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"Geralt," Voltehre says, "I need your help with something."
Geralt raises an eyebrow, but he sets aside his knitting and rises to his feet, following their bright young lover out of their rooms willingly enough. Voltehre's a sensible sort; if he says he needs help, and needs Geralt's help specifically, then he means it.
To Geralt's bewilderment, Voltehre leads him out of the keep and across the trodden-down snow to the Bastion, of all places. Geralt hasn't been to the Bastion since he was a trainee, and never particularly wanted to return, given the combination of terrible memories and the surety that the current crop of trainees would flee screaming from him like most people do.
There's a small crowd of trainees playing tag in the Bastion's courtyard, who turn to look at Geralt and Voltehre in confusion and then shrink back visibly in startled horror. Geralt grits his teeth and stays still, half hidden behind Voltehre's broad shoulders.
"Lads, this is Geralt," Voltehre says, quite as if he hasn't noticed the trainees' reaction. Which - he must have; he's as observant as any witcher has to be. So he's ignoring it on purpose. "He's going to be our rabbit today."
Geralt gives the back of Voltehre's head an incredulous look. Their rabbit? Voltehre wants him to let a bunch of trainees hunt him down for practice? That's absurd.
"Um," one of the boys says, raising a hand tentatively. "He's…he's a lot faster than we are." Which is a polite way of putting it, and Geralt rumbles a soft approving sound.
"Yes, he is, which is why he'll be running at half speed." Voltehre turns and grins at Geralt. "Do you want a head start?"
Geralt cocks his head. There isn't really a good way to refuse, and at worst he'll spend some time running about in the snow. He shrugs and shakes his head.
"Lovely," Voltehre says, with a bright mischievous smile. "On three, lads! One - two - three!"
Geralt springs away, keeping himself obediently to half speed, and sets off around the Bastion's walls. There's a brief silence and then a clamor as the boys launch themselves in pursuit, and they may be young but they are Grassed - just a few months out, still getting used to their new abilities, if Geralt is any judge - and they come pattering after him at a reasonably good clip.
The first one to get close enough to maybe touch him, which is the point of the game, flinches back with a sudden indrawn breath. Geralt grits his teeth. The second to reach him, zagging when Geralt zigs with a fine sense of timing, meets Geralt's eyes for a moment and cringes visibly. Geralt hides a wince.
The third is a boy so small Geralt wonders if he was even properly old enough for the Grasses, who has been lurking in a tree and launches himself out of it with a warcry as Geralt comes around for another loop, landing on Geralt's shoulders. Geralt could have twisted out of the way or thrown him off - monsters do jump out of trees sometimes, and he knows perfectly well how to avoid them - but he's playing rabbit right now, and it was a very well-done lurk-and-leap, so he lets himself tumble into a snowdrift with the lad atop him.
The lad crows in triumph, and then the other lads come piling in and one of them, in an excess of glee, stuffs a fistful of snow down Geralt's tunic, and Geralt rises up with a roar and tackles half a dozen of them into the snow, taking care not to actually hurt any of them, and some of the ones he didn't grab tackle him, and then he's rolling about in the snow, grabbing the lads as gently as he can and ruffling their hair or sticking cold fingers under their tunics to make them squeak, while they try to pin him and rub snow in his hair, and they're all laughing, red-cheeked and breathless and laughing. Geralt included.
He finally lets himself be pinned by a well-organized cadre led by the smallest and clearly cleverest of the bunch, who coordinate their tactics so there's a trainee sitting on each of his limbs and three on his torso. He could still get up, but possibly not without actually hurting them, so he goes limp in surrender, grinning up at them and forgetting for a moment about his too-sharp teeth.
The smallest lad, perched on Geralt's chest triumphantly, grins back. "We gotcha!"
"You sure did," Voltehre agrees, from where he's been leaning against a tree watching the commotion. "Well done, lads!"
Geralt glances over; Voltehre is not covered in snow. Hm. He raises an eyebrow at the smallest trainee, then flicks his eyes at Voltehre. "On three," he murmurs, very softly.
The trainee's eyes light up, and he flashes quick hand-signals to his cohort. Geralt rumbles approval again. "Three," he says, with no preamble, and the lads rise off of him and charge for Voltehre in a gleeful horde.
Geralt picks himself up out of the snow and dusts himself off while Voltehre, laughing helplessly, gets dumped in a snowdrift of his own.
The smallest trainee leaves his fellows to their fun - Voltehre is a fine wrestler, even at ten-on-one when the ten are so small - and comes trotting back to grin up at Geralt. "Thank you for being our rabbit!" he says, bright and happy and unafraid.
Looking into Geralt's eyes, and unafraid.
"You're welcome," Geralt says, keeping his voice as low and gentle as he can. And then he has a thought.
If the trainees can learn not to fear him…
"I will meet you back at the Bastion," he says, and heads for the keep at his full and proper speed.
Gweld is a bit bewildered at being hauled out of their nice cozy sitting room into the snowy outdoors, but he follows Geralt obediently enough, and they reach the Bastion just as the trainees and Voltehre are getting back, all of them so covered in snow they look like walking snowdrifts. The trainees are shivering and their lips are blue, though they're all grinning. Voltehre grins at Geralt and Gweld.
"Oh, wonderful! Alright, lads, inside and get your outer layers off, come along."
Geralt and Gweld trail the lads in, and stay out of the way as the boys shuck coats and boots and soaked trousers, and then Voltehre ushers Gweld over and sits him down on the battered rug in the middle of the trainees' dorm.
"Come on, lads, he's better than an iron stove," Voltehre says cheerfully, and Geralt is somehow not surprised that it's the smallest trainee who moves first, plopping himself down in Gweld's lap and leaning against his chest with a long sigh of happiness.
"So warm," he says, and that's enough to get the other boys moving, crowding in around Gweld and leaning against him. Gweld looks bewildered but delighted by the whole thing.
Geralt leans against a wall, out of the way, watching with quiet joy as his lover is cuddled enthusiastically by a whole heap of trainees. Voltehre comes over to join him, pressing their shoulders together with a soft sigh.
"I thought this might work," he says, low enough that the trainees, who are chattering to Gweld about their morning's game of hounds-and-rabbit, ought not hear. "Half the reason everyone gives you a wide berth is Rennes, Rennes and Varin, and habit. But the lads don't know Rennes and they hate Varin, and they've not developed the habit either."
Geralt snorts softly. "And Lambert doesn't give a shit about anyone else's opinions." Which explains why he didn't let Rennes's disapproval affect him. And Voltehre is willing to follow where Lambert leads, and also so incredibly sweet that it worries Geralt sometimes. Sneaky, yes, but sweet.
Geralt figured out years ago why Rennes hates them so. It wasn't hard, after the first time Geralt and Eskel both beat Varin in sparring matches, back to back, and Gweld held his own long enough for the swordmaster to call a draw.
Rennes knows that if any of the trio decided they wanted to be in charge of the Wolf School, they could call challenge, and they could win. Has known it since well before they knew it. And so he has gone to some lengths, subtly but surely, to make sure that even if they do decide to call challenge, they won't have the backing of their brothers. He's taken some pains to establish himself as being the safer option, when compared to Geralt with his eldritch voice and movement, or Eskel with his Chaos tentacles, or Gweld with his bewitching eyes.
So none of the trio will challenge him, not unless he does something so egregiously cruel they cannot overlook it, because none of them actually wants to cause a schism in the Wolf School, or the sort of chaos that a successful challenge might result in when the rest of their brothers refused to consent to the rule of the victor.
Their mentor, the only one of the older witchers who has ever seemed to care for them, would back them, Geralt thinks, if it came to it. And…well, those witchers who respect old Vesemir do give greater courtesy to Geralt and his brothers than those who follow Rennes wholeheartedly. They aren't friendly, but they aren't cruel, either, and they call Geralt and Eskel and Gweld 'brother' when they meet upon the Path. So maybe, if it came to it, Vesemir's faction might back Geralt or Eskel. But then again, maybe not.
It would be more likely if there were more witchers who did not find Geralt and Eskel and Gweld absolutely terrifying. Which leads right back to this moment, and Voltehre's quiet, cheerful, ruthless kindness.
"And Lambert doesn't give a shit about anyone else's opinions except sometimes ours," Voltehre says with a wry grin, bringing Geralt back to the conversation with a slight jolt. "But - well. The boys don't know you yet. But they could. And if they grow up knowing you're not so terrifying after all…"
Then when they're grown and medallioned and sitting in the great hall, they won't flinch from the corner where Geralt and his little pack sit in deliberate isolation. They won't nod along with Rennes when he gives subtle, backhanded insults to Geralt's pack. Or not all of them, at least.
It will take time. Time, and effort - Geralt and his pack will have to spend quite a lot of their winters with the trainees. But Geralt doesn't mind that, really, and he doesn't think Gweld or Eskel will either. Lambert - well, if any of the trainees are as bright as Lambert is, it'll do them good to have an elder brother around who can mentor them a bit.
Geralt's never minded hard work, not when he can see the reason for it. And this - he would never have thought of this. He wouldn't have dared come to spend time with the trainees without Voltehre's insistence. But now that he can see the shape of it…
"Thank you," he says softly, and Voltehre grins at him, bright and sweet and lovely. Geralt leans over and kisses that smiling mouth, soft and chaste and solemn. Voltehre's smile has gotten somehow warmer when Geralt leans back again, and his eyes are bright as summer sunlight.
"You're welcome," he says, and worms an arm behind Geralt to wrap around his waist, big hand coming to rest on Geralt's hip. Geralt leans against him with a sigh of comfort.
Gweld, buried in trainees, looks up to give them both a smile as brilliant as the sun.
"Tomorrow we'll bring Eskel out," Voltehre murmurs. "Catch-the-tentacle ought to be a damn good dexterity exercise. Lambert can wait til he finishes his current batch of experiments. Fewer explosions that way."
Geralt nods, and hums, and kisses Voltehre again, for being sweet and sneaky and wonderful, their golden-hearted lover who chooses kindness every time.