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In hindsight, Geralt should have been more careful.

But it was too late now, wasn't it, to lecture himself about such matters since he was already rolling down the steep slope, his ribs cracking every time he hit a protruding rock or a large, crooked root. His teeth clattered when he finally hit the ground with a dry crunching sound, his armor doing only so much against the impact. He couldn't help but groan, the ground hard, cold and wet under his bruised back.

Four ribs at least had snapped. His lungs, probably bruised or even punctured, were screaming, fire cursing through his veins with each painful intake of the chilly mountain air.

His heart was pounding hard against his sternum. A good sign, for the moment; it could only mean he hadn't died yet, which was comforting in such a predicament. 

Still .

Comfort didn't last long when he recalled where the fuck he was without even needing to take in his surroundings against the fuzziness that had set in his hurting head. On the Killer, of course. The witchers' trail. 

Whatever. He was a dead man anyway. The killer took no prisoners, and every Wolf that had ever been trained in Kaer Morhen knew it by heart. He couldn't suppress a groan. From the edge of the slope, Roach whinnied, high and pitiful.

"Sorry girl," he managed, a bitter, fleeting smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Roach protested even louder at the lack of fight in his voice. But what strength did he have left to fight? For what? Best he could do was to crawl. Perhaps . And crawling wouldn't have helped him climb up the cliff back to the trail. He tried to flex his fingers, testing if any bone was broken in his arms. Turned out that several were, actually. His whole left side felt numb and bruised. His right, however, that he could move, even if just so. When he balled his fist, he crushed some harpy feathers under his fingers.

Harpies.

Was he really dying because of a fucking bunch of harpies? Not even a trainee could have made such a fool of himself. He managed to chuckle for the irony of the whole. The golden child of Kaer Morhen defeated by a flock of overgrown humanoid, evil birds. Could have been the subject of the funniest play of the century, if it wasn’t fucking tragic. 

Roach snorted and stomped her hoof.

"Be good, girl. Be good," he admonished. Fuck, it was getting so hard to breathe. He was sure that the fall had somehow damaged his lungs, at this point, still he couldn't determine if a shard of bone had torn the soft tissue apart or if the terrible force of the impact had somehow bruised or squashed the organs inside his mauled ribcage. What he knew for sure was that it hurt. Like fucking hell moreso. 

And the sky. Shit, the sky was white and bright, the clouds above swollen with the first snowfall of the year.

How bloody ironic.

He gritted his teeth. Since witchers weren't prone to shock, he would have never passed out from pain alone. He regretted not having fallen from the cliff with a vial of Swallow conveniently placed into his pocket but then he realized -- it would have shattered to pieces during his not-so-gentle fall. Just like his fucking ribcage and another two o three bones had.

He tried to curse at his rotten luck. A whimper came out of his lips instead.

The first snowflake landed on Geralt's glove just as he was squinting in the blinding white light looking for clues on when it could have possibly started snowing. His prediction hadn't strayed too far from the harsh, cold reality; he had wagered it would have started in less than an hour. 

His breath was coming in uneven, shallow gasps. Hard to focus on them if he’d wanted to meditate. Still, he had no other option if he didn’t want to suffer through the whole process of dying - either from starvation or hypothermia or maybe even bloodloss - in a lucid state. Panic would have risen soon. If he knew himself well enough - and he would have dared saying he did - his survival instinct would have kicked in long before his body would have shut down and allowed him to pass out, forcing him to do something - anything - to crawl out of that fucking crevice and survive. Somehow, at least. 

He tried to sigh, hard enough to jostle his already crushed chest. Without his potions on him there wasn’t much his system could do on its own to mend itself back, and he strongly doubted that even one Swallow could have sufficed to get him on his feet, let alone climbing out of the crevice and mount back on Roach as if nothing had happened. Even a White Raffard’s could have failed at such a monumental task.

He heard himself snorting. The snow was falling relentlessly now, fat snowflakes landing on his face, entangling into his hair, in the tattered ribbons of his cloak, littering his ruined armor. He was sure that something - a steel and chainmail plate? a strip of hardened leather? - had pierced through his skin and was now prodding at his internal organs, or close enough to itch, and the thought - though grim and gross as it was - amused him greatly.

He didn’t want to die but, alas, no witcher had ever died in his bed, the saying went like that. Just -- being killed indirectly by scrawny, famished harpies. What an undignified way to go. Even for a witcher.

***

“Fuck. It’s snowing already.”

Lambert took a peek outside from the small crack in the kitchen door, lazily chewing on a stringy strip of dried meat. Eskel was right, it was snowing already. He grimaced in disgust, trying to wrap his head around the whereabouts of his warmest furs. He needed to find them, if he didn’t want his prick to fall off because of the fucking cold seeping through the ancient stones of the keep.

“Mmmh. Told you. It was getting too cold not to start snowing soon.”

Eskel’s lip twitched slightly.

“Any word from Geralt?” He dropped, trying to sound as casual as possible, while prepping two large rabbits for the spit. He sprinkled the meat with a nice mixture of ground juniper, rock salt and thyme and he stared at his work, nodding, if only to prevent his thought from spiraling down a grim, ruinous path. Lambert handed him the long skewers, dipping his finger into the mixture of herbs and salt and sucking loudly.

“No. Pretty boy won’t be home for Midinváerne, this year.”

Eskel sighed hard at his statement. At least his hands were busy, otherwise he would have started scratching at his scar nervously, a nasty habit he had picked up on the Path shortly after the wound had healed enough to allow him some sensitivity in the area. He placed the spits over the fire and Lambert tossed a handful of dry bay leaves into the flames, smirking as the aromatic fumes spreaded all around the kitchen.

“It’s not like him to just -- go missing like this,” he stated, shrugging just slightly. Lambert cast him a somewhat exasperated look.

“You’re already worrying, aren’t you,” he said, his tone so matter-of-factly Eskel could almost consider it offensive. He decided to play it as cool as he could, given that Lambert was...well, Lambert, and his attitude had never been the most easy-going around Kaer Morhen, not even when a couple of those witchers that could rival him in sarcasm and prickliness were still alive and fairly well. He shook his head.

“Not worrying. Just -- curious. That’s it. Geralt has always sent a word up here whenever he didn’t plan on coming back for winter, you know. I just-”

Lambert cut him off abruptly, his manners as boorish as ever.

“Oh, come on. We have all deserted the keep for a year or two without saying anything. Besides, mages these days are damn expensive to hire, even if it’s just for a fucking letter to send to an abandoned and crubling fortress in the mountains. Maybe he was just short on coin. Or, and that’s way more probable, he hasn’t thought about writing at all. You know how he is, sticking his ploughing nose into matters that shouldn’t concern a witcher.”

Eskel grumbled in disagreement. His scar was starting to itch, but again he suppressed the urge of skinning his face with the sole might of his own fingernails by a whisker, shoving his hands into his pockets and balling his fists until he dug his nails in his palms.

“I beg to differ,” he managed, clenching his teeth. Lambert let out one of his proverbial disgusting snorts and rolled his eyes.

“Ah, have it your way,” he sneered. “Wanna worry? Then do it. But don’t mind me when I’ll say told ya if, some weeks into spring, you bump into him somewhere safe and warm and he tells you he has wintered in Oxenfurt or even in Toussaint.”

With Lambert’s indignant mug gone, Eskel finally collapsed onto a stool, giving into his urge and scratching at his scar until the skin felt pink, hot and tender under his fingers.

Vesemir joined him near the fire sometime later, carrying with him the scent of freshly chopped firewood and goat mane. He left a pitcher of goat milk on the counter, stating that it was high time they made some butter for themselves since the hunk he had brought from his last trip to the feet of the mountains was almost finished, and gave a nice turn to the spits so the rabbits could cook more evenly.

“Something you need me to do here, boy?”

Boy.

Vesemir called him a boy only when he sensed that something was tormenting him, and Eskel smiled fondly at the nickname. Not Wolf. Not kid. Boy. 

He shrugged. Vesemir dragged another low stool across the room and sat next to him, waiting expectantly, his features relaxed but, as always, unreadable and enigmatic. That was just how the old man was, he assumed. He had known him for almost a century, now, and he had long come to the conclusion that he would have never under understood him in full -- Vesemir was too old, too experienced and far too disillusioned to allow himself to be an open book, even if he let down a considerable amount of walls when he was tucked away behind the safety of Kaer Morhen’s gates.

“Don’t know. Wanna chop up some greens for a stew? Got plenty of potatoes this year…”

Vesemir hummed, satisfied.

“And carrots too. Celery. Turnips. Good thing that my gardening skills haven’t gone to shit with age,” he smiled, his face crumpling in a cobweb of deep lines. All in all, Eskel ended up thinking, Vesemir defended himself very well for being a relic of an almost forgotten past. When Vesemir clapped him on the back and stood up, he offered him an acknowledging nod. Though it was impossible to divine what Vesemir was thinking, it was easy to see that worry was starting to pool in his stomach too.

***

Dinner was unusually quiet, that evening. The northern wind had picked up sometime during the long, dark afternoon hours and it was whipping at the ancient stones of the keep, seeping through the cracks and making it almost impossible to roam around without at least one pelt on. Large snowflakes floated about idly, carried by the wind, along with tiny shards of ice that made everyone's eyes sting and water if they ventured outside for firewood and whatnot.

No one inside seemed to be in a mood for a nice booze and some Gwent. Vesemir disappeared behind the heavy kitchen door under the pretense of tending to the mess they had made and wash the dishes that had been sitting in the bucket for far too long. Lambert, as per usual, sneered at the old man’s goodwill, grabbing a bottle of Gull and tucking himself away in one of his hideouts upstairs. Being left alone, it was harder for Eskel to just ignore the bad feeling gnawing at his guts, to drown out the grim thoughts bouncing back and forth into his skull, keeping him awake long past a reasonable hour. He tried to read something from the library, picking up a random book - he ended up with a very very worn-out copy of the Chronicles of the Free Cities of the far West, an outdated tome since only one of the mentioned free cities still survived - and plopping down ungracefully into one of the cots scattered around the great hall, sighing heavily as he opened the book on his lap, hoping to get lost in the boring, factual notions inside. Alas, he didn’t. Anxiety gnawed at his guts, his usually so steady heartbeat pounding deafeningly in his ears. 

It didn’t make any sense.

Geralt had never been so late, nor had he ever failed at sending up there any news on his whereabouts, when he wasn’t sure he couldn’t make it to Kaedwen for the winter. Eskel tried to picture him spending a peaceful and merry season behind the sturdy walls of Oxenfurt - or any other northern city, for what it was worth - but he couldn’t. True, he hadn’t bumped into him during summer, while still on the Path, but…

Geralt couldn’t be dead, could he?

A small sound escaped Eskel’s throat. He didn’t like where his thoughts were leading him, but there was no way to stop what had been put in motion by a simple unuttered question. He tried to read some more, but his head was crammed with a variety of grim, gruesome images of Geralt’s broken body, either torn to shreds by the claws of a beast or hanging by the scaffold somewhere, his wolf medallion idly sitting on his still, unmoving chest. Unable to come to terms with the idea that Geralt could be, in facts, dead, he ended up meditating the rest of the night away, hoping to keep the bulk of his intrusive thoughts at bay until morning. 

Meditating had always been something he excelled at, probably because of his introspective nature and his manifest love for quiet and peace. That night, however, he was hardly able to focus just enough to enter the most perfunctory meditative state. He grew frustrated way faster than usual and his meditation got frequently interrupted, his hearing picking up various sounds from the rooms around him, especially right before daybreak.

Mice in the pantry. Vesemir’s soft sleeping breath. Lambert’s intoxicated snoring. The nervous stomping of the horses outside and... something else . Something he couldn’t quite place, but that made him scrunch his nose slightly nonetheless.

Something familiar. Undoubtedly horse-y, but... familiar. He quickly shrugged the last tendrils of his meditative numbness away and, in a quick beat, he was fully alert again, his senses sharp and his nostrils flaring in the cold air.

Horse mane. Not his horse’s though, nor Vesemir’s roan mare and not even Lambert’s prick of a bay that stank like a gutted drowner and was twice as dangerous, but something else.

His eyes widened when he recognized the scent, sweet and a little musky; it was the same scent that soaked Geralt’s gear and cloak, his hair and even his skin. Female in its prime. Young. Chestnut bay.

Roach.

He fetched his boots and fur-lined cape in an instant, bolting out into the main courtyard as if the devil itself was at his tail, but his heart sank to his knees the same exact moment he noticed that Roach had no rider, and she was impatiently waiting to be tended to in a visibly agitated state, her stomping hooves digging holes into the wet, snowy ground, thick clouds of warm breath coming from her trembling nostrils as her attentive eyes darted across the courtyard, alarmed and restless.

Shit.

Drawn outside by the ruckus, Vesemir was the first to appear next to Eskel while he tried, in vain, to calm the mare down without resorting to the Signs. Lambert followed shortly after, his face pale and tired and his breath still reeking of alcohol and toxins. Ultimately, Roach had to be tamed with Axii and Vesemir, his eyes betraying all the concern his stone-cold face couldn’t convey, called them back inside as soon as the horse had been taken care of, warmed up and fed.

Trudging behind Vesemir, they gathered around the fire, to heat back their hands that had gone numb with the piercing Kaedweni cold outside. Lambert was the first to say something, pouring all of his charme inside one single, yet extremely shared, sentiment.

“What the fuck?”

Eskel looked up to Vesemir, the fire casting long shadows over his ruined face, making it look even more grim than it actually was. Vesemir’s lips were pursed into a thin, pale line.

“The horse. By the evidence on her legs, she was running the Killer. You all saw the cuts, right? Not to mention the state her hooves are in,” he speculated, his fingers twitching slightly with nervousness as he stroked his stubble.

Lambert gave him quite a puzzled look, his brain still foggy with the Gull and clearly unable to follow the trail of Vesemir’s thoughts.

“Let me say this again. What the fuck?”

Both Eskel and Vesemir blatantly ignored him.

“How long do you think she’s been on the road without Geralt?” Eskel asked, voice thick with apprehension. Vesemir sighed heavily, shrugging his shoulders with a helpless look on his face.

“Hard to say. But if Geralt is somewhere out there-”

“I’m going, Vesemir. I can’t stand not doing anything.”

The older witcher nodded.

“I’m coming with you. Roach wasn’t dehydrated, nor she was starved. He can’t be too far, if he’s-”

The master cut himself off abruptly, grimacing as if he had just gobbled down the sourest bite of them all. 

If he’s still alive.

Eskel’s heart leaped in his throat.

“I’ll go get ready. Saddle the horses,” he instructed - asked? Bossed around? He couldn’t tell. He was far too concerned for Geralt to actually care about being civilized - before storming upstairs to retrieve his gear.

***

"It's a suicide mission."

Eskel’s eyes met Lambert’s painfully familiar pupils, still slightly blown with the effects of the Gull. He was in his full gear, his familiar studded jacket hidden under a long, cozy woolen coat, only slightly felted by the extensive use and one too many rainy days spent on the road.  

"Then why are you all dressed up? You can stay. I'll be back as soon as-"

I've found him , he would have liked to say. The sentence, though, hung in the smoke scented air, words simmering on the tip of his tongue and rotting bitter and foul against his teeth.

"No way. You're not going alone, dickhead."

"And you're not coming with me. You're still drunk. Besides, Vesemir's coming. You were there when he said he was coming along."

"No, he won't. Someone must stay behind in order to prepare a hot bath or... whatever , just in case."

Lambert's words were oddly considerate. Eskel clicked his tongue. Never look the gifted horse in the mouth .

"Let's go" His tone was clipped, urgent. "We need to find him before-"

Again, his words remained stubbornly locked in his mouth.

Before it’s too late.

Lambert got the message clear enough nonetheless. He borrowed Vesemir’s mount and, together, they set off for the Killer, half blinded by the minuscule shards of ice floating in the whipping wind. A silver of light was already coming from behind the thick clouds, painting the sky a soft shade of blue. Eskel spurred his horse down the tricky trail. Everywhere, traces of Roach’s quick trot. How the mare had managed not to cripple herself was a real mystery to Eskel, considering the dangerous trait they were crossing. Lambert too looked disconcerted at the horse’s luck.

“How the fuck did she…” He wondered, adjusting the direction of his mount so he didn’t end up in a ravine. Eskel shook his head.

“No idea. But at least we’ve got a clear trail. Look,” he pointed east. The snow had partially covered her tracks, but the many squished bushes and snapped twigs were enough to figure out from which direction Roach had emerged.

“Pretty far from the path,” Lambert noted, pulling the reins. Eskel sighed. He assumed that if he had ever preserved even a small grain of his long forgotten faith in the gods, he should have started praying, asking for a miracle. No prayer came to his mind. Clenching his jaw, he signalled Lambert to follow him as he trudged deeper into the woods. He tried to pick up Geralt’s scent, but he couldn’t detect anything different from the usual, comforting scents of the forest. He couldn’t say if it was bad news or not. Lambert too was frantically smelling the crisp air, his nose up and his brows knitted sternly.

“Blood,” he declared while Eskel was examining a weird patch of scorched ground. Igni, perhaps? He dismounted and dipped his fingertips in the darkened dirt. He smelled embers and spilled fat. Campfire. His heart clenched painfully under his ribs. His eyes darted to Lambert.

“Blood? Where?”

Lambert focused, closing his eyes. The wind was howling through the ancient trees and an unpleasant, high-pitched ringing had set in Eskel’s ears.

“It’s near. Come.”

Eskel nodded, tying his horse to a low branch in a haste and following him at a short distance, keeping his eyes open for any potential threat. There were at least two packs of wolves prowling the area, Eskel could feel them staring from a safe distance. Lambert, as intent as he was on following the faint trail of blood, could have run into a fucking warg and take it for a bush of wild roses, that much he cared about ploughing wolves. 

Soon enough, Eskel too could smell it. Blood. Not human, though. Not entirely. He gave Lambert a puzzled look, but his brother looked as taken aback as he was. Then they bumped into the first couple of corpses. Harpies.

Of course.

Feathers were scattered everywhere, sticky with dried blood and bits of mangled viscera. Another one was obscenely sprawled a good deal of steps ahead of them, its head severed from its torso and both of its arms missing. No doubt it was the fine work of a witcher’s blade, so sharp it could slice through the flesh just like a warm knife could cut through butter. It took them only a brief look and a court nod to rush towards the last corpse, swords unsheathed just in case. 

“Geralt?” Eskel found himself calling, his voice husky and filled with worry. No answer came. His stomach sank to his knees with an almost audible thud.

“Hey, come here, I think I found -- oh, fuck!”

Eskel’s quick reflexes were the only thing that spared Lambert from suffering Geralt’s fate. The ravine was almost invisible, which was fairly normal on the Killer, its edge hidden by a pile of dried leaves, fallen branches and clumped dirt. It was Eskel who spotted Geralt lying at the bottom of the narrow crevice, and the stream of curses that followed the gruesome discovery was, at least, eloquent in emphasizing how he was feeling. Lambert looked down; the fall mustn’t have been pretty. Though not exactly deep, the ravine was rocky, narrowing to a funnel shape so that, he was sure, Geralt had bumped into many protruding rocks before hitting the solid ground beneath. The damage such a fall could cause to a body was widely known and the chances of survival were down to a fucking flicker, even for a witcher. He ran a hand through his hair and cursed loudly.

“Shit. Fuck. You think he is-”

Eskel wasn’t exactly paying attention. He had left his swords neatly piled against the sturdy trunk of a tree and he was hastily getting rid of his cloak.

“I’m going down there. I need you to help me climb back. Won’t be easy with Geralt on my shoulders.”

Lambert nodded vigorously. Before starting his slow descent, Eskel squeezed his shoulder tight and gave him some sort of a solemn nod. Lambert stared at him wide-eyed, perched over the edge of the ravine like a weird looking bird, waiting for a sign.

***

Geralt wasn’t moving. Eskel realized with a deep pang that he looked frozen still, ice crusting his cloak and snowflakes tangled into the dirty mass of his hair, gray with damp. His hands looked livid and rigid. Eskel held his breath, approaching him cautiously. The corpse of another harpy - horribly maimed - laid sprawled across his legs, but it didn’t stop Eskel from witnessing what a fall in a ravine could do to a witcher’s bones, a fragment of shinbone sticking out at a weird angle from the tattered leather of his breeches.

He could hear Lambert’s breathing from above, heavy with his anxious waiting. His own, however, was trembling and uneven as he closed the short distance between him and Geralt - or Geralt’s body, cruelly remarked a small voice from the deep recesses of his brain - and crouched down at his side to dig his fingers into the cold flesh of his throat, searching for a pulse.

One second passed. Then two. Geralt’s throat remained stubbornly stiff and oddly pliable under Eskel’s fingertips. Eight seconds. Way too late to expect a pulse to be there at all. 

He bit down at his lower lip. Hard.

Ten seconds.

Eskel’s head was spinning. His fingers remained firmly glued to Geralt’s icy flesh, as he was physically incapable to let go.

Until.

A faint nudge. Too faint to allow him to draw a relieved sigh, but -- Geralt’s heart was beating. He was alive, though barely. 

Lambert called from above, as impatient as ever.

“How -- how’s the...situation?”

Eskel had to bite back the turmoil of emotions that was messing around with his guts before speaking, his voice still unsteady and just plain wrong as he tossed the dead harpy away and freed Geralt’s legs, witnessing the veritable mayhem underneath.

“I need splints,” he dryly said, hoping to keep the tremor in his voice at bay. He heard Lambert scramble to his feet.

“Splints?”

“He’s got multiple fractures. We can’t move him like this.”

Not to mention that he was bleeding quite steadily - though slowly and not profusely thanks to the state of deep meditation he was in - from various wounds, bones sticking out grotesquely through the pierced, torn skin. Eskel groaned and cursed. He had never liked to set bones back - the dry, crunching sound of the whole gave him the creeps for days afterwards - but he couldn’t just leave Geralt to bleed out or, possibly, cripple himself for the rest of his life. The risk of the latter was real; with his enhanced healing abilities, Geralt’s bones were more prone than his or Lambert’s to set naturally in a wrong position -- it had happened a couple of times before, and Eskel didn’t want to think about what had to be done in order to fix the mess he was in after a bone had healed wrong. A shiver ran down Eskel’s spine as he produced a small ball of bandages from his pocket and started to take care of the major wounds. Good thing he had packed some healing supplies just in case. Potions were out of question, though. With Geralt in that state, they could have killed him if only by getting stuck in his throat, and what a fucking sick way to die to be drowned by your brothers in a concoction of gross monster parts, herbs and toxins.

Lambert’s splints were rudimental, though they served their purpose well. What worried Eskel the most, now, was Geralt’s sickly ashen pallor and the livid, purple hue in his fingers and lips. He checked his heartbeat again, just to be sure. Frighteningly faint and mortally slow, but it was still there. His breathing was shallow and slightly ragged but, yet again, he was breathing, and that was definitely better than nothing.

“Hold on,” he whispered to his ear right before picking him up, careful not to jostle him around. Several of his ribs were broken. Setting back the one that was protruding from his skin had been damn hard, and he had bled from the torn muscle far more than Eskel had expected. Geralt was heavier than he remembered. The Path had surely been generous with him that year. He gritted his teeth, his arms already sore for the exertion and the biting cold. “We’re going home, Wolf. Just hold on.”

Loading Geralt on the horse proved to be no easy task, even for two full-fledged witchers, Eskel straining still from the difficult climb out of the fucking ravine, his shoulders hurting and screaming as if he had pushed a mountain away with the sole strength of his upper body. Lambert helped him strap Geralt to the saddle and cursed at how freezing his limbs were. Hoping to add some warmth to his severely hypothermic body, Eskel swapped their cloaks and shuddered when he wrapped the stiff, ice-crusted wool around his shoulders. 

“We must be quick,” he stated, spurring his horse forward. Lambert followed, his obedient, borrowed mount making no resistance whatsoever to his gentle kicks. 

“Quick? On the Killer? Wanna end up in another ravine?” 

Eskel grunted. Not that Lambert was wrong. They had to proceed carefully if they didn’t want to end up like Geralt who wasn’t, at any rate, faring better. 

When they reached Kaer Morhen, his breathing had dwindled down to an imperceptible whiff and his heartbeat had become weaker, almost inaudible. Eskel had never spluttered out so many curses all at once.

Luckily, though, Vesemir had already placed a large tub in the hall, right in front of the fire, and the water was steaming gently in the cold air. “Just in case”, he had said while filling the tub to the brim.

“We must strip him down of these soaked things,” he remarked, helping Lambert and Eskel lay him down on a pile of furs. Frenzy ensued. Geralt’s armor was pierced and bumped in various points, almost frozen against his damp, chilly skin, and even peeling his smallclothes away wasn’t easy.

Still, they managed, somehow, and they lowered him into the warm water with the outmost care, waiting for his metabolism to kick back and scroll him out of the deep meditative state that, ultimately, had saved his life. Even a witcher could freeze to death in Kaedwen, especially after falling into a damn ravine and breaking so many bones. 

Eskel fought real hard to massage back some heat into Geralt’s nearly frozen fingers, keeping warming them up until the livid tinge had subsided considerably in favor of a more lively pale ivory.

After the hot bath, Geralt’s skin looked less ashen and Eskel saw something in Vesemir’s eyes turn decidedly softer. He let the old Wolf assess eventual internal damages, stepping away almost gladly when Vesemir started prodding at Geralt’s back, chest and abdomen like a seasoned healer or an Oxenfurt scholar. 

“I don’t think he’s bleeding internally,” he stated once he was done, “but he’s still dangerously cold. I’ve got the fire going upstairs. He should rest in his bed.”

Eskel nodded. 

“What now?”

Lambert’s voice was oddly low. Eskel clapped him softly on the back and stroked gently until his tense muscles loosened up just so.

“Now we wait,” offered Vesemir, a small comforting smile on his lips. It lasted less than a beat, but it seemed to work to make them feel a little more positive about Geralt’s recovery.

Eskel, again, did the heavy lifting, picking Geralt up to let him rest safely in his bed. Tucking away a strand of his wayward, now dry hair, he couldn’t help but think “don’t make me wait too long, Wolf”.

***

Fingers.

The first thing he was aware of while slowly coming back to his senses was the weird feeling of his fingers, once numb and distant and now moving nimbly enough, scraping against the warm, soft surface of -- something.

Geralt drew in a harsh breath. Bad, bad idea. Pain stabbed through his ribs, making him regret breathing at all. He wanted to groan, but his throat wasn’t ready to produce any sound yet, so a muted version of some sorts left his lips. The sound grated against his eardrums and he realized that his head was pounding as if he had spent the last three days partying with the dwarves in Mahakam -- nausea was roiling in his stomach too so why not, it could have been entirely possible that he had spent the last three fucking days partying in Mahakam, the feeling was just the same.

Yet.

He remembered the harpies. The ravine. The piercing frozen wind. The unbearable pain of his broken bones.

Though not exactly ready to face the cold, hard reality, he tried to crack his eyes open, not without much difficulty. On a side note, he wasn’t feeling particularly freezing - quite the opposite, in facts - and that was to be considered a luxury, though as small as luxuries went with so many fractures and injuries. Had he dragged himself somewhere safe before passing out? Impossible. He remembered far too well the state he was in. Even if he had tried, he wouldn’t have crawled far with a shattered leg and half of his ribs broken or bruised.

He made the herculean effort of opening his eyes, then. His pupils, still sluggish from both the long meditation and the blows he had, with no doubt, subjected his skull to while falling, didn’t react promptly and the darkness blinded him for a moment, keeping him from divining his surroundings. His nose, however, still worked perfectly. He drew another breath, carefully this time, and he couldn’t help but smile when he recognized the weird mixture of smells hitting his nostrils. Dust. Old. Stale. Herbs and ancient parchment. Embers. The soft, warm lump at his side stirred slightly and sighed. Geralt’s smile widened. 

Eskel.

He was in Kaer Morhen, then. 

Safe.

Something was pinning his good leg down to the mattress. When he kicked his feet, the thing uttered an almost unintelligible curse and started snoring out of sheer spite.

Lambert, then.

Somehow they had found him. He guessed that Roach could have helped in that sense. She was a smart girl, after all, she had saved his sorry ass on countless occasions. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she had alerted his family and given them useful information on his whereabouts. He refrained at the very last second from sighing. Sighing was a no-no with his ribcage in such a poor state. He thought about waking Eskel up. He had missed him so much, after all, during the long, lonely months on the Path. Still. He looked so peaceful when he slept. Geralt’s pupils, now used to the dim light cast by the embers burning in the fireplace, could trace the outline of Eskel’s features, so soft as he slept curled up by his uninjured side, his lips slightly parted as he did whenever he collapsed in bed exhausted after a long, tiresome day. His fingers moved almost on their own volition to brush against Eskel’s cheekbone. Soft. Warm. He didn’t even flinch. Geralt guessed that helping him out of the ravine and taking care of his battered, nearly frozen body had been grueling work to say the least.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful, though.

Eskel’s eyelids fluttered open.

“Geralt,” he whispered, sleep hanging heavy in his husky voice, almost drowning out his wonder. “You’re awake.”

Geralt chuckled slightly, blatantly ignoring the lance of pain that shot through his chest afterwards.

“Shouldn’t I be?”

Eskel leaned into his touch, pressing a gentle kiss into his palm and breathing some warmth into the marred skin.

“It’s nice to see you awake. You’ve been out for an entire day, and Vesemir said it could have taken longer for you to...come out of your meditative state. I’m glad you’re back.” 

Lambert muttered something in his sleep.

“How did you find me?” Geralt was dying to know how they had retrieved his miserable bag of bones from the Killer, but Eskel shook his head, lowering his voice even further.

“Tomorrow. You should rest, Wolf.”

Wolf.

Geralt’s heart grew ten times bigger with affection.

“You too, Eskel. You look...tired.”

“It’s because you’ve gotten fat. Now sleep, you must recover your strength. There are quite a few holes in the walls to patch this year.”

Geralt shook his head. He strongly doubted he could have been on his two feet patching holes for the next few days or so, but yet.

It felt fucking good to be home.