Work Text:
The way of flowers reaches Kaer Morhen on a road paved with ten thousand corpses.
It arrives with the remnants of the School of the Crane, though the Crane witchers themselves know nothing about it. The Cranes are low-class ruffians in their native land, prohibited by law from learning the ways of flowers, tea, and fragrance. Their participation in such refined arts would be an insult and a parody, the warlords who rule their land say, for what kind of art could such inhuman monsters possibly create? A skull amid the flowers, to symbolize the earth? Foolery. Such creatures may be permitted to know the ways of weaponry, of single-bladed sword and dagger, for that is what they’re made for — nothing more.
Now their land is awash with blood, and the flowers are gone. The scent of death has replaced the scent of incense. One of the greatest of the warlords, a general from the south, has made his move for hegemony, and he may yet win it, but in the Crane witchers’ view, things are not going well. The warlords are merciless, the man from the south least of all. The fact that common villagers have no say in the choice of resistance or surrender has no bearing on the slaughter which follows when a region falls to the sword.
The Cranes, sworn to the service of no warlord, are a wild card. Which means that in the eyes of every warlord, they must die.
Sōma, master of the Crane School, whose real name no one knows, sees this coming early. He summons what he can of his students, though he cannot reach them all — they are dispersed, and knowledge that the Cranes are gathering will alarm every warlord within the region, bringing the slaughter down early. They have to leave, he thinks, but before they do, they have a choice to make.
There is a village near their stronghold which is ruled by the local warlord, its inhabitants innocent of anything save for trading with the Cranes; but that alone, Sōma thinks, is likely enough to mean their deaths. Taking the villagers with them when they leave would be a challenge, and would likely mean the lives of some of his students, but without the Cranes there to protect them, the villagers — elderly, men, women, and children, not a fighter among them — would be helpless. If the warlord chooses to kill them they will be slaughtered, from the oldest grandmother to the newborn babes in their cradles.
He has taught his students well. As every one of them stands and agrees that they must not abandon these people to their deaths, Sōma is as proud of them as he has ever been.
Stealth is key as they begin their preparations. They try to keep things quiet, but they are not quiet enough. In the dead of night, one of the daughters of the local warlord, a woman who has been the lover of one of Sōma’s students, arrives at the doors of the Crane witchers’ stronghold with her youngest sister and two ladies-in-waiting, bearing ill tidings. One of her fathers’ spies abducted another one of Sōma’s students while the witcher was traveling through her father’s holdings several months prior, and yesterday afternoon, he broke under torture. The warlord knows about the summons now, and he’s been looking for an excuse. When it came, he was ready.
The slaughter is coming now.
They’re not ready. A third of Sōma’s students, and a fifth of the villagers, the ones who were unable or unwilling to leave in time, are dead before noon the following day. The warlord uses a tactic as cruel as it is efficient: his soldiers are sent to prevent stragglers from escaping, but they are not the ones who do most of the killing. The killing is done by a mage, who makes fire rain down from the sky. Those who find themselves beneath it never have a chance.
The Cranes have their own mage, but she is busy holding open the escape route, a portal to an isolated region of the coast where a ship might be able to pick them up, and can do nothing. Her strength holds long enough for everyone who can reach her to make it through, but fails before she can make it through herself. She chooses to die on her own terms before the soldiers can reach her, by the blade of the dagger she wears at her waist. The ones whose lives she saved know her to be dead when she does not appear that day, or the next — mages are, mercifully, seen as too dangerous to be left alive in agony.
Sōma, who loved her like a sister and his students as his children, has no time to grieve. Two thirds of the students who were present at the stronghold, and four fifths of the villagers, look to him for organization and direction. Right now, they need food and shelter, neither of which are readily available in this uninhabited stretch of coastline. They also need a place to go, and they need it soon. This area is isolated enough that they might have a few weeks before someone realizes where they’ve gone, perhaps even a season with the oncoming winter, but there are far too many of them to stay hidden for much longer than that. And once they’re discovered, they will be like sitting ducks.
The Crane Witchers’ mage had an apprentice, a mere girl, whose skills are largely limited to healing small cuts and making flowers bloom — but she can also make very small portals. It’s a prodigious skill for one of her age and training, but she is quite untrained. The portals she makes are smaller than her palm, only last about thirty seconds at the most, and she can only manage about two of them in a day before she’s exhausted, but it’s enough — enough, at least, to deliver the letters Sōma writes pleading for help.
First, he writes to the Manticores of Zerrikania, who had indicated before that they would be willing to take them in. One day passes without an answer, then another. By the time Sōma receives the news that the Manticores are now coming under too much pressure at home to risk sheltering a large group of refugees from the east, they’ve lost an entire week.
He keeps writing.
The warlord’s daughter, Takehime, or Chikurin to her lover, can’t be of much help. She’s as good as dead to her father now, as are her ladies-in-waiting and the sister who came with her; the opportunity to die by their own hands is the most any of them can expect of mercy if they return. But she still has her name, and the status that comes with it, and on top of that she’s beautiful and educated, famed for her mastery of the way of flowers and poetry. Even without her family’s backing she is still at least somewhat desirable, and she suggests a proposal of marriage in exchange for shelter. There is a nation on the continent which has always had territorial ambitions about the Crane Witchers’ land, and a native bride might appeal to them as a way to legitimize a future attempt at conquest. Under normal circumstances, Sōma would never consider it, but with upwards of a hundred lives hanging in the balance and no apparent prospects for saving them… he might not have a choice.
He’s spared the pain of making the choice when he receives a return letter from Vesemir, leader of the School of the Wolf halfway across the known world in Kaedwen, where Sōma is known by the name of Stefan. Their keep is still undergoing repairs, but they have space, and food enough, and the aid of two mages skilled in teleportation. Accommodations will be spare, but they’ll be safe. As far as the man who will henceforth remain known as Stefan is concerned, that’s all that matters.
***
Kubo Tsuruhime is nine years old and married when her older sister disappears with her in the night. She still lives in her father’s house, and obviously, the marriage has not been consummated. Tsuruhime is, after all, nine, far too young yet to produce any heirs. Her husband is the twenty year-old son of another warlord who had precisely as much say as she did in the matter — that is to say, none — and whom she has met twice. He seems kind. His mother is a bit terrifying, but she’s been told that’s the way of things.
The problem with Tsuruhime’s husband is not with his character, but his identity. His family, of whom the Kubo family are allies, means to resist the conquering forces of the warlord from the south, and Takehime will not leave her youngest sister to the slaughter which her lover has told her will come when the banners bearing the paulownia emblem appear on the horizon.
Tsuruhime is among the first to step through the portal onto the cliffs overlooking the coast. Though she sees nothing of the massacre she leaves behind, she sees its shadows on the faces of those who come after her. Something awful has happened, she can tell, and something is still wrong — there are no houses where they are, nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat. She doesn’t complain, but she is frightened, moreso when her big sister holds her close and whispers apologies into her ear that night, over and over again. The wind is bitingly cold, and despite the coat one of the men with cat eyes like her sister’s lover takes from his shoulders and places on her own, she can’t seem to get warm.
The grown-ups around her are frightened, cold, and hungry too, and none of them seem to know what is happening. There are whispers about soldiers, and about her father. Several of the people dressed the rough-spun robes of peasants give Tsuruhime dark looks, muttering things amongst themselves. One of the cat-eyed men, whom the other cat-eyed men all call teacher though he scarcely looks older than them, stands and speaks to everyone the next day, telling of her big sister’s courage, the risks she took and sacrifice she made to help them. The looks mostly stop after that, and Tsuruhime learns that her father is a murderer who put men and women and children like her to a death more horrific than anything she could ever imagine.
She has never really known her father. After hearing this, she doesn’t think she wants to.
By the time the cat-eyed man called Teacher announces that other witchers across the sea have offered them shelter, Tsuruhime has decided that she wants another name. Like the way her sister’s lover calls her sister Chikurin, except Tsuruhime doesn’t want her new name to come from a lover. Tsuruhime thinks lovers are silly, and do silly things like write poetry and sit in gardens and kiss. On the lips. Kisses on the head or on the cheek are perfectly acceptable, but on the lips? Gross. No matter what her mother and sisters say, Tsuruhime is quite convinced that she will never want to do anything of the sort. Therefore, her new name will have to come from somewhere else.
*
Kerumoren, the castle where the cat-eyed men whom Tsuruhime now knows are called witchers of far-away live, is… colder than she’d thought any place indoors would be, but the wind is gone, and the moment she steps through, she smells food. After weeks of hunger that the unseasoned fish-on-a-stick they’ve all been eating has never quite managed to alleviate, Tsuruhime is ravenous.
It turns out that the people of far-away eat on tables that are very high, so high they have to sit on high benches with their legs dangling to reach them. They do this because they apparently wear their shoes indoors, the same shoes they wear outside to walk through all manner of things, and the floors are probably too dirty to sit on. It’s frankly gross, and very strange, but of far more concern to Tsuruhime at the moment is the fact that she’s really too short to reach anything on the table she’s been sat at. She looks plaintively toward her big sister, who is still standing with her lover and Teacher and talking to a couple of the foreign witchers. Even though Takehime said she’d be there in a moment, she has yet to move toward or even look back at the seat that’s been left empty for her next to Tsuruhime.
Her big sister doesn’t notice her looking, but the foreign witcher who’s ended up sitting on her other side apparently does. He’s got a short beard, a scar going through his eyebrow down the left side of his face, and dark hair which dips into a pronounced widow’s peak. He says something to her, grabs some food, and puts it on her plate.
“Thank you, Mr. Witcher,” she tells him, even though she knows he doesn’t speak her language. It just feels too rude not to. He says something else she doesn’t understand and shrugs a bit.
…The next problem is that the food is huge. There is no way she’s going to be able to eat it in one bite, and there are also no ohashi to eat with. She looks at the witcher next to her and attempts to copy his movements. There is an instrument next to her plate which looks a bit like a very small comb at the end of a long handle, which is apparently used to spear the food. It seems that the people of far-away also take enormous bites, which is… a little intimidating, but Tsuruhime tries her best, staring intently at the witcher and trying to imitate his technique.
Another one of the foreign witchers, sitting across the table, looks at them and chuckles, saying something to the witcher sitting next to her.
She looks at him, still chewing on the enormous hunk of… some kind of meat, she doesn’t know what it is and the seasoning is unfamiliar, but it tastes good. Right now, anything is probably going to taste good.
The other witcher says something else, then indicates the witcher next to her and says “Lambert.”
“Ranba,” she tries obediently once she’d managed to swallow, pointing at the witcher who’s reached over and started cutting up the food on her plate — so that’s what the single-bladed knife next to the plate is for, though that’s very odd, why wouldn’t they finish cutting things up in the kitchen? — while sort of glancing around, like a cat that’s trying to check if anyone’s caught them doing something undignified.
The witcher across the table smiles and says something that seems to be approval, then indicates himself and says “Aiden.”
“Eiden.” Then, as the witcher named Lambert pushes her plate back in front of her, she adds dutifully, “Thank you, Mr. Ranba.”
The food is much easier to eat at this size, and she takes another few bites, finishing the greenery that she thinks might be spinach, even though it tastes a bit different — at which point, Lambert adds another scoop, grumbling something at his comrade across the table as he does so.
Aiden seems quite unaffected. He grins and says something in a teasing voice to his friend, taking a bite of his own food before pointing at himself. “Aiden.” He indicates his comrade. “Lambert.” Then, with an inquisitive look in his eyes, he points to her and raises his eyebrows.
“Tsuruhime.” She’d love to explain that this is only her name for now, just until she finds someone to give her another one, but there is no way to get that across without a common language.
“Su-lu… hee-may?” Aiden tries.
Another foreigner, a man who may be of high status given that he is dressed in bright blue silk to the witchers’ homespun linen, but also may not be since people aren’t bowing or going silent or any of the normal things one does around high-status people, corrects him as he approaches the table. “Tsuru.” Then he says something else to Aiden in the far-away language.
Aiden says some agreeable-sounding things and tries again. “Tsu-lu-hi-me?”
“Ru,” Lambert corrects him, looking at her. “Tsuru-hime?”
“Yes!” She beams, scarfing down a few bites of some sort of pale… root vegetable before adding, “Tsuruhime!”
“Tsu-du-hime,” Aiden tries again.
The man in the blue silk laughs and pats him on the shoulder, saying something in the far-away tongue. Aiden looks at her and smiles apologetically, then points at the blue silk man and says “Jaskier.”
This name is practically indecipherable. She peers up at the blue silk man, whose eyes are not cat-like but are a very unusual blue color that matches his outfit, and hesitantly makes an attempt. “Ya… ya-su… Yasuki?”
That definitely wasn’t right, but Jaskier smiles and says something that sounds kind anyway.
She tries again. “Yasu… ki…a? Yasukia?”
Jaskier’s smile broadens and he says something that sounds very approving, so that must have been an improvement.
Tsuruhime smiles shyly back at him and tries showing off what she’s learned, gesturing first to Jaskier, “Yasukia,” then to the witcher sitting across the table, “Eiden,” and finally to the one sitting next to her, “Ranba.”
“Ranba,” The blue-silk man repeats, rolling the syllables on his tongue as though he’s trying them for the first time. Lambert grumbles something at him, and he says something cheerfully back. Then he calls over to a cat-eyed man, this one with moon-white hair like a teacher or a grandfather except his face doesn’t look that old and he’s not stooped or anything, who looked like he was on his way over anyway.
The moon-haired man loops an arm around Jaskier’s waist and pulls him close, giving Tsuruhime the distinct impression that the two of them are lovers. It is very strange for lovers to be affectionate like that in front of other people on purpose (little sisters that hide in gardens and spy on their big sisters don’t count), but Tsuruhime is nothing if not polite, so she refrains from covering her eyes and saying ‘Ew!’. Jaskier points at his lover and says, “Geralt.”
“Gera,” Tsuruhime agrees. Then, getting an idea, she tugs on Lambert’s arm. He looks, and she points at the last few pieces of meat on her plate. “Niku!”
He looks confused for a moment, and then seems to get it. “…Venison?”
“Be-ni-son,” she repeats, and says again, more insistently, “Niku!”
“Niku,” Lambert says, shooting a withering look across the table.
“Yes! Beni-son is niku!” She grins and bounces in her seat.
The rest of the evening passes in a similar manner. Even though the people of far-away have some downright strange customs, and at least one of them seems to be incapable of pronouncing r’s correctly, Tsuruhime decides that they are very nice indeed. Jaskier and Geralt wander off after a little while to sit down with another witcher who has dark skin like a laborer and very prominent scars on his face, who… kisses both of them. Both. Tsuruhime is aware that some people have multiple lovers, but this is the first she’s heard of anyone doing things quite like this. The three of them must spend an inordinate amount of time writing poetry.
Lambert and Aiden stick around the whole time. Tsuruhime learns many words like ‘yam’ and ‘table’ and ‘dagger’, and teaches them many of her own words in return, tugging on Lambert’s arm for emphasis. Lambert is a better student than Aiden, and is able to pronounce just about everything right away. He sort of has the personality of a cat that’s just fallen off a garden wall and is pretending that they absolutely meant to do that, which Tsuruhime finds quite funny. After dinner is over, she gives him a big hug and giggles at the look on his face before her sister hauls her up to bed.
Takehime says something to Lambert in the far-away tongue that sounds apologetic as they go. He responds with a shrug and says something else.
“Was I not allowed to do that?” Tsuruhime asks her big sister as they’re climbing the unending flight of stairs outside the hall.
“No, he said it was fine.” Takehime ruffles her hair. “You’ll have to do something nice for him.”
“I will. Maybe I’ll give him flowers. Everyone likes flowers.”
***
Five days later, Lambert still has no fucking clue what is going on.
All of the kids who showed up with the Crane witchers are chatty and unafraid of witchers, which makes some sense since apparently they’ve all grown up in close proximity to the Cranes’ old stronghold — a bit like the kids in Wolvenburg. Geralt, the old softy, is practically in heaven with a bunch of rugrats using him as a climbing structure, and the lot of them had Eskel wrapped around their tiny little fingers the moment the worst reaction any of the kids had to his scars was to drag over the fourteen year-old mageling, Emi, with a solemn instruction to help Eskel with the painful-looking ‘cuts’ on his face (which had turned an angry red after Eskel breathed in some potion fumes while doing alchemy, to be fair), before crowding in to hug him and pat him comfortingly on the shoulder. None of that comes as a surprise to Lambert — it doesn’t take a genius to know that Geralt and Eskel turn into piles of mush around kids, especially ones that aren’t afraid of them.
This kid, though, the one who sat next to him at dinner the first night… seems to have imprinted on Lambert, of all fucking people, like some sort of baby duckling. Aiden, who is no help whatsoever, thinks the whole thing is both adorable and fucking hilarious. The kid’s sister doesn’t seem to be the least bit concerned about the amount of time her little sister is spending attached to the leg of the coarsest, grumpiest bastard in the keep, either. The only time Chikurin said anything about it was when she asked if Tsuruhime was bothering him, and when she got an answer in the negative she seems to have taken it to mean that there’s no problem with this whatsoever.
He got flowers from the kid the next day. Fucking flowers, ones which were in bud because apparently that’s one of the things people from the land the Cranes come from do to make their arrangements last. He’s now been told that this land has a whole art devoted to making flower arrangements, which noblewomen like the kid are expected to learn, and — the kid is actually pretty good at it, in Lambert’s opinion, because the arrangement she presented to him was honestly quite pretty despite being made from weeds and cattails and some ancient vase that the kid must have dug up from gods know where — but still.
And it gets worse from there, because Lambert may be an asshole, but he’s not that kind of irredeemably awful person that would actually say something mean to a kid who’s just proudly presented him with a gift that she’s obviously put some effort into, and the flowers really did look nice (shut the fuck up, Aiden). So he had to awkwardly say something nice about them. And when the kid grinned and threw her arms around his neck — well, fucking shit, what was Lambert going to do, not hug her back?
Except Lambert feels someone should really do something about this, because he got more flowers the next day. And the next. Witchers aren’t exactly known for their landscaping skills, but still, Lambert is finding himself astounded by the number of flowering weeds the kid’s been managing to find around the keep. On day four, he had to bring another shelf into the room he shares with Aiden, because he was running out of space, and what the fuck was he going to do, throw the kid’s gifts out? Again, Lambert may be an asshole, but he’s not a monster.
Seriously though, someone — not Lambert — needs to do something about this, because it is now day five, and he’s pretty sure the kid is attempting to teach him how to arrange flowers.
…Nine year-old Tsuruhime has the makings of a very good teacher, actually. She’s doing a surprisingly good job of conveying what must be the bare basics of this whole art, considering that she’s doing all of this in pantomime. Lambert can tell that there are some geometric principles at work, and rough triangle shapes seem to be a major trend. Asymmetry also seems to be preferred, because Tsuruhime frowned and shook her head when Lambert tried to arrange something that was very much in the shape of an equilateral triangle (shut the fuck up, Aiden), and then smiled and nodded when he adjusted the height of something to put the whole thing a little off-balance — Aiden, I will fucking stab you.
“No, you won’t,” Aiden retorts cheerfully as the kid inspects his arrangement with pursed lips, before very politely giving Aiden’s hand an encouraging pat.
Lambert, gods help him, is pretty sure he actually knows what’s wrong with Aiden’s arrangement — it’s too busy, and there are too many actual blooms in it. All of Tsuruhime’s arrangements have a balance of actual flowers, leaves, and twigs, and they’re all fairly minimalist. What Aiden’s tried to do looks a lot more like a standard bushy bouquet.
He’s definitely not going to tell Aiden that, though. Lambert’s in enough trouble as it is without giving the Cat more ammunition.
“I absolutely fucking will stab you,” Lambert grumbles, then shuts up as the kid tugs insistently on his sleeve, drawing his attention to something in his own arrangement of which the kid apparently approves.
“Good!” Tsuruhime announces, giving him a bright smile. It’s one of the new words she’s learned, and she directs it at Lambert a lot. Then she hugs him around the shoulders and says it again. “Good.”
Lambert glares at Aiden as he awkwardly pats the kid on the back, then pointedly ignores the absolutely shit-eating grin spreading over the Cat witcher’s face.
Oh yes, someone definitely needs to do something about this. Someone other than Lambert, because the coarsest, grumpiest witcher in the keep is not going to do something to upset the kid on purpose.
*
“…Is my little sister bothering you?” Chikurin asks, a week or two or three later.
“No,” Lambert grouses, because the kid’s older sister is clearly just not getting it, and also Lambert doesn’t want to get the kid in trouble. “She’s a good kid.”
“Then, why…?”
“Because. I’m horrible with kids.”
“…I don’t know about other kids, but Tsuruhime adores you. I think it would make her very sad to hear that you didn’t want to see her anymore, but if you really want me to, I can do it.”
That is emotional blackmail if Lambert’s ever heard it. Which is ridiculous, because people are not supposed to react to finding out that their kid sisters are spending all their time around the prickliest asshole in the castle by guilt tripping the prickly asshole into retracting their suggestion to have the kid stay away from them.
Also, the guilt trip is fucking working. Lambert is not spluttering, damn it all, but it’s possible he’s doing something that comes close. “Don’t — fucking — don’t do it like that. You’re not supposed to make her sad.”
Chikurin tilts her head. “I’m not sure there’s a way around that. How would you feel if you heard that someone you thought was wonderful, who was something of a father figure for you, didn’t want to see you anymore?”
Gods fucking damn it, Lambert is going to stab someone. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m well-known for being an asshole. I’m not fucking wonderful. And I'm not her father.”
“I didn't say you were literally her father. But Tsuruhime thinks you are wonderful.” Chikurin shrugs. “And, honestly, I agree. You’ve been very good with her. Better than I am in a lot of ways, frankly — I love her, and she’s my little sister, but in many respects I’m not really made for motherhood.”
Lambert doesn’t even know what the fuck to say to that.
“I took her away from everything she knows. I think it was the right choice, but still, it’s what I did. She’s not like the children from the village — she has no family, except for my beloved and myself, and children in my land normally have big families, full of grandparents and uncles and cousins and all manner of others to help take care of them. I’m glad she has someone to look after and pay attention to her. Unless, of course, you really don’t want to.”
Oh, fucking hell.
There’s just… there’s no way for Lambert to insist after that.
Fuck.
*
Somehow, Lambert ends up teaching Tsuruhime most of her Common, which means that the tiny girl with the soft hands and flower arrangements develops a manner of speaking that is… well, almost identical to his.
“Good,” Chikurin says frankly. “She’s going to be beautiful when she grows up, and the world is cruel. She needs to be able to tell people to stay away from her.”
The thought of that is… unimaginable. It makes Lambert furious to even consider it. The next day, he gives Tsuruhime a dagger and starts teaching her how to use it.
“…Good idea,” her sister says, “But let’s have you hold on to this outside of lessons until she’s a little older, shall we?”
Tsuruhime is a very good student, watching every move he makes with hawk-eyed intensity. When she makes a mistake, she chirps “Aw, fuck!” or “Shit!” in a high-pitched voice that’s utterly at odds with the coarseness of her new Common vocabulary.
Lambert is kind of disgustingly proud of her, and informs Geralt and Jaskier and Eskel and Gweld of how well she’s been progressing on several occasions. He’s not bragging, he’s simply making sure that they are aware of how smart the kid is and give her credit accordingly.
*
“Her birthday is coming up in three weeks,” Chikurin tells him casually a few months later. “She’ll be turning nine.”
“Ten,” Lambert corrects her automatically. “She said she was nine, so she’s turning ten.”
“Oh, in our reckoning, yes. We consider children to be one year old when they’re born, whereas here, children aren’t considered one year old until one year after they’re born. So in your reckoning, she’d be eight. If you’d like any ideas about what to give her, she’s been wanting to change her name for months, ever since she found out about how our father had all those people slaughtered when we were fleeing. Many people in our land change their names at different points throughout their lives, and there’s a certain custom that involves giving someone a character from their name to use in their own name, like a syllable or a letter, if you might be interested in giving something like that to her.”
Lambert’s… not quite sure what to do with what sounds an awful lot like a suggestion that Chikurin might want Tsuruhime to be renamed after him. “…Uh.”
“If you wouldn’t be interested, that’s certainly all right. You could also give her something like a new vase. Vesemir is probably getting a little tired of her appropriating half the dishes from the kitchen.”
A lot of those dishes are currently in Lambert and Aiden’s room, because even though Tsuruhime has a lot less free time these days between lessons and chores, she still gives them at least one flower arrangement per week — usually closer to one every three days. Every once in a while, one of them collects the dishes that have accumulated and returns them.
“…Didn’t say I wasn’t fucking interested,” he grumbles. Then, “You sure you want your kid sister named after the coarsest bastard in the keep?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Besides, I think Tsuruhime would like that, and I think that’s the part that matters most.”
*
Lambert is not someone who dithers. He waits a week to say anything to Tsuruhime because he is not sure how to bring it up, that’s all.
“Heard you’ve been wanting to change your name,” he says to her as they’re finishing dagger lessons a week later.
“Yeah,” Tsuruhime agrees, her high, sweet voice solemn and serious. “‘Cause my father is a fucking prick ass whoreson bastard.” It’s a sentiment Lambert can empathize with.
“D’you want, uh.” Gods fucking damn it, Lambert is not feeling this awkward about talking to an eight year-old. “Part of my name?”
That gets the kid’s attention — she stops what she’s doing and stares up at him, brown eyes huge. “Really? I would fucking love that.”
…Lambert might want to talk to her at some point about maybe limiting the fucks and shits to every other sentence. “Then you can have it. Whatever you want.”
***
Tsuruhime is nine years old (again) and has no husband when the day dawns on her (second) ninth birthday. Just after noon, following the morning’s practice sessions, Lambert stands up and announces that she’s not to be fucking called Tsuruhime anymore, ‘cause she’s picked a different name. She’s gonna be known as Ran now, and they all better fucking remember that, ‘cause her father’s a fucking whoreson prick and Ran doesn’t want to be known by the name a murderer gave her. It’s not really an actual ceremony the way it would have been in her native land, but Ran doesn’t mind. Vocabulary aside, she’s nothing if not polite, but sitting through proper ceremonies isn’t the kind of thing most nine year-olds enjoy.
Aiden still can’t pronounce her name — he seems to be incapable of rolling his damn r’s. The furnishings of far-away are still weird, and the way the people here wear their outside shoes indoors is frankly still a bit gross. The food tastes different, though Aiden’s been making an effort to learn recipes from Ran’s homeland, and is actually quite good at it — unlike some she could name (Lambert), he recognizes that there is a difference between short and long grains, among other things.
Still, Ran is loved, and appreciated, and happy. She might be far from the land where she was born, but she has brought the way of flowers to Kaer Morhen, and has been taught the ways of weaponry in return. Her language is as coarse as her flowers are beautiful, and others appreciate the things she shows them and the words she teaches and the stories she tells from her homeland.
Months later, she grieves when she learns that her sister’s choice was right — the warlord from the south has reached her home, and has drenched its once-verdant valleys with blood. Ran truly is an orphan now, except for all the ways in which she's not, because she is safe. She will have to reckon with the world and its cruelties again one day, but for the moment, in this keep surrounded by men whom others call inhuman monsters, she scarcely remembers what it means to be afraid.