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It’s barely turned autumn when the witch shows up, still stinking of Velen’s fetid swamps, travel-weary and pretending not to be. She presents a note in Geralt’s ugly scrawl and a rough map drawn on the torn out page of a book.
The note says she has nowhere else to go.
And whose fault is that? Lambert knows Keira Metz already, by name at least. It’s one of those you see pinned to noticeboards among a long list of fellow Lodge conspirators wanted dead or alive.
Funny that, plotting to kill a king tends to get other kings ansty to kill you right back.
Kaer Morhen, the map proclaims over a scribbled crag of mountains, a winding trail drawn in thick charcoal to a waypoint along the Gwenllech.
Geralt’s really shit at drawing.
She’d portalled in there and hiked the last miles to the keep and is busy complaining already of heels blistered on the long walk only to arrive at a dingy old castle that reeks of mildew and soot and teeters on the edge of collapsing to rubble.
Lambert’s favorite hobby over winter is complaining as often and as loudly as possible about the state of the place, about the rats and the cold and the grime, but when Metz squints up at the dusty rafters and crosses her arms and makes a face, he wants to bite out that it’s a roof over her head at least. It’s food and drink and enough dry firewood for months. It’s enough.
He tuts a little, shakes his head while she sighs, but with Vesemir standing beside him, he doesn’t say some trite shit like you should be grateful to have this at all. The old man looks at him like he hears it anyway, which gets Lambert stomping off, craving a strong drink.
The witch settles in, and the days drag on. The weather’s warm for the time of year, and frost’s not yet touched the valley.
He’s got a stash of dusty bottles of vodka brewed last winter hidden under a floorboard, and most afternoons, he sits himself down on a dusty bench in a secluded corner of the hall, then cracks into one and chugs.
The mash in the ancient still he got going his first night here has started to lose its yeasty sweetness day by day, a pungent sting of fermentation creeping in to tickle his nose. Damn old thing still leaks through his patch jobs and it’ll be another week before it’s worth distilling, but he’s got time and plenty of booze to tide him over.
Unfortunately, he’s also got an audience.
There’s a whole host of places in the keep that the witch could be that aren’t all up in his business, but the place is big and empty and the only other company so far this year is Vesemir.
So he can’t blame her.
Sure, he'd rather drink alone, eat a wedge of hard cheese for dinner and then pass out before dark, but he's curious enough about the newcomer not to shoo her off right away. Maybe he'll have some fresh fodder to mock Geralt for if it turns out they're involved.
Three sorceresses? Has he suffered too many blows to the head? Suffered potion toxicity one too many times?
Also, maybe Lambert's a bit lonely, the restless sort of empty he gets after a long season when he's the first one up the mountain, but there's not a soul alive he'd admit that to.
"You done unpacking your knick knacks?” asks Lambert as she looms.
“I travel light,” says Metz. “Living on the run in a hovel the past months has guaranteed that.”
“Don’t you mages have suitcases that are bigger on the inside? Could stash anything in there.”
“Alas, I sold my magic wardrobe along with my choicest baubles in order to afford to import caviar to the swamps.”
“How sad,” drawls Lambert and wipes a spill of vodka from his mouth.
Rather than taking his poor attitude as a clue to wander off elsewhere, Metz sits at the table across from him and beckons for the bottle. He passes it freely just for the amusement of watching her balk over the fumes.
“Watch out. Could catch a disease from a nasty old Witcher like me.”
“Fortunately I'm immune to disease.”
After a moment, she braves a swig and shudders through her whole body.
The vodka Lambert has leftover is acrid stuff, unpleasant even for him. As a mutant, there’s no point in tossing the first pours of distillate that could kill an ordinary man or blind him, but his body’s ability to metabolize literal fucking poison doesn’t mean he likes to drink it. Lambert’s a man of discerning taste. Which is also why he doesn't generally drink with sorceresses.
“Is this a Witcher spirit?” the sorceress asks. “Triss Merigold described them as deeply unpleasant.”
“Nah, you’d keel over just sniffing one of those,” he says. “Merigold’s deeply unpleasant herself. She say anything nice about me?”
“Never mentioned you,” Metz says. Her voice has an irritating, haughty lilt to it. She doesn’t quite look like she’s been roughing it in a hovel for months. Her hair is flat and shiny, her cheeks pink with a tinge of rouge.
Lambert expects her to swan off and leave him be at any moment, but instead she tries another long swig of his shitty vodka, pouts in distaste, and with a glimmer of light and a muttered word, a wine bottle appears in her hand.
A plume of vapor hugs the uncorked mouth, and Metz smirks like she thinks Lambert should be impressed with her party trick.
“You keep that in one of your pockets?” he asks. Her dress doesn't have pockets.
“Something like that.”
Neither of them gets up to search for goblets or cares that it's not yet evening. The wine is too sweet for Lambert’s taste, and he makes a show of wrinkling his nose over it the way she had his vodka, with exaggerated gagging for extra effect.
She rolls her eyes and snags the bottle back.
He isn't sure how it happens. The old man's nowhere to be found and the wine and vodka flow freely and when it gets late, they raid the pantry for a feast of salted fish and pickled vegetables and apples eaten to the core.
Clumsy with drink, the witch knocks a jar with a slosh of brine, and Lambert lunges to catch it only to find himself with arms braced around her, hemming her body against the pantry shelves. She's warm and just his height and, for all that he's a mutated son of a bitch, Lambert's only human.
When they kiss, it aches like a pressed bruise. He hasn't kissed anybody since– well, it's been a while.
Keira Metz kisses rough and insistent, all tongue and a touch of teeth, and she grins cheekily and tugs at his clothes like she aims to have him right there in the pantry.
“Come on, let's not give the old lecher a free show,” he whispers against her mouth, sparing a glance around in paranoia that Vesemir is truly lurking like a gargoyle in some corner to watch.
“Is your room less drafty?” she asks. One of her hands is fiddling with the laces of his trousers, and he can feel nothing at all but the faint brushes of her fingers.
“Yeah, sorry, not a single room in this castle without a leak, a draft, or a caved in ceiling,” Lambert says, forgetting how he'd balked earlier at her disdain of the place.
“Is your room closer then?”
His is closer. It's sheer luck not getting caught in the corridors, especially when Keira ducks away to wriggle out of one scrap of clothing at a time that Lambert fumbles to catch as they're slung his way, drunk enough they almost slip from his fingers.
It's early enough in the season that his room is still in order, freshly-dusted and aired out, but Keira frowns as she walks the room, her haughtiness not diminished by her nudity.
“It'll do,” she says and reclines back on the bed in a seductive lean, her fingers crooked to beckon him. He strips as he goes to her, forgetting to kick off his boots before his trousers and nearly face planting. She laughs and shuffles to the edge of the bed to meet him, a small hand trailing down his chest and the cut of his abdominals.
“Hmm... You'll do.”
There's a moment where Lambert would rather she not look. He's as scarred as any Witcher, metabolism so quick he's all lean gristle and maybe not as pale as Geralt but he's no bronzed nordling sun-warmed by work in the fields. He's weaselly and worn, and he's not about to get all woe is me about it but he knows a woman like her has had better.
Keira's skin is smooth and soft, and her breasts are a warm handful and every dip and curve of her body looks carved from marble. She's hairless and smells sweet with perfume, and he wonders what she'd look like without all the glamors and enchantments common to sorceresses.
An ugly old hag, most likely. Not so different from him.
If he thinks about it too long, he'll sober up and get too moody to enjoy himself. He doesn't mind being an ugly motherfucker, not really, but it seems a little unfair that if he'd been whisked off to Ban Ard instead of Kaer Morhen, he'd have been given potions that made his farts fragrant and pores vanish instead of mutagens that burned out his insides to sludge.
“You're a cheery one,” says Keira, and he realizes she's read his thoughts and feels cold with it.
“If you poke around in there, we're not doing this,” he growls, and she shushes him, which only gets his ire up even more. She rises to her knees and catches an arm around his waist before he can shuffle away.
“As you wish. I won't peek, I promise,” she says. “Your thoughts are a bore anyhow.”
She touches her lips to his jaw and fits both hands to his hips, the teasing scrape of her long nails sending a shiver through him. He lets the little sting drive the last hesitance from him.
He's had a shit go of it lately. He deserves this. A moment of uncomplicated pleasure, even if it is with some witch from the swamps who probably fucked his brother first.
“Come now,” says Keira as her fingers tiptoe down to cup his erection against the softness of her belly. “Show me that you know how to use this.”
“I've gotta ask. You use the same lines on Geralt?”
“Of course not. He's more sophisticated. Required a softer touch.”
“Agh, enough details or I'll lose my hard-on.”
“Will it reassure you to know he declined my offer?”
“Not really. Just makes me feel kinda bad for you. Couldn't even get Geralt of all people to fuck you?”
“Oh yes, woe is me. Come kiss it better.”
“Damn, you're more impossible than Merigold.”
“Did you have her too?”
“She fuckin’ wishes.”
“Oh, hurry up, would you? I've been curious about this legendary Witcher stamina for ages.”
“Keep wondering. I don't plan to draw this out.”
At last, Keira shuts up and lies back and wraps her legs to hug the curve of his ass, and he leans close and endeavors to show her what his mutated strength is truly good for. When he enters her in a slow press of his weight forward, she sighs with a shudder of breath, and he pets down the arch of her spine. He has the fleeting thought that he'll allow her a breath to adjust, but she prods him on with her heels.
“Quit playing the gentleman and plough me.”
“Sheesh, just tryin' to treat a lady right.”
“I'm no lady. Try not to bore me.”
For all her bluster, Keira's breath is unsteady, and her lips part on little gasps when he shifts to obey her. She's even prettier like this, a flush of warmth creeping up her chest, and despite himself, he likes the thought of pleasing her.
Lambert cocks a brow as his hips drive down, and Keira feigns a yawn.
Ugh. Sorceresses.
Well he'll give her something to miss the rest of the winter at least. Make her regret being so up her own ass when he snubs her next time. If she thinks he'll let her toy with him like the witch Geralt trails after like an obedient pup, then she's in for a surprise.
He's seizing an opportunity here, that's all. He's letting her share his bed out of the goodness of his fuckin' heart. It's not like they're likely to end up doting lovers. It's just one bad idea of a night and that's that. Curiosity sated for both of them.
Much, much later, after everything, he'll remember that thought and laugh. What a fool he'd been and a fool he's stayed, wrapped as neatly around her beckoning finger as he swore he'd never be.
Lambert spares no ounce of strength in his rough grip and driving thrusts, but the witch just grips the bedlinens with a blissed out smile, pleased with herself.
It irks him, her smug expression and her easy arrogance. It makes him lean his weight into his arms braced around her and make an effort to wipe the smirk from her face. He manages it after a while, her lips falling open on high-pitched cries, but he overestimates his own stamina in the meantime.
She sighs and laughs against his throat and kisses him soundly when he shudders apart in her arms as he spills.
“Don't think you're sleeping here,” he mutters into her breast when he can breathe again.
“Mmhmm,” hums Keira as her hand trails through his hair, already dozing.
Much, much later, after the battle and the pyre, when the grief finally crests, she holds him, quivering, and is good enough to pretend not to feel the wet of his tears.