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After a long year out on the Path, there are many things about Kaer Morhen for a tired witcher to appreciate:
The remote location of the keep. Out of the way of humans and their many sounds and smells and inherent hatred of that which they do not understand.
A room with a bed to sleep in every night. One that doesn’t reek of a thousand previous occupants, though it used to carry the smell of brothers long lost.
The easy routine of the day. Wake up, train, fix whatever broke during the night, hunt or cook or clean as Vesemir sees fit, bathe, eat and drink and play Gwent. Repeat.
But the worst thing, other than the ghosts of those who succumbed to the Grasses or failed the trials or were lost to the Path or the pogrom, has to be how godsdamn fucking cold the keep is. Deep into the Blue Mountains, above a high valley Kaer Morhen is cold even during the summer. In the winter, the cold chills to the bone and lingers even in front of blazing fires or in hot baths, it’s clutch only loosened by the oncoming spring.
Lambert hates it. Hates it with a passion. Has hated it ever since he was brought to the damnable keep and made to be a witcher. Not even the mutagens burning away his humanity were enough to prevent the icy grip from sinking into his core.
The others don’t seem to be as bothered by the gelid winters as he is- Vesemir has long since adapted, the bastard, Eskel is roughly the size of a bear and seems to put on an insulating layer of fat as soon as he walks through the gates, and the oh-so-special Geralt has his extra dose of mutations that practically turned him into a furnace along with all the other enhancements. Lambert is still young, relatively, hasn’t yet built the tolerance Vesemir has to the cold, he’s not massive the way Eskel is, his body more lithe and unwilling to turn any extra food consumed into anything but explosive energy, and he certainly didn’t get mutated twice like Geralt. So he freezes every winter, forced to suffer during what is supposed to be his season of rest. Every year he considers not returning, finding some hideyhole down in the south where it stays warm year round and where his bones wouldn’t feel brittle from the frost.
But.
Despite all the agonizing memories and never meeting Vesemir’s fucking standards, never being able to compete with Eskel’s Signs and never even having a hope of matching up to Geralt in any way, Kaer Morhen is the only home he has. So he comes back.
There’s no reason to think that this winter won’t be the same bittersweet respite from walking the Path, and for the first handful of weeks it isn’t. Then a storm blows in the likes of which haven’t been seen in nearly a century according to the old man, more snow and ice is dumped on the keep than Lambert has ever seen. And, impossibly, it gets even fucking colder .
He has to wear nearly all his clothes at once to keep his limbs from freezing into stiff, useless hunks. At night he keeps his boots on when he crawls into bed, having shoved the mattress as close to the hearth as possible and ravaged the keep for any spare furs, blankets, and even curtains just to trap in as much heat as possible. He casts igni more in two days than he does in months on the Path, using the bursts of flame to bring feeling back into his numb fingers. It helps a bit, but as soon as the fire disappears the cold comes rushing back in almost painfully.
If he wasn’t a miserable bastard to be around before, he is now. The cold has eaten away the last of any patience or politeness he once held, and Lambert can’t keep himself from snapping at the other witchers, especially when it seems that even now they are unbothered by the chill. He can feel their patience with him withering away with each barbed reply and begrudgingly accomplished task, but he has no energy for niceties when all he can think about is the ice in his bones.
It comes to a head at breakfast one morning. Lambert hadn’t been able to pull himself from the relative warmth of his cocoon of textiles for a while, and by the time he stumbles into the main hall there is very little food left for him. And all of the bacon is gone. He piles what little remains onto his plate with harsh motions, grumbling to himself as he does. He goes to lift the tankard he’s filled with warmed cider, but it slips through his numb fingers onto the table, spilling over the edge onto his lap. The liquid seems to freeze his skin everywhere it touches and with it his last nerve frays. He heaves the tankard at the far wall, watches as it shatters against the stone and the cider turns to ice as it drips toward the floor.
“What crawled up your ass and died?” Eskel asks, turning away from the mess to look at Lambert.
“ Nothing .” He grits out from between clenched teeth, hands gripping his hair as he feels himself slipping over the edge into rage.
“Then why are you acting like someone pissed in your ale?”
“ Because I’m fucking cold! ” He spits, the words hurling from his mouth as his frustration finally boils over, “It’s always so godsdamned cold in this accursed keep and I haven’t been able to feel my fucking toes in days no matter what I do!”
It’s silent for a long moment. Lambert can feel the others staring at him, judging his weakness. He flees from the table, unwilling to hear whatever lecture Vesemir was no doubt concocting about his newest failing.
He spends the rest of the day in the basement working on potions and some new ideas for bombs as best he can with his fumbling fingers. The anger ebbs away slowly, leaving shame in its place, but he can’t hide in the labs forever, especially not with the pitiful amount of heat they manage to hold and the hunger growling in his gut.
When he slinks into the main hall he finds that the fire has been built higher, that there are furs laid out on the ground, and old tapestries hung over the largest windows. The table has been pushed closer to the mantle and is piled high with hearty foods and there is a steaming pot of mulled wine in the center.
Movement in his peripheral grabs Lambert’s attention and he reaches instinctively to grab the projectile that has been sent his way. It’s unexpectedly soft. He uncrumples it to find a sock made of heavy wool, the knitted stitches neat and even, woven together expertly. Lambert looks up from the sock to Vesemir, who is perched in an armchair next to the fire with needles in hand and a basket of yarn at his feet.
“What’s this?” Vesemir glances up at him, lifting an unimpressed brow before turning back to his work.
“A sock. Surely you’ve seen one before.”
Lambert lets out a huff, rolling his eyes before replying, “I know what a fucking sock is. Why did you throw it at me? Is this some sort of new training?”
“Good. And no. If you wait just a moment more you’ll have it’s match.” With that he ties off what is apparently the other sock he’s been knitting before throwing this one over to Lambert as well.
“Are you going to come in or are you planning on spending the rest of the evening blocking the door?”
Lambert’s feet lead him forward without any input from his brain, which is desperately trying to figure out why Vesemir is knitting socks and the fact that he seems to be their intended recipient. He comes to rest on a chair opposite Vesemir, and his confusion must be plain to see on his face because Vesemir takes pity on him.
“It has been a long time since I was bothered by winter’s bite, but I remember the years early on when it felt as though I would never be warm again. I taught myself how to do this,” he pauses, gesturing at the needles and yarn, “to make the cold seasons more bearable. Got good enough at it that my brothers would pay me to make them something.” There’s a small smile on the elder witcher’s face, but it is tinged with sorrow and is gone as soon as it appeared.
“Why?” Lambert asks again, not sure if he means the socks, the story, the changes to the all, or all of it.
“Because there is no need for you to suffer. Especially not in your home.”
Lambert stares at Vesemir in stunned silence, watching as he begins to knit yet another sock before folding the pair he has together and tucking them away into a pocket.
That night, after eating until he was fit to burst and drinking until he was red-cheeked and laughing along with his brothers, Lambert carefully slips on his new socks and feels the cold in his bones start to melt away.