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Zeke and Zela

Summary:

Ezekiel the Crane comes home to a bit of a surprise.

Notes:

Thanks again to my darling beta Peach.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Ezekiel is relieved beyond measure to be home. What was meant to be a simple nekker infestation had turned out to be, in fact, a coven of bruxae and alps led by a very angry ekkimara. He has no idea how that kind of mix-up happened, but he's not the one in charge of reports. Let the poor Manticore in charge of this debacle deal with that.

(It's not really the fault of anyone in particular, he knows. The ekkimara was very careful about making the problem seem like nekkers. He's just cranky about nearly being scalped.)

The Crane wing smells more strongly of explosives than usual, but opening the door, his own room still smells pleasantly of lust, love, and the injured mother cat he and Zela have been caring for.

(Glancing over, said cat seems to be doing quite well. The kittens are nursing and still haven't opened their eyes, and the wound from the amputation of her front left leg seems to be healing nicely.)

The succubus in question leaps from the bed as Ezekiel enters, grinning broadly. He gestures to himself and says, "ta-da!" with a great deal of pride.

Ezekiel blinks owlishly in the doorway a few times before replying, "oh," rather dumbly.

Zela pouts, arms now akimbo, "What, 'oh'? No more binding! No more marital aid!" Here Zela gestures to the aforementioned items on the nightstand next to their bed.

Closing the door behind him, Ezekiel crosses the room and wraps the slighter succubus in his arms. He presses a kiss against his lovers temple.

"I apologize, you surprised me is all. I didn't know you wanted to do something like this. You've never mentioned being so dissatisfied with your body," he says, inhaling the calming, familiar smell of the hybrid in his arms.

"Well, I did not know there was a possibility of changing it!" Zela says, burrowing further into his embrace. "There is no point dwelling on a thing I can do nothing about."

"And then I mentioned Serrit," he murmurs, pressing another kiss to Zela's temple.

"Yes and then you mentioned Serrit."

"Still," Ezekiel says, pulling back to look down at the him. "I know how you feel about mages."

If Zela's complexion wasn't so very, very dark the succubus would be blushing, he knows. As it is, Zela pulls self-consciously on his silvery hair. He's pulled it into a loose braid on his left side, where it mostly covers the nasty scar running from his chin to his temple, so that his missing ear isn't visible. Zela's never said what the mage was trying to do, but whatever the mage did to injure Zela so also left a very noticeable chip in the small rams horn on his left side.

"I have been helping Miss Merigold on occasion!" Zela says, pouting a little.

"Yes but I happen to know you find her considerably less intimidating than Yennefer, and helping her with ingredients otherwise dangerous to humans makes you feel useful," Ezekiel says, smiling.

Zela swats at him playfully. "Did you bring me a present? It was a big town you went to, yes?"

Zela never goes to the very large towns, even when he accompanies Ezekiel and his squad while they are on the Path, though he is fascinated by the idea of the shops. Wordlessly, Ezekiel pulls a small package from his shoulder bag and hands it over.

"Oh! More charcoals! I was running low," Zela takes the package over to the desk set aside for his art equipment and starts fussing with the items there.

Ezekiel crouches by the tortie cat and her three kittens, scritching her on the head before going over to Zela to hook his chin over the succubuses shoulder to look at what he has been working on. It's a charcoal piece, Eskel, Jaskier, and Ciri sat around a table talking animatedly. There is a gwent game seemingly forgotten on the table, and what looks to be the beginning of the Wolf's little white cat pawing at the cards.

"Do you think he will like it? The White Wolf?" Zela asks quietly.

"I'm sure he'll love it. We can get a frame done up for it," Ezekiel replies, just as quietly.

"I am just very grateful he allowed me to stay. I would like to give it to him for the winter holidays. That is a gift giving time for humans, yes?"

"Told you he would. You're not the kind of monster we hunt," Ezekiel says, going over to their dresser to rummage through the clothing. "Now, I am dying for a bath. Coming with?"

"The baths! Yes! I love those!" Zela grins hugely and heads for the door.

"Hey, slow down," Ezekiel says.

Hand on the door handle, Zela turns back to him curiously. Ezekiel quirks a brow and holds up one of Zela's simple skirts, gesturing at the others' nudity.

"Oh, yes, I see," Zela replies sheepishly and takes the proffered article of clothing as Ezekiel bundles the rest into some toweling.

They almost make it down to the springs without incident, but they happen across the Songbird on the way down, and Zela has to pause long enough to praise a new piece he sang the night before. Ezekiel hasn't got any strong feelings about music in general, but he looks forward to Jaskier's music. It's come to mean home as much as anything else about Kaer Morhen.

As they finally walk into the cavern with the hot springs, Ezekiel is doubly relieved Zela isn't human. Oh, he doesn't begrudge any of his Witcher siblings their affections. He thinks it's quite sweet, the Witchers with their human lovers, but humans have their limitations. They can't, for instance, slide into the very hottest spring like Zela is doing now.

Sliding in next to Zela, Ezekiel heaves a sigh of relief. Before he's had a moment to collect any soap, Zela is nudging him so that he has better access to Ezekiel's hair, and is working soap into a lather on his head. Nearly half of it was shorn off so that the wound from his near scalping could be properly stitched, and Zela pauses to run a finger carefully over the wound running nearly the length of his hairline on one side, making a sound of confusion.

"Vampires," he says before recounting the events of this particular hunt.

Zela stares, wide-eyed, as he finishes, "I am sad I did not go with you, I could have helped," he says.

"It was supposed to just be some nekkers, you couldn't have known. I know you're still settling in, I didn't want you to feel rushed," seeing Zela still looking a bit guilty, he decides to change the subject. "What did you get up to while I was gone?"

Zela brightens immediately before saying, "The Consort was helping Miss Merigold as well yesterday! He had such stories. Why did it never occur to me to set up next to a university?"

"You mean aside from the whole 'large settlement' thing?" Zela blows a raspberry at him. "In my admittedly limited experience, students run primarily on caffeine and spite. They wouldn't offer a very fulfilling meal for you."

"Oh," Zela replies, put out, "it sounded very creative."

"Speaking of, did you have a snack while I was gone?" Ezekiel winks ostentatiously.

Zela swats good-naturedly at his shoulder, "My Zeke keeps me very well-fed. Still, I considered offering the so-called Dreadful Duo a proposition."

Ezekiel guffaws, "Decided against it?"

"I concluded it would likely not be as amusing as I first thought," Zela replies.

"But you went to meals without me? I'm proud of you," Ezekiel says. Even after a few weeks, Zela rarely wanders about the keep without him.

"I know you said I could eat in our room, but I did not want to seem ungrateful by avoiding the other Witchers, or that perhaps I fear them." Zela moves far enough away that Ezekiel can get to cleaning the rest of himself.

"Anything else I miss while I was away?" Ezekiel asks, starting to scrub.

Zela titters and leans in as though sharing a secret. "I received a missive from a fellow succubus friend."

Ezekiel cocks a brow before replying, "are you not supposed to be getting letters like that?"

"No! It is the contents that are scandalous!" Zela looks furtively around the cavern, but aside from a few humans in the furthest pool, they are currently alone. "She had an encounter with Eskel Amber-Eyed some years back."

Ezekiel guffaws again, "Eskel? You sure she wasn't just pulling your leg?"

Zela frowns as though deep in thought for several moments before it seems something dawns on him.

"Oh! That is turn of phrase!" Zela says.

Before Ezekiel can reply, a Viper and a fellow Crane slide into the pool across from them.

"Looks like you've got an incubus now, eh, Zeke?" the Viper says.

Zela digs one of his hooves none-too-gently into the Viper's stomach. Ezekiel can feel her long tail lash underwater.

"I am no incubus, sir! Incubus are strange, sir!" Zela says, glaring.

"Huh. I met an incubus once," says Ezekiel's fellow Crane. "Seemed okay to me. Weirdest thing was him getting angry at me for scaring his multitudinous cats. I guess people view crazy cat people as weird, though. Harmless enough, in any case."

"Okay, I don't care about any incubus anyway," the Viper says, rubbing his stomach. "Just tell me where that bear that went with you is and I'll go."

"Probably in his room," Ezekiel says. "Why do you ask?"

"Because that fucker left me to pick up his sword lessons with the Wolf's songbird!" the Viper says, glaring in the vague direction of the Bear wing. "

"What's wrong with the bard and training him?" Ezekiel asks.
Half an hour later, he and Zela are getting ready to head back to their rooms, and he's already drafting potential lessons in his head.

~*~

"Wolf! Hey, Wolf!" Ezekiel flags down the White Wolf. There's been talk of something called a 'Progress' and it will apparently take several months.

Ezekiel hands over a folder that contains detailed information on what he's been working on with Jaskier. The White Wolf scans the first page, brow furrowing.

"If you're going to take my student away for months at a time, you're going to have to make sure he's not slacking. I expect him not to come back too rusty," Ezekiel says, watching as the Wolf grows increasingly confused.

"We have carrier pigeons?" the Wolf mutters, seemingly to himself.

"Alright, I don't expect you to take any of the letter carriers from the servants. Not all of us in the castle want to hassle a magic user every time we want to send a message." Ezekiel turns to go but leaves the Wolf with a final, "And remember, the dagger is defensive!"

Notes:

I sent the ask suggesting teaching Jaskier improvised weaponry from a Crane.

Some notes on Zela:

5'
loves bread
I used he/him pronouns for simplicity but he doesn't actually care, some people still use she/her and it makes no difference, his pronouns are not linked to his gender in his mind
originally from Zerrikania, he skedaddled after the mage incident
his latent magical energy made the transitioning process more risky for Yennefer to do, so he chose to avoid cosmetic changes to fix the injury from the mage
still feels awkward speaking non-Zerrakanian languages, thus the lack of contractions and any stilted dialogue from him
met Zeke shortly before the Warlord thing started, would meet up with him and his detachment to join them on the Path
loves all of the fine arts but has no musical talent, so Jaskier is basically a wizard
he is adamant that Jaskier has succubus or incubus or something in his ancestry because no mere human should have lust as a baseline smell

Some notes on Zeke:

5'5"
originally from Toussaint, not that he remembers it, he was taken as a 4 y/o
hair is red and he keeps it long bc Zela likes to braid it
cats fearing him after the Trials was THE most devastating thing to happen to him so he is delighted about the recent turn of events with the cats in Kaer Morhen
REALLY digs a lot of the Manticore White Gull experiments
channels his Crane creativity more into animal welfare than explosions and the like
other Cranes occasionally tease him about actually being a Bear because he tends to be so much more quiet and reserved than other Cranes