another fic snippet, as yet untitled

[dragonlady7]

sitting

via https://ift.tt/3kJcz1h

yeah i wrote so much Geralt pining for Kaer Morhen as it used to be in Ancient Sea that I really feel the need to have a fic set earlier so the reader can see for themself what he’s talking about, so. I’m semi-collaborating on this one and making it compatible with Anoke’s Law of Surprise https://archiveofourown.org/works/24355231 timeline for Baby Lambert because that’s way more fun than trying to make up my own nearly-the-same version of all those events. (also if y’all ain’t read that one yet there’s my rec, if you want to meet baby lambert.)

Anyway here’s a lil snippet, with Geralt in his early twenties as a new-minted Witcher freshly back from the Path for the first time. IDK when I’ll manage to get the story done enough to post so this’ll have to do for a bit.

It was strange beyond telling, to walk into the great hall that evening as an adult. He remembered not to turn toward the alcove where the boys in training sat, but couldn’t make himself walk directly over to the tables with the adults either. He managed to cover his brief hesitation by looking around the room to see if Eskel was here yet– he could have arrived while Geralt was off bathing, as Geralt had spent quite a long time at it despite not intending to. (One thing he hadn’t really fully internalized before going out on the Path was how rare a treat a good bath would come to be. He’d gone months at a time with nothing better than two buckets and a rag, and it was proving a sore trial to him.)

Not seeing any sign of Eskel, he continued to the group gathered around one of the long tables. They were all older, ten or more years older, nobody he’d known as anything but an adult, but they were also all people he recognized. Kavan, Lukas, Jorik, Arcturus, and Moldnar, were their names, and he’d had conversations with each of them during prior winters, had listened to their stories, had known them all his life. The kids who’d been raised here tended to have deeper relationships with the older Witchers like this; he’d spent a lot of his early childhood sitting on various laps when he was still tiny, before he’d been in training. He knew Jorik had been one to give him rides on his shoulders, when Geralt was very small– he remembered that Witcher’s long braided hair, especially, and had been fond of him his whole life.

But once the boys were in training, they didn’t have much contact with the grown Witchers who weren’t instructors, and he hadn’t really talked to any of them much as an adult, so he was slightly uncertain of his reception. It had been so strongly discouraged, for trainees to hang out too much with the older Witchers, that he was still half-expecting to be told with a fond laugh that he oughtta scram.