#endrega23

[tykartreblogs]

It's been a while since I last said how much I appreciate all the work you do, so it's high time: thank you, every art you bring to my dash brightens my day. Here's a little Wen Kexing to give you my love

Omg thank you?! 😭 this is the first time anyone has sent me art for doing these blogs. 😭😭😭 and it's so adorable aaaaah 😭😭😭😭😭

[copperbadge]

Hi! If one were to be interested in reading the shivadhverse books, is there a strong chronology between them, or can they be read in whatever order?

Oh, good question, I should put a reading-order guide up on the site. They are listed in chronological order on the sales page, but that's a lot of reading to figure it out.

So -- in theory you can pick up any of the first four and read them first and pretty much be okay, but definitely there are spoilers in the later books for stuff in the earlier, and you might not have an easy time tracking all the characters. They do have a distinct chronology, and particularly after the first three books it gets more difficult to read out of order.

The chronological order is:

Fete For A King -- winter through spring 2021

Infinite Jes -- spring and summer 2021

The Lady And The Tiger -- spring 2022

Those three are also collected into a single volume, "The Shivadh Romances Volume 1" in reading order, if you want to pick up all three and not worry about which comes first. After that:

The Twelve Points of Caleb Canto -- prologue takes place in autumn 2021, but the action takes place in spring 2022

Dinner at The Palace (short stories taking place from before the books up to the end of Twelve Points)

The Royals And The Ramblers (not yet published) -- summer 2022 through spring 2023

The good news is, the earliest books are also the shortest, thus the cheapest, so if you're buying the books you're not investing in a massive tome. And if you find you don't like Fete -- well, I'd give Infinite Jes a shot, but if you don't like Fete or Infinite Jes, the rest are in the same vein, so you haven't read like 500 pages of fiction only to decide you don't want to read the rest :D

[littlesmartart]

I've scrolled for wayyy too long on your blog this morning (oops) but how am I supposed to stop when it's all so perfect!!! If I could I'd just live here forever

[cherryjuicegf]

for @endrega23 thanks for the prompt my dear!! i missed the days of the yennskier cell mates theories and angst so guess what :) hope you enjoy ♡

wc 521, implied mcd

in your arms - miklós radnóti

May I live to see the day when you will be helpless, Yennefer of Vengerberg.

No human has ever lived so long, bardling.

A smile, dismissed. A joke. Forgotten.

She wants it to be a joke so desperately now.

She wants Jaskier to stand on his feet and chuckle and admit it was a test, a ruse, nothing important, and she would be so relieved she would forget to be angry.

But Jaskier doesn't stand up.

Jaskier is hiding in her arms, limp and shaking with the last of the life remaining in his eyes and it's unfair, it's heartwrenching, it's tearing her apart. She needs the life. There is nothing else in this darkness to keep it sound, not even her own heartbeat.

Helpless. Her hands are of no use now. Only for her to hold him tight on her chest as he tries to slip through her fingers, only to hope her hushed words and empty fingers are a substitute for the salvation she cannot give. And gods, his body is so weak.

He is smiling up at her, crying. "At least they can't hurt me now, right?" A joke, again, always, and she, sitting there, watching as he grasps on dear consciousness with broken fingers. His eyes are glazed over, gaze distant. "At least they can't hurt me anymore."

Her heart is wailing in her ears, the sound of rusty iron. "Don't say such things," she says and dreads the sob trapped in her thoat, lest it chokes her voice and he dies in silence. She reaches for his hand, careful, pulls him tighter in her arms. "You'll be alright."

Shaking, whimpering. Burning.

She has never seen anyone so happy before death.

"Of course I will be," he manages, and his lips bleed with every whisper. "I'm holding your hand."

There, in her arms, like a child, and all she can offer is a touch, And, sweet Melitele, look at the fool being grateful for what's barely enough.

The tears are cleaning through the blood on his face.

She could leave him be. Stand up and scream out in the hall for a healer, scream that he is dying. She could cry and sob and let him be, refuse to look at him, refuse to make it real. She can't.

In a way, it's like a debt paid, for all the times he had held her instead. For all the times she had looked up and found his eyes clear and certain, a comfort. She can't let him go now. She can only hold him tight, and safe.

The sob rips her chest apart and echoes like a thunder in the silence. "I'm sorry," and perhaps she has never apologized to anyone before, but there is nothing left to say. "I'm sorry, Jaskier."

His lids are heavier now, smile quivering. A breath. Weakly, he squeezes her hand. "Please, Yennefer. I don't want to go in silence."

His eyes are closing and she cannot talk, for her throat is shredded, and she cannot sing, for she knows no lament good enough.

Thus loudly like a million screams, she cries.

[henshengs]

Hi! Feel free to ignore this / answer in private if you want - I came across your hunger games au and it sounds so so so good, but I started reading it and it makes me anxious to not know who's going to die. I don't think I'd mind any one of them dying, it's just the not knowing that's messing with my brain. Could you spoil that part for me? Just a list of the people who are going to die. But either way, <3

@endrega23 sure, no problem! Answering publicly in case anyone else feels the same way. Spoilers under the cut for both my posted hunger games AU fic and for the sequel I might still finish one day when my life has more room for it.

the deaths are mostly the same as canon, with a few fake outs and switch ups. A-Qing, Xue Yang, Wang Lingjiao, Jin Zixun, Nie Zonghui, and Luo Qingyang die. Jiang Yanli dies but is brought back as a Fierce Corpse, and in the sequel WWX would eventually recover her consciousness. Meng Yao appears to die at the end but the sequel would reveal he actually survived. Lotus Pier is destroyed at the end, Jiang Fengmian, Yu Ziyuan and most of the Jiang sect die, but not Jiang Cheng. Xiao Xingchen is in a coma.

Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue all survive.

[27dragons]

I was suddenly thinking of and missing tisfan today... I hope you and mr tisfan are doing better now

In case you like them, I'm sending hugs

❤️ Thank you. I miss her, too, pretty much all the time. Her birthday would have been the beginning of this month, and that was a little rough. But we're getting better. It's not the constant and oppressive grief that it was at first.

Hugs are greatly appreciated. Thank you for thinking of me.

[dapandapod]

40 with dad vesemir and one of the wolves? 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

40. post-nightmare hug

Sure thing my dear! I might have gotten a bit emotional about it, I must confess, and I do love Papa V and Lambert. My brain is vaguely offline, but here, have a hug-ish! Please enjoy! <3

Warning: Baby witchers at Kaer Morhen, meaning they are having a shitty time. Hight toxcixity, potion overdose mention, nightmares, Lamberts immature insults. He is working on it.

Enjoy <3

Send me a hug prompt? On Ao3 Hug collection here

Toxicity can be rough for an adult to handle.

For a child, it’s even worse.

Vesemir has seen it so many times, and it hits each child differently. Some get violent, some get tired, some become catatonic.

His child of surprise, Lambert, was always angry. He lived through the Trial of the Grasses, he lived through the harsh training and he lived through the cold winters of the keep.

All this time, Lambert voiced his anger and defiance, roaring his rage to anyone who stood in his way.

Vesemir, being the one who put Lambert on the path, has always received the brunt of it.

But tonight, Lambert overdoses on his potions for the first time. His young body strains and fights against the toxins, his veins and eyes black as the night sky, his skin sickly pale and tacky with sweat.

As with everything else, Lambert recovers, but for the first time Vesemir finds him silent.

There are very few boys his age this year; the other wolf cubs are a few years older than him, finding comfort in each other's presence.

Lambert never allowed them to comfort him. He doesn’t trust them, doesn’t trust the adults, doesn’t trust the world to keep him safe. Rightly so, Vesemir thinks, believing distrust will hopefully keep him alive while on the path.

But tonight, that is worrying. Lambert’s silence is uncharacteristic and Vesemir has learned to watch out for it.

From the shadows, he follows Lambert, watching him sneak away to the barn and curl up in the hay.

Restless sleep and twitching limbs, his child tosses and turns as nightmares take him. In time, he will learn to repress the dreams, but for now they torment him.

Lambert startles awake with a muffled shout before he gets his bearings.

Crying children is nothing new behind the stone walls of Kaer Morhen, but Vesemir feels the responsibility weigh heavily on his shoulders.

He parts from the shadows, approaching Lambert and makes deliberate noise as he does. The child rushes to his feet, a knife in his hand in the blink of an eye, and Vesemir’s heart swells with pride.

“What do you want, asshole?” Lambert says, wiping his tears angrily with the heel of his hand.

“I have been thinking about something for a while,” Vesemir says calmly, walking up to Lambert and promptly plopping down on the hay.

“What,” Lambert asks, eyeing him suspiciously. The dark circles under his eyes are not only the remnants of the toxins.

“Sit down and I will tell you. And put away that knife before you poke someone’s eye out.”

Lambert grumbles but sits down without complaint. Again, not like him.

“What,” he repeats.

Vesemir eyes him right back, and then nods to himself.

“I have been wondering who would wear my hat better. You or me. But I still think I would do it better. So I’m keeping it.”

“You are so dumb.”

“The opposite. This hat has some splendid qualities and I’m not sharing.”

“Good.”

“Really? Not even if I let you try it out?”

“I don’t want to try your stupid hat.”

“Hm. What I heard is that you want to try my beautiful hat. Ok.”

Vesemir shoves his hat on Lambert’s head despite his protests, and then scoops him up in his lap and holds him tight.

“Hey--! You--! Asshole, let me the fuck go, you stinky… bearded- nasty!” Lambert fights him, but he is exhausted, and finally gives up, just accepting Vesemir's grip stiffly.

“Fine. Fucking fine. You got me, I’m wearing your fucking hat, what do you want?!”

“Yeesh, those words in your mouth,” Vesemir snarks, and wraps his arms more securely around Lambert.

It’s not a hug. Witchers don’t hug.

It is merely...a comforting wrestle.

They sit in silence for a few minutes until Lambert sniffles.

“Let me go,” he croaks.

“No.”

“Let me go!”

“You know, when I was your age, I hid in the stables.”

Lambert falls silent.

“Nightmares suck. But I don’t dream anymore.”

“No?”

“No. They can’t touch me. I’m too strong.”

“That sounds fake,” Lambert says, his voice wobbly and muffled under Vesemir's arms.

“You doubt my strength?” Vesemir asks, smirking and tightening his grip.

“Ugh, no, yuck, no, stop it, fine! I believe you!”

“Good. And now I am going to be super strong all over again and fight your nightmares too.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I absolutely can.”

“How.”

“Just close your eyes and let me do the rest.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to. But you can keep the hat for tonight. It keeps the bad memories away.”

“Really?”

“If you believe it, it will,” Vesemir says, slowly letting go of Lambert's small body, watchful of a vengeful elbow. But it doesn’t come, and Lambert doesn’t move away from his lap. He leans back against Vesemir’s chest, fiddling with the brim of the hat between his grimy fingers.

“Don’t tell the others.”

“I won’t if you won’t.”

Lambert does fall asleep. As soon as the nightmares start to creep in, Vesemir soothes him, petting his arms until he settles again. At some point, he falls asleep too, but pretends not to notice when Lambert stands up, waking him out of his sleep. Lambert places the hat on his head, and sneaks away.

Vesemir remembers his first night with too many potions in his system. Toxicity can be rough for an adult to handle.

For a child, it’s even worse.

[lambden]

mel darling!! can i humbly request some fluff or hurt/comfort with letho and ciri for my favouritest @endrega23? (or just generally sweet letho, my beloved hunk of a man.) thank you so much, i smooch you 🥰

— @witchersgoldenbard 💛

absolutely you can; this was my pleasure to write! since these two don't really meet in canon (and because jjay has quite a few marvel fics on ao3), i went with a secret agent AU! i hope you both enjoy this so much <33

G, 1600 words, Generic secret agent/spy AU. Content warnings for prior animal neglect, references to animal death, and Witcher training.

When Letho first notices the anomaly, he trips over himself for the first time outside of combat in decades. Despite appearances, he isn’t a clumsy person; his size makes him no less graceful, only more of a threat. Geralt’s trainee snorts as Letho struggles to regain his footing, and her bright eyes flash open wide with curious amusement. “What?”

He hardly wants to admit that this entire time he’s been standing in Ciri’s doorway, he has failed to notice the orange threat lying in her pile of similarly coloured blankets. In his defence, the girl’s room looks far less drab than anyone else’s quarters in this base. But maybe this isn’t even a new addition to the room; there’s no telling how long Ciri has kept this thing around. Letho answers her question with one of his own: “What is that?”

Ciri looks unimpressed. “I know most Witchers keep themselves pretty removed from the real world, but surely you’ve heard of cats.” She reaches for the beast, gripping under its soft, skinny belly and pulling it up into her lap. Aside from a nasty scar just beside its ear, the cat looks harmless enough. Letho bristles and it doesn’t help Ciri’s expression. “What’s the problem? Got an allergy?”

“You shouldn’t have something like that here,” he snarls. Ciri freezes and pulls the cat closer nearly protectively, but the guilt seeping through Letho’s cold heart isn’t nearly enough to stop him. “This is no place for a fucking pet.”

The ensuing beat of silence almost convinces him that he’s won, that she’ll throw this mangy animal back into the pound she no doubt rescued it from. For the first time, Ciri looks like a real girl and not a superhuman danger to international security— and she looks frightened too. Letho doesn’t back down, and even though it looks like she might, Ciri doesn’t either. The cat starts purring gently, and Letho knows he’s fucked. Scowling, Ciri protests, “But Lambert feeds the ducks down by the lake!”

“Can’t think of a worse role model than Lambert.”

“And Eskel keeps a goat out in the courtyard!”

And Geralt kept you, Letho very much does not retort, frowning just as bitterly as Ciri. Instead, he tells her, “Goats provide milk. Eskel’s smart enough to know that in an emergency, the goat would be the first to go. Pets are a distraction— you’re not keeping it. End of story.”

“You’re not my superior,” Ciri snaps. “Technically, I outrank you. So my cat is none of your business. End of story!”

The cat mewls quietly as if in agreement, and Letho turns on his heel and storms away from the girl’s room. He heads straight to the firing range, meaning to work out his frustration with some target practice, but when he tries to fasten the headset over his ears he finds his hands shaking unexpectedly.

He doesn’t even remember his mentor’s face now, after so many decades spent as far away from Gorthur Gvaed as he could get. But Letho remembers the one moment of kindness the cruel instructor had shown him, bookended by terrible memories that plagued his nightmares for years afterwards. In-between testing their poison immunity and forcing them through training courses too difficult to escape unscathed, the Viper instructor led Letho’s class into a small room. 

The gasps of the boys who entered before him made him nervous, but when Letho finally rounded the corner there was no horrific sight awaiting him. Instead he was surprised to see a pen with at least a dozen small kittens roaming around. The recruits were told that cats naturally distrusted Witchers so as a challenge, the Vipers would need to gain the trust of the fickle animals— or some story like that, anyway. Letho hadn’t questioned the reasoning too closely, blinded by his excitement at the first gift he’d ever been given.

The cat— his cat— had been a bright point during the following years of darkness. Letho, persuasive and almost too intelligent for his own good, had no problem getting the pet to trust him. The problem was that he grew too attached, so when it came time for the final test he would face, Letho failed to spot his own weakness.

He passed the test. The last piece he needed slid into place easily. Letho walked into that room as a tactical machine and walked out a killer, with a conscience wiped clear without any trouble. Or at least, he hadn’t thought there had been any trouble— not until decades later, when he saw Geralt’s apprentice holding a small orange tabby and was suddenly reminded of a loss he had nearly accepted.

Nobody bothers him until later in the evening, when Letho has abandoned the idea of shooting away his feelings. The kitchens are usually empty at this time of night so he’s surprised when the door swings open; he’s even more surprised when he turns and sees… no one.

Letho frowns. For a beat the room is ominously empty; then approaching tiny footfalls alert him to the identity of his visitor. Staring up at him is Ciri’s cat, because of course it fucking is. Letho stares right back, glaring at the creature with what he refuses to acknowledge as bitter, bitter jealousy.

After a moment of consideration, the cat moves closer and bumps its head against his leg. Letho sharply inhales before finally bending at the waist to give the creature some attention. He’s careful not to scratch near the scar on its head; even though the wound appears healed, Letho doesn’t want to aggravate it at all. The animal keens into his touch instantly, its soft, raspy purr an unexpected balm for his senses. 

Letho, to his absolute horror, feels tears pricking up in the corners of his eyes. This only spurs the cat to be even cuddlier, of course, and Letho clears his throat. “You’re a cute one,” he admits. “Wonder if she gave you a name yet. Used to call mine Furball. … Maybe let’s keep that between us.”

The cat turns away to peek back in the direction it came, ears perking as it listens. Sure enough Letho hears the same sound a moment later, as someone races towards the kitchen and practically kicks the doors back open. It’s Ciri, looking a little windswept. Her cat meows loudly and joyously, quickly abandoning Letho to return to its owner’s side. The creature’s loyal. Letho will give it that, at least.

“Sorry, sorry, I think he saw a mouse,” Ciri quickly stammers, picking up the cat. She clearly hasn’t spent much, if any, time around animals before this one; she has no idea how to hold it properly. The animal doesn’t seem to mind, just twisting in her grip until he’s comfortable. “I didn’t mean to bother you! I’ll keep it away, I promise— Vesemir told me cats don’t really like Witchers, and I’m sure you’ve got some deep-seated trauma thingy about this because almost everyone here’s got stuff about everything, but, um… I’m sorry, I’ll keep him in my room!”

Letho thinks about if it would be wise to tell her about his deep-seated trauma thingy. Then at least she wouldn’t be left wondering why he was such an asshole to her earlier, and maybe she’d even get rid of the cat and he wouldn’t have to deal with this newfound flood of emotion ever again. But Ciri looks nervous, cradling the animal close to her chest again like she’s nearly scared that Letho will do something to harm it. He takes a heavy breath in, then out. “It’s a boy?”

“Yeah,” Ciri nods. “I found him when I was doing a recon mission with Coën— someone left him tied up in this awful dark basement. So I had to bring him back, obviously.”

Obviously. Letho silently muses on this, then finally he asks, “Given him a name yet?” Taken aback by the question, Ciri silently shakes her head. Letho smirks at the scrawny cat. “How about Gaetan?”

-

The following week, an unfriendly and impatient civilian places an emergency call to Morhen HQ, demanding that the agency deploys its best men to search for his missing feline. Unluckily for him, Letho is the first responder, and he’s less than sympathetic to the man’s claims.

“I have pictures,” the man tells Letho, brandishing said pictures in his face. Yes, Letho has in fact Seen This Animal; in fact last night he yelled at that very animal when it jumped up onto the dinner table to try to steal his salmon, and then eventually caved and ate his dinner on the floor beside the cat, and then chased a certain Wolf around the building for an hour threatening murder if Lambert didn’t delete that fucking picture right fucking now. He shakes his head, smiling to himself— this enrages the stranger, who misinterprets his amusement as derision. “Don’t you even give a fuck? My property got stolen!”

“Not really,” Letho tells him, just to watch him splutter. “Maybe you treated the cat like shit. Animals don’t just up and leave. And anyway, this is below my paygrade.”

“Your paygrade?!” The man stares, eyes bugging out of his head. “I thought you Witchers were supposed to be heroes!”

“You thought wrong,” says Letho, still smiling faintly as he steps towards the man. Coën and Ciri will be so happy to hear that Letho gained more information about their failed reconnaissance mission; and if in some small way he feels like he’s getting vengeance for Furball… well. Nobody needs to know his motives here.