(A year after the events in S2)
Eskel will never forget the silence that met him when he entered the keep the following winter, battered and bruised from spending almost half of the previous year in a holding cell just south of Cintra. A slight against a lowly king who craved power and a particularly hard fight with a doppler left him in the scheming king’s dungeon to rot for months. He had spent a great deal of that time meditating, when he wasn’t getting beaten on by the guards trying to prove themselves, and when he had finally plotted his escape all he could think about was getting back to Kaer Morhen to winter. He had heard nothing of any of his brothers, stuck in his cell as he was, and as the days grew shorter he headed back towards Kaedwen, sad that he had missed out on the previous winter with his family and hoping beyond reason that all of his brothers would be there to greet him.
The welcome that received him was not what he was hoping for. He pushed through the doors with a smile on his face and was met with his brothers on their feet, silver swords drawn and pointing at him. Geralt had a girl by his side that he was trying to push behind him, as if trying to protect her from Eskel. The smile quickly fell off Eskel’s face as he glanced around, taking in the cracked medallion tree and monolith that had somehow appeared inside of it. His brothers began to move in formation, drawing their weapons and encircling him, and if not for the mutagens he was sure his heart would be pounding right now.
“Ha, ha,” he forced out a laugh. “Very funny joke. I’m sorry I didn’t show up last winter but don’t you think this is taking it a bit too far?”
He tracked his brothers as they attempted to corner him, sliding to the side as the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Maybe they were possessed? Maybe someone had been successful in controlling their minds. He loathed the thought of having to fight any of them. Fighting with intent to kill was so much easier than fighting to disarm and he would rather fall on his own sword than take the life of any of his brothers. When it finally came down to it, Lambert was the one that lunged first, impatient as he always was. Eskel quickly parried his blow with his steel sword, swinging to block Coen as he came down hard on him. Try as he might, 6 witchers vs 1 was not a fight he could win on the best of days, and he slammed into the ground hard as Vesemir took his legs out from under him. Geralt shoved a knee between his shoulder blades and two of his brothers held his wrists behind his back.
“Fuck,” he swore out, trying to buck them off of him but they held tight. “Geralt, brother, snap out of whatever spell they have you under!”
A large hand roughly threaded through his hair pulled his head back, a silver sword held up below his throat. He glanced up meet Vesimir’s gaze, it was one that he hadn’t seen before. equal parts furious and devastated. The sword pressed into his throat and he resigned himself to his fate, not dying to protect the innocent, but at the hands of his brothers, his most trusted confidants on the continent.
“What the fuck?” Lambert’s voice cut through the tension and all of his brother’s gazes snapped to the silver sword laying along his throat.
“You’re sure that’s silver? Why isn’t it burning?”
“For fuck’s sake, Coen, I know my swords you twat!”
Despite his current predicament Eskel couldn’t help but grin at the familiar banter. Apparently this wasn’t the right thing to do because the sword dug in, drawing a line of blood and wiping the grin off Eskel’s face.
“The fuck are you smiling about doppler?”
“The fuck, Lambert? I’m not a fucking doppler!”
The sword dug in harder and Eskel could hear Geralt calling for the girl to bring him something. The silver sword was removed and Eskel’s face was pushed back into the cold stone floor.
“Melitele’s tits if this is the welcome I get after missing a winter I’ll be sure to not miss one again!”
His brothers went quiet at that and Eskel realized that he apparently had missed something monumental last season. The sharp point of a sword rested at the back of his neck, one twitch and he would be dead.
“Who sent you?” Vesemir’s voice was wrecked as he growled out the question.
“No one sent me, Vesemir,” Eskel tried to keep his voice calm as he spoke to the older man. “I wasn’t here last winter because I had been captured and was held in a prison cell for half the year.”
“That’s not possible,” Geralt growled out. “Eskel was here last winter.”
“I can assure you, brother, that I most certainly wasn’t. Are you sure you lot haven’t fallen under some spell?”
The sound of running feet stopped by them and Geralt and his brothers hauled him to his feet. Eskel looked up to see the blonde girl hand Vesemir a bottle of powder before stepping back towards Geralt. Eskel’s gaze flicked towards his silver haired brother in shock.
Geralt looked gutted for a split second before schooling his face into a familiar scowl. Before he could answer Vesemir had poured a handful of purple powder into his palm and blew it directly into Eskel’s face. He inhaled some, and the rest seemed to settle in his eyes as he jerked back, coughing and blinking to get the substance out of his lungs and eyes.
“What the fuck, Vesemir!”
It seemed as if time stopped for the other witchers as they watched Eskel try not to hack up a lung, their hands dropping their hold on him as if they were burned as they all took a step back. When Eskel had finally stopped coughing he turned to glare at them, no doubt covered in the fine purple powder.
They all were staring at him in various levels of shock, and Eskel needed to know just what the fuck he missed immediately. No one moved for a moment, and then quick like a viper Lambert lunged forward and buried a tiny silver knife into Eskel’s bicep. Eskel roared in frustration and pulled the blade out, chucking it at the younger witcher's head and trying his legendary patience when Lambert merely ducked out of the way.
“What the fuck, Lambert!?”
“That was definitely silver, I just had to be sure.”
“Somebody better tell me what the everloving shit is going on right now,” Eskel’s voice was calm, but his patience was running thin.
“So I found some notes regarding the sacking, but I really -” Jaskier’s voice cut off as he meandered into the room to find the witchers standing in a half circle around something. “Oh am I missing a meeting? Geralt, I told you that you need to give me advanced notice…” Jaskier trailed off when his gaze landed on Eskel, jaw dropping open. He smacked his hand rapidly against Geralt’s chest without taking his gaze off of Eskel.
“Geralt, that’s, that’s,” for once the bard seemed to be out of words and Eskel risked a grin.
“Good to see you too bard,” Jaskier let out a yelp and pointed a finger in his direction.
“You! You’re supposed to be dead! You were all tree-ish last I heard!” Jaskier grunted as Geralt elbowed him in the side. “What! He was! You told me so yourself.”
Eskel still had no idea what was going on, but he could see Geralt slowly softening to him, taking a step towards him with his hand outstretched.
“Eskel,” he grunted, “it’s really you?” Eskel ignored the way the white wolf’s voice cracked, as well as the glassy sheen in his brother’s eyes.
“Yes you big dumb idiot, it’s really me,” the words were barely out of Eskel’s mouth before his arms were full of Geralt, squeezing the ever loving life out of him as if he hadn’t seen him in a decade not a year. He grunted as the rest of the witcher pack enclosed him as well, welcoming the contact in spite of whatever the hell had just happened.
10 minutes later finds the rest of the Witchers wincing as a normally calm Eskel yells at them. “So Doppler me shows up with a gaggle of whores and is rude to my brother’s child surprise, and not one of you thinks that’s a little out of character?!”
