Main timeline, after the first year on the Path. for Geralt (@witchered / affiliated).
❝ Fuck this fucking year on that fucking Path, leading to assfuck nowhere but pricks in fancy pants, field hand fucking the farmer's ugly missus. — the fucking monsters are the smallest problem of them all. I need a fucking drink — // oi! No no, not a cup, gimme the whole fucking bottle! ❞
Eskel is already intoxicated. The one thing he learned first on the Path was how to get pissed fucking thoroughly and then get the next well rounded whore on his lap.
The safety of Kaer Morhen has been sorely missed. It's been a horrible year. Like something stretched beyond their original tolerance it felt. Only here Eskel could calm down. But he didn't.
All he wanted was to get drunk and pass out in the entry hall. Waiting. Wishing. Wishing to see his love & the only love he's ever known..sunset eyes scan the room as another brother put a tiny mead barrel on the table next to him. No thank you is spoken, no gratitude is shown. Only Eskel and his stare. How he opens the barrel and fills his cup to the brim.
The smell of snow, goat and embers Eskel only ever noticed if he turned attention away from the doors.
Why is Geralt not coming?
Eskel had searched for him on the Path and never got any news. While he found out what Gwain and Lambert were doing, there was no trace of Geralt.
A pain, the missing of his heart, the reason for Eskel to live ...just isn't here with him and it breaks him.
What if he is dead? Please don't be dead, Eskel thought, now slowly becoming dizzy and drowsy from the booze.
Soon they'd send him upstairs to sleep it off. The merciful dullness of a drunken mind.