#isengrim/dijkstra

[greenapplespider]

The moment Dijkstra realizes the pet name Isengrim’s been using for him means ‘beloved’ in elvish; maybe exile isn’t to bad

[venenumtea]

[zerpentele]

When u let the barge explode

[gsope]

умоляю кто-нибудь напишите о них фанфик

[limerental]

ficletvember 2024 - day 30

isengrim/dijkstra

Isengrim cares for his human lover in his frail old age.

The townhouse stairs creak as the elf climbs, balancing a dinner tray, and though he navigates them easily, his reflexes honed by years of combat in wild Northern forests, Isengrim curses as he always does the steepness and uneven breadth of the stairs.

“We should've retired to the coast,” he says as the final landing gives way to the fire-warmed bedroom. “Anywhere but Novigrad. I fear the house grows more crooked by the day. I'm liable to finally break a leg on these damn steps, and then who will take care of you?”

He sets the tray on a bedside table and leans to fix the pillows that prop up the old man in bed. 

“You gettin’ old, Grim?” asks Sigi with the crack of a dry smile. Though it's midday, he only woke some time ago and is likely to sleep again soon. Isengrim adjusts the pillow so that his head doesn't list and touches his lips briefly to his bald crown.

Isengrim truly does feel old, nearing three hundred years with most of them squandered on joyless, ill-fated ventures that have amounted to nothing. Sigi has just passed eighty-five. Not ancient for a human by any means, but this past winter was hard on his health and his damaged ankle and arthritis and varying other ailments plague him and these days even rising from bed is an ordeal.

It aches to even look at him, each time expecting the hale and massive man he'd met in the wilderness. Age has shrunk the human to alarming smallness, stooping his back and leaving his limbs frail as bare bone, his cheeks hollowed.

Isengrim remembers thinking he'd looked terribly old back then, as most humans do to him, how he had once balked at the things he felt. Surely, he could not feel any attraction toward an ugly, oafish human past his prime. Surely said human could feel no desire for some disfigured, rangy elf. 

But both had, in deep and fierce ways that lasted.

“We could be sunning ourselves on the beach,” Isengrim says as he pours out a mug of tea, stirring in just the right amount of cream, “but no, you couldn't possibly sell this wretched place.”

“It's our home,” says Sigi. He coughs, and Isengrim helps him drink small sips, barely a moment before he's waved a way. “The beaches in Novigrad are shit anyway.”

“Somewhere further south then. Or in the East.”

“I’ve had my fill of travel. I've had my grave plot in Redania paid for for years, and I'll not have that go to waste.”

He may have made some quip about human burials being both needlessly tedious and lacking the artistry of Elven crypts, but it feels a little too real and raw these days, the time approaching when Sigi will pass.

Sigi wanted a simple stone on the round of a hill. No inscription but his name. He'd balked at the thought of Isengrim commissioning a statue of him, something looming and life-like. He'd rather fade into the shadows of history, as forgotten as any spy.

It's been months since the human has left the bedroom at all, far longer since he navigated the cumbersome stairs without aid. Years ago, they'd argued often about relocating, at least in converting one of the downstairs rooms to a bedchamber, but Sigi has always been ceaselessly and wretchedly stubborn and will be to the very bitter end.

The townhouse has been their home for nearly three decades, and the top floor bedroom is the safest and warmest place that Isengrim has ever known. Seeping pleasure and comfort and security, all felt between these walls, in this bed, in the arms of this man.

Once he finally leaves it, he's unlikely to know something close to those feelings again. 

Isengrim tries to coax the old man into eating the bowl of soup he's brought up on the tray, but as usual, Sigi has no appetite and resists the offered spoon. It’s a futile effort, but Isengrim is stubborn in equal measure. 

Part of him think Sigi's choosing not to eat, forcing himself to dwindle faster so as not to burden Isengrim more than need be. The thought clenches something in his chest. If need be, he would clean chamberpots and help Sigi bathe and carry him anywhere, always, for hundreds more years.

“Speaking of the coast,” says Sigi.

“Not this again.”

“Reliable sources say there's a fleet of vessels readying to sail. That there's a gate across the sea that the elves plan to cross through.”

“It’s a fairytale,” says Isengrim. “Your bard's been telling you bedtime stories.”

He knows it's true, that for years the remaining elves have planned to depart this world. The efforts of the Scoia’tael have amounted to nothing, few left alive, and even the elves in Dol Blathanna have grown weary of human hostility. Francesca had been bold enough to request he join them, but he could tell she'd known his answer even as she asked.

What could any other world have to offer him?

His place is here.

“I have the coin. Pay someone to mind me, and board a boat, Wolf.” His beloved speaks slowly, trailing off with weariness.

“Pity the poor bastard who took that job,” says Isengrim. “You know they'd never do a single thing to your liking.”

Sigi hums in agreement and closes his eyes.

He sleeps until dusk and wakes as he does some evenings, delirious and agitated, not knowing how many years have passed since their long nights in Zerrikania. 

He asks for a drink, that mulled wine they bought in the market last summer.

“You downed the lot of it, remember?”  Isengrim recalls the spice on his tongue, kissed off of warm lips. The remainder of that night blurs with the rest of them spent in the East. 

Had that been the night Sigi dared to hoist Isengrim over his shoulder to drag him off to bed?  Or the one where they'd gotten so drunk they'd nearly toppled from the balcony? Or when they had first offered hushed confessions, quiet with the impossibility of the feeling, to be so close to another living person, to feel subsumed by him entirely.

Isengrim is glad at least that Sigi has yet to wake and not know him at all, to balk at the presence of a strange, disfigured elf in his bedchamber. When his memory fails him, he is always brought back to the earliest days of loving one another, feeling young together, living their tenderest moments over again.

Sigi spends an hour telling stories he told yesterday, and when Isengrim goes downstairs for more firewood, he returns to find him sleeping again. 

The tired elf feeds a log to the fire, dresses for bed, and climbs in beside the old man to lay a hand on his sharp breastbone as it rises and falls, waiting for the end.

[horsegirlcahir]

ᴛʜᴇ ɪʀᴏɴ ᴡᴏʟғ — of his elven beauty, nothing was left.

[soggydogggy]

Small Isengrim/Dijkstra fanfiction because I love old men yaoi. There is actually an amazing art piece drawn based on the fic by my dearest and loveliest friend @gsope! check out her other stuff, she’s incredibly talented <3

Dijkstra talks a lot, Isengrim is madly in love. Their first kiss just kinda happens.

P.s. for english not being my native tongue i'd kindly ask you to be gentle with me (please otherwise i might actually cry /j)

The night was a little colder than the others. Clouds filled the dark sky barely lit by stars, and a tingling breeze crept under their cloaks, unobtrusively reminding to change into something more suitable for the upcoming winter. The crispy weather wasn’t anything unusual, as their long journey was about to come to an end  — they were approaching the North, and so the chills running rapidly along their spines caused almost no questions. Although he never showed it in the way he was acting, it was extremely hard for Isengrim to believe that was the only reason  — he was certain the frost did not come only from the changes in climate, but emerged somewhere from the inside of his own head too.

They were both sitting by a small now dying fire they made earlier, just a few inches away from each other, their knees nearly touching. They were comfortable at last, being so close to one another. Sigi Reuven (and this name yuckily rolled with a taste of deception on Isengrim’s tongue) was gaping at the burning logs of wood, slightly squinting from ashes getting into his eyes, discoursing on something, explaining everything in such detail. Isengrim found it hard to pay attention, not because he wasn’t curious enough, but because his companion's voice was too quiet, hoarsely soothing, and his own thoughts were too deafening —  therefore all the political intrigues forgotten in the sandy valleys of Zerrikania flew right past him, for he had unintentionally turned a deaf ear to anything that was said.

Isengnim, however, didn’t dare to look away even for a split second, and was gazing quite attentively, to the point it might have been a little shameful for him to do so — that was if he could experience shame, after all. The warm fiery light fell gently on the rough features of Sigi’s face, and so they seemed to slightly change, visually softening. This, for a completely unclear reason, caused a very faint smile on Isengrim’s own face — and the only thing that scared him was it seeming natural, too natural, even. There was something not quite right about looking at a dh’oine with zero withering contempt, especially at a dh’oine who had almost condemned you to a painful and unworthy death in the past.

There was something not quite right even about thinking of such a thing at the moment — though Isengrim, already feeling the ever-increasing smell of familiar northern herbs all day long, absolutely could not help but do so.

Here, in these familiar lands, he was considered a war criminal — and a pathetic fugitive at the same time. His head was still probably worth a whole fortune  — although his name send shivers down people’s spines not so often anymore, slowly starting to get erased from the history books. He was getting forgotten, swiftly and quickly, and he himself was also forgetting everything(a little slower, albeit). The scar on his face seemed to itch less and less with time — and there was something not quite right about that, too. He was away from here for too long, and who knows how much longer it might have taken — if not for one particular proposal, that was more of a polite request, at the end.

“Oxenfurt first, then Novigrad, and I could use your help there, Grim." — not Wolf,

— “I would love you to consider that", — and a smile, that smile, that ugly, atrocious smile of a dh’oine,

and "Fine, I would think about that",

and "We are leaving in a week",

and "Thank you, my dear" said with a small grin,

— and a heavy hand on a sturdy shoulder, gently squeezing the tensed muscles and the rough skin for a second too long.

And these memories were terrifying too. And here, in these familiar lands, the value of his life was dropping significantly, yet next to Sigi it never seemed to matter, fading into the shadows of Isengrim’s twisted mind. His fingers always trembled because of that — well, because of that, and because of the way the shining sparks from the fire were reflecting in Sigi’s watery tired eyes.

Isengrim sat a little tense, rubbing his roughened hands against one another. Old calluses and marks and scars were covering them whole, constantly reminding that they used to bleed daily from a grip too strong on the hilt of a shabby old sword. They didn't hurt much anymore, just like the ugly scar covering his face didn’t, yet that was not quite important in the moment —what was important was that Sigi didn't have any of those. Isengrim noticed the fact a long time ago, and ever since it reminded him of the unchangeable difference between them even more than the accents in their speech or the shapes of their ears did.

Isengrim swallowed hard, his next sigh filled with some kind of an irksome disappointment: Sigi's hands were the best evidence that all he did was hold quills in them, write a lot, sign so many important documents and crucial papers — and the very particular one, the one that decided Isengrim’s fate, too. Here, in these familiar lands, at that one specific moment, it was Sigi himself who determined the value of his, Isengrim’s, very own not-so-fragile life with his own unscathed fingers.

And the only thing that scared Isengrim was all that important business not raging him even in the slightest.

Isengnim knew he ought to have been rageful earlier. A lot earlier, to be exact, somewhere around the time they shook hands for the first time ever, introducing themselves with fake names, looking at each other knowing they both understood everything about one another just right. Yet even then he just couldn’t bring himself to do so. There just wasn’t any need for that: he was to find someone to travel with, someone to ensure his path, a strong ally, an alibi and, finally, some rightful decisions in his life, —  and after meeting Sigi, he found everything except the very last thing.

Something else had come to replace it — something strange, completely wrong, dizzying his mind with a heavy burden of feelings. This special something was now scraping his aching heart from the inside when Sigi, throwing a couple of sticks into the fire, laughed hoarsely looking right at him.

He went on with his speech immediately after — and Isengrim let out a sigh that seemed a little heavier than usual. And the only thing that scared him was the absence of any desire to curse any gods known to men now.

That was new.

Their knees still were nearly touching, and the chilly wind was still blowing around their bare necks, and the fire was still making them squeeze their watery eyes, and the smell of familiar northern herbs was still sticking to their clothes. The value of Isengrim’s life was dropping significantly with every going second — and here, in these familiar lands, it seemed to be starting to matter. And there was something not quite right about Isengrim not being able to understand what the exact value would be like now. Sigi's fingers, the ones not disfigured by any scars or marks, were confusing him even more.

Sigi was calmly going on with his speech, mentioning Radovid's weakening position, the future of Redania, the plans for their freshly found friend Bart, —  and yet it was becoming more and more challenging to properly concentrate (or even impossible, Isengrim had to admit). Despite that, he still wasn’t planning to take his eyes off his comrade any time soon. The light from the fire still brushed softly along the very familiar features of a very familiar face — and here, in these familiar lands, the tender small grim he was given did not leave Isengrim’s not-so-fragile life a chance. And there was something not quite right about the feeling not scaring him at all, but being absolutely needed right now instead.

Impatient enough, Isengrim moved just slightly, awkwardly making their upper hands touch, placing a wide palm on a stubbly cheek, making Sigi look right at him, his gaze shining from the heat of the fire. He did not seem to be frightened or shocked, and his face was not at all familiar to the touch: it was not of a sophisticated Aen Seidhe, but of a simple dh’oine, rough and prickly — yet the special something scraping inside Isengrim’s heart did not let him stop.

Isengnim closed his eyes and quickly leaned forward — and just a second later, he pressed his slightly trembling lips to Sigi’s very own. He didn’t do any more, waiting for any kind of a reaction, and his breathing was a little heavier than usual, — and right there he felt their knees finally touch. The intimacy of the moment sent shivers down his spine, and Isengrim almost forgot about what he was doing — right until the piercing realisation hit him.

Sigi was smiling. The bloody, Sigi-fucking-Reuven, let him be damned, Isengrim thought, was smiling right into his lips. It was a very familiar smile, the one Isengrim had seen so many times before, the ugly, vile, disgustingly gentle smile of a disgustingly precious dh’oine — and the only exception was that this time he could actually feel it. Grasping that smile made Isengrim titter, right as he started to pull away — when suddenly, at the very last second, he felt he was actually getting kissed back.

Unfortunately, it was already too late to come back to the hot touch of those desired lips— yet to look at the cunning, satisfied eyes before him was quite the right time.

Sigi never stopped beaming, now with a tint of arrogance, looking right at Isengrim — yet there was a very slight hint of crimson blushing on his cheeks. From the heat of the fire, it must be.

They spoke quietly.

“Is that how they show love now, men?”

"Well, I would think it's more of an Aen Seidhe thing. But yeah. Something like that.”

“Something like that” and Sigi grinned again, turning his gaze to the fire.

And the familiar features of his face were softer than ever. And his raspy voice was gentler than ever. And he slightly stroked Isengrim’s knee(the one that never broke the touch) with his huge rough hand — and there was something just quite right about that — more right than ever.

“So, Radovid…”

And here, in these familiar lands, the value of Isengrim’s life seemed to increase more than ever. And, once again, it seemed like Sigi himself was the one to determine it with his very own unscarred fingers — and his very own lips, too.

And so the night felt warm again.

[nuricurry]

The Witcher | Isengrim/Dijkstra; "no one's ever looked this way"

Never let it be said that the Iron Wolf ever found any dh’oine particularly pleasant to look at— even the most comely of their race were disagreeable and disappointing to an Aen Seidhe’s sensibilities— but Dijkstra was of an especially gruesome sort.

Here on AO3!

[fleurdeliet]

Wither but not IoRoche xD

1 — Dijkstra and Isengrim. They look interesting together actually this one is my first commission 💙

2 — Eldain in Yule atmosphere

3 — Cedric.. Live him so much 💙 I tried not draw as I used to, but style it a bit

4 — Dandelion, love him

5 — Modern AU Foltest x Roche

6 — Young Foltest

7 — Ves 💙

8 — Ciri

9 — Foltest x Adda

[big-mommy-melkors]

i relate to sigismund dijkstra because i too have a fucked up ankle and many homosexual feelings for isengrim faoiltiarna

[greenapplespider]

(Click for best quality) part 1/?

Fan comic inspired by @deadcuntry fic And the Devil Makes Three, give their fic a read it’s great. This is part of a larger series I’m doing where I make little comics inspired or based off Witcher fanfics ;p

[vrsos]

What

Vernon Roche needs to get around more. This event seeks to remedy that.

There are two options you can pick from, a more traditional version with three prompt choices, and one with a specified type of ship.

You don't have to follow them in the order of which they are numbered. You may also create your own prompts and if you have ideas of your own that you would like to execute, do edit the cards as you deem please.

When

The participation period is from Sat, 23 March to Mon, 22 April 2024.

AO3 COLLECTION

LIMERENTAL | Dijkstra | Letho | Isengrim | Saskia & Iorveth

SASSAFFRASSA | Foltest | Lambert | Isengrim | Dijkstra

JUSTLEAF | Female OC | Eskel & Lambert | Iorveth | Temeria

ONE | Get Your Card Click this link to get to the templates and cards.

Alternatively you may message the blog with details of your pairings or prompts of choice, and we can generate a card for you. It may take up to 3 days for you to get a response.

TWO | Create Once your creation is finished, be sure to tag this blog @vrsos so that your post can be reblogged. Do tag responsibly.

THREE | Join the Collection An AO3 collection will be created in the near future. If you provide a link to the work in your account, it will be added to the collection.

Rules

For the purposes of this event, the characters involved have to be sentient. A ship with Roche and his hat will not count, BUT if his hat comes to life, it’s fine.

The relationship between the characters must be romantic, sexual or both.

For ships that involve 3 or more parties, it will count as long as 1 of the characters (excluding Roche) fulfills the criteria.

You may at any point in the event, swap out Roche for Roach the horse, simply because I think it would be hilarious. Works created for Roach can be centered around platonic relationships.

The content you create must be original. Evidence of plagiarism will result in a blacklist.

Be a decent person. If you don’t like a ship, skip over it and move on. Anyone who harrasses another creator or leaves negative comments about their choice of pairing, will be blacklisted.

[zerpentele]

👀 Isengim visiting Dijkstra 👀👀

at night 👀

👀👀

[Source: https://github.com/glassfish777/WhatLiesUnseen/releases/tag/docs

What Lies Unseen Vol.1 - A Time of Sword and Axe Page 251,252]

[gsope]

да опять они ну и что🙄

[limerental]

ficletvember 2024 - day 16

isengrim/dijsktra

Isengrim receives word of the unfortunate events following Radovid's assassination.

The letter takes some weeks to reach Isengrim as letters sent into the forest always do. It's a rare thing to hold a physical sheaf of parchment in his hand, most couriers choosing to memorize and destroy any implicating messages.

He cracks the seal and endures a waft of perfume, scowling at the tidy scrawl that greets him. The little irritant does prove useful occasionally. Sigi prefers the poet over other informants for whatever baffling reasons, but Isengrim never likes to see that script. At least this time it's not in verse.

He reads and then rereads. The candlelight flickers, burning low. The war's meant fresh wax is harder to come by, candlemakers selling direct to Nilfgaard or Redania to light their late night war room meetings. Funny how light itself has become a dwindling rarity, reserved for powerful men while the rest sink into darkness.

Isengrim reads the letter again. Regret to inform you swims in a loop of Elder script. 

Dandelion's Elder has always been a strange mix of archaic grammar-- the sort learned from old songs-- and informal speech patterns-- the sort that look odd written out. Sometimes his letters require some creative interpretation to parse his meaning. Maybe that's what's happened this time. A simple translation error.

Isengrims notes that his hands are shaking as he pulls out a very different letter he keeps tucked against his breast. This one is well-worn from frequent reading, the creases close to separating. He flattens it on the table over the other and reads the words he has memorized. He knows that written word is fleeting, that the letter will age and decay before long, water-logged and rubbed thin by the heat of his body.

Sigi's Elder script is clumsy, his grasp of grammar highly rudimentary, his vocabulary lacking. The bulk of the letter is matter of fact and unembellished.

Events going ahead, the letter reads. Won't see you before. The house is cold without you. Hurry back, beloved.

There's not much more than that, a handful of coded details and reminders, scraps of news from Novigrad. Isengrim's eyes burn as he reads the letter once more, though his weeping soon steals his vision and he must rely on memory alone.

Hurry back, beloved.

When he masters himself as the candle sputters, he examines Dandelion's letter a last time and can find no flaw of interpretation.

The man known as Sigi Reuven is dead, killed in an altercation with Temerian partisans in the midst of a successful plot to assassinate the king of Redania. 

He's died before, thinks Isengrim. He remembers the looming stranger he sat with talking for hours that night before the fire in the Elskerdeg Pass. He recalls knowing exactly who he shared a log with, the master spy of a hostile nation, and deciding that that life was gone, that man was dead, and this one living one was interesting.

Travel in lands freshly deemed Nilfgaardian proves tedious. It matters little to Isengrim who holds power in the North, trading one tyrant for the next. He knows there will be no real place for him in any empire, even if by some miracle his people rise up and take back what is theirs.

Sigi had discussed his ridiculous plans at length, how the North would be better governed by a council of worldly experts rather than inbred monarchs. Elected by him, of course. He didn't seek to be crowned king, but if need be, he'd rule with an iron fist.

Warm in their bed, Isengrim had laughed, voice dry with mockery as he asked what role he'd be made to serve in Sigi’s future Redanian ministry. 

“Prince Consort?” he'd asked, lips brushing his lover's ear. “A curiosity to sit at your arm? Relic of the last Aen Seidhe.”

“Chancellor's bedwarmer,” Sigi had said and rolled them into a fresh bout of love-making.

The whole debacle had sounded to Isengrim like a foolish venture. Never to come to pass.

As he slips like a shadow past the Nilfgaardian checkpoint into Novigrad, he imagines a parade in arrival of his honor. The crowds parting, trumpets sounding, and Sigi larger than life on a waiting dais, chain of office heavy at his breast, hand reaching down to take his own as they had that first night.

He does not wholly believe it until he scales the balcony, steals through his usual second story window, and finds the townhouse vacant and hushed. 

He stands in the darkened kitchens, cloak dripping muck from the streets onto the bare floor. He has never known the great stone hearth to go wholly cold.

The once well-stocked pantry is barren. The furniture has been hauled away. No books to the ceiling in the office. All personal effects gone.

He does not climb the stairs to see if the oversized mattress on its opulent bed frame remains or if someone has found some way to remove it as well. It was the first luxury Sigi had splurged on in their return North. Had to be hoisted to the top floor by a questionable pulley system, ropes straining, crewmen swearing below.

The thought of seeing the bed wide and barren when the nights spent in it had been the warmest of his life is an ache nearly too sharp to bear.

He flees the townhouse and seeks out Dandelion. 

The poet is no trouble to track, interrupted in the midst of a lively performance that happens nightly at his gaudy inherited establishment. Isengrim remains as a hooded figure in the farthest corner booth long after the performance ends, and eventually, Dandelion staggers to meet the intriguing visitor.

He sobers when Isengrim's scarred face catches the light.

“Faoiltiarna,” he says. “From the bottom of my heart, I am so very–”

“Spare me your courtesies. They're as cliched as your songs.”

The fool presses on anyhow.

“I know how it feels when it's fresh. The emptiness. Wondering if something could have been done to change it, could have been different. I wish things could have been different.”

“Nothing could have changed the bastard's mind,” says Isengrim. He knows his voice would break on his name and avoids it. “I don't need platitudes. I only need to know what happened.”

“Well, it's quite a long story really. May I buy you a drink? Though I own the whole place and the drinks so–”

“You misunderstand,” says Isengrim, voice raw and dangerous. “I need you to tell me who killed him. So that I may kill them.”

“Ah.” Dandelion wilts. “I was afraid you'd say that. I fear my tongue is tethered by the bindings of fraternal loyalty. I cannot tell you.”

Which is answer enough.

“So the Witcher chose to involve himself after all,” isengrim hums thoughtfully. “Foolish of him.”

He doesn't fancy his chances against Geralt of Rivia. He knows Sigi doomed himself, made his own fatal choices. But he wants to make the absence of his beloved feel in the world. He wants the loss to have meant something to someone beyond him.

“Geralt's long gone. You'll never catch up to him,” says Dandelion hurriedly. “Besides, he only acted for the Temerians’ sake. Dijkstra was the fool to think that he would simply stand by as–”

“And where are these Temerians? I'd love to pay them a friendly visit. Don't tell me your fratenal bonds protect them as well.”

Dandelion relents.

Within a week's time, Isengrim finds himself in a Nilfgaardian encampment on the border of the vassal state of Temeria, waiting for Vernon Roche, freshly-installed member of the Temerian Regency Council, to return to his humble quarters for the evening.

Instead, a ghost materializes before him.

Some mirror of his past self, a tall, scarred elf dressed in Nilfgaardian black. Only the missing Vrihedd emblem at his breast and gold-threaded eye patch marks the difference.

“I told him you'd come for him,” says Iorveth, the sound of his familiar nasal voice sending Isengrim's heart rate climbing. “I hardly believed it myself when I found  those letters in his study, but as intolerable as Sigismund Dijkstra was, he didn't seem the sort to forge himself love letters.”

His lover spoken about in past tense by a comrade who should be long dead is fiercely disorienting. Isengrim fears he may be sick on the ornamented rug or worse that he will weep as he has most nights until the hitch of his lungs aches worse than his hollow belly.

“Is the Witcher dead?” asks Iorveth.

“When I track him down, he will be.” Isengrim can't quite muster up the energy to sound convincing.

 Iorveth looks older, which is all that tells Isengrim that he isn't a trick of his worn-thin mind. If anything, he wishes he would conjure Sigi when he finally lost all sense, even if as an illusion he could hear his voice again.

There's nothing to be done but sit together in the Nilfgaardian tent and light up a pipe. 

“I suppose you're going to tell me not to kill him,” he says, voice warped by a pull of smoke.

“Who? Vernon?” Iorveth waves a hand. “Be my guest. Mind you, I've been trying to kill him for the better part of a decade. He bites back.”

He's not certain what happens now. Sigi's briefer lifespan had ever existed as an inevitable but distant hurdle. Something to be grappled with after a good decade or more. Before having to cope with his loss, Isengrim had expected to deal with the drudgery typical of aging humanity. Senility, frailty, a body failing one organ and joint at a time.

He had prepared himself to watch his lover's slow decline, to see him shrink and go pale and eventually stutter out. But he'd always imagined holding Sigi's aged hand to the last breath, skin as thin as paper, breath unsteady, and wry wit still sharp.

Iorveth takes the pipe and inhales so deeply Isengrim imagines smoke trailing from his ears. He thinks what happens next is that he may join Iorveth in whatever venture he sees fit.

In another life, they had settled shoulder to shoulder dressed in black on the eve of a battle that would decide everything. Isengrim hadn't known then the difference between something worth dying and living for. 

He knows now, maybe. A part of him wishes he didn't.

[kashuan]

hi. yesterday i finished witcher (novel series) and i was really happy when unexpectedly dijkstra and isengrim met on the road and were going to become comrades. i really loved dijkstra and also loved geralt's journey companions and emhyr. imagine my delight when i found your art specially of djikstra and isengrim. i thought no one else cared for that encounter. thank you for proving me wrong with your beautiful art.

i cared SO much 😭 when I first read those scenes, I immediately went looking for art/fic and could only find 1 (one) picture and 1 (one) fic, so it makes me so happy to hear from someone in that position I once was and know I made even a bit of a difference :,) thanks for this sweet message, I really appreciate it❤️