#its just. an intersting idea i couldnt stop toying with

[roughentumble]

Excerpt from a fic I’ll never write

just a silly little idea that I couldn’t get out of my head. Can’t quite get it to work right, either, so don’t rake me over the coals too hard for it, just wanted to make it leave my head.

For context, they’re sitting in a tree.

~*~*~*~*~*~

What happens next seems to happen all at once, though, by her understanding of linear time, that doesn't seem exactly possible. They must have an order-- a sequence, her mind insists-- but it happens so fast, everything layering over each other, so all she sees is,

Her mind reels from the input, stuttering over it and rehashing it like a play before her eyes, trying to catch up to the current moment, trying to apply a timeline. Paintings all in a row. Have to get the order right or the story doesn't make sense, so first is,

Jaskier-- he stood, he must've stood, but in her mind it's more like he's crouched one moment and standing the next, the memory choppy, stopping and starting, a flipbook missing pages-- Jaskier is standing, one foot braced on a particularly thick branch in front of them, legs spread wide, stance firm, bow string pulled taught-- when had he notched an arrow?-- mouth pinched from the jovial grin it'd bore not a moment ago into a taught line, all casualness dropped from his facade.

And next must be-- but before the words have even left his mouth, it's like Geralt is reacting to something else entirely, the rustle of the leaves or the inhale before the warning, or... something else, something intrinsic, he's moving like it's telepathy-- but the sound must come before the movement, otherwise the timeline doesn't make sense, so Jaskier shouts, "Geralt, get down!"

And Geralt ducks down low, crouching on the forest floor,

and the arrow flies, straight and true,

zwip, right by her ear, she could swear, the sound somehow so loud, drowning out the beast's roar,

and then the beast falls over,

collapses on the ground,

the shaft of the arrow protruding from it's open eye socket.

There's a beat of silence-- and suddenly, acutely, she is aware that the moment of silence is this moment, she's caught up, now, and she gasps, breathes for the first time in many long seconds, feels lightheaded and fuzzy and suddenly desperate for air, and realizes that she's arranging that onto her mental timeline as well, so maybe she isn't caught up yet, and, oh dear, what if the rest of her life is spent playing catch-up? What if she never experiences time how she used to again? She takes another gasp in, but doesn't remember breathing out. She makes it a point to breathe out.

Jaskier jumps-- or, he must jump, because one moment he's still perched in the tree, everyone still and silent and waiting to make sure the beast doesn't get back up again, and the next the beast hasn't gotten back up again and he's thumping down against the ground, landing on his feet like a cat-- but she's focused on her breathing, staring right at the blood, sticky and red and spreading, world focused and narrowed so she doesn't even know he's moved, doesn't even look back over until the noise.

"Well," he says brightly, casual as ever, "that was bracing, wasn't it?"