Chapter Text
They hold off on actually explaining the summons to the School of the Cat as they quickly get the news that the other schools are also making their way north. Of course, they don’t actually hear it from the other schools directly, that would be far too convenient. Instead, whilst Geralt is discussing how to present his ideas to the Cats, a young Wolf Witcher bounds up to the council chamber to report that he had heard two Cat School mages, who had yet to join the Wolf School mages in their towers, talking about the communications they’d received from the mages of the other 6 schools and complaining about the witchers deciding to move. The young witcher, Dorian, was originally meant to leave for his first year on the Path along with all the other witchers but departures had stalled with the arrival of the other school.
Dorian also reports that one of the two mages had sneeringly said: “Well, if they keep supplying us with children for experiments, I suppose it doesn’t matter where we do them, we can bend to this whim of theirs. Let them play at knights all they want, I suppose.” There’s something about the statement that rankles Geralt, but he isn’t quite sure what it is. He hates the implications that the children brought to the keep are used for experiments, but that’s the way it is, and he’s very well placed to know that. He’s happy, however, that Jaskier isn’t with him when they learn of this conversation. He hasn’t yet explained the process of the mutations to him (though he knows Jaskier has read some things about it in the Oxenfurt library, he doubts any books explaining the true horror of the Grasses has travelled so far,) and he isn’t quite sure how he will broach the topic. He will have to, he knows, after all, it appears Geralt at least will not be leaving to go back on the Path this year, and if Jaskier is to stay with him, later in the spring, he will overhear more things about the Trials. That said, perhaps Geralt could convince him of an outing to the small nameless village at the base of the mountains for the actual Grasses so he doesn’t have to hear the screaming. There will be no hiding the horror, but Geralt isn’t sure he could take Jaskier’s reaction to the sounds (and really, he hasn’t heard them since he was old enough to be on the Path, and he would very much like to avoid them.)
Geralt tunes back into the council conversation to hear Vesemir say “so we’re agreed, some witchers will go on the path this year, it is necessary, but fewer, perhaps only the most experienced ones, those who know how to make their way back to the keep quickly once they receive word that we are all assembled to discuss this important change.”
Geralt nods in agreement, he’s not quite sure how he got himself onto the council (well, he knows how theoretically, but he is still slightly in shock,) but he might as well agree to the more sensible resolutions.
__
Geralt know it makes sense Eskel went back onto the path this summer, but being in Kaer Morhen without him seems wrong. It feels he’s missing a limb. Jaskier’s presence helps, he is a soothing presence and Geralt suspects that if the bard were gone, he would feel the same way about his absence as he does about Eskel’s. Perhaps he’s selfish, because he isn’t entirely sure he deserves to have two such companions, where once he contented himself with none.
Eskel has always been there, of course, but Geralt never let himself miss him as he is right now. He knows something has shifted, he isn’t sure if it was Jaskier’s insistence in following him, or perhaps it is since he’s realised that perhaps the human can’t be safe even in cities where men may also be monster, but he knows that something has meant that he now accepts that he can have company. He isn’t quite sure if it is a good thing or not, but it can’t be all that bad when Jaskier snuggles against him even as the summer sun warms the air and he no longer needs Geralt to stay warm.
He will be glad to see Eskel again, this feels like the longest they’ve ever been separated, even though he knows it is not in truth. The summer has been difficult. He’d managed to get Jaskier out of the keep for the Trial of the Grasses, a wyvern had been spotted half a day’s travel away, but Vesemir had looked on in understanding when Geralt had taken Jaskier with him and returned four days later to find his old mentor had dark circles and a new yet old pain in those same eyes. He hadn’t managed to shield Jaskier from the pyre of little bodies, however, twice as big as usual due to the School of the Cat’s presence. How he wishes he could have stopped his bard’s sobbing as he held him, but how could he comfort the man from the same bone tiredness and fury he himself feels every year. He resigned himself to only being able to hold him and whisper “I know, bardling, I know.” No witcher bothered them during that time, they could all hear the bard echoing their grief.
Geralt also knows why he had to stay in the Keep, as he welcomes the last school to arrive. The elders of the council are still in charge, and truthfully, they should be the ones greeting the School of the Cranes, but it seems they have decided that since all this is Geralt’s mad idea, Geralt should be the one saddled with the responsibility of dealing with the consequences of that idea. Luckily, Jaskier is by his side to turn on the charm if it is needed. All the schools are grateful for the bard; his songs haven’t fixed everything, there is still animosity for witchers throughout the continent, but even the Cranes, isolated as they were on their ships can attest to the fact that their convoy was received with more grace from humans, as they finished their journey over land, than they likely would have been a decade prior.
The landing of the Cranes, however, means that he can finally call his brother(s) in arms home, as the council had agreed in the beginning of spring.
__
One by one or sometimes two by two, the brothers and cousins they were missing because they had been gallivanting around doing their duties to the humans who appreciated them so little began coming home and soon they’d all assembled. Because mostly experience witchers had been sent out, and some of them had even decided to stay in pairs, like Lambert and the cat, there are far fewer losses to grieve, only three witchers don’t make it back: one of the Cats, one of the Bears, and one of the Manticores, a new witcher who had been sent out on the path before the school received the letter summoning them to Kaer Morhen.
Perversely, Geralt is glad that none of the losses are Wolves, and that, overall, the losses are so few. After experiencing the grief of losing trainees for the first time since gaining his medallion, he fears he may have broken if they’d lost more, which is not something he can afford to do just before trying to convince more than 350 witchers to unite under one banner to go kill a king.
They are all gathered in the great hall of the keep, not quite filling it to the brim, but still there are more people than Geralt has ever seen in this room, and that is without counting the trainees who are not being included in this discussion.
Geralt stands and breathes in like he does before fighting a monster. He knows his speech, he wrote it with Jaskier, who was sat beside him just a moment ago, and he’s rehearsed it a few times. He just hopes he does it justice.
“Welcome, brothers and cousins," he surprises himself with how steady his voice is as it resonates through the now silent hall.
He manages to get through the whole story without interruption or stumbling, amazingly, and the other witchers stay silent even after he finishes it, some from shock, some from anger; though the room is silent, his senses are still overwhelmed by the different smells of negative emotions rolling from his fellows like a wave.
The quiet tension is finally broken when someone stands up and shouts, “I won’t deny that you are making some sense. But why should we follow you, oh White Wolf.” The nickname is said teasingly, as though he has heard the songs and finds them ridiculous.
“Letho,” Geralt goes to reply, they’d planned a reply (even though Geralt really doesn’t want to lead, even the Wolf School elders had agreed that he should), but he is interrupted by Eskel.
“Because he’s the strongest and the wisest of us. He’s somehow the first of us to have thought of it, at least to this scale, but also because he received two doses of the Grasses,” some gasps echo around the room as Eskel says this, evidently this isn’t common knowledge. “You’ll find no Wolf arguing otherwise.”
“Perhaps it is because he’s only ever tested himself against other Wolves then. I would like to see if he truly is the strongest.”
It isn’t Letho this time, but a Manticore, but his statement is echoed with noises of agreement by a good portion of the assembly.
“Then I shall show you. Tomorrow, any who wish to challenge me may do so.” Geralt had suspected it would come to this, and he knows from the smell of discontentment coming from behind him that his bard isn’t happy about it.