#witcher blood and wine kin

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

What characters could be in Camilla's kin list? Same question about Lance and others :D

Eyyyy 💕

Thank you very much for your question! I hope I was able to choose characters close to our lovely SVE people. This is my first time making this list, I hope I understood everything correctly 😅

Camilla:

Carmilla ("Castlevania"), the queen of vampires (in the Netflix series, she is the general of Dracula's army). She is shown as a femme fatale, seductress and manipulator. Dangerous, bossy, does whatever she wants. Of course, in the games and Netflix series she is terribly selfish and cruel, but still she reminds very much of SVE Camilla (I thought at first that it was Carmilla who inspired the creation of Camilla. Even their names!). High kin.

Bayonetta (game "Bayonetta") - if SVE Camilla was carrying around guns, I'd scream that this is the "Literally Me" category.

Fujiko Mine (manga/anime "Lupin the Third"), a talented thief, cunning and seductive. Able to go to great lengths to achieve those riches, has had many relationships, loves to live luxuriously and is very talented at everything. I prefer Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro and anime season 4 for SVE Camilla, as there Fujiko showed more or less (kinda?) tender feelings and compassion, whereas in the original manga she acts solely out of her own interests. Nevertheless - a strong, intelligent and capable woman that almost always gets what she wants. High kin.

Lance:

Zagreus (game "Hades") - Zagreus is often shown to be humble, good-natured, and sarcastic in the game. I mean, his cheerful, though somewhat unruly nature allows him to easily befriend many people, treating those of lower status as his equals, though he respects his elders. In my opinion - he's almost like Lance's SVE. So "literally me" category.

Zorro (I will choose 1975 film, because it's my favorite) - man with a mask, a master swordsman, a noble defender of the weak and a punishment for criminals. Not without a sense of humour, always ready to rush to the aid of those in need and has a high sense of justice. It would be funny to see Lance in a mask, where after he would then reveal his identity to us.... Maybe a little controversial, but I still think it would be the high kin here.

(There was supposed to be information here about Lance the dragon trainer from Pokémon and a joke about how he and SVE Lance are very similar, but then I remembered that SVE Lance was inspired specifically by Lance from Pokémon. So we'll skip that one).

Isaac:

Geralt of Rivia (book version + game trilogy) - monster hunter, loner, sarcastic, builds himself up to be emotionless and cold, yet has a sense of empathy, stands up for the weak, intelligent and almost always sensible - should I go on? Very high kin.

Van Helsing (2004 film, not the book version) - somebody give me that meme with the two Spider-Men pointing fingers at each other, because oh boy, those two monster hunters are like two peas in a pod! "Literally me," period.

Dettlaff van der Eretein (The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine) - a reserved and cold loner vampire that is trying to find his place in the world, carries a universal sadness inside him and harbours a small hope for simple happiness? Yes, please! I could write a whole list of how similar Dettlaff and Isaac are in character traits, but we'd sit here all day. So I'll give him the "literally me" verdict and we'll go down the list.

Alesia:

Tyrande Whisperwind ("Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos") - Alesia's constant references to the Yoba, kind nature, determination and desire to protect the people made me think of the phrase "By Elune", which I often heard when going through the company of Night Elves (ah, good old Warcraft...). So considering that Alesia leads the men to defend the walls of the Castle Village from the threat, is full of bravery and courage, and always mentions her god, with Tyrande she is very similar. I can safely call this a "literal me" category.

Elita-1 ("Transformers: Generation 1"). Autobot, a skilled and ruthless warrior, yet gentle and kind to her allies. In the animated series and most comics, Elita is cautious and constantly strives to make sure her squad is safe. However, if something goes wrong, she is willing to do anything to keep her friends and subordinates safe. Not much is known about Alesia yet, but from the dialogue we have so far, I get the impression that Alesia will be the same - brave and willing to lay down her life for her friends. High kin.

[whitegoldtower]

Watching a playthrough of the Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC and

Fml.

I’m going to end up kinning Dettlaff, I think.

Also Regis is my babygirl. That’s my babygirl. He’s my bab—

[ladysunbite]

Once in her prodigious lifetime the sun-eyed had the misfortune to bite a witcher, his bloodflow marred by the potion that ought to repel her kin. The combined taste of the roasted corn and the black liquid emulated the sensation with a worrisome success. "This is a fitting feast to accompany a vampire picture. I think my fangs shall not be a threat for the rest of the night," the little witcher laughed, both with her emerlad-like eyes and with her young voice, and Orianna joined, a twinkle of a true, unbridle feeling amidst the cautious cocoon of the chiseled manners. The sound washed away the foul taste and made the lights grow dim and tender. "There is much you do not know...we do not know about each other. For the first time in my life I joined the human crowd during a festival not unlike the one that unravels below. It was not the hunger, mind you. I suppose, I yearned to understand...understand what was going in their minds. How could they smile at the edge of winter, that would certainly kill more than a half of them." the silence cowered them both in a blanket, the first comfort of that world. It was a fragile, tender moment, more tender than a fleeting touch. For it seemed, the monster and the witcher, the ancient and the young craved something similar, something they were denied by a flippant hand of fate, that put a cold and desolate hunger inside their hearts to nest in that hollow place. Instinctively, the sun-eyed caught the slow gaze of the little witcher, the princess. Her own longing stared at her from its depths. "I shall ask three things of you, as the tradition demands..." "Firstly, do not use your powers in Toussaint anymore. Unless it is a question of a certain demise. There are certain...beings..." the shudder went through her, even as she was a million moons, million dreams and deaths away. Still, it was not the image of what layed hidden beneath the land of blood and wine. The protruding bones and timeless symbols, the starved body and the tortured mind and the tremendous power it still commanded. Orianna's hand flied to her wrist, the echo of the pain brought her back to the present, freed from the web of voiceless horrors of what might-be. No, the fear fed upon the image of herself, surrendering to the case that was more important that one life, two lives...the enormity of it was such that it could have gobbled all of the continent and still remain unfilled. The ultimate perfection was emptiness, that what was the unseen elder taught her. "...beings that shall seek to use you for their own means. Death would be a mercy then." she looked the maiden straight in the eyes, she owned her the heavy, vague warning, even if it risked to spoil the tranquility of their wonderous tryst. Cirilla must understand, even fear, if it would make her cautious. "Secondly, I shall tell you about a certain world and if it is in your powers, I beseech you to take me there when the moment comes," her duty was to her tribe, and Orianna Thezanna was prepared to fulfill it. In her own way. The sharp cut of truth, revealing her intentions was the first step and the first risk. "And thirdly..." but they still had time, a ghost of it at least. Those precious hours before dawn that were not denied even to the criminals waiting for the gallows.

"...thirdly, I do want a taste. But not of your blood, lasa," the world of the ancient tongue dripped from her mouth like a drop of blood, consuming, succulent and welcoming. And like a drop of blood it lured the certain beings to its call. The sickly darkness seemed to curl and gather substance, grew warm and eager as it tiptoed across the metallic floor and hang on the echo of the word. Orianna raised her chin slightly, let the cloak slip from her shoulders and exposed her neck. The vulnerability was both a plea and a promise. The cultured monster and the little witcher, sitting at the top of the world, at the highest point of the wheel of fate...were terribly lonely. But for a few moments they could make it otherwise. @fallesto

The little witcher, seemed more amused than anything else, watching her with a twinkle in her emerald eyes. "Is it not to your taste, Orianna?" As she would sit there, right on top of the world as she looked ahead.

Thinking over her words, but not wishing to answer, sometimes it felt like a dream and nothing more, sometimes it was like none of this was ever real, like none of this was real, as she has been to a thousand worlds, had a thousand adventures, seen so much, done so much, the likes of which none would ever believe in.

This was nothing more than a taste for her, this was nothing more than an example. A small taste of what it was like for her to move from one world to another, to continue to dash forward through the worlds at such a pace that it leaves nothing behind, as she would remain. That was her life and it has been her life for so long, so very long indeed, she makes friends, she makes enemies, but she can never remain, as wonderful as this place and the moment as well.

This was not home.

"It's...it's quite peculiar is it not," As she chuckled and watched as the vampire managed to eat it and at the same time, trying to recover her composure. As she watched, as she swallowed the foul morsel and took a sip from the cup of cola they had brought with themselves, no doubt hoping to wash away the acrid flavor of the roasted corn. "I'm surprised you did it to begin with."

She chuckled, a sound that was music to the vampiress's ears, despite the irritating situation. "It's simple, yet comforting. Sometimes, one must indulge in the pleasures of the common folk to truly understand them." And this was the part of life she liked the most, the little things, the small moments.

The wind outside grew stronger, rocking the cabin more violently. The Ferris wheel's metal groaned like an old beast in protest, and the distant sounds of the carnival grew muted, almost eerie in their diminishment. Orianna's grip tightened around her waist, a silent plea for the comfort she had been denied since her transformation. The witcher's laughter was a balm to the vampire's soul, a reminder that there was still joy to be found in this wretched world.

The lights of the city grew dimmer, as if the very city was holding its breath in anticipation of something dark and sinister. She popped another piece of popcorn into her mouth, the sound echoing in the cabin's sudden silence. She chewed thoughtfully, watching Orianna's profile, her gaze lingering on the sharp line of her jaw, the curve of her neck, and the way the moonlight danced on her fangs. A part of her felt a strange kinship with the creature before her, both of them outcasts in their own right, bound by fate to walk a path of solitude and danger.

“Once this ride ends, we can go, do you want to see another world, or do you want to rush back home, let me know, this is nothing, this is only a small taste of what is out there.”

[kincalling]

hello, i am sylvia anna, aka syanna, aka rhena/rhenawedd, from the witcher's blood and wine dlc. i kinfirmed recently and dont have any memories yet, so im just looking for sourcemates at this point—especially for my sister anarietta and for dettlaff, the latter of which i wish to apologize to for my source counterpart's actions. no one under eighteen please, as i am an adult, and no doubles if there are any out there. interact with this post and state your kin if you'd like to chat. thank you.

😼

[gayregis]

everyone playing the witcher 3 main quest and hearts of stone and the beginning of blood and wine: yeah witcher is a p good game i really like it it’s great. haha yea

everyone playing witcher 3 after meeting regis for the first time and progressing to get more quests with him: I WANT TO SEE MY LITTLE BOY

[bibliocratic]

the art of war - post S2. Jaskier/Yennefer/Geralt. -

War is coming to the Northern Kingdoms. Has come. Jaskier the bard, famed and renowned, buoyed with the fineries of fortune, a smile for every maiden and a song for every heartache, has nothing to offer in the Keep of the Wolves.

The Sandpiper on the other hand, has much work to do.

--

Jaskier loiters in wakefulness long after the others have capitulated to the demands of sleep. Submerged in dark waters of thought, he glances over at the sleeping from time to time, a snag of breathless air that makes his lungs hurt.

Yennefer, her fingers still caught in the weave of Ciri’s hair, a precise composition to her posture even in sleep. Ciri, her breathing taking on a whistle at the outbreath, her form having gained a second skin of elk fur that extends over her to cover Geralt’s knees like a lumpy shroud. Geralt, angled into Yennefer with the heavy grace of a fallen oak, his face held in a frown.

A tired monument of Jaskier’s dearests, held peaceful for a stolen snatch of time. There is space remaining, even now, for him to insert himself into the tableau. Wriggle and fuss and make a space for himself. Geralt might huff and Yennefer might tsk, both of them barely rousing, but he would need to be a fool to know he wouldn’t be permitted.

Not a fool. A coward, mayhaps, but alas not a fool.

Jaskier has stationed himself apart from the trio, slumped like a dropped coat into the armchair that brackets the dying fire. An ache scratches the pads of his fingers infrequently, the skin still lobstered. He would miss his lute more, if the urge to share song hadn’t dulled to near silence in recent weeks.

He’s had his mind made up for days, thought ossified into grim plan, but he torments himself by gnawing away at details, irritating the wound further.

The bottle in his hands, a fine vintage wasted on his thoughtless indulging, lightens over the hours. His teeth feel tacky with wine. He composes what he would say as he watches the logs reduce to cinders, florid words and declarations of intent, before he relegates the idea to foolishness.

The Princess of Cintra is in Kaer Morhen, Geralt’s surprise and charge and kin, rightful ruler of a slaughtered dynasty. Hemmed in by Witchers and witches. The Nilfgaard flag populates the banners where Cintra’s flag once waved, and their success has buffered their greed. War is coming to the Northern Kingdoms. Has come.

His fingers crinkle with scar tissue.

Jaskier the bard, famed and renowned, buoyed with the fineries of fortune, a smile for every maiden and a song for every heartache, has nothing to offer in the Keep of the Wolves. He knew that, yelping and cowed under a table while those with masteries so far beyond his ken wielded immensities of power. He slotted himself in best as able in the shellshocked aftermath, wiping tears and bestowing reassurances, bearing the snapping of the wounded as they limp and mourn. He scrubs the floor and hallways free from blood and dust until the lye from the soap makes his hands smart. And all the while he knows he cannot stay.

If he told Yennefer, she would call him a fool. Revive his failings as evidence, spitting them to his feet as apple seed, not because she wants to hurt him but because she wants him safe. Geralt would remind him of the growing treacheries along the path, that they are better in numbers, that his absence would be worrisome at best and dangerous at worst.

If they asked him to stay, he’d concede with selfish ease. Allow himself swayed by the currents of their opinion. And in these weeks he’s borrowed from inevitability, there is a tender understanding of their own shared affections, blossoming between three people learning that their stunted growths are capable of bearing something other than bitterness. Yennefer, who calls him husband, whose touches stray a fragment too long for innocence, too tentative for casual proposition. Geralt, who has attempted to apologise more than once, his sentences colt-limbed and tangled in the briars of his inadequacies, who foists bruise salves and extra helpings on him with a grunt and a terse comment that Jaskier knows enough to read as fussing. When Geralt speaks of the future, Jaskier’s place in it is assumed unquestioned.

It would be a matter of thoughtless ease, to stay here. Safe from war. Yennefer would make room in their bed for him, and Geralt would allow room in that sheltered heart of his, and he could take both offerings greedily.

What would his leaving accomplish? His thoughts have tended recriminatory, mocking, the more carelessly he imbibes. The world has never needed his sacrifices. They will not accrue value to his name or station. In the annals of history, his role is not required. And if he should die on the road, far from those he loves, under the name of Jaskier, or the Sandpiper or even the Viscount of Lettenhove, mourning will be candle-brief, and only his songs will survive him. Destiny has created no grand scheme for him, and he should be grateful for that.

“Fuck,”he murmurs heartfelt at the stuttering embers.

It’s you who’s done this, he wants to accuse Geralt. You and your stupid honour and ridiculous destiny. You and your confounded sense of right and wrong when that is never how the world has worked.

… sorry, he apologises in his head after another sip. Just a bit drunk. Bit sad. Bit lonely. Even though you’re all right here. Because I can always say everything but what needs to be said.

He places the bottle down. Yennefer sniffs and resettles at the clink of glass on stone. Jaskier rubs his arms and huffs because gods, he could lose his balls to this cold. Stands, retreats to the stone garret that he’s adopted as his quarters. Puts pen to parchment, sobering up in the chill.

Gone to be brilliant, he writes, inclined to flippancy as is habit. Stay safe. I love you all.

He signs with a J, and leaves with his pack before the urge to tear it up again wins. He leaves his songbook on his bedside table, an unspoken promise of return.

As he goes, he lets himself have a final wobble of cowardice, a self-indulgent final look over those he loves best. Then he skulks away from the Witcher’s keep before the snow can hem the pathway blocked.

-

He slips down through Kaedwen into Redania. It takes scant weeks for his lines of intelligence to be renewed or rerouted, and he submerges himself back into skittish habits, waking at the night chorus of creaking timbers and groaning stairwells.

He lays his head in barns and haylofts and inn cellars. Without his lute, and divesting his renown as a precaution, there’s little coin to be made as a green minstrel, so he applies himself with charm and eagerness to any trade that will take a wanderer as he works his way down the country. Despite his best efforts, some over-eager guards seeking to make some quick coin selling him to Nilfgaard recognize him on the Temerian border, and he starts a tavern brawl to provide the distraction he needs.

From there, it’s a three-day roundabout route until he reaches Kerack.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” is the first thing Ferrant snaps when Jaskier finagles his way to be granted an audience with the Royal Instigator.

“Cousin.” Jaskier dons his most obsequious smile, although it tugs on the jaundice-shaded bruise that runs a crescent under his left eye. “Verily, the years have been kind to you.”

“Don’t give me that shit. What do you want?”

Jaskier shifts on his feet, the soles beginning to thin from wear.

“I… hoped we’d be able to speak privately?” he proposes with a hopeful expression. “A personal matter, family business, you understand?”

Ferrant’s expression is momentarily mutinous before he gives a dismissive gesture.

“Go have a wash or something so you don’t smell like the arse-end of a dwarf. And I hope you’ve brought me some wine, I don’t have the time to be tidying up whatever mess you’ve fucked your way into this time.”

Jaskier has not, but doesn’t confess as such, and employs the next hour gratefully availing himself of the bathing facilities in the court. He truly is ripe, having spent two days sleeping in the cellar of a gristmill on a pile of unused flour sacks, and if Ferrant is in enough of a mood to turf him out immediately, Jaskier at least wants to be presentable while he does so. He manages to flirt his way into borrowing some clothes that aren’t encrusted with all manner of horrors from a serving maid, and joins Ferrant in his quarters, his hair damp and tousled and his newly buffed skin caked with the aroma of lavender salts.

“No wine then,” Ferrant grouses, having already started on a bottle by the looks of things. “Typical. And I see you stole my fucking clothes.”

“I thought only to save you from your own tragic sense of fashion.”

Ferrant trots out some creative curses. Pours him a glass of something potent as Jaskier avails himself of the most comfortable looking chair.   

“I thought you’d be strumming that accursed lute of yours,” he comments, glancing around as though it might manifest unexpectedly nearby.

“Alas, we parted ways rather violently.”

Jaskier takes a gulp, and regrets it with a wince. A firebrand on the way down, there’s an oaky flavour that remains on his tongue, and he senses it go right to his head with worrying speed. 

“How fares your father? Well, I trust?”

“Old and toothless and still a flaccid old cunt. Don’t flatter me with pretend interest. What’s this all about, Julian?”

“I was…” Jaskier puts on his most charming expression. “Well, it’s a delicate matter of sorts. I was rather hoping I’d be able to avail myself of some… financial support. I find myself rather down on coin these days, you know what the tides and tempests of fortune can be like, and there’s nought for it but to throw myself on the kindness and mercy of kin.”

Jaskier is practiced at playing the jester. An outfit that he has tailored well to his form, a gabbling fool, feckless heir to his whims and wants. He had imagined this conversation in great detail on the journey from Kaer Morhen.  Knows that Ferrant will assume a carelessness with money, poor investments, a child out of wedlock to support in some dingy port, a fine paid to an alderman for some public debauchery. He knows from experience that Ferrant will dress him down, get himself red and blustering as he delivers a well-worn lecture about responsibility, family tradition, honour and Jaskier’s lack of it, and all that noble bollocks. That Jaskier would be sent on his way, chastened, promising to change his ways, his pockets a few coins heavier. He has prepared to a host of potential responses to boost his yield in this regard.  

“What could you possibly need the coin for, Julian? Clothes and jewels? Mead? Whores?” Ferrant gives him a hard look, made harsher by his intense eyebrows. “Or could it perhaps be related to the fact that the Sandpiper has resurfaced. Looking to expand efforts in Kerack and Redania. Paying off the right people to look the other way probably costs a pretty penny, am I right?”

Jaskier senses his flesh pale. There’s one exit to this room, likely guarded, and his mind has abandoned any attempt at subterfuge. His silence is admission of guilt enough, and fuck, he’s not out of Kaer Morhen a month and he’s trussed up in trouble. He was such a fool to believe this would work, a stupid, stupid sing-songy twit…

“Relax, Julianuś.” Ferrant leans over, pours more of this revoltingly strong medovukha. Jaskier only retains the haziest childhood recollections of his uncle, Ferrant’s father, but his cousin is growing into that recalled likeness as he ages. A distinguished framing of a salt-and-pepper beard, a dour visage with a snaggletooth that breaks up his shark smile. “You’re amongst friends here. As far as all are concerned, I’m sheltering my irritant cousin from an irate Duke for spilling his seed where he shouldn’t have, and that’s the way it will stay.”

“How did you…?” Jaskier makes an encircling gesture with his hand to encompass everything. His heartbeat has started to retreat from his throat somewhat.

“I keep my ears open for talk of you. It’s been witcher this and witcher that for years. I must confess to surprise when the news on the grapevine begun to slide into smuggling instead.”

“Someone had to do something,” Jaskier mutters into his drink. The conversational turn has discomforted him, for all Ferrant’s reassurances. He senses a jitter start up in his leg and quells it out of habit.

“It didn’t need to be you though, did it.” The way Ferrant phrases it makes it clear it’s not a question that requires answering. His cousin leans back into the plush of his seat. “On the topic of coin. I can’t give you as much as I would like. Tensions with Nilfgaard mean rising grain prices, greater import taxes. It’s shaping to be a bad winter here, same as last, so resources are tight. Not to mention the King is getting married again, so the royal coffers are somewhat depleted. But I can give you enough to get things up and running. How long will you stay?”

“A few days,” Jaskier responds carefully, after another fortifying sip. “I’ve made arrangements to meet some associates in Oxenfurt and Novigrad.”

Ferrant hums, nods to himself.

“Rest then. You look shite. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Jaskier sleeps like the dead. His dreams murky. He stays two days, availing himself of good spirits, and Ferrant browbeats him into sending for a cobbler to deal with the abysmal state of his footwear. He is surprised by how much he enjoys Ferrant’s company. For all they chafed in boyhood, their humoural imbalances to sanguinity or phlegmatism causing disagreement and strife even with the distinction of years between them, age has tempered much of their youthful animosity.

The final night, having prepared for his departure early the next morning, Ferrant angles himself forward to study Jaskier. The severity of his brows does not quite belie the anxiety writ clear in his expression.

“I’ve got something to say, but it needs to stay between us. You understand?”

“My lips are sealed!” Jaskier responds, before correcting. “Well, not currently, but of course, hypothetically. Unless it’s murder, I might have to draw a line there. Although depends on the murdered party I suppose, I can think of more than a few people the world could certainly go without.”

“Gods, you don’t half spout bollocks,” Ferrant replies, burping a little at the bubbles in his drink.  “Is that a yes?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll hold your secret to my breast and may I be struck down should I breathe a word!”

Seemingly placated, Ferrant declares “Enter!” in a clear voice. Into Ferrant’s quarters strides another man, clad in the armoured livery and colours of the Royal Instigator’s household. Tall, darker skinned, a neat beard trimmed close to his chin, his hair kept equally tight to his scalp in the fashion favoured by some holy men. Jaskier’s seen him around, figuring him attached to some branch of security at court.

“Julian,” Ferrant gestures to the newcomer. Jaskier notes with some frission of trepidation that the door has been locked behind him.  “This is Mirosław of Roggeven, Captain of the Guard. Captain, this is my paternal cousin, Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove.”

Jaskier raises his half-empty glass, giving Ferrant a judging look for trotting out his full name, regardless of company.

“Viscount.” The captain’s voice is low and rumbling in his throat as he offers a clipped acknowledgement.

“Julian, please. Or better yet, Jaskier. Ferrant might refuse to use it, but you’re under no such limitations.”

Mirosław’s gaze darts to Ferrant, reading in his stony visage some signal. He pulls a chair over, separating it from its siblings at a nearby table, perching awkwardly with a soldier’s tension in his posture.

“Julian,” Ferrant begins. His eyes flick to Mirosław, his fists clenched in the fabric of his trousers. “Mirosław is a… he’s a dear companion of mine. We were betrothed, four summers past.”

Jaskier would need to be a great fool than he is not to recognize the stony tension that knots both their spines still. The pinning of both of their blank expressions, a braided confusion of defiance and fear.

“And yet you didn’t think to invite me to your handfasting,” Jaskier responds. Leaning into flippancy and flightiness in an attempt to loosen the air. “I am offended.” He gifts each of them a look in turn, deliberately open, a slow nod to Ferrant, a welcoming bow to Mirosław. “I shall cast my offense aside however. I have nothing but happiness for you both, and I wish you many more summers together.”

Mirosław, the little Jaskier knows of him, does not seem to be a man prone to emotive expression. He gives a low hum, a grateful dip of the head, and Jaskier is reminded of his own beloveds, their own emotions relayed in obfuscating code and infuriating inconstancy.

“There’s more,” Ferrant says.

“You’re not in the family way already, are you? Goodness Ferrant, such virility.”

There! Mirosław’s lip quirks in a smirk briefly, posture unwinding from its strained replication of a man condemned to the gibbet. He angles his body forward somewhat, bringing his hands up from the prim marshalled position they’ve taken on his knees, and pulls off a signet ring, a flat, dull thing of bronze that squats beneath bend of his smallest finger.

The effect is akin to washing one’s face free of the grime of the road, the sluicing of dust and dirt to reveal clean skin sunward again. Mirosław’s features sharpen, his ears adopting points at their peak, his bone structure altering incrementally, narrowing and lengthening to reveal a physiology unmistakably elven.

“You are either very brave or very foolish to be in such plain sight, kin-of-my-kin,” Jaskier says in Elder, after a pause.

“Perhaps both,” Mirosław responds.

“Yes, yes, your obscenely expensive education clearly paid off, well done” Ferrant interrupts. “The matter at hand?”

“You’re the Sandpiper,” Mirosław says, reverting to Common.

Jaskier nods, a little less caution in his bearing.

“’tis true, I’ve gone by that name.”

“I would ask a boon from you, if it is within your power.”

“Hush now, with all that formality. We are family now, I’ll brook no ceremony. What would you have of me, cousin?”

“My mother and sisters,” Mirosław responds after a considering beat. “They live in Roggeven, in the Elven quarter there. I wish them brought here. I know no harm will come to them within these walls, and sentiment towards our kind sours like it has in Oxenfurt.”

“…I can promise nothing,” Jaskier says quietly, affixing Mirosław with an understanding look. In his youth he might have boasted invincibility, the capacity to vanquish all, to conquer all barriers before him by force of will alone. Roggeven is not Oxenfurt, home-turf, where he could predict its fickle whims, knew whose pocket to fill and whose face to flatter. “But I promise to do all I can to see them safely over the borders.”

“That is all I ask.”

“Although…” Jaskier pauses, “I’d want something in return.”

Ferrant diverts into bluster immediately – “Pah! I’d have thought the coin and clothes and my fucking wine would have been satisfactory, you insufferable popinjay” – but Mirosław inclines his head without complaint.

“Name it.”

A sly grin graces Jaskier’s face.

“I want you to name your firstborn after me.”

Mirosław’s lips break in a smile, and Jaskier’s gifted a bark of a laugh, hard-earned and honest before Ferrant chucks a wedge of goat’s cheese at his head with a curse.

-

Jaskier has always known that there was more to the world than the walls he encountered young. The historic draperies and musty corners of his parent’s manor, the lineages and family lines he was expected to internalize. The chant and rote recall of temple learning, the nooks to secrete himself away from acolytes to indulge his own rapacious reading habits. The dust-infested tomes of scholars long consigned to corpse-ground whose ancient advice he was meant to prioritise in his studies.

“Oh, I know you’ll graduate,” Priscilla had laughed once. Jaskier had been sulking over undeservedly snippy comments from tutors, whinging into his wine glass. “You’re too stubborn to do otherwise. You’ll master all seven liberal arts just to prove those old fucks wrong.”

Whip-smart, quick-fire tongue that lashes before his brain can reign in, Jaskier has always been too restless for the cloisters of academia. And then there was the Path, that Geralt shared with him, ever new vistas, a panoply of revelations, all manner of beast and bane and brilliance.

Even so, outlawry is a stern teacher.

Jaskier lives a year nominally nocturnal. Senses prey-wary, skitter-sharp. There’s work to be done in Cintra, but his face and name are too known for complacency. A farmer shortens his hair with sheep shears and tuts at the impractical nature of his outerwear. Ferrant’s money helps keep him on the road and out of poverty. When he is on the move, his footfall traverses backroads and dust lanes come dusk, tripping through root-infested trails through the gnarl-knotted Erlenwald. His habit of language is ill-practiced, parsed to self-chatter, mumbling Geralt would be at home with. He pens no new songs. He’d considered himself a dab hand at herbology, not on the level of Shani of course, but not hopeless. His proficiency in fungi and berries and herbs is hard-tested, and he suffers through several sweating and shivering mistakes.

In that first year, Jaskier has a number of close-calls. Five months after descending from Kaer Morhen, a disgruntled sharecropper takes coin to divulge the hiding place of the Sandpiper. Scatter-shoed, darting panicked, Jaskier manages to give the cohort that was sent for him the slip amidst the choking undergrowth, all but one fleet-footed foot soldier. It descends into an ugly kick-scratch-snarl of a fight, rolling and rough-housing, undignified and messy. It ends with Jaskier panting, his fingers whitening the skin of the other man’s throat as he bucks and chokes, and in that awful void of sound afterwards, Jaskier bawls into his knees, something inside him breaking and irreplaceable.

Months roll into a year. His studies expand in complexity and breadth.

A rebel garrison at Hindmarsh hosts him for a month, and he acquires the vocabulary that’s begun to bloom out of Cintra and taking root in Temeria. A whistling, cheeping cant, fashioned to be indistinguishable from birdsong for the uninitiated –  lowing five-note calls, an outburst of cheeping, looping whistles, all which harbour their own translation. Danger, safe, run, hold, enemy, friend. A blacksmith’s daughter teaches him how to craft skeleton keys, a knack which delivers him from more than one cell. A deserter shares his sleeping roll for a week as Jaskier picks his way through Groundcherry Forest, evading a belligerent assassin and bearing a taut and angry wound to his thigh. The deserter shows him how to snap the necks of rabbits so their deaths don’t linger, how to read the passing of men rather than wildlife in the angles of broken ferns, and gifts him a kiss when they part ways. Jaskier leads a weary bastion of Cintran refugees around and out of fallen territory, and an old man with crumpled skin and a twitch in his hands gives him a leather water canteen. Jaskier breaks two dwarves out of custody, and in the time it takes the three of them to join a caravan heading north, he has been taught two drinking songs and a dirge, even though his pronunciation is apparently a lost cause.

The things he forgets are plentiful. The scent of old perfumes he formerly treasured, the taste of expensive grape luxuriating on his tongue. The habit of thoughtless chatter, easy camaraderie. He really fucking misses clothes designed to be lavish and eye-catching, colourful as a peacock, designed for showmanship over practicality.

He does not forget what he is striving to return to. Lilac and gooseberries, horse hide and leather. A smile rarely honest and a smile rarely given, both gifted to him.

-

Conflict alters geography. Anything south of the Yaruga river, which formerly bisected a unified Sodden, trailed unafflicted and billowing at the Cintran border, is Nilfgaard. Its Empire yawns grasping across the south, stomaching Cintra and Touissant to join its feast of vassal kingdoms.

The Red Port, with its ancient bridge crossing the girth of the Yaruga into Temerian territory, is the site of frequent skirmishes. Unofficially, Temeria is compromised, with Cidaris close on its heels, its safeholds uneasy, aflush with spies and scouting parties.

Factions coalesce, uncomfortably and shambolically, rarely delineated with simplicity. Both Ban Ard and Aretuza are cautiously aligned with the Northern cause, although many within the southerly courts have been swayed otherwise, no doubt at the word of Fringilla of Nilfgaard. The Temples across the Continent have been broadly silent on matters of politics, except for the Church of the Eternal Flame, which for all their many many faults are at least staunchly pro-Novigrad, so its zealous adherents use their pulpits to bolster anti-Nilfgaard propaganda. There’s talk that some jumped-up lordling tried to accost Geralt and his Child Surprise whilst under the protection of the Temple of Melitele, and that the head priestess didn’t leave enough of him to bury.

Bards and troubadours could barely be described as a faction at all, under the circumstances. Itinerant, their alignments individual, drawn by their own personal configurations of friendships and loyalty.

And yet.

-

“Barman!” A flamboyant cry startles Jaskier, his hand trailing to the dagger at his hip as he watches a familiar figure flounce through the doors. “You have been graced by the presence of one of the finest, if not, the finest, minstrels across all of the known Continent. Three ales and mayhaps I might find it in myself to wrangle the ever-feisty muses to perform for your delectation.”

Jaskier hopes, fruitlessly, that he won’t gain company. He is not so lucky.

The new arrival sights him with a roving glance, and his manner acquires a swagger as he travels over.

“Is there a seat going for the Continent’s most successful songster?”

“There would be, if I could see them.” Jaskier counters. “Alas, I only see a puffed-up prancer gifted only in mummery and jesting.”

A horse-chuff of a laugh.

“Still a cunt then. You mind?”

A pause, then Jaskier shakes his head, shuffles to make room. Valdo Marx sweeps his patterned cloak to one side to avoid sitting on it.

“Are you planning on giving over coin for these drinks,” Jaskier asks, “or am I going to be once again called on to give charity to the needy?”

Valdo gestures with his head, his coiffured curls giving a wobble, at the bar. A blond woman, dressed in a cornflower blue dress embroidered in angular patterns at its hem, has deliberately leant over, a finger making slow coils in her locks of hair. The barman’s cheeks have blossomed a struck red.

“Next round, you flirt with him,” Priscilla says as she sits down with her bounty of ale, slotting in where space remains.

It must have been years, surely, since he saw them. Before the war most certainly.  Jaskier feels light-headed, sickening grateful for such uncomplicated company, wraith-remnants of an easier time.

“What are you doing in this shithole?” Jaskier finds it in himself to ask after they’ve raised their glasses. He almost doesn’t. But people rarely approach Jaskier for songs and reminiscences these days, and he’s grown wary, the hand on his knee still cramped in a readying motion.

Pris wipes away the disappointing froth painting her upper lip to answer.

“Bringing a touch of class and song, as ever.”

Valdo must catch his expression.

“We’ve news from Oxenfurt, dear boy,” he murmurs in a tone aimed to reassure. “Can’t trust the roads much these days, not this close to the border, so we brought it in person.”

Jaskier sighs. Takes a long, sating gulp, knowing he’s going to need it.

“Go on then.”

“The Academy has declared neutrality,” Pris says. “Officially.”

“And unofficially?”

“Oxenfurt’s drawing plans in case of closure. Should the fighting worsen, there’ll be conscription to defend Redania’s borders. Amongst the Bard’s College, there’s a lot of folks chafing to aid in what ways they can. And the word is that you’ve become pretty good at pointing the right people in the right direction.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Jaskier retorts, deliberately airy, even while his gaze flints. Wonders if they sold him out. His friends, fickle and fairweather comrades. If there’s soldiers ready to drag him off in chains.

“Jask…” Valdo starts.

“How much did they pay you, viper?”

“Oh fuck off. You aren’t that special.” Valdo splays his hands on the table in front of him. “Hear us out? A minute of your no-doubt preciously rationed time. Acceptable?”

Jaskier gives a curt nod, and Valdo takes the opening.

 “I know how this looks. And I know we’ve never been firm friends. Mainly because you’re an arrogant, talentless hack who owes his success to composing unconvincing ballads for an audience who wouldn’t know music from farmyard braying. But this is…it’s more than just about your precious play at playing hero. If we don’t sing the right songs these days, Nilfgaard won’t hesitate to clap any troubadour in irons from here to Poviss.”

“And why should that be the concern of the Continent’s greatest songster?” Jaskier mocks.

Here, there’s a pause, before Valdo’s bluster wilts vulnerable. “Oh, pure selfishness on my part Julian, you know me.  Cidaris is on the defensive. My… my brother’s been conscripted, in case the borders are threatened. My mother refuses to move further north, take the family up to Kaedwen. Father wants me to return home, but… I can’t. Not when something can be done.”

“We’re heading to Brugge,” Pris interjects. “I’ve got some friends you might want to meet. We’ve been making headway already but the Sandpiper could only be an asset. ”

And that is how the first meeting of their flock is inaugurated. After more serious talk, their drinking grows muted, and yet the vacant night unspools old tales of debauchery and merriment. Jaskier’s recollection had mislaid the memory of Priscilla, whose arsenal of laughter veers from tinkling giggles to raucous howls. How Valdo’s spikes soften when he sings, the old injuries between them no longer smarting.

“Tell me,” Valdo speaks to the evening. They are sharing a room and a bed, a long-furrowed pattern dug out over countless evenings in their youth. Priscilla is snoring, her hair over her mouth, curled into Jaskier’s side. “Your White Wolf. Was he everything you sung of?”

“And more.”

“Did you ever tell him?”

Jaskier allows his silence to act as his confession.

The three of them set off to Brugge together.

--

The snowdrops fade back to a flourishing summer that grants a bountiful harvest. Valdo and Pris have scattered like dandelion seeds to combat threats in Redania.  Essi joins him for a few weeks but she doesn’t linger – she’s built up her own mechanisms of rebellion in Rivia under the name Starling; fair better than being named after some leggy little beach bird, don’t you think?

It becomes a dangerous time to be a music-maker.

But Jaskier the bard, although most have not connected him as the Sandpiper, still has power in his song. So when villages crop up like cairnstones along his route, he devolves from his outdoor nomadism. He washes in streams or the rivers that supply mills, dons the only armour he’s ever learned to wear, dredging it up from its squashed resting place at the bottom of his knapsack.

A fine (slightly elbow-worn) doublet, feathered (crooked) hat, well-kept shoes, a second-hand lute he bought with a sliver of Ferrant’s money. He’ll play requests and ingrained favourites, songs that have become integrated with pro-Northern sentiment, pocket some coin to keep him fed until the next town, the rest carefully stored for the next guard he’ll have to bribe to turn a blind eye. Once his set is finished, he sits in the corner to listen and gather. Sometimes his role is acknowledged for what it is by those in attendance, rather than his songs bespeaking a general disenchantment with authority: he collates messages to pass on to some holdout, gleans local dangers and hideouts. He promises fathers to ask of news of their sons, passes on the morsels of intel he has to mothers and daughters. His conversation is coded as his covert audience tells him of supply routes, towns aligned in sympathy or distrust, map points lost or regained.

Nilfgaard’s demanded infantry supplies from the blacksmith at Wulfrun, Sandpiper. The preacher says they’ll collect a week hence, but they’d need to pass through a choke-hold in the mountain pass. Let the fletcher in Landow know, and she’ll have the people to waylay them.

A skirmish outside Balladale. Enemy routed, a good one for a song, I reckon, my girl here saw it happen.

You passing through Heatlish? Can you give this to the baker’s wife? Tell her Katya died bravely, that she made her family proud.

The White Wolf and the Lioncub have been seen near Colkirk. Bodgan here’s managed to head Nilfgaard in the other direction, but they’re sure to ask at the next village to confirm, so you better tell Zorya so she can keep up the ruse.

Any victories for the cause he commits to memory to later twine into lyric, a rousing song or trembling ballad that will bolster their cause, mock the efforts of Nilfgaard.

He’ll twitter his notes to those who can read his tunes, and then he’s gone the next day.

-

Jaskier tracks a hint until it becomes a whisper until it evolves into rumour, then confirmed fact that one of the mages of Ban Ard betrayed Yennefer of Vengerburg to Nilfgaard. That it’s scant days until she’s turned over to Cahir and Fringilla.

Jaskier bribes and flatters to uncover the backway into the castle, a cramped tunnel part of an older design that the newer encroachments of battlements didn’t quite eradicate. He taints the mead of two watchmen with innocuous-seeming berries and does not need to tarry long before the poison takes swift and terrible effect. He lifts the key from their still-warm bodies.

The lock of the cell, deep in the bowels of the castle, turns with a rust-caked creak. The cell is narrow, unlit and without windows, and he regrets not grabbing a torch from one of the wall sconces.

Upon entry, two things happen: something rough and corded loops around his throat, and there is the furious clinking of chains as weight bowls him over to the ground.

“Fuck, Yen!” Jaskier wheezes, trying to scrabble at his throat, croaking with a wretched airless sound.

She stops trying to garotte him almost immediately.

“Jaskier?”

“You called, my lady?” His suaveness is off set by the grunting rasp of his voice.

“What are… what the hell are you doing here?”

“I can always come back later,” he retorts mutinously, but he’s already taking her hand to rock to standing. “I’m the cavalry. Just… stand there and look intimidating while I get these off you.”

She offers out her hands. The cell truly is pitch dark, but Jaskier goes for his skeleton keys, working through three attempts by touch alone before there is the give and click of the lock. Yennefer sighs as Jaskier uncuffs her manacles and lets them pool by their feet. He gives them a vengeful kick to scatter them further across the ground.

“You alright?” Jaskier asks. He wants – wants to reach out, tactile, a grounding union of skin to skin. But he does not know what damage has been done to her, does not want to take anything from her she doesn’t offer willingly. His hands flutter useless at his side.

“Just… give me a minute.”

Yennefer swallows a few nauseous breaths, inhaling through her nose. Then, a gesture with her liberated fingers, and a palmful of light like a trapped star tips from her palms to float unaided above her shoulder.

The cell is uglier illuminated. Little more than an alcove, hollowed and hewn imprecisely out of the surrounding rock, built more for holding than long-term occupancy. The cast-off metal cuffs betray the verdigris gleam of some dimeritium alloy. Yennefer’s hair has grown long, a long plait knocked messily. A truly impressive bruise ridges her right cheekbone, a purpling mass that narrows to yellow at its borders. A cut across her eyebrow has dribbled paltry signatures of violence onto her collar. She’s still grasping the filthy mud-draped girdle she tried to choke him with.

Her hug is unexpected. An intensity that he leans into, each of their bodies bolstering the other to gain a desperate equilibrium. Jaskier’s grip cinches around her waist, and they don’t have time for this, but he doesn’t withdraw, and for a long moment, neither does she, her muffled words lost in the fabric of his shoulder. Even when she moves back, they remain orbiting, connected at numerous points of contact.

“Not to be fussy, but I think we’ve overstayed our welcome in this charming establishment. Think you could manage to get us of here with your…?” Jaskier makes a gesture, spidering his fingers dramatically.

Yennefer nods. Makes a claw of her fingers scored with dust and mud, twists until a void ringed in purple flickers to life, expanding like an iris. They step through together.

A thatch-roofed cottage pieces into reality around them. She sways wind-knocked, and he babbles mindless platitudes, easy there, woah, let’s get you sat down huh, ushering her to the kitchen bench. There are faint smears of moonlight to see by, and a cursory search reveals the necessities. He lights candles with flint, structuring a slapdash pyramid of meagre logs that he curses and bullies into a fire. He prises the lid off the storage barrel he’s spotted in the corner to reveal a supply of standing water, boiling a cupful in the kettle over the fire before adding hyssop and nettle leaves to improve the taste.

Yennefer makes a face at it as she drinks.

“Never satisfied, are you?”

“Fuck off,” she mumbles, taking another sip.

“Where are we by the way? I don’t much fancy greeting the landlord in such a condition.”

“Safehouse. One of Triss’. We’ll be alright here.”

The smears of firelight that have begun to decorate the room alleviate Jaskier’s unbled nerves somewhat. He boils more of the standing water to fill the wooden tub he drags in front of the fire. It’s not enough for submersion, barely counting as a bath, but he isn’t confident enough of a nearby water source to feel comfortable tapping into their reserve too much. The hot water allows her to clean off the worst of the grime, revealing a motley collection of bruises but nothing that would require treatment, and he has found a jug to aid him in wetting her hair, carefully brushing out any knots. He starts humming as he does so, and for long while, that and the slosh of the water is the only sound that occupies the cottage.

“Thank you,” Yennefer says as he passes her a towel, exchanges her deplorable outerwear for items that don’t carry so much of the stench of a Nilfgaardian prison. “For coming to get me.”

“I was in the area.”

Her laugh is a last candle sputter.

“Is there… is there anything you need?”

“No,” she replies, before a carefully worded confession. “I’m tired. Sick of being upright.”

“Bed then, I think,” Jaskier responds softly, and she nods gratefully.

The bed is a coarse frame, likely hewn from local wood by an apprentice learning to ply their trade. The frame gives a grunt at the application of weight, rocks uneasily as though the pallets have not quite been uniformly measured. But the mattress itself is stuffed fat with feathers and down, overlaid with a woolen blanket, and Yennefer settles down upon it as though sinking.

“Stay?” she asks of him. So he does, toeing off shoes like shedding skin, trousers and leggings allowed to pool rumpled, leaving only his tunic.

He extinguishes the bedside candle, permitting him a flash of her expression before the dark of the late hour rushes in like a flood.

“Now, I know this presents a fabulous opportunity to appreciate my nubile form, but in your condition, I think it best you fight your understandable instincts and actually sleep in this bed, rather than anything more acrobatic.”

“You believe yourself so irresistible, bard?”

“I know myself irresistible.”

They lie side by side, inward facing. Their bodies connect at irregular points, his foot over her ankle, her hand on his thigh.

“I’m not sure about the beard,” she says. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“Urgh, I know. It’s a foul acquisition. Scratches something beastly, feels like my face is tormented by an onslaught of fleas. Helps with warmth though, so it’s a necessary evil.”

Silence sinks to mingle with the rock-bottom dark. For all exhaustion casts her motions sluggish, Yennefer assures herself of his presence idly: her fingertips follow the whorls of hair on his chest, make cartography of his hipbones and shoulder blades.

“I missed you.” Words spoken to the dark and close, warm air against his cheek. “You just… left.”

“I couldn’t stay.”

“Couldn’t say goodbye, either?”

“You had your hands full. Newly-minted motherhood and all that. Besides, I wasn’t much use to anyone sulking the winter in a Witcher keep.”

“You didn’t have to leave.”

“I did.”

She doesn’t correct him. Follows a crevice of scar, an ill-stitched and ill-healed memento of butchery that sits ugly over his stomach.

“Geralt was insufferable all that winter,” she responds finally.

“One of his frequent guises. You learn to bear it.”

“I doubt that. You don’t see him, the version of him when you aren’t around. Moping and lonesome and grunting. An absolute lost cause.”

“Have you… have you seen him recently?”

“A few months past. I’ve had my own affairs to concern with.”

“How mysteriously vague.”

“He asks after you. Often. It would grow quite the irritation if I didn’t echo the same to him.”

“Yennefer. My darling. Is this your way of confessing you care?”

“Don’t play obtuse, bard. It doesn’t suit you. You know we love you, you fickle, beastly creature.”

“… well, when you say it like that.”

“Come now. You must have known?”

“I’d… I’d hoped. I hadn’t exactly wanted to presume. Much was left unsaid at my parting.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“… I knew.” Jaskier unburdens himself with the weight of collapsing snowdrift. “I knew before I left. How the both of you felt. About each other. About… about me.” His voice splinters, creaks. “I knew and I left anyway. And I’ve missed you so. Like aching. I miss you and I miss him, and I want, gods, I want to come home. I want to wake up in your bed, or in your arms, or in your lap, wherever you’d have me, I’d accept… But I can’t be that selfish.”

“Rumours of your silver tongue weren’t unfounded. That was quite the pretty speech.” She presses a kiss, a seal of momentary pressure, to the hinge of his lips. “I would have you wherever I wanted you, bard. Wrapped in furs and confined to splay wanton across silks. A poor choice of timing then, to grow a sense of duty. But I understand. I don’t begrudge you. We all must make our way in this world and our paths cannot all be one.”

“And Geralt? He understands?”

“He has learned to grow a mature emotion or two over the years. Doesn’t mean he likes it, but yes. He understands.”

The scraping chitter of a flock of nightjars outside provides accompaniment to the silence for a while. Yennefer moulds her body against the line of his. She strokes the taut scar lines she finds. He knots and plays idly with her hair as he listens to the birdsong.

“I heard them. The songs you wrote about me. Hard not to, when they’re on the roster of tavern drinking songs from here to the Blue Mountains.”

“I can sense an opinion brewing. Ouch!” She’s jabbed him with a nail, before smoothing the skin with the pad of her finger in apology. “Go on then. Thoughts?”

“Overwrought. Indulgent. Entirely fabricated.”

“I like to think they have a poetic relationship with the truth.”

Yennefer smiles at that. He feels it form and linger in her tone.

“Oh, who passes hence, mother, who passes by?” Jaskier recalls, his lyrics scratchy with evening, murmured against the thicket of her undone hair. “Why, child, ‘tis the sorcessess who comes softly by. The vengeance of Vengerberg, her spells to apply, the scourge of the Black Ones, their plans cast awry, with a smirk ‘pon her face and a gleam in her eye, her beauty and guise doth her cunning belie.”

“I seem to remember another verse.” Yennefer dips into recollection before she brings forth the next lines. “Oh who passes hence, brother, who passes by? Why, child, ‘tis the sorceress who comes softly by, to vanish like smoke, off into the sky, to tell the White Wolf of what she did spy, and the Lioness bold, her head to hold high, for the reckonin’ of Cintra soon to be nigh.”

“A little flat there at the end. Stick to your witch work.”

She jabs him again.

“I should have added another verse about how much of a shrew you are.”

“Tisk tisk bard, you’ll give yourself more frown lines.” She stretches out, realigning herself against him. Questions go dry in his mouth. He doesn’t want to ask about the war. He’s sick of speaking of it.

They part the next day. She doesn’t tell him where she’s headed, and neither does he.

She kisses him again, once, twice, and loops her girdle around his waist. It’s more a belt, really, a corded plait of leather strips dyed black.

“I want that back,” she says. “The next time we meet. I shall be furious if you lose it, so I better see you in one piece.”

“You don’t have anything a little less… last season?” She gives him a look. “Of course, wife. I’ll see it returned to you personally.”

-

He collects names like seashells.

To the elves, he is Gobadán, Sandpiper, taedh, elf-friend, Wolf-kin. To Nilfgaard, a cornucopia of higher-class curses, sneak-thief, the Wolf’s rat, that little fucking shit.

To Yennefer and Geralt, he was only ever Jaskier. Will be again, he tells himself. When this is all over.

-

They string up the Magpie on a gibbet erected for the occasion in Vizima. A public song and dance of an event, an unsubtle lure for anyone prone to heroics. Afterwards, they leave him like a crossroads deterrent, rocked to a creaking lullaby by an unfeeling breeze.

Jaskier is too far away. Undercover in Redania, stealing secrets from soldiers and legates with a careful weave of flirtation and perfected sincerity, unfolding himself from their sweaty grip to pocket keys and missives and maps as he redresses and leaves.

Pris was there. She tells him how soldiers found her lodgings, how she avoided capture only because of the barmaid’s quick thinking, a woman who dragged her down to the cellar and hid her in an empty barrel of pickles, the stench of vinegar festering in her nose. How it had been too late for Valdo, already dragged bodily away in another room across town. Everything else glossed by hearsay. They tortured him senseless. Days between capture and execution. She doesn’t know if they got anything from him. Doesn’t know if someone sold them out. His neck snapped at the drop, and that was the only mercy shown him.

They broke his flute, Pris keeps repeating. The two of them getting an ugly kind of drunk, in competition with their grieving. They broke his fucking flute Jask, the bastards, those bastards, fuck, fuck, they fucking broke it. This whole fucking war, it’s shit, it’s shit, Jask.

Their sorrow is a nauseous, vicious thing, lining the bottom of their stomach.

They go underground. Pris pens a mourning ballad, and Jaskier hears The Magpie’s Lament in taverns from Novigard to Ard Carraigh.

-

“Any message for the White Wolf, Sandpiper?”

A green lass, headed in the direction of Makaham, a courier mission to relay details of supply routes and enemy fronts. Her tone is still patinaed with awe, at being a part of what she sees as a great liberation, a noble conquest between good and evil. It’s been a long time, since he believed that.

“Tell him to sleep, once in a while, if he wants to keep breathing.” Tell him I miss him, that he features in all of my night terrors, that I am hoarding the words I wish to tell him in the back of my throat. “Tell him I can’t sing his songs if he’s dead.”

“Anything else?”

Jaskier shakes his head.

-

On nights where he is scourged by chill, when his sleeping blankets pattern with frost and he frets that his limbs could blacken and erode, when winter could steal him kindly and easily in his sleep.

On nights outweighed by losses, his chest clogged with a dense foliage of grief, his hands calloused with blood and gagging on a terror for his life that he’s never been able to exorcise, the imprint of the people he’s ruined stamped behind his waking vision.

On nights where it has been miles since sighting friend, where his own songs for the birds and deer sound feeble and swallowed up by the tree line.

He allows himself to believe that he’ll be able to return home. That nothing will have changed. That his teasing and joking and lies and gentleness and brilliance will be unaltered by time or action, that he’ll be able to slip from the coat of Sandpiper finally to don the mantle of Jaskier again.

--

Sometimes living is harder than dying would be.

--

The years diminish him.

Temeria is rewon with losses, a distant heir of Foltest reinstalled. Nilfgaard is routed from Oxenfurt by its conscripts of academics turned soldiers. He is captured on the Aedirn border with Essi, and their escape costs them dearly; Essi loses an eye, and Jaskier never hears right in his left ear again. A scar ridges a mountain range from the top of his ribs, skirting his heart and stuttering to a halt over his hip.

Princess Cirilia brokers a truce with the elves of Brokilon to aid in forcing Nilfgaard out of Verden, on the defensive at the Yaruga. Nilfgaard responds by sacking Red Port and burning Rivia. Rumour has it Yennefer of Vengerberg routs their troops by turning the very tides against them.  The Sandpiper fills three ships worth of the frightened and fleeing in the hopes of them reaching safety in Poviss or Kovir. The last ship is waylaid by mercenaries hired by Nilfgaard, and the ship is ran asunder, its crew slaughtered, its cargo of refugees cast into the festering cold of the sea. Jaskier’s waterlogged corpse has life breathed back into it by a frantic family of elves who have dragged him onto a rocky promontory. For a week Jaskier is conscious only of a salt-water tang mossy on his tongue and splintered recollections: tune-fragments of his old songs, a low-held hum of agreement, the sensation of black hair twined around his fingers, white hair scratching against his neck. He sees Yennefer and Geralt and Ciri in the faces of his healers and sobs hysterically to be granted their forgiveness until the fever breaks.

There is ferocious battle at Upper Sodden. For months after, there are songs of the White Wolf and his valiant duel pitted against the Black Knight, the decisive moment where a wounded Geralt plunged his sword hard enough to break the Knight’s heart before depriving him of his head. Success breeds rebellion, an agitation of hope. Jaskier disrupts supply lines through thievery, extortion, a campaign of belligerent misinformation. He directs a cohort of Nilfgaardian reinforcements to a known Leshen grove by the careful forging of a false map, pickpockets orders and missives and writs, steals letters for blackmail and sabotages mills and foundries and smelters.

The Emperor of Nilfgaard is deposed. There is rumour of betrayals from his own guilds, or the vengeance of a slighted lieutenant, or even the gleefully pernicious talk that some slighted sorceress cursed him to shit himself to death. While peace talks are being tentatively proposed by the newest heir to a now-unwanted throne, Jaskier is averting plotting to install worse monsters, is carrying messages to ensure the talks are not disrupted.

And then.

And then it is over.

--

Jaskier attends Ciri’s coronation. Mingles in the mass of jubilant celebrants in an unfetching surcoat, a cheap glamour that casts him in liver spots and crow’s feet and a straggling bald patch that makes the rest of his grey hair a tonsure. He doesn’t listen to the speech which the rightful Queen of the restored Cintra gives her subjects. He instead weaves among the crowd as though seeking a better look at his monarch, listening as best as he’s able for marks of maliciousness or malcontent from the onlookers, any sympathy for Nilfgaard which might turn to violence.

Ciri has grown into her regality, adorned in simple finery as befits her station. She speaks strong and clear of the kingdom’s future, of the losses they will mourn and the triumphs they should celebrate. There will always be something of the wolf to her smile.

Yennefer is resplendent by her side. Her hair twisted in a complicated weave that has been precisely pinned in place, detailed with a streak of white hair that Jaskier does not recognize. 

Geralt is dressed in slightly showier armour than usual. His discomfort is unchanged and his hand does not leave the pommel of his steel sword.  

They looks happy.

When the coronation concludes, Jaskier leaves with the rest of the crowd.

For hours after, his mind warps in  cornered indecision. The war is over, it’s over and that’s what he prayed for, wept for, fought for. Yet he fears how the years have broken his form to fashion him anew, that he has been hewn from a stone too harsh for peacetime. He fears what Geralt or Yennefer see when they look at him. What he’s done in the name of Cintra. What he’s given to stay alive.

The war is over, so why is it so hard to go home.

The snagging fear is like stage fright, he tells himself sternly. You are a performer. Learn your lines and steps until they’re tongue-tripping,  but you need an audience at some point. So he submerges himself in his old fixes. In the safe house he has sequestered himself in, he washes perfunctorily but entirely, careful not to irritate his newest scars, daubs perfume to his wrists. In a looking glass, desilvered irregularly at its edges with ugly speckling, he chops and trims at his hair that’s grown unkempt like hanging moss into something presentable. After consideration, he shaves, dressing in an embroidered doublet and trouser. He straps his lute over his back, tucks a dagger into his waistband and above his ankle, and sets off to the castle.

He is, expectedly, stopped firmly at the gates. Affects a haughty irritation at the inconvenience, but he remembers how to play spoilt and brattish and is undeterred.

“Would you please,” he sighs, “tell the Queen that her old friend, the finest troubadour this Continent has seen, has come to grace her shining court with his songs.”

“Mate, you don’t know the Queen, leave off it.”

“The White Wolf is in the castle, is he not?” They nod with suspicion. “Then why don’t you inform him.”

“Know him as well, do you?”

“My dear, I know everyone of note. Now do be a good fellow and run along would you.”

A communication of raised eyebrows apparently ensures that Jaskier is permitted to stand freezing his cock off at the gate while someone goes to enquire if anyone can identify the irritant who is so brashly expecting entry.

Ten minutes later, Jaskier is feeling that his plan for a grand expressive entrance was self-indulgent and idiotic, when really bribery would have likely worked just as well, when the gate unfolds with a grating creak.

Geralt is there. He wears a new adornment of scarring at his temple, his hair tied back low at the base of his neck with a leather strip and, oh Geralt is there.

Jaskier had planned on bowing. Low and regal and over dramatic, choreographed in his mental rehearsals that helped him occupy sleepless hours. To deliver some cocky line, pithy and clever, laden with his old swagger with a smirk dancing on his lips. He’d wanted to stroll back into Geralt’s life as though the years had not divided them, as though the war had not sketched them anew.

His intentions scatter as fallen apples.

“Geralt,” he whispers, a crack in his throat like the sound of settling foundations, tears sprung to cast his vision wavering.

The Witcher marches forward. Grasps him with both arms, his expression a picture of ferocity, but when he drags them roughly into one space, a painful crumpled reunion, Jaskier’s fingers come round to clutch at his courtly attire claw-like.

“You fucking bastard,” Geralt snarls, breath hot against Jaskier’s ear. His fury damped by the way it shivers in his chest, a raw hurt coating his speech and enduring like a note struck from a tuning fork. “What time do you call this, Jask, fuck, I thought – ”

 The pads of his fingers are calloused where they cup the back of Jaskier’s neck. Jaskier buries his head into Geralt’s shoulder and his breath shakes on the exhale.

“The coronation was hours ago,” Geralt continues. “Fuck, I thought – you were supposed to be here.”

“I was.” Jaskier feels the fabric under his eyes dampen, and he holds impossibly tighter. “Wouldn’t have missed it. She was marvelous, wonderful, you must be so proud of her. I was.”

“Don’t fucking do that to me.” Geralt hasn’t let go, and his growling words are muffled somewhat, spoken closer to Jaskier’ bad ear. “You were supposed to be there. You think I’d forget that you just fucking left us all, and now you come strolling back like it hasn’t been… like you didn’t…”

“I came home,” Jaskier replies wetly. “I came home, Geralt.”

Geralt crumples onto him then, enfolding them both. Jaskier forms their lodestone, grown strength to carry burdens far less cherished than this. Geralt’s breathing hitches infrequently. Jaskier hardly breathes at all.

When they walk through the castle gate, Geralt skirts him close as shadow and Jaskier cannot blame him.

He’s returned at a wind down hour. His reunions are all tearful, exhausted and drained, aged by time and trauma, too quiet for any sense of victory. The room is too full of ghosts for delight, their numbers too few for easy joy. Yennefer gets glassy-eyed when he hands her the girdle back. Ciri catches him in a fearsome bruising hold when he bows and calls her ‘your highness’.

After. The candles ran down to tallow stain. Fatigue gaining ground and insistence. The three of them gravitate, an unspooling orbit. Yennefer’s bed is huge but even then, when Jaskier gets inside the sumptuous slide of expensive silks, he is compelled to ground himself against her for fear of unmooring. Geralt a bulwark at his back. They are drained to the essentials of speech and sound, near-mute with fatigue for all that sleep evades them.

Yennefer’s caught a tremor in her hands, for all she attempts to compose her fingers to stillness. She channels the motion into sketching over the worst of Jaskier’s pains; a deep knick in the meat of his shoulder, poorly healed breaks that have aggravated his left middle and ring fingers for months. Her Chaos stutters out of her, and her fingers tremble and Jaskier clasps her hand against his chest and doesn’t have the words yet to ask.

Jaskier listens for dangers that don’t come. The line of his back taut and wary, reading the runes of their ruin in every step and squeak outside their door.

Jaskier does not need the paltry glance of moonlight outside to chart by touch the new marks on Geralt’s body. There are so many. There are so many, and Jaskier doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge but let it fester in him.

It would be so easy. To push away from Geralt’s hold, overwarm and grasping. To make his excuses as he pulls away from the places he’s plastered against Yen.

I did such awful things, he wants to whisper, shout, rage. How can you still bestow such kindness when you don’t know what I did to survive? To save my own neck. It wasn’t noble or heroic. I lost myself for so long that I don’t know if I’ve brought myself back.

“You with us?” Yen asks. Jaskier opens his mouth but then closes it. The shake of his head is almost wild, as if he’s trying to knock something loose.

“I don’t know,” he croaks.

“Jaskier…”

“If you knew… if you knew what I did, the people I hurt…”

“I don’t care.” Yennefer’s interruption is toothed. Her unsteady hand against his cheek. “I don’t give a fuck about how you did it. You came back. My brave, brilliant bard, you found your way back to us. Don’t you dare feel guilty about that.”

“Fuck ‘em,” says Geralt, erudite as always.

Jaskier’s Adam’s apple bobs. His nod erratic, unsettled. Yennefer envelopes the two of them entwined, her hair scratching his lips. 

“Tomorrow, bard” Geralt grumbles. “Whatever confessions you want to make. But fucking tomorrow. Now, rest.”  He presses his lips to the back of his neck, barely enough motion to count as a kiss, more of a nudge.

“Tomorrow,” Jaskier agrees tiredly with a murmur, and lets himself drift off amidst their hold.

[garasham]

the vampire language: known words & phrases

the translations provided here are hypothetical unless stated otherwise  

sources: one two three four five | inspiration & ideas: one two 🦇 

last updated: 2 january 🩸

in the books

i. Draakul “an untranslatable pun” as per Regis

in the witcher 3 (blood and wine) 

ii. Gharasham

ii. Tesham Mutna “burial coffin”

tesham: burial (Etruscan tesham)

mutna: coffin, sarcophagus (Etruscan mutna)

iv. Cantata “this precious item / work of art / gift”

canta: precious item, work of art; consecrated objects; image; something beautiful; beauty, happiness, gift, favor (Etruscan cana)

ta: this, that (Etruscan (-)ta)

v. Hinthial cesu, themias. “Below lies our caretaker.”  ☾ when summoning the Unseen Elder ☽

hinthial: ghost, image, soul (of the deceased), shade, apparition (Etruscan hinthial); below (Etruscan hinth/hinthi) 

cesu: to lie, to be found, to be placed; was/were interred; one who indulges, puts off, delays (Etruscan ces-/cesu)

themias: he placed; officiated; caring for, caretaker (Etruscan themiasa); had obeyed (Etruscan themias-)

vi. Eclthi, lautni ama.  “Here I am a slave / a friend / kindred.” ☾ Geralt when greeting the Unseen Elder and presenting an offering ☽

eclthi: demonstrative; locative, here (Etruscan eclthi)

lautni: of the family; slave; freedman (etruscan lautni)

ama: to be (Etruscan ama)

vii. Nac thi sel me thaur?  “Why did you wake me from my tomb?” ☾ the Unseen Elder when waking up ☽

nac: as, how, so, because, then, when, why (Etruscan nac)

thi: pronoun, thou (Etruscan thi)

sel: to do, to make (Etruscan sel)

me: I, me (Etruscan mi/me)

thaur: tomb, sepulcher (Etruscan thaur-)

viii. Spureni veres nac atranes. Avile cleva Regis, etu— “We are here because / on behalf of the bleeding city. My name is Regis, and—” ☾ Regis when introducing himself to the Unseen Elder ☽

spureni: city, polis (Etruscan spur/spura)

veres: bloody, gory, sanguinary ? (Hungarian véres)

nac: as, how, so, because, then, when, why (Etruscan nac)

atranes: of the temple, relating to ‘building’ (Etruscan atranes)

avile: year(s) (Etruscan avil); male name (Etruscan avile)

cleva: gift, offering (Etruscan cleva)

etu: [unknown]

ix. Zatlath! “Silence!” ☾ the Unseen Elder when answering angrily ☽

zatlath: companion (Etruscan zatlath)

in the gwent game (unreleased content)

x. marish “servant” as per Gwent Wiki

marish: (male) baby, boy, youth; bridegroom (Etruscan marish)

xi. sech farthana “step-daughter”

sech farthana: step-daughter (Etruscan sech farthana)

xii. athumica “kin”

athumica: family, of the family, beneficient (Etruscan athumic)

[tarithenurse]

If I succeed - 15 (final chapter)

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x fem!Reader Content: Action, angst, gore, badassery, feels, fluff, angst, caring, tiny bit of smut. Probably some errors due to lack of proofing. A/N: So...this is apparently the end of the story. Thanks for the comments and reblogs, it’s been a joy seeing the reactions to each chapter. HUGS!!

15 – Soft Dogs

...   Jaskier   ...

If teeth had been gold coins, the Witcher be rich A monster less monstrous, it whines like a -

No I can’t use that! Annoyed with the lack of progress, Jaskier lazily swirls the wine. Having no problem letting the other two deal with the messy part of things, the bard has decided to spend the waiting time composing a song of the ultimatum Geralt has given the vampire. The Bloody Barter...oh, that’s a niiice title.

Half of the Higher Vampires fell as they had decide among each other which of them got to live – it turns out that such decisions are quickly made by ripping the weaker individuals’ hearts out. Now, a musty smell of burning flesh and rot is lifting to the night sky together with the embers and smoke thanks (again) to the stronger vampires’ hard work. It took little time for them to create a pyre due to the adequate amount of slaves blindly following command. And those bloodsuckers? All are lying in a heap, waiting for their turn to impersonate a roast dropped in the cooking fire.

“Would it have been too much to ask that they smelled more appealing?” Jaskier sighs.

“Hm.”

At least [Y/N] eyes him wearily. “Would it be too much to ask that you help?”

She’s standing by Leif Nordbergar. His own faith is sealed too: like the last few vampires he will have his teeth pulled and hands cut off. But for now, he has remained calm and collected, enforcing the orders upon his kin, never wavering under the feather light touch of the woman’s silvered blade as his children have died and his plan gone up in smoke.

No longer.

With a ferocious snarl, he bashes her arm aside, sending the weapon clattering towards the fire where Geralt is tossing the remains into the flames, and latching on to a portion of bared flesh at the crook of her neck.

Before Jaskier can fully register what is happening, a familiar sword skewers Nordbergar’s face with a sickening sound, causing both monster and woman to fall and the other bloodsuckers to flee.

“[Y/N]!”

The bard can’t see the anything but the broad back of Geralt as he comes to a skidding halt on the ground by the fallen, unceremoniously shoving the vampire aside and ignoring the pained moan from the creature...but he can hear the break in the voice, a panic he had never expected to witness coming from the stoic hero.

“C’mon, my flower...” Each word is pulled from the bottom of the Witcher’s heart, filled with ache and longing as though he fears for a loved one’s life.

Wait. “Ger...what’s...is she...?” Jaskier crawls across the dirt of the cave floor, afraid his legs won’t carry or that he should fall if the fear growing inside him is validated. “She isn’t...”

Rounding the hunched figure, nothing looks real anymore. Not the blood seeping between the fighter’s fingers as he clasps them to [Y/N] neck, not the already ashen skin, not the tears obscuring the yellow eyes. This isn’t happening! They were meant to...and then...the romance! Damnit! There were so many times Jaskier could have said something, made them realize what they were feeling for each other except now...Too late.

“Jask, give me the square vial in my satchel.”

How can a young land deny such a request, meaningless though it may be, when spoken with a voice thick with desperation? He can’t. Scampering in a frenzy, the bard does as ordered and watches in reluctance as the Witcher pulls the stopper and pours a thick white liquid into the woman’s mouth. The scene conjures a ridiculous image in his mind.

“It would take a kiss. In all great ta-”

And there it is: the bard has been stunned into silence as Geralt’s lips softly seals [Y/N]’s mouth, tears still dripping onto her cheeks where the last glow lingers – perhaps out of stubbornness to celebrate how she was in life.

...   Reader   ...

Dazed and confused, your entire world consists of the sensory inputs. Numbness in your limbs. A flaring pain in your neck and chest. A foul, sticky taste in your mouth. But most of all, what you feel are the warmth enveloping you and the gentle begging of lips upon yours.

“Geralt,” you mumble in between returning the kisses.

“Wild flower.”

The taste of his smile is soothing. Reassuring. Curling up slightly to get comfortable in his arms, you are ready to fall asleep then and there knowing that he’ll keep you safe. Someone interrupts the calm, though.

“Wait, WHAT?” You know without looking that Jaskier must be flailing his arms. “That’s IT?! Where’s the moment of clarity? The serendipity?! Are you real- oh!” He must have realized something. “Oh, I see! And how long has this been going on? When did you decide ‘Let’s not tell Jaskier, let’s make him look like a fool.’ Haha! Well joke’s on you! I’ve known from the beginning that...that...oh fuck it.”

Disgruntled, he returns to his seat only to have faith mock him as it turns out the wine has been spilled.

You don’t care. At least not right now.

“You’re a mess, wild flower.”

“Guess you get to clean me up when we get a chance then.”

You can feel the soft of him humming in agreement when he kisses you again, though the sound is drowned by a Jaskier,

“Oh, come ON!”

...   Geralt   ...

The trio is tired as they start their descent. Jaskier is still moping about the surprising turn of events but at least he does so quietly for the fear of the wyverns abandoning the hunt on the few vampires that fled – apparently the creatures hold a grudge. Similarly, the Witcher is on edge, his eyes darting to the shadows that are beginning to lose their hold in the greying dawn. His sword is drawn as a necessary precaution as much as for the sake of [Y/N] whom he carries on his back. She is too weak to walk still, caught somewhere between unconsciousness and sleep save for the few times the jostling movement stirs her and she releases a puff of hot breath against Geralt’s neck, sending shivers down his spine.

The sound of birds have accompanied them for a while when they reach the remains of the temporary camp where Roach greets them with a soft, worried whinny muzzling at them all in turn though paying special attention to the prone woman.

“She’s fine,” Geralt mutters, silently appreciating the horse’s gentleness.

“Yeah. Well. I’m still in shock.” The bard might complain, but his genuine concern returns straight away. “Is she...how long will she be like...that?”

Who knows. “The potion draws upon her own energy to rekindle her life. It’s taxing on the body.”

...

The sun is setting on the other side of the valley which is stretched out below like a sea of greens and golds, inviting and enticing with the promise of gentle travels and warmer winds. Still, they have made decent headway, distancing themselves from the threat of vampires and wyverns alike to the point that Geralt decides to make camp not far from a stream running past the first decent thicket.

It does not take a lot of convincing from Jaskier before the Witcher half assists, half carries the unnaturally weak woman towards the waters and once there (hidden from the bard’s eyes and ears), he seats her with the back against a large rock heated by the sun. Stripping, methodically pealing off the black armour, he places everything within reach on the bank before turning to [Y/N].

“Hmm.”

She stirs, understanding what is going on, as he frees her off the bloodied clothes but accepts when he gently swats her hands away that her attempt to help largely is a hindrance. Leaning against him, the large man feels the softness of her curves and the slowly returning strength in the arms that embrace him.

“This is...aaall backwards.” Despite the resignation in the voice, she still smiles.

“Hmm?”

A bit of deviousness bubbles to the surface, ghosting over Geralt’s skin together with her lips when she leans in to whisper. “I’m normally the one saving you.”

Turning to capture her lips, he lets the final piece of garment drop to the ground in favour of picking her up. So...giving. Neither for the first nor the last time does the Witcher envy Jaskier’s skill with words. The resentment at his own lack of skills is willingly swept away by the frigid water which he backs them into because the gasps escaping [Y/N] brings other things to mind, generously aided by the stiffening of her body which she presses against him in the hope of borrowing his heat – a heat that swells and grows as his hands start sweeping off the filth.

“Fuck me sideways, it’s cold!”

He quirks a brow at the exclamation, catching the glimpse of realization on her features. “Don’t worry, wild flower. I’ll make sure you don’t freeze for long.”

Continuing the ministration, Geralt makes sure no inch of skin is left unclean, fingers adeptly rubbing and stroking until the gasps due to the cold turn to soft moans of pleasure, stolen out of the evening air by his mouth. Still, afraid the low temperatures might get to her he begins to walk back to the shore, only stumbling once when she repositions in his arms and manages to sheath the head of his cock into her burning heat.

Falling to his knees, how can he not worship the woman on his lap? Slick with water droplets like precious stones scattered across her skin, she fits effortlessly around him, pliable beneath his hands as she allows him to control the pace by lifting and lowering her with a strong grip on her ass. [Y/N]’s breasts are within reach, nipples perked and begging for the attention of a tongue as she arches from the first spark of euphoria.

Don’t hold back. Never hold back.

“Lo-ove you, Gera-a-alt.”

Let me take care of you. “And I...I love you.”

[fenharel-archived]

oc a-z headcanons

tagged (like 500 years ago) by @arlathen sorry for doing this so late!! tagging: @rkyloren​ @bleden-mark @thalasians @lelibela @lelianasgf @noonvraith (this is really long dont feel pressured to do anything lmao! ♥)

Alignment: What would be their D&D alignment? How might it come into play?

True Neutral!! She’s neither a good person or a bad person, she doesn’t seek to follow the rules nor does she seek to break them. I guess it comes into play whenever she’s willing to discuss any possible solution to a problem, even things good alignet characters would disregard. But she never purposefully would pick the worst solution either. She’s just generally a very grey character.

Beverage: What do they most like to drink, and why?

Champagne (let’s pretend that exists in Tir Ná Lia) & Wine! But she adds water to it, she always wants to have a clear head.

Co-Habitat: Do they live with anyone? What’s “need to know” before moving in?

She lives together with Avallac’h! “Need to know” before moving into her home is that some of her pets are poisions or just downright dangerous, so don’t pet any unless she gave you her ok. Other than that there is not much you need to know! If she loves you she wants to share anything with you, so absolutly just make yourself comfortable. But respect that she likes things her way, so, there’s also that.

Decor: What kind of home do they keep? Are there any defining details?

She has a Mansion in Tir Ná Lia that’s definetly too big for her and Avallac’h lmao (It used to be hers alone for a long, long time). It’s surrounded by a giant garden with several pools, fountains, pavilions and bridges and her Tigers, Crocodiles and Peacocks live there (among other things). You walk several hundrets of stairs up to her main entrance. The Mansion is made out of white marble, on engraved on the floor you can follow an elder blood family tree that goes through all rooms of the estate. It also has high ceilings, spiral stairs (The style is all very elven, obviously), high windows and several balconies. Ivory and other plants grow inside of the mansion, like on the handrails. A lot of the walls have also been painted by Avallac’h. The entire basement are laboratories.

Escape: What do they do to de-stress? How successful is it?

Deithwen rarely feels the need to de-stress, because she’s rather the type to get energized by any kind of work. If someone close to her sits her down and tells her to relax for a bit then she likes to read (science books lmao), hang with her 45435 exotic animals, go places with her bf, and have sex.

Fluff: What hits their soft spot? Does anything turn them into emotional goo?

She secretly thinks she’s a bad person. Anyone who tells her that they think otherwise hits her soft spot perfectly. (ESPECIALLY if Deithwen values them very highly) :’/

Grudge: How bad does an insult go over? Do they hold a grudge long?

BADLY. Especially if the situation is emotionally charged she has a tendency to sting you. She can also hold a grudge forever without you ever knowing about it until it’s too late and you only realize because she stabs you in the back. :/ HOWEVER if whatever happened wasn’t bad enough for her to lose her trust on you, or she was never close to you in the first place, she doesn’t care about any grudges really. Girl has things to do.

Hobby: What’s something they do for fun that might be surprising?

Besides of cuddling her pet tiger and fucking yes witcher elves are weird and apparently not very horny and the stuff I already mentioned.... She does like to write, a journal or sometimes even fiction or poetry that she doesn’t share with anyone. She also indulges in philosophy and is downright fascinated by elven/human/etc. behaviour.

Insomnia: What’s their sleeping schedule like? Snorer? Sound sleeper?

She doesn’t sleep much and sometimes she talks! If she has trouble sleeping, she likes to have soft harp music in the background.

Jaded: Do they buy into the “happily ever after” ideal? What’s their standard?

Honestly? She doesn’t care.

Kin: What’s their role among their relations? Do they consider others family?

Yes!!! Family is low-key really important to her!! She’s an older sister, the firstborn in the family, a wife, an aunt, a sister in law, a mother!!

Law: What do they think about abiding rules? Are they selective about it?

Only if necessary, if she can bend them she’ll do it, if she can find loopholes, the better.

Magic: In a magic series or not, are they accepting, or is each instance a shock?

She’s a Sage :D

Network: Are they connected to the people? How much do they reach out to others?

She’s an extrovert and a leader type!! She has absolutly no problem reaching out to people and always had a natural charm to her and can be very inspiring!! She did had to learn over a long period of time how to hold her influence over people though, she used to disregard the fact that people are just people with needs for very long.

Offspring: What kind of parent would they be? Would they prefer one, or multiple?

Post TW3 she actually gets a daughter called Elaine!! :‘) She a very demanding mum with high standards and always has to remember that she needs to have more emotional tact with her kid than she has with other people. But she ultimatly takes her role as a mum very seriously and loves Elaine more than anything. If getting pregnat wouldn’t be so hard as an elf, she would have more than one child.

Pistol: Is this character skilled with a weapon? What’s their opinion of violence?

She has gathered some basic skills with the sword and with daggers over the years, but that has never really been her vibe. She is ultimatly most dangerous using magic. And she doesn’t believe in unecessary violence but she doesn’t shrink from it with the situation demands it (she prefers to be a type of commander though).

Question: How often do they feel doubt? What topics are they defensive about?

Not often she’s so self confident and head strong. She can be very defensive and absolutly pissed if her authority is questioned or challenged.

Reminder: How are they at remembering daily needs? What falls through the cracks?

If it comes to work she doesn’t forget shit. She’s more forgetful with anything that’s not about work, but then again she likes to plan everything and make notes and all that, so things fall rarely through the cracks.

Sing: Do they like music? Do they listen often/sing/hum/play songs in their head?

She does like music! Especially played by her bf or her sister. She used to have music lessons when she was a kid but she doesn’t really play anything anymore. Her singing voice sounds unused, but she is talented.

Touch: How do they handle contact? Is their personal bubble big?

She has a huge list of acquaintances and connections in relation to her work. She wouldn’t call any of them her friends, but she does know a lot of people and hangs with a lot of them from time to time, especially at banquetts and balls and things like that. She has a handful of real friends.

Upcoming: How much do they think of the future? Do they make long-term plans?

She thinks ahead all the time and prefers to make long term plans!! Can be about work or her personal life. She's able to change directions if an unexpected problem accurs but she always has a goal in mind.

Vice: What bad habits do they have? Is there something they would be ashamed of?

She had to learn patience for almost half her current lifetime, she made a lot of stupid mistakes because she was too rash, disregarding people who need to think longer than her.

Wardrobe: What’s their fashion style? Do they have any staple pieces?

THIS

X-Ray: How’s their health? Any problem areas? Do they take care of themselves?

She takes very good care of herself (and her loved ones!!!!). She also always smells nice and looks top notch.

Yack: What’s their favorite thing to talk about? What do they go on about?

Science............

Zodiac: What’s their astro sign? Does it fit? What would you pick, if it’s unknown? 

I picked Capricorn for her because I thought that would fit the best to her character so, yes it does fit. :D Hard working QUEEN who’s secretly sometimes baby.

[triforceguide-archive]

★!

syanna from the witcher 3 blood and wine!

mutuals send me a ⭐ and i’ll kin assign you a character from any of my interests!

[goldenornstein]

Profile:

Basics.

Name: No birth name. Ornstein was a name bestowed upon him by the Prince of Sunlight, after becoming his disciple.

Nickname Titles and Epithets: The Dragon Slayer. Champion of Sunlight, Strength of the Gods and Wielder of Divine Glory. Golden Lion, Lion Knight, Lord of Knights, Holy Knight, Knight of Knights, Holy Spear, Sun Spear, Blessed One, War’s Chosen One.

RP Status: Variable to slow activity. 

Fandom: Dark Souls.

Age: He has the appearance of a man in his late 20s, yet he’s thousands of years old.

Species: He’d be considered a ‘demigod’ of sorts. Perhaps the equivalent of an Angel; warrior and servant of the Gods. In reality he’s an individual from a regular humanoid race empowered by the First Flame’s stolen power.

Nationality: Born in some small village/settlement during the Age of the Ancients. However, his mother left with him soon after and thus he never really spent much time there. As an adult he would, of course, identify as a proud citizen of Anor Londo. Later, after abandoning his post, he would claim no affiliation or interest in any nation. 

Gender: demigender-masculine. He/him pronouns.

Romantic Orientation: Demiromantic; he doesn’t experience romantic attraction, at all, unless there’s a deep emotional connection beforehand.

Sexual Orientation: Demisexual; he seldom experiences sexual attraction unless there’s romantic attraction beforehand. Pansexual, with a strong preference for men and non-binary folk, then very little interest in cisgender women (mostly aesthetic and sensual).

Religion: He would say his faith and trust are with Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight — although, there was a time when his devotion belonged solely to Gwyn’s Firstborn; Prince of Sunlight and God of War. 

Relationships.

Birth Order: Only child, as far as he knows.

Parents: Father unknown — and unimportant to him. His mother was a nomadic scavenger, who abandoned her young son as soon as she thought he could survive on his own.

Spouse(s)/Significant Other(s): Single. As a knight of Gwyn he swore an oath to remain unwed and father no children.

Children: None. 

Closest People/Friends/Allies: Gwyn’s Firstborn and his select Dragonslayers (formerly). The other three Knights of Gwyn, Gough in particular as a fellow dragonslayer. The Silver Knights. The Gods and Anor Londo’s inhabitants in general. Those who prove to be faithful.

Physical Traits.

Eyes: large and almond shaped, very light amber/hazel with notable flecks of dimly luminous gold.  

Skin: Light to medium, warm undertone, scarred in several places.

Hair: Rich red, slightly wavy, waist-length; worn loose during times of peace, then neatly braided and tucked under his helmet when fighting in the battlefield. (The red plume is reminiscent of his hair, yes… but it’s just a plume.)

Height: 2.7 m / 9 ft.  

Body Build:  Tall and wiry muscular, thanks to a life of unfaltering ardours training. Long and strong limbs, broad shoulders, narrow waist, thick muscular thighs and arms, overall hourglass shaped. However, his body always tends to be lean rather than burly, as a consequence of the severe undernourishment he suffered during his childhood.

Notable Physical Traits: Height, hair, eyes.

Facial features: Harmonious and inherently soft-looking, despite his usual harsh demeanour. Full lips, large eyes, button nose, high cheekbones and smooth complexion.

Scars/birthmarks: Several faded scars across his whole body as a result of wounds received in battle. His chest, legs and right arm show the vestiges of an old, yet particularly gruesome dragon-fire burn, which almost took his life at the time and couldn’t be fully removed by magic healing. Sparse dusting of light freckles across his nose and cheek bones, shoulders, chest and all the way down his back. Lower back dimples.

Personal. 

Usual Mood/Expression: Stoic and disciplined, albeit also cold and disdainful at times. Perfectionist and determinate to a fault. Loyal, protective and driven by strong beliefs. Arrogant and self-assured when it comes to his skill and role as a Knight, even if he never boasts about it, regarding flaunting and vain attitudes as utterly undignified. Strict with others, but especially with himself, often to an unhealthy extent. Narrow-minded and stubborn about his ideals and belief. 

MBTI: INTJ.

Enneagram: The Achiever.

Four Temperaments: Phlegmatic.

Top TV Tropes:  Blood Knight, Cultured Badass, The Dragonslayer, Semi-divine, Shock and awe, Jerk with a heart of gold.

Prominent Traits:  Stoic, strict, loyal, arrogant, ruthless, intelligent.

Sins:  lust / greed / gluttony / sloth / pride / envy / wrath,

Virtues:  chastity / charity / diligence / humility / kindness / patience / justice.

Secrets: He suffers from mild PTSD which intensifies over time (becoming severe due to lack of treatment) originated during the war against dragons after a particularly gruesome near-death experience. He won’t talk much about his childhood and origins, such that some even assume he’s a highborn — which is absolutely not the case. He tends to keep any sadness, anguish, fear and exhaustion to himself, continuing as if nothing happened despite physical or emotional pain. He has a beautiful singing voice that only a few have ever heard.

Quirks: Getting up at the crack of dawn, every single day, to train and meditate during the morning. Thoughtfully cleaning his armour and weapons, even if they’re not dirty at all, just because he finds it somehow relaxing. Noxious tendency to overwork himself. 

Savvies: Advanced strategy and war tactics. All there’s to know about dragons. History, politics, linguistics, economics, mathematics, fine arts, religion — a true warrior must strengthen his body and mind equally, he would always say. 

Prominent skills: Martial arts, being one of his kin’s greatest warriors and the only true disciple of the God of War. Particularly skilled with his spear; the weapon of choice to kill dragons due to its piercing attack. He always carries a dagger as a secondary weapon and has a secret sentimental attachment to that kind of blade, which his mother taught him how to use. He can also wield most weapons with superior proficiency, as well as fighting in unarmed combat. Dragonslaying, which was regarded as the pinnacle of knighthood by the gods. Masterful use of lighting. Enough healing skill to keep himself alive in battle by using miracles.

Misc.

Hobbies: Ornstein enjoys sculpting, immensely, so much so that he has a large, private — secret — studio where he spends a good amount of his free time. Aside from his working table and sculptures, there’s also an area dedicated to other pursues, including a massive desk and a few bookshelves, storing a vast assortment of books, as well as transcriptions and translations made by himself. Then, there’s also his original poetry and calligraphy works, that will often combine in a mixture of literary and visual art. Mathematics is another passion of his, often applied to the design of sculptures and other projects, albeit also as purely theoretical developments. Outside the studio, Ornstein ordered the construction of a garden (still inside the castle) where he spends another portion of his free time. He’ll usually tend to it himself, with only sporadic help from servants. Other hobbies include swimming, especially during the night, and singing, although he won’t do any of it in public.

Element: Lighting.

Colours: Gold and scarlet. 

Day or Night: Day.

Smell: Burning amber incense; warm with a slight hint of sweetness, mixed with the ever-lingering scent of dragon blood.

Season: Stormy Summer.

Astrological Sign: N/A (But he’d be a Leo.)

Food: Wild boar with hot-spicy seasoning. .

Drink: Fine wine, fresh water.

Song: Playlist.

Bottom or top: dominant top, leaning switch.

Dominant or submissive: Dominant.

Rough or slow sex: rough.

[ladysunbite]

@fallesto

"That's a philosophical question," that was a game the sun-eyed enjoyed, a flirting with the discovery, toying with all the foolish lies her kin were surrounded by. Say not too little and not too much. However she liked the daring little duchess of Toussaint or the charming ataman, she was not going to give anyone the keys to her cage. "How can I say whether I am endless or not, when I have not faced the end?" involuntary shudder passed through her bones. She tasted what death this step-world could give her and that was...devastating. Reeking of insanity and impotent rage. Olgierd would not need to know about it, it was not the flow of conversation that brought her any joy, that dancing dangerously close to the edge. And just like him she hid her reluctance behind a smile and a honeyed words. "Surely. If I were a foolish monster and had no taste. Do not mock me so, Olgierd. Your mind is as enticing as your form, and that's a rare luck to posses both...or savour both." the hunger in her gaze was not faked, it was the craving for beautiful things - statues, fabrics, wine that burst into the tastes of sun and stars upon the tongue. And what if her new curio had bones and blood and no heart? Wasn't there a tale of a sculptor who fell in love with his creation? Why would it not happen the other way? If the cure wasn't what the cursed desired, even loathed to speak of in playful banter, she would find another way to tie him, something more reliable than his vow to kill the witcher. While the sun-eyed vampiress had little doubt he would break his word - there was a certain honour and a certain pride in him - an accident could play her hand false. What if they met the white wolf before they reach the Duchy? What would happen after Olgierd von Everec accomplished another glorious, dashing deed? Boredom was a poison that spoiled her own wine, and humans turned out to be even more flippant. Such an irony. The charming ataman was curious, and not simply of a shapely body. Just as her children were curious why she enjoyed pomegranates and meat, would she be hypnotized if they spilled oats for her to count? As a practiced hostess, it wasn't hard to shift the conversation.

"Tell me, is it true that humans have no wings? Do they not appear..." Orianna made a vague gesture, looking for a term that was clear enough and not crude - somehow human vocabulary tended to describe mating in the same manner they treated profane subjects - "...at a successful point in love-making? You have fangs, after all, unlike elves. And yet ours seem to mortify you."

“You are good Orianna, very good.” To direct the flow of the conversation and quickly as well to something that might touch a little bit upon the heart, for surely there had to be a heart there, somewhere within them right now, he was not sure, but he knew his monsters and monsters within this world, are turned, vampires and even higher vampires, at one point they had to be human .. one time a long time ago.

“I got what I wanted.” A higher vampire, in his beed, wine and ale be damned, a conquest was a conquest.

As he was bold, daring all for the simple reason, that he was without a doubt the only man within the land that could speak to Orianna however he wished and pleased and what was she going to do to him, kill him. She can do whatever she wished with her fangs and claws, he would heal, he would repair, he would come back and he would be better than he was before and nothing would have been accomplished. 

“Are we talking centuries or endless?” As he wished to know, how could he not.

He toyed with the unknown, Orianna was the unknown.

Even with her hand on his chest, he felt nothing at all, noy a flutter, not a stir, not a burst of warmth, even bedding a vampire of all things, the thrill had come and gone and now it was cold, dull and lonely once more, his curse, everything will fade and he will be like nothing other than stone, nothing will be able to crack him and nothing will be able to harm him.

“If you were a monster, you would have killed me by now.” Even if he would come back, she would have done something, anything to ensure the process of healing was delayed and yet, here she was, Orianna, a lady and a powerful creature that all would run from, holding onto him and playing nice.

“Not that I am going to do something like that, I am fast, powerful and my sword is laced with magic, but I doubt I would even be able to touch you in your true form …”

Whatever a higher vampire looked like, he was in no rush to find out, he liked Orianna, like this, for now this was real enough for him and that, that was more than enough to satisfy him for now.

[huntrcssmoon-blog]

Eris On The Topic of Love

In her youth, love was more so spent as a timepass, simply a form of entertainment brought on by her incredible blood indulgence. Even when she aged furthermore she did not become well acquainted with love, as even at a rather young age for her kin she became Anathema.

As Regis states in Blood & Wine: “ Either one is with us - unconditionally, regardless of the circumstances - or... “ “ Out of sight out of mind. “

Thusly, Eris had to follow the codex of being Anathema, perusing solitude, rather than being in the company of other vampires or other species in general. Living by this mannerism eventually caused Eris to lose any focus on love, eventually coming to believe it would be impossible for her - given her title as a traitor among her own kin. Which leads to the reasoning as to why, if she were to find a partner or mate, it would be felt unconditionally deep.

It is very difficult for her to express these sort of emotions, which is why when they are presented, it means she holds your relationship with her at very high value - knowing her confession would not tarnish anything if she were to face rejection. She knows deeper feelings when they are felt quite naturally and delicately. When Eris grows intimate with another, it seems her love is unmatched for she will show great, and perhaps -intense- emotions for her partner.

When it comes to humans, Eris holds no feelings of love or passion toward them. She had treated them as cattle in her past, even to her current day she has no complete respect for them, as there will continue to be a lack of understanding from her. Witchers, other mutants, and Elves are a different story. Becoming close to one of their like takes time for Eris, but it is not impossible.

[gertlushgaming]

Announcing Crimson Curse — GWENT’s first expansion

Announcing Crimson Curse — GWENT’s first expansion

CD PROJEKT RED, creators of the The Witcher series of games, announce Crimson Curse — the first expansion for GWENT: The Witcher Card Game.   Watch the Crimson Curse expansion teaser Dettlaff van der Eretein, the mighty higher vampire gamers first met in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Blood and Wine, is summoning his kin. As the Moon over the Witcher world turns red, new breeds of monsters…

[triforceguide-archive]

⭐️ PLEEEEASE

vivienne from the witcher 3 blood and wine!

mutuals send me a ⭐ and i’ll kin assign you a character from any of my interests!

[ladysunbite]

"Do not expect me to share all my secrets," the voice was back, the rich wine and ancient rituals flowing across the syllables. If it was at odds with that world of metal and blinding lights, then it was in-line with the desire for timeless wonders. Didn't the crowd that put on the costumes and let the past - past that was passing further away and getting out of reach more and move with every blink at the black and white screen - wanted to be seduced into believing that the world still hid a miracle? Emiel would have adored it all. Orianna was in the midst of miracles, as she slid a tentative glance at the street outside - with the machinery that looked like enormous, hollow caterpillars and moved according to its own rhyme and volition, with a crushing sound and an ever-moving crowd inside. The shrill bell rang, the voices hummed, the metal scrapped against metal. That new world was very loud, the glittering surfaces aggregating every sound, and not in the harmonious way it was conducted in the darkened hall. The sky that peered inside the enormous open doors was of a sickly bright colour, the stars dim and lost against it. Loud and blinding. And devoid of her kin, despite the masquerade going on in the streets. At least her powers of persuasion and mind-reading worked well there. The thoughts of the sweets-peddler were confusing, but easy to crack open, like a willing oyster. The cultured vampiress wondered what her blood tasted like, was it suitable for her lower, ever hungry kin... "...not at the beginning of the evening, at least." the long-fingered, pale hand slipped through Cirilla's arm and rested there, like a moth. Orianna, a liar to all but herself, noted in wonder that their closeness brought her comfort. Must be the scent. After all the witcher, the princess carried the scent of Toussaint upon her and to sun-eyed's throat it was like a gulp of invigorating mulled wine. "A stake hardly works. Unless you have run out of lowly insults and plan to aggravate my brethren on a crude, physical level. Even that play - the film, as you call it - did not rely on it alone."

"But if you aim for a heart and capture it, well..." the cultured vampiress held her head high, and caressed the hall one last time with a hungry glance of a hedonist. Or a person eager to preserve good memories. "...that was the ultimate weapon against the vampire of the film." "You have wetted my appetite with what I love. Masterfully, my dear. Now show me what you like about this world." the gentle press of the fingers, like the wings of the moth, passed to Ciri that Orianna had braced herself to enjoy that night of strange miracles.

@fallesto

In the heart of a bustling city, she had brought her to, she had decided to embark on a nostalgic adventure, seeking the thrill of a classic horror film. After everything that had happened, she felt like, a thank you was in order, to open her eyes a little bit, to show her, these worlds.

“It is a once in a life time moment.” She said, how many people got to say, they have been to another world.

They made their way to a charming, vintage cinema that stood as a relic of the past, its weathered marquee flickering with the promise of spine-chilling entertainment. The air was thick with anticipation as they approached the entrance, the scent of buttery popcorn wafting through the open doors, inviting them into a world where shadows danced and eerie sounds echoed.

As they settled into the plush, albeit slightly worn, velvet seats of the dimly lit theater, the atmosphere buzzed with excitement. The flickering light from the projector cast ghostly images on the screen, transporting them back to an era when horror films were crafted with a sense of artistry and suspense. They exchanged knowing glances, their hearts racing in unison as the opening credits rolled, each name a reminder of the cinematic legends who had mastered the art of fear.

With every creak of the floorboards and rustle of popcorn, the tension in the room grew palpable. The film unfolded with a haunting score and chilling visuals, drawing them deeper into its gripping narrative. They found themselves laughing nervously at the jump scares and gasping at the unexpected twists, reveling in the shared experience of fear and excitement. In that moment, surrounded by the flickering light and the collective gasps of the audience, they were not just watching a movie; they were part of a timeless tradition that celebrated the thrill of horror in all its glory.

Once it was over with, she remained outside, arms folded and a smile on her face. “They are going to love it.” The sweets, the gifts, everything that had been brought, they would be some lucky children she thought, no one was going to have sweets like that. “Some of these places are like this, which is why I felt this one would be better for you.” Traditional, and old, a classic if you will and not a cinema, that was modern, large and run like a business, these places, are better to enjoy the stories being told.

As the witcher would finish the drink of soda and turn to her. “I can show you more of this place.” If she wished, or if she wished to go back, she would understand and take her back home, the sooner the better, but if she wished to see so much more, she could remain here and she would guide her forward

“I am out of stakes and garlic.” As she would shrug, the amusing ways to kill a vampire. “Yes, I heard stories about that, you need to tell me more about it.” This creature she had, stories and whispers, nothing more and nothing less, but that was for another time, as she takes her hand.

“Come with me, you will like this.” As she pulled her along, away from the old cinema, and into the streets, there was a party, everyone was dressed up, as monsters, here, on one day of the year, it was a time to celebrate them, enjoy them, have fun, and here, benign scared, was a form of entertainment.