently, unaffected, and claps Eskel on the shoulder. "What've they been feeding you? Doubt even Aubry was as big as you when he was your age."

Eskel ducks his head and hunches a little, shrugging and concentrating on his apple. The mages are coming too.

"Probably part hillfolk, Sorel thinks," Klef says, from somewhere far away. "Come on, Vesemir will want to see you."

Tjold sighs and nods, straightening up a little bit. "Bet you a bottle of Redanian he says something about my leg."

"Bet you a bottle of Nilfgaardian he says nothing."

"Nobody drinks that shit but you, brother."

The two stroll away, catching up companionably, and Vesemir halts training to welcome Tjold. Vesemir just grasps Tjold's forearm and nods tersely.

Tjold turns to enter the keep, shoulders visibly sagging in relief as Klef looks smug. All of a sudden Vesemir aims a light kick at the back of the leg he's favouring and Tjold stumbles forward, unable to hold his weight well on his bad leg.

Vesemir shakes his head, the line between his eyes deepening in disapproval. "Drills start tomorrow," he says simply, then resumes his work on the trainees.

---

Silas has a field day with the apples, getting the boys' help in everything from skinning and slicing them up for pies, to cooking and mashing them together with sugar and cinnamon to keep in jars. It's the most fun chore for all of them because of all the bites they're able to sneak, though Damon eats himself sick from so much fruit and nothing else.

"Stop that," Eskel chides, as Buggy sticks a spit-slick finger back into the mash for another taste. Geralt sticks a tongue out at him, cheeky, and scoops some up for himself.

"Come on, 'Skel, you know you'd like it."

He knows. His stomach aches from wanting to help himself too, but the way the others keep talking about how he's growing and how much bigger he is is enough for his appetite to fizzle. "Not hungry," he says stiffly.

"Stop eating the food you're prepping," Silas growls half-heartedly. "Not gonna have anything left when we take these out of the ovens at this rate."

The clang of a bell and the gates opening signals another arrival.

"No," Silas says empathetically, but the boys have already dropped all their work. Silas doesn't really have the authority to punish them, so as long as none of the other Witchers see them, they can leave the kitchens, just for a moment. 

Turns out they needn't have bothered, because the older trainees and even the instructors have also crowded up to the front to see who's arrived. Eskel wonders what the fanfare is about - they didn't have anything this exciting the previous winter.

"Bell means someone important, or visitor," one of the instructors, Thornwald, is telling the trainees gruffly. His face is smooth and scarless, but his expression just as sour as any Witcher all the same.

The Witcher that rides through the gates on a glistening black horse is no Witcher Eskel has ever seen: at first glance he even thinks it's a woman, narrowly built, looking almost dainty on his muscled warhorse. His armour is jet-black leather, well-oiled and soft, studded with small points of gold like stars in the night sky. His waist-length hair is also almost completely black, loosely bound with thin gold ribbons that trail in the wake of his horse's showy canter. 

"Ugh," Thornwald spits disdainfully. But he trudges right up to the stunning black-and-gold Witcher with his hands on his hips. "The fuck did Zerrikania do to you, pretty-boy?"

The slight Witcher slides off his mount in a flourish. "Wonders for my skin, apparently," he says brightly, then butts his forehead against Thornwald's in greeting. He looks around at the audience he has, smirking at a few trainees. This is a man who knows he looks good: there's a thick white scar from his bottom lip all the way to his ear, but somehow it just looks like a permanent smirk.  "Where's my favourite Wolf?"

"Standing right here, Griffin," Thornwald says irritably.

"The other one." He laughs, honey-sweet, his scar pulling his grin to the side. "I'd forgotten how grumpy you lot get."

"Haven't seen Adon in near a decade," Vesemir says, a little wistful but he's smiling, embracing the pretty Witcher.

"Gods, Ves. The years haven't been kind."

"Fuck off, Raven. You stay here and manage these rascals all your life."

"It's His Excellency Raven, Sahib al Mahaar." Raven yelps as Vesemir slaps the back of his head.

"Fuck did you do, suck a king's dick?" Thornwald booms.

Raven chuckles and winks. "Married a princess."

Vesemir frowns. "If there's some Ofieri army showing up at our gates -"

"Oh, that was more than twenty years ago. Things change. Princesses die. You know. Shit happens." Raven's still smiling, but it's strained. He looks around at his curious audience. "Was hoping I'd still be welcome here at least. I hear it's the best place to drink away your sorrows and turn into a surly old grape."

"That you can do," Vesemir says, sly, his eyes glittering. "But it'll cost you. I seem to remember you have a way with words."

"I will rewrite your Bestiaries to read like poetic masterpieces," Raven effuses.

"Great." Vesemir turns and points over to where the boys are standing, trying to look inconspicuous behind a small stack of sandbags. "They're shit at letters, you'll be their instructor."

Raven splutters. "What - no - that's not what I meant!"

"You know the rules. We earn our place here, Your Majesty."

Raven groans dramatically but leads his horse to the stables anyway.

---

The leaves start to fall. Vesemir ups the intensity of their training. "To keep warm," he says, easy as anything, which leaves Eskel cursing under his breath as sweat pours into his eyes during morning drills. They run laps around the walls of the keep until they're panting clouds into the air. Eskel learns that it's possible to keep running even with a twisted ankle and a searing stitch in his side from skipping breakfast.

"Look at the shoulders on this one," Raven had crowed on seeing Eskel, and he tries to make himself look as small as possible.

"The Bear among the Wolves," Tjold would agree, pinching his cheeks affectionately. Eskel squirms miserably and lets Geralt finish more of his food. 

"You're missing out," Geralt points out, though he happily helps himself to Eskel's share of sweetbread one evening. Leo had made it himself, a soft white milk bread with some fresh honey to dip in that a few more returning Witchers had brought back.

"It's alright," Eskel mutters, but he stares balefully at how the honey drips over Jeb's fingers. Vesemir the cat makes an appearance and weaves through their legs, mewing and begging for a share, so Eskel gives some of his bread to him too.

"Don't worry, 'Skel," Buggy says brightly, grinning in a way Geralt used to with all his teeth. "Reynar's tall too!"

"Yeah, but I'm not..." Reynar shifts uncomfortably and makes a vague gesture with his hands. "You know."

"What? You mean fat?" Clovis blurts, and his head snaps back with the force of Geralt's fist. "AhfuckmyNOH!"

But there's no stopping Geralt once he's started: there's food everywhere and honey in his hair, and Geralt tearing at Clovis' face like an angry cat. It takes the combined effort of Eskel, Reynar and Kovac to hold Geralt's arms and stop him from lashing out more.

"Calm down, you know Clovis has shit for brains," Eskel says.

"He's NOT fat!" Geralt shrieks, thrashing ineffectually.

"Ah din' say ee wuh!" Clovis yells.

"What is it now?" Klef calls from the other side of the dining hall, where he's playing some kind of card game with the other Witchers. "Fighting over your food?"

"Yes," Eskel calls back.

"NO." Geralt glares at him mutinously, kicking out at Clovis with his legs. Nell dives for his ankles and gets a boot in the cheek for his trouble.

"Don't make me come down there," Klef says distractedly, still frowning at his hand of cards.

"Stoh, stoh," Clovis groans. "Ah sohee!"

Vesemir stands up with a loud grating scrape and finally Geralt stops struggling. The boys dart back to their seats, Clovis with a thin trickle of blood coming from one nostril and eye puffing up, but Vesemir walks right past them. "Someone's here."

It's the first time he's taken interest in returning Witchers, especially one of their own, and the bell hasn't been rung by any of the poor trainees on night watch. The Witchers exchange puzzled looks, then throw down their cards and follow.

The Witcher pushing through the main doors with great effort groans when he sees everyone streaming through the door. "Fuckin' finally," he grunts. He heaves his great sack from across his shoulders down onto the floor and it emits a fleshy thump. 

"Ugh," Jakob says, scrunching his nose. "Please not another Drowner we need to practice cutting up."

Vesemir's stance is wary. "Osbert," he acknowledges, taking in the bald Witcher's state. "What happened?"

"Little shit happened," Osbert growls, and when he lifts his face to the light Eskel can see it's covered in blood and bruises, like he's gone ten rounds with a troll. He kicks the sack with his foot and it emits a muffled growl.

"He's not welcome," Vesemir says, his quiet voice carrying in the entrance hall.

"Yeah, he mentioned that," Osbert snarls, rounding on Vesemir and showing his teeth. "Brought him back anyway. Got something to say, Wolf?"

Vesemir's jaw clenches. "It's not me he has to answer to."

"We take care of our own, or have you forgotten?" There's a long, slow raking sound of a sword being drawn lazily, deliberately, from its scabbard, and being levelled at Vesemir's face. Vesemir steps forward, nothing but a dirk at his hip, his upper lip lifting slightly in challenge.

"Cut it out, we're better than this," Thornwald snaps. "Get him out of that thing and let's get back to eating, this is a waste of time."

The person in the bag wriggles in agreement, shouting more muffled words. Grudgingly, Osbert puts his sword away, and Vesemir drops his hand from his dagger's handle as well. They glare at each other for a few more moments, the silence broken by a very deep rumbling emitting from their throats, then Vesemir stoops to yank the rim of the sack wide open.

At first Eskel thinks it's just some old beggar, unwashed and starving, smelling like seven kinds of death and struggling like a caught fish.

"It's Varin," Damon hisses, and the boys gasp and titter, but of course everyone else knows but them, with their keen Witcher senses. Now that they know it's him, Eskel can recognise his features: he's earned a few more scars on his face, but mostly he just looks miserably hungry and dirty.

Vesemir's hand doesn't leave his hip, hovering just a hair away from drawing his dagger. He looks furious.

Then Vesemir the cat slinks in easy as anything and rubs against Varin's face, planting its front paws onto his chest in a deep stretch. The tension breaks. Vesemir sighs, put-upon, and bends to help Osbert untie the rest of the sack. "Where did you find him?"

"Merchant driving a wagon through the Kestrel mountains was selling his swords. Spent a year tracking down the seller. Had to bust an entire fucking slaver's operation just to find him."

Varin says something - probably rude - behind the gag, which neither of the Witchers have bothered to touch yet. Vesemir waves the cat away impatiently, and the other Witchers melt away quietly to give them space.

"Yeah, yeah, you're lucky they didn't cut your limbs off and force you to fight a bear," Osbert grumbles. "Even got your swords back for you, ungrateful dog. Here's the last of the ties, don't you fucking dare fight me again or I will kill you."

Once Varin's hands are free, he tears the gag off, hacking and spitting. "Fuck off with your staring," he rasps at the remaining Witchers, then shoots a glare at the peeking boys so acid that they all take a few steps back. He turns defiantly to Vesemir as he shakes out his limbs, rubbing them back to life. "Didn't ask to come back."

"I can see that," Vesemir says, folding his arms across his chest. "Gave you a second chance a few years back, and you fucked it up."

Varin scowls darkly, getting to his feet. He's wearing just a worn tunic and breeches, and no shoes: the loss in his mass is even starker without his usual leather armour. His forearms and legs are bony and wiry with muscle. "Said it yourself," he mutters, his eyes anywhere but on Vesemir. "'M not fit to be here."

"Maybe not," Vesemir agrees. "But Osbert risked his life to give you another chance."

"Didn't ask him to," Varin says stubbornly, but his voice wavers.

"Oh, child," Vesemir sighs, "none of us are here because we asked." Then Vesemir let his forehead fall forward to touch Varin's.

Then Varin breaks, his shoulders shaking. "I'm sorry," he whispers, his gaunt face crumpled. "I'll do better."

Vesemir lays a gentle hand on his back to quell his shakes. "Alright. Make it count." 

---

Winter always comes early to the mountain, and leaves late: it's the end of October when the first snow hits overnight, though thankfully it's not heavy enough to block the trail. The Witchers have been tirelessly going on short expeditions to the nearby village for food and more supplies, while the others fan out in the wilderness to hunt monsters for potion ingredients.

"It's not easy to brew your own potions on the road," Klef explains, watching the boys gag over cutting up Drowner brains. "Most of us don't carry the equipment, especially if we're travelling off road."

"If Swallow helps healing, why not give some to Varin?" Remy asks. After his return, instead of retiring to his usual room, Varin has been staying in the hospital ward with Sorel. The boys inevitably see him when they have hurts of their own for Sorel to attend to. According to Clovis, who saw him last, he's still in bad shape.

"Witcher potions are toxic in nature, even to Witchers." Klef sighs. "Won't help to add to all the shit in his system, might make him feel worse. Or he'll just latch onto it as a substitute and the addiction will never stop. Judging from what he's going through now and what Osbert found, they've been keeping him doped up for months. Not ideal."

Remy sags and continues slicing and weighing the brains, visibly disappointed. 

"Nothing much to worry about, Varin's tough as they come," Klef chuckles, mussing up Remy's hair. "I was still Tjold's age when he last fell off the wagon. Pulled through just fine."

"Thought you were the same age," Eskel blurts in surprise.

"Oh, definitely not. Tjold will always be a baby to me." Klef grins at the memory. "It was another low season, fewer Witchers around than now. Can't remember which of them found him abandoned in a well. All snug in a bucket, little note with his name on it. Of course, nobody in Kaer Morhen wants to be stuck with the responsibility of nursing a squalling baby. I was... maybe fifteen? Old enough to do it, young enough that I couldn't say no."

"How about Raven? How old is he?" Damon asks.

"He's pretty," Geralt says, poking at his Drowner brain a little wistfully. 

Klef snorts. "That showoff. And that's enough chatter, you've barely made progress since you started. Cirdon and Tjold are gonna be back any day with more ingredients, and I don't wanna see you up to your eyeballs in guts or hear you complain about it."

"But - " Bastien protests.

"No. You can ask Raven himself."

"But - " Damon tries.

"Hey," Klef says, the warning in his tone made fierce with the sudden narrowing of his pupils. "Vesemir's right, I'm way too nice to you boys. Don't argue with me. Measure out those brains, or I'll ask Vesemir for some training ideas."

"Yessir," they mutter quickly.

True to Klef's advice, Raven is happy to answer their questions and show them a book called the Ledger, which turns out to be a musty unassuming tome sitting in a corner of the library.

"I don't see how this is more exciting than The Tale of Two Marquesses," Raven says, rolling his eyes. "Ledger's just a record of all the Wolves in history, I suppose every school has them."

He sets the book in front of him and flips through the first few pages, unimpressed. "Hm, some old friends. Rennes is here too. Okay, Vesemir. Kovac, come read it out."

"Arrived year 1034, by Re-Rens..."

"Rennes," Raven corrects. "Scariest motherfucker I've ever met. Go on."

"Passed the Grasses, year 1036."

Buggy's eyes go wide. "He's a THOUSAND YEARS OLD!"

"No, probably somewhere around one hundred and fifty. But I'm not teaching you numbers. Geralt, next line."

"Passed the Medal. Medal lion. Medallion. Year 1042. Wow." He looks up at Raven shyly. "How old are you, sir?"

Raven smirks. "Older than you think. I passed my final trial in 1080. Easy number to remember."

"You can't be that old," Clovis states, his mouth agape. "You're too - " he scrunches up his nose, trying to find a word to describe the general shiny-ness of this Witcher. 

Eskel kicks him before he puts his foot in his mouth again. "Let's see the rest," he suggests.

They learn that Rennes is the oldest remaining Wolf, followed by Thornwald and Sorel and two other Witchers they have yet to meet. Then Vesemir, last of his lot. The boys skip over the pages of unfamiliar names, only pointing out gleefully when they recognise another, while Raven settles down with a bottle of wine and watches them with a bemused expression. Varin and Adon, last of their lots, and Raven cheekily adds a scrawl to Adon's page: The Raven's Wolf. 

"Are you fucking?" Clovis asks bluntly, and this time both Remy and Geralt kick him in warning.

Fortunately, Raven just wiggles his eyebrows and continues.

They spend the rest of the afternoon poring over the names, flipping back and forth and drawing connections, ranking the Witchers by age then arguing that it didn't matter because Vesemir isn't the oldest but everyone still listens to him, then they reach Aubry and Tjold and a few others who just passed the trials a few winters ago. The other pages are blank, and they realise that none of their names are in it.

"Is it because we haven't passed the test?" Geralt says, disappointed. He looks at Raven's writing-quill longingly, like he wants to write his own name down this instant.

"D'you think anyone would write our names, if we - if we don't make it?" Jeb asks, his voice small.

Raven's expressive eyes turn sad. "Funny you should ask. One of the Witchers thought it would be a good idea, once. To remember all the boys who don't make it. We Griffins do, of course, but more on ceremony than anything else. Our graveyard is full of ghosts and shades. I told him it was a bad idea, you know. No sense in dwelling on the past. But this Witcher, he kept a personal ledger himself, until one of the worst Trials saw ten striplings setting out on the Killer for their Medallion and never making it back."

Bastien's lip trembles. "Nobody will know their names. Or ours."

"Hey, you're not dead yet," Raven says sharply. "Come to think of it, I think he might have passed the book to Varin when he gave up on it. Yeah, of course it was Vesemir, the sappy bastard."

Eskel tries to ask Varin about it the next time he gets sent to Sorel after Reynar hits him a little too hard on the head. Varin's at the table, helping with the potion brewing for all the returning Witchers, but it's slow going: his fingers haven't lost their tremor, and he keeps losing focus and forgetting what he's doing.

Eskel pulls out a few wilted sprigs from his pocket and pushes them into Varin's clammy palms. "You used it to make me feel better last time," he says, biting his lip. 

"Fool's parsley," Varin croaks. "I remember."

"Master Sorel told me to focus on the smell to meditate better." Eskel smiles tentatively. "I like to carry it around."

"I'll do that," Varin says, smiling back. "I see you've been good with training."

"I try my best, sir."

They talk in low voices and Eskel eventually manages to segue into asking about the special ledger for Bastion boys. Varin shakes his head. "Lost everything on me when I got caught. Maybe ask Osbert, he's the one who reclaimed my swords. I'm not allowed near them, yet."

Osbert grunts and looks shifty when Dirram finally gets the courage to ask him about it. They don't know Osbert well because he mostly deals with the horses and teaches the trainees how to ride in a fight, but they manage to find him grooming Raven's beautiful black gelding when it's storming out.

"Tried my best with that thing, but I don't know shit about what you boys get up to. Gave it to Klef, he seems to know best. Go bother him."

Klef looks sour when they ask him. "Who told you about this?" he demands, then falls silent and listens to all the boys talking over each other to explain first. "No, I'm not showing it to you, it's depressing."

They plead and clamour until Klef relents. "Fine. Fine. After this you lot had better help Osbert scrub out the stables, it's filthy there."

It takes a while for Klef to dig up the ledger where he's stashed it, far enough out of sight because he never wanted to remember its existence. Eskel can see the abrupt change in handwriting after Tjold's batch, from Vesemir's old-fashioned script to Varin's careless scrawl. 

Hare, arr. 1196. Failed Grasses, 1207.

Squirrel, arr. 1196. Failed Grasses, 1206. Changed name to Leo.

Jarian, arr. 1200 by Vesemir. Failed Grasses, 1207.

Dirram, arr. 1202 by Varin.

Oswin, arr. 1203 by Idras. Failed Grasses, 1207.

Elias, arr. 1203 by Idras. Failed Grasses, 1207.

Clovis, arr. 1203 by Berengar. 

"Oh, so that was his name," Clovis mutters. "He just dropped me off with a letter and rode away."

Jakob, arr. 1203 by Thornwald.

Remy, arr. 1204 by Ivo of the Bears.

Sebastien, arr. 1204 by Ivo of the Bears.

Damon, arr. 1204 by ???

"I was dropped off too," Damon says, frowning. "No letter, though."

Aster, arr. 1205 by Cedric of the Cats. Failed Grasses, 1207.

Geralt, arr. 1205 by Vesemir.

Eskel, arr. 1206 by Merten of the Manticores.

Kovac, arr. 1207 by Eldar.

Nell, arr. 1207 by Eldar.

Perry, arr. 1207 by Idras. Missing.

Gascaden, arr. 1207 by Osbert.

Mason, arr. 1207 by Thornwald.

"Wait, go back," Eskel says, pushing Geralt away from where he's crowding the small page. "Who the hell is Gascaden?"

"Oh! That's where I'm from!" Buggy chirps. "Show me!"

"Oh gods, it's your fuckin' name, Buggy," Jeb says, giggling. "We found Buggy's real name!"

"My name's Buggy," Buggy points out, petulant. "That's what everyone calls me."

"Aw, kid, I thought it was deliberate." Klef laughs. "Of course your real name isn't Buggy. But you can be whatever you want. Buggy the Wolf Witcher, bane of Ghouls."

"Okay," Buggy says, still sulking about it.

"If you make it out alive," Dirram adds bitterly, earning him a soft whap on the head. 

"None of that talk. Told you this book is depressing. Come on, forget the stables. We've got to take the traps in before sundown, it looks like snow tonight and I don't want to go digging the next few days."

Hikes with Klef are always a fun adventure, since he ends up doing all the work himself anyway. Eskel follows Geralt on some crazy hunt for scorpions, even though Klef tries to tell them that they're really not going to be anywhere this far north. 

"He's never hunted for scorpions," Geralt says, rolling his eyes. "Of course he wouldn't know."

Eskel's trying to persuade Geralt into looking for spiders instead when Klef suddenly cocks his head, frowning, hearing something they can't. "Shit, let's go," he calls, and leads them at a half-run back towards the keep. 

"What're we running from?" Geralt demands, annoyed to have his hunt interrupted. 

"If it's who I think it is, we'd better get there before him. Come on!"

Confused at the sudden urgency and Klef's anxiety, they hurry after him. By the time they get back to the keep the bell is clanging repeatedly, and all the Witchers are standing in neat rows, with Sorel and Vesemir right in front. 

"Almost didn't make it," Vesemir murmurs, as Klef shows the panting Bastion boys to the far corner. Then he gets back to the front and takes a place beside Varin, who looks like he's about to fall over any moment.

Clovis stands on tiptoe, craning his neck. "Who's so important? Is it some king? Are we under attack?"

They wait for ten minutes, then twenty. Finally, the heavy footfall of multiple horses can be heard. A slim palomino picks its way through first, head bowed from a long journey. Two boys share the mount, looking awed and slightly terrified at all the Witchers lined up to meet them. Following closely are a few more Witchers on horseback, nodding grimly in Sorel and Vesemir's direction and dismounting to help the boys down. 

The next horse that comes in has seen better days, old and grey, with a scraggly mane of hair in dire need of brushing. Its rider looks just as weather-beaten, rough around the edges but with a strong brow; his form is big enough that an entire grey-black wolf pelt is draped across his shoulders. He lets the horse plod in at its own pace, casting his piercing gaze in a circle. His face looks carved straight from rock: stern, unyielding. Even on the old horse he cuts a statuesque figure in the middle of the courtyard. His eyes seem to miss nothing, not even the uneven bit of cobblestones that they haven't quite managed to fix at the bottom of the stairs. He does look like the king Clovis was expecting, grey-bearded and proud, powerful in his wolf-pelt cloak. Finally he dismounts and hands the reins wordlessly to Osbert, going straight for Vesemir.

"Swordmaster Vesemir," he says, putting a hand on Vesemir's shoulder. 

"Grandmaster Rennes," Vesemir responds lightly, inclining his head.

Eskel spies Raven trying to look inconspicuous behind Thornwald, but he stands out as easily as a gemstone in dirt. Rennes spots him immediately.

"Why's there a whore in my keep?" he says sharply, and Raven flinches but steps forward. 

"This whore is Raven of the Griffins. At your service, Grandmaster Rennes," he says smoothly, still managing to look smug about it.

Rennes makes a derisive noise and turns back to Vesemir. "Trusted you to run this place well, pup."

"Lay off him, Ren," Sorel growls. "One guy and a bunch of cripples in charge, what'd you expect? Not everyone's you."

"Fair," Rennes agrees, though his expression remains stony and displeased. "Fewer of us around. Hard to keep the old traditions. Good stock even harder to come by." His gaze lingers over the boys near the doors. "Hm. This year looks promising, at least."

Geralt squeezes Eskel's hand until his bones creak. "They're here, Esk," he whispers miserably.

He hadn't noticed the other visitors on horseback that slipped in quietly after Rennes. He recognises Radcliffe, the mage who wanted to take him away just last winter or so. The other three are older than him, and all are wearing the deep navy colours of their order. Evidently travelling with the Wolf of Kaer Morhen was official enough to warrant formal dress, and there isn't a trace of Radcliffe's teasing nature on his face.

"The mages," he breathes. 

The wind blows colder still, and the doors of the keep creak shut.

Chapter Text

There's a door in front of him, just like any door at Kaer Morhen, but Eskel doesn't know what's on the other side. He tries to imagine that maybe he can hear or smell something through it, like real Witchers do, but something is telling him there is no smell here, there is no sound. It's curious.

A voice-but-not-a-voice tells him to enter, and he does as if he's compelled.

It's no longer a room in Kaer Morhen he knows, but he knows this room. He knows the three mismatched floorboards that were replaced because of a wine spill, he knows the rows of candles lining against the windows that are lit when visitors are welcome. He knows the lady in front of him with the blurred out face and soft eyes. He recognises her in his soul, though before him her face is fuzzy like it's covered in an invisible veil.

Let me make you feel good, his mother says, but this makes him flash hot and cold with rage and fear.

NO, I DON'T WANT IT, he says. There is a knife in his hand and he reaches out, slides it under her chin, just so, a caress. She smiles as the blood rushes forth, blooming past her teeth. Thank you, milord, she says, sweet as anything, then folds like a dropped sheet, soundless and two-dimensional.

It doesn't make him feel any better. Instead he feels angrier: angrier that there was no struggle, angrier that she had not fought back or pleaded or spat in his face like he deserves. GET UP, he shouts, but there's no sound here. His voice is deeper than he remembers. GET UP, he says again, and he imagines he's like Vesemir. YOU STAY DOWN, YOU'RE DEAD. He kicks again but the sheet flutters aside, revealing nothing.

Rage spills out of his hands, of his mouth. He throws the knife and it glances off the wall, soundless. Ineffective, useless. But there's someone in the corner, watching him fearfully like a cowering creature. YOU LITTLE SHIT, he says, and then he's right in front of the boy, grabbing him by the neck and dragging him out. At the back of his mind, something tells him he's been here before. This has happened before.

The boy is screaming and Eskel looks and looks and says, THAT'S NOT ME. But it is. There aren't any mirrors in the keep and it's been so long since he's caught his reflection and truly looked. The rage simmers for a moment, then he's blind and he doesn't care anymore. Hits the boy right across the face, knows it connects even though he doesn't feel or hear it. The boy's face warps like wet clay, features indistinguishable. Eskel but not Eskel. He wouldn't recognise himself, he thinks, not even in a mirror.

YOU DESERVE THIS, he snarls, then he's ripping off the boy's clothing. Holding him down so easy with one knee in his gut, twisting his shoulder until it hangs loose, like tearing off his favourite part of a roast chicken. The boy might be screaming. He's small and weak and stupid. He watches things happen around him without doing anything. He deserves to die.

SHUT UP, he tells the boy, even though it's all quiet. It's like someone has taken his hearing. Maybe he never had it. But then suddenly there is a sound, and that sound is saying,

"Eskel."

The boy is saying his name. He knows that voice. Horror. The blood on his hands, the twisted sheets, the cowering child. Eskel lifts his face and it's Geralt on the bed, body bruised and broken, looking at him like it's Eskel who's been turned inside out, like it's Eskel who's staining the sheets, blood coming up from nowhere, and the sheets are hot with it,

"Eskel!"

He jerks awake, tears in his eyes and sweat cooling on his skin. It takes a split second for him to feel the wetness below him, already soaking past the linen, the compacted hay, the rotting plywood of his bed. The shame hits right before the smell does, then he's rolling away from it and scrambling up. 

His blood still thrums from the phantom rage he was feeling. He knows he was dreaming, of course, but it's still part of him, and his hands are wringing like he's still itching to throttle something. Hold on and shake as hard as he can.

"I'm okay," he says automatically, feeling Geralt's shadow on the back of his neck. 

"You're shaking," Geralt says, and shuffles closer.

"Don't touch me," Eskel hisses, jerking away. He feels like if he did, he wouldn't be able to stop. He'd turn into the monster he is, somewhere deep inside, and his fingers will morph into claws that can only hurt and hurt. Don't touch me, Geralt, because I don't know what I will do if that happens.

He sits in the dark until the smell of blood fades back into his imagination. Damon sleeping, a sort of panting sigh that's not quite a snore. The damp smell of smoke, the last of the embers glowing in the darkness of their room. The rustle of Geralt working silently behind him, taking the sheets off. The acrid smell of piss, his own, evidence of his weakness.

"Stop, I'll do it," Eskel mutters, snatching the bedding from Geralt. The stubborn pout of his mouth is visible even in the dark, and Eskel gives up arguing even before they start. The sheets get bundled into an empty wash bucket that Eskel heaves to the baths to fill. The hay gets thrown out, the pallet splashed with water and left bare to dry. By the end of it Eskel has no choice but to share Geralt's bed.

"You were thrashing about," Geralt tells the ceiling.

"Sorry I woke you."

"Did you kill him? In your dream?"

A flicker of a vision: a bloodied bed, Geralt lying docile with his limbs in disarray, the look on his face somewhere between disappointment and betrayal.

"Yeah," Eskel says.

---

They know it's time the moment an older Witcher approaches their table in the morning. None of them ever do; the only ones whom they know always just meet them for training where they're supposed to be. Mealtime is rest time, until now.

"Oldest ten, hands up," he says curtly.

The boys shift uneasily and exchange glances, not really wanting to but also not used to directly defying an order. Slowly, they start to inch their hands up, then the Witcher loses patience and starts hauling them to their feet. Eskel winces as he's grabbed and lined up next to Reynar.

They're all quiet as this happens, letting the Witcher manhandle them and size them up. Eskel stares straight ahead. Geralt is grabbed and put somewhere further down the line, and Eskel tamps down the urge to grab his hand, squeeze it tight. 

By the end of it, almost all of them are standing, leaving Mason, Nell, Kovac and Buggy still sitting at the table. Buggy makes an aborted move like he wants to leap up and join them, but Kovac grabs him and smothers his protests with a palm for good measure.

The Witcher sends for the mages to have a look. The one that comes over sweeps a gaze over them at large with ageless eyes. "Well, we've seen worse," he says finally, his smile gentle. "Skip your dinner tonight, boys. It won't stay down anyway."

The two are long gone before Eskel realises he's slid back to his seat without noticing it. Bastien sniffs quietly from across the table, tear tracks running down his cheeks.

Time passes. Klef shows up at their table; they've missed reporting at their usual time. "Bastion day. Let's go."

Nobody points out that it's a little too cold and wet for Bastion day. They move stiffly but dutifully, running the familiar path that takes them up and up with Klef bringing up the rear. But when they reach the Bastion, Klef leads them away from the practice swords and climbs the tower until its highest point: the columns have caved in a bit, the rest of the steps reduced to rubble, the roof nothing but a gaping hole in stone. 

"The Trials..." Klef starts but trails off immediately as he looks at their wooden expressions. "I don't know how to do this."

He casts his eyes around the ruin and eventually gets them all to sit at the edge where they're usually not allowed. The view is spectacular: here with his legs dangling off the edge of the crumbling rock, the valley opens up before his feet. The trees are thick with their autumn colours, hanging on stubbornly against the coming winter frost but slowly thinning as Eskel's gaze goes farther, up and up until he's looking up the majestic peak of the mountain, a formidable grey giant hiding in the mist.

"When it was my turn for the Trials, Vesemir brought us here. The view's the same, still." Klef muses lightly. "The world never changes, no matter who lives or dies."

He sighs and tries again. "I remember he told us that being a Witcher is the highest purpose. You can be born rich and live a life of luxury, you can be born poor and suffer till your last breath. It won't mean anything, not really. All the money in the world doesn't give you a reason to wake up every morning and decide to get out of bed. In Toussaint the Knights swear their life to duty, but even then they eventually retire and render themselves useless.

"A Witcher's purpose is to be a sword. We're no longer human, after all, but you will always have purpose, you will always be needed. You exist to be used. There will always be monsters in this world, and people that need protecting. If you ever lose your will that's the one truth you can tell yourself. No matter how broken, a blade is a blade." He flexes his bad hand self-consciously, scowling at the clouds on the horizon.

"But I don't wanna die," Jeb says, his voice small.

Klef huffs an incredulous laugh. "When Vesemir fed us that bullshit I told myself I'd never let another boy go through a Trial myself, not if I could help it. I'd have no hand in this injustice. What kind of person looks at a small child and thinks of hammering him into a sharp, unfeeling blade? And killing so many others in the process?"

"You're doing it now," Clovis points out, petulant. Klef sighs.

"I'm doing it now," he confirms sadly. "Vesemir likes to say that we'll understand when we're ready. Or when we're old enough. But plenty of us die without understanding, angry and hateful and cursing everyone involved at every step of the way. That's why so many of us don't bother coming back in the winter. I'm not even sure I understand it the way I should... but maybe we all learn different lessons about the same things, in the end.

"It was my third summer out on the Path. Tracking a bruxa that was cunning as hell, cruel and greedy to boot. Developed a taste for newborns, and I was always one step behind. Know what it's like, showing up moments too late, body still warm on the floor? One of 'em was still crying, but by the time I brought it back to its parents it was dead. The way they looked at me, I might as well have taken the babe from them and cut its throat myself. I couldn't wait to finish the fucker and forget the town ever existed. Then it got the drop on me, knocked my sword away, tore a hole in my belly and stuffed its face with my guts.

"All I could think of was to pray, of course. The gods suddenly matter when you're helpless. But I didn't pray for my sword to fly back into my hand or for my end to be quick. My thought was: Please let someone else come and save them."

"How did you get away?" Jakob breathes.

Klef shrugs. "Did what I was trained to do. Got up and finished the job." He grinds his teeth at the painful memory, huffing clouds of breath into the air. "Then I just lay there for hours trying not to bleed out and thinking about how close I'd come. Couldn't get over it. What if I had died, and there was nobody else coming? What would happen to the babes of that town? What else would the bruxa decide to feast on next?

"One day I'll be out there and a monster will kill me. That's just a fact. No Witcher dies in his bed. But if I have to fail and die, I want to die knowing that someone else will make up for it. That there are other Witchers carrying on the fight. Help keep the monsters at bay. Make it all worth it, I guess.

"Maybe when I'm Vesemir's age I'll be able to call it purpose and believe it. Doubt he believes it himself, or he'd be the one doing this now. You know he's fighting his own demons about dealing with you boys. But it doesn't matter if we believe it or not. Hard as we are to kill, we're dying out. Every year more medallions to hang on that wall. The Path takes us faster than we're being made. That's why the Trials have to continue. It binds all of us. One day you will help to finish what another of your brothers died for. Another day a brother will do the same for you. Your life will not be in vain, nor your death. That's some meaning in itself, especially for a bunch of lost boys with nowhere to call home and nobody to call family. That's more purpose than most commonfolk are born with, or nobles too if you think about it.

"You're probably going to remember and hate every word I'm saying when you're screaming your insides out on that table. There's nothing I can say that will keep that from happening. But maybe you can take comfort in knowing that the worst thing that can happen is death. The living carry the rest of the pain. We carry your pain, and the pain of all the hundreds that died before you, and ones that will die after. Takes courage to die, takes even more courage to live. You boys are already heroes, just by sitting here waiting to die and listening to my shitty pep talk."

Klef ducks his head self-consciously. "Any of this making you feel better?"

Reynar shakes his head, blinking fiercely.

"Nobody did this for the last Trials," Geralt murmurs, morose. "For Jarian, an' the rest."

"Didn't make a difference, since they all died anyway," Clovis says, throwing a pebble over the edge and watching it clatter all the way down.

"I guess it doesn't." Klef sighs. "But in the end we're just Witchers in a hateful world. Trying is all the difference we'll ever make."

Nightfall comes quickly at this time of year, but there's no stars to see tonight. They stay a little later anyway, since they're skipping supper.

---

It's only now that Eskel remembers how hard the last night was for the last Trials. Now that it's happening to him, he can finally understand the strange empty out-of-body feeling of existing but not being there at all. This cannot truly be happening, not to him. It's just one of the horrible things that happens to others.

Of course they wouldn't tuck themselves into bed and shut their eyes to the world. Every minute feels like their last, and they huddle around the small hearth in their room, watching the fire go low and finally reduce to embers. 

Eskel watches the flame carefully, his mind empty. Just when the reddish glow seems to die it struggles to burn bright again, teetering on the verge of life and death. Just like them. Flickering, uncertain, fleeting. He gets the sudden urge to take it in his bare hands, feel its dying light with every fibre of his being. His hand works faster than his mind, shooting out to grasp a small lump of blackened wood.

It hurts more than he expected, of course, and he drops it in detached surprise. Pain bubbles to the surface of his hand like the flesh is still boiling on the inside from the contact. He glances up - the rest look at him with round, questioning eyes. So unlike Eskel to do something as uncalculated and impulsive as that.

"I've always wondered," he explains hoarsely, staring at the scorches across his palm. "What it would feel like. It hurts, but not in a way I expected." A lot more than he expected. He'd stupidly assumed that the blackened bits that no longer glowed would be cool to the touch, for some reason.

Mason nods like he understands, but he doesn't understand, he can't understand. His time isn't up. He has another year at least, maybe even two. Geralt makes a small sound and picks the glowing piece of wood off the floor. Gasps and throws it back into the hearth.

"I see what you mean," he says slowly, sucking at his fingers and wincing. "No point wondering how it'll feel like, right? You've just got to find out on your own."

Eskel flexes his injured hand contemplatively. If he can endure this pain, maybe he'd get through the Trials. The others get the same idea, one by one silently picking up a still-burning piece of wood and letting it hurt and hurt. When it's all done the room smells faintly of burnt flesh.

"I guess now we know," Dirram says. 

They murmur in assent, and some tension bleeds away, just a small tiny bit of it, their nerves temporarily quelled by the strange spontaneous ritual. On their skin is the tangible evidence that they can endure, and with that, the suggestion that they will.

Geralt uncurls Eskel's fingers gently, pressing his palm against his and hissing quietly at the pain.

"Hey, 'Skel," he says, his mouth tilting. "We match."

---

They pile together in front of the already-dark hearth like how they do in the dead of winter, only it's not even that cold. It feels more appropriate than going off to bed to sulk anyway, so they drag all the soft things they can find and curl around each other, trying to find the last pockets of comfort to last them through the Trials, maybe. Or trying to pretend the night will never end. It's surprising that none of them are crying - not even Buggy, but he's not going for his Trial anyway, so Eskel figures that's expected.

Slowly they exchange small memories they have about their past before Kaer Morhen, maybe in a desperate bid to have something that the others can remember them by, or maybe just as a way to distract each other from their impending suffering. They keep the stories light and happy.

Remy and Bastien talk about the Toussaintois circus, how they had acrobats that could juggle fire and swallow swords, and a real live shaelmaar for ring fighting. Clovis mutters, awkwardly in a quiet way unlike his usual self, about his memory of picking fresh berries with his mother to make a pie. Damon jumps on that, too, and tells of how the orphanage once had a generous sponsor who gave them freshly baked pies and presents for fourteen whole days leading up to Saovine.

"Uh," Eskel's caught off guard. Apparently it's his turn, but he hasn't been thinking of what to say. "Don't remember much actually."

"There must be something," Damon encourages. 

A warm day, linens flapping in the breeze, a melodic hum in the air...

"It's stupid," he admits. "There was a dumb song my ma taught me."

Geralt wriggles his toes under Eskel's knees. "Go on."

He doesn't even really know the tune, just the rhythm; he chants it quickly before he changes his mind. "De ole hen she cackled, cackled on th'fence, old hen she cackled, she hasn't cackled sence - it's dumb."

"I like it," Geralt says quickly.

Eskel cracks a smile. "She'd sing it all the time, just to make me laugh. While doing chores, or when we went - over the hill. Don't remember where we were going, but it was nice to walk in the sunny hills. If you looked carefully you could see goats just standing off the cliffside like it was nothing."

"Might be they were training for the pendulum at Kaer Morhen," Jakob jokes.

"School o' the Goat," Dirram adds, then they're all chuckling quietly.

They wind down and end up dozing off one by one, the lucky ones having no trouble dropping off to sleep. Reynar's next, always an easy sleeper and a heavy one at that. Remy and Bastien are sighing around each other and moving indiscreetly, and from the noises and movement from the other side, Eskel knows Dirram and Clovis doing the same too. He curls around Geralt, pulling him close and reveling in his warmth. He doesn't know how they can still think of pleasure at a time like this, when all he wants is to hide from the world. He hides his face in Geralt's hair instead, breathing in his faint sweat-powder-pine smell. 

"Eskel," Geralt whispers, squirming and moving deliberately against his hip, his hand snaking down and squeezing just so. Eskel grunts and pushes it away.

"Not now," he murmurs, half asleep already.

Geralt's hand returns. "Please?"

Eskel sighs and cracks an eye open, sees the shadow of his mischievous grin in the moonlight. "This all you can think about in the face of death?" But he relents, reaches his hand around and wraps it around Geralt's length, already getting harder. 

"Just wanna feel you," he gasps, bucking softly.

"Just wanna rest, " Eskel counters, but he moves his hand faster and nuzzles Geralt's jaw. He smells sweeter there somehow, and he gets hard too despite himself.

"Can you try? Tonight?" Geralt pleads plaintively. 

Eskel knows what he's asking for, has been asking for, ever since he found out he could. The answer is still no. "Don't," he says gently, still nosing at the fine skin, tightening his grip. Wrings a lovely sound out of Geralt's throat when he twists his hand just so.

"Please. Please. What if - "

Eskel shakes his head and moves his hand faster, but Geralt stops and grabs his wrist.

"I could die tomorrow," he says, flat. "I could die tomorrow, and this is the only thing I'm asking for. Just once. I might never - you - I'll never ask again."

"Geralt," Eskel's voice is a strained whisper. "I can't do that to you, please don't. Don't ask."

"Dirram said it doesn't hurt when - "

"Ask Dirram to fuck you, then." Eskel shoves away, a chill rushing down his spine.

"Don't be obtuse," Geralt snaps.

"Stop using Vesemir words on me if you don't know what it means."

"You don't know either."

"Fuck you," Eskel scoffs without heat.

"I'm trying," Geralt says through gritted teeth, thrusting at Eskel crudely like he's making a point. "But you. Won't. Let. Me."

Eskel grabs his hips and squeezes hard, enough to draw a hiss from Geralt. 

"Yes," Geralt says, grinding harder.

Eskel blinks and he's looking at Geralt in his nightmares. Always the same dream and always the same ending. Geralt in his position, broken and hurting and used, and him with the blood on his hands. He lets go like his fingers are scalded. "Stop it."

"I'm begging you, 'Skel. Promise I won't get hurt. Promise. Promise on my life. Just this one thing. I won't ask for anything else as long as I live."

Eskel knocks his forehead against Geralt's, a little harder than necessary. "I can't, Geralt, I'm so fucking scared just thinking about it, okay? Do you understand? I'll lose my head. I won't know where I am. Won't even know who I am, nor you for that matter. You know how I can get. Please."

"You're gonna regret this when I die." Geralt pulls away abruptly, flipping all the way over to sulk.

It hits Eskel like a kick in the chest. "That's not fair. Geralt."

But Geralt doesn't reply, just sniffs like he might cry.

"Geralt. Geralt." Eskel scoots closer, as close as he can get, anything to get back to their lazy cuddling again, where they were so wrapped up with one another that they were of the same body, the same soul.

"Go 'way if you don't want me."

"I do. Geralt, don't say that. Come on. I don't wanna fight. Please. Not now, not tonight. We can't fight tonight, okay?"

Miraculously, Geralt takes a shuddering breath and rolls back over. "Okay." He shoves his hand grudgingly into Eskel's, squeezing a little too hard like he's putting all his anger and sadness into it.

He elbows Eskel suddenly. "If I survive the Trials, you'd better do it."

"Yes," Eskel says immediately, relieved. "I'll do anything, alright? When it's all over, I'll do anything you ask."

"Good. You'd better survive." Just like that the fight is over. They crawl close again, breathing each other's air.

"Guess I have to survive now, too," Geralt murmurs after a while, laughing quietly. "Just need to keep thinking of your cock."

"Geralt," Eskel groans.

"Your gigantic, magical cock." Geralt croons.

"Shut up."

"Probably has antivenom properties."

Eskel sighs and digs an elbow in Geralt's side, just where it's ticklish. He squirms away, breathless.

"Who needs White Honey when you have Eskel's dick."

"Please stop."

"Just a taste could make a Witcher human again."

"Incorrigible."

"Obtuse."

"I'm using it right," Eskel points out.

"So am I," Geralt replies.

---

Morning comes like a bandage ripped from a festering wound that's still not fully healed. The mages barge in and then they're paired off and split up and then Eskel is shivering on a rough table with nothing but his smalls, winded as though he's been running. There are leather straps and even shackles hanging off the sides, but none are being used at the moment. Maybe they won't need to use it. Maybe it's not for them.

Bastien sobs on the table next to his, already lost on the fear of all of it; he's always been the softer of the twins, but now Remy isn't here to comfort him. Distantly Eskel wonders if it's a blessing or a curse that they're not together for their Trials. Is it better to watch each other die, or learn what happens after? He thinks about Geralt and doesn't know the answer. Wonders where he is and if he's crying too.

It's been a long time since he's cried, Eskel realises, trying to conjure up the image that used to come so often in their youth. Then he realises that he hadn't even seen Geralt properly this morning, or last night, or... anytime recent. When was the last time he looked, really looked, in full daylight? Is he left with just nightmare-Geralt's face in his head, twisted with hurt and confusion? A moonlit shadow that's just a suggestion of what he truly looks like, a dim shape in the night?

I might never see him again, Eskel thinks desperately, then his vision blurs a little too. He blames Bastien for it - his crying is contagious. "Shh, stop it," Eskel whispers, straining his neck to look at him. "Think of the circus."

Bastien bites his lip obediently and tries, his lashes matted and wet.

The footsteps of the mage returns, and Eskel squeezes his eyes shut. You know Geralt's face, he tells himself. You can recognise it blind. He conjures up the petulant face, not unlike his own, the big eyes and downturned mouth, cheeks no longer holding the baby fat he'd started out with. His floppy brown curls that Klef complains about but never cuts, the way they cling to his neck and temples when they're training.

He'll see Geralt again. He has to. Eskel repeats this like a mantra as the needles slide into his arms one by one, as the mage with the soft voice pours bitter concoctions down his throat, until the burning and screaming starts and he no longer knows if the screaming is down the hall or in his head or coming out of his own mouth. The screaming is in his veins, and in his bones, and it feels like his skin is rippling and melting away like what happened to Varin and the slyzard, maybe they just took that venom and put it straight in his blood, and it's eating him and eating him and eating him,

He doesn't even realise when he's stopped shouting, or when his eyes finally open. His head is splitting and his vision is painful pinpricks of black and white dots and his stomach is cramping so badly that just moving slightly makes him retch. He can barely lift his head. But his eyes are open and the mage is still there, frowning and checking his tongue and pulling at his eyelids. He can't muster the strength to speak but he's wondering bleakly is it over? Did I make it?

The mage tuts sharply and draws the straps tightly around Eskel's chest. The shackles clang shut around his wrists and ankles. "Over?" he murmurs incredulously, his voice lilting and strangely melodious. "My boy, we've only just begun."

Then the real pain starts.

Chapter Text

Time has lost all meaning. The moments are marked in monochromatic blurs where Eskel's consciousness jumps between pain and fear. He doesn't know which is worse, can't think clearly enough to consider an end to it. There is the pain, stretching his bones and inescapable, no matter how he moves to avoid it. There is the in-between, where someone wipes his face with a cold rag or turns his jaw to the side so he doesn't drown in his own puke.

There is a point where the ability to scream is lost. His mouth still opens and closes, soundless. Every breath he draws shreds his throat to pieces. Every blink of an eye excruciating, too much to bear, too heavy or fast or loud or sharp. He's an animal, trapped and pinned and flayed alive.

The changes take hold of Bastien first. This moment is marked by the mage exclaiming softly when he lifts his eyelids - Ah! Too soon! - then Bastien makes a choked gurgling sound which was probably meant to be a scream as well.

The sound jars Eskel, a needle pierced between his eyes and straight through his skull. He tries to turn away, but his body is no longer his to command.

Then another sound, clang of metal, and a drawn-out moan rattling through a broken throat. 

Eskel doesn't want to see but he's looking anyway. Bastien, suddenly possessing inhumane strength, ripping his wrists from the table, shooting straight up like a corpse sprung from its grave, eyes flashing so preternaturally yellow like a lizard, then his groan gets louder, like the buzz of hornets, deep in his chest, and louder and louder. 

No, Eskel thinks, because words are lost to him. No, stop, stop, stop. The only two words he has been thinking for what seems like years.

No. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Blood isn't meant to be black, but it's running down Bastien's face like some kind of poisonous tree sap.

Someone else comes into the room. It takes three grown men to shove him back into his restraints, but the damage is done.

---

He realises that the incessant pounding noise isn't his shattered eardrums. It's Bastien's heartbeat. 

Stop.

---

Sorel is holding a bowl of soup in front of him. He can't muster the strength to lift his head, or even open his mouth. The thundering is overwhelming. The sound bashes against the backs of his eyes, splitting his vision. If he could reach out to touch the bowl right now, there was no way he would connect. He opens his eyes and the bowl turns into four. He opens his eyes and the bowl is sinking, sinking, sinking,

No, Eskel thinks.

---

There are other sounds too, creaking and snapping and banging. The sounds in his bones, thrumming and breaking and reshaping him on the inside. A whole creature growing under his skin, aching to burst free. This must be what being a monster feels like. He no longer knows how to feel like anything else.

He wishes he can sleep and escape the pain, but the sound won't let him. Stop, stop, stop, Eskel shouts.

Thud, thud, thud, Bastien replies.

---

Stop, Eskel says again, but the steaming potion slides down his throat with no resistance. It burns, but so does everything else. It could be water. It could be air. Every breath is pain.

GOODBOY, the mage whisper-shouts. ALMOSTTHERE.

He doesn't want to keep going. Where is there? How many miles? Why? Too much. They ask for too much. He can't do this. It's overwhelming. It's breaking point. If he were offered a choice to blink once more or die, Eskel would close his eyes forever. 

---

The books about werewolves describe the transformation as animalistic. An uncontrollable urge that spurs monstrous acts of atrocity, and when the moon goes down and the new day comes the werewolf will retreat.

"When he reverts to human form, he has no memory of his deeds – otherwise he would surely go mad and take his own life." Eskel would close the book and look at the rapturous expressions on the others' faces.

"Doesn't deserve to die," Geralt would say, sulky, "if he's a good man."

"Can a monster also be a good man?"

"I don't think so."

---

He hasn't eaten for a week. The hunger hits him all at once like a fist squeezing his insides into a knot. The hollow cramp barely registers in the haze of pain. The smell, dark and wine-rich, fills Eskel's mouth with slaver. He curls towards it, helpless, sucking it into his lungs. He can almost taste it.

The sound in his head and all around him, a panicked staccato. STOP. 

They're butchering some kind of animal on the table next to his. Eskel catches glimpses of it. Black meat, glistening. White bone, neat little row of ribs cracked wide and trembling, trembling -

Bastien blinks in Eskel's direction, unseeing, yellow eyes covered in a cloudy film of red. Streaks of blood drying on his cheeks. His body jerks, shudders, the sound thudthudthudthudthud, his chest an open cavern.

The sound stops. The mage scrutinises the black mass in his hand. WHATAWASTE, he booms.

His hands are still covered in blood when he comes around to Eskel. The saliva pooling in his mouth has turned acidic and sharp, but he smells the freshness of it, feels its warmth quivering in the air. He needs it needs it needs it. The mage wipes his hands but the smell remains.

Eskel swallows and thinks, Yes.

---

Thought comes back to him slowly. The images come first, and the memories: Eskel finds himself remembering a pitcher that he'd shattered on accident, its contents seeping into the flagstones, the porcelain scattered into fine dust. The scene plays out backwards, and the pieces inch towards each other, closer and closer until they're touching and joining and piling into one another, reconstructing.

It's the pieces of his mind. It's his soul, whatever's left of it. The pitcher struggles to repair itself, though it's a futile effort. The water is still everywhere. There are missing pieces. What's the point?

He's sitting on an empty pallet in a small room, not unlike a cell. A tray of food near the door - odd assortment of fruit, a goblet of milk. He finds himself staring at it for a long time, trying to connect its meaning to the ache in his belly and the taste in his mouth. 

This is not what he'd wanted, he realises. He'd gotten hungry at the smell of blood and meat, gnashing and salivating uncontrollably like a starving vampire. They'd cut Bastien open and ripped his heart out while it was still beating, and all Eskel had wanted was to devour it. He remembers the hunger because he's still feeling it. If he swallows he can still taste the mist of blood that hung in the air.

The thought makes him so sick he feels like he could cry, but that's another missing piece. Vanished into powder and dust. He would be crying right now if he could, but this body no longer remembers. The hollowness of that horror just aches and aches and he's still hungry, so he takes the fruit and eats it. The juice cuts at his tongue like acid. The milk is thick and gamey, tasting of raw meat and blood.

After he's done he doesn't know what to do with himself. The pain has reduced to something simmering just beneath, like his insides are huge bruises. But he looks all over and his skin is unbroken and unblemished. No marks where they should be, and he knows they bound him tight. 

Is it over? Eskel's mind ventures, too brave. He'd stopped asking himself that a long time ago, but this time he dares to try again. 

Nobody responds. He sits as still as he can, staring at the empty corners of the room. There are pinpricks of pain sparking from his fingertips where he's touching the uncovered wooden bed, more running across his skin where it seems to chafe on his undershirt. He's suddenly grateful for the emptiness of the room, a strange mercy. Even the walls seem a little thicker, though now that he's thinking about it he can hear how the stones seem to reverberate from outside movement. There's someone in the room next to his, unmoving but alive. He can feel the thrum of his heartbeat beating through the stone. Someone walking away, down the corridor, or the next. There's a weakness in the roof where the wind blows ever so slightly colder through a shuddering board.

So he's alive. The final pieces of the puzzle take way too long to settle into place. He doesn't believe it, and doesn't want to. The fear is already forgotten, another lost piece that he can't even imagine. A formless hole, what was supposed to go there? He's not sure. Is he relieved? He doesn't know. He looks into his heart and it's as empty as the room he's in.

When his door opens, he's ready for it, but he flinches anyway from the sharp crack of the catch sliding in its metal sheath. He's not ready for the burst of light from the torch in Vesemir's hand, and not ready for the alien feeling of his pupils slitting instinctively and forcefully to adjust. He's not ready for the smell of smoke and ash clinging to Vesemir's graying hair and padded gambeson, the heady whiff of alcohol on his breath.

Is it over? But Eskel can't trust himself to speak.

He doesn't have to. Vesemir blinks, slow and deliberate, and Eskel stands, slowly, wincing against the ache!ache!ache! of his bones. Even the air around him has a texture and a weight. He struggles to exist and keep existing, but Vesemir is beckoning, so he comes.

Behind him, Clovis and Remy are waiting, trembling where they stand just like Eskel is, all of them newborns and relearning their senses. They stand silent like twin skeletons, eyes glowing like chiseled topaz sitting in empty skulls. He must look the same. He feels as dead as they look. Maybe a year ago he would have sighed in relief and joy, clung to their shoulders tight and wept. Now the thought doesn't cross his mind. He's here, they're here, Vesemir is leading them out. Is this part of the Trial, is it done, has it barely started?

He feels the hole in his chest expand. More things missing, falling through the cracks. Like there's something he's forgetting about, but he can't muster the strength to think any harder, or to care. They're here, what now.

They look at Vesemir through monster-slitted eyes. What now?

They put one foot in front of the other. They keep doing it. Then after a while it's their heels against the damp stones outside the keep. A miserable grey sleet sloshing down the stone walls. The rivulets roar in Eskel's eyes like waterfalls. Too much light, too much sound. It hurts, but it's been hurting. It hasn't stopped. It hurts and he's still here, so he just lets the hurt keep going.

One foot, then another. Melted snow and muck, blackened grass. Smoke and ash. Ash and bone. Is it over? Eskel thinks dully, looking at the ugly mound in front of them.

"What's this," Clovis mutters, dead eyes resting on Vesemir. Dispassionate. Eskel feels its flatness to his core. Just strike me down. Just kill me. Just tell me it's over, and I don't have to do this anymore.

Vesemir isn't looking at them, or the pyre. His gaze rests somewhere off in the middle distance, like he's blind. "What we lost," he replies, and his voice carries clear in the wind. Out here in the open, the sound doesn't ring in Eskel's skull.

A little more of the broken pieces slot into place. The pain under his skin is no longer bruising, but shiny and tender. His breath catches as he feels the shift. Distantly, like a stranger peering into the windows of a house, he conjures the image of a hot handful of wood in his hand. The pain had come just before he dropped it, the blister several seconds after. Something is bubbling back to the surface now, familiar and foreign at the same time.

The words don't make sense to Eskel. What we lost. It taunts him like a riddle and he feels a sudden rush of anger blow straight through him. All that pain and suffering and this old man can't look them in the eye, can't say anything in simple words, can't -

Clovis glares at the ash like he hates it, layers of anger building and building, or maybe it's just his Witcher-yellow eyes, reptilian and predatory and soulless. Then Remy drapes over the hot ash like the wind has blown him over. At first Eskel just thinks he's struggling to draw breath - then he hears it, coming up in short dry sobs.

Bast. Bastien. Se-bas-tien.

A new pain bursts past the surface and out of Eskel's mouth, and of course, of course he remembers. He's never forgotten, it's just that - 

This was the missing piece, the rest of the dust on the floor. It packs itself in all at once, until he's choking on it. The others. 

He's looking at them, what's left of them. Colourless, reduced to dust, sodden in the rain that isn't even cold enough to freeze Eskel's remade fingers. His remade fingers, newly covered in monstrous skin, unfeeling yet ever-feeling, that will never touch them again.

He tries to, anyway. He puts his hand on an ash-covered bone, and it feels just like what he expected: warm, a little grimy, wet. 

It's better this way, he thinks, as a myriad of unnamed emotions swirl behind clouded glass, begging to be felt. Stares unfocused at the back of Remy's head. At least he didn't have to see Bastien blind himself from trying to claw his eyes out, at least he didn't have to see the mages cut him open while he still breathed, just to evaluate the poison working through his system, just to rifle through his insides like sacking a hoard of treasure. It's better this way, looking at the grey quiet finality of the bones and dust. He's okay with looking at the others like this, at the end of their pain, settled around each other where they belong.

The rain pours and pours, refilling the holes in that cracked vessel in Eskel's imagination. They stand there until the rain no longer feels like a roar but a patter. Until their skin settles around their flesh again and the clothes on their back no longer feel like lead blankets. Until they feel almost human again.

He can't bring himself to name what he's lost. Maybe it's better that way.

Chapter Text

The trainee wing is lonely and drafty, though the wind doesn't get to them anymore. It's a reprieve from the clashing of metal from the practice yard or the roar of laughter from the dining hall. Most of the rooms have two beds, but there are so few trainees that they split off and claim individual rooms for themselves. The other boys who had already passed their Trials a few years prior don't bother seeking them out, and Vesemir won't start training with them proper until spring, so they mostly get assigned winter chores like shoveling snow or chopping wood.

Something about looking into Clovis and Remy's new catlike eyes riles Eskel up, and even glancing at them in passing, he can feel a sort of snarl pulling at his lip.

Who are you, the monster wearing the skin of my brother?

"I know how it feels," Tjold says quietly, as they hack at the logs in a clearing. The thin morning air cuts in Eskel's lungs, cold and clean.

Eskel says nothing. Swings the axe so hard the wood pulverises against the stone.

"You feel like you're a twisted dirty thing wearing the meat of a stranger. You're angry and hateful and everything feels wrong."

Yes, Eskel agrees in his head, but he scowls and continues punishing the firewood. His fingers itch to destroy, throttle, maim. Monstrous. A low roar in his ears.

"It's just your senses in overdrive, your body trying to regulate all that shit you took in," Tjold reasons, like he's talking about the weather or a fish he'd just caught. "You'll get used to it."

Clovis growls and flings his axe clumsily at Tjold from across the clearing; he ducks and doesn't even watch it clang off a trunk harmlessly. "It gets better," Tjold promises, irritatingly calm.

---

By the end of the first week after the Trials, Eskel no longer feels like he needs sleep. Still, he turns in at night like the others do, and sits on his bed till morning. Something about lying down makes his skin crawl. It makes the horror of the Trials come back. Even now the pain is a blurry memory - he remembers that it hurt, but how much was so unimaginable that it slips quickly from his mind as well even if he tries to bring it back, for some morbid reason. Like clinging to the pain will justify the fact that he's alive. Why him, and not the others? Why didn't Geralt...

What stays and festers is the horror of it all, the images and the knowledge of everything he went through: watching the needles go in, the blood-thick black liquid sinking into his flesh. The creak of bones being reshaped, his eyes burning themselves into something other, the yearning crippling need to gouge them out to stop feeling it, and the piercing agony of not being able to. The mage, looming above with long shiny tools, punching in and carving out like his body was nothing but a piece of meat, testing and testing and watching and waiting. Like he was an animal - how they butchered Bastien when he was still alive, and thinking every minute that they were going to start on him next. The horror of the crystal-clear moment when he finally, fervently, desperately wished to die, but somehow the mages always brought him back, over and over and over again. He's not sure the feeling ever went away.

Vesemir raps on his door sharply. It's barely dawn out, the sky still an inky grey like a washed-out painting. The trainees gather silently and they go in the direction of the lesson-room, but instead of going in they go right past the door and up a narrow spiral staircase until they reach a small circular room. Vesemir lights all the torches and candles with a quick flick of his fingers, a sign fizzling briefly in the air like ashes blowing in the wind.

"First things first," he mutters, drawing out the ledger of Witchers and laying it on the table. "Your names. Rest of you can start first. Cover your damn mouth if you have to yawn, Wilhem."

Vesemir raises a quill, raising an impatient eyebrow. "Name, boy."

He steps forward, fists clenched. "Clovis."

"Who brought you here?"

"Berengar."

"Go."

Clovis slumps away to join the others, who are sitting on the floor around a bunch of candles in a half circle.

Eskel nudges Remy, who doesn't look like he even knows where he is, or cares. He moves forward silently, his jaw working. With his new hearing Eskel can hear the rasp of his teeth grinding like it's right in his ear.

"Name," Vesemir demands. 

Remy stares at him miserably and says nothing, his face a masklike skeleton. Vesemir considers him critically with citrine-bright eyes, and Eskel gets a fleeting rush of oh shit he's angry, but then he sighs and hands Remy the quill.

"We don't have all day," Vesemir says, stern and fierce, but he doesn't do anything apart from watch as Remy scrawls into the book for himself.

When it's Eskel's turn, Vesemir's mouth twitches. "You, I know," he says, a clear dismissal. Eskel watches him write anyway, in his old-fashioned neat lettering. Eskel, arrived year 1206 by Merten of the Manticores.

Above that, too large and drifting upwards instead of straight, a single name: Remus.

Eskel settles beside the oldest boy in the circle, whose red hair glows fire-bright in the light of the room.

Then Vesemir starts, first by telling the others the names of the newcomers, then droning on about the ritual of the Trials and why they are sitting in a circle. "Four generations of Grasses, and twelve of you to show for it," he says, heavy. Eskel blinks, his eyes hot but dry.

"Like every year, we start at the beginning. No Witcher can survive without learning full control of his mind and body. No Witcher - Luka, stop that."

The red-haired boy beside Eskel sighs and throws his hands up in exasperation. "I've literally heard this speech for ten years. Ten years!"

The boy beside him snickers quietly but his gaze remains respectful.

"Then I'm sure you can suffer one final year," Vesemir says dryly. "Be still."

"He's picking at his scabs again," Wilhem moans. "It's gross. It's flying to my side."

"It's not my fault, Artur's blowing it your way, not me," Luka grins, flashing his too-long canines.

"Meditation," Vesemir presses on, his eyes narrowed in warning, "is the key to survival. No matter how good a swordsman you are, if you can't master yourself, you're as good as dead."

Eventually the boys settle down, grudgingly obedient after hearing Vesemir's tone. They learn to breathe together, counting carefully. They learn to settle their mind, block the sounds. They learn to rest.

"Look at the flame of the candle. Breathe slow. Slow, such that the flames don't move at all. See how still they go. Hold yourself like that flame, hovering in that space above the wick, touching nothing. No movement, only stillness. Bring that stillness into your mind. You are the space between breaths. You are the darkness inside the flame. Close your eyes. Listen to all the heartbeats in the room. Find the spaces between them. Keep time. Slow it down..."

This was what Tjold meant, Eskel realises, as a distinct something swells in his chest. It feels like he's expanding to fill the shell of his body once more. His soul, scattered and broken, slowly knitting itself in the cavern of his chest. The smoky air hangs around him, sweet and dense. The roar in his ears dims to a hum, like a guttering candle. He feels himself take the candle in, and the warmth spreads through to his face and runs down to his fingers. He's inside the flame now, feeling it flush through his body like a brandied potion. It gets hotter and hotter and unbearably hotter, and Eskel wrenches his eyes open and shouts in alarm - the flame bursts from his hands and balls up all around the candles in the middle.

"Eskel," Vesemir chides, smacking Eskel's hands down sharply like a child caught stealing bread. He uses the other hand to hit the room with a gust of wind so strong that all the candles go out. It punches through Eskel's chest like a ghost.

"Oof," Artur mutters, rubbing at his chest. "Calm down, dragon boy."

"Igni isn't allowed 'till you're fifteen," a boy complains.

"Rowan's only jealous because he can't sign Igni," says the one beside him, winking at Eskel conspiratorially.

"Enough. I said be the darkness, not the flame," Vesemir says, turning his unimpressed gaze on Eskel. "I'd expected better control from you."

The room quiets down at the sound of Vesemir's profound disappointment, and Eskel feels like he's eight again. "'M sorry, sir," he murmurs.

Vesemir sighs at the melted mess before them. "Gweld, the candles behind you. Set it up. We'll try again."

---

They do the same thing every morning before the older trainees move on to other drills or maintenance chores, but even they don't get up to much when the blizzards start howling outside and they're all packed within the stone walls with nowhere to go.

Being among more people slowly becomes less jarring, and Eskel gradually gets less irritable at everything in general, though he had to retire to his room for an entire day when he heard Buggy's shrill complaining echoing in the halls. He'd basically turned tail and run, trying to block it out and just listen to the pounding of his blood, but the tinny sound of that child's voice just made him feel... disgusted, like he was too vile a creature to even be in the presence of that purity, and he hated the innocence and ignorance of what it signified.

Still kneeling on the floor and trying to find that blank space in his head but failing, Eskel tenses as he hears Clovis trudge all the way down the corridor and slam into his room with no announcement. 

"I hate it too," he seethes, pacing and wringing his hands. "Gods, I hate it so much."

Eskel catches himself tracking Clovis' movements like a predator, and rolls out the tension in his shoulders. "Get out of my room, Clovis," he says, teeth clenched. 

"Make me," he throws back, and he's always been a prickly ass but never so mindlessly infuriating, so Eskel launches himself at Clovis and they both go down.

Fighting is different, he realises, a few swings in. He sees the moment the realisation dawns on Clovis' face too, then they're really going at it, all this newfound strength and energy and pent up fear and hatred spilling out of their limbs and blooming angry and red on one another. 

The crunch of bone under his fingers makes a thrill go through him, and Clovis has him in a lock too, and he definitely feels something go out in his bad shoulder but the pain is just a distant echo, and it just makes him angrier. They rage and slam at each other, chasing the pulses of pain like clinging to life itself, until the other trainees come in and pull them apart and practically sit on them.

It takes a good five minutes for Eskel to come back to himself, shuttering the blind rage away. He can't see clearly out of one eye, his right arm isn't fully cooperating, and every time he breathes he chokes on a small mouthful of blood. Clovis has blood pouring down his chin from where he accidentally bit his tongue, and a broken collarbone sticks right out of his skin. They glare at each other, monsters looking at reflections of themselves, until the adrenaline seeps away and the pain sets in. 

When Vesemir finally returns to the keep after training, he wraps the end of a sword-belt around a fist and whips them both until Eskel feels lightheaded. 

They have never seen Vesemir so angry, or use so much strength. The pain of the Trials was worse, but this pain is fresh and builds in layers, pulsing outwards. Each strike harder than the next, but Vesemir's words cut deeper than the leather.

"To think you went through the Trials to behave like this. Are you even worth training at all? Are you? Answer me! What's your life worth, if anything at all?"

By the time he stops, there are parts of Eskel's shirt that stick to his skin where the welts have split. 

"Go to Sorel," Vesemir orders. "And the next time you think it's a good idea to start a fight, I will let you kill each other."

---

The Witcher potions Sorel gives them taste like drowner bile steeped in sewer water, but he barely spares them a glance. "You asked for it," he snaps, almost breaking Eskel's arm while he pushes the socket back in. He shows no pity in treating Clovis either. 

At least Witchers heal faster with the help of potions. It's not three days later that the worst of the bruising begins to fade. Eskel pays Clovis a visit.

The state of his room surprises Eskel. The sheets are ripped off the bed and it's obvious that Clovis has been curling up in a corner instead every night. The rehearsed, insincere apology dies on Eskel's lips.

"What are you doing there?" Eskel blurts. The storm outside seeps in from the window that's slightly ajar, trickles of water puddling at his Clovis' feet. 

Clovis glowers. "What do you want," he says, but his words lack heat.

"Nothing," Eskel retorts, then remembers himself. "Sorel's last potion dose." He holds the small vial up like a white flag, then sets it on the table and turns to leave before they start fighting again.

"Eskel," Clovis whispers under his breath, but Eskel hears it all the same. He stops for a moment, then slowly pushes the door closed and steps back into the room, padding quietly over to the empty bed and sitting at the edge. 

"I'm sorry," Eskel says finally, staring at the floor.

"Yeah," Clovis says. Eskel doesn't move. 

The silence grows between them, stretching tighter and tighter. The swirling rain batters against the windows, howls through the gaps.

"I can't cry," Clovis suddenly says. "I've tried."

Eskel lets out a shuddering breath. "Yeah."

"I want to."

"I know," Eskel whispers. "The rain can do it for both of us." Right on cue, the wind groans like a long noooooooooooooooo. 

"I heard it, you know. The exact moment Reynar died beside me." Clovis plucks absently at a frayed end of his blanket. "His heart was beating so hard, I thought I would go deaf. Then it just... burst, like an old waterskin if you step on it real hard."

Eskel swallows. "Then it's finally quiet," he rasps.

Clovis nods slowly. "I didn't even care that he died. Even now, I don't know how I feel. I don't feel, Esk."

Eskel's knuckles are white on the edge of the bed. "I don't either," he admits, hollow. But there's an ache in his chest that has to be some sort of feeling. The definition is out of his grasp. Everything is laced with numbness and pain. It doesn't feel like anything any more. 

"Who were you paired with?"

"Bastien." The name feels like ash on his tongue.

Clovis huffs darkly, like Eskel has just said something funny. "Bet Remy's mad about that."

Eskel sees, clear as anything, Bastien's face lolling, eyes gaping and red, the way his lips twisted when the mage pulled his ribs apart. "They killed him," Eskel whispers. "He put his own eyes out, and they cut him open for it." The suddenness of finally saying it out loud burns through Eskel like alcohol on a fresh wound. The truth scours his throat.

Clovis laughs again, breathy and disbelieving. "They did that to Reynar too. Thought it was a nightmare. Was hard to tell."

Eskel snatches at Clovis' hands so that they can stop shaking. "Every time I saw the mage, I thought it was my turn. He wanted to open me up. I could smell it."

"Was it Harlan?"

"No... I don't know. Started with a G, I think." But Eskel would remember his face anywhere.

"Mine introduced himself. Harlan." Clovis says it like he's spitting acid. "He raped the corpse when he was done, you know."

Eskel closes his eyes, but he can't cry. The anger swells and breaks but nothing spills over. He squeezes Clovis' hands tight, and Clovis squeezes back.

Noooo, the wind says again.

"At least it wasn't us," is the best thing Eskel can think of saying, "it wasn't us. It wasn't us."

"It wasn't us," Clovis repeats. 

They say it over and over, and each time feels almost like tears running down their cheeks.

---

Things get better after they talk, so they keep talking. At night when the keep is quiet but sleep eludes them, Eskel will go to Clovis' room, or vice versa, and they will each confess the new monstrous thoughts and deeds that eat at them every day. It's shameful and terrible but breathing comes easier. Living becomes bearable.

Some nights it's like almost a competition to see who's worse, who's more far gone.

"I imagined smashing a skull today," Clovis hisses, his eyes alight with a strange gleam.

"Whose?"

"My own." He laughs. Eskel laughs.

"Do it closer to the Bastion room, I'm not cleaning your brains up."

"Okay, then I won't."

"Good."

"Your turn," Clovis prods.

"Wanted to strangle Remy."

"That's not new."

"Maybe then he'd start talking again, if only to tell me to stop." Eskel sighs.

"Bad idea. Can't say anything if you're wringing his neck." Clovis scrunches up his nose a little and looks two years younger. "Maybe just stab him lightly."

Eskel barks out a laugh again, and everything hurts slightly less for just a moment.

---

The end of winter comes slowly but inevitably, and some of the older Witchers hustle out of the keep as soon as the first snows melt. Eskel hadn't really noticed it before, but many of them keep to themselves and stay only out of necessity. As trainees fresh off the Grasses they're set aside and not really included in anything at all, and from a distance Eskel observes the oddly familiar yet foreign exchanges of other Witchers sparring, drinking together, even the Bastion boys getting up to their nonsense seems separate. Tjold gave up trying to speak with them weeks ago, and he and Klef and Raven busy themselves with keeping the Bastion boys in line.

It's late at night when the chaos of the leave-taking is over and the keep seems to settle into a quieter version of itself. Most of the trainees are back in their rooms, but a few of them linger now in the hall: Luka has caught a field mouse and practising Axii on it, Edric sits quietly and comments on his progress, and Gweld is chattering to stone-faced Remy. Eskel nibbles at the last bits of his cheese left over from dinner as Clovis determinedly tries to whittle a... thing.

"...Rabbit?" Eskel guesses, chewing slowly. 

Clovis grunts a no.

"Mouse?"

"No."

"Ugly face?"

"Mm. Yours."

There's a muted clack of mugs knocking against each other as Rennes and the older Witchers start on what seems like their fifth round of the night. Around two more rounds, then, and they might just see him crack a smile. Wilhem swears he heard Rennes do a full-fledged belly laugh once, but nobody else remembers it so it's not counted.

A familiar hum makes the hairs on the back of Eskel's neck stand, and he whips around just as the other Witchers spring to their feet. It's exactly the same energy as when a portal once opened up in the middle of the dining room so many years ago -

A snarl pushes past Clovis' teeth and Eskel can immediately see why: it's the mages again, but thankfully not the ones that did the Trials with either of them. He recognises Radcliffe with his deep blue eyes and well-cut robes, but his usual carefully slicked hair is in disarray and he looks extremely flustered. He almost smells like... fear.

The other mage is shorter than him by a head and no more composed. He's laden by a dirty pile of rags in both arms for some reason. When the two catch their breath and see Rennes advance on them, they drop to the ground and grovel. The rags drop too with a muffled thud.

"Mercy, Wolf," the mage gasps, clutching at his heart. "We broke our oaths for this..."

"We had to," Radcliffe groans, then it seems his throat closes up and he starts to choke on nothing. 

Eskel inches nearer, a twinge in his chest that feels a bit like curiosity, or fascination. "He's dying," he says bluntly. 

"They both are." Gweld bristles on the spot, looking between the dying mages and the group of Witchers but not knowing what to do.

Thornwald makes a guttural sound and pulls at the rags. It's a person - a child - a skeleton...? Eskel takes another step forward, transfixed.

"What is this?" Vesemir demands, as Radcliffe pulls at his boots weakly. 

"Tell him, tell him I," Radcliffe rasps, then goes still. 

"Abomination," Thornwald spits, rearing back. "Who did this?!"

The mages are dead, the portal closed; nobody answers.

The skeleton moves - it's just a boy, Eskel thinks, breathing easy. Nothing to worry about. The boy himself should be though, judging from the way his milk-white skin stretches over his bony face. His tangled hair is a mess of dirty yellow-white, but then he raises his head and his eyes snap open and they're the brightest gold, glinting wild in the light of all the torches.

The name escapes his mouth even before his brain registers the face, but it can't be. He's dead, and this pale creature can't be him.

The ghost of Geralt catches Eskel's eye, grins, then leaps at Vesemir all teeth and nails with the strength of twenty men.

"Kill it!" Osbert shouts, drawing silver and drawing a faint purple sign in the air. 

With the help of Rennes, Vesemir wrestles the ghost to the ground, and both their swords are drawn now, and Eskel almost shouts at them to stop, but he can't think of why -

"Get off me! Fuck off!" Geralt yells, writhing like the demon he is, and Eskel gasps, it's really him. He's alive, Gods, what happened to him?

He exchanges a glance with Clovis, who just looks angry as always, but they move closer because it can't be him.

"'Skel! 'Skel, tell them it's me! Tell them to stop!" Geralt's voice is thin, more brittle than he remembers, but it's him through and through. Eskel would recognise that voice anywhere. 

"Geralt," he croaks, and he's on his knees but he doesn't know how he got there, and he runs his fingers through the tangled white hair, perplexed, half agony and half joy, and feels hot tears pour down his face.

---

If Vesemir being furious was shocking enough, Rennes is pure anger, his rage as cold as the bitter frost of the Wild Hunt as the tales tell it. The megascope correspondence is easy to eavesdrop, since Rennes is angry enough that his voice carries through the whole keep. They put the pieces together: the group of renegade mages had conspired to take the Trials further than anyone was ever permitted, without the knowledge of anyone else - except Eskel and Remy and Clovis. They had seen it, they knew, and they'd thought - that it was normal, it was part of the Trials. Clovis laughs darkly at the genius of it, though he looks horrified enough that his face takes on a sickly pallor.

Rennes shouts at the head of the Brotherhood all through the night straight into morning. Vesemir, Thornwald and Varin start heatedly debating the tenuous agreement between the Wolves and the Brotherhood, how they rely too much on mages, how the Witchers couldn't do the Trials without them. Eventually Rennes gets around to discussing the justice that needs be dealt to the mages who broke the peace. Osbert interjects with loud descriptions of what his justice would look like.

"The first round didn't change my eyes," Geralt gasped, too exhausted that his eyes struggle to stay open, even as Sorel smacks at his cheeks to keep him conscious. "So they took me away... portal..."

"Two rounds," Sorel whispers, his voice wavering. "Boy, you're lucky to be alive."

They escape the frustration and shouting after Sorel forces various potions down Geralt's throat, then they drag him to the hot spring to wash him off. He stinks of magic and mutagens and the Trials, enough that Eskel has to force himself to keep a straight face, but Clovis looks equal parts outraged and disgusted.

Geralt protests weakly as they all but throw him into the water. It must hurt, especially if he's still in the hypersensitive phase of coming down from the Grasses, but Eskel grits his teeth and scrubs at his face, his hair, until all the grime is gone. What's left is still the same, an oddly colourless version of the Geralt he knew, but he talks and acts the same, even dozes on his shoulder like it's nothing.

Eskel brings Geralt back to his room and lays him on his bed. Geralt hums softly and immediately curls his nose into Eskel's neck, just like he used to. Something in Eskel's gut clenches and recoils, like he's the one who's dirty now, and he's the one who's changed. And when Geralt wakes, and regains his senses... he'll take one look at Eskel and know that he's different now, twisted, a monster wearing Eskel's face. 

He tries to move away, take the other bed maybe, but Geralt frowns in his sleep and fists the front of Eskel's shirt. So Eskel lies as motionless as he can, carding his fingers softly through the strange head of white hair, and tries to still his mind.

For now, with just the two of them alone, he can almost pretend that nothing has changed at all.

Chapter Text

Geralt stubbornly tries to join their training just two days after, though he shudders at every step he takes, his pupils oddly dilated and hands twitching. He also tears his shirt off because it's too scratchy, ties his lank white hair away from his neck.

He makes quite a sight, and not really a good one. Even aside from the fact that he's been drained of all colour - Sorel had even bled him on purpose to check if he still could - there's just nothing about him that looks like potential Witcher. Weeks of torture and starvation has made him look almost skeletal, his white skin stretched taut across his bones, hips and ribs jutting, hair brittle after having lost its lustre. The worst thing is that he reeks of mutagens, the kind of sharp and cloying that sticks in the back of your throat and makes you gag a little. The other boys make retching sounds within earshot of Geralt when he's around, their laughs soft and cruel.

"Gods, Geralt, put a fucking shirt on," Clovis complains, darting to the side as Geralt lunges. Under the sun on an oddly cloudless day, his skin practically glows. Eskel finds himself squinting at the pair as well, and he can't imagine how Geralt must be feeling right now. Clovis is winning the match, of course - though they're both fighting like they're half blind fish out of water, Clovis because Geralt is literally blinding him like he's fighting a wall of snow at noon, Geralt because Eskel knows he can barely function from everything he's taking in.

"You're not even trying," Vesemir calls out.

Geralt grunts as he takes a hit, his eyes on the ground, shaking his head like he's steeling himself to go again.

Eskel glances to him instinctively, which earns him a solid hit from Tremmond, whom he's supposed to be taking down. With a grunt, he rolls with the force of the hit and snaps back up, slapping his arm aside and elbowing him in the ribs.

Tremmond lets out an involuntary oof and forms a sign with his fingers, knocking Eskel back. Eskel pauses, clutching his chest and heaving for air.

"No signs against new trainees," Vesemir scolds. "Geralt, gods help me, guard yourself." The advice comes too late.

Clovis smacks him into the floor triumphantly, then grimaces and wipes his hands on the hem of his shirt. "Gross, sweat."

"Get up." A clear warning, because any time Vesemir says this, it means you've been down for a second too long.

Geralt curls up on the floor, covering his ears. "'S too much," he groans, muffled. "Head hurts."

"He's not well," Eskel says, just barely dodging a swing from Tremmond who really does not give a shit whether he's paying attention.

"Keep going," Vesemir says, unaffected. Clovis hesitates - he's already down, isn't he - but Vesemir doesn't say anything else. 

At least Clovis has the decency to drag Geralt to his feet again before punching him back down.

"I yield," Geralt says weakly, his eyes screwed shut.

"A monster won't care if you yield." Vesemir's not even looking in his direction any more. "Eskel, pay attention. Arms up."

Eskel turns back just in time for Tremmond's shin to catch him right in the jaw, but the pain is almost non-existent. He leans into the barrage of attacks, taking a few more hits, then finally sweeps Tremmond down and pins him down by the neck with his knee.

"Come on," Clovis grunts, pulling Geralt up again.

Geralt lets out an agonised cry and barrels into Clovis, then smashes his head into the stones for good measure. Only then does Vesemir halt the training. He gives Clovis's prone form an appraising glare, then sighs when he stirs and groans. Then he rounds on Geralt, his voice stern and chastising, but Tremmond is hitting his hip desperately with his hand and Eskel looks down.

"Sorry," he says absently, taking his knee off his windpipe.

Tremmond knocks him back with another weak Aard, coughing and glaring daggers. "Fuck you." 

Eskel walks it off. Tremmond isn't really a match for him, though he's at least three years older. Eskel is the same height and twice the width. He watches distractedly as Vesemir sends Geralt off, then Tremmond slams into him so hard that his ears ring.

---

There hasn't been a word from Ban Ard since Geralt was returned to them, and nobody has come to collect the dead mages stinking up the tables in the Trial rooms. Eventually Rennes gives the order to burn the corpses, collecting their clothing and other artefacts in a sack. 

Geralt's been hiding in Eskel's room like a cowering stray after every disastrous day at training, not that he even needs to try to keep Geralt there: he hasn't been alone since his return, choosing to kick Eskel out of his own bed and refusing to claim a room for himself. The nights are the worst: sometimes he rocks and groans with his eyes screwed shut, hands over his ears. He calms a little if Eskel touches his shoulder, but most of the time Geralt shies away like he's disgusted by Eskel, like the mere touch repels him, so Eskel stays just out of reach and offers whatever help is needed from a distance.

After all, it's not Geralt's fault that Eskel has turned into a repulsive creature after the trials, and he's suffered enough to not have to deal with Eskel on top of everything else.

When Rennes steps into the room with the finality of a mountain, Geralt is having one of those moments, heaving and shaking in a corner. Eskel starts and stops, hovering between them nervously, not knowing what to do.

"Don't... don't take me away." Geralt squints up at him through shuttered eyes, wincing.

"That's not going to happen." Rennes brushes Eskel aside and leans down, scrutinising Geralt like he would a fruit at the market. He sits on the edge of the bed where Eskel has just vacated. "They say you have the strength of ten Witchers."

Geralt bares his teeth weakly. "I do." Sorel and Vesemir had tested him, questioned him; they could not find a way to dull his senses, but they did discover that he was in all ways more than any of them.

"They also say you've been struggling at training."

Geralt presses his lips into a thin line, mutinous, but he can't say anything against that. Struggling is too kind a word and they all know it.

Rennes blows out air from his nose, which is maybe his way of laughing. "White wolf," he says softly, as if to himself, "what am I going to do with you?"

Eskel swallows. "Sir, he has headaches. The Trials... his eyes and ears are still hurting. He needs time." Geralt had whispered to him at night about the things he could hear. The creak of bones when Remy moves in his rooms three halls away, pacing endlessly and counting flagstones over and over with his fingertips. What he could see: bright rainbow beams reflecting off everything and piecing his eyes like millions of needles.

"It's been too long for that." Rennes straightens, frowning his disapproval. "Little white pup, let me tell you a story. I rescued a white wolf pup, once. Its mother had tried to eat him because she knew he could not survive. But she choked on him and died, and that wolf pup ate its way out of her throat. I saved it because it looked pitiful. Pup grew into a young wolf and followed me, loyal as anything. Then one day it abandoned me on a hunt. When I went back to the village to claim my payment, it was a bloodbath. The wolf had butchered everyone. Beast was red nose to tail from the blood, pulling out the guts of a boy that was still alive. When I came close it went feral. Attacked its master."

He raises his hand, slow and deliberate, and traces the slivers of scar tissue running down the side of his cheek. "There's no place in this world for creatures like these. They're abominations, no more. Would that I had killed it when I had seen what it had done as a pup."

Eskel straightens. "You can't kill him. You won't."

"No," Rennes agrees, eyeing Geralt impassively. "But I can learn from old mistakes. Your training will stop, wolf. You can serve in the keep with Silas and the rest."

The rest of the failures, he implies. The others that had gone through the Trials and come out alive but broken. Geralt shifts and raises his head, eyes red-rimmed. "No," he whispers, desperate. "Sir, please. I can... I can be a Witcher."

"My decision is final," Rennes murmurs. "Trust me, boy, I do not do this lightly nor out of spite. I have a School to run, standards to hold to. People to protect. Including you."

The Grandmaster leaves as silently as he comes.

Geralt reaches for Eskel urgently, and Eskel goes like he's pulled by an invisible string. "He can't do this," he hisses. "He can't!"

"I know," Eskel says, swallowing hard and stroking his hair with a trembling hand. He feels like a mountain troll trying to comfort a little kitten, clumsy and over-eager. "You're the best of us, Geralt. He'll see. You just have to get better, alright? Just get better, then tomorrow we'll do some sparring and Vesemir will make your form perfect, and when Rennes comes 'round..."

---

The hot springs is where Geralt and Eskel meet after Eskel's daily training. Eskel will be resting his hurting muscles, while Geralt tries to leach the stench of mutagens out of his bones.

"The world is quieter here," Geralt says when they're soaking. He wiggles closer, shoves his damp hair under Eskel's nose without warning. "I smell better now?"

"... a little," Eskel says, his fingernails cutting into his palms. He breathes through his mouth and leans away carefully.

"I'm disgusting," Geralt sighs, dismal, throwing himself backwards into the water.

"Don't be dramatic," Eskel shoots back, but Geralt's head is underwater and he can't hear. He waits for Geralt to emerge. 

He does after longer than he should, smooth and quiet as a ghost, pale lashes wet and clinging. "'M never gonna be a Witcher, am I?" he mumbles wetly.

"I dunno." It's improbable, but Eskel doesn't want to say it outright.

"'S not fair. It's not like I'm disabled."

Eskel splashes some water at him, a warning growl rising in his throat. "Don't say that. Leo can take your eye out with his crossbow, with the one good hand."

Geralt rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean."

He knows, but he figures he can't really understand it. Eskel has never been the best in class. If they'd told him that he could stop the awful training and just help with the cooking and cleaning, Eskel wouldn't be sad about it. Not even a little. Not Geralt, though. He whinges about his chores constantly, and Eskel listens quietly even though he's sure that Vesemir's training is a lot worse.

"I don't think you're like them. You know. Broken? You're just you." It comes out sounding worse than Eskel imagines.

"Could've fooled me," Geralt mutters through his teeth, but barrels on as Eskel frowns and starts to form a question with his lips. "You've got to train me. If they won't."

Eskel levels an exasperated look at Geralt. "I can't do that."

"Why not?" Stubborn. The same Geralt as always, white hair or no.

"I'm not good enough," Eskel points out, because it's the most obvious thing in the world. "And I'm not even a proper Witcher!"

"'Skel."

"I haven't even started learning signs."

"'Skellll."

"...Vesemir would kill me if he finds out."

Geralt levels an unimpressed look at Eskel.

Eskel caves like... like a shaelmaar crashing through a...

Yeah, Eskel is going to be a shit Witcher.

---

One thing about being in the hot springs every day is having to share it with the other Witchers as well, which Eskel suspects Geralt does just because he wants to stay as close to them as possible. Association by proximity, or something.

Currently the seniors are discussing the mage problem again, unresolved even months later as the bitterness of winter fades to spring. There was an incident of some mage sending over an actual obsidian bust of Grandmaster Rennes as a token of apology for the whole mess, as if feeding his ego would somehow un-fuck all the boys that had been desecrated during the Trials. He'd looked at the bust long and hard, himself an image of chiseled unmovable stone, then ordered it sliced up and traded for supplies at the market in Ard Carraigh.

No mage had dared to show their face since the incident, and the impractical gift grated on Rennes' glacial patience. Still, it was not easy to plan for a visit to Ban Ard, apparently. The Witchers shook their heads and groused about the route there, with few towns in between, fewer jobs, and no love for Witchers in mage-protected lands. Whoever had to go would face months of hardship, made harder by the unpleasant meeting at the end of it. Today Rennes and Vesemir are discussing perhaps finding a trustworthy mage who would accept payment to portal them straight to Ban Ard. 

"Having a megascope around would have solved this problem. In Kaer Seren we had resident mages who stayed in the upper halls, healing and helping at our beck and call." Raven reminisces. His presence is often tolerated in the hot springs at best, but this is the first time he has contributed to the discussion. He's silenced by a few scathing looks and a low dissenting rumble from Rennes.

"We destroyed the last one when Rennes kicked out the last of them," Osbert says, a note of approval and pride in his voice.

"The less we trust sorcerers and their craft, the better," Thornwald grunts in agreement, glancing over to where Geralt and Eskel are.

Geralt seems to go even paler at his words - if that's even possible - and ducks beneath the surface.

"Can't follow you to the sorcerers. Have to stop by Beauclair," Vesemir is saying.

"You shouldn't be doing that either," Osbert counters. "Either you or Rennes needs to be around at all times."

"It's only been a few years," Rennes huffs. "Your patron can wait."

"She might be able to, but we can't afford it. Rennes, we barely made it last winter. We need more coin, and it's not like I get any well-paying contracts nearby. We're shorthanded as it is."

Raven gives a small gasp. "I'm sorry, am I understanding this right? Someone, and not just someone - a Toussantois gentle-lady of Beauclair, is fucki - hrrrrlg."

Klef smiles tightly as he holds Raven's face under, scrunching his nose as the Griffin thrashes. "Don't mind him, you know how he is."

"Send someone else," Rennes counters. "Send the invalid."

"He's still recovering. He stays," Vesemir says thinly.

"He is right here," Varin mutters without heat.

Raven resurfaces ungracefully, spluttering and shaking his dark hair out of his face, but he schools himself quickly.

"Bird," Rennes growls. "Come over here and make yourself useful."

Raven grudgingly slides over to rub at Rennes' temples and huge, broad shoulders. The great wolf sinks lower into the heated water and lets his eyes fall shut.

"I think he likes you," Varin whispers, quite within earshot of everyone. Raven catches Eskel's eye and winks.

"One day I'll teach you how to do this," Raven says. "People let you do anything when they find out how good your fingers feel."

"Stop corrupting my boys," Rennes murmurs, eyes still shut.

---

"Okay, now left. Right. Turn... ah." Eskel stops again as Geralt winces away instead of follows. "You sure you don't want to stop?"

Geralt growls low in his throat, his eyes bloodshot and his hair frazzled all around his temples. "Show me again."

Their sticks clack noisily against each other, as much as they try to keep it down. After practising the motions they creep quietly out to the Pendulum. It's easier for Geralt to handle it in the dark, the lack of light proving less distracting: Eskel leans back against a low stone wall and watches with muted pride as Geralt vaults the obstacles, dodges the swinging beams, and leaps from post to post with the agility of a wraith in the dark.

"That was good," he says simply, grinning when Geralt lopes to him like a pleased dog.

"No need to mince your words," Geralt says, rolling his eyes.

"I meant it," Eskel insists.

"I know that." Geralt picks his training-stick back up, grinning back at him. "You always mean what you say. That's what I like about you."

If the fairies Eskel read about in the books were real, he imagines they would look like this: silver hair mirror-bright in the moonlight, golden eyes glittering like faceted citrine. He imagines that if he were in the same story as one such as Geralt, he would have something better to say in this moment. Instead he says, "I'm sorry."

Geralt falters. "Huh?" 

"You know." Eskel waves a hand vaguely at himself. "For not... being what I used to. I know it's hard. To like me."

Geralt reaches forward and whacks him on the head with his stick. "This head is hard. What the fuck are you on about?"

Eskel rubs at his head absently. "Uh." Better to spit it out, then. "You can barely look at me, let alone come close. I know I'm different... since the Trials."

"I can't because it hurts like shit, like anything else I try to look at," Geralt says, incredulous. "Esk -"

"I know. I'm a monst -"

"Are you in jest?" Geralt gapes. "Are you in actual fucking jest right now, Eskel? Look at yourself! Look at me!"

Eskel stops and stares, which is basically what he's been doing since Geralt has returned. He's different, yes - skin and bones, and ghostly white, but apart from that -

"I'm a freak, Esk! Everyone says so! The instructors call me a failure when they know I can hear, and worse when they think I can't, and the other boys would kill me just for smelling like a mage took a shit in a Drowner's guts... even Rennes thinks I'm better off dead!"

Bile rises in his throat. "That's not true," Eskel croaks.

"It is," Geralt says, his voice carrying across the yard. "I heard him discussing it before he took me off training. It was Vesemir who convinced him not to kill me! And you're standing there thinking that I'm the one treating you like you're some, what, some doppel who snuck in and took your place after the Trials? It's me, I'm the freak here. If anyone it would be me!"

"Keep it down! You're not a freak," Eskel says desperately, clenching his hands to ward off the urge to reach out. "Geralt, you're not a freak, I swear. I'm sorry I said anything, alright?" Eskel doesn't have the words to tell him what he really is, in that moment: his throat is closed, and he just wishes fervently that Geralt can see himself reflected in Eskel's eyes. You're everything I would live for and everything I would die for. You're half my soul, gods damn it.

Geralt lets out a stifled laugh, slightly hysterical. "I didn't even know what I was until they brought me back and I saw you. You made me remember my own damned existence. Have you seen yourself, Esk? After the Trials? You... you're fucking golden, Esk. You're magnificent. It's like the sun fucking shines out of your gods damned golden skin. And I'm a wretched little cave creature -"

"You're being dramatic again," Eskel says weakly.

"- and most of the time I can't even understand how you can stand to look at me, let alone touch -"

"I thought you didn't want me to, I thought it would hurt -"

"- and I know I shouldn't hope for you to still like me at all because I'm not even the same species of the old Geralt you used to know -"

"Geralt..." Eskel feels giddy, like he's about to laugh. This is silly. This is so, so absurd. They're both so fucking stupid.

"- but I'm a horrible wretch and I'll take what I can get, even if it's just your hand on my shoulder, even if you don't - mmpf!"

---

Their night training is forgotten, they're finally lying shoulder-to-hip in Eskel's bed like how they used to. Geralt stirs beside him, a sly smile slanting in Eskel's direction. "Remember what we said about making it through the Trials?"

Eskel grunts non-committally, already dozing off. The nights of extra training in secret, combined with Vesemir's gruelling tasks through the day, has taught him to drop off to sleep instantly the moment he finds the time for it.

"You said you'd do anything I wanted."

Eskel cracks open an eye, warmth stirring in his gut despite himself. "I was under duress."

"You said you'd put it in me."

"...Not my exact words."

"You always mean what you say, don't you, 'Skel?" Cold fingertips drifting lower.

"...Also not my words."

"Do I have to do all the work around here?" Geralt murmurs against his ear.

"Aren't you in some kind of constant terrible pain or something," Eskel grouses, but smiles sleepily anyway and gets his hands on Geralt's hips.

"Mostly it's just, you know," Geralt says conspirationally, lining himself up, "just me being really, really sensitive."

The warmth, the pressure, the all-encompassing heat and intensity of Geralt bottoming out tears a groan from Eskel's throat. There is no reason for this to feel this good. There's no way Geralt is this good, the way he moves and sighs and shows Eskel just how sensitive he really is.

Eskel's hips stutter, his control slipping. "Don't know where the fuck you learnt how to do this."

"It's you," Geralt says, his breath hitching. His eyes are dark and fevered. "It's always been you."

"Gods," Eskel chokes out, screwing his eyes shut and getting a hand in his silvery hair, grabbing and twisting and pulling because there is just nowhere else for this feeling to go. "Shut up, Geralt."

Geralt gasps, leans into Eskel's touch like he said he would, like he would take whatever he could get, even this. "Make me."

So he does.

---

Gweld mimes his usual puking when he walks past Geralt in the dining hall the next day. "Urgh, never thought it would get worse."

Clovis snorts when Eskel shoves in next to him, Geralt opposite. "That's one way to get rid of his stench."

If Geralt could blush, he probably would be doing so right now. Unfortunately it's just Eskel, trying to hide his face with his hair and pretend his food is exceptionally delicious this morning.

"Fuck you, Clovis," Geralt mutters, avoiding Eskel's panicked gaze.

Clovis raises an eyebrow at Geralt, chewing his bread with his mouth wide open. "What, Eskel didn't give you enough?"

Geralt knocks a tankard into Clovis's lap.

Eventually, after a combination of time, frequent soaks in the hot springs, and frequently... getting up to no good with Eskel, the infernal smell plaguing Geralt does fade into just a hint of a whiff, then an unpleasant memory. His senses slowly but surely get better, too: though they never actually dull. Geralt insists he can still hear a Witcher breathing from a hundred yards away, but the pains don't come as often. As each day passes with fewer incidents, then finally a day with no incident at all, Geralt's hopes are boosted. Maybe today, he'll say, as they go their separate ways after breakfast. 

But it never happens: Rennes never once gives Geralt a second glance, and he remains as nothing more than a helper to Silas in the backrooms of the keep.

---

The early spring drizzle gets in his eyes. They've been outdoors long enough that they're still soaked to the bone from the light rain, and the wind isn't helping either. Eskel hates days like this: it's cold, and the posts and handholds on the pendulum are jagged with ice at best or slippery and half-melted at worst. Already he thinks he has sprained his wrist and pulled entire muscle groups he can't recall the names of, but the pendulum remains in front of him, unconquered and sullen, and Vesemir's mood is the harpy on top of the mountain.

"Run it again, pup," Vesemir says, as Eskel slips yet again and gets a faceful of mud for his effort.

Years of training his instincts forces him back onto his feet before he even registers that he's fallen down, but he does stumble and sway like a drunken sailor finding his legs on land. Blindly, he gropes his way up to the starting platform.

"Step quickly!" Vesemir snaps, and Eskel's limbs move of their own accord.

On any other day, this would be challenging, but doable. But his head is swimming, and his hands have lost all feeling, and gods he's so tired. He misses the days when Vesemir would just make them meditate half the morning away. He misses his bed, the warmth of the furs piled on it, the body waiting beneath, bright and squirming and warmer still -

A spiked beam catches him in the chest, throwing him right off his precarious foothold. Instinct saves him yet again, moreso this time as he twists as a cat would and throws his arms out to catch anything he can reach: all the breath is knocked out of him as he collides into the sharp jut of rock overhanging the steep cliff edge on the dangerous side of the pendulum. He scrabbles a bit for a good grip, then stills in relief when his hands manage to grasp some painful yet solid handholds.

"Fuck," he mutters, his brain struggling to parse what's happening around him, but his thoughts seem to move through meaningless fog. Or soup. He'd kill for some nice hot soup right now, and a good sleep...

Before he knows it, he's sailing through the air and landing flat on his back, Vesemir looming over him. His face is blurry but the anger and disappointment cuts, almost tangibly, through the shroud of grogginess. "No more night trainings," Vesemir says, his voice low. "And no more sharing rooms. Your lack of focus is appalling. I thought better of you, Eskel."

Eskel wheezes around a mouthful of mud, rainwater, and blood. He's not even able to draw breath to defend himself, but there really is nothing to say. Of course his nightly activities with Geralt wouldn't go unnoticed in a keep full of seasoned Witchers with heightened senses. Of course if imperceptive, blunt Clovis could smell that they were fucking, Vesemir wouldn't even need to try. Eskel's too tired to even try to figure out what he's feeling right now, which is actually the highest level of shame and mortification yet.

At least Vesemir takes pity on him and does send him on to his rooms to wash up and get some rest. He'll need it before he breaks the news to Geralt that they've been found out.

---

It's been decided that Rennes will undertake the unwelcome task of journeying to Ban Ard to face off the mages and demand justice. Some of the Witchers in the keep are tasked to helping him prepare for the journey, though he probably could manage that himself, experienced as he is. Still, it's news when the Grandmaster takes his leave, as much as his arrival heralded some sort of ceremony. 

Geralt's been antsy ever since Rennes' leavetaking was announced. They have a little less than a week to go before they see him off, and to Geralt, it's one of the last chances he'll ever have to prove that he can be something more than a failure and a disappointment. Eskel tries not to encourage him, always careful to toe the line, but he's never really been able to stop Geralt from doing whatever the fuck he wants.

"What are you planning?" he finally has to ask, because Geralt's been acting shifty for a few days now, and always seems to be doing some imaginary calculations at the back of his mind.

"If I tell you, you'll probably stop me," Geralt says, matter-of-factly. He pretends to be incredibly absorbed in his task of salting some venison for smoking, something he's never bothered to do properly until now.

"Rennes leaves tomorrow," Eskel says slowly. "Please for the love of my sanity don't do anything stupid."

"I won't," Geralt says simply, cocky like he always is, "do anything stupid."

Eskel groans inwardly. "It's going to be so fucking stupid, isn't it." Eskel snatches Geralt's task from him, because even pretending to do it properly he's doing it wrong, and he remembers that shitty winter when they all almost starved and he doesn't want it to be because Geralt was too busy throwing a fit to prep the smoked venison right.

"I'm not gonna tie him up and stop him from leaving, if that's what you mean," Geralt teases lightly.

"The fact that you said that so fast proves to me that it's already one of the stupid ideas you considered at one point." Eskel jabs at the meat crossly.

Geralt has the gall to snigger, but he says nothing else, leaving Eskel to fret quietly the rest of the day and well through the night.

The leave-taking is a solemn affair. The Witchers line up the same way they did when Rennes had ridden in, and Rennes exchanges quiet formal farewells with the elders of the keep. It's all extremely boring and really quite pointless, and Eskel finds his mind drifting and sorely wishing he could have stayed in bed for one extra hour.

For one glorious moment Eskel forgets that Geralt is full of stupid surprises. Silas isn't needed to attend this formal sending-off ceremony and by extension neither are all the boys in his charge.

Rennes finishes up his pleasantries and handing over of duties back to Vesemir, even shoots Raven an almost-smile and a tight nod, and turns to the open gates.

"Rennes!" The voice is unmistakeably Geralt, ringing from behind the crowd, and Eskel feels his stomach drop. Oh no. Oh no no no.

Rennes turns a fraction towards the sound, his expression unchanging. "White wolf. You were not called upon."

"I wasn't." Geralt shoulders his way through the perplexed trainees, a young lad still, a head shorter than most. He's holding a blunted shortsword, all notched and battered, clearly stolen from the bottom of the armoury pile. 

"Fuck me," Eskel whimpers under his breath. Drawing steel is a clear challenge, meant to end in blood: that is the way of the Wolves. Vesemir's words ring in his mind. If you draw steel in my keep, you are prepared to die. The only time he's seen actual steel being drawn outside of training was that time Osbert had brought Varin back, and Vesemir had chosen to yield to that challenge instead of fight.

Something tells Eskel that Rennes isn't the yielding type.

"I challenge you, Grandmaster Rennes. I fight for the right to train with the Wolves." Geralt holds his sword aloft in a true warrior's stance that even Vesemir couldn't find a fault in.

Rennes doesn't even look the faintest bit surprised. "I accept your challenge, though this proves nothing. You thirst for blood, like I thought you would."

"Fuck," Eskel whispers again, feelingly, his mind racing. Remy grabs at his elbow and shakes his head.

Geralt advances, studying Rennes closely, but it's like watching a bird calculate how best to peck a stone to death. Rennes watches him through slitted eyes, his hands by his sides, not even drawing his own blade.

Finally Geralt strikes, a flurry of moves that Eskel would miss if he blinked at the wrong moment, but it doesn't even touch Rennes. Huffing in surprise, Geralt tries again.

And again, and again. Geralt's chasing his own shadow at this point, and Rennes barely seems to break a sweat. Just when Eskel feels he might uncontrollably call out for Geralt to give up, Rennes makes another side step and wrenches the blade clean out of Geralt's hand. It makes a smooth flip in the air then it's suddenly pressing hard at Geralt's soft white neck, right where the tendon meets his jaw.

Remy's grip on Eskel tightens.

"Did you expect to kill me with a butter knife, wolf?" Rennes says softly. 

Geralt glares at him defiantly, baring his neck further though his nostrils flare at the tension of it. "Do as you wish then."

Rennes presses his lips into a tight white line. "I wish that life had been kinder to you," he says evenly, maybe even sorrowfully. He throws the blade aside and finally draws his own, a giant claymore that could easily cleave a full grown buck in two. He rests the gleaming blade against Geralt's shoulder. "I wish that this was not the fate you chose. But I will not be responsible for the havoc you wreak. Be at peace, Geralt of Kaer Morhen."

Geralt shudders and drops to his knees, his eyes falling closed.

"I will," a gruff voice cuts through the stunned silence of the courtyard. "I'll take responsibility for him, damn it."

Rennes pauses and lifts the blade slightly. "You, Vesemir? Hasn't it been too soon since you were forced to do what I'm doing now?"

"I said I'd take him," Vesemir says shortly. "I know what it means."

Rennes lets out a long, slow breath and sheaths his weapon. Then he nods his acknowledgement to Vesemir and turns back to Geralt. 

"Gods willing, I'm wrong about you," Rennes says, resting his palm on Geralt's head. Geralt flinches but doesn't pull away. "The Fates be with you, White Wolf."

Then he's out of the gates in a flurry of grey and white, and the others disperse quickly enough to get to their daily chores.

Eskel blinks and realises that he'd fallen to his knees too, for some reason: Remy's been tugging quietly at his arm for awhile now.

He exchanges a glance with Geralt, who looks back at him, their expressions mirroring their emotions perfectly in that moment: horrified, incredulous, ecstatic, disbelieving.

"It worked," Geralt says dumbly, like he'd fully expected to die.

Then Eskel is furious.