"This is a godless place," Jaskier announced, closing the cupboards with an air of finality.
Geralt tried not to squirm at the judgement. Not his fault if he'd been too busy for anything more than protein shakes.
A modern au where Jaskier just— moves in. He starts talking to Geralt in a pub, probably trying to hide from someone, and somehow pries out of him that he had a spare room, and boom that's it, he's acquired a bard. Before either of them know what they're getting into, without even knowing each other for more than an hour.
And Geralt is keeping himself alive and functional thank you very much, even if his life is just work-gym-lie in bed and don't think-repeat.
"Jaskier sat up to see the witcher, because who else would it be? He looked annoyed, about as much as he did last night. He glared at Jaskier silently, and it only sharpened when the bard lifted his eyebrows in patience."
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Rough drawing to go with chapter 1 of "The Hardest Goodbye" by @sadiewritingco
It's a lovely alternate meeting AU with some exciting mystery and misunderstood identities!! Go check it out!!
Summary: “The white wolf wants you. He’ll have no other.” As you grieve the loss of your father, your mother marries the king. Whilst you struggle to acclimate to your new life, you begin to suspect the interest your new brother has in you is less than familial.
A/N: taps mic um, hey. it’s been a while. i hope you enjoy this latest installment of Tonality, and that you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. ❤️ mind the tags, reblogs and comments are always appreciated.
You stumble out from behind the tapestry and back into the hall, your head spinning. Geralt rushes out after you, locking the door quickly behind him. The stone wall is comfortingly cool against your palm as you stagger against it. War? You cannot help the next thought that comes rushing up before you can stop it—Because of me? There is a dull buzzing like flies in your skull that makes it hard to concentrate on anything else.
Air. I need air.
Dizzily you stagger toward the courtyard, swallowing down lungfuls of crips evening air as you push through the heavy doors and nearly tumble out into the coming night. You are grateful for its emptiness, there are no fawning courtiers present to heap their honeyed demands upon you, no one to see as you catch yourself against the stone railing as you stare down at the dark, empty square below.
You do not want this.
“Things were better before we came here,” you murmur hoarsely. “Simpler.” Geralt says nothing, but you can feel his presence there behind you. Your skin practically itches with it. “I find myself wishing we had never come.”
“To wish for what was is useless, when what is lies now before you.” For a single irrational moment you hate him—he is the avenue for this new knowledge that plagues you now, the channel through which this new pain now flows, but it subsides after two harrowing heartbeats. Like him or not, Geralt is the reason you breathe now, and he is the reason you know more than you did before you ventured into the city in the first place.
Had you followed your mother’s instruction, you would still be abed, ignorant. At the thought of your mother, your stomach churns.
Treason.
“I am a pawn.” You have never before felt both so useless and so used. It seems a cruel irony that you wield both more power than you ever have before—and yet somehow simultaneously none at all. How had you not seen it? How had you not known? “This Hunt is nothing more than an excuse to bring restless noblemen to heel!” Your fingers tangle in your skirts as you ball your hands into angry fists. Geralt cups your chin with thick, calloused fingers.
“Did you think the throne might be secured with words, Princess?” He speaks not cruelly, but plainly. “That every knee would bend willingly?” You think of the people you saw in the city—the baker, the merchants, the fishmongers and blacksmiths—you imagine them starving, terrified. You imagine them dead, their bodies strewn in the streets and in the mud. The earth is always thirsty, and it will drink blood just the same as water.
“The Throne of Bones cannot be shored up with promises, little witch. An oath with no blood spilled is only air.”
“I will not see rivers of blood shed in my name.” You set your jaw defiantly. “I will not see innocents killed for aspirations of crowns and glory!” Geralt drags his thumb over the curve of your cheek, his golden eyes filled with pity. Your heart hammers in your chest at the contact. You are so acutely aware of the inches between you, more than ever. And for a brief moment, you are unsure of whether to be angry at the sliver of air that holds you apart—or grateful for it.
You settle for the latter as he pulls at the weight of your lip with his thumb as your stomach knots at the impropriety of his touch.
“Then I expect, Princess,” he says softly, “that you shall simply have to close your eyes.”
—
There has not been a Hunt since before your mother was born, and yet the entire keep falls into arrangements for it with a familiarity that astounds you. The courtyard below you is filled with a steady streams of provisions, supplies and people, though the greedy wind snatches the noise of it all away. You watch the silent pantomime of tiny figures for a moment more before you pull away from the parapet.
You feel somewhat swept away by the preparation, its importance filling you with an acute anxiety that makes your stomach churn. This is when you will be presented to the people, when you will be judged, and you fear you shall be found wanting. And not just wanting, but guilty—of some unspoken crime you had committed simply by being born. Over the course of the last week you had bitten your fingernails down to the quick until you tasted copper, much to your mother’s chagrin. She’d held your raw hands in hers as she frowned at you.
A princess’ hands should never look this ghastly.
You know it is foolish to long for the days when it mattered little if your hands were dry and cracked from turning old brittle pages, and you returned to the manor at dusk with twigs in your hair and grass stains on your dress, but you yearn for them still. There has been little time for books since your arrival in Rivia, and even this moment you have had to steal. At the thought, you cast a grim glance behind you at the empty doorway leading back into the keep just to assure yourself you are in fact still alone.
The creak of the thick spine is comforting as you open the book and the smell of aged paper and old leather washes over you. You trace the thickly embossed lettering on the inside with a sad smile. The Silver King. Your father’s name is looped there in neat cursive near the bottom of the page, and your own messy childhood scrawl is there above it. You have not had the courage to look at this book since he had been buried—let alone open it. It contained, of course, the great deeds of the first Witcher-King, a recounting of his great deeds, along with more than a few fairytales. But more than that, it contained your father.
It was his book, really, and it still feels that way even now as you hold it.
Every memory of the two of you curled over its pages as your father’s sure, steady voice carried with it the stories of generations—though you had always been more partial to the fairy-stories than the lengthy ballads your father tended to skip over for your benefit. But in the end, it had been you who recounted those flights of fancy back to him when the sickness had taken his mind and memories. You had seen it in his eyes, the light of recognition in those brief and shining moments where he truly knew you once again before pain and confusion stole him from you every time. Even now your chest feels tight and your throat achy as you turn the first page.
By habit more than anything you begin to skim over the first section the way your father did, repeating his summary in your head as you slowly turn the pages.
“Ollast the Silver was not born a king, you see, he would say. He was born in the dirt. His mother a stablegirl, father some nameless lout. There were no kings then, my Dear. No one to hold back the dark.” You can almost hear him—almost. You remembered your stomach knotting in childish fear as he described Ollast’s mother leaving him on a tree-stump in the forest, pleading with Father Wolf to kill him swiftly. How the great beast with slavering jaws and eyes like luminous moons had taken the infant instead, clinging to its matted fur along with the weapons of fallen warriors—and had raised him.
As you drag your finger across the page it suddenly stops, like the paper has…grabbed you. Your entire hand goes numb and sharp, shooting little pains erupt across your palm; like you’d been sitting on it and cutting off circulation. Only you hadn’t been—and as you lift your hand, flexing it with a grimace, you glance down at the page.
The Witch’s Trials.
You grimace. Your father had only read it to you once after you’d begged, and only because you had noticed that he always skipped a few pages after Ollast’s departure from Father Wolf’s forest. You’d demanded to know why he wasn’t reading it all to you—you deserved the full story. Though after he’d finished you hadn’t slept properly for weeks, waking in your bed clutching at your covers as you whimpered.
“I can’t go to sleep, Papa,” you remember sobbing into his arms by the light of the fire. “The Witch will get me!” You swallow thickly. How horribly ironic. You begin to read in earnest then, dropping your eye to the page that had ensnared you.
Ollast did not know these woods. He had been raised up in the forest of the Great Wolf, and all of its creatures knew him. Every drop of river water, every blade of grass. And so he knew he had come to the wood at the edge of the world when the trees were strangers to him; when the animals fled his approach with the air stinking of their fear. The Wolf had told Ollast that his children would know his scent. And as he traveled through the tall thin trees that did not know him, he saw the yellow eyes of the Wolf Children as he passed.
You shiver, gooseflesh pricking up on your arms.
He was not afraid, for had his sword of silver and bone, and he could make the symbols of fire, water and wind. Ollast greeted the Children.
“Hail!”
They gnashed their teeth and scraped at the dark earth with sharp claws.
“Hail to you, furless one.” Said the black wolf. “Why have you come to this place?”
“I seek the bridge, do you know it?”
The Children laughed. “Aye.” Said another. “But once you cross it you will be gone, returned to the world of man. We will not let you. You stink of human meat, and we are hungry.” Ollast saw then that the Wolf Children were thin, their bones pushing through their matted fur. He pitied these creatures, as they slavered and salivated at the thought of eating him.
“Have you no game to hunt?” He asked. “No meat to fill your bellies?”
“No,” snarled a gray one. “SHE has eaten them all, the Witch.” A chorus of terrified yips and howls filled the air. The Wolf Children were afraid.
“The one that gnaws the bones and sucks out the marrow.”
You swallow thickly as a cool shiver brings gooseflesh to your arms. She has eaten them all. You are about to return to your father’s book when the sound of footsteps makes you tense. For a brief, fear filled moment you wonder if your mother has discovered you at last, if she has finally come to force you to take part when instead the king himself ambles around the corner. He does not quite see you at first, squinting as he casts furtive glances over his shoulder.
“Gods be bloody good,” he mutters, shaking his head. You scramble to your feet, snapping the old book shut. He sees you then, and you are sure to bow your head, dropping into a somewhat clumsy curtsey. “Oh, no, no need for all of that, it is only us here.” King Vesemir casts a look around the narrow little walkway and then back toward the door before whispering conspiratorially. “I’m avoiding counsellor Abernathy.”
You’re forced to hide a smile behind your hand. You yourself had often found your own eyelids rather heavy as you listened to the dull, droning sound of the elderly counsellor’s voice.
“I shall take the secret to my grave, your Grace.” You say, and your step-father laughs deeply. “None shall know that on this day, his Majesty hid from his most experienced counsellor.” The king wipes a mirthful tear from the corner of his eye with a sigh.
“It is a rather good spot,” Vesemir replies before giving you a conspiratorial wink. “And I am doubtful his Lordship will be able to manage all the stairs.”
You laugh, and there is true mirth in the sound. “He does go on.”
“Ever so much.” He glances down at the book in your hands and his eyes widen. “My Gods. Is that The Silver King?” He asks. “I don’t think I’ve seen a copy of that in… years, I daresay. Not since I was a child.”
“Oh?”
“Oh yes.” The king nods and a rather wistful look enters his golden eyes. “I did my share of reading after my fall.”
“Fall?” You ask. “You…fell?”
“I was quite the adventurous lad, you know. Used to climb all the way up and hang right off the flagpole, Gods I was stupid.” He shakes his head. You turn to look up at the turret, but only bare stone stands there now. The king glances over at you. “Not there anymore, mind you. My father hand them taken down after I fell, you see.” Your hand flies to your face in shock as you glance down at the distant courtyard below.
“But not all the way down, fortunately. I landed on the balcony, just there. Quite a few broken bones, it was a ghastly sight I imagine. For nearly two years all I could do was lie in my bed and, well, read. The Silver King was quite a favorite of mine. I always did like the part about the wolves.” You shiver again.
“I think my favorite was the one about the gilded feather.”
The king nods at your book. “It looks like quite an old copy.”
“Ah, yes.” You glance down at its worn cover as your heart twists painfully in your chest. “It was my father’s.”
“I am truly sorry for his loss.” You taste no lie on his words, the milky film that would hang over them like spider’s silk is gloriously absent, and you sigh with relief as they ring true. “He was a fine regent, and a better father, I am sure. I know you grieve him still.”
“Thank you, your Grace.” You squeeze the book against your chest. “With time I am sure his passing will… pain me less.” You swallow against the thick, uncomfortable feeling forming in your throat. King Vesemir looks at you apologetically.
“It will not.” He rests a hand upon your shoulder affectionately. “But you will grow around it.” He looks back toward the door with a sigh. “I take my leave. And,” the king turns back to you with a small smile. “I shall not tell my lady wife that I have seen you.”
“Thank you, your Majesty.” Though he has dismissed the formalities, your head still bows instinctively. “Truly.”
—
The dream tries to shift around you, to flow like water into something, somewhere else. But you know it now, old and familiar like the feeling of a pebble in your shoe. You have never thought of a dream as wanting, as able to want. But what other way is there to describe the yearning of the physical space you occupy to shift into something else? You thread your fingers through the loose weave of it, and feel the sagging threads of the dream pulling apart like weak fabric. Its threads are sharp like silver wire, and you wonder if you will bleed in the waking world where they sink into the meat of your fingers as you pull the dream taut like fabric around you, snapping the dull world into sharp, biting clarity.
Tonight, the dreams do not control you, flowing over you like a river, no. No, tonight you stand still, the stone parting the rushing water.
The dream has brought you to the hedge maze, though here the bushes grow wild and unkempt. Dry, bare branches reach out like gnarled, beckoning fingers, the dark, starless sky hanging ominously overhead. You’ve no wish to enter the gardens, not here, but your father is in there. You can feel his presence like pins and needles all along the back of your neck. The knowledge settles within you as if it has always been there in the strange way that dreams do.
The White Keep looms over you like a skeleton, its stone parapets starker and thinner than you remember. The yawning, empty windows stare down at you, eyes in a great and terrible head. The maze too is different, folding in on itself in impossible spirals like the shell of a snail.
Your father stands at the center.
You had not realized it was him at first—the worm-eaten burial shroud conceals his face. And though his clothes have been eaten by maggots and mice, you know them—know him. There is no wind, but the shroud moves as though caught by a breeze you cannot feel. He reaches up for it, his fingers snagging in the holes as he tugs it down. For a brief moment you consider looking at his face, holding his gaze—but your eyes drop to the paving stones before you shut them.
“Do not look, my daughter.” His voice is around you, threading through the air like music before it is in you, too, thrumming like a thousand stilted heartbeats. “You must not.”
“Father.” Your chest aches with the weight of the many words you wish to say, all the ones you would give anything to have spoken into existence whilst he still lived. And somehow, of all of them, the ones that reach your mouth first are perhaps the most childish.
“I miss you.”
“And I you, my dear child.” He pauses. “That is why I have tarried in this place when I should not.” The threads of the dream are cutting so deep now you fear they shall take your fingers with them, but you hold them still. Hands cup your cheeks, and the fingertips are dry, withered. Tears well behind your closed eyes. “It’s hungry, this place.” Your father’s voice is hollow, somehow. Like it is missing vital weight. “Can you feel it?”
You can.
“You are a Princess, now.”
“Titles.” You scoff, sniffling. Though you cannot look upon your father’s face, you know he is smiling—or he would be, were there enough left of face. “If titles meant anything at all, I would wake on the morrow in my own bed.”
“I am afraid change is the nature of living, my child.” Your father’s burial shroud brushes against your skin as he pats your head, and it smells like damp earth. “You cannot go back. Only forward.” His heavy sigh is the whisper of wind through dry branches. “And so many, many paths before you…”
“Which one? Which path do I choose?” You ask frantically, straining to hold the moment still. “Which is right, father? I-I don’t know anymore, I don’t—I need you!” You plead with the specter.
“All.” His cold, withered hands drop from you and for a brief, terrible second your eyelids flutter. “And none.” His sorrow is your own, for the weight of it in your chest is the same terrible ache as always. “But none lead where I can follow.”
“Where?”
“Power.” He sighs, and the sorrow is overwhelming, almost as much as the dream. “So much power.” His fingers rasp against your cheek. “I cannot bear to see it.”
“What do you mean? Father I—I don’t know what to do. Mother, she’s changed, she’s, I’m afraid of her.” The admission feels like a betrayal, even though you know she will never hear it. “Please don’t leave me.” You strain against the dream. “Please. I-I have, I have so many questions—” You smell copper. “There, there is elf blood in me—” You try to hold onto him and the dream at the same time, clutching at his presence with aching, raw fingers as the dream begins to tear itself to pieces.
“I cannot reveal in death what I did not know in life, my dear one, my daughter.” His voice is like shifting sand, blowing away from you into the darkness. “The hungry dark has shorn off pieces of me and I have indeed given them gladly, to remain for this moment.”
“No, no—”
This shade is all that remains of your father, and that too slips away through your trembling hands like a last, final sigh.
“Grieve not, sweet child.” The dream rushes over you like a dam breaking, and you are drowning in it. “We shall meet again when it is time for your end, and I think that is not quite so long to wait at all.”
You sit up, coughing and sputtering at the cool air. Your hands ache as you grasp at the sheets, and when you lift them to your bleary eyes they are terrible to behold. Thin red lines crisscross the meat of your fingers, biting deep into your palms. There is dried blood on some of the marks, and still others remain an angry, insistent red. You drop them back to your sides as tears gather in the corners of your eyes, leaking down your cheeks.
You will not meet with your father again—not even in your dreams.
Somehow, the thought fills you with sorrow instead of relief, like you have lost him a second time.
With a quiet moan of pain, you drag yourself toward the edge of the bed. The stones are cold on your feet despite the low fire burning in the hearth, and the sky outside your window is dark, though in the infinite distance there is a thin, orange line marking the boundary between sea and sky. Dawn will not greet you for some time yet, but when you think of returning to your bed, your eyes fill with tears and your aching hands clench. No, you will not be returning to sleep this evening.
Instead, you don your dressing gown and venture out into the halls. They are different now with the night to silence them. Larger, perhaps. Certainly more…off-putting than you find them in the light of day. Madge’s pipe-hoarse voice rings in your mind’s ear. Theres bones in them walls, all them glorious castles, she’d said, resting a hand against the lacquered wood paneling that lined the manor’s halls. How d’you s’pose they built them, love? She’d asked as you stared at her, wide eyed from the carpet before the fireplace. With blood and bones.
Rudderless, you wander. If there are ghosts here, they do not appear before you. You are alone, at least for now.
The carved doors of the observatory remind you of the ones in the throne room as you stand before them. Large, dark and heavy wood, with delicate images of familiar constellations that remind you of nights spent watching the stars until your mother summoned you back inside. Her lips would be pressed thin with displeasure as she plucked twigs and grass from your hair. The glass doming the cavernous room is crystal clear, the stars clearly visible above you. Like the door, there are star maps and constellations carved into the stone floor, and you kneel slowly to trace your fingers along the neat lines. Father Wolf’s great maw and shaggy shoulders, the Mother’s hands folded in prayer.
Your eye is drawn to the Crone, her hunched form set some distance away from the Mother and the Wolf. In her lantern rests the Eastern Star, brightest in the sky, the guiding light from here to hereafter, so said the priests with their stark painted faces and feverish eyes. But as you kneel to sweep away a little of the gathered dust, you cannot help but note her position. Swathed in shadow, the brass incense burner at the head of her carving dull and empty, the altar plate turned nearly black with age.
There is only one true God, here, you realize. And his name is Wolf. You wonder if the rest of the kingdom is as reverent of their devouring God of justice, or if this is simply a reflection of the painted-priests’ own fanaticism.
“I see sleep evades you as well, Princess.” Geralt’s black-honey voice makes you shiver, gooseflesh rising on your arms. You had not heard the door open again, but there he stands in the doorway, arms folded thoughtfully behind his back. He cocks his head. “Or perhaps you are evading it?” He chuckles. The Prince approaches you in ever tightening circles, reminding you uncomfortably of his steed below, in the pits.
“A bit of both, I suppose.” You say after a long moment spent watching him. His footfall is so quiet it scarcely makes a sound, and you wonder if what little there is is merely the product of your imagination. There is a spark of something in your belly, burning low but steady, like an ember, and it flares at his approach.
“Sleep has been…unkind to me of late.” You think of your father, see him crumbling to nothing in your minds eye. “I dreamt… things I should like to forget. And some I suppose I wish I had never dreamt at all.”
He comes to stand before the constellation of the Crone, standing nearly in the palm of her outstretched hand.
“Perhaps they do not wish to be forgotten.” Geralt replies, glancing up at the brightly lit night sky and then back to you. “Perhaps they should not be.”
“I saw my father.” You say, clutching your arms tighter about yourself. “Always my father.” The silver light of the moon draws Prince Geralt in even starker contrast against the shadows, his pale hair, pale skin, hungry eyes. The white wolf indeed. “I dream other things, too. Dark things.”
“Mm.” He hums, reaching out to finger the loose curls falling about your shoulders. When his eyes meet yours they seem to glow, luminous and bright in the twilight. “The dark does call to dark.”
“Dark calls to dark.” You snap, your cheeks burning. “Have you come merely to do me insult?”
“Insult? How eager you are to misunderstand.” He shakes his head, chuckling. “It is respect I pay you, little witch. Is the night not dark and beautiful?” He asks with a pointed look. “Is not the sea?”
“And yet it is not awe that fills my chest to brimming when I behold what things await me behind my closed eyes.” You cannot forget the feeling of your father slipping away to a place you could not follow as you had held on with every bit of yourself in a vain attempt to make him stay.
“Two things might yet be true, Doe, there is much to fear in darkness.” “And so too in the light of day.” His gaze drops to your hands, which you promptly hide in the folds of your shift. He threads his fingers through your own and you gasp, tugging at your hand.
“L-let go—”
Geralt holds the palm of your hand up to the brightness of the moon, and your breath catches uncomfortably in your throat as he traces the raw lines still patterning your skin with his thumb.
“It hurts, does it not?” He asks softly. “Holding back the tide.” His touch is gentle, softer by far than you would have thought him capable of. You are reminded of how poisonous his kindness can be—his rage at your door the chiefest of all. that nothing is given without something being taken in return.
“The pain has passed.” You reply curtly, wishing that gooseflesh did not rise on the back of your neck at his touch. “I-if you would excuse me?” His golden eyes are luminous in the dark.
“And if I would not?” His thumb slides over your knuckles, tracing each one. “If your Prince should bid you stay?” The spark of heat in your belly becomes a flame, rising up into your chest and you swallow audibly.
“Are Ladies Isolde or Emilia no longer amenable, my Prince?” You ask, schooling your expression into one of perfect innocence, and you feel no small measure of satisfaction as his lip curls. “I am quite certain there are no short supply of Ladies who would be quite eager to wake and… chat with yourself, Highness.”
You had hoped—naively, perhaps—that time and proximity would dull the Prince’s strange interest in you, but it seems they have only done the opposite. Instead of releasing your hand, he threads his fingers through your own with a satisfied hum.
“If you’re jealous of our chats, little witch,” he purrs, “You have only but to ask for one of your own.” Your belly twists at the heat his words carry, and you can feel the pass of his gaze down your body as though it can penetrate the fabric of your shift; as though he can see the trembling flesh beneath.
This time, it is your mouth that wrenches itself into a bitter scowl. “I thought you done with this—this—” The words are strangled in your throat as you try unsuccessfully to dislodge him.
“I admit, I ought not to be concerned.” He says slowly. “But perhaps that is why you vex me so.” He twists a curly lock of your hair around his finger, coiling it around and around before letting it spring free. “With the softness of your skin.” His thumb passes over your knuckles as his other hand finds the nape of your neck. “The scent of your hair.”
“Geralt—” He does not stop speaking, not even when you say his name, like he does not hear you, or care. The dam is broken now, the words flowing over your own and drowning them out.
“And then I think perhaps I might be sated by knowing them; that indeed your skin is soft,” he cups your cheek, and the intimacy of his touch sets your heart to racing. “And the scent of wildflowers, which by rights should belong to the warm summer days now belong to you and you alone.” Geralt’s thumb traces the shape of your lower lip. “It is the sweetest torture.”
You should push him away, snatch your hand back and put precious space between your bodies but you are frozen. You do not understand why a wanting heat flares in your belly as he nudges your chin up with his index finger. You dislike him—despise him, perhaps—and yet still you burn.
His mouth slants hotly across your own, one hand tangled in the curls at the nape of your neck and the other fisted in the fabric of your shift at your waist. It is soft but hungry, and he sighs against you as though a great thirst has now at last been slaked. A quiet gasp escapes you and Geralt’s tongue snakes in between your parted lips to stroke softly at your own.
Oh Gods—
There is no comparison between this and the hurried, talentless groping brought about by opportunity and youthful curiosity. No, every word, every caress is full of intent which terrifies you—and thrills you. Geralt tips your head further back, a hungry sound spilling from his lips and into your own mouth. His hands move deliberately over the curve of your hip, his fingers sinking possessively into the softness of your skin through your shift.
You suspect the hard shove you give him only works because of his surprise, and he stumbles back a pace or two. His lips curve upward into a knowing, triumphant smileIt is all the time you need to affect a limping sprint across the room as the wound in your side screams. Geralt could overtake you easily, but he does not take a single step after you, not even when you tug open the door and flee into the hallway and back towards your chambers.
Your heart is still beating so hard it aches in your chest as you close the door behind you, waiting for… you aren’t sure, really. The sound of footfall? Another bout of rage outside your locked door? You draw trembling fingers across your lips, a soft pantomime of his own. The burning ache at your core will not abate, no matter how sternly you will it to, and your cheeks burn with embarrassment instead of passion when your thighs slide together with the sticky slick gathered there.
Shamefully you crawl into bed, pulling the thick covers up over your head as you curl into yourself. You will not be Isolde or Katrina, Samille or Emilia—or any of the others whose names and stations you could never know. Why, then, will the terrible, wanting pulse between your thighs not leave you be? It is almost as insistent as Geralt himself, your body demanding your attention with all of the eagerness of a spoilt child. More than once you catch your wandering hands as they stray toward the slick, pulsing heat—
But then you remember the smug, victorious smile on his lips as you’d fled, and the weight of your humiliation crashes down on you again. It feels like a concession to tend the fire of his making, to acknowledge the fervor he has awakened in you with anything other than firm disdain.
It is in this fitful, unfulfilled half-state that dawn finds you, having turned sleeplessly all night beneath your covers. When Kassandra greets you at your door to help you bathe and dress, it is with a solemn expression, her lips pressed tight with worry.
“Do you feel quite well, my Lady?” Her eyes stray down and then back to your face again. “Does your wound ail you?” I must look ghastly.
“A—a bit, I suppose.” You mumble lamely, unable to produce the truth. “I did not sleep well.” The look of pity Kassandra gives you makes guilt rise like bile in your throat.
“I wish I could let you remain abed, my Lady, but we must hurry. I fear Her Majesty shall be here to fetch you soon.”
“What?” You blink tiredly at her. “Why?”
“T-the execution, my Lady,” she says softly, piteously. “The king’s will is done this day.”
Welcome to my Masterlist! As you can see below I have many many fandoms I write for, and I love to do so! If you don't see a fandom you'd like feel free to request cause I might know it!
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"Stupid Cupid, you're a real mean guy
I'd like to clip your wings off so you can't fly"
“Your smile… it's so damn good. I… would like to be the reason for it. As often as possible.”
"You are the reason, Geralt. More often than you think."
One of my favorite moments from “(Nie)wystarczająca bliskość”, a lovely fic (dedicated to me on top of that🥺👉👈hehe) by my friend @morska-owieczka 🧡 thank you so much for your lovely work, your Geregis never fails to make me smile, and I hope I can get you to smile in turn. Hope you like it! :)
For those of you who have not read it yet but don't speak polish, that's no excuse, it's 2025, translate it somehow 💆♂️
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
