#junod

First, a moment to introduce the Bear School: 

From The Witcher's Journal (R.Talsorian TTRPG):

The Bear School has a reputation for being huge, hefty and hairy, much like their namesake. As their founder, Arnaghad, is said to be 9 hands wide at the shoulder- not sure if that's just part of what makes up most Bears who survive the mutations or just the rumors that surround them. While the Viper school is known for its beginnings in betrayal, the Bear school's beginnings were the same. Arnaghad was the first to break the Order of Witchers. Their keep was far south; in the Amell Mountains. They were known as kinslayers, though infighting between schools was generally considered not worth it. They were estranged brothers, not bitter enemies. Gwent disagrees, however, saying meetings rarely end without bloodshed.

From Gwent: 

Their armor: Quilted gambeson, Heavy mail that extends all the way to the knees, plate armor spauldrons. It's tank armor- meant to endure blows, for melee attack. They were often found in Skellige, one even featured in the Ballad of Torgeir the Red. 

Bears were said to be loners, avoiding even those of their own school once they've grown and been released onto the path. They abandoned Haern Caduch rather than fight for it against a mob of peasants- though Gwent points out that the secrecy of its location is notable, as the slaughters of the Wolf and Cat school are infamous on the continent. It's implied (Thronebreaker) that the mutations have drastically neutralized their emotions/feelings- Possibly being why it was so easy for them to abandon the keep. 

- Ivo of Belhaven, Thronebreaker. Re: Witcher motivations Junod we mostly hear about from Ivo. Junod apparently liked the sound of Ivo's sobriquet, and decided to use it as well- becoming Junod of Belhaven. The reasoning being that Junod did not expect the smaller witcher to live very long, so 'stealing' his sobriquet wouldn't be an issue. However, it was Junod's life that was cut short. In May, 1243 Junod seached out the grandmaster smith Tyen'sail to forge him a set of the Grandmaster Ursine Armor. However, he lost all his money gambling so needed work in order to pay for it. He took a contract from Charité Gontran de Tufo, and after research headed to the caves the following day.

He carves this bear medallion on the walls, leaving the following warning:

 Warning! Buildings around here have been collapsing because a monster’s dug tunnels all over the place. Not sure yet what kind of beast it is. Don’t come after me. And don’t wipe my symbols off the walls, because I need them to find my way out.

He was ill-prepared for this fight, and regretted accepting the contract, as Geralt finds out from his journal. He did try to complete it, but fell to the Shaelmaar. In Blood and Wine, you can collect the diagrams that the fallen witcher left behind.

Junod is remembered as being as big as a mountain, with a beard that would put a Dwarf Elder to shame. He was also not one to hide his thoughts, but spoke plainly and candidly. He also apparently "haggled like a fishwife".

Gwent Flavor Text:

Rumour has it he was born of an unusual love between a lady giant and one VERY brave dwarf. Gwent Voice Lines: 

Arnaghad was an original. From the tenth century. He was older than even Vesemir and moved with the speed and inevitability of a glacier. For Lambert, Arnaghad should represent everything he hated, but he couldn’t help the morbid fascination; the feeling they shared something that he couldn’t quite name. Because Arnaghad had turned his back on the established way of things and cut his own path through the ashes of its destruction. He stole some agency back and then suffered as a consequence.

He was unreachable though. As distant as his Death Mountain. It didn’t matter. Lambert flitted between Grayson and Gerd, feeling wholly satisfied. Until one evening he entered Haern Caduch’s equivalent of Kaer Morhen’s grand hall and found a conference being conducted in his absence. As he walked across the worn flagstones, chair legs scraped, benches creaked, and they all looked at him.

Ivo spoke first in his usual blunt manner. “You’re spending the night with Arnaghad.”

“What?” Lambert blinked. The legend himself sat nearest the fire, staring down into a tankard of something alcoholic; Lambert cast him a furtive glance, but was apparently ignored.

Junod was smirking, Ivo just looked done, Gerd glanced at him, somewhat sheepish, so it was Grayson who chipped in next. “We’re exhausted,” he growled. “Winters are for sleeping; hibernating. That’s what we’re used to. You have too much energy for the two of us, and Ivo doesn’t share.”

“It’d be too fucking weird,” Ivo murmured, and side-eyed Junod, who he knew for a fact had been entertaining unsavoury fantasies whenever he glanced between Ivo and Lambert. Filthy; the lot of them. Besides, Ivo was somewhat possessive over the single good thing he’d ever had in his life, and that included not… sharing with his blood relatives. 

“Oh, right, so this has just been decided?” Lambert folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. Maintaining an air of indignant outrage was difficult though when he was fighting the urge to side-eye Arnaghad. The mountain was sitting at the moment, so his sheer size wasn’t properly on display; he still took up most of a bench by himself and his hands dwarfed the stein in their grip. Lambert had to bend his head back to look at his face usually. The others glanced between themselves; Gerd’s mouth opened and closed, Grayson rubbed tiredly at his eyes and Junod seemed to be thinking over a potential negotiation, when an avalanche suddenly rumbled through the hall. Oh, no, it was just Arnaghad speaking.

“No one’s forcing you, pup,” the leader of the School of the Bear rose slowly from his seat. It was like watching a volcano emerge from the ground and Lambert found himself wanting to take a step away; only his pride and a warped arousal at the thought of sharing this behemoth’s bed stopped him in his tracks. “Follow. Or don’t.” Arnaghad left his drink and walked by with that same unhurried gait, yet Lambert still had to jog to catch up with him once he’d exchanged a glance with Ivo. His curiosity just got the better of him. Lambert’s sense of self-preservation was always somewhat muted in the face of his raging winter libido. 

They ascended several steep staircases, with Arnaghad taking two or three stairs at a time and Lambert scurrying along in his wake. They eventually entered a large, circular tower room that overlooked a sheer gulley below, with Mount Gogron looming in all its intimidating grandeur beyond. Lambert could imagine the great Bear watching from afar as his initiates scrambled up its craggy, ice-covered paths in search of the runestone that would prove their worth. Assessing, and just like the mountain, finding them wanting. The Wolf stood by the window now, gloved hands braced on the ledge, and gazed at the peak through the wintry mists.

“Why did you choose such a shitty last trial?” Lambert blurted out the question without even thinking. He turned as he heard the heavy thud of Arnaghad’s belts hitting the floor, followed by the rustle of the furs he wore wrapped around his shoulders. A flare of igni shot into the stacked hearth and the fire roared to life; it was almost as big as the bonfires of Beltane.

“So they understood,” Arnaghad murmured. His voice still filled the room though, and burrowed somewhere deep in Lambert’s chest.

“Understood what?” Because Speartip was shitty, but the Wolves of Kaer Morhen were sent in together to face him. The survival part in Morhen Valley was the bit you did alone, but you were prepared, with swords, camping equipment. All you had to do was survive. Not fight, not race death to the top of a mountain. The only brother he’d had to leave behind was Voltehre. It was bullshit. All of it. But the School of the Bear had really cultivated their brand of it.

“That they’re alone,” Arnaghad unhooked a knife from the back of his trousers, yet another difference Lambert noticed; the School of the Bear walked around armed even in their own home. “That nothing should stand in their way, and sometimes that means stepping over the corpses of those they once called brother.”

“That’s bullshit. You’re wrong. We’re… look, it’s a clusterfuck, but we’re meant to help people, help each other,” Lambert’s sneer belied the pounding of his heart, the sweat gathering at the small of his back, beneath his arms. He was still fully clothed, his hunting knife in his boot and his knuckle dusters inside his gambeson, but every part of his fight or flight instinct was screaming. The ‘help’ part was the one thing Lambert clinged to. It gave his entire life purpose. His whole shitty existence meant something if he could keep just a handful of people safe from a monster, with teeth, claws or otherwise. “Witchers are lone hunters, but…”

“...even a lone hunter can use a helping hand sometimes,” Arnaghad finished the line for him and then chuckled. It was like a thousand pounds of tumbling rock. “Erland. He always did like his catchphrases. Tell me, pup, do you know where I got the scars on my face from?”

“Ivar Evil-Eye,” Lambert whispered; every Witcher knew the story. The splintering of the Order into its sects. It happened in the tenth century - ancient history - but here stood just a fraction of it. A walking relic. “When he betrayed you and made the Vipers. Your rebellion kinda’ bit you in the arse, didn’t it?” Lambert’s survival instincts had clearly done a runner with his heart.

“Hm,” Arnaghad smiled, but it wasn’t really a smile. Not like one Lambert had ever seen. A fissure cracking through the side of a mountain after an earthquake. “Evil-eye. Strange how stories are warped by the victor. Ivar’s evil eye let him see the Winter Riders wherever they may be. He saw every time they entered this world to collect their slaves, but he was always a step behind them. It drove him mad. Wouldn’t listen to reason. He made the School of the Viper to stop the Wild Hunt. Yet, when the time came, the people he was trying to protect turned on him. They murdered Ivar and his hatchlings for wanting to help.”

“He was a nutter, an assassin, he - ,” Lambert stuttered as Arnaghad pulled his shirt off to reveal the expanse of his chest. Marred with valleys of scars - huge claw marks that would’ve torn a normal man, even a Witcher, in half - and covered in a thick pelt of dark brown hair. Lambert knew he was wet in his braies. He could feel the damp cloth sliding against his skin as he stumbled away from the window to create a bit more space.

“Ivar worked for the greater good, now he’s dead; Erland, who wanted the Continent to see Witchers as knights. Dead.” It was the first trace of emotion Lambert had heard in Arnaghad’s voice beyond detached resignation. There was a pause as the great Bear kicked his boots off, leaving just his unbelted trousers in place. He began moving closer - slow, measured - but Lambert still scrambled back from him as if he were in hot pursuit. “Even your own School, betrayed by the Cats who, in turn, were betrayed by their employers.” Arnaghad was in no hurry, he herded Lambert into a corner that he couldn’t escape. “Tell me, pup, does your Vesemir weep at the graves of his brethren? Does he resign himself to stomp the dark halls of Kaer Morhen, listening to the ghosts of his fallen sons? Where’s his anger? Where’s his thirst for revenge? When the fanatics came for Haern Caduch, they murdered everyone, and then my rage buried them in that gulch, under generations of dead initiates and the stones of Gogron.”

Lambert’s back pressed to the wall as Arnaghad spoke, one of those huge forearms braced against the cold stone above his head, and through instinct alone he withdrew the hunting knife, pressing it against the swell of Arnaghad’s chest. A tiny prick of blood dribbled down the length of the blade. Lambert’s breath stayed locked in his chest as he stared up into ancient eyes that burned with the rage of the sun. He was a dead man. 

Arnaghad huffed and took Lambert’s wrist. He pinned it to the wall with ease and inspected the knife in his fingers. “Silver for monsters,” he growled. 

“You are a monster,” Lambert replied, only a thin ring of gold visible around the dark expanse of his pupils. He’d never felt so overwhelmed - so thoroughly outmatched - in his entire life. There was no point in fighting. Arnaghad would crush him effortlessly and throw his body out the window without a second thought. There was no agency to be found, no battle to be waged. His heart thundered, his arousal building until it was a thick musk between them, edging the odour of his fear. He was horny, not fucking stupid. Why was he always attracted to the dangerous ones? 

“Maybe,” Arnaghad leaned forward. His lips hovered near Lambert’s ear; the heat of his breath sending goosebumps across quivering flesh. “But I’m still standing. I’m still here when the others are ash. Monsters survive, pup. They live until they’re old and grey. Good men die young.” He tilted his head and Lambert’s eyes fluttered as he listened to Arnaghad breathe him in. That huge chest expanded until it pressed into the material of his gambeson. “I’m many things; monstrous, perhaps,” Arnaghad rumbled, and the grip on Lambert’s wrist fell away, “but I’m not a rapist. Go find your brother.”

The moment Arnaghad started to turn away, Lambert moved. The knife went from the wall to Arnaghad’s throat in the blink of an eye. Lambert was under no illusion; a Witcher that could bring down a mountain on the heads of an army would be able to flick him off like a gnat. Maybe he was fucking stupid, but his gamble paid off. Arnaghad raised an eyebrow and took a step back as Lambert pushed forward. “Don’t think so,” the wolf growled back. “Not one to be frightened off by a bully. No matter how loud they growl, or how hard they hit.” 

“A bully,” Arnaghad had the faintest hint of a smile now; he continued to move slowly backwards under the pressure of the knife at his throat. Lambert pulled his glove off with his teeth and worked swiftly through the ties of his gambeson. It fell from his shoulders with a swift swap of the knife in his hands from right to left. There was something entirely too heady about having a living god at the tip of your blade. Even better if it was the tip of his cock.

“And you’re so full of crap, I swear to fucking Melitele,” Lambert smirked, tugging open the ties of his shirt and removing it with the same swift slight of hand. “Mister Lone Bear in his Castle of Ice. I need no one, but my sorrow brought down an entire fucking mountain on the heads of those that slaughtered my only family. Mister I Don’t Need Anyone, who sends boys up a mountain that freezes the blood in their veins in hopes that they might understand what it feels like to be truly fucking alone, because it hurts him so much,” the back’s of Arnaghad’s knees hit the edge of his bed; Lambert’s left hand formed aard and slammed into that giant chest, sending Arnaghad over onto his back. Still no resistance. Boots and trousers still in place, Lambert climbed up onto the mattress and sank down over Arnaghad’s hips; it was hard to miss the huge erection pressing up through the Bear’s trousers. No one spoke to him like this; no one had ever dared. “Mr Monstrous, whose voice catches when he mentions the name of the lover he struck down.” 

Lambert’s eyes ran down the length of his conquest, from the braids in his brown hair, the jagged scars through the centre of his face, over that barrelled chest, to the waistband of his trousers and the thatch of dark hair that hinted just above it. “Fuck, Kaer Morhen’s nearly a thousand miles away, but I feel like I’m talking to Geralt of Rivia. You’re just another whiny little bitch.” 

Arnaghad’s eyebrows shot up and in one agile roll he had Lambert on his back and the knife knocked from his hand. For one wild, heart-stopping moment, Lambert thought he’d pushed too far. He was going to get crushed to death and thrown into the gulch with the bones of the fanatics: here lieth Lambert of Kaer Morhen, the fuckwit who was sadly crushed to death when he called one of the First Witchers a ‘whiny little bitch’. But when he looked up into amber eyes expecting fire and brimstone, the only darkness to be found was the deep lustre of desire. “A whiny little bitch,” Arnaghad rumbled, mulling the words over in his own mouth. “Can’t have you taking that story back, can we?”

“S’the only one I have at the moment,” Lambert bit out, thighs spread wide to accommodate Arnaghad’s bulk between them. “Gonna’ try change it?” 

“Hmm,” Arnaghad leaned forward and licked up the length of Lambert’s throat, tasting the lust in his sweat.

The rest of the evening blurred. They kicked off their trousers and Lambert whined when Arnaghad’s truly gargantuan dick fell free. Was it too late to do some stretches? It took patience and a whole lot of fucking oil, but the moment it sank into him he felt like he’d transcended. It bulged out of his stomach with every deep thrust and Arnaghad could pin him with just one hand, grinding into him slowly, but relentlessly. His stamina lasted for hours, wringing orgasms from Lambert that made him cry and shake. 

Eskel was going to be so fucking jealous. Eskel and the Succubus; Lambert and the Living Legend with a cock the size of a tree trunk. The others had been good for a couple of rounds and then flopped beneath their furs; Arnaghad apparently had a lot to catch up on, because it was Lambert who whimpered a plea for mercy when the great Bear took his hips yet again in the early hours of the morning.

“They said you were insatiable,” Arnaghad whispered into his neck, his newly acquired lover resting his head on one thick bicep. The Bear touched him tenderly, stroking along his chest and side. Wolves were lean in comparison; sinewy and athletic for all their pretty pirouettes and jumps, and yet, this feral little beast had hissed and spat at him anyway. Someone that looked at him and judged him for exactly what he was, but decided to stay anyway. 

“Insatiable, not immortal, if you fuck me again today, I’m going to die,” Lambert sighed, his throat husky and sore from its valiant efforts early that evening. “Don’t you hibernate?”

“I haven’t slept properly in many years,” Arnaghad rested his head down on the pillow. “Sleep, Wolf. We’ll eat in a few hours.”

Lambert didn’t need to ask. Arnaghad, just like Vesemir, laid awake listening to the voices of ghosts in the wind. For Vesemir they were a constant whisper but for Arnaghad, with centuries of blood on his hands, they were probably louder than shrieking banshees. Lambert was too tired - too fucking sore - to ruminate on it much, and fell asleep easily.

He didn’t really leave Arnaghad’s side much that winter.