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Lambert stared down at his worktable, at the various beakers and ingredients arrayed there, the remains of his last experiment fizzled out. With a grunt reminiscent of Geralt, Lambert turned to the parchment on the corner of the table and drew a line across a word on the list. The battered paper was littered with such crossed out words – all except one.
Some of it had been easy. There'd been no reaction to silver or to steel, and their medallions hadn't spiked when Dandelion had used his voice to give them all a superb performance. One thing after another, going down the list till all that had been left had been the alchemical tests - Lambert's bailiwick.
For that he'd needed blood, which Dandelion had willingly given up, with Geralt hovering at his side like he was worried Lambert would suddenly turn into a vampire or something.
Rolling his eyes, Lambert looked down at the now heavily edited list, with just that one word left clear.
It was the only thing left, the one thing they’d come up with that would be fucking difficult to test without a pelt, unless the old coot had something up his sleeve Lambert wasn’t aware of.
Selkie.
By a simple process of elimination, it appeared that selkie was the answer, unless there was something they’d overlooked.
Lambert didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. No, he knew it was one of the better results than some of the others on the list he and his brothers and Vesemir had come up with. He just wasn’t sure what it meant.
Staring down at the parchment, he steeled himself to think it through. It hadn’t been worth worrying about before, not before they knew one way or the other. And maybe they still didn’t know, but Lambert had a feeling this really was it.
Vesemir had put forth the idea that Dandelion could have been born without a pelt, and if he had, it could explain a lot: all the traveling instead of settling down in one place, always hopping in and out of beds – like he was ever searching for that one thing he was missing, without ever knowing what it could be.
But was that better than if his pelt had been stolen? Lambert wasn’t sure. The level of abuse and control and disregard that would mean for Dandelion was something none of them wanted to think about, but at least that meant a tangible object they could go after and return to Dandelion and end whatever emptiness he felt.
And if it didn’t exist, he could be doomed to that craving a selkie felt when too long parted from the sea. He’d heard enough tales to know it could kill. Being only part selkie, perhaps the longing wasn’t strong enough to do Dandelion in like that - and it hadn't yet - but it couldn’t be very fucking comfortable.
In the end, though, which scenario would be preferable - regardless of what it turned out to be - only Dandelion could answer, and it would only drive Lambert and the others crazy if they dwelt on it for too long.
Especially Geralt.
The pining idiot was already worked up enough over his precious Dandelion, even if things were on the mend. But that wouldn’t stop his far-too-noble-for-his-own-good brother from taking the weight of Dandelion’s happiness on his shoulders.
Lambert sighed and began cleaning up the remains of this last experiment.
Making the list had been a matter of hours, at most. And then it had only taken a few days to rule out one creature after another, even around the chores and the lessons on talking signs. Now they still had a whole winter ahead of them to think through the implications of the result and try to plan.
He had a feeling it would be a long winter.
Not, he reminded himself more cheerfully, as long as it COULD have been, though. Now that Dandelion and Pretty Boy were talking again. Things were definitely looking up in that regard.
Putting the last of his things away, Lambert let out an explosive breath
He did not envy Geralt.
Oh, he’d used to, back when he was younger, Geralt and Eskel both. They were the golden boys of Kaer Morhen. And Lambert was the troublemaker, voted the least likely to survive, but he’d showed them. He snorted at the ridiculousness of that thought. There wasn’t anyone left to show that it made any sort of difference to, not in the way he’d thought, anyhow. Certainly Vesemir, Geralt and Eskel had never begrudged him outliving all predictions, or any of the bastards that had looked at Lambert with such disdain.
No, he wasn’t envious anymore. After everything Eskel and Geralt had gone through, and what he’d recently learned about Geralt, Lambert would never be jealous again, because it seemed being the golden boys came with a price.
That it hurt Geralt to talk…
Lambert grimaced. He’d once thought Geralt’s hair had been the only personal price of a second run of trials – and not a bad one at that, considering everyone else who went through them hadn’t even survived – but he’d been so very wrong.
Lambert wondered if Geralt was hiding any other drawbacks.
Checking his cleanup job - it never did to be sloppy in the lab - Lambert pocketed the parchment and left the room, heading for the kitchen. It was the most likely place to find anyone at this time of day when they weren’t doing one of Vesemir’s many chores. And even if they were, well, everyone had to eat sometime. They’d arrive eventually.
Except he appeared to have been locked in his lab longer than he’d thought, for Vesemir was just putting food out on the table, with Dandelion’s help, clearly having just finished making it. He’d thought the tantalizing smells he’d followed eagerly had been a work in progress, not something finished but he was glad of it nonetheless.
He nodded at Vesemir and Dandelion both, bringing his hands up to give a traditional Kaer Morhen greeting, which Dandelion returned near flawlessly. His fingers were very nimble, and he’d been a quick study, both things which had to be related to his profession, if Lambert had to guess. The lessons had progressed quickly, as Dandelion learned and the rest dusted off the cobwebs, and they took many opportunities to reinforce their knowledge and make it second nature.
However, they’d already run into a few stumbling blocks when Dandelion had wanted to sign words that just… didn’t exist. Not so far as the current Witchers of Kaer Morhen knew anyway. At least, Lambert didn’t figure the Witchers of old had ever had need of words for specific instruments or music terminology, or even terms of endearment. It was a little amusing to see how frustrated the bard got when Dandelion searched for just the right word to describe something with connotations perhaps only another bard would hear only to come up lacking.
They had warned him. The language was pretty basic, with some words being inferred but never given, their brains filling in the obvious gaps, because brains just did that. Because after all, the talking signs were really only used when a trainee went through the grasses and was overwhelmed. As useful as it might be to have a secret language on the path, what good would it do you, when there was no one to use it with?
Because Witchers walked the path alone.
Lambert snorted at that inwardly. Look where that had gotten them. After the disasters that befell the Wolves - two great ones coming to mind - they’d been dropping one by one for decades now, across all the schools.
One day, they’d be extinct.
The question was, who would go extinct first - the monsters or the Witchers?
In any case, Vesemir had gone back to the library, being the most familiar with it after all his long years, looking for any other books on potential signs a Witcher could have learned.
And in the meantime, Dandelion kept trying to invent signs. Because of course he would.
It was actually kind of fun, Lambert admitted. Creating an entirely other language, one just for them? Yeah, that'd definitely be their winter project and he was more than happy to work with Dandelion on it.
Eskel and Geralt trooped in at the same time and Dandelion perked up with great joy and Geralt ducked his head, turning pink and hopeful, though he signed to the bard, “Good day?”
“Very,” Dandelion responded, both aloud and not. “Vesemir’s teaching me lots. I’ll be a much better traveling companion after this, I'll have you know.”
Geralt reached his side and pressed a hand to Dandelion’s shoulder, touching their foreheads together for the briefest of instances - practically a hug, if you knew Geralt - before pulling away to sign once more.
“You are more than what you can do,” he said.
“Aww, my heart,” Dandelion crooned. There’d been no sign for love in the Witcher lexicon - and didn’t that just give you an idea on the state of things here? - and so Dandelion had taken to placing a hand over his heart instead.
The first time had made Geralt freeze, blushing hard as his eyes widened and he reached a shaky hand for the bard. Smiling back shyly, but bravely and determined, Dandelion had reached across the space between them and taken Geralt’s hand in his own and the resulting staredown had been enough to make Lambert feel like he was intruding.
Almost like now, but he refused to be chased out of the kitchen. If they wanted to get sappy with each other, they could take it to one of their rooms. Or an abandoned one. Lambert wasn’t too picky.
Okay, it was nice to see the strides they were making, to see Geralt allowing himself to be soft in ways he never had before, in seeing Dandelion’s confidence returning at the same time.
But he wasn’t going to admit that out loud.
Trying to give them some semblance of privacy, Lambert turned away from the conversation and helped finish setting the old, scarred table before sitting down in his customary place. Food was moving quickly after that, as the others joined him, stomachs rumbling, the conversation peppered with words both spoken and not.
It was as the meal was slowing down that Vesemir finally asked the question.
“Have you finished with the tests?”
Lambert nodded, pulling the folded parchment out of his pocket and placing it in a clear spot on the table, smoothing it out. Dandelion leaned in and sighed. “Well, that seems rather conclusive, does it not?”
Eskel shook his head. “I really didn’t think I'd be right. Not with everything I thought I knew about selkies.”
Lambert nodded. “Right, so I wanna know, how come we know so fucking little about selkies?” Lambert complained. “We memorize the fucking Liber Tenebarum but there’s almost nothing in there. It’s no wonder pretty boy here missed the signs. I didn’t even fucking know all that shit you told us the other day.”
“Because we don’t hunt selkies. We’re more likely to be called upon to protect one than to kill one and they don’t often wander far from the sea. They’re curious and playful, and prone to getting into trouble, but not anything maliciously harmful to humans,” Vesemir explained.
“Then how did you know all that stuff?” Eskel asked.
“Because there’s more knowledge in the library than just how to hunt monsters. I’m here most of the year, by myself. I have to do something with my time or I’ll go insane.”
“Too late for that,” Lambert muttered.
“I can still kick your ass, boy,” Vesemir said, but Lambert could smell he didn’t mean it.
“I just fucking mean, well, aren’t we already a little bit insane, all of us?”
“ Okay, lay this out for me. What does being a selkie entail, actually?” Dandelion broke in, derailing that depressing train of thought.
“They are a nonhuman species that can take the form of a man - "
"Or woman-" Vesemir interjected.
"- at will by removing their pelt. In their nonhuman form, they are nearly indistinguishable from the seals of their region, and tend to keep to coasts in the northern parts of the realm. They can travel outside their zones, but tend not to wander too far from the sea, craving salt water and full submersion on a regular basis. How often,” Eskel shrugged. “Well, that seems to vary from selkie to selkie.”
Vesemir nodded. “As I said, they are playful and mischievous, but they can be far too trusting at times. This has cost many a selkie their freedom for if anyone other than themselves takes their pelt, you can control a selkie.”
“And it is this pelt that allows them to make the shift?” Dandelion leaned forward with curious horror. The witchers nodded. “So taking their pelt means stealing their freedom.”
“And by doing so, usually kills the selkie. They pine for what they can’t have, the craving for the sea becoming too great an itch that can’t be scratched. And going to the coast as a human doesn’t work. It might… quiet that craving but it's a temporary solution at best, its effectiveness diminishing with every attempt. They will waste away in their captivity, which is why you don't generally see one. They won’t travel inward willingly, fearing to be too far from the sea, and centuries of capture have cautioned even their trusting natures to be wary.”
“And yet, here I am,” Dandelion muttered darkly. He looked down at his fingers, flexing them as he took it all in. “But I'm not… pining away. Or at least… not in any way that’s killing me.”
“Which is where Vesemir’s knowledge comes in,” Lambert grunted. “Because I don't get it either.”
“Because they can shift, a selkie can father - or carry - a child with a human. Sometimes an elf, even more rarely another humanoid race. But usually human. And a child born of both selkie and human has a chance of a … not exactly an immunity to the craving but more a resilience to it. The greater a remove of the selkie in the bloodline, the less detrimental or even noticeable the craving becomes. But it also means they lose more of the benefits too.”
“Even in human form, a selkie can swim with great skill and speed and stay under far longer. Their lives are naturally longer as well, though the true extent of their life expectancy is unknown, since we’ve no records of even a single selke that would allow us to gain that understanding.”
Dandelion hummed as he listened intently, popping a potato in his mouth.
“You probably have longevity of some sort, just based on your looks,” Eskel pointed out, Lambert nodding agreement with the others. "So that's at least one benefit you've gotten."
“I dunno. I think most of my family look fairly young for their age,” Dandelion said doubtfully.
Lambert scrunched his face at that, not liking the implications. Was Dandelion’s family deliberately selkie farming? Capturing or wooing them to gain eternal youth?
“Is it possible his family doesn’t know?” Eskel, always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, asked. Lambert opened his mouth to protest the likelihood of that, but Eskel kept going, preemptively raising his voice to drown out Lambert if he didn’t let him finish.
Grumbling under his breath, Lambert stabbed his meat and shoved a chunk in his mouth and chewed so he wouldn’t be tempted to talk over his brother.
“As I see it, there are several possibilities. Dandelion's pelt was stolen, or he was born without one. Neither are good options, but if the latter, well, his family could simply be unaware of his true nature?” Eskel looked around. “An adventurous lover of one of his ancestors – who knows how far back – and the knowledge was never passed down?”
“Does it fucking matter if they knew or not? It still wouldn’t change the fact that he’s a selkie without a pelt!” Lambert asked roughly, swallowing his food hastily.
Dandelion suddenly hunched inwards, and Geralt leaned into him with clear concern, wrapping an arm around Dandelion’s shoulders.
“I think… I think I don’t want to talk about the possibilities of how just now. I’d rather learn more about what I am and how it affects me. We can’t get any answers until spring anyhow, and I don’t want to spend the winter arguing and twisting myself into knots.”
Lambert watched as Geralt reached out and gently tucked the bard’s hair behind one ear, ducking to catch his gaze before signing.
"My dandelion. Got you." Geralt pressed his head to Dandelions and Dandelion sniffled, a tiny smile breaking free on his face.
“Your dandelion,” he whispered. “I rather like the sound of that. I was just about to tell you all to just… call me Jaskier again, cause I really fucking miss it – never knew I could miss a name – but now I don’t want to.”
Gods, they were such saps, Lambert thought, though he couldn't begrudge this further hint of healing between the two of them. Eskel beamed at the two of them with the softest look Lambert had ever seen and the old man, well…
Vesemir sighed and rolled his eyes. “Then let him call you Dandelion or whatever. The rest of us can use Jaskier if that’s what you want.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Eskel agreed.
“Ugh, it’ll be faster to say, anyhow,” Lambert grumped though he wasn’t really mad, and knew they knew that.
Jaskier chuckled. “Really, Lambert? It’s only a single syllable difference,” he teased, but his scent cleared up which helped with the concern in Geralt’s own scent, and really, that’s all that Lambert wanted, even if it was at his own expense.
He really was a sucker for his family and yeah… Jaskier was family now, whether he liked it or not. By the looks of it though, he didn’t really have much objection to that, which made Lambert feel lighter than he had in a while, if he was honest with himself.
Which he was, more often than anyone else might give him credit for.