Eskel of the Blue Mountains

Eskel was a witcher of the School of the Wolf taught by Master Vesemir at Kaer Morhen and active in the 13th century. 
== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Born in the mountains, Eskel originated from hill-folk. His mother used to sing him an old hiking tune about a hen, which would later be the only thing the witcher remembered of her.
Under unknown circumstances, The Witchers' Settlement in the Blue Mountains eventually became his home. He befriended Geralt, a peer who gradually turned into his almost-brother. Together they relished in childish delinquencies. Once, Eskel and Geralt had captured a huge forest bumblebee and tied it to a jug. Watching its antics, the two had fits of laughter until Vesemir had caught and punished them with a leather strap.
Tirelessly studying all sorts of creatures, trainees got to hear teachers repeat jokes about virgins and unicorns or basilisks and mirrors, quickly finding all unamusing. The one they found most primitive—infinite versions of how a young witcher shook his hand with a female dragon. To become full-fledged witchers, the youth had undergone murderous and painful Changes together, the Trial of the Grasses which changed their physiology, granting them, among other things, cat-like vision in the dark. Young Eskel feared for his friend's life when Geralt's hair turned white as a side effect of the Trial, though both managed to beat the odds and survive it together. They trained on The Trail. Leading around the Kaer Morhen through dangerous obstacles, it was generally known as "The Killer".
=== The Child Surprise ===
In the late 1210s, Eskel saved a prince of Caingorn in a dire struggle with a werebbubb gang and was offered anything he wanted as a reward. Given such a wide-open choice, he could not think of anything and instead recited the fabled Law of Surprise "give me that which you find at home yet do not expect" that he had heard Vesemir repeat over the years.
This is how Princess Deidre Ademeyn born during an eclipse became his surprise child. Avoiding responsibility, Eskel took great pains to evade going back. Taking ridiculously long routes to avoid the proximity of Caingorn, he had heard about Deidre maturing into a highly unpredictable lass. Plus she discovered an innate gift of obstructing magic in her area, all superstitiously interpreted as "accursed mutations of the Black Sun". To determine what it all meant, Eskel carried a collective work about the phenomenon. He surmised the Council of Wizards meddled too much into state affairs, botched it and, had they not sent Sabrina Glevissig, Ademeyn might not have become ostracized.
When she sought asylum around 1242, Vesemir hosted her and Eskel busied himself with a kikimore hatchery in the old mine outside Kaer Morhen while devising a solution and where Geralt found him and the two discussed the situation. In a way, Eskel cared and didn't want to pass her to Glevissig who, bursting with unproven conclusions, wished to kill and study Ademeyn. After heading back, Vesemir called his pupils to present ideas. Eskel, unsure, asked Geralt for guidance.
A scuffle between Ademeyn and her younger brother Merwin Ademeyn, Glevissig's misguided ally poised to rule, caught Eskel inside. Accidentally, the princess slashed the witcher across his face, but deeply regretting it, she subsequently left, resolving the entire matter. Several years later she sent him a letter with her royal seal upon it, but Eskel put it into a fire without reading it and never spoke of her again.
Though the witchers of Kaer Morhen never spoke of her again, none of them forgot her either, each carrying her memory in their heart.
Category:Characters
Category:Witcher