[ It's not confusion or even a question in his eyes when they turn on Sam, but a sort of realization. Because Sam does not say your kind or your people. He says brothers, and Geralt recognizes that he needn't explain anything else, what he means about going home. That Sam understands without having to be told. Maybe Sam feels the same way. He's seen it, has he not? This house filled with pictures and bits and pieces, but empty of his nephews or his sister. It is not a fortress, like Geralt's, but that makes no difference. Home is home. They've both built it here for a reason, even knowing it can't ever be the real thing. ]
A pain in my arse. [ The note of affection is audible; he doesn't hide it. Whether he notices or not, his shoulders are less tense than before. ] Not as much as Vesemir's, though. [ He's only mentioned Vesemir once, and not by name, but he imagines Sam can put it together. He is not, exactly, certain why he's telling Sam this, but he finds it isn't a topic he's reluctant to get into, and so he keeps going. ] It was only ever him with a handful of orphans.
[ He knows what people often think. About how Witchers were raised. About how they were made and trained and moulded. He knows it is easy to assume he holds some deep resentment over what he'd been forced to become. Maybe he had, once. Somewhere in there, somewhere in years long past, he had. But it's a much more complicated thing, how he altogether feels about it. When he told Sam he can't imagine having taken any other path, he meant it. He hadn't asked to be what he is, but he also doesn't wish to be anything else. He doesn't wish to not have the ragtag family he wound up with.
Maybe that's why it bothers him, that the memories have returned with a vengeance to haunt him. It stirs up what he'd learned to put aside—both because he's well aware it will help no one, least of all him, to dwell over what can't be changed, and because he's...he truthfully can't ever consider wanting to be raised any other way. To be without the people who shaped him since he was a boy. ]
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A pain in my arse. [ The note of affection is audible; he doesn't hide it. Whether he notices or not, his shoulders are less tense than before. ] Not as much as Vesemir's, though. [ He's only mentioned Vesemir once, and not by name, but he imagines Sam can put it together. He is not, exactly, certain why he's telling Sam this, but he finds it isn't a topic he's reluctant to get into, and so he keeps going. ] It was only ever him with a handful of orphans.
[ He knows what people often think. About how Witchers were raised. About how they were made and trained and moulded. He knows it is easy to assume he holds some deep resentment over what he'd been forced to become. Maybe he had, once. Somewhere in there, somewhere in years long past, he had. But it's a much more complicated thing, how he altogether feels about it. When he told Sam he can't imagine having taken any other path, he meant it. He hadn't asked to be what he is, but he also doesn't wish to be anything else. He doesn't wish to not have the ragtag family he wound up with.
Maybe that's why it bothers him, that the memories have returned with a vengeance to haunt him. It stirs up what he'd learned to put aside—both because he's well aware it will help no one, least of all him, to dwell over what can't be changed, and because he's...he truthfully can't ever consider wanting to be raised any other way. To be without the people who shaped him since he was a boy. ]