A/N: Set almost 2 months after Geralt finds a baby girl (the same in all my fics) in the woods, and 5 years before he asks for the Law of Surprise. They did Eskel dirty this season so I’m going to try and write as much of him as I can to rectify that. Enjoy!
(The characters are based more on what we see in the show as opposed to the games/books - Eskel’s is mostly from the flashback we saw of him and Geralt, which I adored).
Title: An Accidental Purpose
Summary: Geralt brings the baby he found in the woods to Kaer Morhen to meet Vesemir and his brothers.
The sight of home had never been accompanied with more dread.
The witcher dismounted Roach, snow crunching under his boots. One arm gripped the motionless bundle to his chest, both a reminder of the real reason he was here, and a repellent of the same thing. He grasped the reins and clicked his tongue, encouraging the horse to walk forward.
Eskel would understand. He relied on that. Lambert would take some time—perhaps a few years, and even then, he was too stubborn to completely rebuke his original opinion. Vesemir…was Vesemir. Geralt was sure his old mentor would set him up by the fire with hot food and good ale, but he also knew there would be questioning glances thrown his way throughout the night, until he broke, and his lips spilled the words he’d bottled up over the past six weeks.
He took a step forward, then suddenly found his feet frozen to the ground, eyes staring ahead. Irritation coursed through him, and he tensed his jaw. “Fuck,” he breathed out, a frosty cloud emanating from his mouth. He could do this. It was home. He had come here every winter, once upon a time, holing out the cold months with his brothers in the only place they were safe. That was why he had returned, after all. She would be protected, and he would finally, with any luck, receive the help he so desperately sought for, however much he fought the notion that he didn’t need it. But each time he toyed with taking a step towards the heavy doors he had opened innumerable times before, he was reminded that the last winter he had been here, was one he could not really remember.
It was his fault. He told himself it wasn’t, life had merely taken him on too many adventures, but he’d passed the road to Kaer Morhen last winter, and the winter before he had spent his coin on an inn in Cintra. The winters before that escaped his mind. Lambert would know how long it had been. Geralt fancied the redhead kept a tally, etched into the rock above his bed, just so he could use it to spite him.
He wasn’t certain why he hadn’t just turned down that path. Perhaps solidarity simply became him. Perhaps that was why some small part of him wanted nothing more than a silent shelter for the night, and he knew silence would become a distant memory the moment any of his brothers lay eyes upon what he held in his arms. No doubt the bigger part of him, the feasibly saner part of him, wanted them all to be there, so he could hear from someone else just how ridiculously fucking stupid he was being and finally believe it himself. But he couldn’t disregard the small part. That was the consequence of a life alone.
The bundle moved, a little mewing noise sounding from beneath the blankets, and he remembered susceptibility to cold was a very human thing. He had ignored the wind as it snapped at the bits of skin his cloak failed to cover, and the snowflakes clinging to his clothes, but he knew this bundle, or what was beneath it, at least, couldn’t do the same. So, he forced himself to move, mindful of the unfamiliarly quick thud of his heart against his chest. A late reunion was better than none at all, he told himself, no matter if he was bringing extra.
He stretched his arm out once he reached the door and grounded himself. “Fuck,” he said again, louder this time, and pushed.
The scent of roasted meat met his nose immediately as the creak echoed throughout the keep. If he weren’t so tense, rigged with consciousness of the night’s impending strain, he would have taken it all in and savoured it with every ounce of his exhausted being. He had not felt the warmth of that hearth in years, blazing with a fire that had thawed many frozen hands and hearts over the decades. Memories returned to the forefront of his mind, filling it with reminders of family, and home, and safety, and the love he seemed to have forgotten for a while.
His presence abruptly halted conversation, heads, perhaps a dozen of them, twisting around to see who of them had been missing. As though they didn’t know. As though they hadn’t known for the past few winters. Someone stood to their feet, a head of untamed ginger curls Geralt would recognise anywhere, and a bellowing laugh resounded around the hall.
“Is that really you?” Lambert asked, taking a long swig from his tankard. “Geralt of Rivia, arisen from the dead, finally home to grace us with his marvellous presence?” He held a knife in his hand, a piece of red meat stuck to the end of it, and he pointed it at Geralt as he took calculated steps towards him. “What took you so long?”
Despite it all, Geralt allowed himself a small smile. He pushed the hood of his cloak back to reveal his white hair. “Is this how you greet everyone now, Lambert?” he asked, indicating the knife, and Lambert shrugged. For a moment, emotions seemed to war on his face—should he clap his brother on the back in a warm welcome or stick the blade in, just a little, to prove an unspoken point?
“Suppose you wouldn’t know,” he decided on, “considering it’s been so long since we last saw each other.”
There was a moment of complete silence, filled only with the two witchers staring straight at each other, neither budging. Then, Lambert cracked, and his lips broke into a grin. He took a step forward and grasped Geralt in a hug. “It’s good to see you, brother,” he said around a laugh. Geralt drew the bundle into his chest as much as possible, careful not to let it get crushed between them. “And you’re well?”
Geralt rose a brow when Lambert drew back, grasping his shoulders at arm’s length. “Do I look it?”
“Fuck no. But you’re home. We thought you dead, you know?”
“I’ve come close to it, believe me.” He briefly glanced around the room, noting the diminished numbers. He knew it hadn’t long turned winter, and witchers were still to arrive, but there were usually more. He wouldn’t question it. Not now, anyway.
“That’s not how he greeted me, by the way.”
Lambert scowled as Eskel came forward. “You were here before me, shit-for-brains.”
“Ignore him,” Eskel told Geralt, a grin on his lips, “he’s just overcome by emotion. You know how he is.” He opened his arms wide, expertly ducking Lambert’s swing, and Geralt, unsurprised with the peace he felt at the mere sight of one of his oldest—and most open-minded, which was important here—friends, accepted his embrace. He discreetly shifted the bundle once again, absently searching the room over Eskel’s shoulder for Vesemir. Geralt would take in any advice he was given, but Vesemir’s he would value most.
“Geralt?” Eskel spoke quietly in his ear.
“There is a tiny hand sticking from your pile of blankets.”
Geralt glanced down. Sure enough, a pink hand was stretched out, curled into a fist. Eskel stepped back and fixed him with a look while Geralt covered it again with the blanket. He looked up, likes creasing his forehead. “I need to speak to Vesemir.”
“He’s in his room.” Eskel’s eyes flicked between Geralt and whatever he was holding. He so clearly wanted to ask questions, but he let it go for the moment, jerking his head in the direction of the corridors instead. “Come on.”
The hallways in the keep had always been cold, but the witchers had learnt to look past that and see it as a sanctuary. A place they could call home. Once, the sound of the howling wind during the winter had been masked by the noise of laughter and cheer, but now, as Geralt followed Eskel, feeling oddly like a chastised child, the silence between them did nothing for the eeriness he could hear outside. Eskel didn’t turn once, likely absorbing the information he had and piecing together the information he didn’t have. And Geralt, his arms wrapped around the bundle of blankets and human, wondered not for the first time if he’d made a mistake.
They stopped outside Vesemir’s room, and Eskel knocked once. “Had a run-in with a wyvern,” he explained, glancing over his shoulder for just a moment. “He was sleeping it off, last we checked. Though that was two days ago.”
Geralt huffed in as much amusement as he was currently capable of. A muffled “yeah, I’m still alive” sounded through the door and Eskel pushed it open with a chuckle. Vesemir was sat at the edge of his bed, pulling on his boots.
“I’ll join you for dinner in just a moment,” he said, pausing when he lifted his head and caught sight of Geralt. His eyes went wide, then they relaxed, and he smiled in a mixture of joy and relief. “Geralt. You’re home.”
Geralt wanted nothing more than to grasp his mentor in a fierce hug. Since the moment he’d been stuck with the baby, he’d ached for Vesemir’s words of wisdom that always seemed to pierce through whatever instability he had accidentally created. Though he doubted they would be the words he wanted to hear, he knew they would be true. But he desperately wanted this out of the way.
“I am,” he said. Vesemir stood to his feet, smile faltering when Geralt didn’t move to properly greet him. Geralt briefly glanced at Eskel, who was standing silently by the side of the bed, arms crossed, eyes expectant.
“I would appreciate some help,” he said bluntly. There was no point in being avoidant, and Geralt knew it. He pulled the blankets back enough to reveal the little face of a sleeping human baby. Eskel’s mind had already worked it out, but the sight of the baby in the witcher’s arms caused his brows to leap anyway. He visibly swallowed and heaved a deep breath, propping his hands on his waist.
Vesemir, meanwhile, stayed where he was. His expression hadn’t changed much, apart from the widening of his eyes. Geralt found himself desperately searching for a reaction—he didn’t honestly care what it was, he just needed something. Instead, the room was enshrouded in a ridiculously painful silence that had Geralt shifting absently from foot to foot in a display of discomfort he never felt.
“I found her almost two months ago in a basket in the woods,” he rushed to explain, as though the others had been readying to speak. “She had no one, so I took her.”
Eskel cleared his throat. “And you’re, what, in the process of finding someone to take her from you?”
Eskel stared back, genuinely confused. Then, a realisation seemed to cross his face, and he dipped his head. “Then…are you looking for someone to tell you this is not going to end well? That you, a witcher, cannot possibly be considering keeping this human child? Because you’ve certainly come to the right fucking place.”
“No.” Geralt’s voice hardened. “I don’t want that. At least, I don’t think so. Fuck.” He averted his eyes and grit his teeth. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The baby gurgled and in an action that had become surprisingly instinctive over the past weeks, he moved her, settling her head against his forearm, and covering her with the blanket once again. Eskel and Vesemir looked on with no small amount of alarm and surprise written on their faces. The latter uncrossed his arms and took slow steps towards Geralt.
“You’ve had the child two months?” he asked. He stopped and looked thoughtfully at the baby. “She’s alive. You obviously know some of what you’re doing.”
“I feed her, protect her, and keep her warm. That’s it.”
“How do you deal with the crying?”
“Cow’s milk. She doesn’t like goat’s.”
“I haven’t fought since. I’ll figure something out.”
Eskel reached out, touching the hand he’d noticed earlier with his fingertip. The baby latched onto it, and Eskel glanced up at Geralt, their eyes fearful for a reason they weren’t yet entirely sure of and would only come to understand in the years ahead.
Eskel sniffed, not removing his finger. “Have I told you this isn’t going to end well?”
A corner of Geralt’s lips turned upwards, just as the door swung open and a mostly unwelcome voice broke the settling atmosphere.
“What’s this, hey? You finally come home and then fuck off like—the fuck is that?”
Eskel gently shook his finger free and turned to face Lambert. “You know what a baby is, Lambchop. You’re not far from one yourself.”
Lambert ignored him, for once in his life, his eyes fixed on the baby in Geralt’s arms.
He crossed his arms and grinned. “Where’d you dig this scrap up? I’d ask if you got a whore pregnant but…” He laughed, bending to peer at her. “Claim the Law of Surprise recently by any chance, Geralt?” At the silence which followed, he straightened and turned, tossing his arms out wildly. “What? Did Coen stick a kick me sign on my back again? I’ll kill that damn—”
Eskel cleared his throat and rubbed at his eye. “Geralt wants to keep the baby.”
Lambert looked from Eskel, to Vesemir, to the baby, and back to Geralt. Then, he laughed, a guffawing sound that lasted a second before his brows furrowed and he shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a good one. Now, Geralt, if you want food, the meat’ll be gone by the time—”
Lambert stopped mid-speech, his hand in the air. He looked about ready to laugh again at what he assumed to be a joke, but he quickly clocked the faces around him and dropped his arm. “Well, I’ve really heard it all now.”
Geralt flecked his free hand. “Lam—”
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Geralt?” Lambert’s words were sudden and harsh, an almost hiss to them that had the baby jolting awake. Her wide blue eyes stared up at Geralt, who’d turned away from Lambert with a growling huff at nothing other than the fact the witcher had frightened her, and her bottom lip began to tremble. A whimper came from her mouth, and then she began to sob. Geralt fancied it was the only thing capable of making his heart twist, and he did not like the fact it was happening here, now, in front of those who wouldn’t possibly feel the same. She didn’t wail, or shriek like the babies he heard in the villages, not unless she was tired or hungry. Instead, she managed to perfectly portray her emotions through her teary eyes and wobbling lip, something he instantly felt the need to protect.
Before he could do anything, Eskel was beside him, no words of permission coming from his lips as he took the baby from Geralt’s arms, blanket and all, and held her in his own. Geralt watched, part of him overjoyed that Eskel wished to hold the baby he’d only minutes ago been questioning, and the other part acutely aware that this was the first time she’d been taken from him.
“Let’s go over here, shall we?” Eskel’s attention was fixed entirely on the baby as he carried her to the end of the room. He took his medallion from around his neck and gave it to her outstretched hands. “Look at this. Shiny, yeah? Here, you take it.”
Before Lambert could speak again, Geralt steeled himself and grit his teeth, grounding out his words.
“I found her close to death and I am now keeping her alive.”
“That’s not your responsibility. Your fucking responsibility is to rid the Continent of its monsters, not protect some human child who’d be better off with its own kind. It’ll get killed, and if it doesn’t, you’ll get killed for worrying about it more than yourself.”
“She’ll be fine. As will I.” He breathed out a quick sigh, pressing his lips together in irritation. “I felt a…I don’t know. A connection with her—”
Lambert’s hollow laugh interrupted him. “If everyone took in who they felt a connection with, I’d have fifty wives.” He stepped forward. Geralt was taller than him, always had been, but he didn’t let it phase him. He glared up at him and poked his chest. “There’s a reason we were made sterile. We were created for a purpose. No child deserves a mutant as a parent. How do you expect to do your job with that attached to your side?” He didn’t look back, merely jerking his head behind him, and Geralt flicked his gaze to where Eskel was watching the exchange with sharp eyes as the baby chewed obliviously on his medallion.
“You’re a witcher, Geralt.” Lambert’s words had admittedly softened, but he didn’t mean them any less. “You’ll always be a witcher. That baby doesn’t belong to you any more than you—than we—belong to humanity.”
The room fell silent. Geralt had felt like raising his fist to Lambert. Now, he didn’t know what he wanted to do. He knew he was right, yet he wanted nothing more than to ignore him anyway.
There was another little gurgle, and Eskel coughed into his fist. When Geralt and Lambert turned to him, rose a brow in the direction of the bed. “Vesemir?” he asked. “Anything to say?”
Geralt had almost forgotten Vesemir was even in the room. He’d been so caught up in his anger at Lambert that he’d overlooked the fact Vesemir’s opinion was the only one he truly wished to hear.
Vesemir hadn’t moved at all, other than to cross his arms over his chest somewhere amid Lambert’s tirade. His expression was a mixture of veiled amusement and residual surprise, his eyes flicking between all three. At their sudden quietude, he huffed and stood to his feet. “Well, it is my room.”
Geralt watched as his mentor walked to Eskel and peered at the baby. “Has she a name, Wolf?”
He glanced over his shoulder, a glimmer in his eyes, but said nothing more.
Lambert rolled his eyes. “Are you going to tell him his brain has turned to shit?”
“Seems you’ve done enough of that already,” Vesemir stated as he turned to face him. He shared a brief look with Geralt who, for all his face was expressionless, seemed to possess a franticness inside. Because they both knew why Geralt had really brought the baby to Kaer Morhen, and they both knew that if Vesemir didn’t approve, Geralt would feel a trouble in his heart for the rest of his life.
Vesemir dipped his head. “This is a big mistake, you know,” he told him simply. “But…sometimes, bad things, big mistakes…put us on the path to good fortune. You have indeed lost your mind, Geralt. But if you’ve come here for help, you know I will listen.”
Lambert looked as though his head might burst. He brought both hands up and dug them into his hair, spinning to stare at each supposedly insane witcher. He shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve all lost your fucking minds,” he said, heading for the door. “And I need a fucking drink.”
They watched him leave, hearing him yell something incomprehensible in the corridors.
“He’ll get over it,” Eskel said. “We’ll find him a kikimora to kill or something.” He was still holding the medallion, his fingers keeping it steady while the baby sucked on it methodically. Her tiny hands wrapped around his fingers and if he was bothered by it at all, it wasn’t obvious. He held the baby easily, like he’d done it before, and it looked…natural. That was the only word which came to Geralt’s mind.
“Have you?” he asked suddenly, hopefully. “Gotten over it?”
Eskel gave him a look. “Geralt, are you sure about this?”
“Not really. But at least if it all goes to shit, you can both say you told me so.”
“Ha ha,” Eskel said humourlessly. He sighed audibly but relented all the same, pointing a finger at Geralt. “I won’t be a nanny,” he warned, “I have a reputation, you know. But—” He grumbled something under his breath and shrugged, a ‘fuck it’ motion, if you will. “I’ll be Uncle Eskel, if she wants.”
Geralt took in a deep breath and nodded. “I—she does—she will. Thank you, Eskel.”
Vesemir put a hand on Eskel’s shoulder, and Eskel took it as a silent indicator that his mentor wished to talk to Geralt alone. “I’ll…” He shifted the baby in his arms, attempting to tug the medallion from her mouth but valiantly failing. Pressing his lips together in a thin line, he nodded in affirmation to himself and headed for the door. “We’ll be in my room.” As he passed Geralt, he stopped, hesitated, and leaned over, lowering his voice. “Are you sure sure, Geralt? We can go into Kaedwen and find someone—” Geralt gave him a look and he half-forced a smile, clapping his brother’s back. “Find some cow’s milk. That’s what we’ll do.”
The door shut behind him and Geralt rolled his shoulders, reaching up to drag a tired hand down his face. Vesemir chuckled. “How did you honestly expect that to go?” he asked. “Couldn’t have brought home a puppy or something instead? Gods, Geralt.” He sat at the edge of his bed and pat the space behind him, waiting for Geralt to sit. “You say you felt connected to her?”
Geralt hummed. “I don’t know what it was. Is. But I feel something draws me to her. Even now…I know she’s safe with Eskel, but I…I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He sighed, blinking at a blank space on the wall opposite. He had thought of this often. That…whatever, which had pulled him to the baby when he’d heard her cries. It hadn’t just been instinct. He didn’t have much of that left, and he’d never felt anything remotely parental. But if she were any other baby, he felt he could have easily left her with the woman in the tavern he’d gone to after he’d found her. At least, that was what he thought. How could he ever really know?
“You remember I spoke to you of Renfri?”
He nodded. “She told me I wouldn’t be able to outrun the girl in the woods…that she is my destiny.”
Vesemir mulled his words over for a moment. “You think this is her?”
He shrugged and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, a familiarly contemplative look on his face. “Maybe,” he agreed with a short nod. “Or maybe this is…something else. Something different. Serendipity, perhaps?”
Geralt frowned. “You would go that far?”
“Would you?” Vesemir asked seriously. He sat up. “I see how you look at her, Geralt.” And he had. He’d been silent from the moment Lambert had walked in, not wishing to interject, both for fear of interrupting what needed to happen between the two younger witchers, and genuinely because he hadn’t quite known what to say. Geralt returning home with a baby was the last thing anyone would have expected. It simply didn’t happen. The witcher mutagen didn’t truly wipe away all human emotion as the rest of the world made themselves believe, but it did harden them, both physically and mentally, and while saving a vulnerable baby was believable, keeping it was not. Witchers were not parents. They didn’t possess the qualities necessary for such a thing. They lived in constant fear for their lives, and childminding would only be a burden on that.
But Vesemir had watched Geralt through the whole ordeal. The way his hands hadn’t let go of the baby until he’d properly registered it was Eskel taking her. The way his eyes had constantly flicked Eskel’s way, even while Lambert was sizing him up. The way Vesemir had noticed some unnatural change in his wolf that he’d only figured out once the baby was out of his arms and he reverted to the monster-hunting witcher he had raised and created. When he was holding her, he was different. He didn’t know how, or why. He didn’t think it was a good thing, and he would have, quite frankly, as Lambert suggested, told him his brain had gone to shit, if he hadn’t waited and observed. He was good at that.
“You told me this princess said you would try to outrun the girl, but you would not be able to escape her. Did you try to outrun the baby?”
Geralt blinked still at the wall, his hands in fists on his lap. He knew his relationship with Vesemir allowed for these moments, but they were rare all the same. “I considered giving her to others—”
“That’s no escape attempt,” Vesemir interrupted. “That’s two sides fighting for dominance. No. I think…that this destiny the princess spoke of is still to come.”
Geralt had only briefly considered the idea that Renfri’s words had been linked to the baby. For a moment, he’d wanted to get rid of her just so he could prove to the princess, dead or not, that she’d been wrong, and destiny was a load of crap. He hadn’t been able to do that, and he’d been frustrated at it, at himself, thinking perhaps she really was the prophesised girl in the woods, after which he’d made the journey to Kaer Morhen. He’d thought hearing Vesemir’s words might placate him. He was surprised to find he felt nothing.
“Do you think I can do it?” he asked quietly, genuinely. “Look after a child? I can barely look after myself. Maybe Lambert’s right.”
Vesemir gave a dry laugh. “Oh, he is. He is right. A witcher shouldn’t have parental responsibilities. The life we live is no life for any child. She would be better off with her own kind, with a family whose lives aren’t constantly shadowed by danger and death, and who know how to do it right.” He stood to his feet, smirking lightly at Geralt’s blank expression.
“But I remember when you and Eskel nursed a sick rabbit back to health once. I remember you hiding it in your rooms in the hope that I wouldn’t catch you.” Geralt smiled faintly at that, the memory surfacing. He looked up as Vesemir spoke again, some kind of nostalgia returning to him as he stared into the face of the man who’d raised him. If Geralt had any kind of parental instinct, which he was still mostly sure he didn’t, he’d gotten it from him.
“If any of my men have enough humanity to care for someone that isn’t themselves,” Vesemir continued, “it’s you. It’s still a big mistake, I stand by that, but if you’re sure…” He sighed. “You can’t control everything. Destiny or serendipity…predetermined or coincidence…they have a way of changing you in ways you didn’t know possible. You have those responsibilities now, you’ve chosen them, and as long as you think you can do it, it will work out.” He paused. “Do you think you can do it?”
Geralt stood up. He thought for a moment and heaved a deep sigh. “No,” he admitted. “But I’m willing to try.”
A corner of Vesemir’s lips drew upwards and he crossed his arms over his chest. “You really should give her a name, then. At least before Eskel does it for you. And—” He gently clasped his shoulder, eyes widening. “There is still lots to talk about. Lambert had good points. How will you hunt? How will you keep her protected when you sense danger? I won’t let one of my witchers go out into the world without knowing he can fully protect himself. That’s not a slight on you, nor the child. But you’ve chosen a new and difficult path, and I’ll always help where I can and as long as my sanity allows it, despite anything I might have against it. I made that oath to myself long ago.” As Geralt’s mouth opened, he shook his head. “Let’s leave it for tomorrow. You need to eat and sleep.”
Geralt felt a rush of emotion suddenly course through him, but he pushed it back. He clasped Vesemir in a hug then, a long-awaited one, and he shut his eyes tightly, satisfied in the knowledge that Vesemir didn’t disapprove enough to be as mad as he knew he could be. Geralt didn’t really deserve it. He hadn’t been home in years, and the one winter he did decide to return, it was with a request for help. But if today had taught him anything, it was that family didn’t care how long you’d been away, as long as you came back. They would stand by you through thick and thin, whether they agreed with you or not. Lambert would not spare him a second glance for the next few days, and Geralt would leave him be. Doubtlessly they’d have a calmer conversation once things settled. Eskel had been quiet with most of his thoughts, but Geralt knew his old friend, and he knew that, despite the protective hold he’d had on the baby, he would still rather she wasn’t here at all. But he, like Vesemir, trusted Geralt enough to know—to hope—that he at least partly knew what he was doing.
Geralt hoped so, too. He hoped it wouldn’t prove to be a big mistake. He hoped this was as far as his destiny would go, and that Renfri’s prophecy, the introduction of a little girl in the woods, had come to pass, and the corner of his brain that had been silently nagging him for thirteen years would let him rest.
And he hoped above all else that it would get easier—that this baby girl would be safe in his protection, and he would be able to do it. To give her a life worthy and deserving of living.
And perhaps give himself one, too.
