#witcher uncles

"Umm, absolutely fucking not." Ciri is started at the gruff voice that interrupts her shuffling into the great hall. Her clothes are askew, her shirt is half poking out her brown leather leggings. Vesemir is gonna bite her ass off for the abominable way her boots are tied, and if Calanthe would have lived, Cirilla would have earned herself a slap from the state of her messy braid that's half yesterday's braid and half knots and frizz from her last attempt at sleeping.

She felt all five witchers eyes upon her when she came into the room, the sound of their grunts and jeers letting her know that she was the last one to come out of her room. Geralt's gaze burns brightest, and she tries to ignore it as she walks over to the large pot upon the fireplace, bubbling bland gruel an odd mix of off white oats, black specs and white milk that hadn't been fully mixed in yet.

Vesemir's eyes are heavy, and she licks her dry, chapped lips when he grunts at her appearance. She doesn't want a lecture, she tried her best to be presentable after another long night of no sleep, plagued by her ghosts and her broken heart, the voices off all she had lost and had been taken from her and the smell of smoke from Cintra's burning walls that never seemed to leave her nose no matter how many times she washed her face or dunked her head in water.

Aiden and Coën are concerned, they're the most sensitive witchers, probably considering they aren't wolves, that they had lost their families just as Cirilla herself had, and unlike their beloved wolves, there is no mentor or two brothers each to comfort their losses. They're more open with their feelings, gruff as a witcher can be, and they brought her comfort in ways that despite how much she loved Geralt, he never could quite understand. They stare at her with pity and understanding, and a baseline of concern that all present witchers wear.

Eskel is the most standoffish towards her, even with the red headed prick of a wolf lives in this cold, drafty keep. It's nothing to do with her, she knows that, but he has issues regarding a different royal witcher child surprise, one from so long ago that seems to echo in the same hallways as Cirilla. It took over two weeks for the witcher to not scuttle off whenever the Queen of Cintra was in the room, longer to recognise that this girl was not Princess Diedre, that this was not his child surprise. That the rightful Queen of Cintra was Geralt's girl, and there was no need to fear a five foot pretty blonde with a broken heart and a wooden sword. Now, he is lovely, and now he watches her with pity and his own grief in his eyes.

Lambert, however, he is the only one to bring her out of her reviere, her head aching and heavy from lack of sleep. Nerves shot to shit from her ghosts and her demons, her instincts slow and her body lagging with her exhaustion and her fear.

She hadn't expected Lambert to speak, hadn't expected any of them to, to be honest. They never did. Cirilla allowed them their ghosts and their pasts, and they allowed her hers. Ciri never asked Geralt about Blaviken, never bothered Eskel about Diedre, she and Lambert never spoke about his parents, Vesemir didn't tell her about all the bodies of the boys he had raised and loved and burned in the pyres, and Coën and Aiden kept their sackings to themselves. That was how it always was, how it always had been. Apparently, not today.

"What?" She mumbles, scratching the back of her head, feeling the impressive blonde knot at the back. Her attempt to fill a bowl with a couple ladelfuls of bubbling oats is shorted when her black chipped bowl is removed from her hands and the oats are returned to the pot.

"Nope." Lambert grunts, dropping the bowl and grabbing the girl's shoulders. "Back to bed with you, Majesty."

The nickname that had always been just a tounge in cheek joke didn't come out as snarkily as it always had, so Ciri frowns at him, spinning right around when he tried to push her to the doorway.

"What're you doing?" She slurs. "Got training-"

"No, you do not." Geralt and Lambert say at once. They eye each other, and Ciri looks from one protector to the next, licking her lips.

"Listen to Daddy, pup." Lambett huffs. "Look't the state'a you." He drawls. "You look like shit, nerves shot to pieces, got bags under your eyes darker than the markings on the milk cow. You really think we're gonna give you a weapon when you can't stand straight? You'll take your own hand off, loose a foot. Now, what you're gonna do is drink some water, get a ladelful'a gruel down your throat and take your prissy little arse back to bed. And if any of us see you even lookin' at the training grounds, you're banned from all swordplay til we see your arse sleep from dusk till dawn. Understand, girl?"

Ciri looks to Geralt for backup, only to frown in betrayal when he shrugs her off.

"He's right, Cub. No good to anyone, even yourself, if you're exhausted. Drink, eat, then go back to bed. I'll check on you after breakfast, make sure you're still in the furs."

"And he'll tan your hide if you think of sneakin' out when none've us are looking. You got that, Princess?"

Utterly betrayed, Ciri huffs, reaching over for the big brown water jug.

"Fine."

"Mother of fuck." Lambert grunts as he helps Ciri lift off her shirt to reveal her wound. "How are you not dead, brat? That's one he'll of a cut for just being on the grounds." He frets, leaning over with his cloth soaked with water and iodine.

"Lambert." Eskel hisses as he unwraps Ciri's torn hand wraps. "For fucks sake."

"What? That's an impressive slice even for the pendulum." He raises his eyebrows. "Hardly my fuckin' fault if the thing broke and sliced her up."

"It is when you're the one who goaded her onto the thing in the first place, knobhead." Coën interjects, coming over with a basin of hot water, setting it on the table. "You alright, girl?"

"Stings." Ciri hisses when Lambert continues to clean her large wound. "And my hands, they hurt."

"They're not broken, pup." Eskel tries to soothe, although the deep cuts she had gotten from the scattered wood when the machine had broken do surprise him. It seems the leather wrappings did fuck all to protect her small hands from the jagged wood, he can count almost two dozen small slices ranging in size. "You're just cut up, we'll wash them up and get some bandages on." He says, leaning her arms over to place them in the bucket of hot water. Ciri hisses at the contact, but does little more.

"You're alright, girl." Coën comes over to the other side, looking at her wound from the back. "It'll need to be stitched up, but that's it. You haven't injured your insides or anything, no bruised blood." He tries to comfort her as best he can as Lambert pours pure iodine to disinfect the wound. Ciri tenses, crying out.

"Shh." Eskel pets her hair, still holding her hands in the water by her wrists. "You're okay, pup."

"Hurts." she choked. "Where's Geralt?"

"Fucker is still traipsing around the woods with Vesemir, there's a coupl'a griffins that're probably gonna nest. Best get them out of the way before the keep gets covered in snow." Lambert explains. "Should be back after supper. And he can bust all of our balls when he sees the state of you." He adds bitterly. "Wolf gets predatorial of his pup, you know?"

"More protective of her than you with the last of the gull." Coën smirks at his brother in arms. Lambert flips him off, before getting back to work.

"He might leave us with a ball each after he sees no infection. Hopefully." Lambert cringes.

Ciri chuckles at his face. "He'll be too busy frettering like a mother hen for the first hour or two. Brew him some drink to soften the blows, you witchers can drink yourself into a stupor with it, he'llbe too drunk to remember, and the cycle'll continue."

Coën laughs. "The pup is wise, lambchop."

"When your papa wolf gives us the okay, you'll be on the list to ply with drink whenever we piss you off by way of apology, you know that, witcher girl?"

"Good luck getting that past him, you'll kill him with alcohol poisoning, if that's possible with you witchers, before he lets that happen."

Of all the things Cirilla expected to find when Geralt had taken her to his mysterious Keep, the dogs were the things she hadn't expected. The horses were obvious, pigs and sheep and cows, all livestock equally as expected. Housemice and cats, less so until she saw how dusty and dirty the Keep had become. But dogs? That had been the unexpected one.

They're somewhere between wolves and shepherds. Too big and fluffy to be just shepherds, but too obedient and faithful to be pureblood wolves. But they're beautiful and such a pro to the cold, windy keep that Cirilla couldn't help but squeak in excitement as she looked upon them all for the first time.

They're beautiful creatures, white, black, red and grey. Some are pure colour, some a mix of two, three or all four colours. Beautiful and fluffy and large, a mix of brood studs and breeding bitches, old dogs and young pups all together in the largest room behind the kitchens, warm even in the coldest winter weeks.

Geralt had told her that they're for hunting. Vesemir says they make good company in the months he doesn't stray far from the keep. Eskel says they make good friends with the sheep, give them good exercise so they don't get too fat to breed. Lambert says they're annoying, slobbery mutts who get in the way. Coën finds them charming beasts, often grinning whenever one of the dogs come close. Aiden took a bit longer to get used to them, and rather stays with the cats who find unusual places to sleep, but even he has been caught rubbing their fur and squishing their faces.

Ciri loves them, spending a lot of time with the bigger beasts who are permitted to roam the large keep, and the smaller pups who are confined to the room. They're so soft and fluffy and make perfect makeshift blankets when she lay at the fireplace and two large bodies splay over her, keeping her warm and weighing her down, keeping her in reality when the nightmares disturb her slumber.

Geralt finds her one day, giggling with the pups as they wrestle and climb all over her, running her fingers over the soft fur and kissing their gentle snouts. He grins as she laughs, a little tounge licking at her face. She deserves something nice after so many hardships.

Let it be known that Geralt and his brothers are, all in all, good men. Yeah, they can be dicks -like that time Eskel and Geralt had dressed up as Wyverns and leaped upon their brother while he slept, or that time Lambert had spiked a bottle of white gull with a certain medicinal herb that made the thief more than obvious- but they are good men. Stupid, granted -Geralt had thrown Lambert off a snowdrift when they were training, while Eskel had tried to balance the wall after drinking two entire tankards of brandy- but they are good men.

Geralt had tried to make it clear on the trip up to Kaer Morhen with his new ward. All in all, she seemed to believe him, until Lambert had started hissing at her, about the way the pretty little princess did her pretty little hair and wore her pretty little dress and stuck her pinky up when she drank water. Ciri had thrown a horse shoe at him, and all deemed to have been well after that. Lambert was less of a knob, Eskel tried his best to push past his pain of yet another blonde daughter of Kaer Morhen running around the hallways, Coen was thrilled to have another lover of the arts amongst the cranky wolves, and Vesemir slipped into the old master role with ease.

Things had been going well -albeit with Cirilla's still wild powers popping up at the most inconvenient of times- with his girl eager to learn anything they would teach her. Swordplay, hand to hand combat, star throwing, sword making and even the mundane things like hunting, skinning, cooking, harvesting and laundry she took to with eagerness. It had probably been those weeks of confusion and helplessness that spurned her onwards in all things they taught her, eager never to be how she had been ever again.

And it was because of her determination and her willingness to get down and scrap with the witchers, sampling the alcohol they had let her have and twirling a cheese knife when she was taught how, with her messily tied braid and dusty cheeks as Lambert taught her all the fun curse words Eist hadnt gotten around to yet as he went theiught he basics of bombs, that they almost forgot the most obvious thing of all.

Ciri was a girl.

And that was why it was so startling to Geralt when Lambert had started snipping at the girl because of her washed hair and face -was it about that? Geralt hadn't been paying attention, he was so shocked at her reaction that the context didn't seem important anymore- that ciri simply dropped her spoon into her bowl of porridge, and promptly burst into tears.

All of the witchers took a deep breath, rearing back as if the girl would suddenly leap out and strike. She didn't do that, simply sat there on the bench and cried into her hands.

Geralt reaches over to her, having stayed close when her scent had changed a couple days ago. He didn't know why, and with all the Kings and Mages hunting the girl, any changes was concerning. That and the sudden metallic scent of blood he had noted when the girl had walked into the room that morning, he was very unnerved by this reaction.

Not knowing what else to do, and with his mind spinning as he tried to come up with a reason of why his girl was acting so differently, the witcher reaches out and brings her into his arms. She goes willingly, clinging to him as she continues to cry.

"I-I-I- uh-" Lamb stutters, looking at his brother, eyes wide. He's befuddled, and obviously concerned that his brother will be the one to leap at him and pummel him.

Geralt cuddles his girl as best he can, shushing her, and taking in the scent once more. It's different than her usual honey and lemon and rose petals, more salty and bitter, as well as the metallic scent of blood.

Changes of scent, blood, crankiness- oh.

"Ah." The penny finally drops, running his hands over her back as she sniffles. "I get it now."

And it seems that his brothers and father attain the same knowledge at the same time. They relax and tense in the same moment, obviously unsure of what to say.

"Get what? I disnt-" Lmabert speaks fast.

"Can you not smell the blood?" Eskel huffs quietly, cuffing his brother. "She's a girl. They bleed."

"What? I-oh. Oh. Yeah, I get it. Fuck. I-fuck." Lambert rambles. "Umm, I'm very sorry, Ciri. Didn't mean to upset ya." He drawls awkwardly, fiddling with his blackened fingers.

She finally starts to compose herself, but doesn't seem willing to let go of Geralt just yet.

"Shit-uh-" Vesemir mutters. "Girl, if you don't feel up to training or lessons, you can have a few days away from it. Don't want to pressure you." He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. "And, if you want to head back to bed, that's fine too. Or train as normal, whatever works for you."

Ciri sniffles, and stops crying, but doesn't let go of the white haired witcher, nor look at his kin.

"Uh, you want a tonic? For the pain? I'm sure we can find something that'll work to take the discomfort. Does it hurt, lovers have mentioned that it does." Vesemir starts to ramble.

Geralt, Eskel and Lambert grunt in disgust. Eskel groans in agony, while Lambert gags.

"Melitele's tits, old man. Last thing any of us want to picture is you sticking your dick in a woman."

Geralt gags at that, and Ciri manages a giggle.

Coën shares a grin with the old wolf, both of them knowing why he had added the last part.

"In all seriousness, you need anything, girl? We could rip up some of the old bedsheets for cloth, figure out what tonic would make ya feel better. Can look in some of the old textbooks for that tea recipe the matrons used to swear by." Coën says, looking at the girl as she finally pulls from Geralt a little. He slings an arm around her shoulders as she burrows in.

"Yes, thank you." She whispers, wiping her blotchy face.

"Come on-" Geralt pulls at her wrists as he stands. "let's get you laying down, that'll make you feel better? Can get a waterskin, fill that up with some hot water, does that help."

"It-it does." She nods, standing up. She looks at the other witchers. "Thanks, for being nice, I guess. I know it's not something you deal with usually."

"Nonsence, girl. Get restin', feelin' better. You're no use to us all teary and bloody." Lambert smirks, sincerely hoping the girl wouldn't cry again.

And by the way she huffs and flips him off, he's amused and jovial once again.

Ciri's running with the dogs. It's unusual that they get this much exercise when they are not hunting with the witchers, but Vesemir wanted the newest pup to run the killer and through the woods before supper. And much to their surprise, the little one didn't bitch or whine and moan. She simply agreed and went back to her lunch, slurping up her apple juice and pitting another small handful of greens into her mouth.

Geralt had been suspicious of the quick submission, she had been miserable and grouchy the first time they had run the killer together. And each time, she grumbled and groaned like Lambert with a hangover, and he was uneasy about this new acquiescence until she got up with Eskel and the two of them went outside.

Geralt follows, because of course he does, Lambert calls him a nosy, overprotective prick when it comes to the young Queen of Cintra. But he's intrigued by the change in the kid, and Eskel's apparent knowledge of it. And while he knew the girl liked the hunting dogs they kept in the Keep, he didn't think they would be used as bribes.

But bribes they were, he thinks with a grin, looking at the girl as she runs with the dogs. It's not all of them, the breeding bitches and a couple siring studs and the youngest pups are still in their kennels in the Keep. They yap amd bark with her, depending on their ages, the lot of them looking like an unusual multi species pack, running in the wind and sucking gown air greedily as they make their way through the woodlands.

Eskel was spotting behind her, making sure the dogs were still in line, and none were left behind. Presumably, he's there to make sure Ciri doesn't fall or hurt herself, but he keeps back a few yards so she feels free and wild as they run with precision, steps measured as they acclimatise to the rocks and mud on the ground.

Geralt grins at the sight of his girl laughing into the wind, leading the pack of hunters as she runs. It reminds him of when they first met, finding her wet and wild and rugged with leaves in her hair and mud on her torn cape. But they are in much happier circumstances in this moment. Cirilla is settled and fed and happy, and he has found a peace in which he had never known, being around this kid.

For all he resents Volentretenmerth and his prophecies and all they cost him, he knows the man was right in his knowledge that being with her soothed the itch he could not scratch, the Queen of Cintra being the thing that kept him up at night, their separation making him ache. And being around her now, teaching and protecting her, it soothes something he didn't even know was so drawn tight.

She gives him purpose, she gives Vesemir a reason to slip into the old master's role once again, one he had sorely missed since all his pups left the Keep. She has given Lambert healing from his bastard of a father, and gave Eskel reason to come to peace with what happened with Diedre.

How they've gotten into this position, Cirilla is not quite sure. At the start of the evening, they had all stumbled out of the dining hall with bellies stuffed of roast beef, salty, oily potatoes, sweet carrots and parsnip, thickly cut fresh bread and big slices of the blueberry pies eskel had been baking that afternoon.

She had slumped down next to Geralt on the lumpy couch, her belly so full that even a crumb would make her explode, she's sure of it. It's luxurious, however, having gone weeks without a proper meal to having this. She'll pick up extra chores tomorrow to keep Vesemir sweet and show her appreciation.

He had been in a similar state of fullness, eyes closing in bliss as the warmth from the fireplace licks his skin. He was warm and sleepy, and had spent the day outside with his girl collecting all the winter vegetables that grew on the surrounding grounds.

But now they've wound up laying on one of the settees looking rather cozy. Geralt is on his side, hus back to the backrest, and is currently using the girl as a teddy bear of sorts. She's mirroring and facing him, oh so very comfortable laying in his arms.

She's warm from the fireplace and cozy in her protectors arms, she's full from dinner and soothed by the laughs of her new family.