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“Eskel, I need to get up.”
“Mmm.”
“Really. Babe. I need to get up.”
“Need is a strong word.”
Shani sighed, rolling her eyes back and patting Eskel’s bare shoulder. He was completely laying on top of her in the bed, his head on her shoulder, his chest covering her stomach and legs.
He was barely coherent enough to make conversation and she had to chuckle softly about it, mostly because he was adorable when he was sleepy.
But she did need to get up.
“Eskel I know this is a shocker but medics do have to pee once in a while and I really need you to get up.”
His gold eye cracked open and looked at her before he heaved a huge, petulant sigh and rolled over. She laughed and ruffled his hair, bending over his face to kiss his nose, which he scrunched and rubbed at.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Better be,” he muttered.
Shani got up, smiling to herself as she headed downstairs. The floorboards were freshly cleaned and she enjoyed the simple pleasure of being able to walk around barefoot on them.
It was winter solstice in Toussaint, and so pleasantly cool without being like the bitter, pneumonia filled winters she was accustomed to back in Oxenfurt. It was Geralt and Yennefer’s fifth year living on the vineyard and with things having calmed down they’d wanted to have everyone around for just one holiday. Having married Eskel only a few months prior, Shani was officially part of the family.
She touched her ring and smiled to herself, heading to the lavatory.
Ciri and Regis were in the main room when she returned, and the medic lit up at her presence, getting up and rushing to her. His hug was firm and careful, ever aware of his own strength.
“Shani! Happy yule!” he greeted, holding her at arm's length for a moment before letting her go with a fond smile. “It is wonderful to see you again.”
“And you, Regis where is…?” she glanced around, brow furrowed with concern for a moment, but Regis shook his head.
“No need to worry, Dettlaff is walking the vineyards with Yennefer. She’s been giving him a tour and letting him sample the vintage.”
“He’s become quite the connoisseur,” Ciri said with a smile. “It’s good to see you, Shani,” she said, hugging the medic warmly. “Dad says his most recent stitch job was thanks to you.”
Shani sighed and nodded as they broke the embrace. “Yes. He got clipped by an arachnomorph--leave it to Geralt to get poisoned as compensation for a relatively harmless wound.”
“Well, regardless, thank you. I don’t think you get thanked enough for the work you do, specially for us witchers.”
Shani smiled warmly and squeezed Ciri’s wrist. “Nor do you witchers, I’m glad to play my part. If you’ll excuse me though, it’s still early and Eskel and I just got in last night. I’m going to go back to him for a few hours.”
“By all means,” Regis said, a polite bow making Shani chuckle.
Lambert and Keira arrived by portal that night, and Ciri rode up with Annette just before dusk. Dandelion and Zoltan had been staying in the main part of town and showed up a little later, having gotten caught up in one of the taverns.
By the time Geralt had opened the second bottle of wine for the evening, everyone was sitting around his table. Regis, Dettlaff, Yennefer, Ciri, Lambert, Kiera, Eskel, Zoltan, Dandelion, Annette, and Shani herself.
Leaning against Eskel’s shoulder, listening to Geralt and Lambert try to out-toast each other with more and more ridiculous phrases, Shani had to take a moment to process all of it. This was her family now. Two higher vampires, a student who was now a young lady and a promising interspecies medic, two sorceresses, three witchers and a witcheress, the land’s favorite and somehow most infamous bard, and a boisterous dwarf who didn’t hesitate to lovingly cuss you out if you needed it.
Eskel rubbed her arm, leaning his head against hers with a hum. “You’re thinking, aren’t you?” he said softly, so that she more felt the vibration of the words than anything.
“Good thoughts,” she assured, tucking herself a little further into his side. “Promise.”
He bent and kissed her head. “So long as they’re good.”
As the only ‘normal’ human in the bunch (Annette had saved Geralt’s life at a very young age and fallen asleep in a vampire’s wings, she didn’t count) Shani had almost expected to feel out of place even once when Eskel had first told her they were invited to the gathering.
Somehow though, she never did.
“Shani, would you help us in the kitchen?” Dettlaff asked, coming in with muddied boots and a flushed Ciri with a very large wild boar across her shoulders. Her eyes went wide at the size of it, but she got off Eskel’s lap and reached for an apron.
She, Zoltan, and Dettlaff were the cooks (answering of course to Marlene). Regis, Annette, and Ciri (once she’d had a bath) were the place-setters and cleaners. Lambert set up a huge tree and brought wine up from the cellars while Keira and Yennefer went into town for gifts. Geralt and Eskel split wood for the slightly cooler nights and planned bonfire and then joined the cleaning crews.
“Here, try this,” Shani said, turning to Dettlaff and holding a spoon up for him. He’d become the official taster with his enhanced senses, and it was only when she heard his sharp teeth click around the wooden spoon that Shani really had a surreal moment of realizing she was standing right next to a higher vampire feeding him gravy.
“We need more spice,” he mused, licking the drop of gravy from the corner of his mouth with an almost reptilian flick of the tongue.
“I’ll go check the garden,” she offered, slipping out and untying her apron as she went. In the main hall Geralt and Regis had gotten into a competition about who could clean their half of the room faster, and she came out of the kitchen to see Ciri perched on Geralt’s shoulders and Annette on Regis’.
“Come on, I’ll hold on just climb,” Annette was goading Regis, who was shaking his head.
“No, this is fresh molding I don’t want to put claw holes in Geralt’s wall. Yennefer would dismiss me for certain.”
“Dismiss is a kind way to put it,” Eskel said, leaning out from his own perch half way up the far wall. He was above the armor racks cleaning cobwebs out of the high corners. He hung his head back so he was almost looking at Shani upside-down, a dopey grin on his face. “Hey babe.”
“Hi,” she said, smiling as she folded her arms. “Are you having fun?”
“Always.”
By the night of Yule itself, Shani had lost four rounds of Gwent to Lambert, gotten into two different friendly debates with Regis over the usefulness of various herbs to treat poison, had a chance to listen to Annette’s first year of work as an independent medic, caught up with Geralt, and found out that Dandelion had been personally paid off in wine by Yennefer not to sing.
As they opened gifts, shared wine, and traded banter and stories over the fire (that Regis and Dettlaff helpfully placed and fetched packs of chestnuts out of) Shani was hard pressed to remember a better yule since she was a young girl and had received her first medical book.
She’d had more than a few miserable years in between. Years in school where she almost quit. Years on the battlefield where the blood and the rot and the misery made her wonder if there was anything left to celebrate. Years alone where she wondered if she’d ever have someone to celebrate with.
So many years that felt empty and cold and promiseless, and she’d just accepted it. Not everyone got a happy ending, after all. Maybe she just had to be one of them.
With Eskel’s warm arm around her waist, a beautiful new tunic in her lap as a gift from Yennefer, and the sight of Annette and Regis excitedly flipping through the new pages of his textbook, Shani wished for only one thing more. That she could go back and tell that hopeful little girl in the past, the exhausted young woman in the dorm, and the disheartened medic, that things were going to get so much better.
That in the end, it was all going to be worth it.