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“One ancient myth arises from the Iron Age, when people learned to make tools as well as weapons of iron. The god Jupiter, angered by all the fighting and destruction from these iron weapons decided to destroy the entire race by a flood.
The gods fled the earth and the last to go, the goddess Astraea, was so saddened she asked to be turned into a star. Meantime, two mortals who had been faithful to the gods fled to the top of Mount Parnassus and were spared by Jupiter.
When the flood waters receded, all that was left around the two mortals was mud and slime. Astraea felt so sorry for them she wept, her tears falling as stardust which, when upon hitting the earth, turned to lovely starflowers or asters.” (from G reen Mountain Garden , written by Dr. Leonard Perry.)
As we are but stardust on the earth, I dip my hands into the soil
and hope that after the flood waters recede it will remember me.
Once, somewhere on Hindarsfjall, there was a burning village. This wasn’t and wouldn’t now be unusual; pirates often target rural fishing communities for food supplies when their own are low. It’s the sort of event that gets added into the history books as a vague mention, a village that got cut short. Oh, those with kin remember, but life is hard and people die. The Isles mourn but briefly, for time marches on and new dangers approach.
The tiny would-be village fades from memory, its three families not having enough kin to be remembered, and having had no great deeds to call fame. Or was nearly forgotten, for just as the fires are stamped out by the typical mid-autumn weather a witcher came to investigate.
Artek is, among other things, shockingly talkative and friendly for a Bear witcher. Which is to say, he’s only somewhat taciturn as opposed to an utterly withdrawn misanthrope. Still, he’s not the heartless beast witchers are supposed to be, and is quite certain none of them are really, not by nature. Maybe by choice.
But he is a Bear, and so he doesn’t say this, doesn’t speak up against Arnaghad or question the way that his school runs. He thinks it, of course, but he doesn’t say it. Doesn’t say that a life built solely on gruesome work will make bitter and cruel people. Doesn’t say that he doesn’t want to become cruel. He wants to be a witcher. And witchers don’t feel. So he doesn’t say anything.
For the most part, anyway. He makes friends, on occasion. This small town had been home to two of them, an herbalist and a druid who had fed him and helped him heal after a particularly disastrous battle with three times the expected number of sirens. They were kind people, Rowan and Yejide. He would visit if he had reason to come to Hindarsfjall, and went out of his way to have reasons.
He came upon the steaming rubble with a world-weariness he had become depressingly accustomed to. He was a century and change onto the Path; these were not the first fresh ruins he’d seen and not the first friends he’d mourn. Nonetheless it hurt, as he gathered the remains of the people who had not been incinerated with their homes and who would soon attract necrophages if left to the elements. Rowan was hard to identify, his body a disgusting mix of half charred and half bloated with decay, but Artek recognized the singed fragments of his shirt, a bright pattern Yejide had woven with extreme care as she told Artek about Zerrikania. She had kept their homeland with her. Yejide’s body was harder to find and for a brief moment he let himself believe she had somehow been spared. But he couldn’t really believe it, not as he pulled another body from a burnt building. He found her body caught in the nets on the shore. Her braids had become thoroughly tangled in the net, so he cut it from the rest and wrapped it around her like a sorry funeral shroud before placing her on the pyre next to her husband.
He counted the bodies, not knowing why but doing it anyway. His friends, a fisherman and his family made seven, another family made eleven, twelve, fourteen. Fourteen bodies, some already mostly ash and some simply killed and left to rot. The work of pirates, whom he learned later had crashed onto rocks to the south, taking their meager loot to the bottom of the sea along with their miserable lives.
He built the pyre with the remains of the houses, lit it with a blast of Igni , and did not stay to watch it burn. Witchers don’t grieve, except that they do. He pushed the thought back and the pain with it. Witchers don’t grieve. He pulled his pack tighter and went up from the shoreside village, pausing at a hut at the crest of the hill just before the road. There’d been a young child on Yejide’s hip the last he saw her, some two years before. Her child might have been one of the bodies charred beyond recognition, but none of them were that small, the other children had been past a decade or teenagers. Perhaps the child had died earlier, taken by illness or tragedy as so many are.
He looked into the hut, impulse unclear. It was a simple structure, more of a shack than anything habitable, but sturdy in the way Skelligers build most things. Maybe there was fish left in it, or some other dried goods tucked away for the coming winter. Maybe his stomach drove him to it. He didn’t dwell on why as he opened the door, freezing at a sharp intake of breath, a rabbit-quick heartbeat, the smell of fear. He glanced about, focusing his senses on a pile of crates, a cloth draped over it that hid a small space between them and the wall. “I’m not here to hurt you.” He said, leaping to a conclusion that proved true as he saw familiar coils of dark hair before the tear streaked face of a young boy.
“You’re the witcher my parents know.” The child said, simple and straightforward. His eyes were puffy from crying, but the acrid fear scent faded with recognition.
“I am.” Artek answered, though it wasn’t really a question. “How long have you been hiding in here?”
“Since the shouting started. Baba told me to hide till he came for me. The shouting stopped, but he didn’t come so I slept.”
“Hm.” Artek said. A lone child wouldn’t get far, and Artek felt he couldn’t just abandon his friends’ child. He could have brought the kid to the priestesses of Freya, but Rowan had told him how they had been cruel for his mixed heritage, saying he was half a Skelliger with a foreign father. They would probably not be very kind to the child of ‘half a Skelliger.’
He was startled from his thoughts by the child climbing out from his hiding place, and further unsettled when he asked, “My parents are dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” Artek answered without thought, but the child didn't cry or flinch like he would expect. Just nodded solemnly.
“I have no kin.” He said softly. He seemed much older than five, despite clearly being that young. For a brief instant Artek suspected perhaps some creature, but no. He hadn’t been around children much, but the Bear cubs are much the same, old beyond their age as they have to be to survive. “I am dead.”
...though usually not quite so maudlin.
“Not yet, cub.” Artek said, decision made.
A long time later, a young man walks away from a frozen mountain with two swords on his back and amber orange eyes.
------
Aster might have preferred to stay away from the Isles, but the lure of many contracts and few witchers is one that always brings him back. His accent gives him away as a native, despite looking like an outsider, and Skelligers don’t particularly like complicated questions or answers. Despite the glares and harsh words, he likes Skellige. Its people are brash and loud, but there are plenty who enjoy a quiet drinking partner who is happy enough to join in some friendly fisticufs. So he ends up in Skellige more than on the Continent, fighting harpies and sirens mostly with the occasional leshen or endrega infestation. He makes a few friends, humans who don’t flinch at cat eyes. He has a lover for a season, but feels mostly relief when she cuts it off for her engagement to a local man. He goes to Gedyneith and meets the druids for a contract and manages not to turn tail when one recognizes him through his father, someone who had trained with Rowan.
It’s an uncomfortable experience, like putting on clothes too small or eating poultry not cooked through. Aster nods, shrugs at the assertion that he looks the spitting image of his father, if perhaps a bit darker, broader shouldered and much stronger, but the same face. Give or take some scars, of course.
He stays as grim-faced as he remembers his father never being and manages to harass the master alchemist into helping him through sheer stubborn silence. Gremist likes him actually, surprising everyone. Aster doesn’t speak much beyond what is necessary, but isn’t so stoic that he won’t ask a question when he needs to, and the alchemist seems to appreciate that. And the (diluted) White Gull that they share after a particularly long day of brewing probably helps, too.
The druid who remembers his father invites him to winter with them, but Aster declines, instead joining a crew of merchants. He does that for years, off and on, going between the islands and the continent. Some years he must winter there, lacking either coin or a ship. Other years he doesn’t go to the Isles at all, instead dragging his way through Nazair and Cintra, or, for one miserable summer, as far North as the swamps of Velen. He kills more drowners than he can keep track of and isn’t paid nearly enough for it, but enough to repair his equipment and move on.
Years pass. He earns more scars. He kills more harpies, sirens, drowners, monsters. Most of his hunts aren’t that interesting, or even that terribly frightening. Occasionally he has some interesting adventures, or misadventures as they seem. Someone demands they pay him in the law of surprise and he ends up with the runt of a litter of hounds. The dog is smart, staying clear of any monsters and battles. Aster keeps him, calls him Aja and trains him to hunt rabbits. He fights a katakan that fed on children that leaves him with a nasty scar from his neck to hip. Kills a zeugl that had taken up residence in a small town’s refuse heap. Has a few near death experiences, collecting more scars.
It’s not that Aster is ever trying to get hurt. He’s careful, he wears heavily padded armor, as much as he can get away with and still have the movement he needs. He carries a shield on his back, heeding the words of his elders about the witcher who lost an arm to a beast that tore his shield away.
But monsters are quick and vicious and often outnumber him. He loses an arm, or rather a hand and most of his wrist. It’d been a hell of a fight, a grave hag that was supposed to be a handful of ghouls, and then when he finally killed her, the ghouls showed up in full force. Retrospect tells him that he was lucky the ghoul got his hand and not, say, his throat, but at the time he’d been mostly upset at the blood rapidly flowing from the ruined remains of his wrist, hand now in the ghoul’s stomach. After he did manage to kill them all he considered the merit of digging it out, seeing if he could find a mage to reattach it, but the blood loss was more pressing.
Aster didn’t make it back to Haern Caduch that winter, his right arm bandaged and kept close to his chest as he took his reward money, and instead of repairing his armor or buying goods to travel, he rented a room in an old widower’s house. The man’s children were grown and gone, his wife having passed a few years before. He was half deaf, age dulling all of his senses, but he told Aster he’s a good young man when he chopped firewood and piled it close to the door. He gave the witcher the spare room, and as long as he was willing to keep chopping wood and occasionally hunt down a rabbit for stew, he’d be fed while there’s still frost. Even tolerates the grey muzzled hound that trails at Aster’s heels.
So he planned to stay as long as the ground was too hard to plow and spend the long winter hours training, or rather retraining. He can’t retire, is only in his sixties, so he has to learn to fight with his left hand. Witchers tend towards near-ambidexterity and it isn’t too hard to relearn the sword tricks he’d already known. It left him vulnerable in some ways, of course, but gave him advantages too, as so few swordsmen are left handed even fewer had experience fighting one. Monsters never really care what hand holds the sword swung at them.
The hardest part was relearning signs, as he couldn’t just do the gesture with his off hand like he’d been taught as a cub. Signs aren’t a witcher’s only tool, but they’re an important one, even for a burly “hit it till it stops moving” bear. He’d taken the brunt of a shaelmaar’s attack once before, and even with Quen over him it had knocked the air from his lungs and tossed him several feet back. Without Quen he’d have been crushed by the impact. Not to mention the need for Yrden to fight specters.
So after the ground thaws, he signs on as a farmhand, determined to figure something out so he doesn’t die fighting a pitifully weak wraith. Slowly he learned to feel the shape of the magic without fingers to trace it. The first time he casts after losing his hand he sets himself on fire, which is both entirely embarrassing and the most relief he’d felt since waking up after the trials, surprised not to be dead.
That winter, just more than sixty years after he’d first come to Haern Caduch, he seeks out Artek. The older witcher wintered at the school most years, though no Bear but their leader and the trainers stayed there every year. Aster was glad to catch Artek, swapping short greetings and asking the older witcher to check his forms. It’s unsaid, the trust, but Aster and Artek both know it’s a lot to trust another witcher with your safety, especially for Bears. It also might be some pride, as Aster had never been very good with the signs before losing his hand.
Before the signs had felt clunky and weak, his fingers tracing them in quick static motions, but now he summoned the magic without visible movement and instead of a sad trickle of magic they come pouring out, strong and steady and holding as long as he holds the shape in his mind or until he truly exhausts himself. Aster is not the showy type, is a Bear through and through, but Artek half raised him, both in the long months it took to get to Haern Caduch and the winters after, taking him on as apprentice after the grasses. He was the only person who would understand this recovery and would care. Was maybe his only friend. So he shows Artek his stronger-than-before Aard , blasting apart a snowbank in a single vague wave of his arm. He’s not grinning, because he’s still a Bear, but he is smug and proud in his own way and not at all expecting the choked noise Artek makes.
“...has the wild sense of your father,” he says eventually, voice thicker than usual. “But the focus and intent of your mother.”
Aster nods, a pain long settled now disturbed. He looks at the remains of the snowbank, trying to chase the bitter scent of grief away before he realizes it isn’t his own.
“You cared for them.” He says, half surprised. He’d known, of course, that Artek cared some amount. He came back to see them, after all, as often as he could. But there’s enjoying a friendship and safe place to sleep and even feeling responsible to protect their child after they’ve passed. Then there’s still grieving them decades after they’d died, likely after they would have passed of natural causes had fate let them.
“I did.” Artek answers, though as long before it wasn’t a question. “They were kind and unafraid.”
There’s something more that Artek doesn’t say, maybe doesn’t know how to say, but that’s fine since Aster hears it all the same. He’s kind enough to not point it out.
Witchers are supposed to be emotionless monsters. They’re supposed to be as cruel as the things they hunt. They are not supposed to be saved by kind and unafraid people who are kind and unafraid enough to love someone who is supposed to be a monster. Aren’t supposed to love them back, even as quietly as Artek did.
The trials are supposed to tear the fear from the cubs, but that’s the instinctual panic, fear that chokes out reason, the thing that will get you killed when a vampire sinks its teeth into your throat just to choke on your blackened blood. Then there is the fear left over. The barest threads of humanity left, the emotional fear, the interpersonal and the existential at times. Witchers don’t feel fear when a ghoul nips at them, though they might feel dread if the teeth sink in. They might think about their sad life and feel something like desperation. They might love someone, someones, and be afraid of what that means and what it would be, will be to lose them. Witchers don’t panic, even when they’ve lost half their blood. They sometimes go a bit feral, though never a Bear. That would mean there’s enough of a person left in them to fall apart and Bears don’t believe that. Can’t try to hold onto the good parts of life and so won’t lose themselves when they lose those things too. Not Bears, never Bears, who hold even their brothers at a distance, who simply serve a purpose. Do a necessary job.
But they do grieve. They lose hours to searching through charred remains because painful answers are better than none. They build pyres for strangers. They lose their will to continue and stubbornly do so anyway. They learn to cast without hands. They seek out their second father and pretend that grief isn’t a strong and horrible smell.
“Want to meet my dog?” Aster says instead, and Artek nods.
The winter after that, Aster leaves Aja with family who can’t afford to pay him. They’re confused, given the gift of a hound that hunts, old as it is, but Aster tells them, bruskly and in fewer words, that Aja is too old to travel but not so old as to bury. The children, younger than he thinks he ever was, are gleeful, petting and climbing all over the confused but happy hound. Their father simply nods, too afraid of the witcher to argue.
So he continues like that for a long time, occasionally making friends and traveling and hunting and being much more careful than before. He turns down some contracts that pay well, but have high risk for a single witcher. He goes back to Skellige a dozen times or more, fighting more sirens and getting dragged into a brawl competition.
He ends up winning and goes on to continue the gauntlet, amused by it. The bear is a bit much, but instead of killing it, he manages to wrap his legs around its neck and waits for it to go slack. He nearly chokes on watered ale hearing a man try to argue with the bookie that he’d “bet on the Bear” as in the witcher and not the creature. He fights the island victor and is briefly crowned the champion of the Isles before he realizes they want him to fight more, so he lets the next competitor who’s half decent win. He’s a good boxer, big and faster than anyone expects, but he’s a witcher first and foremost.
Plus, some of the islanders were whispering about a bear rematch, and he really doesn’t want to have to kill Olaf.
He keeps doing what he does, killing monsters and wintering and feeling only a bit like he’s slowly dying. He rethinks his stance on Bears not going mad when he comes back to Haern Caduch and finds out one of the older witchers had taken a contract on the ocean, but then again he was paid for his loss. (Really, he changed his mind on madness when he stumbled across the bloody aftermath of two of his brothers meeting on the Path. Neither witcher had survived the encounter. He thinks that might have been for the best.)
Then, one miserable winter in Haern Caduch (the years without dogs are always miserable, he thinks but doesn’t say; he’d kept up the habit of occasionally picking up some runt to take for a dozen seasons before giving it away to some peasant), the Bears receive word from the Wolf School, a summons. They discuss it only briefly before Arnaghad throws a fit and forbids any of them from going. They look amongst themselves as he walks away, all coming to a decision. As soon as the last snow has fallen they block the door to Arnaghad’s room and take everyone who will go (which ends up being almost everyone, Arnaghad having made plenty of enemies and very few friends). There’s a brief time of indecision, anger and brothers who can barely call each other that. Bears struggling to stay civil.
Aster considers, before nudging Artek with a meaningful look, who gives the younger man a resigned look before standing as tall as he can and declaring the plan. He became the de facto leader after that, all the way to Kaer Morhen and after.
The first years are rough, and later Aster thinks fondly that all good things start that way. After Jan settles in, things are a lot smoother, and even if Aster, like most Bears, doesn’t feel entirely comfortable with the new host of servants, he is glad to come back from patrol to a warm meal and warmer hearth. He also comes to the conclusion that Arnaghad was full of shit for many reasons, not the least being that he left the hot springs, which are maybe the best thing ever.
(Past tense now, since he’d come to Kaer Morhen in a rage, demanding his school return, insulting just about everyone and demanding to duel the White Wolf. Which wouldn’t have ended in bloodshed but that he could not accept defeat and took the knife from his boot to attack the Wolf after being granted mercy. The White Wolf is fast though, unfairly so, so even as the dagger jabbed upwards towards a gap in his armor he had brought his sword down. In a quick motion Arnaghad’s head spun away from his body, blinking once in surprise. No Bear protested.)
The keep becomes the closest thing to ‘home’ that Aster has had since before pirates came to a tiny inlet on Hindarsfjall and changed his entire life. It’s almost right.
Almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades, though. He gets another dog, a Skellige hound that was offered as tribute, names her Aja and teaches it to chase Cat witchers (who find the joke funny and for the most part also wouldn’t kick a dog that just wants to lick their face). She follows him about the keep and stays with servants when he’s on patrol.
Then the bard comes, and soon he becomes the Bard. He hasn’t been there very long but Aster has a good instinct for change, for the air pressure shifts that will bring rain or snow or a tornado. He’s mostly certain the Bard is something of all three, something helpful if uncomfortable, beautiful but dangerous, something rarely seen but not to stop and marvel at. He begins to feel certain when the king of Kovir apparently decides to invade Caingorn, which means that the Wolf’s army is on the move.
He has enough time to ensure Aja’s safekeeping with a servant (an assistant dyer named Trephor, who likes to joke that between the two of them they have two good hands). Then it’s time to march, for blood to boil and spill.
The battle for Caingorn isn’t even that serious, as the Kovirans clearly weren’t expecting the White Wolf to respond so quickly, but then the King won’t give in and they have to push past the city into Kovir. It’s not the first time the Wolf’s army has marched, but it’s still a rough time as they press the army back. It’s in the final push that things get truly terrible. The battle itself is a blur, steel and magic and bodies. Why would it be anything else? He’s not a general, not a battle planner, just a foot soldier, and despite how wrong the description feels, he is glad to do it. Glad to be the burly shield that barely notices blows. He has to stop to take a Swallow potion once, chugging the potion to stem the bleeding from a cut on his brow that was distracting his vision.
Then he rushes back into pushing his way through the battlefield, breaking the Kovirian line of defense. A shield wall is effective in a normal battle, but most any Bears has no problem pushing past it, making way for the flood of witchers behind. Elsewhere in the line, other groups do the same, Bears and Griffins in the front with the other schools supporting and Wolves spread throughout.
When it becomes clear the defense won’t hold, whichever general is leading the Koviri proves a coward and turns their siege equipment towards the front lines, hitting more of their men than Witchers. But they do hit some Witchers, and Aster has a brief moment of anger before the world becomes startling clear as a flaming thing streams toward foot soldiers and witchers alike. Strong as Witchers are, most would not survive a direct hit from a fucking boulder , let alone one that’s on fire. He acts before he can think about it too much and pushes his way in front of a Cat, who always laughs at the persistent hound licking at her hands and doesn’t notice the boulder because she’s busy being a blur of spinning blades and he’s a Bear, alright, a big fucking guy and Aja is safe with Trephor and that’s his most important responsibility, the rest someone else can pick up– he knows it will hurt but this what he’s meant for so he just acts.
He pulls the magic of Quen , the familiar shape embracing him, and then narrows it like a strong shield to one side as he shoves himself into the trajectory of the fucking flaming rock . He doesn’t really remember the battle after that, aside from the sharp pain of bones being rebroken, and vaguely someone swearing. Then a nothingness that feels like no time gone and decades later he comes back to his aching body.
He takes stock of himself before opening his eyes, feeling sore just about everywhere, and smells healing salves and bandages. And dog, which means he’s in his own bed. Then comes the headache, in a way that he suspects means concussion. He considers just going back to sleep, but picks up on the slow heartbeat of another witcher, and opens his eyes to see Artek across the room, sitting in a chair that hadn’t been there before, reading a book on Zerrikanian plants that Aster had bought a decade ago.
“Ar—” his throat is too dry to say much more as he breaks into coughs. Artek is there in a heartbeat, a human heartbeat at that, holding his head up to drink.
“Easy, cub.” He says. This close, his purposefully calmed scent can’t hide the sooty scent of a witcher’s half-fear and more bitter scent of grief. But there’s also the comforting scent of Artek, of metal and leather and the hand salve he uses in the cold months, and the distant scent of blood and water, like he’s bathed but not scrubbed himself clean since spilling a substantial amount of it.
Aster considers speaking, questions burgeoning, but is saved from the struggle. Artek, knowing his once apprentice well, answers the questions he would have asked.
“The battle was three days ago. You saved Vesper— and a number of Koviri who threw down their weapons. The Wolf controls Kovir now. Your dog isn’t allowed in until your surface wounds close.” He pauses, and that’s more words than either usually speak, before adding. “Vesper wants to have a word with you, and Trephor cried when he heard you were hurt.”
“Oh.” Aster croaks, processing. They share a long moment of silence before Artek clears his throat awkwardly and continues.
“Bears are not the most affectionate, nor do we say much of our feelings, but the world is not the same as it was.” He starts, voice full of purpose, even as he hesitates between sentences. “Long ago, I was certain Witchers were liars, but that we lied for the better when we said we didn’t feel emotion… I told your parents that, and your mother was kind enough not to say anything while your father laughed himself out of bed.”
He hesitates for a long moment, long enough to hold the water skin up again and Aster to process the confirmation that Artek was his parents’ lover. “Their deaths weigh me, even now, but I don’t regret having known them, and I am so grateful for your survival, both then and now.”
Aster feels like another boulder has hit him with this revelation, and, well. It’s not anything he didn’t suspect at least, but Bears don’t say it. Or, they didn’t. Artek isn’t done, though, and continues with a vehemence rarely displayed by their school.
“I don’t know how to be a father, but you have been a son to me. Your death would be a grief I do not know I could bear, and I beg you to be more careful .”
Aster manages some kind of gruff reply, feeling the closest to crying he’s been since the grasses burned it out of him. He falls blessedly back asleep with a bone-deep emotion he can’t bear to name.
He wakes again later, feeling better, if stiff. Artek isn’t there, but Merigold is. She looks tired, but perks up when she sees his eyes open.
“Was wondering if you were gonna hibernate,” she huffs with a humor not found in her scent. They aren’t close, but Aster has joined the sorceress in the stillroom a number of times, and reliably brings back the exact rare herbs she asks for (unlike Junod or Gerd, who both bring sad, uprooted plants that often end up in the compost). Maybe they’re something distant to friends? Aster is beginning to rethink his stance on how much other people actually care about him.
He realizes he should probably reply, but doesn’t know what, if anything, to say, so he just hums, or maybe growls. She seems to accept this though, as she pokes and prods him to gauge his health. He lets her, waiting for her verdict.
“Well, the good news is that you’ll walk,” she declares finally. “Your ribs healed alright, which is great since we had to re-break them. You fractured your pelvis, which will take the longest to heal.”
“...the bad?”
“The organ damage was severe, but not nearly as bad as it could have been if your Quen was any weaker. The real concern is that several vertebrae were fractured, and it’s hard to say the extent of damage. You’re on strict orders for nothing more strenuous than walking around the keep until I say otherwise, and…” she hesitates, never glad to bring bad news. “Even after you’re fully healed, I’d be hesitant to clear you for full duty.”
Aster considers that. From his own pain and what she’s said, he’s amazed his spine isn’t truly fucked. Witchers heal quickly from most anything that doesn’t immediately kill them, but they have their limits: he can’t regrow a hand or undo nerve damage. That’s likely the problem, the nerves in the spine being delicate and complicated.
“Nerve damage?” he asks anyway. She nods.
“I don’t doubt that you’ll be up and fighting within the month, but you’ll likely have involuntary muscle movement as well as pain. Not useless, but since there are plenty of others who can run patrols, I don’t feel comfortable pushing you any unnecessary risk.”
“Hmm,” he says. She doesn’t push, and he decides he can count her as a friend for that. And her directness. Not useless, she said. He thinks of his first Aja, of the baffled family happy for the hound, who couldn’t hunt anything large or too quick, but would pick up a rabbit or squirrel and could entertain and protect their children. All the dogs after, and his current faithful hound who hasn’t had the chance to hunt much at all but is well loved by the servant children and lays in his bed whenever he lets her.
The next few days follow a similar pattern of sleeping and waking long enough to move about a little, use the chamber pot, wash himself off with a cloth, and drink the broth left for him. Most Witchers get antsy when there’s nothing to do, and Aster does too, but it takes him much longer than most. For the time it takes to heal enough to stand without dizziness or pain too sharp to even think about walking, he patiently waits, rereading the book about Zerrikanian plants and another about Cursed Plants, and Artek brings him more. Tells the younger Bear that he has his father’s love for knowledge and his mother’s practical usage. It feels fond and true, and almost upsettingly comfortable. A sweater that fits just right, to be seen through the other but seen as yourself.
He’s up and moving before the celebration feast. He still hasn’t seen Vesper, though Trephor came to see him several times, and Aja was very glad to be allowed back to his room, licking all over the Bear’s face until Aster pushed her away. Trephor hugged him roughly, as tightly as he could with one arm and the half-arm nub on his left side. Trephor gave the much, much larger man a lecture about taking care of himself, making the stoic Bear chuckle quietly and off his own one and half armed hug back.
But also, Aster smelled terrible, especially to his own nose. He hadn’t been able to take a real bath in nearly a month, just jumping in creeks between battles and wiping down with a cloth before being bed bound for a week. Plus, a hot bath might help the aching muscles, still bruised and weak. So slowly, far more slowly than he liked, he made his way down to the hot springs while the other Witchers, those not injured or out on patrol, trained. There are others bathing, but the pool he liked, near the far end of hot, too hot from some Witchers even, is clear, so he is alone as he sinks into it.
But not for long, as he’s just had time to start on really getting the blood and dirt from his hair when Vesper slinks in. And it really is a slink, the way she moves soundlessly, hips that sway not in the sensual way that some ladies do, but like a cat pretending it hadn’t just fallen from a high place. He hears her only by the sound of a witcher’s heartbeat, then the soft sound of clothes falling.
“You almost died.” She says, nonchalant and almost as if not to him. He glances over as she’s sat across from him. She looks so small compared to him, despite her own defined muscles and broad shoulders. If he wasn’t certain before, he is now.
“But you didn’t.” He says simply. She cocks her head, considers him. He continues cleaning.
“We aren’t friends.” She says finally, though it’s almost a question.
“We aren’t.” He nods.
“So why?” She sounds strained, and it reminds Aster of Artek watching his signs so many years ago.
“Mostly because I could.” He answers after a long moment. “I am not many things, but I am big. We march together for a reason, and I did what I was there to do.”
They sit in silence for a while, Aster cleaning and Vesper considering him. Eventually she seems to accept his answer, and starts to get out before pausing. Aster is long past any shame of his missing hand, but an old sort of embarrassment wells up in his chest as she watches him struggle to scrub the dirt from the right side of his hair. She huffs, crossing the pool and standing to his right and batting his hand away.
“Merigold told me your ribs are still healing. Don’t strain them reaching like that.” And then they don’t really speak as she works suds into his hair, and he lets her. It doesn’t take too long, not with her clever fingers and his patience for too harsh tugging.
Once his hair is done she sits back, starts cleaning herself. He finds he enjoys her presence and decides, maybe they aren’t friends, but they could be. He would like that, he thinks.
He almost changes his mind when her friends come join them, a handful of Cats being noisy together, but he’s neither ready to get out nor bothered enough to do anything about it. Cedric gives him a look that Aster can’t even begin to unpack and settles in the steaming water next to Vesper, quickly followed by his partner and a few other Cats, some Aster doesn’t know the names of.
“So this is the Bear that saved our kitten,” one says, Kiyan? Keenan? He’s the one who’s a little mad, even for a Cat, or so he’s heard anyway.
“Call me that again and you’ll eat your dick.” Vesper snaps.
“I’m not nearly flexible enough—” Kiyan is cut off by Vesper leaping across the water and that devolves quickly, but the pool is big enough that it doesn’t really bother the others too much.
“Thank you,” Cedric says, nearly quiet enough that Aster doesn’t hear it. But he does, and he realizes suddenly that he may have made more than one friend with the Cats.
Supper is a grand affair, or at least as grand as Kaer Morhen gets, a boar at each table as well as the usual fare. Aster has been cleared for solid foods, but he’s not keen to feast like some of his brothers do, Gerd taking a whole rabbit (which he claims he caught) for himself as well as a very full plate of vegetables.
After most are finished eating, the Bard plays a new song that has half the hall up to praise him. Then it’s dancing tunes, and Aster is glad to enjoy it from a distance. He enjoys the noise, enjoys the booze that Merigold would probably tell him off for, and manages to stay till the Bard finishes playing. It’s a good night.
And it’s a good three months after that, Merigold clearing him for training and Vesper takes to sparring with Aster. He’d fought her a few times before, fought nearly everyone at least once, but has never really sought anyone as a regular partner but for other Bears. She learns quickly that his right side is not any weaker for lacking a sword, and he learns that a Cat isn’t really downed until they cede defeat, even if you think you’ve got them pinned. (He also learns just how frighteningly flexible they are. He’s no slouch, but Vesper moves like liquid.)
Then the Suitors arrive and all the smart witchers take patrols. But he’s not cleared for the field and the way his grip will sometimes laxen without him saying, or the way the weather settles over his joints or- well it all says that he’s still fast and sturdy and hard to kill, but being on patrol could be a liability for him and his team. He’s not nearly as bitter about it as Merigold expects. He doesn’t mind much at all, age and temperament mellowing any unease at staying in place. He’s closer to two centuries than one, and, well, it might have been miserable to be stuck in the frost covered Haern Caduch. The worst thing in Kaer Morhen are the Grasses, and since Merigold’s potion they at least know the terror doesn’t end in mass pyres.
Still, being stuck in the keep means that he gets to witness the whole fiasco of Nobles who think the White Wolf would marry for anything other than love, or are foolish enough to think that they could ensnare his heart when it’s so clearly held by the Bard. Which also means he’s one of the first to hear Eskel’s shouts, to smell the Bard’s blood. He also is level headed enough to grab Kiyan by the scruff when he moves to chase after the scent.
“No,” he says simply, ignoring the thrashing. Kiyan isn’t in his mind enough to even draw his knives, so it’s probably a good idea to hold him back till the growling hiss becomes swearing. When it does, he drops the Cat, who glares fiercely before nodding curtly, scent thick with embarrassment.
“G’wan,” Aster hums, and would forget about it if not for the fact that the next time he’s joined in the springs, Kiyan sits next to him and leans close enough to braid some of Aster’s loose coils of hair. Neither says anything about it, but Aster doesn’t take the braids out either.
Gerd asks him about it over dinner, and he just shrugs. Artek snorts, glancing to the Cats’ table across the hall. “Cats groom each other, and anyone they like.”
Which… means Aster can probably definitely count Vesper as a friend, and maybe Kiyan too, though the man is prickly about such things. Bad as some of the Bears really, though few can rival Junod and Ivo’s quietly disdainful friendship.
And after the Suitors have all left and the Bard becomes the Consort, winter becomes spring and the most stubborn of plants begin to push their way towards the light. There’s no master gardener, probably never was one in all of Kaer Morhen’s history, but there are patches where someone once thought to grow things. Aster considers the plots, the mess of a front garden, and all the herbs Merigold can never supply enough of while Aja chases squirrels still waking their winter hibernation.
There’s a sense of home in the earth, in the soil. Aster’s earliest memories are all in it, his mother’s care for their garden and his father’s delight in the wilderness, and Artek patiently plucking a small child from the bushes again and again. Kaer Morhen is comfortable, is home to people that he is beginning to think of as family. Is almost home for him.
He decides, as Aja looks back at him with her tongue lolling out of her mouth, that a home isn’t just made, but chosen. His parents chose Skellige and made their little slice of Hindarsfjall. It’s about time he chose his own home.
So he finds Jan and asks, politely even, if there are any plans for the gardens. Jan tells him there aren’t, that Eskel had no idea what to do with them and most everyone finds the climate too harsh to seriously consider crops. He gives Aster blanket permission to do as he pleases with them, so long as it isn’t disruptive or dangerous.
It might be for Merigold, who nearly drops an open vial of acid in excitement as he explains his plan to her. She excitedly weaves the enchantments he describes, stones lining garden beds that magnify the warmth of the sun. Aja learns to dig where Aster points, which is more a neat trick than actually helpful. But the servants find it amusing, and so does Vesper the first time she sees it. She agrees, as do most of the Cats, to bring back cuttings from patrol. Some are in better condition than others (Rach is a deadly warrior and seems to treat shrubbery with the same amount of viciousness as monsters). By the end of summer Eskel officially approves the garden project, and agrees to Aster’s request for an official post at Kaer Morhen as a defender and gardener.
His brothers don’t seem to know what to make of it when he tells them, but Bears still don’t talk to each other all that much, and he’s not really looking for their approval (Though, Artek claps his shoulder as they walk out; says his parents would be proud and that’s more than approval than he expected). They do appreciate being able to winter their hives in the garden though.
Trephor gets him a sun hat and talks a Crane into making a sort of prosthetic trowel attachment for his missing hand, which quickly becomes several different garden tools as the Crane gets excited about the idea. Like Aja’s digging on command though, it’s more of a neat trick than terribly useful, but the trowel does get plenty of use.
Winter settles over the mountain and the gardens fade, but between the wards Merigold made based off of the ones Aster saw time and time again in Skellige and Aster’s own active care, there are fresh herbs despite the thick frost covering the paths. By the time the ice melts the gardens are already starting to bloom, flowering herbs and fragrant shrubs.
And flowers that don’t serve a specific use beyond looking pretty. It should feel wrong, should be a garden of pure utility like Witchers are ought to be, but Aster thinks of his mother’s garden, turnips and carrots surrounded by colorful blooms, and decides that home has flowers. Home has things that do nothing more than bring joy. His namesake blooms late in the year, but daffodils and tulips and hyacinth begin to push upwards. He makes a window box of marsh marigolds, maidenhair ferns, and violets for Merigold. He saves a bedraggled looking Toussaint Midnight Orchid that comes in on a tribute wagon. Yennefer takes it when he offers it to her. She tactfully hides her surprise, but well, she’s Merigold’s closest friend, and Aster thinks of Merigold as a friend, so he might as well be nice to her friends. And might as well pot some wild buttercups for the Bard when she asks.
The Wolf who guards the Bard gets a mint plant after he learns that cats like it. The Cub asks for her own window box after seeing Merigold’s, and while Aster hadn’t really spent much time with any of the Wolves before, he, like any sensible witcher, would do anything the Wolf’s Cub asked. So she gets boxes of colorful pansies and fluffy ruffle ferns that sit in her windowsill, as well as the start of what will be a glorious covering of white wisteria in a few years, with the cheerful help of the same Crane that made the prosthetic trowel.
By the end of that summer Temeria and Redania are under the Wolf’s banner. His namesake flowers bloom into a sea of delicate purple and it’s a promise he never thought he could make and mean. Someone will remember him. Someone will remember him and there will be flowers to welcome them.