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A stormy knocking jolted Aiden out of his sleep. He was disoriented for a moment and looked around suspiciously. Warm bed, furs, cool stone walls surrounded him, Lambert. Ah! Kaer Morhen. He was not yet used to being able to rest relaxed for months without having to constantly check for monsters, bandits or anything else.
The knocking repeated, stronger and more insistent than before. Aiden focused on the person at the door and smiled.
Then he shook Lambert by the shoulder and immediately backed away to his own side of the bed. His Wolf reacted unpredictably when he was woken too early. Which, looking outside where it was just dawning, was definitely the case today. As expected, Lambert's arm went back to ward off the troublemaker, but he met only cool air.
Aiden grinned.
"Lamb, your niece is at the door."
"Don't have a niece. Let me sleep, you annoying shit!"
Now Aiden inevitably had to chuckle softly. He slipped out of bed to the door and opened it just enough for Ciri to slip in. He gestured for her to be quiet with a finger on his lips and waved her closer to the bed. Then he pointed to one corner of the quilt for the girl to take while he grabbed the other.
"Oh yeah?" he turned to Lambert a little louder than before, "If you call Ciri Geralt's child, it is only right that she should be your niece by that. With him as your brother, et cetera, et cetera."
A grumble was the reply, then Lambert squirmed suspiciously to check on Aiden, whose voice was definitely coming from the wrong end of the bed. He could hear Aiden shouting loudly, "One, two, three!" and suddenly all the fucking cold of Kaer Morhen came crashing down on him. Cursing, Lambert threw himself forward to keep his blanket with him, but Aiden and Ciri had a tight grip on it, cackling loudly.
"Uncle Lambert," Ciri exaggeratedly emphasised the salutation, "Get up already. It's been snowing! You promised we'd go sledding."
Lambert gave up trying to get his blanket back, let it go so that Aiden and Ciri staggered a little, and used the moment of surprise to leap forward. He grabbed Ciri, who shrieked with delight and tried to wriggle out of his grasp, in the way he had recently shown her himself. But the witcher would not let her escape so easily and threw himself back on the bed with her and put his deft fingers to work. The screeching increased to a deafening noise as Lambert tickled the girl under the arms and down the sides of her stomach.
"Aiden! Help me, Aiden!" cried Ciri and Aiden promptly complied with the request. He attacked Lambert from behind. As good as the Wolf witcher was at tickle attack, being tickled was also his own weak point. Aiden lunged at Lambert's hips and showed full body use.
A few minutes later the door was pushed open and Geralt stood in the doorway breathing heavily. "What's going on?"
On the bed the two witchers and Ciri were brawling, screeching and laughing, neither seemed to get the upper hand.
"Lambert just wanted to get up and go sledding with Ciri, completely voluntarily and totally without us having anything to do with it," Aiden explained, yelping as he broke free of the human tangle, stood up and stretched.
Lambert and Ciri stopped wrestling and lay on the bed next to each other, gasping for breath. The witcher reached out his hand to the girl.
"Peace?"
"Only if you come with me right now and promise me that we'll ride up the steep slope on the south side at least three times," the looked at Lambert, squinting, "Or..." She raised her hands again and wiggled her fingers.
"Oi!" Lambert jumped up and raised his hands defensively, "You win, princess. Put your weapons back."
Whooping, Ciri jumped up and ran out of the room in a flash to put on her extra-thick winter clothes.
Lambert sighed. This was going to be fun.