Chapter Text
The last days of winter are always a blur of activity.
After months of almost hibernation, the first smell of thaw seems to wake up the pups and their guests, everyone eager and anxious to come back to the Path or, for some, their normal life.
Vesemir tries to keep a semblance of order, tries to organize his guests to do things logically, but the cub is complaining to her father - she started calling him that a little after Yuletide - about the size of her pack, supported by the bard, of course.
“Geralt, love, Ciri’s right, you can’t ask her to leave with only two changes of clothes! What are you, a heathen?”
“Just because you need twenty doublets-”
“Oh, the outrage of the lie! I only have four, dear heart, and one of them is barely worthy to be called that-”
“-she needs to understand that life on the Path is not always comfortable-”
“That’s not about comfort, Geralt, it’s about fashion, but you couldn’t see fashion if she bit you in the nose!”
Lambert is settling a fairly unsettling amount of weapons in his pack, leaving too little space for the food Vesemir and Eskel are preparing for everyone.
There is the salted and cured meat, long slivers tied in tight bundles: venison, boar, some pork that has miraculously survived the winter. Some wheels of hard cheese, matured even more during the last months. Bread, enough at least to get to the bottom of the mountain. Vesemir would love to see his pups leave with more than that in their packs, but the horses might be strong, it doesn’t make them invincible.
Yennefer comes into the kitchen, seemingly unperturbed by the hustle, and serves herself a cup of mead.
“I don’t know, I think I preferred it when he was not talking,” she says, and Eskel snorts. Vesemir feels a slight pull to his lips but keeps it in check; he can appreciate the jab, but he wildly prefers the bard as he is now, lively and chatty and entirely too much for a keep where silence has reigned for decades and, because of that, exactly what the castle needed.
It took almost two months for Geralt to get his shit together, but he finally did it and then Vesemir had an unoccupied room and some unpleasing smells to deal with, together with a pup that smiled liberally for the first time since the Trials and made the scent of lust and love and the endless chatter worthy.
Since then Kaer Morhen thawed before the world around it, even Lambert unable to resist the current: no more semi-silent dinners filled with awkwardness, no more avoiding one another in the hallways. The kitchen became what it was always meant to be, the heart and the hearth, the place where everyone comes together to cook and eat, to play cards and pass the time and, in one unfortunate occasion, to be caught in the act of trying to defile the table. Vesemir did not let that one stand.
They’ll leave tomorrow at first light, all of them, leaving the old wolf alone in his keep again. They did good this winter, the eastern wall can resist another ten years of northern winds, the oven is functioning again, all the bedrooms have been insulated, some of the tapestry repaired by little hands that do not like to be idle and have a secret talent for embroidery.
The sorceress did her best too, even if Vesemir could sense how little magic she had to give when she first arrived. She helped him in the still room and the library, her knowledge precious to organize things left by Kaer Morhen’s mages. She’s the reason Geralt and Jaskier are bickering right now because she conjured various sets of clothes for her daughter - Cirilla started to call her that almost a month ago -, to “get her ready for every occasion”. And if the Witchers’ packs are more profound than they’ve ever been, well, nobody noticed but Vesemir.
There are still potions to be distributed and furs to be rolled, but Vesemir needs to take care of dinner now.
The last of the sauerkraut on the bottom of a cauldron, covered in the last sausages and slices of bacon, some browned venison, onions, raisins, some wine over it all, and the pantry will be almost empty tomorrow. He doesn’t need much anyway, he’ll have the cheese and the pickles and the rabbits he’s going to hunt until summer comes and he leaves too. The cauldron goes to bubble happily over the fire, the salty and tart scent of the cabbage mixing beautifully with the fatness of the meats. He puts some spices in it too: pepper, juniper, mustard seeds.
Around him, the rush continues. Lambert shouts at Eskel because apparently:
“I know you’ve hidden it, asshole, give it back!”
“Why would I take your razor, for fuck’s sake.”
“Because I take care of my blades a lot better than you and you know it!”
“Fuck you, dickhead, my blades are fine, and anyway you don’t even clean shave, why do you need a sharp razor…”
“Because I like it and I want it and you give it back to me!!”
“Hello gentlemen, what are we fighting about today?”
(That’s the bard)
“Eskel doesn’t want to give me my razor back.”
“Oh, Oh! Yes, well, hmm, razors, yes? May it be the razor someone left in the hot springs next to the mirror, yes? Ah, see, very sharp that razor, I almost cut myself-”
“Bard, my razor.”
“Yes, yes, sure, in a moment. Geralt!”
Vesemir smiles. He soaks up the energy they’re dispersing and hoards it for the next, lonely months, his mind already thinking about what to prepare for next winter, when they’ll all come home. Because they will all be coming home in half a year, and he will feed them and shelter them and love them through his actions, through clean sheets and soft furs, sweet mead and bitter ale, fatty bacon and tart cabbage. They’re his family, and he can’t wait for them to be home again.