![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/33dienN
so the next chapter of Little Fishie has long been a planned thing and I had bits of it in semi-outline forever ago, and finally have gone through and knocked it into shape, and am now in final edits, and
uh it’s about uhhh
heh it’s about a typhoid fever epidemic Geralt finds himself in the middle of cleaning up after. Being impervious to disease, and there being a lot of necrophages around, his services are needed.
And that’s a great and fine idea but it uhhh it feels
well it feels bad, now, as people are dying and parades get cancelled and my dude’s workplace goes into Pandemic Protocol and and people panic and all sorts of horrible shit is going on
and I Really Did Not Want that to be topical and sort of did not dream it would be when I started writing it???
😭
So anyway, I can’t really re-edit it to make it be about anything else, so… uhhhhhhh I guess I’ll post it, tomorrow or Saturday or sometime in there when I’m done editing it, and I’m just gonna put a lot of warnings on it. It’s… I mean, it’s got government mismanagement and the looming terror of the asymptomatic incubation period and all that, but:
It also has the fantasy of someone heroically doing something about it and, in fact, a bunch of people doing their best, and then it’s mostly necrophages and magic. So like. Gonna tag the shit out of it, and hope that the fantasy of heroism helps be consoling, instead of this triggering the shit out of a bunch of people who are probably as scared about all of this shit as I am.
[a snippet: tw illness, contagion, plague! plus banter 😬]
It took Jaskier a week to show symptoms, but on the seventh morning, Geralt rode back at dawn covered in the stench of death, and Jaskier came out the door to haul in water, smiled at him, and promptly went white and fell over.
“Fuck,” Geralt said.
Jaskier laughed weakly, sitting down on his butt in the dirt. “Oh, fuck,” he said. “I’m dizzy. Just give me a moment. Might not have slept enough.”
Geralt pulled off a glove, frowned at his hand, decided it was clean enough, and felt Jaskier’s forehead. It was cool, but not as cool as it should have been. “Heartbeat’s too slow,” he said; of course, to him, Jaskier’s heartbeat always raced, but it ought to have been faster than this. “You have it, all right.”
“Well,” Jaskier said, pulling his knees up and setting his elbows on them. “I guess it was about time.”
“It was,” Geralt said. He still had the back of his hand on Jaskier’s forehead. He turned his hand, holding Jaskier’s head with it gently, curling his fingers around the back of his skull, and used his thumb to push some of the hair away from Jaskier’s forehead where it was caught, a little, in sweat. He didn’t know what to say, and Jaskier just looked at him, blue-gray eyes sick and frightened but just mostly resigned in the pale dawn light.
Geralt had the tiniest fraction of warning, as those eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. “Now will you tell me why your horse is named Roach?” Jaskier asked.
Despite himself, Geralt laughed and looked away, letting go of him. “If you live,” he said.
“Oh come on,” Jaskier protested.
“You have to survive. If you make it through, I’ll tell you the entire story.”
“You are a monster,” Jaskier said.
so the next chapter of Little Fishie has long been a planned thing and I had bits of it in semi-outline forever ago, and finally have gone through and knocked it into shape, and am now in final edits, and
uh it’s about uhhh
heh it’s about a typhoid fever epidemic Geralt finds himself in the middle of cleaning up after. Being impervious to disease, and there being a lot of necrophages around, his services are needed.
And that’s a great and fine idea but it uhhh it feels
well it feels bad, now, as people are dying and parades get cancelled and my dude’s workplace goes into Pandemic Protocol and and people panic and all sorts of horrible shit is going on
and I Really Did Not Want that to be topical and sort of did not dream it would be when I started writing it???
😭
So anyway, I can’t really re-edit it to make it be about anything else, so… uhhhhhhh I guess I’ll post it, tomorrow or Saturday or sometime in there when I’m done editing it, and I’m just gonna put a lot of warnings on it. It’s… I mean, it’s got government mismanagement and the looming terror of the asymptomatic incubation period and all that, but:
It also has the fantasy of someone heroically doing something about it and, in fact, a bunch of people doing their best, and then it’s mostly necrophages and magic. So like. Gonna tag the shit out of it, and hope that the fantasy of heroism helps be consoling, instead of this triggering the shit out of a bunch of people who are probably as scared about all of this shit as I am.
[a snippet: tw illness, contagion, plague! plus banter 😬]
It took Jaskier a week to show symptoms, but on the seventh morning, Geralt rode back at dawn covered in the stench of death, and Jaskier came out the door to haul in water, smiled at him, and promptly went white and fell over.
“Fuck,” Geralt said.
Jaskier laughed weakly, sitting down on his butt in the dirt. “Oh, fuck,” he said. “I’m dizzy. Just give me a moment. Might not have slept enough.”
Geralt pulled off a glove, frowned at his hand, decided it was clean enough, and felt Jaskier’s forehead. It was cool, but not as cool as it should have been. “Heartbeat’s too slow,” he said; of course, to him, Jaskier’s heartbeat always raced, but it ought to have been faster than this. “You have it, all right.”
“Well,” Jaskier said, pulling his knees up and setting his elbows on them. “I guess it was about time.”
“It was,” Geralt said. He still had the back of his hand on Jaskier’s forehead. He turned his hand, holding Jaskier’s head with it gently, curling his fingers around the back of his skull, and used his thumb to push some of the hair away from Jaskier’s forehead where it was caught, a little, in sweat. He didn’t know what to say, and Jaskier just looked at him, blue-gray eyes sick and frightened but just mostly resigned in the pale dawn light.
Geralt had the tiniest fraction of warning, as those eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. “Now will you tell me why your horse is named Roach?” Jaskier asked.
Despite himself, Geralt laughed and looked away, letting go of him. “If you live,” he said.
“Oh come on,” Jaskier protested.
“You have to survive. If you make it through, I’ll tell you the entire story.”
“You are a monster,” Jaskier said.
