#φ the witcher: school of the lion

[victorlimadelta]

my best shitpost-an-au work is done on my drive to work so please take this shitpost of a witcher au that i’m affectionately nicknaming ‘school of the lion’

characters are in no particular order with bonuses at the end

hunk: eskel analog. that boy has never done anything wrong a day in his life but got thrown into a combat-intensive lifestyle by basically being sold into slavery and he makes the most out of it that he can. prefers being a ‘captive’ witcher of a locale or noble for the job security, and so he doesn’t have to take so many dangerous contracts. strongest sign: yrden. accidentally fell in love with an elf named toruviel. disaster duo with lance.

lance: jaskier analog. nickname ‘dandy lion’ because he’s a flirt and a bard. manages to attach himself to a witcher’s side just to be an absolute bisexual disaster and a true pest. better with a song than a weapon, but can and will snipe you with filavandriel’s bow just as well as with his lute. always managing to get himself into trouble with his extracurricular activities and needs his ass saved by a witcher, more often hunk than not.

pidge: ciri analog, but more w3:wh ciri than show/book ciri. child surprise of the white lion, she and the white lion have an extensive history and he thinks of her as an adoptive daughter. her family has been kidnapped by the wild hunt and she will not stop until she finds them. acts as a magical conduit, or ‘source,’ and can’t really control it; angry at needing to be babysat so she doesn’t hurt those around her. can manipulate space and time and slip into alternate realities just by forcefully rearranging reality around her until it suits the reality she means to manifest. (in other words, magic, but in exploiting infinitesimally unlikely possibilities.) knows some tricks from the school of the lion but can’t perform signs and has not undergone the mutations (nor could she, as she’s a girl). small, slight, dangerous, and just a little bit fey.

keith: a weird combination between lambert and yennefer. every time i write keith in an au he truly becomes a child of two worlds and this one isn’t any different. he’s one of the ones that’s a means of payment for a contract, of the type of ‘take the first thing you see when you walk in the door,’ when he had already been left by his mother and his father had died, leaving him a ward of the local village and absolutely unwanted. he’s undergone witcher mutations, went through the first few trials, then basically said ‘fuck you and fuck this’ and fucked off from the school of the lion stronghold to seek out where he comes from and why he feels so attuned to signs, like even moreso than most witchers. turns out his mother was a mage, but not an aretuzan ivory-tower politicking-to-control-the-world type. he’s taken in by his mother’s people and taught to the limits of his ability, as fast as he can learn, and his latent abilities are impressive. his magic is chaotic and destructive and dark, barely-controlled and terrifying in its intensity, and he still has witcher combat training on top of it. unwittingly used as a spy by the brotherhood, then lodge, in their complicated games of politics; not sorry to see either of them fall. because he’s a wild sorcerer, he hasn’t, ah... how do i say this delicately. he can still have children, basically.

shiro: the white lion of garrison. not only did he undergo the standard witcher mutations, but he put himself under a second, more lethal round voluntarily, to prove a point. when he was sold to the school, he was a mutant of a child, twisted, weak and deformed. he came out of his trials with supernatural swordsmanship, adept signing, expert alchemy, and the encyclopedic knowledge of monsters that it takes to become a traveling witcher-for-hire. of course, the trials took his arm, and the color from his hair. dares anyone to say anything about his predilections, because it’s in bad taste to mock the one person who can save your family from, let’s say, a striga. does in fact create an errant destiny bond with keith due to a horrible misadventure with a genie that was, apparently, trying to kill lance. (i guess in every au they’re just supernaturally bonded. keith will always be shiro’s first, last, only, and every wish.) truly one of the last of a dying breed, misunderstood by most and finding solace only in his close friends.

the best part is that this au leads to things like shiro’s personal moral code being ‘if i’m to choose between evils, then i prefer not to choose at all.’ or keith flirting with shopkeeps by saying ‘i’ve never been shy a day in my life.’ or shiro telling keith ‘every time i’m near you i say more in five minutes than i’ve said in weeks.’ or lance introducing himself to shiro just all ‘i love how you just... sit in the corner and... brood.’ or the concept that shiro and pidge are destiny-bonded family that will always, always find each other.