writing, the witcher
via https://ift.tt/gVbiMdX
I have done it, I have scraped this don’t-wanna scene into a new fic, and
in the three hours it spent me to agonizingly come up with a title this
morning, i realized one of the underlying themes, so go me.
Chapter one is up now, of Lion, Sable, Passant,
https://archiveofourown.org/works/36878308 on AO3.
The timeline doesn’t connect in this chapter, which is sort of awkwardly
long, but like, it will, next chapter, believe me.
For some reason this kicked my ass so if you ever wanted to be nice to me
now is the time. I don’t know, this was hard. It just was.
Anyway the title is because actually
akilah12902
https://tmblr.co/mmG9gp3S698rFJImW-pcxgg came up with this, one of the
old heraldic crests for Temeria features a black lion, passant, and they
adopted that as belonging personally to Foltest’s family, and because I’m
concurrently working on another co-written fic with them in the unspooling
series of how Roche got to be like this, that’s been much in mind, so.
There it is. (There exists some beautiful art they commissioned
incorporating the tattoo Roche got of that crest, but I don’t know where it
is to link to it.)
So– a snippet:
Fuck, Roche almost said out loud, as he saw the massive canvas leaned
against the wall in one of the receiving rooms. He’d thought it might be
this one. Its dustwrappings lay around it in disarray, and the steward was
officiously dusting bits of the frame— but there, nearly life-size, sat
Foltest, aged about thirty-eight, crowned and smirking on his throne, with
several of his military officers standing around him looking stern, and a
few carefully-selected exemplary low-ranking soldiers as well, to
commemorate… Roche couldn’t recall, exactly. One of the wars. Cidaris,
probably. Foltest had insisted on including several low-ranking soldiers to
record for posterity the people who had done the fighting. Natalis was
there, younger and trimmer than he was now, with a sharper jaw and more
hair, and he looked confident but a little sad.
And, behind Foltest, Roche: twenty-two, staring solemnly at the viewer,
hands clasped patiently in front of himself, looking sharp and bright-eyed
and dangerous.
(Your picture was not posted)