the working title is i’m not writing this

[dragonlady7]

witcher, my writing, shit i write, i'm not writing this

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well. enough people on tumblr and dreamwidth and discord were like “ooh you should write that https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/663223341531955200/dsudis-replied-to-your-entry-crack-and-said” about the crack a/u https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/663208427155292160/crack, and there was a picture, and i fucking love pictures, so i told myself i could have the train ride today on amtrak to write it, and see where I was at the end of that time.

(I do have another peace-tied update to do, to finish that story, probably tomorrow or monday nobody reads fic on sundays and i’m probably busy as shit anyway, and then there’s another bit I’ve mostly finished in that storyline that i just have to sort of figure out the last part of, and then I uhh have another chapter of fit for pearls not finished but partly done and anyway that’s all still going i promise, this was just a quick break.)

It’s not fun and fluffy, it’s turned out to be weird. All the characters are slightly different versions of themselves. Iorveth’s colder. Roche is grimmer. Saskia is more fey and sort of cold-hearted, happier to use people.

But it is sort of fun. I can’t decide if I like or am bored by it. So anyway, some snippets:

“This is a set-up,” Roche muttered. Next to him, Ves checked the clip in the weapon she’d been issued, which she’d spent an hour testing at the firing range and then two disassembling, cleaning, and putting back together before loading it.

“So you’ve been saying,” she said finally, stowing the gun in the nice shoulder holster they’d given her for it.

“Well,” Roche snapped, “forgive me for being an expert in getting fucking set up.”

“Give me some credit,” Ves said. “I was there too.”

“You’re also an expert in taking a fall, yes,” Roche said.

[…]

Whatever protection detail they were to be on, it wasn’t a flashy one. Nobody too terribly important. This was probably just the trial run, though. Make sure they could look the part. The set-up would come later.

“At least we’re,” Ves said, and gestured at him. He looked at her. Her hair was as badly grown out as his. It made her look older, strangely. She was so young, and she’d deserved better, and there was nothing he could do about it. She’d hitched herself to his wagon and then followed him straight off the rails. She meant, at least they haven’t separated us, he thought, and it was a bit more than he could think about head-on. They were the only survivors. The rest of their world was gone. Roche wouldn’t be alive if he’d been the only one left, and that was that, and he couldn’t think about it.

[…]

Ves grabbed Roche’s arm, her fingers digging in above his elbow very tightly. He glanced over at her, and she was staring at the woman, who she clearly recognized. Roche looked at the woman again. She was young, early twenties at the oldest. “I remind you, I object to this as strongly as possible,” their handler said, nearly impassive.

“Yes,” the woman said, “I know.” She looked over at Iorveth, and smirked. Iorveth just shrugged. “Well,” the woman said, and clapped her hands together. “Shall we?”

“That’s Queen Saskia,” Ves hissed directly into his ear, as they followed the woman down the hall.

“No,” Roche said, blank with disbelief. But even as he said it, he knew Ves was right. “Fuck.”

[…]

Roche pulled on the jeans, considered them in some horror, and put on the ones he’d been given before instead. Ves was twenty-two, and looked it. He was absolutely not twenty-two and should not dress like he was.

“I liked those,” Ves said. “You should wear them, they’ll get mad.”

“The contours of my intimate areas are my concern only,” Roche said. This t-shirt was– well, he wasn’t going to take the jacket off. The fleur-de-lis tattooed on his chest showed through in a shadow, as did his chest hair. This was not optimal, that tattoo was a known marking. Under the jacket it should be fine, but.

“Oh c’mon,” Ves said, “what’s a little moose knuckle among friends.”

Roche closed his eyes. “I don’t know what that means. No, I can guess. No, don’t use that phrase again.”

[…]

He’d noticed before that Saskia seemed to like little hard candies, maybe mints, after she ate. This time was no exception. Once they’d finished eating she rummaged around and pulled out a small embroidered bag, dug through it, and pulled out a little unwrapped candy.

She looked at it with interest and satisfaction, turning it over between her fingers. It looked like a rock, a solid-colored smooth rock. She popped it into her mouth and it clicked audibly against one of her back teeth, and then she swallowed it whole. Roche darted his gaze over to Ves, whose smile didn’t falter but grew fixed for an instant. Neither of them was amateur enough to break even for a second, and the moment passed, but.

Roche was pretty sure he’d just watched the Queen eat a rock.

[…]

“If they find out you’re telepathic you can’t rely on reading them,” Iorveth said. “I’m telling you, you noticed how good they are at not showing their thoughts on their faces? They’ve had training in resisting telepaths and if they get the faintest inkling of an idea you might be one, you won’t be able to reliably read them anymore.”

“How do you train to resist a telepath?” Saskia asked.

Iorveth gave her a long look, then set to singing a repetitive children’s song in his head. He focused hard on the lyrics. This song has no end, round and round it wends, up and down and around it bends, this song has no end, repeated endlessly and in rounds, was one of the ways you could get children to make a terrible racket for a very long time. (Your picture was not posted)