Sebastian turned his cup in his hands, he had been quiet for a long moment, replaying Lambert's words in his head.
'I don't know about that, man.'
"What did you mean by that?" Sebastian asked finally. His voice was not accusatory, just curious. Genuinely curious. "Do you feel that what I did was wrong?'"
Lambert leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs with east, he looked at Sebastian through half-lidded eyes, the vodka making him sluggish but not stupid.
"What I meant," Lambert said, "is that you shouldn't have involved yourself at all."
Sebastian's brow furrowed.
"The moment you found out that you were tricked and sent to hunt Scoia'tael.." Lambert continued, jabbing a finger at the table for emphasis, "..you should have left, walked away. Let them to their fate."
"Let them.." Sebastian started.
"I'm not finished." Lambert's voice was sharp, "It is not a good idea to get involved in political messes, Seb. The riff-raff of the Scoia'tael are hunted everywhere in the North. Redania. Temeria. Kaedwen. Even here in Novigrad, though the Temple Guard pretends to care more about mages than elves recently, but be sure as hell they'll start to hunt mages here, and then non humans, I can smell it already. The point is.." he let the chair fall back onto all four legs with a thunk, "Don't get involved again. You hear me? Don't."
Sebastian stared at him, the firelight caught the edges of his face, illuminating the stubborn set of his jaw.
"But..." Sebastian said slowly. He looked down at his cup. Looked back up at Lambert. "When I saw how they were, their situation in that forest, what they were running from... I couldn't leave them like that."
Lambert sighed.
".. I just couldn't," Sebastian continued, "I felt like I was needed, like I had to help." He paused, searching for the words. "And I genuinely felt good about that. Knowing damn well I probably wouldn't change their fate in the long run. But I did.. at the time, I did. They had young ones with them, Lambert. Children. And you know how the soldiers are."
He looked at Lambert, and his yellow eyes were bright with the memory of fire and screaming.
"Cruel," Sebastian said quietly. "Merciless.. They burned a village to the ground just because some people in that village sold the Scoia'tael a loaf of bread."
Lambert was silent for a long moment. The fire popped. A log crumbled into ash.
"Shit," Lambert muttered finally. He rubbed his face with both hands. When he lowered them, his expression had shifted, less irritated. "It's like talking to another Geralt."
Sebastian blinked. "What?"
"Nothing, forget it." Lambert waved a hand. "Fine, I get it. I myself wouldn't get involved, not in a thousand years, not for a thousand crowns. But you're not me, obviously." He picked up his cup, swirled the remaining vodka, and set it down without drinking. "Suit yourself. Just.." he pointed at Sebastian, his finger unsteady. "..don't bite off more than you can chew. I know you're pretty damn strong, intangible, to a certain degree. But still, be extra careful. You never know what's waiting around the corner these days."
Sebastian nodded slowly. "So far, I've been careful."
Lambert snorted. "Have you?"
"Yes." Sebastian's tone was defensive. Then he added quietly, "Got wounded once. An arrow to the shoulder, but it wasn't much really."
Lambert went very still. "What?" Lambert's voice was flat. "How?"
Sebastian shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable under the weight of Lambert's stare. "It was an arrow with a silver arrowhead, in the ancient elven ruin I told you about, the one where I found.."
"I remember the details of your story," Lambert cut in, his eyes narrowed. "You didn't mention the arrow though."
"It wasn't important."
"It was silver dumbass, one of the things that can actually harm you." Lambert said slowly. "A silver arrowhead, shot at you, in an elven ruin." He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "Seb. That could have killed you, not just hurt you, killed you. If it was aimed at your heart for example."
"I know that."
"Then why the hell are you sitting here acting like it's nothing?"
Sebastian met his gaze. "Because it is nothing."
Lambert stared at him. Opened his mouth and closed it, then he rubbed his face again.
"Ugh," he said. "Those places are really unpredictable, must have been traps for monsters. Pressure plates, tripwires, old mechanisms that don't care how many centuries have passed." He shook his head. "You're lucky you didn't step on something worse."
Sebastian considered this. "Unlikely," he said.
"What do you mean, unlikely?"
"I mean... I read about elves. At Kaer Morhen, Vesemir has books, pretty old ones too, some of them mention that the Aen Seidhe didn't just build traps. They built weapons, the fine weapons and all sorts of great stuff. The finest on the Continent, before humans came and started forging their own." Sebastian touched his medallion absently. "We're not the first ones to use silver swords, Lambert. The elves knew about silver's properties long before there were witchers or monsters in this world."
Lambert's expression soured. "Great. So ancient elves were something! That's cool and all but who cares."
"I'm just saying it might not have been a trap. It might have been.."
"I don't care what it was." Lambert's voice was sharp again. "I care that you got shot. You sure that's fine? Nobody saw you get hurt? The people you were with.. are they trustworthy?"
Sebastian was quiet for a moment. Then: "It's no big deal. I didn't explain how my powers work. But I'm sure Faelorn.. the elf commander, figured it out. He's smart and very observant." A pause. "He even told me when we departed that 'my secret is in safe hands.' I think he was implying that he knows."
Lambert's jaw tightened. "Oh, well. That's just fantastic, an elven commander knows one of your weaknesses. And you're just... fine with that?"
"He didn't seem like the type to use it against me."
"Seemed like," Lambert repeated, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Right. Because elves are famously trustworthy, especially Scoia'tael commanders who spend their lives running from human soldiers and watching their friends get hanged."
Sebastian's expression hardened. "I saved his life, more than once, alongside his people. That counts for something, doesn't it?"
Lambert held his gaze for a long moment. Then he looked away, reaching for the empty vodka bottle.
"Fine," he muttered, pouring himself another drop, "Fine. It counts, but you need to learn how to dodge."
Sebastian let out a short laugh. "Oh, come on. I know how to dodge."
"Do you?"
"I just.." Sebastian's cheeks flushed, an actual blush, visible even in the dim firelight, "..okay, I might have gotten a bit cocky sometimes when I fight so I tend to abuse my power, just a little. It won't happen again."
Lambert raised an eyebrow. "Sure."
"It won't!"
"Sure," Lambert repeated, the word stretched into two syllables.
Sebastian shook his head, but there was no real anger in it. "Besides," he said, "these people are trustworthy. Faelorn, the others, we've been through a lot together in a short amount of time, I even consider them friends."
Lambert's eyebrows shot up. A slow, teasing grin spread across his sharp features, the first genuine grin Sebastian had seen on his face since they'd sat down.
"You made new friends!" Lambert said, savoring each word. "And with Scoia'tael, no less. Impressive, really." He leaned back, crossing his arms. "I gotta tell Geralt about this, he'll never believe it, the great Sebastian, befriending the forest dwellers. What's next? You going to join a poetry circle with Emhyr var Emreis?"
Sebastian rolled his eyes. "Laugh all you want, man. You just have no friends except us and your horse. I know." He tilted his head with a smile. "You don't have to be jealous."
Lambert's grin faltered. Just for a moment.
"I have a few," he said, his voice quieter now, almost defensive. "And I prefer to keep it that way. Knowing that I'm a witcher..." He looked at the firelight. "I'll probably outlast them. Unless I get killed first by some monster out there, or by an arrow to the heart in an elven ruin."
The words were honest, stripped of the usual sarcasm from Lambert.
Sebastian's smirk faded. "That's a grim way of looking at things."
"It's realistic."
"Witcher or not.." Sebastian leaned forward, his voice earnest, "you've got to see life a bit more interestingly. Keep it fun, otherwise, what's the point?"
Lambert really looked at the young man across the table, barely a man, really, still carrying the last traces of boyhood in the softness of his cheeks and the brightness of his eyes. Eyes that had seen too much in too short a time, but that still, somehow, hadn't gone dark.
"Nah," Lambert said finally. "I'm much more realistic, knowing what you've experienced so far..." he gestured vaguely at Sebastian. "..I'm guessing you understand since you've seen certain things on the path now. Why I hate this, why I hate everything about being a witcher."
Sebastian said nothing.
"But I keep doing it anyway," Lambert continued. "Because my eyes are still cat eyes, and they won't change anytime soon." He tapped the corner of his own eye with one finger. "So I walk the Path, I take the contracts, I kill the monsters and I try not to think too hard about any of it, yet I do that as well."
Sebastian studied him for a long moment. 'Okay... this is not the direction I expected this conversation to go...' Seb thought to himself.
"Okay," Sebastian said slowly. "Are you drunk?"
Lambert blinked then he laughed.
"Really?" He gestured at the half-empty vodka bottle. "Is that a question? Or an observation?"
"Both, maybe." Sebastian pushed back from the table, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. "I don't know about you, but I need to go to bed. It's been a long day for me, long few days, actually."
Lambert nodded. He didn't move to stand.
"Me too," he said. "We'll talk tomorrow morning. About this business of mine, the work I mentioned. You might be able to help and after that, we can look for Dandelion. Assuming he's actually here and not in some tavern on the other side of the world getting himself into trouble over some woman."
Sebastian smiled. "Sounds good to me."
He turned toward the stairs. Took two steps and stopped.
"Lambert."
"Yeah?"
Sebastian looked back over his shoulder, the firelight caught the wolf's head medallion on his chest, making it gleam.
"Thanks," he said. "For listening. For... I don't know, for being here I guess?"
Lambert waved a dismissive hand. "Don't get sappy. It's weird."
/-\
If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Shadow Monarch: In One Piece / Shadow Monarch in DC
&
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my pat-reon / FrenzyAren"
You can Get Access to More Chapters Ahead of Release on All of My Stories!