#wolf!lambert

[hannibard]

I always find it funny when Kaer Morhen witchers call each other wolf. It's like calling your sibling by your shared last name.

[machte]

There would definitely be a lovehate spark between Lambert and Gaetan, but I think they deserve tenderness too, you know...

[0dde11eth]

Poor vesemir, he tries to give his pups life lessons beyond being a witcher, but this is the kaer MORONS we are talking about. The following occurs when they are all trying to make dinner one evening.

Papa vesemir: ok boys familiarize yourself with the spices, these can make walking the path a little nicer, as you can look forward to a delicious meal at the end of a rough day

So they go over to the spice rack to read the labels.

Eskel: basil, oregano, cilantro (yuck), coriander, thyme, paprika...

Geralt: hmm, ground pepper, sounds spicy. Hmm, not sure I like the sound of garlic, seems spicier...

Lambert: cinnamon, nutmeg. Cum? DRIED CUM!?!?!

Eskel: what?? Cum?? Is this a prank??

Geralt: did jaskier put you up to this??

Lambert: I'm not fucking eating dried cum!!!

Papa vesemir: Its CUMIN YOU IDIOTS. that's it! Everyone out of my kitchen and go run the walls, everyones getting plain boiled potatoes for the rest of the week!

Geralt: yay! Finally some good food!

Papa Vesemir: OUT!!!

Jaskier (in the background): *dumping a mouthful of the dried "cum" in his mouth and then gagging* that's NOT CUM!

Papa vesemir: *internally* I bet guxart doesn't have this problem with the cat witchers

*** across the continent at the cat caravan***

Aiden: *gagging* that's NOT CUM!

Guxart: *internally* I bet vesemir doesn't have this problem with the wolf witchers

[donovaneagle2098]

A Complete Encyclopedia of the Lore of Every Witcher School

This is a project I've been working on for a long time. The Witcher Schools in general have lore spread across 3 or 4 different sources, so it's very easy to find inaccurate details about each school due to a person only going off of one source without even knowing of the others. Hell, I've been guilty of this in the past. So I've gone out of my way to find every source available for the various Witcher Schools and compile it into one master post, mostly pulling from the standalone Gwent game, and the Witcher TRPG. Without further ado, let's start out with the original school, the Order of Witchers.

Witcher schools are like the Clans of Skellige, subtly different, but largely united by their common ground, and that common ground is the Order of Witchers.

The Order of Witchers began as an experiment by the rogue mages Alzur and his mentor Cosimo Malaspina. They "recruited" tests subjects from orphanages, buying them from neglectful parents, or outright kidnapping street kids.

From Cosimo's Gwent Card:

"Children keep asking him for gifts. He doesn’t know why, but it really helps with finding subjects for his experiments."

The main goal of this project was to create an order of knights artificially mutated and imbued with extreme levels of magic to protect people from a world where, at the time, monsters were often literally around every corner.

The mutation experiments were grueling, and most early candidates died horribly, the girls especially, as the mutagenic compounds the mages were working with at the time were better suited for a boys physiology, and they quickly stopped trying to find a mixture that worked well with women, instead refining the more successful candidate pool to meet deadlines. Even with these refinements, however, the Witchers couldn't actually generate much in the way of magical power, at least not nearly as much as those funding the project had hoped for.

These early candidates were encouraged to stick to political neutrality, were told of their duty to protect the common people, and their sword instructor tried to encourage them to take on knightly virtues to live their lives by, though only a few candidates actually bought fully into these particular knightly ideals.

The school developed a training regimen that all later Witcher schools would put their own small twists on. They perfected the whirling sword style, practiced on the Pendulum and Gauntlet training courses. They learned the Witcher Sign magic, created by Cosimo. They were taught hunting and monster lore from experts hired from across the world, and master alchemists crafted the famous Witcher potions.

Ultimately, funding from this school would be pulled due to the Witcher candidates lack of truly powerful magic ability, and the order would start to fracture. Witchers dissatisfied with their lot in life after being forcibly mutated, and railing against the Order's enforced ideals began getting combatative with other Witchers over petty contracts. At this time, contracts were so plentiful that there was no real need to fight over them, but these dissident Witchers did so anyway out of a desire for autonomy and to be free of the Order's code, which they saw as having no practical purpose to prepare new Witchers for the road ahead, and hypocritical as it was forced on them by the mages who never cared for the Witcher's lives. This culminated in one such outspoken Witcher, Arnaghad, attacking another Witcher who poached a contract from him.

After being forced into the painful life of a Witcher, Arnaghad loathed anyone who imposed their will upon him, the Order and it's codes especially. He led an attack on the Order proper, aided by fellow Witchers who respected his defiance towards authority. Once they were beaten back, these dissidents fled to the Amell mountain range to start the next Witcher school, the School of the Bear.

The School of the Bear is one of the most misunderstood schools of them all, owing to the first major lore drop about them being largely in-universe rumors and conjecture surrounding the school, and as such I may need to go more in depth. The two major misconceptions stemming from this is the rumor about their armor, which claims that they don't bother dodging like the other Witchers and instead take blows head on (generally a bad idea, according to Geralt in the books), and the rumor about them attacking most Witchers they meet.

I contacted Cody Pondsmith, who wrote a great deal of this lore, and he mentioned that Bears do often threaten or even fight other Witchers, but in a very Skellige way, only to ward off the other Witcher from contracts they want. The Bears just want to live lives where they aren't commanded by others, and were trained especially brutally, and so will fight for what contracts they want. However they will NEVER kill another Witcher, just draw first blood (outside of duels to decide who runs the school, which occasionally turn deadly. It's unknown if Arnaghad has ever lost these duels) and if that other Witcher stands up to the Bear, they'll let them have the contract and if they meet up and work together enough even maybe become a lifelong friend.

To quote Cody himself: "I like to think of the Witcher Order as a big family in which the Bear School is the blunt, no-nonsense brother. He can be prickly and a bit of a bully sometimes but he takes his job seriously and he can be a good drinking buddy if you get to know him. Not the friendliest of people but far from evil. If you stand up to him and show him you're not afraid of him, he'll respect you."

The other rumor is also an exaggeration. The Witcher TRPG mentions that the Bear armor was designed with flexibility in mind, and while they trained to take on weaker blows with their armor and "mastery of the Quen sign", they also trained how to move quickly in their armor if they needed to dodge a fatal blow. The Bears also still trained on the gauntlet and pendulum like the other schools. Cody Pondsmith also confirmed that the Bears are just as agile as the other Witchers.

The Bears' core philosophy is almost very Lambert like, viewing Witcher's work not as a duty, or knightly virtue, but as difficult, brutal work. The only reason they stick to this work is to do a job where no one else commands them and they're left in peace. They focus only on the practical aspects of their profession, and as such discourage their students from working together in training, since Witchers work alone. As Arnaghad said, "We pass through life alone, better get used to it!" As a result, Bears are very isolated, preferring their own company to that of other Witchers, and were encouraged to value their autonomy and self care above all else. The Bears' approach to teaching was embodied as "let them better themselves through practical, dangerous trials. Survival of the fittest", embodied by final trial, that involved climbing to the top of Mt. Gorgon and back, and any who died from the cold were left "as a sobering reminder of the dangers of their trade". This resulted in the students of the school seeing things in a very callous, survival of the fittest way. Be as strong as you can, and let the perils of Witcher training and life pick off those who can't keep up.

Despite this, the TRPG has a list of random early training events Witchers from all schools can have, and Bears could sometimes make friends amongst their fellow witchers in training just like members of every other school.

Once the new Bear students left their keep of Haern Caduch, most wouldn't return to winter there, unlike the other schools. They developed a reputation as being terrible to fight, and for being firebrands, often speaking very bluntly, no matter who they spoke to, authority included. Once such Witcher, named Gerd, was asked by a Duchess to help kill her father. He insulted her so badly he got a warrant for his death placed on him, though all the peasants he met spoke rather highly of him. As a result, Bears found it easiest to make friends amongst the similarly minded Dwarves and Gnomes of the Amell mountains, and people of the Skellige Isles. According to Cody Pondsmith, this is the main reason the Bears stayed together as a group at all. They valued autonomy above all else and so long as they functioned as a Witcher school, they were left alone and no rulers would try and command them. They also take their ideals of free will and apply it to others, never seeking to rule over others. They simply wish to live their lives free.

One of the original Witchers to side with Arnaghad, Ivar Evil-Eye, had extra mutations done to him by the Order of Witchers during his trial, allowing him to see into other worlds. In these visions he saw the Wild Hunt rampaging across them, conquering them. Ivar became obsessed with stopping them, and tried to kill Arnaghad to take command and lead the Bear school against the Hunt. This failed, so he and his supporters left to form the Viper School.

The Witchers of the Viper school, based in Gorthur Gvaed, were said to be the most secretive, taking contracts as both assassins and witchers. They at first dedicated themselves finding a way to stop the Wild Hunt, amassing a massive library on the subject. Fighting with an unpredictable, ambushed based variant of the Witcher fighting style, Viper Witchers employed poisons, brewed by skilled Viper alchemists, on both their swords, and a dagger in their offhand, their biggest deviation from typical Witcher combat techniques.

Vipers, for an unknown reason, eventually forgot their purpose. In his time, Letho of Gullet could only guess at why the school had been founded. Instead, they became famous for their skill at political killings, dealing with the nobility of the southern countries before Nilfgaard had even become a large-scale power.

Viper students had a different type of trial, after more grueling than typical training. Instead of any physical task like the other schools, the Viper students were given a pet at their induction to the school. And to graduate, they simply had to hunt it down and kill it, showing their lack of mercy.

While most of those who supported Ivar followed him to the Viper school, one group broke off and west east, across the Korath desert, to Zerikania, founding the School of the Manticore.

The School of the Manticore was founded by the Witcher Iwan, from the School of the Bear, following Ivar's assassination attempt on Arnaghad. They got work in the Korath desert as caravan guards, earning the attention of the Zerrikanian Queen after a deadly battle with a manticore. The Queen sponsored the Witchers of the Manticore, making them the only school to be officially backed by any government. They were experts on potions and anti-toxins, a necessity of dealing with the poisonous creatures of the Korath desert.

A unique adaptation to the monsters of the desert also had Manticore Witchers employ shields into the whirling combat of their Witcher training. Given their extra support, the Manticores held two keeps, Behelt Nar and Bailsuf Alsarea, on opposite sides of the desert, so that they might better patrol and guard those within it.

The Manticore is the final school to come from the schism Arnaghad had led. The other voices of dissent against the ideals of the Order would soon hear of these new schools and decide to break off as well to form the School of the Cat.

The School of the Cat was founded out of a response to the hatred and distrust Witchers received. They desired to be seen in a better, more respectful light. Ironically, they would end up doing the opposite. The Cat School stole away with several of the mutagens needed to make more Witchers and headed to Ebbing, and Stygga Citadel, where they would begin to experiment on human-elf children in an attempt to perfect the mutations. Its possible that the mages at this time furthered experiments on making women Witchers, but this is not confirmed yet.

Attempting to make a name for themselves, the Cats hired themselves out as spies, assassins, and mercenaries, genuinely earning them some respect from common folk for killing bandits.

In their attempts to perfect the mutations and further dull the emotions of their Witchers, the Cat school experimented harshly on a group of children that resulted in the opposite, giving these Witchers hightened emotional responses instead. These students, cast aside and left for dead, fled into the arms of a group of elves, who agreed to support them if this branch of the Cat School supported the elves' fight for freedom.

This branch, led by Gezras of Leyda, attached itself to the Dyn Marv caravan and traveled the continent, lending their services mostly to those nonhumans who could pay, while the main Cats at Stygga ended up getting assaulted by angry royals incited by their political maneuvering. This left the Dyn Marv branch as the only functional element of the School of the Cat. These Cats would train students' agility in a light, fast Elven take on Witcher fighting style, and would train their balance by making students walk a tightrope, starting low to the ground at first, but getting higher and higher each attempt.

The Cat school's breaking of Witcher neutrality and reputation for bloodlust earned Witchers such a bad name that those in the Order who most cherished their old swordmaster's knightly virtues would leave to form the School of the Griffin.

The School of the Griffin, led by Erland of Larvik, wished to truly achieve the dream of the original Order, and Gryphon, the Order's sword instructor. They traveled north to Kaer y Saren, an old fortress the Order once used, and cleansed it of the spirits of those who died in the first Witcher mutations. From there, they began a Witcher school focused on respectability and honor, believing in their knightly duties. And it worked, somewhat. The Griffins were sometimes advisors to nobility, and seen as honorable, but the prejudice against Witchers would never leave, and most would never see a Griffin Witcher as anything more than a monster playing at being a knight.

These Witchers tried their best to cushion their students against the pain of their lives on the Witcher's path, and were more brotherly than the other schools, though their knightly virtues and brotherhood were oftentimes cold comfort to Griffin students.

From the Witcher TRPG Sourcebook:

"Witcher I knew couldn’t really remember much ‘bout his past. Heh, too young to really form a lotta memories when they took him to Kaer Y Seren. Told me that the memory he did have made the mutations easier. Poor bastard clung to a memory of his pa takin’ him on a horse for a ride in the fields. Don’t know why he chose that one. Probably the only normal memory he had."

The Griffins amassed a huge library of magical knowledge, though they could only push sign magic so far, and the books were likely wasted being in a Witcher library. The library held several incredibly famous tomes on magic within, and was the envy of full mages across the Northern Realms. Despite all their efforts, they never could achieve their goal of bringing about the Order of Witcher's vision. The Griffins even had their own breaches of Witcher tradition in pursuit of their knightly heroics. An often said mantra of the Griffin school in Gwent is "To slay dragons! Tis our knightly duty!" despite dragons being largely innocent, intelligent beings who mostly wish to be left in peace.

Code Pondsmith had this to say about the Griffins:

"The Griffins stuck to the knightly traditions that the original witcher order tried to uphold. As a result it's safe to say that the Griffin school taught that monsters were the enemy of mankind and must be defeated. I don't think they would all be blindly overzealous but they wouldn't have any qualms about slaying sapient monsters if they believed it was for the good of mankind. Similarly, it's likely that they would side with humans in any conflict between monsters and humans. In a way, the Griffins' knightly virtues made them easier to manipulate than the other witcher schools. They were bound to protect humanity and thus were more likely to be convinced to hunt a monster if a local noble or alderman claimed it would be for the good of the people. This is the case with the dragons. The kingdoms and jewelers guilds of the North convinced the Griffin School that dragons were a blight upon humanity and the Griffins started slaying dragons regardless of whether all of the dragons they slew deserved it. Additionally, the knightly values might make Griffin school witchers more likely to take pity on desperate humans and work for free."

Those few Witchers remaining in the Order by now traveled to northern Kaedwyn, and started a school based on their tempered, traditionalist, and realistic view on the Order's goals. They based themselves in Kaer Morhen and dubbed themselves the School of the Wolf.

The School of the Wolf is the most famous Witcher school, known for their professionalism and efficiency. They don't kill humans like the Viper or Cat. Aren't bold or brash like the Bear, or put Knightly virtues above Witcher ideals like the Griffin. I mean, anyone reading far this knows who the Wolf Witchers are, so I'm not going to get into to much detail. They're Geralt's school. Ciri's school. While the Griffins school wasted it's energy on trying to be what Witchers were supposed to be, the Wolf set its goals on being the best they realistically could be.

They took a balanced approached to Witcher life and as such trained Witchers who were the best adjusted out of the schools, with neither the Bear's harshness nor the Griffin's egocentrism. For this, Wolf Witchers were lauded all across the Continent.

With all Schools formed, the Golden Age of Witchers began, at first with the Bears and Griffins making peace. From Erland of Larvik's Journal (The TRPG's monster manual):

"Surprisingly enough the fracturing of the witcher order had lead to a more effective organization for us witchers. Spread across the Continent and each making more witchers independently, it was no longer the task of 60 or 70 witchers to patrol the entire Continent from Nilfgaard to Kovir. Each school patrolled their own path and when a Gryphon met with a Bear each knew they had their territory and any infighting wouldn’t be worth the bloodshed. We managed to broker peace and live as somewhat estranged brothers rather than bitter enemies"

Witchers at this time were seen largely as heroes, with their detractors' voices largely simmering underneath. With Witchers around to kill monsters, people felt safe and so ignored any misgivings they might have.

Witchers, no matter the school, aren't too dissimilar from each other, and so the Cintinent at large formed an overall opinion of the Witchers based on the traits they all shared. From the TRPG:

"In the heyday of witchers there were many many seperate schools, which all mutated new witchers and taught them the neccesary skills to hunt monsters and lift curses. While it’s generally agreed that there is a core set of skills required to a be a witcher, each school taught its students differently and focused on different aspects of witcher training. Thus, witchers from different schools often act differently and go about their jobs in similar but varied ways."

During this period, the Schools all would produce hundreds of Witchers (though at any given time, most schools had about 20 Witchers running the school, a handful of novices undergoing the trials, and around 30-50 Witchers on the path hunting monsters), and each was their own person, With their own preferences and personality, despite the schools themselves having reputations for Witchers with only a few certain traits. For instance, the Bear Witcher Ivo of Belhaven fought like a Viper or Cat Witcher, but in personality was a perfect fit for the Bear School with how standoffish he could be. The schools kept to their own territory at first, but as time went on and contracts got ever more rare, these already thin lines fell apart and the schools stopped caring much about territories.

They also all customized their gear in different ways, usually keeping their gear in similar fashion to their school's, as its what they trained in an were used to. For example, Bear Witcher Junod of Belhaven wore what appears to be a set of Wolf School armor he had modified to fit Bear Witcher style.

Witchers also at this time experimented with signs. The Griffins obviously focused on making them more powerful, and the Bears pushed Quen to a level beyond any other school. But the most interesting case is that of Warrit, a blind Viper Witcher who used the lesser known Suppire sign as a form of echolocation.

The Golden age lasted for around 150-200 years or so, ending around 1160 when the monster populations had been hunted down enough that people's main concern stopped being the monsters, and became the Witchers themselves.

The Griffin School, refusing to share the knowledge of its library, was destroyed by jealous mages. A group of peasants and mages attacked the Wolves' keep out of nowhere. The Bears failed to destroy a powerful cabal of vampires and, when peasants rioted and came for their keep, chose to disband rather than engage in needless slaughter. The Cat's keep of Stygga is destroyed, but the Dyn Marv chapter may still be alive and well. The Manticore School failed to protect an important prince from a fire elemental, and so lost their funding and closed. The Viper refused to support the Nilfgaardian usurper and were destroyed.

If you've made it this far, holy shit, thank you! I hope you have a great day!

[helpfulhellhounds]

first year on the path | thought it would be heartbreaking fun to paint the kaer morhen wolves when they were baby witchers!

featuring: a single moment where geralt is on the path for the first time, eskel has a couple years of witchering experience, and lambert is still a kid at kaer morhen (he misses his bros).

[whywouldisayprinter]

Three wolves, a cat, a griffin and a bard walk into a hotspring…

[ottosbigtop]

Fuck this podcast and everything it stands for. Anyways lovelace’s old crew concepts

Also this.

[crispinkiss]

w359 doodles and whatnot collecting dust in the proverbial closet. heart emoji

gravity! no need to tie your hair back anymore ->

[eskel-loves-lilbleater]

Gorgeous Lambert and Aiden art found here by Sayuri, who also has an awesome Patreon.

[harpoonsandmusicals]

finally got around to drawing how i picture lovelace's og crew! I decided on blood red flight suits to be reminiscent of the main crew's orange but allude to these guys' much darker fate. I'm not quite satisfied with Rhea yet, synesthesia brain is giving me colors that just don't exist in real life, and I was trying to make her look bittersweet, wise but also her life was so short...idk she's tricky

[jay-arts-t]

Posting a a little today but really like the whole bit the boys have over calling Vesemir old. They all just collectively agree “old man old man”

It’s even funnier when notw makes vesemir only 70, or really 60 something years older than them since they’re around 4-8 age group. And he only looks like he’s in his 20s-early thirties. I’m sure Lambert started it. One day he just asks “why are you so old?” And Vesemir is left shocked. He’s not that old!!! But then when they get back to Kaer Morhen and the boys are a bit older Geralt finally gets to ask all his questions about Kaer Morhen he couldn’t ask before.

“How old is Kaer Morhen?”

“I don’t know Geralt. Old.”

“Are you older than Kaer Morhen or as old?”

Vesemir throws his boots at him. Then that’s when the whole “*insert item* is almost as old as Vesemir!”

HE HATES IT.

When Ciri finally joins them, Lambert immediately teaches her the bit. She is RUTHLESS with her insults. Vesemir is giving her a history lesson in the courtyard since it’s nice out. The boys are fixing one of the walls in the background. He’s telling her about a war that happened around 600 years ago.

“Do you remember what it was like in that time? Since you were there?” Vesemir wants to crawl into a hole and die in it. The boys are basically toppled over in laughter. Lambert starts choking from laughing too hard. Ciri seems extremely pleased with herself.

It starts evolving further into “oh you wanna know about the conjunction of spheres? Oh I dunno, ask Vesemir he was there since before the conjunction.” And “what was it like when dinosaurs were alive, Vesemir?”

AND IT SOMEHOW SPREADS. He’s in a growing town in southern Redania with Geralt and they run into Jaskier. Now he’s never had the fortune of meeting him, but he’s heard plenty. He’s about to thank the poet for looking after Geralt until Jaskier goes “so I’ve heard you’re quite old! Tell me Master Vesemir, what was it like when kingdoms started to form? How did the royal families come to be in power?”

Vesemir is SEETHING. Geralt just smiles like the little shit he is.

[dreamcatcher-faux]

Very slowly getting into Cult of the Lamb and I already failed by making Ewe 😔

[hascious]

Chapter 7 of Cycle 360 has been dropped on a whim

i only read over it a few times so lmk if you see typos or something idk

this was probably one of my favorite chapters to write tbh... as much fun as rise was i love the dynamic between these 3 bozos so much. the main part of this chapter comes from part 4 of The Illusion of Living by Adrienne Kress, so be warned, there's spoilers for that. if you for some reason havent read the books, i'd highly suggest it, they're amazing. TIOL specifically was one of my favorite (if you couldnt tell)

and heres some bonus art i've made since the last post, unrelated from cycle 360:

also!! i havent directly said this here but if there's any questions at all about cycle 360, and i mean any, send them my way!! im more than happy to answer, especially given how long its taking me to write these chapters. worst case scenario, the answer is a spoiler and i'll just give a vague hint. or even if youve just got something to say, feel free :)

[geraskierfanficprompts]

Prompt 36

THE WIFI WENT OUT LAST NIGHT AND I COULDN'T POST MY PROMPT! AAAAA No fear... You will feast today with TWO prompts! The Wolves are the most notorious and feared gunman gang to ever cross the wild west. They've known to frequent a certain bar recently, purely for the man the bar hires to perform there near-nightly. The entire gang loves him and his music, but all of them know damn well that Geralt likes the man a little extra. The singer's music seems to soothe him more than it soothes his brothers. His dumb jokes make Geralt snort or dryly chuckle more than the others. The best part about this performer (aside from giving them all something to tease Geralt about) is that he either has no idea who they all are, or he doesn't care. He winks over at them, he'll raise a glass to cheers them, one night he even danced directly on their table, evidently loving the gang's uproarious cheering as he did so. One night, Lambert comes to them from wherever he rides off to every few weeks and comes back with wagonloads of information, and tells them that he's just learned that The Cats were coming here to fulfil a contract to kill the singer, and given how long it took him to get back, they could be trying to do it as they speak. So the gang ride into town, find the singer, grab him, and ride him back to their camp to protect him from the rival gang that wants to kill him. They just forget to tell him the "we're protecting you" part. Jaskier is really enjoying this gig he's had at this shitty bar for the past few months. This group of burly grumpy men seem to hate everyone and everything but him. It's quite an ego boost, really. Especially the handsome one with white hair. He's sure they liked him. I mean, there were a few times they tipped him enough money for him to rent a room for another month! That's why he's so confused when one night they snatch him right before he goes on to perform and they ride him away from civilization. Oh fuck- Is this how he dies?!

[artistsfuneral]

I'm always a sucker for Witcher fics where someone comes to the keep really young (maybe Eskel?) and they don't speak the common language at ALL and it's even more terrifying and confusing what's happening to them. Cue lots of friendships and learning how to find their place!

ohohohohohohoho yesssss ❤✨ also isn't it canon that Eskel came from "mountain people"? It would make sense that toddler Eskel only speaks Norwegian Northern (also I started learning norwegian for no reason whatsover, so I am going to use my 100 words)

deaged!Eskel, shy toddlers, softe Geralt and awkward Lambert

It was common knowledge that most of the collected artefacts in the dungeons of Kear Morhen were cursed in one way or another. So it wasn't all that surprising, when one of them started to omniously glow once Lambert got too close to it by accident. It also wasn't very surprising that the youngest wolf was quickly shoved away by Eskel, kind, protective Eskel, who promptly ended up at the center of the curse's magic.

The tiny toddler that appeared where the full grown witcher once stood, was unexpected though. Lambert had been prepared to fight a monster, but his drawn sword prooved to be rather counterproductive when it was noticed by big brown baby eyes that immediately turned teary at the sight of danger. The loud crying that followed strangled Lambert's heart painfully.

"Oh, no, no, no! Please don't cry, I don't know what to do, when you cry!" Panicking, Lambert did the only thing that came to his mind and he reached out to pick the tiny toddler up. The witcher looked helplessly around the room, as if any of the artefacts could provide him with the secret knowledge of childcare. Eskel didn't stop crying.

"Uh- Let's get you to Geralt, okay? You like Geralt right? You're best buds, he will know what to do."

Alarmed by the sounds of a crying child, Geralt was already halfway down the keep, when Lambert reached him. The - currnetly not - youngest wolf hastened his steps and practically shoved tiny Eskel into Geralt's arms. "Lambert, what on earth?" Adjusting his hold instinctively, Geralt started to rock the toddler in his arms, one hand gently petting the mop of unruly brown hair. "Uh- that's Eskel," Lambert managed to blurt out.

"Eskel?"

"He got cursed. Down in the dungeon. I didn't know what to do, not sure he recognized me." Geralt hummed. "If it truly is Eskel, then we might have a small problem."

"What, why?" Lambert's eyes darted down from Geralt's to look a the small figure sniffling in the witcher's arms. "He's was born up north," Geralt explained slowly, "didn't speak a word of common when he first got here. It took him years to learn." Lambert's mouth went dry.

What Geralt didn't seem to know was that Lambert could in fact speak most northern dialects. But what on earth could he possibly say to a tiny child he already managed to bring to tears seconds after meeting him? He took a shaking breath, "Går det bra med deg?"

Eskel's reaction was immediate. His little head snapped up from where he had been hiding it under Geralt's chin and he stared at Lambert with wide eyes. "Hva?"

"Går det bra?" Lambert repeated, trying his best to ignore Geralt's confused stare. Between snotty sniffles a small voice that sounded nothing like the Eskel they knew, the child answered. "Ja, bra."

Lambert let out a sigh of relief. "He says he's alright, probably just got scared." Geralt's shoulders relaxed visibly. "Didn't know you speak northern."

"Wasn't exactly needed until now."

"Can you ask him, if he knows who we are? Does he recognize us at all?"

Lambert blinked at the other wolf. Angry, at himself, for not thinking about asking such an important question. He focused his gaze back at Eskel. "Vet du hvem jeg er?" A wide, toothy grin spread across Eskel's little face. His chubby little finger pointed straight at Lambert and he exclaimed proudly, "Ulv! Rød ulv!" The action was quickly followed by a similarly enthusiastic pointing, this time at Geralt, "Hvit Ulven!"

Lambert chuckled. "I think he'll be alright."