#lambcoen

“Rescue you?” Coën makes a show of glancing around the empty training grounds; that’s right, he had been a smarmy little know-it-all, Lambert forgot! Lambert always had a thing for smugness; must be why he liked the kid. “You don’t seem particularly endangered.”

“And yet,” he laughs coldly. “My days as a free man are numbered. I’m to be married off to a Griffin at sunset.” The hand-embroidered beast on Coën’s chest suddenly stands out, and Lambert realizes aloud: “Suppose that’s why you’re here. You part of the delegation?”

“I’m part of the sacrificial offering,” Coën corrects him. “I’m to be married to the youngest Wolf at sunset, so I fear we’re in the same boat, my old friend.”

Lambert’s stomach does a sort of flip, and he inhales sharply. “Fuck. The very same, then.” Coën frowns, his brows growing close together, and Lambert quickly clarifies, “I’m the youngest Wolf.”

“Fuck,” echoes Coën. On his lips, it sounds softer than it ever has coming from Lambert. Lambert can’t stop staring now that he knows the truth— he had imagined some young asshole Griffin that would take great pride in making Lambert his groom without any care for him. But Coën is one of the most caring people Lambert has ever known. He forces himself to rethink the situation as the confused man stammers, “How could you be the youngest? You’re— you don’t look young at all! I mean, not— you’ve certainly grown—“

“As have you,” Lambert grins rudely. “I must admit, Keldar’s description was beyond vague. Had I known that you were my betrothed—“

“What, you wouldn’t be fighting with a pillar at the top of a cold mountain?” Coën laughs, happy and surprised. Lambert just watches him, struggling to keep from smiling too widely and scaring him off. “Yeah, well, if I’d known, I wouldn’t have bitched so much on the way up here.”

“Right.” A very terrible idea rises to the top of Lambert’s mind, and as he is so often prone to do, he immediately seizes onto the notion and sets his heart on making it happen. “You know what? I think I know how we can really piss off both Vesemir and Keldar, and get out of this stupid arrangement. Did you ride on horseback up here?”

-

“Leave it to Lambert to ruin his own arranged marriage by fucking eloping,” Eskel marvels. The keep has never been busier what with the extra wedding guests and everyone running around looking for the two grooms, but Lambert’s brothers know better than to try to seek him out. The only way to find Lambert once he’s gone into hiding is to wait it out— that, or offer a really high cash reward so he can turn himself in. And they just lost a very prosperous deal, so they don’t exactly have the funds for that.

Geralt just takes a long drink from Lambert’s ceremonial wedding wine in response.

On cruel nights his mind leads him to lovely dreams of his real home, with wavy black hair and a smile as sharp as his— but far less ugly. The warmth draws Lambert in until he snaps to it magnetically, body falling into step with Aiden’s the way it always has done. They whisper sweet nothings to each other, except the nothings mean everything and Lambert wouldn’t trade them for anything. 

In the morning, he can’t remember a single word and it makes him angry enough to revisit the familiar dent in his wall, searching inside each bruise on his knuckles for the meaning of the dream. It’s been nearly two years since he heard the news of Aiden’s passing, but the wounds are fresh not only in his mind. Lambert only wraps his hands so that Coën won’t bitch about blood in the food and safety measures. As if they aren’t immune to illness anyway.

Then, one year, Geralt enters and Lambert watches that same warmth of home permeate his permanent frown. He stands, preparing to greet his brother and thinking delightedly of all the stories that he has to exchange, wondering excitedly of what news Geralt will have brought home for the winter. The white-haired witcher has a penchant for getting involved in politics and personal drama, even though he always claims he wants no part of it. And this past year did not want for political unrest, so Lambert can’t begin to imagine what hand Geralt had in it all.

But as he embraces his brother he sees a small creature behind him, with a head too big for her shoulders and hair too proper for anyone travelling with a witcher. Her wide eyes blink curiously at Lambert, who regrets meeting her gaze immediately. He scowls back, hoping to scare her off into running back down the mountain. Geralt, what the fuck have you brought into our home.

The creature, as it turns out, is at the centre of several stories that Lambert has zero interest in hearing. Did he say he wanted to laugh at Geralt’s political drama? No, certainly not. He wanted to keep to himself this winter, maybe try to see if he could get Eskel to sled with him again even though it had been such a shitshow last time. He wanted to finish writing that journal on succubi, and drink his own weight three times over, and maybe see if he could work up the nerve to tell his brothers about Aiden. None of those plans involve a child, especially not a smarmy, snot-nosed princess who also happens to be the prophesied centre of so much horseshit it’s unreasonable.

Princess Cirilla of Cintra, she calls herself, with all the airs of a monarch whose royal court had not been razed to the ground. Coën takes an immediate liking to her, because of course he fucking does. Lambert knew he couldn’t trust a Griffin with anything— when he tells Coën this, the brazen traitor just stares at him knowingly, fingers loosely holding his stein of ale. “You’ll like her too,” Coën has the gall to inform Lambert. “She’s been through a lot, Lambchop.”

“I always tell you not to fucking call me that,” Lambert spits back even though he never once has. Coën doesn’t call him on it, and thank the Gods, Geralt’s precocious new plaything doesn’t hear the nickname. That’s the last damn thing he needs to make this winter any worse than it already is.

Then, as if thinking a dark thought like that could speak trouble into existence, Gwain stumbles through the front doors of the Keep. The lady under his arm wouldn’t be dressed warmly enough for Novigrad, let alone the top of a mountain, and behind her come several more. 

Geralt quickly pulls his child aside, directing a glare at Gwain that makes him look very much like Vesemir, but Lambert just tightens his grip on his ale and stumbles to his feet. “Now this is more like it,” he crows, welcoming his brother with open arms. “Gwain, you certainly understand who to bring to a reunion! Who are these lovely visitors?”

In his peripheral vision Lambert sees the child draw closer to Geralt, who is practically seething. But he ignores it in favour of greeting one of the girls, who gladly sidles up to him. God, she must be freezing. What was Gwain thinking? Lambert glances at the other witcher and sees that his eyes are alight not with the joy of coming home but something else entirely. He looks terrible, face marred by something that must have tried to take a bite out of his beard. He must not have his arm around the woman just for show, then— Lambert looks closer and sees her hand pressed to his side as if to apply pressure. 

His pulse races and his face falls, but before he can demand answers Gwain spits out, “I just thought it might relieve some tension. I know I need it after my last fight.” 

Gwain reaches around his back and the girl releases him only so that he can slap a sack down on the floor. A skeletal, wooden arm falls out, and the witchers all converge on the broken limb with concern. Vesemir is the first to ask, in near-wonder, “Is that a leshy?”

“Moved like one. Looked like one.” Gwain rips his shirt open, and even the prostitutes around him are too shocked by the ugly wound there to make any ribald comments. “Stung me like one.”

If Lambert had known now what he would eventually learn, he would throw Gwain and his band of women right back out those doors, and pace over to Geralt and give him a stern talking-to about bringing his battles inside the Keep, and then perhaps hug Everard and Merek so closely that he would need to be pried off.

But he hadn’t known, so he just embraced the nearest brunette and left Geralt to his own devices, not sparing his brother or the princess another thought for the rest of the night.

With the morning comes grief that none of them were ready to face. Geralt handles it the best out of all of them, because of course he does. When he learns that the White Wolf was the one to land the killing blow, Lambert can’t restrain himself from throwing barbs in Geralt’s direction and hoping one will stick. He isn’t sure when he picked up the habit, he only knows that he feels sick triumph when Geralt finally turns around to parry his cruelty. And even that isn’t as satisfying as it once was, not when Geralt’s preoccupied with his Child Surprise.

A hand on his arm pulls him away from his meagre breakfast. Coën brings him away from the others, and Lambert would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited about being admonished. He prepares himself for a good scolding, setting his jaw against the inevitable backlash from his cruelty towards Geralt. He can practically already hear the Griffin’s voice reverberating around his skull: He’s suffering too, we all are. You don’t need to act like a dick for us to know you’re hurting, Lamb. We see you. I see you. I notice you.

Instead, Coën pulls him into a side corridor off the main hall, releasing his grip on Lambert’s arm only to gently hold him by the jaw. Coën’s head might be ravaged by pox scars but his fingertips are smooth and free of calluses. Astonishingly incongruous hands for a witcher to have. Lambert couldn’t look away if he wanted to, swept off his feet by the tenderness in Coën’s eyes where he’d expected— wanted— rage. Without removing his hands from either side of Lambert’s face, Coën tells him gently, “If you need to talk about your feelings, you know I’m here.”

The whole sentence and delivery is so remarkably Aiden that Lambert feels bile rise up his throat. He bats Coën’s hands away from his head, not caring much if he slaps the other man in the process. But Coën drops his hold without protest or reaction, which is obviously more irritating. “I’m fine,” Lambert hisses. “Not the first time we’ve lost a witcher. Not even the first time it’s happened here.”

“It can still have an impact,” Coën points out quietly. He, of course, knows this better than most other witchers; while Lambert has dealt with the personal grief of losing Aiden and Vesemir saw his kin murdered when he was still young, Coën’s entire school was eradicated. The only other Griffin Lambert knows is the poor fellow depicted in the tapestry upstairs— the one they all vandalize as a rite of passage. Coën should be angrier than any of them, but somehow his grief has cauterized him into the good man he is today.

Lambert suddenly can’t stand to look at him. He brushes past Coën without another word, dismissing his generic offer of help without a second thought.

Soon after they lose Gwain, Geralt’s brat takes up Lambert’s favourite spot in the courtyard every morning and afternoon. It’s such a basic petty grievance that Lambert is embarrassed by how much it irks him, but he can’t help the ire he feels every time he sees the princess hacking away at the same straw training dummy, using the same terrible tactics over and over. For hours. Doesn’t she ever get tired? 

Unlike his training sessions as a child, no one is there to beat her if she complains, or to pull her off the post before she collapses of exhaustion. Geralt must be slacking; he’s probably off deciding which of the other witchers he wants to kill next.

As soon as he’s had that thought Lambert regrets it, but he can’t take it back— even if he didn’t voice it to anyone. He drags his fingers through his curls and thinks of his lost friend. What would Aiden do, watching this poor girl struggle in the courtyard? Lambert is ashamed to admit that he has no fucking idea.

He rounds up Coën, figuring that two shitty trainers will still work better than none, and sets into action giving the child the lightest imaginable version of Vesemir’s morning routine. He hopes it will scare her away from the profession, so he muscles through the anxiety and ignores every side-eye Coën shoots his way. It will all be worth it when the child runs, crying and bleeding, back to the safety of the fortress.

When she falls a sixth time, small body hitting the snow with a thump that makes Coën cringe, Lambert steps forward to heckle her. “This is what being a witcher is, princess! It’s nothing like your nobility classes, how to balance books on your head. It is pain, over and over again, until the nerves that feel that pain are dulled enough that it doesn’t matter.” He sees Coën stiffen, but the Griffin remains silent. And so Lambert eggs the kid on, “Had enough yet?”

On shaking, tiny arms, the girl rises. Her pretty blonde hair is matted with sweat and at some point she must have scraped her hands; they bleed, unbandaged. Lambert remembers every ugly splinter he had to pry out of himself after this training course. He twitches but doesn’t relent, staring right back at her green eyes. “That’s enough for the day, Ciri,” Coën finally speaks up. “You’re going to overwork yourself and make a mistake.”

“I can do it,” the girl replies, trembling. “I can!”

The wooden hammers swinging out of sync catch her mid-step, knocking her down onto the ground. This time the cry she lets out is so piteous that even Lambert has to relent. “Enough,” he snarls, stepping forward. “You can’t do it, so give it a rest.”

But the girl is quicker than he expects, and she dodges his hands, scaling the ladder in record time. Lambert is left on the ground, staring stupidly at the bloodstained white snow and remembering his own childhood so intensely that he nearly misses Ciri’s first success on the training course.

The days slip into weeks as they approach and then pass the winter solstice, making it clear that the young Cintran princess is here to stay. Geralt stays too, although his attention is far from focused on one area. He spends his days training his Child Surprise and his nights labouring over the leshy arm with Vesemir, only spending his meals with the other Wolves. 

It feels like Geralt is busy solving some mystery that Lambert can’t even begin to comprehend, which is maybe why he’s so thoroughly unsurprised when Triss arrives at the Keep, prettier and wiser than he remembers. Lambert and Coën make the mistake of teasing Ciri in front of her which leads to a lecture harsh enough to make him feel like a child again. Lambert doesn’t hang his head, though; he watches Merigold lead Ciri away, fighting off the odd feeling in his chest. As they leave, Coën makes some mild remark about how he’d liked the flowers in her hair, and the feeling rises to a boiling point.

“If you like the princess so much, go hang out with her instead,” he snaps, and oh, shitting fuck, what a stupid thing to say. Coën turns his gaze on Lambert but where Lambert expects derision— really, Lambchop? Jealous of a child— he only sees the same soft sympathy that Coën meets him with so often these days.

“I do spend time with her, quite often,” says Coën. Somehow this is even worse than a lecture. “I play Gwent with her, and Eskel reads her stories. You’re the only one who still doesn’t like her.”

“I never said I didn’t like her,” says Lambert quickly.

“Yes, you have,” Coën snorts. “Multiple times. But she really isn’t that bad… maybe if you spent time with her too, you’d see—”

“I don’t need to do that,” snaps Lambert. “Whatever you’re fucking seeing in her, I don’t see it, alright? So just… leave me be, Co.”

And, to his incredible dismay, Coën gives him one long look before he does exactly that. Lambert is left alone in the dining hall, ale souring in his cup and thoughts turning rancid. He wants to shout and stir up a fuss and kick the place apart, but he knows it wouldn’t even make an impact. Nobody’s here to listen to his self-absorbed bullshit anyway. He should just grow up. Lambert picks up the pitcher of ale and drains it in two long gulps, and after that the night is a pleasant, sickening blur.

Things finally come to a head when Geralt is away on mysterious monstrous business that he refuses to let his brothers in on, and as a result Ciri has been left in the care of Triss and Vesemir. Lambert wakes up in his own bed to the sound of blissful silence from the courtyard; no blades swinging, training or otherwise. He revels in the peace for a long moment, stretching out under his blankets and entertaining the idea of heading back to bed.

When he and Aiden had travelled on the Path together, they would allow themselves the beautiful privilege of sleeping in way more often than they should have. But Lambert wouldn’t trade the memories of those mornings for any coin in the world. He thinks of it now, hand curling around the bottom of his pillow, remembering the kiss of Aiden’s rough stubble against his jaw and throat. Day’s a-wasting, Lamb. As if Aiden weren’t solidly sandwiched in atop him, preventing him from making any movement at all. Lambert would drag his knee up to make a show of trying to escape, and Aiden would just kiss him again, arms burrowing under him to hold him in place. Come on, get up. What’s stopping you?

For once, the memories soothe instead of ache. Lambert lies with them in silence, enjoying the phantom warmth until it fades, leaving him bereft and alone as ever. Then the silence from the courtyard really starts to bother him, and he grows annoyed with Ciri. How dare she get them all accustomed to a certain noise level this early in the morning and then fail to provide it out of the blue? He ought to have a word with her.

He dresses, expecting the usual witchers mingling about the main rooms, but the Keep is surprisingly empty. Eskel nods to him from where he’s cleaning up everyone’s breakfasts— thanks to the lack of Ciri’s training this morning, Lambert must have slept in. Lambert nods back gratefully but declines the bowl that Eskel left for him. “Seen Merigold anywhere?”

Eskel shrugs with one shoulder. He’s always so polite to Triss for reasons that Lambert will never understand. Maybe the two of them have a thing— but no, that can’t be possible with the way she drifts around after Geralt. “Checked her room yet?”

Lambert hasn’t, so he does. He gets an uneasy feeling when he sees her possessions half-packed, half-strewn about the room. For all her annoying habits, Triss is neat to a fault. He can’t imagine her leaving her quarters in this state unless she was packing to go somewhere and got pulled away. A nerve twangs at his heart, making him anxious for no reason— Lambert dismisses it, but he continues his search just a little faster. Where is Ciri?

After the mess hall and the private rooms he heads to the laboratory in the basement— he’s been avoiding this place ever since Gwain met his unfortunate end down here. Lambert’s ears prick up when he hears voices, and he clings to the wall, unusually suspicious. Nothing bad ever happens at Kaer Morhen— except, of course, for all the very terrible things that do, and have, and will happen here.

Vesemir’s voice rings out against the silence. “Hold still— yes, like that.” There’s an uncertain quaver in the old man’s tone that makes Lambert quicken his pace, and when he turns the corner he’s glad he did. He skids to a halt, watching the terrible scene laid out before him. It’s just like something plucked from one of his nightmares. The child, strapped to the bed, a cloth tied tightly around her arm to expose the veins. Vesemir hovering over her, vial in his shaking hand, his face dark in shadow. Attached to the vial is an apparatus to inject the potion— the mutagen, Lambert realizes. This is no nightmare; this is real.

He can hardly control himself as he marches up to the bed, shoving the old man away. “Stop,” Vesemir and Ciri both decree in the same haughty voice, both trembling with indecision. Well, lucky for them he showed up. Without hesitation or response, Lambert slaps the contraption out of Vesemir’s hand. Vesemir repeats, eyes wild, “Stop, Lambert! This is more important than you know!”

“Stop,” echoes Ciri, straining against the binds keeping her in place. “I asked him to! I made my choice!”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Lambert growls, reaching to free Ciri. But instead of letting her do something as monumentally stupid as lie back down he scoops her into his arms, ignoring her cries of protest. She claws against his back and scratches through his shirt, kicking and screaming, but Lambert doesn’t even really hear her. He hears himself, as well as Geralt, and Remus. And he hears all the other children who had been strapped down and force fed compounds that they didn’t even know how to spell. It killed more than half of them, and mutated the ones that lived, and like fucking hell is he letting it into Ciri. “Vesemir, how could you? What kind of choice is this to offer a child?”

“It’s the same one we all took,” Vesemir tells him, sagging with exhaustion. But his eyes dart over to the fallen vial— he hasn’t given up yet.

“Yeah, well, I don’t remember making a fucking choice!” Before either of them can say another word Lambert marches away from the bed, carrying Ciri with him. She kicks him the entire way up to her room, complaining loudly— he tunes out the whining along with bursts of pain, noting with private amusement that her training really must be working if he’s hardly able to carry her without stumbling.

Only when the door to her bedroom is safely shut behind him does Lambert finally relax, kneeling a little before dropping Ciri like a sack of flour. She lands on her feet, staring up at him with barely-contained fury in her wide, teary eyes. Lambert doesn’t much care about her qualms with what he did, seeing as he’s sure Geralt would have done the very same thing. But he figures he’s been a tool for long enough, so he meets her gaze head-on and growls, “Listen. Whatever he told you it would be, he left out a lot of important shit. It’s not just a quick path to power, princess. You have to trade away your fucking soul in the process, and it might just kill you anyway!”

“I know that,” Ciri retorts, sounding just as angry as him. “I don’t have another choice, alright? I need to protect myself, I can’t always rely on Geralt to be there. I don’t want to feel like this anymore!”

With those last words she lashes out against him, hitting his stomach with both of her fists. Lambert takes the blow well— a human would be rolling up and crying, but he just winces for a second. Ciri recoils as soon as the punches land, stepping away from him and backing up onto the bed. Lambert exhales away the brief pain, shaking his head sadly. “It won’t fix that either. I mean, you don’t really believe all that shit about witchers not feeling anything, right?”

Her silence gives away that she might have believed it, at least a little. Lambert thinks he’s finally beginning to understand Ciri. He sinks to sit on the floor, back still pressed against the door just in case Vesemir decides to make two stupid choices in one day. The girl rubs the heels of her hands against her eyes and spits out, “I’m just tired of feeling so afraid all the time. And when I’m not afraid, I’m fucking angry. All the time. How do I… how is anyone supposed to cope with that?”

“A punching bag, perhaps,” Lambert jokes. Ciri glances his way and he realizes she’s taking him seriously, so he tries to adjust his tone. He can’t imagine what Coën or Aiden or Eskel or Geralt or Triss might say. Instead, he makes a shitty attempt at speaking from the heart. “Uh… helps to find someone who’ll listen. Who gets it. A friend— but don’t get too attached, because, you know. People die.”

“I do,” Ciri says, so earnestly it hurts. He forces himself to remember, for the first time, what this child has been through. It’s an indisputable fact that she has it worse than he ever did, even adding his douchefuck of a father to the equation. Haltingly, as if she isn’t sure whether her questions will be welcomed, she asks, “Do you talk to Geralt about it?”

“Sometimes,” Lambert says. “Eskel, too. Coën mostly. And there was… hell, princess, you don’t wanna hear this.”

But Ciri repeats, this time ardent and determined, “I do,” and she moves over on the bed. She pats the spot beside her with a tiny hand, face bright and free of any agenda except to listen.

Lambert sighs. He presses his ear up against the door once more but doesn’t hear any sign of Vesemir approaching to steal the child away. So he tries to slow his still racing heart, shoves a chair under the door to keep it shut, and walks over to sit beside Ciri. “There was another witcher,” he admits, when it becomes clear that she’s waiting for him to start. “You won’t have heard his name from Coën or any of the others, because, uh, they didn’t know him. Different schools. You know the different schools, right?”

Ciri nods. “What was his name?”

Inhaling sharply, Lambert begins the story he’s never shared with anyone else here.

-

After cutting his trip with Istredd short when he heard the distant, psychic cry of a very distressed Ciri, Geralt is a touch confused when he returns to the fortress and finds it absolutely peaceful. Vesemir and Triss are nowhere to be found so Geralt heads right for Ciri’s room, suspicions confirmed when he finds it locked. 

He wants to fire an Aard off immediately, but he doesn’t think anyone would appreciate being woken up like that. So he hesitantly reaches out and knocks with a gloved fist, muttering quietly, “Ciri? You alright?”

“Just a second,” comes the quick reply. She doesn’t seem as upset as she had earlier, so Geralt tries to wait patiently. From inside the room he hears the quiet scuff of furniture being dragged across the floor, and then the door opens. Ciri looks up at him, heart beating a little faster than usual. “You came back.”

“Of course,” Geralt says, nearly pushing past her to sweep the room. Then he sees the figure out cold on the bed. In a shock, he realizes it’s Lambert— and even more shockingly, that his brother’s hair is all done up in fine Cintran braids. Dryly, he says, “I see he was rude enough that you finally snapped and killed him. We all warned him this might happen.”

“No,” Ciri laughs, and the sound warms Geralt’s heart. Although he wouldn’t admit it aloud, he loves when he catches her smiling at his jokes. “No, he just fell asleep. He was telling me a nice story about his life.”

The resident’s eyes bulge out of his head a little but he doesn’t comment on the profanity, only sniffing quietly before following Lambert to the elevator. Lambert pushes the button and the doors open straightaway; he waits for the old man to get in first. “Where to?”

“Uh, 4B.”

“Ah, nice. Headed to 4D myself,” Lambert says. He slams the button for their floor and whistles quietly. In the mirrored walls of the elevator, he can see the other man still watching him strangely.

Sure enough, his neighbour doesn’t stay silent for long. “I thought 4D was a one-bedroom suite… you live there alone?”

Ah, this again. Lambert isn’t quite sure why their situation eludes the imagination of all the old curmudgeons that live here; even the landlord was perplexed. Figuring he might as well have some fun, he clears his throat.

-

When Coën gets home an hour later Lambert can practically hear him panicking all the way down the hall. He finally kicks open the door to the apartment— well, he does the Coën equivalent to that which involves flaring his nostrils and raising his voice before he even takes off his jacket. “Lambert,” he demands.

Lambert peeks over the edge of the couch, grinning. Aiden is still on a work call in the other room and, disappointingly, has yet to give in to Lambert’s persistent methods of distraction. So Coën is, as always, a sight for sore eyes. “Yes, doll?”

“Why does Mr Vigo down the hall think that I hired male strippers?!”

Lambert sulks. “I can’t believe he snitched after I offered him a private show and everything.”

For the first time all day Aiden peeks his head out of their room, holding, bizarrely, a golf club. “Strippers?”