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Geralt believed that Vesemir has started the tradition. Surely it must have started with the old witcher for who else was vested in Geralt from the beginning?
It started one night after an intense training session. Lambert had thrown Geralt around, Geralt had been trying to appear weaker to stop the barrage of abuse, both verbal and physical, from the other boy. If you had asked Geralt how many times Lambert had thrown him into the pale dirt he wouldn’t have been able to answer. Due to either the number of times he had thrown him, or from what Geralt felt was the beginning of a concussion.
So, covered in pale dirt that stuck to his skin like a second skin due to his sweat and blood, Geralt and the other boys made their way back into the Keep.
Only for Vesemir to assault Geralt and those next to him with a jug of water. Once the trainees had turned the corner and Vesemir and the older witchers had caught sight of Geralt Vesemir immediately took a jug in hand and let the contents rain upon Geralt.
At the time Geralt stood sopping wet and shivering from the coldness of the water, wondering if he had displeased the witcher. That was until the witcher sighed with relief upon seeing the blurs on Geralts skin.
After the training session the marks had been hidden under the pale dirt and blood. Unseen by even the keen eyes of a witcher.
Geralt thought that that was when it had started in earnest. The checking. The hope. Both the other witchers’ hopes and his own.
***
Then began the morning and night checks. Geralt didn’t mind them when they were from his trainers. A rough hand would jerk his collar, pause, then return it to its original position.
When it was from his fellow trainee it wasn’t such a pleasant or nonchalant experience. Lambert poured gross concoctions down his shirt. This he never got into trouble for, the death of his soulmate was well known. (Their lack of existence however was not).
Eskel would sometimes rub a salve into the cuts on his back or shoulders. Noticing when he gained them during training sessions.
Other boys would follow either Eskel’s or Lambert’s leads. None could predict what each boy would do. Except for if they had trained with Geralt that day or the day before. Then the treatment was down to them having inflicting a hurt or having been inflicted a hurt.
***
The relief the day after the Trial of Grasses cannot be overstated. It was collective and triumphant.
***
What was surprising was that the checks continued well into Geralt’s adulthood. This included when he had begun upon the Path.
Letters from Eskel or Vesemir would inquire about his health. Then the health of the marks.
Questions would range from, ‘Have they grown?’, ‘Have the changed?’ and the ever dreaded ‘Have they disappeared?’
To which he would usually answer, ‘Yes, yes and no’.
Physical checks continued as well. Whenever he returned to the Keep for winter there would be a hand at his collar to check, morning and night.
New in-training witchers noticed this odd habit and asked about it. The answer that one of their own had such large marks was astounding to the young boys. They were jubilant for now they may develop marks later on.
Their joy didn’t diminish at the news that the marks had been there before Geralt had started the training they were undergoing. There was still a chance however slim.
It was extremely rare to develop any marks so late in life, and none of these boys gained such marks. Geralt knew, he knew almost all their names and their fates.
***
Lambert wasn’t an exception to this rule. He had never had a mark and he hadn’t developed one either during his travels. This did not ruin his joy of flesh or good company.
Every day he saw the couples and groups that would curse him for being a witcher, clutching at each other and bearing their skin marks, show in some way that they were connected. To show the witcher that he was other and different. Unwelcome due to this difference.
His not having a mark changed nothing for him. Except for when it came to Eskel. Eskel who continued to hold a hope that he would develop a mark during his long life.
Show that he was destined for someone or someone’s.
Lambert would not begrudge the other witcher his hope. But he would remain silently resentful that the man would turn away any relationships he developed too deeply. Aside from fellow witchers Eskel would refuse becoming close to any others.
There was a barrier between Eskel and anyone else. You could interact, take a piece of flesh in pleasure or pain, but you could not touch his heart.
His heart belonged to someone else. Someone else who did not exist as far as Lambert was concerned.
During his travels Lambert learned that others were like him. They did not have marks and they pretended that they did. Evidently, they did it better, not forgetting as he did when he was younger to keep the act going.
The ‘knowledge’ that he had lost his soulmate brought him closer to Eskel though. The other witcher believe that he would be an opposite to Lambert. Nothing when he was younger only to be granted the mark when he was older, wiser, perhaps more deserving.
***
Eskel didn’t end up being an exception to the rule either. He remained markless, but would eventually allow another into his heart. Eventually he would learn that his lover had not lost a soulmate at all, but instead attempted at normal and been caught out.
After learning this he then ensured that anytime he ate something that Lambert did too. They would only eat when sharing meals, and they would eat the same meals too.
The learning curve of figuring out what foods are preferred and disliked, as well as doing this on a witchers pay, was an astounding curve. But it served them all the better when they did learn.
When they decided that they were allowed this. Those who were marked couldn’t keep everything to themselves just because their loves were preordained.
***
The first thing that Lambert did when seeing Geralt return to the Keep with his bard and daughter was check his marks.
When he did everyone in the courtyard froze, looked toward the seasoned witcher, and waited for the verdict.
After the all clear each went back to their own tasks.
“Of course, they’re there Lambert. The owners are standing next to you.”
For this he received a slap to the head, “Checking is a tried and true method Geralt.”
***
Explaining to Ciri and Jaskier why exactly his fellow witchers would check down his shirt noon and night was tedious. The two found great pleasure in his displeasure for they knew that he would leave part of his armour unlaced, small unseen sections, wide enough for finger to prod open to see the skin of his sides.
They knew that despite his words that he did his own checks when he woke and went to bed. He would continue these checks until he died.
***
When the lute began to fade Geralt noticed immediately. As did Ciri. Jaskier didn’t for his eyes were already failing him.
The bard grew slower, the pallor of his skin fading and he aged. Ciri, ever youthful due to her blood and condition watched as her father grew older and older.
Geralt, aging slowly, still looking as he did the day that he met Jaskier, slightly more battered, knew that this day was to come.
Both Ciri and Geralt knew that the lute would continue to fade from Geralt until Jaskier passed.
The clarity of the etched dandelions, a tradition that the bard and his family kept every new lute, faded first. They started to blend together and lost the distinct edges that separated them. Crisp lute strings became fatter and resembled the training strings that Geralt had seen when Jaskier was a child.
Each time he or Ciri noticed a new blur, a new edition that signalled Jaskier leaving them they flinched. Each time part of them was chipped away with the knowledge that their time was running out.
***
For Jaskiers last winter they spent it at the Keep. Yennefer visited. Eskel and Lambert stayed the entire winter. Everyone that Jaskier and his family knew and loved came to see the bard one last time.
Ciri took time to spend the entire winter with him and Geralt. Every day she and Geralt would train and listen to Jaskier play his lute, commentating on their practice and movements.
“Ah she is hit, again, again, again.
Toss a coin to your witcher,
o valley of pain,
She’s been hit again.”
One young witcher had asked the bard to stop playing one morning, claiming that the noise was distracting. The next day he apologised, a black eye, cracked lip and several bruises marring his face. It became known that no one was to ask the bard to stop.
***
They continued in this manner until the morning that Geralt woke up with clear skin on one side.
***
Ciri at least got to keep her mark of Jaskier. Her mark documented every journey and deed that Jaskier had undergone. Both with and without her and Geralt.
***
Once Ciri’s mark had disappeared. Lambert and Eskel had been there. For the few minutes it was gone they had to wrestle Geralt’s sword from him. As well as the dagger and any other weapon he had within reach.
When the mark returned, they didn’t speak of the incident. Though it was quietly relayed to Ciri herself at a later date. She’d spent the rest of the day and night locked in her rooms, returning to her normal routine the next day with red bloodshot eyes and steel in her spine.
***
Geralt died with his white lioness clawing into his skin, begging him to stay, adding to the ache he already felt within his breast.
***
Due to the nature of her mark Ciri kept both of her fathers in a way until she too died. All who knew or heard of the white lioness, the silver lioness, the female witcher, or whatever title they had most recently called her, all knew of the golden mark.
The day after her death the tapestry was documented. Golden thread was used. To this day one could visit the heart of the continent to see the rendition of the tapestry, a preserved lute carved with dandelions, a carving of a fierce lioness pained white, and at the centre of it all was a pendant.
The pendant, styled after the witcher school pendants, had a wolf with amber inlaid eyes, a lioness with white accents curled around a young bard with his lute, sapphire eyes glinting out at the viewer.
‘The Family’ they called it. The depiction of the strongest known bonds, romantic and familial, that the world had ever seen.