story completed: Learning Experiences

[dragonlady7]

geralt thinks he is old and jaded but he is not yet, baby's first trauma, ok not first but it's one of the early ones

via https://ift.tt/3827ug7

One last update for the year, bringing my 2020 wordcount total up to 387k, firmly cementing 2020 into second place for words published in one year on AO3 by me.

Learning Experiences https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121523/chapters/69720408, the story I wrote in collaboration with Anoke about Baby Lambert and young Geralt, gets its sort of sad, sort of hopeful epilogue, set about ten years later. Please do heed the warnings in the notes.

Geralt made his way up into the craggy mountainous area separating Herrick and Munwyck, noting from a distance that there was a collection of vultures kettling in the air currents on one side of the peak. Now, vultures did just collect sometimes, but it was likely that there was something dead attracting them. So he aimed for the set of valleys near the largest concentration of vultures, and as he drew nearer, sure enough he caught a whiff of the scent of death on the air currents.

He set to tracking and found, sure enough, hoofprints leading up one of the paths, to a particular valley near where the vultures were collecting. And then Roach whinnied and another horse answered, and Geralt followed her pricked ears into a valley.

There was a horse there, a reasonable-quality gelding, secured on a long picket line, and he’d eaten the grass to the ground as far as he could reach. From the quantity of manure, he’d been tied there two or three days at least.

And Roach seemed to know him; their whickering noises were those of horses who were familiar to one another. She trotted over and greeted him as if they were friends.

There was a stash of luggage piled near the picket under a tarp, the horse’s tack and a set of saddlebags and a bedroll and assorted other things, and it took Geralt less than a breath to ascertain that it was absolutely Witcher gear.

Fuck. (Your picture was not posted)