#before anyone can do something a cloud of suspiciously weed-smelling smoke enters the clearing

[vesemirsexual]

here’s my au pitch

deidre is on her way to kaer morhen to give eskel the worst surprise ever, and on her way meets our fave caravan

she’s first alerted to something wrong in the particular forest she’s travelling in when her two wolves suddenly become alert and growling. she then hears a “what the fuck?” and two pairs of bright eyes step out of the darkness - dragonfly and gaetan. they’re basically like “damn we could smell human and wolf, so we were like okay if they’re dead we can rob them, and if they’re alive we can save them and THEN demand their stuff. did not expect a weird little girl talking to some mangy wolves. weird. just gonna head out.”

so they’re trying to leave and she’s scrambling (but trying to look cool and put together) after them like WAIT you’re Witchers. and they’re leaving like no thank you you seem way too poor to hire us (still listening though because weirder things have happened). so this girl starts demanding to meet eskel of the wolves and they’re just exchanging glances and dragonfly is finally like fuck it, this is a guxart problem.

so they bring her back to the caravan and guxart is immediately like no. no no no. what part of no more feral children did you people not understand. and gaetan just points and goes idk man this kid is looking for wolves. and guxart is like okay, pause. why.

so deidre, who frankly is a royal through and through, puffs up and declares that she’s eskels child surprise and she has to go find him and he’s going to help her get her throne back.

so naturally all the other cats have been pretending to work since this all began (nosey bastards) and now everyone is someone on a scale of snickering to full blown cracking up. guxart just raises a brow and is like. uh huh. good luck with that sweetie.

deidre is pissed bc she hates not being taken seriously. this becomes a back and forth until guxart is finally like okay im not taking responsibility for a wolves child surprise dropping dead, so at the next available sign of settlement we are dropping this child off (privately he’s wondering how the fuck wolves manage to pull people into their drama orbit even when they’re all tucked up in the damn mountains).

since dragonfly and gaetan did this, guxart (he refuses to admit gleefully) assigns deidre as their problem until she’s gone.

the next week or so, they learn more about this weird weird girl. they find out she’s supposedly cursed, supposedly a mutant and also super super rude. they’ve got her pulling her weight, and every time one of them makes a snide comment about how the fuck she expects to take back an entire kingdom when she can barely cut some wood or skin a rabbit has her gritting her teeth.

eventually she ends up snapping at telling one of them to fuck right off. which finally gets some approval. deidre is a little surprised to find that the more blunt and open she is about how she’s feeling, the more helpful these assholes actually are. dragonfly managed to scope out some old trainee gear for her and gaetan actually threw her some (safe) poultice for her calluses and bruises.

thus begins the beautiful and slightly terrifying friendship/mentorship, with deidre being told (as usual) that her dreams of being queen are slightly stupid, and (not the usual) having it laid out WHY that’s a bad idea.

“pick your own path kid,” dragonfly tells her and throws her a new knife. “besides how are you meant to flirt with beautiful women if you’re stuck as a boring queen.”

deidre turns and gives her a guarded yet confused look. “you’re a woman…what do you mean flirt with women??” (dragonfly has kicked open a whole ass can of worms. dragonfly is now responsible for helping this repressed ass girl learn everything from SCRATCH. gaetan laughs his ass off until it’s his turn too.)