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It starts with a clearing in a forest.
The first big change in Geralt’s life happens when he’s only six, a small child wanting to help his mother gather firewood. He doesn’t wander off, he’s careful - always careful- and obedient to his mum. He doesn’t get lost, stays in the vicinity mum showed him time and time again and yet…
Waiting for him when he returns to the spot his mum was supposed to be, is no one.
He doesn’t know how much time passes in that forest. It feels like years. It must be a few hours; the sun hasn’t set yet.
He’s a patient boy, he can stay there at his little spot for hours until his mum returns. He’ll hum under his breath the little song that’s been swirling in his mind and wait; it’s the only thing he can do. She must return, he thinks, she wouldn’t leave him all alone in that scary forest.
She doesn’t.
Instead of his mum, a stranger, a man with eyes bright yellow like a cat’s, and a myriad of scars on the exposed skin of his face, neck and hands, approaches him, kneels down carefully and says: “Hello Geralt. I’m here to take you to your new home.”
Before Geralt can open his mouth to ask ‘what about his mum? Is she coming with?’ the stranger assumes a sympathetic expression, eyebrows scrunched together and eyes filled with sadness. “I’m afraid,” the man says, “your mother won’t be joining us. She knows she can’t follow where we’ll go. Visenna—” he knows mum’s name! “—entrusted you to me. My name is Rennes and I’ll be guiding you to Kaer Morhen to train you as a witcher.”
-
The second big change in Geralt’s life happens when he’s twelve years old.
The trial of the grasses, the elder witchers call it. Torture, Geralt thinks. Plain and simple torture.
Both the weeks anticipating the trial, and the mutational process itself, are torturous. The former mainly in his, everyone’s really, mind and the latter…
The potions that are being administered to him and his cohort burn them from the inside out. Geralt never knew such pain was possible.
He’s awake and screaming throughout the entire process. He’s awake when nine of his friends leave their last breath strapped on these cold, evil, metal tables, bleeding from every orifice. He’s awake when the mages that are supposed to watch over them, are supposed to help them survive, shrug in indifference every time a child shudders their last death rattle.
He hates them.
He hates his mother who so cruelly gave him away to those murderers.
He hates himself for believing, however half-heartedly, that all would end well. That all his friends would wake up fine.
Geralt, Eskel and Gweld are the only survivors of this batch of experiments.
-
The third, and perhaps most significant change in Geralt’s life happens when he’s sixteen.
In the years between the trials of the grasses, the mourning that followed and the acceptance that this is his life now , Geralt grows up to be bright and full of life. He cherishes Eskel and Gweld, spends every living moment with them, makes promises under the stars that he won’t let anything happen to them if he can help it, that he’ll care for them. And in return, they, with eyes full of tears, promise to care for Geralt, to be by his side. They’ll walk the Path together, they say, to fuck with what the elders say.
Lone wolves don’t live for long, Geralt thinks. They must stay together.
There’s so much good they can do for the Continent and its people, so many lives to save. They can — will — be heroes.
Love, after all, is the strongest force on earth. And all three of them love each other, and love life and the Continent, that much is true.
That’s what all of them believe. Until Geralt is taken away by the mages, screaming and kicking.
They inform him, curtly, their faces morphed in fake sympathy, that he’s the perfect candidate to put through a second round of experimental mutations. If someone can make it out of them alive that’s him, they say. After all, he took the first round remarkably well and now that he’s older, stronger, it’s safe to put him through it again.
He screams and fights and tries to flee their grasp, hands reaching to his Eskel, to his Gweld, but one half-witcher, not even three-half witchers, can compete with mages. Before he knows it, Eskel and Gweld lie prone on the ground, the steady rise and fall of their chests the only indicator that they’re still alive. And Geralt—
—Geralt can’t move his limbs.
Fuck.
FUCK.
Exactly like the first time, some four years ago, Geralt is awake throughout the entire process. In contrast with the first round of mutations, he’s alone, strapped to the sad cold metal table in a room that stinks of death and chaos.
This time, whatever magics the mages did to him before they dragged his limp form to the laboratory, hold strong. He can’t move, he can’t speak. He can only hear and see as potion upon potion is administered to him and he burns burns burns.
He hears the mages discuss something, his consciousness hanging from a thread stubbornly.
“He’s too emotional for a witcher,” a woman says.
“Yes,” agrees a man with a trembling voice, “let’s hope that the trial will be a success then.”
“Honestly,” the woman huffs, “what did our predecessors do to this boy? Use the Cat formula?”
The sound of flipping through the pages of a manuscript and, “No, just the regular process it seems.”
“Then he must have been extremely emotional from the beginning.”
“Must have. Good thing we can fix it.”
Geralt doesn’t want to think, can’t really think what it means with all those potions rending him apart.
At one point he thinks he sees the blurry image of a brunette boy hovering above him. There’s something blue too. Bright like the summer sky. Blue like cornflowers in full bloom.
-
Geralt survives the second round of trials. The conversation the mages had above his head, fades quickly; it feels like a distant dream these days.
His hair falls off and starts growing white. He’s indifferent about it.
Eskel and Gweld pester him every day to unload his feelings on them like they used to do when everything became too much, yet he doesn’t seem to have any feelings left to unload. He’s indifferent.
Always indifferent.
He doesn’t remember what joy feels like; doesn’t think he ever felt it to begin with.
What are feelings anyway?
He distances himself from everyone. What’s the point of conversing with his fellow witchers? It’s not like he has something to gain. Or to give. After all, they’re annoying, they rile on his nerves. He can’t wait for his training to be complete, to set upon the Continent, to slaughter monsters like he was made to do.
Sometimes, he thinks he sees a mop of brown hair, that doesn’t belong to anyone he knows, at the corner of his vision. Bright blue eyes following him, haunting him.
He hates it.
He hates them. Viciously.
-
Geralt thinks of himself as a level headed witcher, always approaching his contracts with indifferent neutrality, never mixing himself in human bullshit. He’s efficient that way, quick and deadly. Better than his fellow witcher will ever be.
Yet, he can’t help but feel that something inside of him is missing. Some little part of his being, snuffed, detached from him.
And then there’s another thing: those blue eyes, following him everywhere, wherever he goes. He’s not afraid, can’t really feel fear, but it’s unnerving.
He’s tried time and time again to outrun them, to take a route so secret, so hidden, that they wouldn’t be able to follow and yet… Yet they still haunt him.
He tries, after a while, to forget about them, to pretend they aren’t there, watching his every movement.
He can’t.
And that only makes him hate them more.
-
Geralt doesn’t see a point in returning to Kaer Morhen every year. It’s counterproductive in his opinion. Winters are full with contracts and rest is overrated.
That’s why he doesn’t return. He roams the world even when the snows are heavy and the roads impassable.
There are always monsters to slay after all.
-
It takes years and years of those blue eyes haunting the edge of his vision, day and night, season come and season pass, till he hears their owner’s voice.
He’s outside Blaviken, lying beside the cursed princess, he won’t bother learning the name of when a masculine voice, clear and musical, calls out to him.
“Geralt,” the voice says and his vision is suddenly overflowing with blue and brown. “Geralt leave this hellhole, please. Can’t you see how that wizard is manipulating you? It’s gonna end badly, I can feel it.”
“Go away!” The witcher growls. “The fuck do you want from me? Following me around?”
The princess startles awake, and Geralt barely registers the scent of confusion coming off from her in waves. She shakes her head, gathers her belongings and disappears in the morning forest fog.
The voice, the blue, too close, too fucking close, shrieks, “What I want? What I fucking want, Geralt? To protect you, you shit-for-brains!”
Anger twists and coils inside Geralt’s stomach.
“Fuck off!” He yells and the brown and blue shimmers and disappears before his eyes.
Godsfuckingdamnit does he hate them.
-
The Butcher of Blaviken they call him now and he couldn’t care less.
That’s a lie.
The unfavourable moniker is a pain in the arse; the jobs are few and the traps plenty. Can’t those humans see Geralt for who he is? A monster slayer, shaped and trained to rid them of the pests threatening their communities. Killing a few aggressive bandits in the middle of the town shouldn’t have logically had such a big impact on his income. And yet…
The man whose voice and brown and blue belong to appears more frequently as coin dwindles and Geralt is chased out of every town he sets foot to.
He’s of a height with Geralt, brown mop of hair, unruly, framing his face, cornflower blue eyes, wide and intelligent. He seems to be wearing a ridiculous-looking blue outfit, the doublet’s sleeves puffed with little bows peeking under the puffs, pants matching in colour and shade.
The man, whose name Geralt doesn’t even try to recall ( Did he ever tell Geralt his name? What does it matter anyway?) is annoying as fuck. He’s dead set on talking Geralt’s ear off about everything and nothing, about the joy and beauty of the world, and when he’s not talking he’s singing.
Geralt can’t escape him no matter how hard he tries. The man simply shimmers into existence right next to him and laughs as if delighted by Geralt’s antics.
Geralt hates him so deeply, so viciously but he can’t exactly place why. In his rather indifferent life, this man of song and laughter and love is the only thing that makes him feel , albeit negatively. He decides he doesn’t like it.
He hates hates hates hates him so fucking much.
-
Luck seems to turn around as years pass and somehow, Geralt finds himself invited to the Cintran princess’ betrothal fest to act as a bodyguard. The pay is good and it seems like a relatively easy job so he agrees.
His shadow- Jaskier Geralt calls him in his mind because Jaskier is annoying, poisonous and a tenacious weed at his side- follows him to the banquet. The bastard keeps singing Geralt’s ears off as the events unfold before them. “How romantic Geralt,” Jaskier swoons. “True love’s kiss lifted the curse on Duny! You simply must ask for the Law of Surprise as a reward! It would be incredibly poetic!”
“Fuck off, I’m not—” Geralt hisses pauses, and then blurts out (a bit louder than he wanted), “-- claiming the Law of Surprise!”
“Very well, witcher, you may get what I have but don’t already know,” Duny agrees and Pavetta retches.
“Fuck.”
-
Geralt must be rid of Jaskier, for his sanity first and foremost— to regain the ability to sleep dreamlessly, secondly.
A wild idea crosses his mind one particularly taxing day in which Jaskier has been pestering him to “lighten up a little Geralt! Start enjoying life a little, Geralt!”.
A djinn.
A djinn could be the answer to all his Jaskier shaped problems.
Geralt starts hunting down rumours. Jaskier is very vocal about how displeased he is with this plan.
Serves the fucker right. He should be afraid.
Geralt locates a djinn’s vessel in a lake outside the shithole town of Rinde. Jaskier is starting to become more anxious as Geralt lays nets in the lake, time and time again in his attempt to fish the amphorae that’s said to contain the djinn.
“Stop this madness! You’re going to kill us!” Jaskier yells, arms—always so disgustingly expressive— spread wide open.
“Us?” Geralt sneers. “Gonna get rid of you.” He pulls the nets one last time and—
Between leaves and rotting branches lies a perfectly preserved amphorae, its seal in place. And because Jaskier is nothing but an apparition he can’t really stop Geralt, however vocal he gets, the witcher pulls the seal of the amphorae and utters his wish, rage boiling inside him.
“I wish for this to fucking end!”
The world becomes dark and Geralt falls to the wet ground, limp.
-
He flutters his eyes open to a bright beautiful world. The birds are singing their songs and something rumbles inside Geralt’s chest. He’s humming a melody, he realises after a while.
How weird. He glances down his hand and sees no mark of the djinn. Wasn’t it supposed to grant three wishes?
His vision blurries, tears pooling between his eyelashes. He clutches his chest and weeps for the first time in over half a century.
Everything is so much, too much. The beauty, the sadness, the anger too. Jaskier is gone, he can’t see him, feel him, around him. He looks up to the sky, the same warm blue of Jaskier’s eyes. No, Geralt thinks to himself, the man’s name was never Jaskier, he was— he is part of Geralt, always have been, but Geralt had been blinded by the spells those mages did to him during his second round of Trials that—
Melitele!
Eskel! Gweld! He broke their hearts. They loved him and he abandoned them; what a cruel beast he had become.
Anxiety twisting in his stomach Geralt rises to shaky legs and makes his way to his horse. He has to return, for the first time in sixty-three years, to Kaer Morhen. Ah, fuck, he hopes they’re still around, alive and healthy and happy.
He bears no illusions; the time he was away being a monster, being the perfect witcher can never come back. But he has to try to fix things, he has to try to learn to be human again, shed the shadow of anger and indifference from his skin.
He’s angry that he missed so much time, but it’s not the same all-consuming anger he felt all those years. It’s bitter and sad and full of longing for the life he never had the chance to experience.
-
This autumn he makes the trek up the Blue Mountains, up the hidden path that’s been engraved in his deepest memories. Admittedly, he gets lost a few times, the lands have changed since he last came this way, but in the end, the half-ruined (was it always in such a bad state?) keep appears after a sharp turn.
Geralt takes a deep breath, taking in the scent of stone, horses and metal that reminds him of those nights under the stars, sharing dreams with Eskel and Gweld.
At the portcullis, a witcher, old with hair almost as white as Geralt’s, waits for him. The witcher’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, eyes wide in disbelief. “Geralt?” the man asks in a voice that reminds Geralt of Vesemir. Can it be? Is this his old fencing master? A sharp pang of guilt blooms in his chest. He’s been gone for far too long, he can see it clearly now.
Tears pool in Geralt’s eyes again and he nods, choking on the many words restricting his throat. The old witcher, Vesemir, for it’s him, there’s no doubt now, crosses the distance between them and wraps him in his embrace. “It’s broken,” Vesemr’s voice is barely a whisper. Not words then, that Geralt was supposed to hear. “Your eyes are blue—”
“I’m sorry,” Geralt chants, again and again, head burrowed in the crook of Vesemir’s neck.
The old fencing master pats him softly, sympathetically, on the back, offering reassurances. “It’s alright my boy,” he says, “You’re back, you’re finally back.”
“Is— Are Eskel and Gweld—” he can’t utter the words for he doesn’t know if his heart could take it if- if—
“They’re alive. Sent a letter that they’d be here in a few days.”
A sob and then another.
“Come, let’s get you inside my boy.”
-
The days anticipating the arrival of Eskel and Gweld are torturous at best. Geralt hardly has an appetite, anxiety constricting his stomach and making everything taste like bile.
He can’t help but imagine all sorts of scenarios, all sorts of profanities Eskel and Gweld will release upon him when they see him- and rightly so.
At the end of the third day of this utter hell, a man appears at the gate. It’s not someone Geralt recognises and he grimly thinks that it’s been so long he might not recognise the men Eskel and Gweld have become. No, he will, he reassures himself, he has to.
The newcomer’s name is Lambert and he’s one of the youngest remaining Wolf Witchers, he learns, and possibly someone he could become good friends with. There’s a fire burning inside this Wolf and he’s so unapologetically himself, vulnerable and snippy and flawed, and human , that makes Geralt smile and hope bloom in his chest.
At the dawn of the fifth day, two men, one large and heavily scarred with brown hair and one shorter and lithe and red-haired, enter the courtyard. They look nothing like the teenagers they once were but Geralt would recognise them everywhere, in the way they walk, in the way they hold themselves. He absently wonders if the same would apply to them.
Suddenly, he finds himself overly conscious over his deathly pale skin and his white hair. He’s not the boy they knew and—
Vesemir rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It’s all gonna be alright, my boy,” he tells him, “They’ve grown to be good men, kind men.” And then, the traitor pushes him towards the door.
Fuck.
Eskel and Gweld snap their heads in his direction and he shifts awkwardly from leg to leg, lips drawn into a thin line and eyes skittering left and right. In a single breath, he blurts out: “Eskel, Gweld, long time no see! I, uh, it’s been a while? I’m so so so so so sorry for who I was while- after the second round- I— Oomph-” Within moments he finds himself half-crushed between the two men that once meant (still mean) the world to him.
“Wolf,” Eskel’s deep voice rumbles, “Missed you so much.”
“Ger,” Gweld tightens his embrace, “Been too long.”
“You’re not mad?” Geralt croaks out, tears streaming down his cheeks again. Melitele, he really is- was- is overly emotional for a witcher. “I was an asshole!”
“Nope,” say both men in sync.
“We knew the mages did that to you,” Eskel explains, smiling softly, the deep gnarled scar that adorns the right part of his face stretching.
“It bloody hurt,” Gweld continues, “do not misunderstand, but we knew it wasn’t your fault. What happened, Ger, why are your eyes back to being blue? How did you break whatever those mages did to you?”
Geralt hums, then chuckles sadly, “Don’t think I can tell this story without some nice alcohol.”
Eskel nods in understanding, “Got a lot of catching up to do, Wolf.”
“That we do.”