Ficlet to Accompany Art (CW: Major Character Death, Animal Death, Canon-typical culture and themes)
Lambert’s looking for a man.
“Have you seen Reginald?” He says it like he’s calm; like he’s not inches away from losing his fucking cool and striding up to the rooms to check himself.
The whore — Red is the name she goes by — stares back at him through the crack in the brothel door, blinking.
“Reginald?” She asks, and Lambert barely manages to turn his curse into another deep breath.
“Georgiy.” He corrects himself. She keeps staring at him, and he knows she’s very close to shutting the door in his face. He holds his ground, meeting her gaze steadily.
Something in her eyes shifts at that, softening, but her lips purse tightly in contrast. “No, he hasn’t visited.” She says, and he believes her. “…Is something wrong?”
Lambert’s already leaving, one boot in the stirrup to launch himself back into the saddle. She doesn’t call after him.
“Mikhail.” He says shortly to the next town’s guard, and ignores the way the man’s staring at Lambert’s overgrown beard and lank, unwashed hair; at the blood in his leathers and the bruises beneath his eyes. Only his swords are clean, pommels shining and edges sharp. “Seen him lately?”
“You’d be the first I’d look to about him.” The guard answers gruffly. “Dunno why you’re asking me.”
The door to the guardhouse swings open, the captain stepping through. His eyes are brimful of curiosity and wariness. Lambert turns on him, about to speak, but he holds up a hand.
“He hasn’t been here in months, Witcher.” The man says steadily, one hand on his sword. “Go look elsewhere.”
Lambert scrutinizes the captain's eyes and stiff shoulders a few moments more before nodding slowly, backing away and turning on his feet to round the corner.
(He sneaks back under cover of night: checks every cell in the gaol and picklocks his way into the captain’s personal cellar, but finds nothing. He rides out empty-handed, heading east.)
Three weeks pass. There's a whisper, and like a desperate dog Lambert follows it to the source.
“You look like shit,” Eskel says, not bothering to get up from the inn’s table, and it’s too surprised to be a proper greeting.
Lambert bares his teeth, temper flaming hot, heart beating faster than it should — again — but says nothing back at first. He’s trying to swallow his disappointment.
“They said there was another Witcher here,” He says finally, and it comes out accusing but he doesn’t give a damn.
Eskel’s brow rises slowly, his expression blank. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Lambert does snarl at that, sitting down and digging his fingernails into the table. “Shut the fuck up,” He bites out, and doesn’t speak again even when they’re bedding down in the same room, Eskel’s hot chest at his back.
“Tell me about it in the morning.” Eskel says, low and threatening against his neck, and it’s a request but it’s also very much not — not if Lambert wants any peace next Winter.
Lambert bares his teeth into his pillow and tries not to bite the heavy hand that rests beneath his jaw.
(He leaves before Eskel wakes, slipping out the window so as not to disturb him — but Eskel sleeps heavy when Lambert’s in his bed, so there’s not much risk after all.)
“Where are you, you bastard…” He says, and he’s too distracted to put any venom into it.
The map crinkles beneath his fingers, the edges worn, the body of it damp from a few too many rides through rain.
“No Mikhail, no Reginald, no godsdamned Georgiy.” That left only a few aliases to search for, all of them a bit too old to wear anymore. Or so Lambert had been told.
“Fuck.” He breathes, heart beating too fast, fingers shaking. “Where the fuck are you?”
Lambert turns more slowly than he should, blinking.
Behind him on the road Fyodor’s next step almost lands wrong, and his eyes go wide at the sight of Lambert’s face.
“What is it?” Lambert says, and it comes out flat. The syllables feel absurdly heavy in his mouth, slurring at the edges. He tries to focus on the old farmer’s face; on the worry that looks so out of place there, directed at Lambert of all people.
“I heard you were looking for a man by the name of Felix.” Fyodor says, taking his time while his eyes roam over Lambert’s battered kit and leathers. “We just had a Witcher go through here by that name. Heading for home, I’d figured.”
This close to the Blue Mountains, in this village, with Autumn looming — there’s only one ‘home’ Fyodor could mean.
“Kaer Morhen.” Lambert breathes out with barely a thought to who is listening, fisting his hands on his horse’s reins.
He kicks the poor animal beneath him into a gallop, because there’s only one reason why any Witcher, wolf or not, rides the Killer before Autumn — and it’s because it’s the only option he’s got left.
“He doesn’t know the way,” Lambert garbles at the horse, the wind whipping away every word. “What the fuck. I’ve never taken him — he’s not going to get there.”
He must be mad, talking to his horse -- mad as Geralt.
Horse only heaves strained lungfuls of breath in answer, sweat pouring off his flanks.
There’s a trail — a godsblessed trail, with broken twigs and scattered earth and drops of blood so fresh he could taste the iron if he chose to lick them up — and Lambert rides harder, up through layers of pine and roots poking out of rocky earth, though leaf-litter that threatens to slip out beneath his horse’s hoofs and wet mud that sticks until there’s inches of it cushioning each step.
The trail shows more than one set of boots.
Lambert’s tongue fills his dry mouth, and his chest lurches, breath stuttering. He’s ridden too hard not to have been noticed. It’s now or never, if there’s any time left at all.
“Ho!” He roars — no name, just in case he shouldn’t — not Mikhail or Reginald or Georgiy or Ai—
The warm body beneath him stutters sharply with a misstep, bones and flesh juddering as Horse tries to compensate. He buckles with a pained stallion’s wail.
Lambert is launched off, rolling through earth and instinctively scrambling to dodge the heavy thunder of the large body rolling after him, senses bewildered.
He skids to a stop on a soft landing of grass — a clearing, more soft earth than mud or roots. Horse thuds to a halt behind him, and Lambert doesn’t need to sift through what he smells and hears to know the poor stallion’s dead.
Lambert chokes on empty lungs and an aching throat, mouthing for air and finding none. He braces weakly on hands and knees and forces himself upward, lifting his head-
...and comes to a dead halt mid-scrabble.
Lambert knows the instant he sees the blue. Knows it down to his bones.
It’s a deep blue, thick cloth and rich color repelling the dark rain. The vest stands out luridly from the grass, and Lambert slows to a stop.
For a moment, all he can hear is the tinny tinkle of water droplets on his shoulder-guards; the drip of it off his hair and leathered fingertips. Rain hisses against the soft plants all around, making the grass sheaves dance beneath countless little impacts.
Lambert’s next movement is slow, and his limbs are shaking. He slips and hits the earth on all fours, neck craned so he can keep staring at the bit of dark blue he can still see.
The rain falls, the trees rustle all around, and the crumbling ruins behind that bit of blue bear it all steadily, as they have for the last few hundred years.
“Aiden.” Lambert breathes, and it tastes like shards of glass on his tongue; stinging and coppery. His voice is damaged by days of travel and no rest in-between. He forces the name out again, crawling forward. “Aiden.”
The blue vest doesn’t so much as twitch; the man within is still and unresponsive. As Lambert gets closer he can see a dark head of hair, matted and damp from the rain, and skin that should be bronzed near-gold glooming a colorless grey against the grass.
The instant he catches sight of the bridge of the familiar nose, it’s as if a spell is broken. Lambert hauls himself upward, staggering and pelting toward the man on the ground — the wounded man, the sleeping man, the man cursed not to wake up without a sloppy kiss—
He drops down, gloved hands tearing at the vest, hauling the body onto its back, and smashes his ear to the breast.
The flesh beneath his cheek is cold, and the heart within the chest is still. There’s no pump of blood, no hint of sweat on the skin’s surface; only something old and rotting that Lambert’s smelt a thousand times before.
Lambert curls his fingers into the vest, testing its familiar strength. He breathes in Aiden’s faded scent, staring at the dull cloth too close for his eyes to focus on.
Aiden’s not asleep. He’s not cursed. He’s not wounded. He was alive, perhaps as little as a day ago -- alive and not half a mile off from the base of the path through the mountains he didn't even know how to find -- didn't know, because Lambert had never taught him. Never dared to.
Lambert’s eyes sting and his breath comes shallowly. There’s something hot in his heart, something stabbed right in, but he can’t even think to examine what it could be.
The first scream rips out of him suddenly, choking off because he’s startled himself with it. The second comes louder, longer, and more firmly, ricocheting off the stone ruins nearby, echoing into the trees.
He screams while he braces back on his knees; keeps screaming, lungs emptying painfully, when he drags the body up with him, drawing it against his chest like it will make any difference — like he can protect it from whatever murderers have already left, bloody blades in hand.
There comes a point where he can’t scream anymore. He rasps in breath desperately, his shudders jostling the body in his arms.
Lambert wails then, weak and shrill and thin like a dog — then grits his teeth and sobs through them, falling back against the ruins, cold stone bracing his shoulders, colder body in his arms.
He buries the body. Takes the medallion mechanically, staring at the wet earth he’s just tossed back into place and imagining what it would feel like to swap places.
Two months later he meets Geralt on the Path. Pretty boy doesn’t read other people; he barely notices Lambert’s lackluster greeting and hollow, toothy excuse for a smile.
“Explain,” Is all the White Wolf says, when Lambert makes him the offer.
“Had a friend.” Lambert bites out, glaring at the horizon and smiling the farce of a smile as hard as he can. “Aiden was his name.”
And it must be enough, because Geralt nods slowly at the end of it all, smiling his own sharp smile.
The hunt begins, and the bloody thing Lambert's been carrying in his chest since the foot of the mountains stops gnawing on his heart, quivering excitedly in anticipation for better prey.
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