Chapter Text
Fucking mages . They always had some nasty trick or another up their sleeves, always ready to fuck up your entire week the moment you thought you had them cornered. Mages had much more versatility in their spells than any witcher, even Eskel, had with their signs, and in Lambert’s experience, their favorite thing to do with that freedom was to come up with new and interesting ways to make people miserable. This mage was no different; she was apparently a polymorphy specialist, and had recently taken to kidnapping villagers and using them as unwilling test subjects to hone her control and efficiency at shaping various animal families. Like most high-effort spells, they didn’t last indefinitely without her being around to recharge them, which was how anyone knew to post a contract for her in the first place: a young man from the nearest village had managed to escape her dubious care after being turned into a racoon (apparently she hadn’t enough experience with the real creatures to know just how skilled their devilish little hands were at opening locks and generally getting everywhere they weren’t supposed to go). The kid somehow managed to survive a full month in his smaller, furrier form, mostly by sneaking into his cousin’s cellar and holing up in the corner he knew well was left untouched until the first snows hit, and promptly caused a commotion when his sudden transformation back into his human shape left him stuck in a crawl space much too narrow for him to find his way back out of.
Lambert was very carefully not thinking of just how many poor peasants must have been in his situation and had not managed to escape; based on the number and variety of empty cages scattered around the mage’s creepy cabin-in-the-woods, it was a lot. This mage was truly proving to be an utter pain in his ass, which at least had the side effect of keeping him nicely distracted from such pessimistic ponderings; with all his concentration focused on staying alive and in the proper form, he had no attention to spare.
With the right preparation, most contracts on mages were downright easy once you managed to actually find them; throw a dimeritium bomb or two, and suddenly the haughty assholes were about as dangerous as the average farmer. Lambert had never been able to puzzle out just why most mages never bothered to learn any methods of self defence beyond magic, but he wasn’t exactly in the habit of complaining about things that made his life easier with no cost to him, so. The problem was, this mage in particular apparently had a few more brain cells than her colleagues. When he’d burst into her cottage, she’d been waiting for him, and she’d prepared a rather complicated spell to the point where all she had to do to cast it once he entered was point and shout out the last few words of the incantation. Normally, such an attack would hardly phase him, but this particular spell had been incredibly inconvenient in that it had transformed the dimeritium in every single bomb he had on him into some harmless powder that smelled like flowers. Despite the extremely unpleasant surprise of watching her throw a stream of fire at him with no inhibitions despite the dimeritium bomb that had just exploded more or less in her face, Lambert held his ground, even if it involved rather a lot more diving and dodging than he typically preferred. Honestly, thank Melitele for Aiden’s insistence on teaching him all the insane training games the Cats played, his agility had improved in leaps and bounds (heh) since they’d started practicing together more regularly.
Lambert soon noticed a pattern in the witch’s attacks; she’d cast several rapid-fire generic combat spells in a row, presumably to keep him from getting comfortable enough to organize an attack, make some rather terrible attempts at banter (she kept calling him “pretty kitty”, which… sure he had cat eyes, all witchers did, but could she not possibly come up with an insult that was actually, y’know, insulting , instead of merely mildly creepy?) between them, and then she’d pull out her giant grimoire and start reading out one of her personalized spells. The grimoire spells were clearly significantly more powerful than the others she was casting, and would likely end the fight quite decisively if she ever managed to land one, but seeing as they all involved quite a bit of gesturing and took at least a full 30 seconds to cast (was it really necessary to make all of her incantations their own fucking essays? Sure it sounded intimidating but it was really just absurdly impractical), Lambert had little trouble getting out of range in time.
After a few cycles of this, he was starting to grow bored of their dance, so he made the (perhaps just a wee bit reckless) decision to go on the offensive. The next time she pulled out the grimoire, he was moving the moment she began the incantation; only this time, instead of leaping away to take shelter from the spell, he darted towards her, and the witch had barely made it halfway through the spell in the time it took him to reach her. He couldn’t help snorting in amusement at the utter surprise on her face as his sword cleanly separated her head from her shoulders, as though she’d never considered that someone might take advantage of the incredibly obvious weak point.
Before he could start feeling two smug, however, he felt the unmistakable pressure of chaos washing over him as her half-formed spell was released. He didn’t notice any immediately obvious effects, and spared a moment to hope that this was one of the spells that didn’t actually do anything unless they were completed. Yeah, right, he thought scornfully, since when have I been that lucky?
Still, there was nothing he could do about it just now, and if it was one of those slow acting curses that crept up on you in the hours after its casting, he’d much prefer to be safely returned to the village where he’d left the majority of his gear and locked in his rented room by the time it hit. As he quickly did a once over of the deceased mage’s workspace for any useful ingredients or tools, he couldn’t help noticing that something certainly felt off; unfortunately, such feelings were a fairly common side effect of witcher potions like the ones he’d taken just before the fight, and he was still too hyped up from adrenaline to really sort through the feelings and figure out just which sense of wrongness was due to the spell rather than his own alchemy.
Soon enough, he’d done all he needed to in the cabin, and all his supplies (plus a good heaping of alchemical supplies this mage certainly wouldn’t be needing any more) were gathered neatly in a sack he found in the corner with a few old potatoes in it. Ready to begin the trek back to the village, he absentmindedly reached up to flatten down his hair and ensure that none of it had escaped the hold of his heavily-applied pomade in the chaos of the battle. It was a gesture he'd made countless times before, and he knew what he should be feeling under his hand. Whatever it was he was currently feeling, it was not that. Emerging from his slowly-rising cloud of riotous hair, there were two... somethings. They were soft, covered in what felt like a thin layer of... fur? What in the ever loving fuck-
Okay. Don't panic. Whatever this was, it was surely not the end of the world if it had taken him so long to notice. Further probing showed that the furry things were vaguely conical, and that while he apparently could feel touch through them (how had he not noticed a whole new set of nerve endings?), they weren't actively causing him pain. They seemed to be moving, too, though without any input or permission from him. Unless they literally had a mind of their own, which he was just very definitely not going to think about, it seemed they reacted reflexively to some input or stimuli. Whatever, he could spend more time studying his new... ears (because that's what they had to be, he may never have had the opportunity to pet any cats (unlike Cats, which he had plenty of experience petting), but he'd seen enough to recognize the shape) once he was somewhere safe.