1. what was your writing-highlight this year? what made it special and how will you reflect on it next year?
writing highlight of this year was probably herald at dawn. spefifically, winning (half, 25k) nano, which was amazing. but also herald at dawn in general, because its the most words i've ever written on a draft i'm proud of (the original frost & fire was 40k, but it also isn't something my current self is really proud of.) and its, in my opinion, the best plot in terms of fleshed out-ness and character arcs & development & shit
4. what is your favourite line you wrote this year?
defineity this.
“You can’t stick papers in their spines! It falls out. You know what mine can do? Have paper shoved in its spine and paper stays in its spine!"
out of context I think its fucking awesome, but in context i still love it so much. (this is during leo and james' argument about notebooks and which one is better, spiral bound or sewn bound (? is that what its called--), and this is (one of) leo's arguments for why sewn bound notebooks are better.)
9. create a meme or moodboard that captures your past writing-year!
(i then proceeded to get him stabbed)
(pretty much all of my writing year was in novemeber)
Congrats on the milestone, that's exciting! Can I ask for 9 for the prompt thing? And spicy is more than okay
Thank you! <3
Your prompt: Jaskier is about to leave for work. Geralt asks him if he’s forgotten anything, and Jaskier gives him a kiss. Geralt turns red and opens his hand to reveal Jaskier’s wallet.
~
Jaskier was in a mad rush, as always. He ricocheted around, muttering about how little sleep he’d had and how horribly late he was going to be. His things were scattered throughout the house - keys in one place, wallet in another, phone as good as lost. Any attempts at actually organising Jaskier’s chaotic life had failed, and Geralt had fully given up.
Geralt’s eyes fell to the coffee table in front of him, the dozens of ring-marks, the little pile of tat that Jaskier had pulled out of his pockets the previous evening when he’d returned from the shops.
“Jaskier—”
“I don’t have time for your moaning, Geralt! You can tell me off later.”
“But—”
“Don’t have time!”
Geralt snapped his mouth shut.
“Right,” Jaskier puffed, appearing in the doorway with his hair askew and his boots only loosely laced, “I’ll see you later, Geralt!”
“Aren't you forgetting something?” Said Geralt, coolly, setting himself back on the sofa.
Jaskier turned. “Oh, yes…”
And then he bent over him, tilting his head, and kissed him. Geralt froze.
“I meant,” Geralt said, forcing the words out against Jaskier’s lips, feeling heat creep up his neck, “that you left your wallet on the table.”
Jaskier stilled. He pulled back - but not away. “Oh.”
They stared at each other.
“How…” Geralt swallowed, then started again. “How late are you going to be?”
Jaskier glanced at the clock on the wall. He still didn’t move away. “An hour,” he mumbled. “Maybe two, if the trains are— ”
Geralt hooked a hand behind Jaskier’s head and pulled him forwards into another kiss. Jaskier gasped, the sound muffled, then virtually tumbled into Geralt’s lap, grabbing at his shoulders, hooking his arm around his neck, opening his mouth beneath Geralt’s eager lips.
After a moment, Geralt pulled away, breathless and tousled, pinned beneath Jaskier’s body.
Hello! For the drabble game, maybe Geraskier, after their first date, "Sorry. You’re just…really adorable.” :D
16. After the first date + 27. “Sorry. You’re just… really adorable.”
“Geralt. Geralt,” Jaskier says, gasping for air as fat tears roll down his cheeks, roaring laughter at the back of his throat. “They kicked us out.”
The Witcher’s staggering behind him, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter, sharp canines glinting in the moonlight as they move away from the tavern.
“I can’t believe we got kicked out,” Jaskier sucks in a breath, “because of Roach.”
Geralt shakes his head, his arms seeking Jaskier’s body as the bard leans against a crumbling wall, unable to walk straight as he snorts inelegantly and lets laughter rumble through his chest.
“I mean,” he says, breathless as Geralt leans his weight on his body, and his fingers find the Witcher’s hair. “We’ve been kicked out for my singing or my romantic nature, or you coming in smelling like guts and death, or, you know... the whole being a Witcher thing.”
Geralt huffs a laugh against his neck.
“But,” Jaskier continues, “never has an innkeeper found himself forced to remove us from his establishment because of a horse. A horse!”
“She didn’t even bite his mule,” Geralt agrees. “She was just tryin’ to make nice.”
“Hmm, I know,” Jaskier says, then presses a kiss to Geralt’s forehead. “Sorry our first real date turned out to be a disaster. And that we got kicked out and will probably sleep in the woods tonight.”
Geralt shrugs. “‘S fine.”
But then he pulls back and he’s pouting, the big, strong, scary Witcher with two swords at his back and monster blood on his hands, looking up at Jaskier with a small frown and his lips turned downwards. The bard tries to bite back a smile, grateful that his laughter has subsided.
“What?” Geralt asks, his frown deepening.
Jaskier can’t help the giggles that escape from his mouth. “Sorry, sorry, you’re just... really adorable. Looking all disgruntled.”
“I wanted it to be romantic,” Geralt says, looking down at his boots. “We were supposed to drink wine tonight, and have a fancy meal by the candlelight, and then— then you’d get all warm and happy and sleepy like you always do after dinner and we’d go upstairs and...”
“And what?”
“Cuddle,” Geralt finishes, his voice small, and Jaskier feels his heart dissolve into a heap of mush.
“Oh,” he says, tugging Geralt close again. “I love you. Fancy meals or not.”
“Hmm.”
“I mean it— there’ll be plenty of other opportunities to spoil me rotten, I assure you, ones Roach won’t interrupt. But if this is the way our first one goes, then I’m happy.”
“Yeah?”
Jaskier kisses the tip of Geralt’s nose. “Of course. I’ll never forget it.”
“I love you too,” Geralt whispers, then kisses the corner of Jaskier’s mouth. “I’ll make it up to you.”
Jaskier grins. “I can’t wait.”
“But for now,” Geralt says, pulling back but lacing his fingers through Jaskier’s, walking along the path down to the woods. “Charred squirrel is all I can offer you.”
Roach slowly trails behind them, her tail swishing and her head hanging low — she knows what she’s done. Jaskier brings Geralt’s hand to his mouth, and presses a kiss to his knuckles.
“Charred squirrel it is.”
send me a character/pairing, a situation, and a sentence from this list!
Another prompt for you, how about 5 with yennefer/fringilla?
okay this is kind of the perfect song for them (from both perspectives) and I'm so into it 👀 thank you for sending another prompt! this is just some quick reflection on yennefer and fringilla's relationship after season 2 and where they both end up, so obviously, spoiler alert!!
Send me a ship and a number 1-100 and I’ll write a drabble based (loosely) on the corresponding song from my 2021 top 100 on Spotify.
The cold earth beneath them will soil their dresses. Francesca seems not to care, discussing her plan for them with the other elves as though they are livestock instead of prisoners who can hear, and dread, their fates to come. Fringilla resolves not to care about her dress either, keeping her chin as high as she can and ignoring the bite of the dimeritium cuffs. All these things are trivial, and temporary. The White Flame will ensure her safe return to Nilfgaard, and the sorceress cuffed next to her can just barrel on through as she always does. She likely already has an exit route, her map back to Sodden and to reclaiming her glory all sketched out. Fringilla sticks to her faith and ignores the sag in Yennefer’s neck and shoulders and the dirt and sweat speckling the woman’s brow. This awkward reunion is trivial and temporary too.
“I can hear you thinking from over here,” Yennefer growls, moving her heels in the dirt. Fringilla glances at them, then curses herself for doing so and glances away. “Just give it up, Fringilla.”
“Don’t—” Fringilla starts, but she cuts herself off because she can hardly request that Yennefer not use her name. It isn’t about the name itself but about the tone, the familiarity. She doesn’t want Yennefer to know that she pines for that voice, and once had worshiped it. When Yennefer had a different face and Fringilla only one good hand, they had spent hours planning their futures together, and Fringilla thought that she could have spent forever chasing the sound of her name on Yennefer’s lips.
That was decades ago, before Yennefer had strolled into the Aretuzan gala and swept Aedirn out from under her nose. Fringilla used to relive that night over and over in her head, cursing the sorceress for her sudden change of heart and body. But then under the tutelage of Nilfgaard she was reborn, and now she has a higher purpose than holding a grudge against Yennefer of Vengerberg. Even if girlish urges still sometimes overtake her, it’s easy to suppress them in the name of her empire and the White Flame. Fringilla does so now, raising her chin once more and letting her eyes slip shut. Yennefer doesn’t bother her about her thought processes again and the moment slips away from them like driftwood in the rising tide.
Then they meet with Voleth Meir, and the route to Fringilla’s glory is cleared of obstacles. They may have been pulled into the demon’s cabin against their will but they leave possessed with new spirit and motivation to complete their goals. Fringilla doesn’t see Yennefer again but she imagines that the sorceress is happy with whatever deal she struck, even if she can’t imagine what someone like Yennefer could possibly want. Given her success at Sodden she clearly has a greater control of Chaos than even their old rectoress or any of the Brotherhood. And despite becoming malnourished and ashen and dirty on the run, she’s still the most beautiful woman Fringilla has ever seen. She would never want for a lover or a career to feed her hunger for power, but… the Deathless Mother must have given her something.
Fringilla doesn’t get her answer for a very long time, not until Cahir has returned to Nilfgaard with a haggard beard and only a fraction of his old confidence. Fringilla knows what he’s capable of and she knows that Emhyr respects him so she leaves him out of her secret coup, but soon both of them get in trouble regardless. Before Fringilla can do so much as send word to her uncle she’s being clapped in dimeritium yet again, this time bound beside Cahir instead of Yennefer and thrown into a dark, musty dungeon instead of being tied at the foot of a tree.
But the dirt on the unswept floor is the same. Fringilla wishes she could dust it off of her dress; she’s sure they’ll be left to rot in here so it shouldn’t matter anyway. But her corpse should be regal, not clad in rags. She deserves ceremony and circumstance. She rattles the chain around her wrists, shaking her cuffs fruitlessly, and Cahir says, exhausted, “Just give it up.”
The annoying scolding strikes up a memory from weeks prior, and Fringilla slams her head back against the cell wall. “I should have listened to her,” she groans quietly, speaking mostly to herself. “Fucking stupid Yennefer, always coming out on top. I bet she’s back at the Brotherhood now, feeding Istredd grapes while Tissaia and Vilgefortz do her laundry and they all sing her praises to the fucking gods. Well, fucking good for her!”
“Yennefer left the Brotherhood,” Cahir protests, and it throws Fringilla completely off her rhythm. Her old rival’s name rolling so casually off the man’s tongue sounds wrong, and it sends her head spinning, leaving her too dizzy to properly understand his words. “Quite explosively, actually. I was there.”
“What,” Fringilla breathes. “You’ve met her?”
The other prisoner starts regaling her with the story of his thrilling escape from his execution and how he had joined the elven refugees but Fringilla can’t focus, too swept up in the idea that Yennefer couldn’t stomach lying to the Brotherhood either or underplaying her achievements. From the sound of Cahir’s tale, she remains the same egotistic, power-crazed woman as ever. Some tiny, long abandoned corner of Fringilla’s heart sparks with a feeling she’d shut off a long time ago, and she can’t bring herself to quench it again.
Then Cahir mentions the man in red that Yennefer had been so excited to see, and Fringilla’s blood runs cold again, jealous fury replacing the thin, temporary vein of affection. Just like Yennefer to run off with some lover, leaving Cahir to his own devices. If she ever meets this Sandpiper, she’s going to rip his tongue out— not that she cares who Yennefer sleeps with, of course, she’s never been given the right to care. Fringilla settles down to listen to the rest of Cahir’s tale, resolving herself not to think at all about Yennefer.
She, of course, fails dramatically in this regard. Fringilla spends the rest of her night thinking bitterly of the woman who she had once yearned for so much, and wondering who Yennefer might yearn for now.
Hi! I finally came up with like, something to send you for Calanthe and Eist. I apologize, I'm not practiced with prompts! Maybe something like them being rival bookshop owners? Fighting for customers, Eist trying to woo Calanthe, them eventually falling in love and joining their shops, something like that? :)
I wasn’t expecting this to be as long as it was, or to love writing them as much as I did... but.. ahh. This was a lot of fun!! :D
Words: 1.2k
CW: None! That I can think of. If I missed anything lmk.
_______
Calanthe was absolutely fuming. It didn’t help that she’d had a shit year so far, divorcing her husband shortly after the birth of their daughter, Pavetta, but now some self-righteous arsehole had decided to buy the coffeeshop next door and turn it into some kind of bookshop/coffeeshop combination. He was stealing her customers, with his easy personality and charming smile. She had to admit that adding the reading corner to the back of the coffeeshop had been a bloody brilliant idea, but it was completely disrespectful to her business. She had half a mind to add a coffee stand to the front of her shop, perhaps a little aquarium and some sofas near the back.
A smirk appeared slowly on her lips.
That was exactly what she was going to do. If he wanted to become a bookstore then she would have to adapt. She’d spent years as a barista whilst studying at University, so she could make damn good coffee. Maybe she could buy in a selection of herbal teas as well.
She turned from the window and stalked back into the office of her shop, where her daughter was babbling happily her cot. Calanthe smiled fondly down at Pavetta before scooping her up into her arms. Her husband had told her she wouldn’t be able to raise a daughter and run a business at the same time.
He’d been wrong.
Calanthe could do anything that she put her mind to.
______
Eist wasn’t sure how the rivalry with the store next door had started but he’d popped by one day to check out their book selection, hoping to make some purchases for his reading corner. The woman behind the till had practically murdered him with her gaze; pure hatred radiating from her direction, and he was entranced.
She was gorgeous, her fierce glare only serving to entice him further. He’d always been a little weak for powerful women, and she was no exception. He’d smiled warmly at her and held out his hand.
“Hi there, I’m Eist. I just moved in next door,” he’d said but she’d snubbed him and asked if he wanted to buy anything without offering her name.
And so it continued.
The next time he visited she had a coffee machine at the front and several customers near the back sipping at their paper cups. Her hair was falling out of the bun at the back of her head as she took a long drink from her own mug, never breaking eye contact with him. He couldn’t look away, he winked and turned right back out of the shop.
Which was why he was now covered in sawdust as he tried to build a cat climbing jungle around the walls of the reading corner. He’d struck up a deal with a local shelter so he could foster older cats for coffee shop. He’d always loved cats, his own gorgeous ginger cat was called Simba and was already quite at home amongst the beanbags.
“Would you keep it down in here, Eist?” She called as she stormed into the shop. “My customers are trying to read and no-one can think over all this racket! What the hell is that?”
“Would you believe me if I said shelving, my lady?” he asked, enjoying the blush on her cheeks. She was completely adorable when she got angry. He had no doubt that she could probably kill him in his sleep but it was still adorable, and he was completely smitten.
“Don’t call me that,” she seethed.
“Well if you told me your name…” he raised an eyebrow at her and ran a hand through his hair, knocking sawdust into his face. He wrinkled his nose and then sneezed.
“Bless you,” she muttered, crossing her hands in front of her chest. “Calanthe.”
“What?”
“My name, Eist, don’t wear it out,” she snapped but for the first time there was something else in her expression, mirth perhaps, a faint smile on her lips.
“Calanthe,” he repeated quietly as she left, and deep down he knew, he just knew, that one day he would marry her.
________
Pavetta was crying up a storm, and nothing Calanthe could do would calm her down. She was tearing her hair out. She had a queue at the coffee stand and two more customers wanting her assistance to find books but her daughter just wouldn’t stop crying. She was on the edge of screaming herself when there was a knock on her office door. She cursed and shifted Pavetta onto her other hip as she went to grab the door.
“Eist,” she hissed “I’m a little busy.”
He nodded, looking genuinely sympathetic. “I know, my lady, one of my customers was talking about the terrible service and a crying baby? Is this her?”
Calanthe scoffed. “No, there’s another screaming baby. Of course it’s her. My daughter, Pavetta.”
“Let me help,” he pleaded, lovely warm eyes that settled the panic that was rising up in her chest. “You stay here with your daughter, I’ll help out front.”
Calanthe snorted “And why would you help me?”
“Because I want to help, nothing more, nothing less. I shut my store for lunch, please, Calanthe, you don’t have to do this alone.”
Calanthe looked between Eist and her daughter and then nodded, passing him her till key. “Thank you.”
It didn’t take Pavetta long to calm down after that and by the time Calanthe escaped the office Eist had the bookstore under control and running smoothly. Calanthe leant on the door frame and watched him for a few moments. He was a natural at running a store, and her customers seemed to adore him, which should have bothered her. At this point their two stores were practically identical. They were clear rivals and it wouldn’t take much for Eist to draw away all her business but she found strangely grounded watching him amble through her shop with ease and confidence.
The daft idiot had broken down her guards without her even realising. She scoffed and strutted over to him. “Eist!” She called.
The smile he gave her in return lit up the whole goddamn room. “My lady.”
“You can go now,” she dismissed him with a wave of her hand, feeling a flutter of nerves in his stomach. “but I believe I owe you lunch.” Her voice was steadier than she’d hoped for, perhaps too much. She mentally berated herself. There was no chance in hell that he would hear the real question behind her words.
“Make it dinner and I’ll consider us even,” he shot back with a wink.
“Oh you smooth bastard,” she laughed, allowing herself a small smile. “Go on then, dinner it is, and perhaps we could discuss the future of our stores. There’s no point in fighting like this, we’ll both go out of business if we keep this up, and my shop means too much to me.”
“An alliance?”
She smirked and nodded. “Something like that.”
“Something like that,” he agreed, taking her hand a brushing a kiss to her knuckles.
I just needed to drop by and say I LOVE ALL OF YOUR LAMBERTS!!! The way you draw him is so cute aaahhhh thank you for blessing my dash with this lovely boy!! Hope you're having a good day :D
THANK YOU I’M GLAD U LIKE THEM!!
here is one extra lamboy that i pulled out of my doodles folder for you <3
The lovely @ohnomybreadsticks came up with a fun challenge for writers to spotlight works they’ve already written. You can find the original post for the challenge here. Since I’ve had a bit of writer’s block and been generally down on myself I thought this challenge would be good for me, so here goes!
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
(There are twenty, I’ve decided to post them in fives over the next four days.)
#1. Your first fic: Remember to Rise Up (Eskel/Geralt, Rated: T)
Summary: Ciri's parents have just died in a car accident and now she has moved in with Geralt. She doesn't know much, but she knows there is something going on between her new guardian and his best friend. She has no idea how right she is.
I just re-read this fic, specifically for this challenge, and I found that I’m still fairly happy with it, even though I feel like I’ve grown a lot better in the months since I wrote it. Eskel and Geralt are a little OOC at the end but I was pretty hard on myself when I posted the work, I was really unhappy with the way I wrote them at the end. Reading it again though, I don’t think it’s as dramatic as I’d told myself. It was fun, too, to write Eskralt mostly from an outsider’s perspective since most of this fic is from Ciri’s POV.
#2. Your most recent fic: As Luck Would Have It (Gaetan/Gweld, Rated: T)
Summary: In which, Gaetan gets stuck and it's, maybe, definitely, not as bad as it seems.
This was a lovely prompt request from a reader who started on A Settled Debt. I started the rarepair of Gaetan/Gweld as a short in the verse for that story and had a few regular readers that really enjoyed them together so I’ve kept writing one shots for them. The request was for a first meeting in a modern setting, elevator panic attack and a fluffy ending. I almost wrote this from Gweld’s perspective (he’s the one that has a panic attack) but I changed my mind halfway through the first write. I’m claustrophobic with a pretty severe aversion to elevators for a number of other reasons as well. I often take the stairs unless it’s necessary for me to take an elevator so Gweld’s situation in this one hit a little too close to home for me to write from his POV. I like the end result though, it would’ve been a lot more angsty had I continued with my original plan.
#3. A fic you planned out and worked on for a long time: A Revelation (Lambert/Aiden, Rated: M, Part two in Lead Me Home)
Summary: In which, Lambert and Aiden come together and fall apart.
A Settled Debt, the first part in this series, just grew from an idea I had about Aiden meeting Lambert as a boy, before Lambert was taken to Kaer Morhen and during Aiden’s first few years on the Path. The first chapter got such an incredible response that I decided to add onto it. As soon as I made that decision, I knew I’d write A Revelation. I really wanted to explore the idea of the Cat’s betrayal happening while Lambert already knew Aiden, already loved him. It was a hard write, I’m having an even harder time with Wandering Soul but for completely different reasons. This story was so emotional and very hopeless, at times, if I’m being honest, and it was taxing to write so much heartache. The reunion scene in the later chapters was actually one of the first scenes I wrote for this story.
#4. A fic that came to you in a sudden flash: Lie (Emhyr/Geralt, Rated: T)
Summary: In which, Geralt lies and loses.
I hadn’t thought much about my prompts for the rarepair bingo and I opened my card one day to brainstorm some ideas when this one just smacked me in the face. I’ve always loved Geralt/Emhyr but I can also be quite picky about Emhyr’s characterization, so I was nervous about writing it but when I sat down to start, it all flowed pretty quickly. I think I wrote this out and edited it all in the same day, made myself wait a day or two to post it and did one more editing run before it went up. It’s definitely angsty, break up fics tend to be right?, but I still really love how this one came out.
#5. Your shortest fic: Hold (Lambert/Geralt, Rated: T)
Summary: In which, Lambert is irritated and Geralt has something to share.
This was so stupid, you guys. I got stuck on hold for like an hour and a half trying to fix something really stupid that took like a five minutes conversation and I was so pissed when I got off the phone and my husband came into the room about the time I threw my phone down and said ‘love you babe’ as he walked by me and it made me smile. So I sat down and wrote this and spent forty minutes trying to get it down to exactly one hundred words so it would meet the prompt requirements for a drabble on the Save a Witcher bingo lmao.
If you have anything about any of my fics that you’d like to ask, please feel free! My ask box is open!
