La La Wheee!

[antimonyschnuck]

La La Wheee!

Fandom: The Witcher

Ship: Geralt/Emhyr

Rating: Teens+

🚬 😏 "Imagine, if you will, an emperor who's just had a cup of tea..."

Emhyr has been drugged with psychedelic mushrooms, the world becomes surreal but he's also able to see and somewhat manipulate Chaos.

4000 words will spill out when you click the cut:

Chapter 1

“Thank you.” The emperor dismissed whoever had just brought him his afternoon tea. He finished the sentence he’d just been writing and took a sip. Just as he liked it, hot and strong. A little sweeter than he preferred it, maybe. He breathed in the fragrant steam, drank some more and then looked for the quill; that letter needed to be sent off as soon as possible.

His hands felt numb, large and clumsy. He looked down on them and at first thought he was wearing mittens but no - those were his hands: round, fingerless, black paws.

His arms looked odd, too: loose skin covered in short fur.

The emperor jumped up from his chair and from what he could see his whole body looked soft, fuzzy and as black as Nilfgaardian velvet.

“Mererid! Guards!” he called out, but the noises coming from his mouth sounded like a high pitched “Laaa laaaaa! Wheeee!”

Nevertheless, the doors were pushed open and a small purple being with a stalk on its large round head entered. A square shaped growth bobbed on the headstalk’s tip. The homunculus hobbled towards him, grinning and muttering nonsense like a toddler. Emhyr shrank back and kept his chair between himself and the pudgy gnome.

“Poo poo?” he asked and that thing went “Guh guh teehee!” After a few exchanges like that the purple goblin ran away.

Emhyr’s gaze flicked around the room, looking for normalcy. But his study was slowly transforming into a nightmarish mockery of an idyllic scenery. He stood in a most unnatural meadow - short emeralt grass dotted with flowers in primary colours. His desk was still there but looked like a child’s building block. The tea in his cup was pure light so bright it hurt his eyes.

The emperor waddled downhill and through the doors. The corridor was now part of a hedge maze. Rabbits sat around in the garish grass, staring vaguely traumatised into thin air. At one end of the corridor light pulsated through the leafy twigs of the hedge.

From the other direction approached more of those small toddling demons - one white, one green, led by the purple one. Their headstalks ended in different shapes, Emhyr noticed, staring at them in awe. The green gremlin’s stalk tip was shaped like a bird in flight, the white one’s looked like the crude outline of a dog’s head.

Emhyr pulled up his grotesque hands. He felt around his own large head and found the headstalk. It bent down enough he could see that a golden Nilfgaardian sun emblem sprouted from its tip.

“What is happening!” The emperor tried to shout through the noises the plushy little monsters were making at him - but his own voice sounded exactly like their gargling baby talk. He usually had an iron grip on himself and the emotions he allowed others to see but now his aggravation somehow overwhelmed him. He jumped up and down and stomped on the artificial grass with both of his comically round feet.

The gnomes went silent and stared at him in shock. Emhyr watched in fascination how the white goblin’s colour changed to lime green and the shape on the headstalk morphed into a triangle. Then he felt rather well but a little sleepy and sat down for a bit.

*****

“You can’t just axii him! We don’t know what’s wrong with him, this could hurt him!” Ciri punched Geralt in the shoulder.

“He could have hurt himself, now he’s getting some sleep.” Geralt frowned and turned to Mererid. “You found him like that - acting like he lost his marbles and making those noises - and no-one else was there?”

Mererid looked disapproving. “Yes indeed. I was just about to bring his Majesty his tea and he behaved - irrationally.”

Geralt sighed, carried the limp emperor back into his study and deposited him on a settee by the fireplace.

“This tea?” Ciri asked Mererid, poining at the half drained cup on the desk.

Mererid frowned. “No, I left it outside when I heard him - yell.”

Geralt walked over to the desk and sniffed the tea. “Hm.”

Ciri rolled her eyes. “You aways say that.”

Geralt leant back against the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “Smells like black tea with puffballs. They can cause mild hallucinations. But there’s also a spell on it. My medallion reacts.”

The emperor groaned, sluggishly got up from his sofa and squeaked.

*****

Emhyr woke up and the colourful little goblins were still there. At least they hadn’t eaten him while he was asleep. No! When that lime green one had sedated him. He was back to white again now, with a - wolf’s head on the stalk? Emhyr gasped. Maybe the other one’s shape was a swallow?

Emhyr felt like crying. Apparently he wasn’t able to regulate his emotions at all but this meant he was not alone in this hellish place, Geralt and Cirilla were with him.

He wobbled towards them, stretched his arms out to them and tried to ignore the undignified babbling he couldn’t surpress. He suddenly felt overwhelmed by everything he felt for Geralt and - why not! - hugged him. It felt very good. And Geralt was hugging him back. Emhyr sighed (it sounded like ‘’weee weee”) and finally, finally did what he’d desired doing for so long and kissed him.

*****

Cirilla was staring at him.

Mererid was very much not staring at him.

Geralt was staring at him with wide golden eyes and a stupefied expression.

Emhyr blinked. They were all looking like themselves again, only more embarrassed. He was still in Geralt’s arms, pressed against him and had one leg wrapped around his thigh. He blinked again. His own body seemed to have returned, too.

“Uh.” Geralt licked his lips. “Are you back to normal?”

Emhyr let Geralt go, stepped back and cleared his throat. It sounded like his normal voice again. “I think so, yes, thank you.”

Geralt breathed a sigh of relief. “Felt the medallion jump when you - ah - you kissed me.”

“Well. And all of you look human again, too. How did this happen?” The emperor was looking about, avoiding eye contact.

“We were never afflicted. You were just drugged and hallucinating,” Cirilla explained softly.

Emhyr drew in a sharp breath. “It was so real. And I could see magic. I saw the witcher’s sign and the tea was glowing - and there was more magic somewhere down the corridor.”

Geralt looked up. “I think your attacker might have left via portal. Do you mean you saw that?”

The emperor shrugged.

“If we find the remnants of their portal we might get to them,” Geralt explained his train of thoughts. “Where was it?”

“Ah. It shone through the hedges of the maze somewhere to the West.” Emhyr looked vaguely embarrassed. “There was no corridor or rooms at the time. Only the maze.”

“Damnit.” Geralt rubbed his face. “Well, I’ll see if I can find anything - somewhere. There’s still a chance-”

“Or,” the emperor interrupted him, “I can drink the rest of the tea and lead you to it.”

Cirilla gasped. “What if it kills you this time? We don’t know if that wasn’t its purpose in the first place and you were just lucky!”

Emhyr huffed. “I don’t think so. That could have been done with a simple poison. They probably wanted me around but seemingly mad. That would have created a lot of chaos. We know now how the spell deactivates. This should not be dangerous.”

Cirilla shook her head in disbelief. “Yeah, and about that - why a kiss? That was just ridiculous.”

The emperor blushed slightly. “Well, we can ask them if we catch them.” He turned to Geralt. “Are you ready?”

Geralt snorted and held up one hand in a mock bow. “Whenever you are.”

Chapter 2

Emhyr looked at the tea with a disgusted frown and drank. Either it tasted more like mushrooms-and-spell when it was cold or because he knew of those ingredients now.

Cirilla and Geralt were watching him through narrowed eyes and then they were watching him through ridiculously large eyes. “La la,” he nodded and gestured with his arm to follow him downhill and to the maze.

Not being able to communicate reminded him of his cursed years. In the beginning it had been impossible for him to speak with a mouth full of long pointy teeth with large gaps in between. He had practised and worked on his pronunciation until only a slight slurring had remained. It had left him with a voice that carried and consonants so sharp they could cut off heads.

Until now.

The magical light beams still glared through the hedges’ foliage.

“That way,” he tried to say. “Boo boo” was what it sounded like. One of the depressed rabbits ran away. Emhyr sighed.

Geralt touched his shoulder and said something (”na na goo”). He was turning lime green. Emhyr shrank back. He saw no reason why Geralt would send him to sleep again - but that wasn’t what happened. In a rectangular patch on the Geralt-creature’s chubby stomach appeared something that looked like a snowstorm and then small moving pictures of Geralt and himself in their usual human forms. They were facing each other like people having a conversation and the little Geralt spoke with Geralts actual voice: “Did this work? Do you understand me?”

“Yes!” Emhyr said. “Yes!” little Emhyr told little Geralt. “How did you do that?”

“Cast axii on you and told you that we understand each other,” Geralt grinned. “Why are you staring at my stomach?”

“I - that is where your face is,” Emhyr simplified the issue.

Cirilla was clearly laughing and babbled something like “moo moo squee”.

“Ciri says I should have done this a long time ago,” Geralt snorted. “Alright, lead on. I might have to recast axii after some time. Guess we’ll notice when it stops working.”

The way through the maze was difficult because none of the labyrinth branches lead directly to where the source of the magic seemed to be. Emhyr walked them into a service cabinet, a garderobe and several random rooms before they took the door to the servants’ quarters and doubled down back into the direction they’d come from.

“It looks different here,” Emhyr mused. “There are a lot of rabbits. But the light is stonger.”

“Rabbits.” Geralt swerved around one of them while Emhyr just strode on (well - wobbled), trusting them to hop out of his way. “Sorry, 'scuse us. Do you mean the people?”

Emhyr stopped in his tracks. “Those are people?”

A passing servant looked like they had just gotten confirmation on a theory they’d developed over time.

Cirilla made some chittering sounds behind them. “Are we rabbits, too?” Geralt translated.

Emhyr sighed. “No. I don’t know what we are. Maybe some kind of nekkers. But I have only seen pictures of them in books.”

Geralt shrugged. “Would explain the gait and the noises.”

The emperor tried to look disapprovingly at Geralt but faltered because everything was, indeed, ridiculous. They turned a corner and Emhyr stopped abrubtly, again. “There! There it is!” He had to stop himself from excitedly jumping up and down.

“Hm,” Geralt said. “Door is locked. Step back.” His fur colour changed to blue and his headstalk morphed into a flat based triangle. Ciri pulled Emhyr back just in time before the door exploded.

The room behind the destroyed door looked as unassuming as a regular servants’ bedroom, only with more wood splinters. For Emhyr it looked extraordinary as he was looking at the residual magic of a portal and in his spell-enhanced vision it was bright and golden and glittered like sunbeams on a lake. In the middle of all that radiance floated the disembodied face of a baby. He grimaced.

“There it is. My medallion is vibrating,” Geralt confirmed. “Now, can you sense where it went?” he asked, facing Ciri.

“Where did this portal go?” Emhyr demanded to know. Geralt and Ciri stared at him.

“I am asking the floating baby head,” Emhyr explained.

The portal re-opened with a woosh sound.

Ciri was muttering something and Geralt shook his head. “I’ve told you I’ve seen the wildest stuff. Magical hallucinations are powerful. Remember when Roach talked, or when I accompanied Blueboy Lugos?”

Ciri said something else.

Geralt rolled his eyes. “Yeah and those. Did Lambert tell you that?” He looked at Emhyr. “Saw a giant chicken once.”

Ciri was laughing.

“Alright, we don’t know where this leads to, so I’ll go alone.” Geralt nodded to both of them, sighed and vanished through the portal.

*****

“I hate portals,” he heaved on the other side. “And why the fuck have you followed me?”

Emhyr pursed his lips. “Maybe my current abilities can be of help.” He sighed. “And you are the only person I can talk to at the moment; and I cannot deactivate the spell without you.”

Geralt looked at his feet. He had nausea for an excuse. “Alright. So now we are in someone’s cellar, probably. What does it look like to you?”

The emperor sighed again. “A cave. And there are garden gnomes. They are giggling.”

The thing with the giant chicken is a reference of Geralt's mushroom induced vision in The Witcher 2 - the other things Geralt saw then were giant cocks. There's video material of it on YouTube (I have never played TW2 myself).

Chapter 3

Hvren, sheyss, why had he even mentioned it. Fortunately Geralt had been nice enough not to tease him why he wouldn't try to kiss someone else this time to de-spell himself. Emhyr knew enough about spells and curses to assume it didn't dissolve with some random kiss. This was 'true love' territory - and if he knew that, Geralt definitely knew it, too.

"Where do you see giggling garden gnomes?" Geralt was just asking.

Yes. He needed to concentrate. He pointed at a group of three gnomes in a corner. They were singing a sea shanty.

Geralt was hiding his broad creature-face with his mitten-like hands and giggled. The little Geralt in the moving picture frame on his stomach was slightly pulling up one corner of his mouth while his eyebrow twitched. "Oh. You mean the rats."

Emhyr tried to massage the bridge of his nose and failed. His nose had currently no bridge and he also had no fingers. "They are singing."

Geralt nodded. "Can you understand words? Maybe ask them for directions." Emhyr's actual face must have glared at him because he added "Communicating with animals is a valuable magical skill. Druids do it."

"Have you seen someone come here before us? Where did they go?" Emhyr asked the gnomes/rats.

Geralt managed to watch him with no expression showing at all. The rats squeaked with trembling whiskers. "What did they say?"

"We can't stop here, this is bat country." The little Emhyr on Geralt's stomach screen looked displeased while repeating that nonsense.

The little Geralt looking at him drew the silver sword from his back and went into a fighting stance. The round floppy Geralt-creature changed its colour to yellow. "Stay close to me so you'll be covered by my shield," he whispered.

"Why? What is it?" Emhyr whispered back.

"If it's our perpetrator: I'm guessing Katakan. If your poisoner just fled through here, it could also be a Fleder or Ekimmara. In that case your attacker is probably already dead." Geralt carefully stalked forward. "Or - it's bats."

They inched their way from one cellar room into another. Emhyr stayed so close he kept bumping softly into Geralt's back. From time to time Geralt's colour flickered back to white and then back to yellow. "Over there. Door," he mumbled and changed their direction. For Emhyr it looked like a tunnel opening in the glittering cave.

Geralt carefully opened the door a little and looked through the gap. He could hear and smell that someone else was in there in the dark. "Stay in this room. Don't come after me. Understood?" he whispered. He knew he could have just said it out loud because whoever or whatever was waiting in there could hear him anyway.

Emhyr nodded and pressed himself against the wall next to the tunnel opening. Geralt's fur turned red and the headstalk was ending in a flat based triangle. He looked, indeed, like a small radish. The little Geralt on his stomach was crouching, ready to leap, and wore a snarl of such fierce determination Emhyr shied back another inch. Then the witcher vanished into the other cave.

There were loud fighting noises and from time to time a woosh sound - probably Geralt's fire. Noisy was good. Silence would be bad.

Then a shout, a horrible wet shlorp, another woosh, a shriek and - silence.

Emhyr decided it probably didn't matter if he stayed where he was and walked into the closed door he wasn't able to see.

He managed to fumble for the latch even though he couldn't even feel it and somehow got it open after all. Geralt lay in the middle of the next cave. Emhyr could see no other person nor beast. He hurried towards Geralt's still, round - and bloody body and burried his face in his soft chest.

Geralt groaned. "What are you doing?"

Emhyr jerked back and breathed a sigh of relief. "I was checking for a pulse."

Geralt hummed. "With your face?"

Emhyr glared down at him. "Do I look like a healer?"

Geralt had the nerve to chuckle. He sat up, hissed and cursed. "Katakan bit me but I burned them up close and they fled. Too bad I had no Black Blood. Would have poisoned them right back." He groaned and got up. "Up there," He pointed at a narrow flight of stair, hewn into the cave rock.

Emhyr followed Geralt up the stairs. Geralt's fur was back to yellow except for where he was drenched with his own blood. He opened an invisible trapdoor and jumped into whatever room was waiting for them above.

"You can come, too, no-one here."

Chapter 4

"Shit." The trap door from the cellar had led into a currently empty but obviously occupied house and Geralt stood in the open door and looked out into the street. Or better: the market square of Vizima, bustling with people. "The Katakan's scent gets too diluted by wind and other smells. Can't track it. And I haven't even seen them in human form."

Emhyr stepped up behind him and looked, too. For him the hole in the ground had opened into another eerily sanitised meadow and Geralt was standing under an ornamental arch, looking over a softly rolling grassy plane. "There!" he pointed. "Some kind of abomination! It looks like a small blue elephant - but also not like a real animal. It is over there!"

Geralt frowned at him. "How can you see anything? The market is full of people."

"Rabbits, Geralt! Lots of rabbits but just one blue elephant! Do you know what an-"

"Yes, I know what an elephant is," Geralt huffed. "Then lead on, quick!"

Emhyr's approach hadn't changed now he knew the rabbits were people. He walked without hesitation where he wanted to go and everyone had to let him through. The weird thing was: it worked. It was his own bit of magic.

Some of them looked twice because that man striding across the square sure kinda looked like the emperor of Nilfgaard (and as of recently Temeria, too) but that was so silly it couldn't be true, so they didn't look a third time or watched his progress through the crowd, a wild looking witcher with blood caked white hair in his trail.

"Can you see it?" Emhyr pointed again. "We are closing in now. I cannot describe what they look like in your eyes. In my world The Thing is heading towards a windmill."

"I think so." Geralt grabbed Emhyr's shoulder in stride. "Cloaked figure heading for the old mages' tower. Stay back unless you see me attacking the wrong person. In that case: intervene."

He started off in a surprisingly fast sprint, weaving through the rabbits between him and The Thing rather than mowing them down. Seen from up close the creature looked more ridiculous than horrible, with a brush on its head that looked like a little black hat; but Emhyr's soft, small goblin form instinctively felt scared and it took all his self-control not to panic.

Geralt shouted something and immediately attacked when the monster turned around. He had turned violet and the creature seemed to be stuck in place, trying to flee but moving sluggishly, grey smoke coming from its - wheels.

For Emhyr their battle looked like a child in a romper play-fighting a large dog. A large dog on wheels with eye-stalks and a trunk that tried to latch on to Geralt while making terrible humming and sucking noises.

Geralt changed colours to yellow again - he obviously wouldn't use fire with vulnerable bystanders around and rather shielded himself against the creature's assault.

Emhyr squinted at the ground. From the monster's backside extended a smooth, black string or cable. It writhed through the short grass like a very thin snake and seemed to connect the creature with the windmill, yards away.

The emperor crouched down and ripped it from the monster's body.

The creature violently waved its trunk through the air and roared. At that moment Geralt did something to it that made it collapse. Then he tore its trunk from its grotesque face and it was over. Emhyr wondered how that translated to what everyone else saw and decided he didn't need to know.

Geralt was talking to two rabbits and then turned towards Emhyr. "I need to check out if the accomplices are still at the mages' tower. Those two," he pointed at the rabbits, "are city guards, you, er -"

The rabbits looked scandalised.

"Your Majesty can stay with them," he forced himself to say.

Emhyr nodded and started striding towards the tower. "No."

Geralt rolled his eyes. "Of course not," he snorted and jogged after him.

The mages' tower had been abandoned since Keira and Triss had left. Geralt overtook Emhyr and blasted the tower's door open without trying if it was locked.

"I don't think anyone is in here," Emhyr mentioned by the by.

Geralt, having secured the ground floor, cautiously lowered his sword. "Why?"

"Because I can see the remains of another portal right on top of the tower. It looked like a lighthouse from the outside," Emhyr explained patiently, as if everyone else could have seen this, too. It was a good thing he usually didn't have access to magic. He'd be insufferable. Ler.

Geralt nevertheless checked carefully each floor of the tower until they reached the top.

"There is no face in the light beams." Emhyr sounded disappointed. Geralt had sheathed his sword and watched him sternly address the air, ordering it to re-open the portal, without result.

"Not gonna lie, I'm glad I can just get you back to the palace now. Safe and sound and in one piece." Geralt sighed. "More or less."

"Yes." Emhyr looked resolved. "We can undo the spell now." He paused. "I also want to apologise. Although it came in handy because it apparently dissolves the spell, I did not choose to feel like this. I will not bother you any further once I got my full mental capacities back."

Geralt blinked. "You know 'true love's kiss' means you have to kiss someone who loves you, right? Not the other way around. Otherwise it wouldn't be used so often. Tricky to find out." He snorted. "I didn't really know myself. I mean -" he rubbed his face. "I knew I had caught the hots for you, of course, but..."

Emhyr de-spelled himself again. Very thoroughly and, just to be on the safe side, repeatedly, too.

"Are you yourself again?" Geralt asked cautiously.

"Yes. You are hurt!" Emhyr stared at Geralt's bloody everything.

"Fought a Katakan. Twice. Remember? They tend to bite." Geralt cleared his throat. "Do your full mental capacities still want to be kissed?"

Emhyr huffed. "Yes. But maybe after you have taken a bath."

Geralt laughed. "Let me get you back to the palace then. Before something else incredibly weird happens. Maybe next time you'll be the only human and we're all gonna be puppets."

THE END!

BYE-BYE, BYE-BYE!

BYE-BYE!!!

(I am NOT going to write a "The Witcher as a Muppets movie" fic and even if, I think Emhyr would be Sam Eagle and Ciri would be the only human.)