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Aiden is thoroughly exhausted by the time he and Lambert make it to Kaer Morhen’s gates. The Killer is not a forgiving trail, and without horses, they’ve had to pull the wagon full of useful supplies themselves, which is possible but not pleasant. On the other hand, at least Aiden didn’t have to deal with the trail and a horse trying to kill him, so he’ll take what silver linings he can find.
Vesemir and Coën are waiting in the courtyard for them. Vesemir claps Lambert on the shoulder, then greets Aiden with just as much warmth; Coën gives each of them a tight embrace. Aiden’s heart aches as he marvels: two years ago, he could not have dreamt of any sort of warm welcome in Kaer Morhen, and now - now it feels like home.
“Go on in, we’ll unload the wagon,” the Griffin says. “And Aiden - there’s a surprise for you in the kitchen.”
Vesemir smirks. “I think you’ll like it,” he says. “I hunted it down for you this summer.”
Aiden exchanges a confused glance with Lambert. “Thank you?” he says. Vesemir chuckles.
“Go on, Fox,” he says warmly. “Welcome home to you both.”
Lambert steps close to Vesemir, reaching up to clasp the back of the old Wolf’s neck and rest their foreheads briefly together, then slings an arm over Aiden’s shoulders and tows him into the keep. Aiden grins to himself at Vesemir’s slightly croggled look - a Lambert with affectionate tendencies is still a bit baffling for the old Wolf. Oh well, bewilderment is good for him.
“Come on,” Lambert grumbles, “I want to get warm, fuck that climb, I swear to fuck it gets worse every year -”
Aiden is laughing at the cheerfully profane rant when Lambert pushes open the door to the kitchen and stops dead in the doorway.
“Lam, what -?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Lambert demands of whoever is in the kitchen. Aiden goes up on his toes to peer over Lambert’s shoulder and lets out a gasp of pure incredulity.
“Guxart?”
“Aiden,” the oldest Cat yet living says, standing up from the kitchen table and stumbling forward, his usual grace entirely missing. “Aiden.”
Aiden shoves past Lambert and falls into his mentor’s open arms, clinging tightly enough that Guxart grunts a little in surprise. Guxart wraps his own arms around Aiden, squeezing so hard it’s a little difficult for Aiden to breathe.
“Aiden, kitten,” he murmurs in Aiden’s ear. “Fuck, Ves said you were alive but I didn’t really believe it until now. Gods, you’re a sight for sore old eyes.”
“Guxart,” Aiden whispers. “Gods, I thought you’d be furious at me for leaving -”
“Leaving the Caravan? No. Never. I knew it was going wrong, and I thought I could stop it if I just stayed, just kept trying, but I couldn’t, I’m sorry, you were wiser than I - I should have walked away when you did. Should have stabbed that bastard Jad through his black heart years ago.”
Aiden laughs wetly. Oh. He’s crying. That’s why his cheeks and eyepatch are damp. “Lambert took care of that for you.”
“Then I owe him a debt,” Guxart says, and lifts his head from Aiden’s shoulder without loosening the tight embrace. “You’d be the infamous Lambert, then.”
“That’s me,” Lambert agrees. “Anything Vesemir’s said about me is a lie.”
“Oh, so you aren’t a brilliant alchemist with a knack for languages and a remarkable level of devotion to both your brothers and my kitten here?” Guxart lilts, and Aiden can feel the suppressed laughter bubbling in his mentor’s chest. He snickers, muffled by their embrace.
Lambert makes a strangled little noise. “Vesemir said that?”
“He also said you’re a short-tempered asshole who hates authority figures,” Guxart says cheerfully.
“Accurate,” Aiden mumbles against Guxart’s shoulder.
“I mean…yeah, alright, that’s pretty fucking spot-on,” Lambert agrees. “Uh. Aiden?”
“Mm?”
“This is - uh - your mentor?”
“Right,” Aiden says, and very reluctantly peels himself away from Guxart enough to turn to his lover. Lambert is watching them with a sort of baffled wariness, which on Lambert looks like irritation, as most things do. “Lambert, this is Guxart, my mentor and the best of the Cats. Guxart, this is Lambert, my lover and most wonderful of the Wolves.”
Lambert’s ears go pink, but he holds out a hand so he and Guxart can clasp wrists.
“How the fuck did you end up here?”
“That would be Ves’s fault,” Guxart says dryly.
“Oh yes, blame me for hauling you out of the bottom of a bottle of White Gull,” Vesemir drawls, holding the kitchen door open for Coën.
“At least I was warm,” Guxart snarks back. “This mountain of yours is ridiculously cold.”
“You weren’t complaining about the cold in my bed last night,” Vesemir says cheerfully. Lambert’s eyebrows go up. Vesemir smirks at him and waves at Lambert and Aiden both. “Sit down, you lot. You’re looking better than you were last autumn, at least.”
“It’s been a good year,” Lambert says, as Aiden reluctantly unwinds himself from Guxart’s arms and pulls the old Cat over to sit beside him. Lambert sits on Aiden’s blind side, leaning their shoulders together; Aiden leans back, taking comfort, as always, in his Wolf’s presence. Coën settles across from them, pillowing his chin on a hand and looking very interested in the whole tableau.
Aiden takes a moment to just look at his old mentor. Guxart is greyer than he remembers, with a new scar over the bridge of his nose and another poking out beneath the cuff of his sleeve. He does look like he’s been enjoying Vesemir’s good cooking, though, with a healthy layer of padding over the wiry musculature Aiden remembers. He looks…well, he looks like a bit of Aiden’s life he never expected to get back, somehow transplanted into the middle of Kaer Morhen. Somehow fitting into the ancient keep among its Wolves.
“How did Vesemir convince you to come to Kaer Morhen?” Aiden asks Guxart as Vesemir sets plates of bread and cheese and roast venison in front of everyone.
“He said you were alive,” Guxart replies gently, and reaches over to touch the medallion around Aiden’s throat. “And that you were no longer a Cat.”
Aiden winces a little. “I. Yes. After - after Jad -”
Guxart nods. “After Jad tried to murder you,” he says quietly. “The traitorous little bastard.”
“That,” Aiden agrees. “Him and Brehen, and a half-dozen others - not witchers, just mercenaries, I think. But Jad was…was definitely the ringleader.”
Guxart growls, deep in the back of his throat. “You said Lambert dealt with him?”
Lambert makes a low, satisfied noise. “Put my sword right through his fucking heart, thank you very much. Aiden took Brehen out, though.”
Aiden grins. Yes, yes he did. And it was very satisfying, in a way he suspects Vesemir and Coën would not entirely approve of.
Guxart nods. “Good,” he snarls. “Those are two who never should have been let out onto the Path.”
“Not gonna argue about that,” Lambert says. “Vicious bastards, both of ‘em.”
“Did either of them say what they wished to gain, in murdering you?” Coën asks. “For even the most vicious of our cousins are usually loath to take contracts on other witchers.”
Aiden sighs. “There was a collector, apparently, who was willing to pay a great deal of money for a witcher’s medallion and swords. Enough that both Brehen and Jad could afford to leave the Path.”
Coën’s eyebrows go up. “Leave the Path?”
“That fucker Jad set up as a fuckin’ merchant,” Lambert says, and spits accurately into the fire. “And when I say ‘merchant’ I mean fucking slave-trader, so, y’know. Really not sad I killed the fucker.”
“Brehen got a job guarding the door at a brothel,” Aiden adds, “which…I want to know how much he had to bribe the madame, I really do.”
Guxart looks entertainingly boggled. “I would not have guessed that for his life’s ambition. Would that he had done that before Iello. And before taking a contract on a brother.”
Aiden grimaces. “Yeah. That. Anyway. After that…I can’t be a Cat anymore, Guxart. I’m sorry. Not after seeing Cat medallions around my murderers’ throats.” He touches the Fox pendant with the reverence he still feels, nine months after being granted it. It means - it means brotherhood, and safety, and being welcomed into the Wolf pack despite everything his former brothers did to poison that well.
Guxart nods solemnly. “Don’t apologize for that,” he says softly. “There have been half a dozen times in my life I would have gladly taken this medallion from my throat, were there another option waiting.” He smiles ruefully. “Not least of all the day I heard my favorite student had been slain by two of his own brothers.”
Aiden swallows the lump in his throat, washing it down with a gulp of good rich ale. “You have?”
“Certainly,” Guxart says, and glances up at Vesemir. “I nearly did, the day after that Tournament. Would have, if Treyse still lived. As it was - I thought I could make our School something worth being part of again. Thought maybe we’d lost all the real bastards to Radowit’s archers. Thought I could pick up the pieces.” He shrugs. “I tried.”
Aiden nods. “I know you did. And it - it almost worked.” Those first few years after the Tournament, they’d all been like ducklings, terrified and desperate for leadership as every hand seemed to be turned against them. Guxart had been a bastion of strength, then, leading them south out of Kaedwen, re-forming the Caravan, keeping all of them mostly sane in the aftermath of learning that their previous leader had nearly gotten them all killed.
But after those first few years, they’d started spreading out again, venturing farther and farther from the Caravan, finding their feet properly, and while some of the Cats had remembered those first terrible years and the lessons they’d learned, others…had learned different lessons, Aiden guesses. Every Cat for himself, for instance. Take what you can, and give nothing back, because the whole world is always out to get you.
Those aren’t the lessons Aiden took from the Tournament and its aftermath, but they may have been the ones Jad learned.
Winters at the Caravan had started getting tense, as some Cats returned with tales of contracts taken on innocents, or half-fulfilled, or reneged on completely. Aiden had been one of the people arguing that those sorts of contracts would only ruin the reputation of their School again, drag it into the mud irrevocably, but the brothers who thought otherwise were louder and nastier, and eventually Aiden just…left.
Walked away and traveled alone, because the only other option was taking up arms against a brother, and back then he couldn’t imagine what would make him ever want to go that far. Couldn’t imagine anyone would ever go that far.
At least he had his Wolf. And even if he was spending his winters holed up in disused hunting lodges or taking copper-ante jobs as a merchants’ guard just for the roof over his head, it was still better than the constant tension of the Caravan. Still better than trying to argue, over and over again, that they ought to be better than what Treyse had made them. That the long thankless labor of dragging their School’s name out of the mud was worth doing.
It’s a bit of a moot point now. Jad and Brehen and their ilk have successfully made ‘Cat’ the School of murderers and traitors, of people who can be paid to do anything as long as the coin is good enough.
“Almost isn’t good enough,” Guxart says sadly. “Maybe you had the right idea, walking away when you did.” He shakes his head and sighs, and gives Aiden a rueful little smile. “But I’ve done it now. I’ve left the Caravan, and I don’t plan to return.” He gestures at the medallion on Aiden’s chest. “Have you figured out what the entrance requirements for the School of the Fox are, by any chance?”
“Ah -” Aiden says, taken wholly aback. He hadn’t imagined the School of the Fox would ever be any larger than just him.
“Oh, that is an interesting question,” Coën says thoughtfully. “Does one need to be a refugee from the School of the Cat? Or do Foxes accept, oh, ex-Vipers, should we ever encounter such a person?”
Aiden blinks at both of them.
“What the fuck is halfway between a wolf and a snake anyhow?” Lambert mutters. “Weasel maybe?”
“Foxes are mustelids too,” Aiden says absently. “Same as weasels. So sure, I guess the School of the Fox could take ex-Vipers, if it ever came up.” He shakes his head, trying to focus on the initial question. “Entrance requirements, though…”
They all eat in silence for a few minutes while Aiden tries to put his whirling thoughts in order.
“I’m tempted to say anyone who wants to be a Fox has to find a Wolf lover,” Aiden says at last, grinning, “but there’s a shortage of open slots, so let’s not do that.”
“I mean, I can fulfill that requirement without any trouble,” Guxart smirks, grinning.
“Oh gods,” Lambert groans. Vesemir smirks.
Aiden takes a deep breath, setting any thoughts of his mentor and Lambert’s sharing a bed for consideration at some later point, possibly never. “I think,” he says slowly, “that those who wish to be part of the School of the Fox must renounce their former School, must win the approval of all the Wolves and the Griffin of Kaer Morhen, and -” he grins - “must be able to deal with Julek in full bardic glory, without fleeing or trying to stab him.”
Lambert snickers. “Oh, that’s fuckin’ mean, I love it.”
Coën puts a hand over his face. “Vicious indeed, my vulpine friend.”
“Julek?” Guxart asks Vesemir, sounding very wary.
“Jaskier the bard,” Vesemir supplies. Aiden can see him suppressing a smile. “He’s…an experience.”
“A good one,” Aiden says.
“Oh, certainly,” Coën says. “But also a rather overwhelming one.” He grins ruefully. “You have not yet heard of my stint chaperoning him this summer.”
Coën had gotten the last turn with Julek, mostly because Julek was going to be performing at a duke’s manor for a week and none of the other witchers really wanted to be in a noble household that long, but that does mean that no one except possibly Geralt has yet heard how it went. Aiden props his chin on a hand. “How did that go?”
“I shall never again doubt your tales of his ability to charm the most inadvisable people,” Coën says, shaking his head wearily. “He very nearly seduced both of the duke’s daughters, a married countess, and the son of a merchant-prince.”
“I assume you prevented all of those?” Aiden asks. Coën nods.
“I stood aside for the duke’s brother, who did not seem to have any other attachments which would have made a liaison unwise.”
“I’m sure Julek will have some entertaining stories, then,” Aiden says, snickering.
“Better you than me, fuck,” Lambert mutters. “That many noble assholes in one place, yeuch.”
Guxart is looking back and forth between them all, eyebrows nearly reaching his hairline. “This sort of amorous misadventure is common for the bard?”
“He’s part-incubus,” Aiden explains. “It’s a small part - a great-grandfather, I think we figured it was - but damn did it come through strongly.”
“He is both handsome and charming, and exceedingly pleasant company,” Coën says dryly. “And very happy to share that company with nearly anyone.”
Guxart tilts his head curiously. “If the incubus heritage is that strong, he must need regular sexual contact. What does he do over the winter, then?”
“Eskel,” Lambert smirks.
“Ah.” Guxart looks thoughtful. “And enduring this bard’s full force of personality is a requirement for the School of the Fox because…?”
“Because he is my brother,” Aiden says, turning to fix his mentor with a solemn look. “He saved my life after Jad and Brehen nearly murdered me; he nursed me back to health and spent his own coin to put boots on my feet and a sword on my back. When I thought I had lost every brother I had, he was there for me. So any brothers I gain in the School of the Fox must be his brothers, too.”
Guxart nods, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Then I owe him a debt I can never repay, for saving your life. I will face the Trial of the Bard to earn my place among your brothers again.”
“Trial of the Bard,” Lambert snickers. “Oh, fuck, I’m gonna tease him about that forever.”
“So’m I,” Aiden agrees. “I suspect he’ll be delighted.” Coën and Vesemir both grin and nod.
“As to the other trials of the School of the Fox,” Guxart says slowly, “I shall be spending the winter here. If, at the end of it, the Wolves and their Griffin - and the bard - approve of me, I shall renounce the Cats and take a new medallion, to join my brother as a Fox.”
Aiden sniffs hard and scrubs the back of a hand across his eye. “Thank you,” he says hoarsely.
He never expected to get any of his brothers back, and for it to be Guxart - his teacher, his mentor, the closest thing he has to a father, as Vesemir is to the young Wolves - is so overwhelming that Aiden suspects he’s going to have to spend a few hours running laps or crying on Lambert or climbing a wall just to deal with the overflow of sheer emotion.
Guxart curls a hand around the back of Aiden’s neck, warm and solid, and leans their foreheads together. “Thank you,” he whispers. “For living. For forgiving me.”
Aiden mirrors Guxart’s embrace and closes his eyes, and they sit there for a long minute, breathing the same air, Guxart’s slow heartbeat steady under Aiden’s fingertips.
The other three are silent until Aiden and Guxart break apart, and Lambert presses a mug of ale into Aiden’s hands and knocks their shoulders together gently -
And then, being Lambert, breaks the solemn moment by saying, “So, does this mean you’ve got lots of really fucking embarrassing stories about Aiden as a kit, then?”
Guxart laughs, wiping surreptitiously at his eyes. “Oh, do I ever. Let me see - there was the time he and Gaetan got treed by a particularly aggressive squirrel…”
Aiden puts a hand over his face and sighs as Lambert and Coën lean forward eagerly. This is definitely payback for getting stories out of Vesemir last winter.
It’s worth it, though, so very worth it, to have his mentor here. To have the hope that the School of the Fox might someday be a refuge for those of Aiden’s brothers who don’t deserve the ruined reputation that the Cats have earned. The ones that Aiden still -
Still loves.