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“Oh, whoa,” Gweld breathes, staring out the window, hand on the shutter, frozen in the act of closing it.
“What is it?” Eskel asks lazily, from where he’s sprawled in their enormous bed, propped up on a mound of pillows with a book in one hand and Geralt’s head in his lap. Geralt is already dozing, a soft hum rising from his throat with every stroke of Eskel’s callused hand over his hair. Eskel only stops petting him when he needs to turn a page.
“You should come and see,” Gweld says, not turning away from the window. “Holy shit.” A distant peal of thunder rumbles through the old stone of the keep’s walls.
“This better be worth it,” Eskel sighs, patting Geralt’s shoulder and setting his book aside. Geralt grumbles wordlessly and rolls off the bed, padding over to drape himself against Gweld, chin on Gweld’s shoulder. Eskel takes a moment to find the rabbit-fur slippers Gweld made for him a few years ago before following Geralt over and tucking himself against Gweld’s other side.
Their room’s window looks west and south over the valley and the lake, and a storm is blowing in. A big one, tall dark clouds that fill the sky from horizon to horizon, with lines of lightning lacing through them like silver embroidery on a fancy doublet. Beneath them, the trees sway in a strong wind, but the breeze has not yet reached the lake, which is a sheet of dark glass, reflecting the clouds and the lightning and a few lonely, beleaguered stars.
As Eskel watches, one of the strands of lightning abandons the clouds, stabbing downwards towards the wind-tossed trees in a jagged brilliant line. It’s joined a moment later by half a dozen others, lighting the sky and the forest as brilliantly as day for a split second. In the dazed dimness afterwards, Eskel hears Geralt counting: One kikimora, two kikimora, three kiki-
The thunder rolls over the keep in an almost tangible wave of sound, and all three witchers sway with the impact. It goes on and on, and Eskel’s bones reverberate with it, like the thunder has taken up residence inside the hollow of his chest.
“Damn,” he murmurs into the ringing silence when it ends. “Alright, yes, that was worth getting up for.”
Gweld snorts. “Drag over that old armchair,” he suggests, “and we can watch it in comfort a while.”
Geralt goes over to fetch the armchair, and Eskel grabs a heavy bearskin off the bed, and they pile into the chair together. It’s a sturdy old thing, wooden arms polished with decades of hands rubbing over them, and they’ve had to replace the stuffing twice already, but it’s broad enough for all of them to fit, if only by dint of Gweld and Geralt ending up half on Eskel’s lap. Not that Eskel minds.
They squirm and fidget into place, Gweld spreading the bearskin over their legs, and Eskel wraps his arms around his lovers and leans back comfortably.
The storm has intensified while they were fussing; as Eskel looks out the window again, almost a dozen fingers of lightning stab down, lighting the clouds and the lake with a strange reddish glow. The thunder is rolling almost continuously now, echoing off the lake and the mountains and the keep’s ancient walls. Eskel feels like he’s wrapped up in it, surrounded utterly by the deep reverberating roar. If he were out on the Path, this would be terrifying - he would be doing his absolute best to find shelter, and praying to reach a cave or a hut before the lightning took a liking to his sword hilts. But as it is, wrapped up in a bearskin and the warmth of his lovers, Geralt’s hair tickling his throat and Gweld’s hand trapped against the small of his back, with the storm out there and Eskel and his lovers safe in here, Eskel is deeply contented.
“Glad that’s not a shaelmaar,” Gweld says, close enough to Eskel’s ear that Eskel can hear him even over the rumbling of the storm.
Eskel snorts. “Biggest damn shaelmaar there ever was, if it were. Fuck, I wouldn’t want to fight that.”
“Sky-shaelmaars,” Geralt murmurs dreamily; he’s already starting to doze again, head resting on Eskel’s shoulder as Eskel goes back to stroking his hair. “Gonna have to add them to the bestiary.”
Eskel snickers. “That’d be a bit of a nasty prank on the trainees, wouldn’t it?”
Gweld snorts. “Get ‘em thinking they could run into a sky-shaelmaar? Yeah, let’s not. Could add it to our bestiary, though.” It’s tradition in Kaer Morhen for every witcher to make his own bestiary, with observations and sketches of the things he’s seen out on the Path; Eskel and his lovers each have a journal for the purpose, but they’ve also got a joint one, which they all update during the winters, and keep on a shelf near the bed. Gweld does the drawing, since he has the best eye for it - Geralt, gods bless him, has very little artistic talent, and Eskel is only mediocre at best - and Eskel and Geralt trade off doing the scribing. It’s coming along quite nicely, in Eskel’s opinion; they’ve already got entries for all the most common monsters, and quite a few of the rarer ones, including an actual shaelmaar that Eskel took a contract on a couple years back. Only the strength of his Quen kept him from ending up as witcher-paste, but the shaelmaar’s hide sold for a damn good price on top of the promised reward, so he’s not repining.
“Mm, yes,” Geralt agrees. “Body made of clouds, and eyes of lightning. An’ thunder for the roar.”
“Ooh,” Eskel says appreciatively. Outside, the clouds roil and swirl, mounting ever higher against the night sky. All the stars are hidden now, and the half-moon is thoroughly covered; not even a hint of pale light peeks through the clouds to compete with the brilliant flashes of lightning.
“I think I could draw that,” Gweld muses. “Tomorrow, though.”
“Tomorrow,” Eskel agrees.
And then the stormfront hits the keep, a sudden blast of wind rattling all the shutters and rampaging in through the open window to blow the bedcurtains out like streamers at a tournament; hard on the heels of that first gust comes a second, this one laden with rain like drops of ice. “Fuck!” Gweld yelps, and they all flail their way out of the chair together, Gweld and Geralt scrambling for the shutters, Eskel casting hasty Ignis to put out the little flames where the curtain knocked over the candle on the bedside table. The rain batters against the side of the keep like it’s trying to break it down, and the thunder is so close that there is no space between the flashes of lightning - visible around the edges of the shutters even as Gweld and Geralt pack rags into the cracks - and the sound.
The sound of someone knocking on the door is almost lost in the noise, but the second quick rat-a-tat comes in a brief lull between rolls of thunder, and Eskel goes over to open it instead of calling out, since chances are good that even with witcher ears no one in the corridor will be able to hear him. And, as it turns out, the visitors don’t have witcher ears. Standing in the corridor, wrapped up in heavy blankets and looking hopeful or belligerent according to their respective temperaments, are young Voltehre and Lambert, who are still a good six months out from getting their Grasses.
“Hullo, lads,” Eskel says amiably, pitching his voice a little louder to pierce through the storm’s roar. “What’s toward?”
Voltehre gives him a truly masterful pleading look. “We -” Lambert growls and kicks his ankle; Voltehre rolls his eyes, which rather ruins the pleading but is funny as all hell. “I was hoping you’d let us maybe bed down on your hearth? It’s awfully loud and the other boys were telling stories about stormwraiths.”
“Spooked you good, did they?” Eskel says wryly. “Ah, hell, c’mon in, lads. Bed’s big enough for five, ‘specially when two of ‘em are titchy as you.”
“‘M not titchy,” Lambert objects, but he follows Voltehre in anyway. Eskel can’t quite resist ruffling the grumpy little fellow’s hair, and snorts with laughter when Lambert snaps at him like an angry kitten. Well, wolf pup, perhaps.
Gweld comes over to wrap his arms around Eskel from behind, pressing his lips to the soft skin behind Eskel’s ear and murmuring, “Guess we’re not fucking the storm out, then.”
Eskel turns his head to catch Gweld’s lips with his own, keeping the kiss relatively chaste. “Guess not,” he agrees. “Probably just as well. Don’t want to get startled by thunder and break something important.”
Gweld throws his head back and laughs, bright and uninhibited as ever, and gives Eskel a squeeze before ambling over to help Geralt dig some more blankets out of the chest at the foot of the bed. They all pile into bed once Geralt decides they have enough - it’s several more than Eskel would have gotten, but Geralt likes to be very cozy and Eskel isn’t going to deny him the comfort - and tuck the boys in between Gweld and Geralt, with Eskel wrapped around Geralt from behind. Eskel and Gweld tug the curtains closed, and even the faint light of the banked hearth vanishes, leaving them wrapped in velvety darkness and the constant rumble of the storm outside.
“Comfy?” Gweld asks.
“Yes, thank you,” Voltehre says politely. “Your bed’s much softer than ours.”
“Oughta be, with how much wool we hauled back to stuff it,” Gweld laughs.
“Thought it was feathers t’be fancy,” Lambert mutters.
“It is,” Eskel agrees. “But once you’re Grassed you can feel all the little hard bits in the feathers, and it’s not nearly so nice. We actually carded all the wool to get any knots out, gods help us.”
“Took forever,” Geralt agrees. “Got nice soft hands from it, though.”
“So we did,” Eskel chuckles.
“Oh,” Lambert says, and the bed shifts slightly as he wriggles to get comfortable. “It is nice,” he admits, sounding like the words are being pulled out of him.
“Yeah, it is, but your elbow in my stomach isn’t - how are you so pointy, lad?” Gweld murmurs, and the bed shifts again. “There we go.”
“All settled, then?” Eskel asks. “Nobody going to need the chamberpot in five minutes?”
“Nosir,” Voltehre and Lambert chorus. Eskel chuckles.
“Alright then, lads, go to sleep. Nothing will get to you here.”
“No sky-shaelmaars,” Geralt mutters sleepily. “Bet they’d be fluffy. Like sheep.”
Eskel muffles a laugh against Geralt’s shoulder. “And you sleep, too, Wolf,” he says fondly. “Fluffy sky-shaelmaars, good grief.”
“I’ll draw ‘em tomorrow,” Gweld promises. “Nice and fluffy just for you, Ger’.”
“Sky-shaelmaars?” Voltehre murmurs, probably meaning only Lambert to hear it.
“All made of clouds, with lightning for eyes,” Gweld explains. “And apparently fluffy like sheep.”
“Completely fictional,” Eskel puts in. “Don’t worry. Or, well, lightning is bad news if you’re out in the open, but it doesn’t have to be a shaelmaar to be dangerous.”
“I knew that,” Lambert grumbles. “I’m not gonna go stand on a hill and wave a sword around like a nincompoop.”
“If there was a sky-shaelmaar, I have every faith you would try to challenge one,” Eskel laughs, his lovers and Voltehre joining him in mirth. Lambert grumbles under his breath for a moment and then snorts in unwilling amusement.
“Yeah, fuck, alright, I would,” he admits.
“And you’d win,” Voltehre whispers, which is very cute and Eskel carefully does not go ‘aww’ about it. Gweld chuckles. Geralt hums, a low sound very like a snore.
“Goodnight,” Eskel says firmly. A peal of thunder chooses that moment to sound like it’s right inside the room with them, and they all jump.
“...You know what, maybe I’ll get up and make tea,” Gweld says once they’ve all gotten their breathing back under control. Including Geralt, who really is asleep by now, to Eskel’s amusement. Out on the Path, he knows, Geralt sleeps like shit - well, they all do, really - but here in their rooms, with the scents and sounds of his lovers nearby, Geralt can hardly be roused by…well, anything up to and including very dramatic thunderstorms, apparently.
“You do that,” Eskel says, and shifts around as Gweld gets up again, ending up very close to where he started the evening: sitting up, back braced against a mound of pillows, with Geralt curled against his leg, head in Eskel’s lap. The difference, of course, is that Voltehre is cuddled against Eskel’s other leg, with Lambert spooned up behind him and looking like he’ll bite anyone who points out that he is being affectionate.
Gweld bustles around at the hearth for a few minutes and then comes back to settle next to Eskel’s feet, handing Eskel a mug of mint tisane and cupping his hands around another. The boys, exhausted by training and lulled by the warmth of the blankets, are dozing; Geralt is fast asleep and snoring softly in time with the rhythmic strokes of Eskel’s hand against his hair.
Gweld leans forward to tap his mug softly against Eskel’s. “To sky-shaelmaars,” he murmurs.
Eskel chuckles softly, and they drink together.
The storm rages on outside, but in their rooms it is warm and dark and comfortable, and Eskel and Gweld sit the storm through together, watching over their lover and their little brothers, until at last silence falls again beyond the ancient walls, and they can lay down their watch and join their companions in peaceful slumber til the dawn.