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cosmos-coma · 2 years ago

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Hey!! I really love your writing! All witcher characters are very much on point, it’s amazing😍 i would have an idea for a Lambert fic if you don’t mind! How about reader is very much interested in learning from the witchers and hunting down monsters herself but Lambert is just very overprotective of her and thinks she’s insane for risking her life but in the end reader actually saves Lambert’s ass?? And they get together after that and it’s all fluff?? You can add anything to it, i love your Lambert!💜

Beasts and Books

A/N: Aww, thank you so much! I've been worried about my characterization- especially of Lambert, but I'm so glad you like him! and Okay, so fair warning this isn't edited like my other ones usually are and that's because I got carried away and wrote the longest one shot of my fucking life lol. I hope you enjoy it!!

Pairing: Lambert X Reader

Words: ~4k

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Years ago- back when you were growing up in Velen, you actually started out as a farmer's daughter. Your mothers worked hard, taking care of the sheep, shearing them, and weaving the wool into yarn or bolts of fabric. You had been placed in charge of raising the lambs, rounding them up, and generally keeping them out of trouble. It was a lot harder than it sounded.

They often fought with each other or knocked over their milk buckets and seemed to do everything in their power to get you just that close to selling them and being done with them. But you knew your mothers would never allow it and so you grumbled and just kept on.

But it was the lambs actually that happened to change your life too. It had been raining all morning and you had almost finished feeding the lambs when “Hold on- One, two, three, four, five- Where is number six?” you questioned, looking to the rest of their little faces as if they’d even have the manners to answer you, let alone the vocal cords.

You scowled, hiking up your skirt as you stepped around in the muck, trying to find a sign of the tiny little lamb that got loose- the youngest of the batch this year. “Ah-hah!” you exclaimed when you spotted the trail of little hoofprints that slipped past the gate. He must’ve slipped through the fenceposts- he always was good at using his size to his advantage.

“Come on, lamb! I’m not gonna do this all day!” You followed the hoofprints into the forest nearby, prints few and far between as he must’ve been having the time of his life evading you. “Baaaa!” he let out a little bleat from just beyond the shrubs before you.

“Gotcha!” you grinned and popped your head over the shrubs, finding the lost lamb chewing on a rather damp book. “Well now, what have you gotten into?” You asked as you scooped him up, another bleat escaping him as the book fell away from his mouth. It looked like he’d found his way into an abandoned camp. There was a cold abandoned campfire and evidence of a bed roll flattening down the lengthy grass; you found bits of broken leather here and there- probably from someone doing repairs.

“Looks like whoever it was left in a hurry…” You commented, ignoring the lamb who was now more interested in chewing on the ends of your hair than anything else. You flipped open the worn cover and read the title of the book aloud, “Brother Adalbert’s Bestiary… huh”

“Y/N!” You heard one of your mothers call from the house; she must’ve come to check on how you were doing in the rain and not seen you in the lamb’s pen. “Coming, Mother!” You shouted in her direction and quickly scooped up the book before trudging back towards the house.

Once you got back home and finished up with the lambs you parked yourself right in front of the crackling fireplace, drying both yourself and the book as you carefully flipped through it again and again, reading as you dried out its pages.

‘Ghouls, nekkers, wyverns, barghest, the list goes on and on’ you thought to yourself as you skimmed through the pages, despite having been out in the rain it wasn’t as damaged as you thought it might be, even the notes lining the margins of each entry were still legible. You flipped to the beginning again to make sure the pages were dry when you came upon a little mark on the inside of the cover. It was a little sketchy and messy, but it looked like a little drawing of a wolf head next to the Letter ‘L’.

That was then- now you were a little older- still a farmer’s daughter, but now you were responsible for hunting monsters. You were no witcher, that was obvious- but you still made do. You had studied that bestiary until you knew it like the back of your hand, you saved up all your money to buy yourself a rinky-dinky set of armor and an old sword. You started small- fighting only what you knew you could take on; barghests and ghouls mostly- occasionally you attempted to help rid the swamp towns of bloedziuger, but you had yet to get down the speed you needed when they exploded into acid.

You ran your fingers over the dappled scaring on your arm, a testament to when you had started out on this path you had chosen. You had used your smarts to set traps for your monsters to make it easier for you as a regular human, earned some good coin, and invested that into better equipment. Now you had a good custom-made silver sword, a sturdy but light set of armor, and were beginning to save up for a good horse too.

“Alright Miss, this is as far as I’m taking you.” the cart driver had said, pulling his mule to a stop in the middle of a small village. “You can walk the rest if you really need.” he kept watching you expectantly as you hopped off the back of his cart, making sure he didn't see the few apples you had swiped into your bag.

“Yeah, thank you…” You murmured and handed him a few orens from your satchel to which he grinned and nodded his head.

“Much obliged, Miss…” He tipped the edge of his worn-out hat and continued off down the road.

“Yeah, sure you are…” You let out a sigh and stretched your legs, before heading over to the notice board. “Let’s see what we’ve got here…”

You glanced it over, seeing mostly trade notices, but it seemed that there were a few notices you could actually fulfill too; wolves had attacked the livestock of one house, while wyvern seemed to be picking up the sheep of another one nearby. Probably were getting bothered by the same monster, but you figured you'd check them both out to be safe.

You glanced around the town as you stood- it smelled overwhelmingly of animals and stove fires, but your nose had become so used to those over the years that it hardly struck you anymore. A few old women sat out in front of a house, idling and chatting in the late afternoon while chickens clucked and scurried around the streets openly. You guessed there would be a few more hours of sunlight left, so you probably had time to start your investigation before it became too dark for you to see.

You set out to the other side of town to investigate the wolf contract first, figuring yours get the easy things out of the way first.

And Thankfully it really was only wolves that were bothering this farmer and you were able to finish up the contract just before the night began to really fall. So you headed back to the local Inn, coin enough for a room now in hand, and maybe even enough for dinner too if you negotiated right. You were fortunate, you knew, that you were completely human- After all, it meant that people almost always treated you better. You didn’t have any problem with nonhumans, in fact, in this line of work you had even met several pleasant ones you'd like to see again- but you also couldn't ignore that you benefited from the way others treated them.

It had just become fully dark when you came up outside the inn, torches along the road lighting your way back. When you came to the town square you heard a man trying to talk to one of the older ladies you had seen before.

“Hey, you. Yes, you Miss. Where the hell are all the notices for witchers? I thought this was Velen- you guys always have some sort of shit going on for us to solve.” he said, sounding rather obnoxious as even his horse seemed to huff in protest.

After grumbling something about ‘kids these days’, she motioned towards you, “apparently you’ve been beaten to it, Mutant. And I thought you witchers were supposed to be faster than us humans…” She snapped back at him with a smug look on her face.

The man quickly turned to you and now you could see his yellow cat-like eyes and the scar running down beside his right eye. He had worn but rather unique armor and twin blades strapped to his back.

‘Nope. I’m not dealing with this right now’, you thought to yourself and quickly slipped inside the Inn. You went up to the innkeeper first thing, getting a room for the night and what little food and drink you could afford with the rest of your coin. Thankfully the witcher still had yet to come inside yet so you tucked yourself in a corner to eat and read by yourself.

You opened up the bestiary as you ate, looking over the entry on wyverns. You had read this entry over dozens of times, but you didn’t want to risk missing anything that could help you later.

“One room for the night if you will.” The man from earlier asked, now at the innkeeper's table.

“Afraid we’re all out of rooms. She got the last one.” The keeper said as he threw a thumb in your direction.

The turned to look and you were sure he swore under his breath at the exact moment you did before his face twisted into a frown. His footsteps were quiet as he came over to your table, setting his swords down. “So first you take all my contracts, then you take my room. Who the hell are you anyway? You don’t even look like a witcher, you look more like a wannabe knight.” He said callously.

“Wow, quite the introduction. Are all witchers as charming as you Or do you have them all beat?” you retorted flatly, not even sparing another glance up at him. “It’s just my luck I guess. My luck and your getting fucked.” you added, chucking a bit at your own rhyme.

A wicked grin crossed his face and he leaned in closer, chin resting in his hand. “Oh..? You’ve got a bit of a bite in you, huh? I’m Lambert…” He introduced himself.

You looked at him, giving him a quick once-over with your eyes before you cracked a small smile his way and nodded. “I’m Y/n.”

“Y/n? Well, now I have a name for all my problems. So what’s got you so enwrapped that you can barely look up at me? It’s gotta be pretty good because I’m- Hey, I know that book.” He reached over and took it from right in front of you.

“Hey!” you yelled and went to snatch it back, but his witcher instincts made him far faster. “That's mine-”

“Where the hell did you get this?” he seemed a lot more serious now as he held up the book and looked back at you, suspicious eyes looking over your face to see any indication of lying.

“I found it in the woods years ago, its Mine-” you went to emphasize again, but he interrupted you once again.

“No. No, this is mine.” He stated and opened up the inside cover, pointing to the little wolf drawing and the ‘L’. “This is me. Lambert of the school of the wolf. I lost this thing ages ago. I didn’t think I’d ever find it again.”

You sighed as you watched him look over it with a level of care that was reserved for that of something like a childhood friend. This was the book that had shaped your life up to this point, but…. If it belonged to someone else, isn’t it only right that they have it again? You’d read that thing forwards and backward anyways, what more will it be able to tell you?

You let out a small sigh but kept quiet as he flipped through the pages when he paused for a moment. “Wait- this note isn’t mine… Neither is this. ‘Afraid of bees and will actively avoid established hives’ , ‘bad climbers. Easy to trap in pits and kill, but will become feral in their attacks. Keep out of reach.’ “ Lambert read aloud, looking from entry to entry at the notes you had written in as you learned.

“These are… yours? Did you… use this book to become a monster hunter?” He asked, looking at you in a mix of wonder and confusion. “You’ve got to be fuckin' insane- why would a human ever want to become a monster hunter?” after a half second of thought he handed the book back to you, which you brought to your chest possessively.

“You said it yourself, Velen always has shit going on for you guys to solve. I grew up here and it's turning into something that’s almost too dangerous to live in. I wanna change that.” you shrugged it off as if it was nothing, but what you did held great importance to you.

Lambert was quiet for a moment, something that you gathered was probably unusual for him, as he seemed to take in your words.

“But-” you started, trying to shift the topic and lighten the mood a bit. “How about to make up for stealing your book and all your jobs I let you stay in my room with me. You set up a bedroll in front of the fireplace or something.” you grinned a bit as you offered, watching his face turn from something serious into a charming smirk that you could feel draw you in a little more than you'd like to admit.

You two spent the rest of the night chatting and throwing quips back and forth at each other, and before your drinks were done it felt like you had known each other for decades. There was a layer of sarcasm over much of the vulnerability there, but you could see past it easily.

When you two made it up yo your room for the first time that night you discovered that the one bed the room had was actually a lot bigger than you had thought it would be. There was easily room for 2 people to sleep and still keep a bit of distance if they wanted.

“Hey, Lambert?” you looked back at him as he came to the door, “not to be too forward, but would you like to just share the bed? I can keep to my own side if you can.” you posed to him and set your stuff down on one side.

“Sure as hell beats the hell out of a bedroll.” He smiled and dropped his stuff on the other side and began pulling off his armor.

Your brain became like fuzzy static as you watched his tunic ride up through the motions he went through. The thin strip of skin and the distinct line of the ‘V’ his pelvis made was all you saw, but it was all you needed too.

“Don’t tell me our little monster hunter is getting distracted…” he said smoothly with a little chuckle to his voice.

Your blush glowed like a radiant lamp and you quickly turned away to snuff out that burning flame. “I just- well. You don’t want your armor on for sleeping? Isn’t it safer that way?”

“What- are you gonna stab me?” he moved to lounge out on the bed, putting his arms behind his head and exposing his midsection to you again.

“Well- I. No, of course not.”

“Well, then I should be fine. Are you just gonna stand there all night?” He said with a huge grin, patting the bed beside him. That bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

“Shut up” you looked away and quickly and quietly got down to your tunic and underclothes. You climbed under the warm covers and pulled the blanket high around your shoulders. “Are you gonna sleep above the covers tonight?” You asked, rolling over to face him and pushing your hair out of your face.

A smile came over him when he looked over at you, it was softer than the others he had offered you tonight and a little more sincere as well. “I’m gonna be up for a little while. You know us Witchers, we don't really sleep much.” He shrugged and ran a hand through his already pushed-back hair. “Don’t you worry about me, you get some sleep…”

You struggled to hold back a yawn as you nodded in agreement. “Goodnight, Lamb.” you mumbled before drifting off into a sound sleep.

“Goodnight, little monster hunter…” the witcher mumbled quietly as he watched your sleeping face. He hadn’t felt this… soft sort of feeling before. Something that felt so deep and so real it almost scared him to admit he was feeling it, but as he looked down at your sleeping face he felt ease wash over him. How could you throw yourself into such a profession? Didn’t you know the risks? You even had the choice of it, unlike him…

“Mmph…” you mumbled out as you shifted in your sleep, reaching out for something that wasn’t there.

Without a second thought, Lambert put his arm in the way of your reaching hands, smiling a bit as your hand naturally found his and you held his arm close to you in comfort.

“What am I gonna do with you..?” he mumbled into the quiet night once more.

When morning came you woke up to an empty and cold bed, but you weren't sure why that seemed to hurt for some reason…. But within minutes your witcher had returned with breakfast in hand.

“So, we’re hunting a wyvern?” Lambert asked as he handed you a plate.

“Good morning to you too.” you remarked with a smile, “looks like. We can prepare after breakfast?”

And so you two did, when breakfast was finished you two gathered up your things and made for the stables.

“Here, you can ride on the horse. I’ll walk- I hate trying to follow a creature's trail on horseback…” he justified as he helped you up, hands on your waist as he boosted you up.

“Thanks, Lamb… lead the way?” you smiled down at him, grabbing the reins.

You two made your way to towards the last house on the way out of town, looking around for evidence of this wyvern and following the blood trail towards what you could only guess would be a nest.

“So, look-” Lambert started. “Why don’t I just take this one? You know how tricky these draconids can be.” He offered, looking up at you to see your reaction, but it wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for.

Your brow furrowed and you shook your head. “What? No. I’ve taken monsters on my own before so why should this be any different?” you argued. “No, If you want we can fight it together, but I'm gonna be there either way.”

“Look- I get that you’re supposed to be a monster hunter and all, but why would you want to go ruin a pretty face like that? Why don’t you just keep yourself out of trouble?” he sounded a bit less hypothetical now and a little more like an argument.

“So you think I’m pretty?” you asked with a smirk, trying to turn the topic of conversation. You really didn’t want to have this conversation right now. You’re a monster hunter! And even though you’re still figuring things out you didn’t want it to stop you.

The witcher only sighed at your response. “Yeah, I do…” his words drifted off a bit as he slowed to a stop, his horse automatically stopping beside him. “Hey, I’ll be right back, okay? I’m gonna go take a leak before the fight. First rule of being a witcher you know”, He said and headed off into the thicker brush, his somber tone resonating in your mind.

“That cannot possibly be true.” you laughed a touch and watched him go, sighing a bit, but taking the moment to get your things ready, bombs and potions from the recipes scribbled in the back of the book.

But it was taking quite a while for Lambert to come back…

“Come on, Lamb! I’m not gonna do this all day!” You shouted, feeling a sense of Deja vu as you called those words. You waited around a few minutes more until you heard an exasperated and pained cry coming from far off past the brush.

“Damn it, Lambert!” you yelled as you processed what he had done and stirred his horse into motion, tugging its reins towards said noise. You were angry, to be honest. I mean, did he just think you couldn’t do it by yourself? Did he think that because you were human you couldn't fight like he did? The thoughts alone made your blood boil and your skin grow hot and itchy as it was whipped by the wind.

When you finally came onto the scene you saw Lambert rushing around on the cliff's edge, battling the aged draconid all by himself. You practically threw yourself off the horse and into the fight as you came in close. “Damn it, Lambert! You lying bastard!” you yelled and drew the Wyvern's attention to you now as you stabbed your sword into its tail.

“Don’t yell at me, it was for your own good!” He yelled back as he cast Igni, vying for its attention to come back to him.

“My own good? You sound like my bloody mothers!”

“Sweet Melitele, I did it to protect you!” Lambert shouted, looking to you instead of the wyvern now and dropping his guard.

“Lambert…” you sighed, breath coming out in heavy huffs as you fought off the creature. But you didn’t get the chance to say anything more before the annoyed creature whipped its tail at the witcher and flew off with the last of its strength.

He had jumped back in just the nick of time but unfortunately didn’t realize how close he was to the edge. With one foot on stable ground and the other about to step off the cliff’s edge, his body's momentum had him off kilter and about to topple over….

“Lambert!’ you yelled and ran towards him, grabbing him by his sword’s sheath strap just in time and yanking him forcefully back onto safe ground. You stumbled backward to safety and landed on the ground right beside your annoying witcher.

“How’s that for ‘I did it to protect you’?” you huffed in an attempt to catch your breath, nudging Lambert with your elbow as he processed that he had almost died.

“Holy shit….” he muttered, reaching unconsciously for your hand- much like you had done just the night before.

You set your sword down and put your hand out to find his. “Lamb… while I admire you trying to protect me I don't want you to become overprotective. I love doing what I do- after all, I chose this path. And I know I'd love it more if I could work side-by-side with you” You looked to him as you talked, watching his expression turn sincere, but not uncomfortable. “I’d love to learn more about monster hunting from you, but don’t count me out just yet, okay?”

Lambert nodded, a smile forming over his features as he squeezed your hand. “I suppose it’s the least I can do since you saved my life… How about we finish off this wyvern together?”

You nodded, a grin spread across your face once again. “Together.”

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Taglist: @open--till--midnight @writingmysanity @dark-academia-slut @madamemelancholysstuff

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#yesss i love a good lambert #i hope you enjoyed it! i know it might not have been everything you asked for but i got really passionate.#Lambert #witcher lambert #lambert imagine #The witcher #As always im usually thinking of Game!lambert #but you can imagine him however #tw3 #Lambert x you #Lambert x y/n #Lambert x Reader #Witcher self insert #self insert #the witcher fic #the witcher fanfiction #Request me anytime!

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