12 ways to put a bard down

There weren’t two drowners as the notification had promised.

In fact, they weren’t drowners at all. Instead, Geralt was fighting three kikimores alone and with a potion stash he should’ve replaced months ago, trying to keep them from reaching Jaskier who was perhaps not feeling at his best. He should’ve sat this one down but he didn’t because it was Geralt fighting monsters and no matter how many times he saw it, it never failed to take his breath away. Geralt was speed and death and ruthlessness, and he moved with deathly precision, hacking at the kikimores and dancing away from their claws with effortless ease.

Simply put, he was beautiful and Jaskier was so, so into it.

“Shut…up!” Geralt growled in between rolling and stabbing one kikimore and dodging another.

“Oops?” Jaskier said.

His head throbbed from his fall earlier and his right ankle had swollen to almost twice its normal size, and if he was completely honest, the nausea was getting significantly worse. It was getting harder to see–which might have something to do with the sun going down but also with the concussion. And his tongue felt weird.

Everything felt weird.

And yet, despite it all, he felt like he was in the right place. No matter what Geralt said, they were friends and friends spent time together and traveled together and if Jaskier was sort of hoping for something more, that was his problem. He enjoyed his time with his growly Witcher whether he shared his bed or not.

“–kier–”

“Huh?” he asked, blinking awake. Weird. The swamp was dark–when had that happened?

“Keep––open.”

“Wha–?”

Geralt hissed like an angry cat as he heaved Jaskier to his feet. Or foot because his right foot was definitely out of the game. “I said, keep your eyes open.”

“Tired,” he mumbled.

“You’re not tired, you have a fucking concussion,” Geralt growled.

“Oh. Hm. Right.”

Geralt sighed. “I can’t believe I have to say this but–keep talking, Jaskier.”

In any other situation, Jaskier would’ve crooned in delight. Geralt wanted him to keep talking! Usually he was growly and scowly and barked at Jaskier to stay silent. Sadly, Jaskier didn’t quite feel like talking. It made the nausea worse and his eyes water and he’d much rather just take a nap, thank you.

“–damn it!”

Wow. Geralt sounded pissed. The last time he’d heard Geralt sound that pissed was…was… He sighed. He’d remember in a moment. Probably.

“–the witch when I need her–”

“Say hi to Yennefer for me,” Jaskier slurred as his limited vision of the swamp swayed and slid in and out of focus before going completely dark.

Geralt said his name again. It was nice. He always liked it when Geralt said his name.

“–blood––ear––nose––”

They stopped.

Ah. Roach, Jaskier thought as something soft and damp touched his cheek. She didn’t usually touch him but perhaps all the apples and sugar cubes Geralt pretended not to notice him feeding her had started to work. She was a lovely horse, mean and tenacious and smart, exactly what Geralt needed.

“Jaskier?”

He tried to answer but he only managed a garbled sound. He was so tired.

“Jas–”

Oh, moving. Wait–was he on Roach? But Geralt never let him ride on Roach! He was warm and held tightly–in Geralt’s arms? Damn. If only he was properly awake.

But for now, this would do.

He smiled.

Many a famous bard has come through Oxenfurt; Katrine de Wek, The Siren of Korath, Pontus Gourd, Valdo Marx, and the Carrez Twins, just to mention a few. It’s a place brimming with history, tradition, and sermon, with countless new generations of fresh-faced artists eager to make their mark on the world. Some manage, most don’t.

And then there are some who leave a mark so vivid that it paints the bardic legacy with bold colors that challenge everyone to try and do the same.

Like Jaskier the Bard, Companion to the infamous White Wolf.

Some of your professors scoff and huff and roll their eyes and mutter under their breaths, disgusted and scandalized, as if the bardic profession hasn’t always been part whoring, part begging, part just pure sass and making fun of people in high places. (And no one can accuse Jaskier of not doing exactly that. Like. All of that.) 

Other professors roll their eyes at them, calling them prudes and forgetting the basic rule of art: to make observations, to point out things, to make people react. 

”Art isn’t and has never been meant to be merely pretty pictures or pleasing background ballads,” Professor Alango snorted during one discussion event. ”The snobs who claim that’s the main goal, have grown soft and stupid.” The event had fast devolved into a shouting match from which Professor Alango had emerged victorious, a gleam in her eyes and her split lips drawn in a vicious grin. (You later learn Jaskier was her favorite student which, yeah, is absolutely not a surprise.)

Anyway. When it’s time for your class to ”rove out and find your muse,” as the syllabus poetically declares, you have a clear destination in mind: Jaskier. 

You want to learn from the best and the best is traveling with a golden-eyed Witcher and a temperamental mare.

In hindsight, it’s a good thing you grew up on a farm because your feet are used to walking and your back flinches from neither heat nor rain. The road is wide and muddy and caked and cracked and sometimes just a crooked path through a forest you don’t really dare look straight at, but it carries you forward to your destiny. (Not the same as Destiny, thank you very much. You’re not interested in the adventures themselves, but you want to study them, understand them, catalog them.) You play at taverns and inns and country fairs and birthday parties and you have enough talent to make it worth your audience’s time, a fact you know and are modestly proud of. At times you think you see a Witcher lurking in the shadows but when you try to look harder, it always turns out to be just some hulking big man, completely ordinary in his size. It always stings a little, the disappointment of not meeting a Witcher, but you have patience and faith. You’ll meet one, sooner or later.

When it finally happens, in a small village a day’s ride from Murivel, it’s both anticlimactic and the most thrilling thing you’ve ever experienced. The weather has been absolutely miserable for three days straight and the road has disappeared into a river of mud that threatens to suck your boots in and never let go. You’re cold, hungry, and pretty sure your lute is ruined for good, and when the dim lanterns of the village slowly swim into view through the never-ending rain, you’re almost convinced they’re just an exhaustion-induced dream.

But alas.

It takes a bit of work to push open the heavy door but the warm, laughter-filled air that slams you in the face feels worth it. The inn is packed and in the back is a small dais where a bard is having the time of his life, singing about a milkmaid’s adventures with an elven warrior woman. The lyrics are decent but the implications are definitely not and the crowd is eating the performance up.

And then you realize you’re looking at him.

Jaskier.

You’ve finally found him.

It doesn’t take long to spot his Witcher, leaning into the smoke-dark corner with a tankard in front of him and a finger tapping along with the rhythm of the song, the rest of him hidden in shadows. 

You square your shoulders and march toward the table, determined to make contact—only to nearly piss your pants when the piercing golden eyes turn to you.

”Uh, hi!” you squeal. ”Would you mind terribly—I mean, would it be okay if—That is—”

”It’s taken,” Geralt of Rivia growls, turning his gaze back to Jaskier.

”You or the seat?” you quip before you can get a hold of your mouth. Damn.

Geralt of Rivia snorts. ”Both.”

”Well, then it’s a good thing I’m not interested in you, and I have two perfectly good legs to stand on!” you say brightly, bouncing on the balls of your feet a bit. You feel very much alive. It might also be your baser instinct going crazy in the presence of an apex predator.

Geralt of Rivia takes a long pull from his tankard. ”You’re interested in Jaskier?” 

His voice is mild, a low rumble that reverberates across the table and into your chest, and even though there’s no real reason to be scared, you are. Because— ”No! I mean, yes! But in a purely academic sense!” 

Geralt of Rivia shoots you a glance from the corner of his eye.

You huff a little, annoyed on Jaskier’s behalf. ”Don’t you know he’s one of the most looked-up bards from the previous generation? His style, his lyrics, his—like, the way he builds up the cadenzas in his cycles is so clever, and, you know, it doesn’t show in the songs he composes on the road—not that there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just different—but the—”

”Breathe,” Geralt of Rivia interrupts and you draw a breath, realizing you’re a bit dizzy. Huh.

”Geralt, darling, I’m parched!”

Suddenly he is right there, pale lavender silk doublet darkened with sweat, brown locks curling on his temples, and eyes shining with a performance gone well. He promptly places himself on Geralt of Rivia’s lap, kisses him fully on the lips, and then drinks from the tankard until it’s empty.

And then he looks at you. 

Jaskier the Bard, Viscount of Lettenhove who turned his back to his family estate for a life beside his Witcher. He tilts his head a bit. ”And who might you be?” His voice might be slightly amused but there’s a dark glint in his eyes, a warning.

”She says she’s here for you,” Geralt of Rivia rumbles, hands possessively around his bard.

”Sweet Melitele, men,” you mutter, exasperated, and shake your head. ”Yes, yes, I’m here for Jaskier the Bard but for professional reasons only. It’s for a class—”

”Oh, the muse assignment?” Jaskier asks, leaning forward eagerly and only held in place by the Witcher’s arm. ”Is it Professor Alango’s lecture?”

”Not this year. She’s doing administrative work and her replacement isn’t nearly as much fun.”

”Ah, she’s awesome,” Jaskier says with a faint smile. ”Anyway, you’re here for me because...” He lets his voice trail away and raises a questioning brow.

You frown a bit. ”This is the muse assignment,” you say slowly. ”I’m here for you.”

”…yes, and?”

”Apparently, you’re her muse,” Geralt of Rivia says, amused.

Jaskier looks from Geralt of Rivia to you and back. ”Wait, really?” When you nod, a slow, gleeful grin spreads on his face. ”I can’t wait to tell the witch.”

Traveling with Jaskier and Geralt is everything you ever imagined and so much more. It’s talking with Jaskier until your voice grows hoarse and then taking notes on his performance and categorizing them in your notebook with a neat, cramped script. Its long journeys next to Roach and listening to Jaskier and Geralt bicker, campfires warming aching feet, and soft sighs from the bedroll across the glowing embers. It’s portals and witches and young cubs with something fierce burning in their eyes. It’s starlit skies and dew-covered moss and parched throats and sneering villagers, and blood, sweat, laughter, terror, life.

It’s unbelievably exciting, mind-numbingly terrifying, and nauseatingly boring.

It’s the best thing that’s happened to you since you told your mom and dad you’d happily pass the farm to your little brother and enter a life of art instead. (They called you a fool and a simpleton but you shrugged their words off like a dog shakes off water, and walked away. You haven’t been to that part of the Slopes since.)

You tentatively start composing a song cycle yourself. It’s nothing much—more about remembering your travels than an actual piece of art—but you feel the need to do it, so you do it anyway and pretend to not see the knowing look in Jaskier’s eyes. It’ll be ages until you reach the maturity to work on something permanent, something worthy to be stored in the Oxenfurt Great Library but this is good practice. 

It’s not like your humble trills and cadenzas are meant for much, after all.

The first time Jaskier invites you to the stage with him, you nearly combust.

”Ladies, gentlemen, folks of flexible gender expressions!” he exclaims, twirling around with a flourish. ”We have a special guest tonight! Straight from Oxenfurt Academy, a young talent not many have had the chance to hear yet—I give you Ronia van Peet!” 

He shoots a look at you, and his mischievously raised brow combined with a warm grin makes you straighten your spine and you nod. Okay then. This is it. Your chance to perform next to your hero, your idol, your muse. 

You sing and play together and it’s heady and glorious and wonderful and you feel like you’re bursting with it all and you end up laughing so much you nearly choke but it’s alright because it’s real and it’s happening and it’s Jaskier.

”You’ll sit this one out,” Geralt growls, fastening his armor and rolling his shoulders. (It took you some time to get used to the growling and barking until you realized that’s just how Geralt talks. The infamous White Wolf is actually surprisingly shy.)

Jaskier snorts. ”You should know by now, my Witcher—”

”No.” Geralt steps close to him, holds a hand on the nape of Jaskier’s neck, and leans their foreheads together. ”This—Malleore plains. It’s—I can’t concentrate if you’re there. Please, Jaskier.”

You turn away and busy yourself with your notes, trying your hardest to disappear into your seat. Something happened between those two, something that now triggers the nearly palpable desperation in Geralt’s voice and that makes Jaskier’s frown melt away. They share whispers and kisses and you hum aloud something inane to give them a semblance of privacy.

After, Jaskier is overly cheerful and his performance is even rowdier than usual. His eyes never stray far from the inn’s door and the tension leaks off of him only after Geralt slams the door open and limps inside, bloody and exhausted but clearly, gloriously alive.

You choose to sleep in the barn that night.

Writing your class assignment progresses in fits and starts. It’s easy getting lost on, well, life as it is happening, easy to forget you’re meant to study Jaskier instead of just laughing with (and sometimes at) him. But you strive to do him justice anyway; no matter how he squirms and shrugs away your more straightforward questions, it honestly doesn’t take that much effort to reveal the scholar in him and you dig in tooth and nail. You’re both sad and excited to realize the year is almost over and that your deadline to return to Oxenfurt draws near. You already know that a part of your heart will stay with Jaskier and his Witcher but at the same time, you’re eager to tell about him, to reveal the cunning mind and brilliant composer that hides under easy smiles and ridiculously frilly outfits. It’s the same mind that latched on to an idea and made it a reality, turned the hatred on Witchers upside down, and gave them a fresh start. Or…fresh-ish.

Without asking, Geralt and Jaskier head toward Oxenfurt, almost like they want to see you off. You’re both embarrassed and touched by the gesture—it’s not like you need an escort! But they do it anyway, Jaskier with a theatrical eye roll and Geralt with a frown and a grunt. (Roach, the darling demon mare is at least more straightforward and tries to bite you when you offer her an apple. Nothing new there.)

Geralt takes a couple of hunts as you make your way to Oxenfurt and urges Jaskier to spend time with you. ”She’ll be gone soon,” he says gruffly. ”You like yelling at her.”

”Excuse you,” Jaskier says, affronted, pressing a hand on his chest. ”I don’t yell. I argue.”

Geralt raises a brow.

A small smile tugs at Jaskier’s lips as he tilts his head slightly. ”If you’re still unfamiliar with all the variations of my voice, I suppose I need to teach you more—”

With a low growl, Geralt stomps out, leaving Jaskier laughing softly at the table.

You hide your grin into your mug of mulled cider and snatch a couple of roasted nuts from the bowl on the table.

(You’ll later wonder, desperately, if things would’ve been different if you hadn’t ordered them in the first place.)

Jaskier orders a flask of mulled cider and, armed with drinks and a little something to eat, you dig into your final essay together, figuring out the proper construction and which samples of Jaskier’s music to use and where.

You drink, you eat, you laugh.

You—

Jaskier coughs, frowns, coughs again, scrambles up and bends over, coughs, looks at you with wide, scared eyes.

You shoot up, grab him from behind, grip your wrist with your other hand, and yank back and up, hard. It doesn’t help—Jaskier coughs—you try again and feel something break under your arms—”Help!” you scream—

Others rush to help—

Jaskier’s face is purple and he’s opening his mouth, gasping for air that can’t move past whatever lodged itself in his throat and you’re crying and Jaskier—Jaskier reaches out—grasps paper and a pen—

Geralt, my love, my darling, my soul,

I love you

I regret nothing

I love you I love you I lo—

The inn is empty and quiet when Geralt returns.

You sit at the table, staring at the white sheet that covers a form that was never meant to be still.

”Ronia?” Geralt asks. He’s a frozen shape barely visible through your tears. ”Ronia, what happened to Jaskier?”

”I’m sorry!” you sob. ”I tried, Geralt—we tried—he fought so hard but the nut—It’s my fault, I wanted to try the—the nuts—” You wipe your face and look up and then wish you didn’t.

If someone asked you a year ago what a Witcher with a broken heart would look like, you would’ve probably first wondered if they even had hearts in the first place and then assume they’d roar and trash like beasts. But that doesn’t happen. The White Wolf blinks, sways, and closes his eyes as something ripples across his face. When it’s gone, his face is terribly blank, devoid of all emotion.

Wordlessly, he walks to the table, swallows, and picks up Jaskier’s body so unbearably gently that it tears at something in your chest. Then he turns and starts toward the door.

”Wait!” you gasp just as he’s about to walk out.

He stops but doesn’t turn, doesn’t even turn his head. You stumble to him, holding out Jaskier’s last message, folded in your trembling hand. 

”This—for you. He wrote this to you,” you say, not quite daring to raise your gaze to see if he even bothers to look at you. Your eyes dart around, wondering where to—you can’t leave it on Jaskier’s body—do the Witcher armors even have pockets?—and then you finally tuck it under the breastplate next to his heart before stepping away.

And then he’s gone.

He’s gone and Jaskier is gone and—

Do you even have the right to cry?

You get excellent marks on your assignment. It doesn’t feel like an accomplishment.

Jaskier’s notebooks and Filavandrel’s lute are on display in the Oxenfurt Great Library in a section dedicated to him. On your insistence, they’re cataloged to be a loan and to be returned immediately if (and when, you hope) the Witchers come to collect. 

You end up spending a lot of time sitting next to the display, humming your stupid, mediocre song cycle and wishing you were allergic to nuts because that way there wouldn’t have been nuts on the table and Jaskier wouldn’t have—

It’s late night two months after your return and you’re about to leave the library and head to bed when you hear the unmistakable sound of a portal opening behind you. You whirl around to see Yennefer stepping through a shimmering circle of golden light. She pauses momentarily to give you an almost imperceptible nod before calmly collecting Jaskier’s lute and notebooks. On the other side of the portal, a snow-covered, foreboding citadel looms over a lonely, slender form whose silver hair dances in the wind.

And then Yennefer steps through and the portal closes, leaving you alone in the dark library.

And you know you’ll never see any of them again.

If Geralt was completely honest—which he aspired to be nowadays—he would rather stay inside Jaskier than go on the hunt he’d taken. This was new, this fragile thing between them that had happened in the hushed darkness after a performance and a happy crowd, after Jaskier stumbled and Geralt caught him, after he tried to shrug away his misstep and retreat, and Geralt cupped his cheek and kissed him. It felt like a dream, the memory of Jaskier’s sweat-slick skin under his palms, his sharp scent, the way he trembled when Geralt lowered himself on top of him and pushed in, the way he came after just a handful of frenzied thrusts with a groan in the crook of Jaskier’s neck. It still felt like a dream, even after Jaskier rode him until Geralt was growling and his clawed hands tore into the sheets, and even later, when Jaskier curled on his side and Geralt barely moved in him while cradling him in his arms, trying and failing not to hear Jaskier’s muted sobs.

And while this was new, the essence of it wasn’t. It had been simmering since the moment Jaskier strutted to Geralt in an inn in Posada and said he loved the way Geralt sat in the corner to brood. Geralt had been stupid, not blind.

He sighed and carefully pulled out, fighting a smile when Jaskier let out an annoyed sound. He looked younger than his years in the dim light of the early morning, mouth lax and his sweaty hair curled on his temples. Geralt cast one, last look on his prone body, slightly curled on his stomach with one leg drawn up and Geralt’s seed pearlescent on his thighs. It made something hot and possessive flare inside of him, a want to crawl back to bed, cover the sleeping body with his, and bury himself back inside his bard. 

He didn’t. 

Instead, he tucked the bard in and brushed his cheek with his fingers before turning and dressing. Then he picked up his armor and his swords, and quietly made his way down the stairs.

The common room was empty with only two patrons sleepily eating a simple breakfast before taking the road. Geralt stopped at a corner table to fasten his armor and blinked as the maid handed him half a loaf of bread and a cup of thin broth. It wasn’t the first time he’d been offered breakfast but it never failed to baffle him. It hadn’t been that long ago when Geralt had slept in the stable and his morning routine had been to dodge stones and shit thrown at him.

Yet another proof of Jaskier’s influence.

Roach neighed at him when he entered the stable, eager to express her opinion of the accommodation and treats. A young stableboy looked up and hurriedly ducked his head, only to keep on glancing at him from the corner of his eye. Something about him seemed familiar but Geralt couldn’t quite put his finger on it—was it the eyes? The small quirk of a smile? He inhaled but the scent didn’t help so he grunted and went on to saddle Roach.

As he slowly rode out, the village started to slowly awaken around him lanterns and candlelight twinkling warmly from the windows. In another world, he would’ve probably liked to live in a place like this. In another life, he might’ve had a chance. 

Now, though? Now he had the Path and Kaer Morhen.

And Jaskier, he hoped.

It took him the better part of the morning to get rid of the fledgling nekker nest—thankfully only one adult and a handful of younglings—and he was more than relieved to start his journey back to the inn. He had one vicious bite on his left thigh and a long scratch on his lower back and he knew Jaskier would scold him for his recklessness, and then he would (hopefully) shake his head and tut and clean his wounds and dress them. And then Geralt would have him again—in his arms or impaled on his cock, he didn’t really care.

What a strange feeling, knowing someone was waiting for him. That he had not a home but a person to return to. Or perhaps that was home. He wouldn’t mind if Jaskier was his home.

He still had a lot to apologize for. Stewing in his own hurt and insecurity, he’d lashed out and taken it out on Jaskier, and there was still something brittle and cautious in his smiles. He hated it and he hated himself for putting it there. Jaskier was meant to be loud and bright and boisterous, and it was Geralt’s responsibility to make sure he’d feel safe to shine again. 

And if that allowed him the chance to fuck his bard blissfully speechless each night…well, he wasn’t going to complain.

The stables were full when he arrived but Roach’s stall was empty and waiting with a fresh batch of hay and a bucket of water. He scrubbed her clean and made sure she was comfortable before taking the burlap sack with the nekker heads. The alderman had promised to be waiting in the inn and Geralt hoped the formalities would be done without a fuss so that he could take a bath and then drag Jaskier to bed.

Yeah. That would be—

He smelled the blood the moment he opened the door and froze.

”Where’s my bard?” he snarled at the maid—the same one who’d given him breakfast.

She let out a startled sound. ”Upstairs? I think? We haven’t seen him since last night.”

”Is there a problem?” the alderman sitting at the bar asked with a frown.

Geralt ignored him, dropped the burlap sack with a wet thud, rushed across the room and up the stairs, and kicked down the door to their room, only to freeze at the sight. Jaskier was still in bed, the blanket tucked around him as Geralt had left it, but the wall and pillows were drenched in blood. His head was at a grotesque angle, leaning way too far to the side to be anatomically possible—unless…

He staggered forward, feeling numb. 

Should he—perhaps there was—Jaskier wouldn’t want to—

His throat had been cut so deep the blade had almost severed his spine. His eyes, the wide, wonderful, blue eyes Geralt adored were wide with shock and glazed over, unseeing.

Under the stench of blood, Geralt could still smell himself. 

Them.

Someone moved behind him and he whirled around, his silver sword in his hand. Silver is for monsters and whoever did this, is one. 

It was the stableboy, looking up at him with a fervent light in his eyes.

”Geralt!” he breathed. ”You’re back!”

He bared his teeth in a snarl, ready to dismiss the boy when he saw the blood spatters on his tunic and forearm, and before he ever realized, he’d grabbed the boy by the throat and slammed him against the wall.

”What the FUCK did you do?!”

Other people had made their way up the stairs and were now milling right outside the door but Geralt paid them little mind. His focus was on the boy dangling from his grip, the murderer, the one who had taken Jaskier from him—

”I had to!” the boy choked, seemingly unconcerned. ”Geralt, I’ve been following you for years now! I’ve been taking care of Roach! It’s always me!” His eyes were huge, empty, adoring, and they made his skin crawl. ”He wasn’t good for you, Geralt! I had to!”

”What is going on?—”

”What’s that smell?—”

”Sweet Melitele!—”

”Keep your voices down!—”

”IS THAT BLOOD?!—”

The agitated voices blurred into incoherent cacophony in his ears and his vision started to bleed black around the edges, framing the thing in his grip and narrowing down until he was only able to see the deranged smile. He was trembling and in his chest something was fighting to be let out, to be let free. 

He didn’t really bother fighting back. 

It tore out of him in a guttural roar and he slammed the stableboy against the wall again, this time so hard his skull cracked like an egg. It left behind a wet smear of brain and blood, and he let the body drop on the floor. 

He turned around and faced the maid, the innkeeper, and the alderman who flinched back with horrified eyes. ”Leave,” he said in a low voice.

”This needs to—” the alderman started and yelped when Geralt snarled. He grabbed his fellow spectators and dragged them away from the door, whispering urgently under his breath. 

And then it was quiet.

It was always going to be quiet from now on.

There’s a glowing circle on top of the hill.

”Geralt?” Jaskier calls softly, frowning at the sight. It’s a strange thing, a glimmering golden circle that spits sharp sparkles and is all jagged lines despite being a shimmering, perfect circle. It reminds him a bit of Yennefer’s portals—except that hers are more organic, bending the surroundings into her will instead of just brutally cutting through space and matter.

Jaskier shakes his head. No matter how fascinating the portal might seem, it’s also an open doorway into the unknown. Just because it’s shiny doesn’t mean he should drop his guard, so he starts to carefully retreat, making sure to keep low and quiet. 

This is the fourth village that has reported the same portal but it’s the first time Jaskier has seen it with his own eyes. It doesn’t help much because he still doesn’t know who—or what—made it.

And who or what might’ve come through.

Geralt touches his shoulder lightly to alert him and Jaskier gives him a questioning look. 

”Nothing,” Geralt murmurs. ”It smells like magic but…different.”

”Different how?”

Geralt frowns. ”Metallic. Sharp. Yennefer might—”

He cuts himself off and scowls and Jaskier stifles a sigh. Ever since the Dragon Mountain, things haven’t been the same between Geralt and the witch, a fact Jaskier can’t quite feel completely sorry for. Sure, things haven’t been exactly the same between Geralt and Jaskier after the Dragon Mountain, but the good thing about Jaskier first running away and then deciding to finally stand up for himself is that, well, he got something through Geralt’s thick skull. Namely, that Geralt was an idiot and despite all reasonable arguments against it, Jaskier loved him. Dearly. 

He hadn’t made Geralt grovel but it had come close. The knowledge that he could’ve made Geralt grovel is a heady, hot feel thrumming under his skin.

”Well, she isn’t here,” Jaskier says. ”And I don’t think we need the specifics of the magic—knowing it’s magic and it’s something that shouldn’t be here is enough, yes?”

Geralt grunts, something like regret in the slump of his shoulders. Jaskier might have to do something about it later.

Behind them, the portal fizzles out, leaving behind a charred slash on the grass.

Two days later, Jaskier is filling his water skin by a stream when a portal opens on the other side and a man steps through. He’s a stocky fellow with a flat nose and close-cropped black hair, wearing some kind of a vest-uniform over black pants and shirt with metallic vambraces, complete with a wide gold-hued belt and some buckles running across his chest—all making him look very impressive and professional. Not as intimidating as Geralt, of course, but that would be impossible.

”Hello, there!” Jaskier hollers, waving a hand and standing up. 

The man turns sharply, does some elaborate hand gestures, and then glides over the stream to hover next to Jaskier.

”Afternoon,” the man says. His voice has a strange tilt to it and it’s somehow slightly off with the way his mouth moves—almost like what he says isn’t what Jaskier hears. Huh. Probably magic.

”Have you seen a man in a red cape recently?” the man asks and raises a hand slightly above his own head. ”About this tall, has an outrageous hairdo and ridiculously groomed goatee?”

”Is he a wizard?” Jaskier asks. ”Because that sounds a lot like a wizard. Is he also way too full of himself, convinced he’s better and smarter than everyone else?”

”Uh…”

”Thought so,” he says with a nod. ”Wizards, they’re all the same. So what’s he done? Stole your treasure? Took your woman or man or both? Lost his mind due to his lust for power or a personal loss absolutely no one has ever faced before since the dawn of time, turning him into an unhinged force of nature that’ll end up killing everyone?”

The man winces. 

”It’s the last one, isn’t it,” Jaskier says flatly. ”What is it with magic users and going insane? Why can’t they just live their lives and be happy?”

”I take it that you’re talking from experience?”

”Oh, yes. So very, very much yes,” Jaskier says, turns, and beckons the other to follow him. ”I’m Jaskier, by the way.”

”Wong,” the man—Wong—says. ”Where are we, exactly?”

”Do you mean ’where’ as in where we are on the map of the Continent, or ’where’ as in what is our location within the different universes? Because I can help you with the first but I’m afraid my knowledge of the different worlds since the Conjunction of the Spheres is mostly comprised of epic ballads and ridiculously long sagas written by men who have never set foot outside of the city perimeter.”

Wong tits his head. ”Do you always talk so much?”

”Yes,” Geralt grunts from the side where he managed to sneak up without a sound. He’s annoyingly good at that sort of thing.

Wong spins around in a blur and two shimmering spheres of pure power spring up in his hands as he faces Geralt with a steely glint in his eyes.

”No!” Jaskier yelps. ”I know Geralt is intimidating and looks rather feral before taking a bath—it’s a look I’m very fond of but I understand it’s not for everyone—but I swear to you he’s harmless.” He pauses, blinks, and shrugs. ”Well, that’s a bald-faced lie. He’s anything but harmless but if you’re not trying to attack us, he won’t kill you.”

”Jaskier,” Geralt growls exasperatedly, not taking his eyes off Wong.

”Yes, my darling?” he asks innocently and saunters past Wong to smack a kiss on the side of his mouth. ”It seems there’s a wizard on the loose and he’s quite possibly very insane. What a shocker.”

”He was my friend,” Wong says sometime later after they’ve shared a meager supper of roasted hare and hard bread. 

Geralt is sitting sideways to the fire, cleaning his armor with the familiar, meditative air, and his solid bulk is a comforting wall of heat against Jaskier’s back. He plucks his lute idly, merely giving his fingers something to do and providing some background noise to Wong’s quiet words.

”What happened?” Jaskier asks.

”He lost someone,” Wong says. ”It broke something in him and he—” He shakes his head. ”He tries to bring back something that was meant to stay dead.”

”Tries to?” 

”He has the power but he lacks the…instructions, so to speak,” Wong says. ”He’s been tracking a, well, I guess you could call it an amulet of sorts. A token of power that could grant him the knowledge of how to achieve his goal. And if he does…” Wong sighs. ”There’s a very real chance it could collapse all the worlds he’s been through, not just our own.”

”Sounds delightful,” Jaskier mutters. ”Anything we can do to help?”

”Jaskier,” Geralt says in a low voice. 

”What?” He turns and drapes himself on Geralt’s back and hooks his chin over his shoulder. ”If he’s going to fuck up the universe, don’t you think we should do something about it?”

”He’s not our problem.”

”He could be. And Geralt, my love, I know you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if something happened and you didn’t try.” When Geralt opens his mouth to argue, Jaskier presses a kiss on his temple and whispers, ”Renfri.” 

It’s a low blow and he knows it—this isn’t the way he likes to win their disagreements. He’d rather use his tongue in more inventive ways but with their guest right there, he can’t just edge Geralt until he’s a growling mess, so dirty tricks will have to do. For now.

He will apologize to Geralt later.

Wong is somehow able to track his friend—a Doctor Strange, for Melitele’s sake, Jaskier almost groaned aloud at the name—because his magic, and especially his portals, leave a trace in the air Wong can latch on. It’s a strange (ha!) sight, a glowing tendril tied to Wong’s wrist that leads them forward, almost like a silken thread of yarn slowly being reeled into a skein.

”So, what should we expect when we encounter this Dr. Strange of yours?” Jaskier asks. ”Is he willing to talk or is he just going to try and bludgeon us to death with his magic?”

Wong frowns. ”He might agree to talk but you shouldn’t expect much. He’s always been cocky and stubborn but his reckless pursuit has frayed his mind.” He gives Jaskier a sideways glance. ”He might not be willing to stop for a chat.”

”And by which you mean we should expect mayhem with a chance of murder. Sounds lovely.”

Wong shrugs. ”It should provide you with enough material to compose at least a couple of songs.”

”Hear that, Geralt?” Jaskier exclaims. ”Here is a man who understands my creative process!”

”Your creative process makes no sense,” Geralt huffs.

Jaskier gives him a flat look. ”First of all, rude,” he says. ”And second, untrue. Just because you can’t understand my creative process, sweetheart, doesn’t mean it’s not valid.”

”Jaskier—”

Wong lets out a sharp hissing noise and stops, the thread in his hand is glowing softly and pulsating almost like it has a heartbeat. It dims for a split moment before flashing brightly and going taut in Wong’s hold. Next to Jaskier, Geralt dismounts, landing almost noiselessly and tilting his head the way he does when he’s honing his senses on something Jaskier can’t see or hear. He doesn’t reach for his swords but downs a potion and then stays still, black eyes scanning their surroundings. Jaskier thinks it’s terribly attractive of him.

Wong side-eyes Geralt’s changed look but keeps his focus on a rippling shape a short distance from them. ”He’s here,” Wong says in a low voice, then he lets go of the thread and squares his shoulders, looking straight at the distorted air. ”Stephen. Talk to me, please.”

The shape flickers, grows a shadow, and then melts back into something resembling a heat haze. It pokes at Jaskier’s mind, urges him to look away or turn and leave, but he grits his jaw and stays where he is. 

And then a tall man stands in front of them, looking frayed on the edges in his dark grey robes and a blood-red cape rippling in the still air. His eyes are feverish and cradling a swirling madness that makes Jaskier shudder.

”Really, Wong? A Witcher,” a cold voice says. ”I expected better from you.”

”Better than what?” Wong retorts. ”Better than killing multiple worlds because of an obsession? Better than refusing help from people who would rather stay alive than watch their world collapse? Stephen—this is madness!” He takes a step forward and throws his hands up in exasperation. ”Isn’t this what you warned Wanda Maximoff about?”

”Don’t talk to me about her,” Dr. Strange spits, waving his hand irritably like he’s swatting aside a fly—except that it wasn’t a fly but a set of cobweb-delicate strands Wong sent flying. ”She was a monster.”

”She lost her husband and then hunted down her children through the multiverse, almost destroying the whole creation in her desperation and madness,” Wong says. ”Does that sound familiar, Stephen?”

”It’s almost like the rules don’t apply to witches and wizards and they don’t feel the need to care about anyone or anything else but themselves,” Jaskier says flatly.

He fights back an instinctual flinch as Dr. Strange’s deranged gaze turns to him. ”And what would one, puny human know about suffering?”

”Actually, quite a lot, thank you very much,” Jaskier says. ”Pain and grief aren’t something that’s reserved for high and mighty—something you probably would know if you bothered to stop navel-gazing for a moment and see that other people exist.”

Dr. Strange bares his teeth in a grimace and raises a hand, but whatever he’s about to do gets literally thrown aside when Geralt’s sign blasts into him. He rocks back a step and his expression turns from disdain to fury as he raises his hands and weaves together something that shines and glimmers and throbs, and he flings it at Geralt.

Jaskier doesn’t think.

He throws himself forward, desperately, willing himself to make it in time—and the spell hits him right in the middle of his chest, stealing the air from his lungs and voice from his throat as he flies through the air and lands with a thud.

Somewhere, someone is screaming, and the ground shudders from blows hammered down. Jaskier doesn’t see it, though. He stares up to the sky, sees blue and some tufty white, and an occasional bird that glides through the air. He sees black spots dancing around the edges of his vision and he blinks, then blinks again, and—

Oh.

”Jaskier!”

Geralt’s face is beautiful, so beautiful with his black eyes and the prominent veins like cracks across his face. His voice is beautiful, even as muffled as it is. 

”Jaskier!”

He’s tired. 

There’s a cottony feeling in his head and warmth in his torso. No pain, though. Peculiar.

But he’s so tired.

”Jaskier!!”

It’s hard to keep his eyes open, so he smiles and tells Geralt he’ll take a nap.

And then—

She should’ve seen it coming.

After finding the bard—or stumbling into him by reluctant accident—Yennefer resigned herself to traveling with him. 

She told herself it was torture but in the silence of her mind she was begrudgingly starting to admit that his company might not have been completely terrible: as annoying as the bard was, what with his constant chattering and flirting and fucking around, he was useful. His songs provided them with a room and meal and his flirting gave them valuable information. The fucking, though...well, that wasn’t useful at all because he was never in a good mood after. He deflected her comments with blithe dramatics and nonsense about flighty muses and the hardships of being a traveling bard spreading love and whatnot but his words were hollow and his smile brittle like spun glass. She was depressingly sure she knew why.

If Yennefer was a better person, she would’ve said something.

But she was who she was.

So, she held her tongue and averted her eyes when the bard's eyes got glassier than usual. She kept her hands on her lap and clenched them into fists instead of reaching out and gripping his shoulder. It wouldn't help, she told herself. It wouldn't benefit her and it would only make her seem weak. Vulnerable.

So, she did nothing.

And later, much later, she told herself she really should’ve seen it coming.

It was an inn. Nothing special, nothing remarkable, nothing suspicious. Just an inn. A common room with a bar, tables around the room, and a small stage on the side. A set of stairs led from the back of the room to the second floor with rooms, and above that, probably an attic. A stable next to the main house, a pigpen in the back. A completely normal inn.

"Well, come on in, Witch," the bard said over his shoulder, quirking a brow. "I know this is still below your normal standards but it's along the same parameters as the previous inns we've visited. There will be food and wine and a bath! Perhaps a warm body or two—although in my case, I feel the need to point out that I'm talking about living bodies."

She rolled her eyes and refused to show her amusement at the theatrics that had grown comforting like a well-worn cloak.

The bard snorted. "Even when burned out and starved, you are haughty like a queen," he muttered under his breath.

She ignored him and took in the room, zeroing in on an empty corner booth, and started towards it, holding her head high and her back straight. She'd learned long ago that if you walked like you owned the space, people would assume you actually did and move out of the way. It was a solid strategy that had yet to fail her.

Behind her, she heard the bard make his usual introductions and start his performance, and not before long, the patrons quieted down to listen. After their time together, Yennefer knew this routine like the back of her hand and it blended into the background as a now-familiar part of the inn's atmosphere. 

"What can I get you?" a servant with a small, sweet smile asked. She was dressed in practical brown and grey clothes with a single, scarlet ribbon binding her hair up.

"Food and wine," Yennefer replied. "Or whatever his performance would get us," she added inclining her head at the bard.

The servant's face went momentarily blank before her smile returned. "Ah. Of course. May I suggest the stew and some red wine? And ale for the artist of the evening, of course."

"Of course," Yennefer echoed.

The servant hurried off and returned a short moment later with a goblet of wine and a pitcher of ale. "It might be slightly bitter," she said. "A fresh batch." When Yennefer raised a brow, she blushed slightly and added, "No point to sugarcoat it. Our other patrons have been complaining about it for two days in a row now and I just find it more convenient to warn in advance."

"Fair enough," Yennefer murmured.

The stew she brought, piping hot on a small skillet, wasn’t fancy but it was rich and filling, and Yennefer devoured it all, wiping the last of the delicious sauce with bread when the bard pranced to the table and flopped down with a wold-weary sigh.

"Tough crowd," he bemoaned and then blinked. "Wait. You didn't leave me any food? You...you witch!"

She rolled her eyes and nodded at the servant making her way to them with a new skillet. "It was a portion for me. I guess that's for you."

The bard appreciated the stew just as much as Yennefer did, barely keeping from licking the skillet when he was done, patting his stomach with a groan. ”That was fulfilling,” he exclaimed and shot a grin and a wink at the servant. ”This humbly bard thanks for the hearty meal and excellent service!”

A strange look flickered across the servant’s face, barely there and gone again so fast that if Yennefer hadn’t been looking straight at her, she would’ve missed it completely. But before she could dwell on it, the servant huffed a laugh, tossed her braid over her shoulder, and quipped, ”And that’s the limit of the service you’ll get tonight, bard.”

He chuckled and shook his head. ”What cruel lady you are, my dear,” he bemoaned with an overly dramatic air. ”No regard for the withering soul of the wandering minstrel.”

The servant rolled her eyes and went on her way.

Yennefer stole a glance from the corner of her eye and saw the bard stare into his ale with a slightly lost look in his eyes.

The next morning, the bard wasn't awake when she got up and made her way downstairs to get some breakfast. 

He wasn't awake when she returned, either, but she wasn't worried. The bard liked to stay up late and sleep in, and she had some errands to run anyway.

The bard still wasn't awake when she came back. "Did you make enough money to warrant lounging in bed the whole day?" she asked after washing up. "I can't say I see how but I guess there are people who actually like your performance." This was a lie, of course. The bard was talented and she was versed enough to recognize it.

The bard didn't answer her jab and that made her pause. She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head, taking in the still form bundled in blankets—too still, too quiet.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath and stalked forward, bringing her hand up on instinct even though it wouldn't do her any good. After all, one of the reasons she was traveling with the bard in the first place was the sad fact that she was still burned out. Whatever was ailing him, Yennefer would be of little to no help.

The body lay still and unmoving, the skin of his cheek gone waxen and pallid. She hissed at the sight, feeling both angry and embarrassed. How—when had this happened? Who? Why? With her magic gone, there was only so much she could find out so she picked a poker from the hanger by the fireplace and gingerly pushed the blanket aside. Underneath, the bard's skin looked as waxen as his face, with no discoloring or other outward sign to be seen. He could've just had a heart attack or something else like that, some physical ailment that robbed his life way too soon.

It could've been natural.

She seriously doubted that.

Feeling light-headed all of a sudden, she staggered back and sat heavily on the bench next to the fireplace.

She'd seen her share of death so why did this hurt so much more? They hadn't been friends—they'd barely tolerated each other if she was being honest—but...

Yennefer closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 

And then another.

And yet another.

She could still feel the pull of the djinn's magic right under his sternum, tugging at her to wherever Geralt was. And wasn't that a thought—how the fuck was she supposed to tell him she'd gotten his favorite bard killed? Geralt could scowl and growl and bare his teeth but sweet Melitele he cared about the bard so much it probably scared him shitless.

This would gut him.

With a shuddering exhale, Yennefer opened her eyes and took a look around.

—and that's when she noticed the envelope laying innocently on the floor. It was plain and slightly crumpled with no name on it, and she had a sense of impending doom when she picked it up.

"To the lady who travels with the despicable bard Jaskier,

You don't know me and that's alright. All you need to know is that you're safe now.

I have no idea what he's told you to keep you with him but whatever it is, don't believe him. He's a liar and a scoundrel and he'll hurt you so much you might never recover. But I've made sure he'll never hurt anyone ever again. Not like he hurt my baby sister.

With this letter, you'll find a sachet. Keep it. It might come in handy someday."

”Oh, no,” Yennefer whispered. ”Oh, Jaskier.”

She really should’ve seen this coming.

When the stillroom’s door slams open, Vesemir drops the beaker he’s holding and whirls around, a knife ready in his hand. But it’s not an attack of any kind but Eskel, rushing in with a limp form in his arms. 

”What—,” Vesemir barks and then feels a cold stone drop to the bottom of his stomach.

It’s Jaskier. Then one who smells of sunshine and heartbreak, the one with bright smiles and a sharp tongue, the one who makes Geralt’s jagged edges softer and lets him feel again. It’s Jaskier, snow-pale and unmoving, looking like he’s dead.

Fuck.

”Table, now!” Vesemir snaps.

Eskel settles the bard on the table with trembling hands. His coat is covered in blood and Vesemir grits his jaw as Eskel carefully turns Jaskier’s head to reveal the terrible wound on the left side of his head. It looks like he was hit on the temple—or perhaps he was thrown—hard enough so that part of his skull is caved in. He’s bleeding sluggishly from his ear and left nostril and…

Fuck.

This doesn’t look good. Not good at all.

”What happened?” Vesemir asks as he starts to clean up the wound. It’s futile, the bard is already as good as dead, but he doesn’t want Geralt to see him like this.

Fuck. Geralt.

”Lambert—” Eskel starts and then snaps his mouth shut as Vesemir’s head jerks up.

”Lambert?” Vesemir echoes, voice quiet and dangerous.

”It was a fucking accident!” Lambert growls from the door. Ah, right. He’s the one who opened the door. ”He wasn’t supposed to even be out there! Eskel and I were practicing and—” His voice catches and his hands clench and unclench. ”We didn’t know.”

Eskel swallows. ”If we’d known, we would’ve never—”

Vesemir lets out a sharp noise through his teeth and looks down at the broken bard. ”This is going to wreck him,” he mutters under his breath.

”Yeah,” Eskel croaks.

”Jaskier?” Geralt’s voice echoes from the hallway. ”WHERE IS HE?”

Vesemir closes his eyes for a split moment and steels himself. Losing people is never easy, even for Witchers who try to distance themselves from the common people. Losing someone you love, though… He shakes his head and sighs. If Geralt is like a son to him—just like the other boys are—then this young man hanging on to his life by a thread on his stillroom table is as good as a son-in-law.

Geralt barges into the room and freezes like he’s hit the wall. His pants are undone and he isn’t wearing a shirt, his wet hair hanging limp—ah, he was at the hot springs. Behind him, cowering at the door is Ciri, looking horrified.

”Jaskier!” Geralt calls, his voice both too loud and a muffled cry of pain. He staggers forward and reaches out, first as if to grab his bard, then settling for gripping one limp hand in his. ”What the fuck happened?”

Vesemir looks at Eskel who turns his head just a fraction. 

”I accidentally hit him with Aard,” Lambert says in a toneless voice. ”Eskel and I were in the clearing in the back woods, well behind the griffin boulder. Geralt, I swear, we had no fucking clue he was there.” 

”What the fuck was he doing so far from the Keep?” Geralt growls. ”How the fuck did he even know how to get there?”

Eskel shakes his head. ”I don’t know.”

Vesemir sees a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye as Ciri darts out of the room and makes a mental note to talk to her later. She, just like the rest of them, grew fond of Jaskier during the months the bard has been in Kaer Morhen, and losing one more person she’s learned to care about will be devastating.

Jaskier lets out a gurgling sound and Geralt hovers over him, cupping his face in his hands, ignoring the blood and viscera.

”Jaskier?” Geralt whispers. ”I’m here. You’re not alone.”

As if by a miracle, the bard’s eyes open, almost like Geralt’s voice prompted him to push for that one, final look. From where he stands, Vesemir has a clear view of his eyes: the left is all pupil, the right eye all blue with a pinprick of black barely visible in the middle. Massive brain damage past any point of return then, not that he had any doubt in the first place. Not after seeing the state of Jaskier’s head.

It feels like the whole room stands still as Jaskier gasps one fluttery breath and, after a long pause, another. 

And then it’s silent.

With a low, pained sound, Geralt bends to rest his head on Jaskier’s stilled chest and Vesemir averts his eyes. This isn’t for him—none of them should be in this room. He jerks his head at Eskel and Lambert and covers Jaskier with a spare burlap cloth before following the younger Witchers out.

Ciri stars just behind the corner, looking like she’s about to throw up. Before Vesemir has the chance to ask, she blurts, ”It’s my fault. I told him—he wanted to surprise Geralt with a…a herb of some kind, a love potion thing he’d read about—I told him—I said he should look for it out there—” She’s close to tears and hyperventilating, wringing her hands so hard her knuckles are white.

”Cub, stop,” Lambert says gruffly. ”You didn’t kill him. I did.”

”But I—”

”No,” Vesemir says. ”It wasn’t your fault.” 

Her lip quivers and she lets out a sob, then slaps her hands over her mouth as if she’s trying to keep her grief inside.

Vesemir sighs and opens his arms. ”Come here, cub,” he says and sways as she collides with him and starts to cry.

Feeling the full weight of his years, he shares a look with Eskel and Lambert, and wonders if there’s anything left but a hollow shell of the Witcher mourning his love.

It starts…

Hm. 

Actually, Jaskier isn’t sure when or how it starts. Perhaps one of those times he got punched when he flirted with the wrong woman. Or perhaps when he woke up next to a naked man whose father didn’t approve of his son’s deviant ways. Or perhaps it was that one, cold night when he literally froze when his fire went out.

He has no idea why but he decides he’s not truly interested in why or how. To him, it’s enough that it starts, and it happens, and that’s that. 

”I thought you died,” Mousesack says, sounding genuinely perplexed. ”In fact, I’m positive I saw you stop breathing.”

”Oh, that,” Jaskier says airily. ”Just a performance.”

”But…how?” Mousesack presses. ”Three other men died from that same poisoned wine!”

Jaskier winks. ”A magician never reveals his tricks,” he says. ”Now. What do you think would be the best selection for this young lady’s birthday?”

Mousesack narrows his eyes but lets Jaskier change the topic.

His eyes follow Jaskier throughout the birthday banquet, assessing, calculating, considering. The intensity of a cunning druid’s gaze is a pressure on the nape of his neck, an itch he wants to scratch but he doesn’t dare because showing his discomfort would be as good as a confession.

So, he sings and plays and performs and quietly decides that he probably needs to be slightly more careful in the future.

”Peculiar,” Tissaia de Vries murmurs. ”I don’t think I’ve ever seen a curse quite like this.”

”Wha?” Jaskier croaks. How did he end up here—wherever ’here’ is? He doesn’t remember…there was a…fire? Or a flash of lightning?

”You certainly are something else, Bard,” she says, shaking her head. ”Tell me, how long has this been going on?”

Something in her eyes tells Jaskier not to even try to deflect, so he struggles to sit up and shrugs. ”I honestly don’t know. I try not to count too closely because it gets depressing pretty quick.”

”Humor me,” she says with a raised brow. ”Five times? A dozen? A hundred?”

”Ah. Hm.” He clears his throat. ”Somewhere in between the two latter, I think?”

She hums as her fingers dance in the air next to his temples and her magic feels like sticky yet slippery syrup, leaving back an odd residue and a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. 

”The real question, of course,” she says after a moment, ”is this: do you want to know.”

”Know what?” he asks with a slow frown.

”When you die. For good, that is.”

He blinks lazily and says, ”Yeah, sure, whatever,” without really considering the consequences.

(When he takes his leave four days later, he wears a pendant under his shirt. It’s simple yet beautiful, made of blood-red stone, silky smooth and warm to the touch. Apparently, it’s supposed to turn black when all his spare lives are up and he’s turned mortal. He contemplates tossing it several times but somehow, he never quite gets to do it.)

He wakes up in a ditch, in the woods, in the water, in a back alley, in a bed, in an ox-cart, and on one, memorable occasion, in an unlit funeral pyre.

He dies by a blade, by wine, by poison, by a stampede, and one time while balls-deep in someone he no longer remembers waking up (but what a way to go!).

It gets a bit tiring after a while. Repetitive. Even dull.

And then he meets the Witcher.

Geralt’s punch to his stomach ruptures his spleen and pushes a broken rib through his lung. 

He gasps for breath through spittle and red-tinted foam and grips the pendant in his hand.

It stays red.

Good. The Witcher seems like a fun travel partner.

Being torn up by monsters is never fun but he tells himself that seeing Geralt all hyped up in potions, black-eyed and snarling is worth the pain.

The first time he gets truly and well scared is when Geralt drags him to meet the Witch. Jaskier might be a bit out of it due to the tumor growing rapidly in his throat but he’s not so far gone that he doesn’t recognize the maniacal gleam in the Witch’s eyes.

It’s not the first time he’s been cursed. You know, on top of the curse that keeps bringing him back.

But it’s the first time that curse might be turned into something else, a weapon for an unhinged Witch in a rampage of regret trying to reclaim something she gave up long ago in her search for power. Not that Jaskier knows that yet, of course. No, all he knows is that there’s a greyness reaching out for him through the pain and dizziness and real fear that this might actually be it.

And his pendant has turned murky, blotchy red.

But it’s not the end.

Jaskier survives, his pendant turns crimson again, and Geralt has a new obsession.

It’s fine.

Jaskier is fine.

He didn’t die after all.

He probably should’ve realized something changed but because he’s weak and wanting and stupid and heart-sore, he closes his eyes and looks away whenever Geralt and Yennefer meet and crash and burn and part again, leaving Jaskier the still-burning heap of ash and bitterness.

But it’s fine! He’s alive and Geralt is alive and his pendant is still red. 

It’s all fine.

Isn’t it?

Geralt’s vitriol burns in his ears as he stumbles down the Dragon Mountain, his lute and belongings left behind. All he feels is the desperate need to get away, to flee from the pure hatred in the Witcher’s eyes. In all his years alive, Jaskier has never felt quite like this—like he’s unraveling, coming apart, breaking into small shards that bleed him dry. He’s not sure how to come back from this or if there even is a way to come back from this.

Why has he come back previously?

What has made him turn his back on the fates and decide that nope, not yet?

What is going to happen now?

He stumbles as his boot catches on a root and he falls, foolishly holding out his hand to stop the fall. The snap of a breaking bone is absurdly loud in the late evening air and he bites back a curse, hisses through his teeth at the blinding pain flashing down his arm.

Stupid.

”Stupid stupid stupid—never brace yourself with your hand, you moron, that’s your livelihood!” he chants under his breath, cradling his arm against his chest, drawing in heaving gulps of air that seems both too much and not even near enough. He drops his chin, closes his eyes, and tries to center himself. 

He needs to go. He needs to move on, to make his way to the next village, to get his arm checked out, to figure out a way to—to exist, to continue with—

That’s when he sees the pendant.

It’s not blotchy red. It’s not murky, it doesn’t have a dark tendril running through it.

No.

Instead, it’s black. Dull, matte black with not even a hint of color.

”Oh,” he says to himself. ”Well, then.”

He’d like to question the reason why the change happened now of all times but he has a sinking feeling he already knows the answer.

He’s a bard, after all, and bards are poets, well versed with all sorts of human conditions, be it a rowdy jingle, an epic song cycle about a daring hero, a soft lullaby, or a lament of a lost love.

You can break a heart just as easily as you can break a bone, and broken hearts are fragile, vulnerable things.

They’re so very easy to step on.

So very easy to just…

Stop.

The boulder exploded when Ciri waved her hand.

”Whoa!” Jaskier yelped from behind her.

She whirled around, eyes narrowed, mouth curled in a snarl, and Jaskier backed away from her with his hand held in front of him in a placating move.

”What?” she hissed.

Jaskier raised a brow. ”I didn’t say anything.”

”You were thinking about it,” she snapped.

”Oh, I’m thinking about many things,” Jaskier said airily. ”Which one would he have your interest, your highness?”

Something clenched in her chest, making her hunch over. ”Don’t call me that.”

He tilted his head a bit, his bright blue eyes suddenly serious. It was unnerving and it made that something in her chest roll, almost like the time she had a stomach bug. His gaze saw her and she didn’t like it.

”I’m sorry, Ciri,” he said quietly. ”I swear upon my life that I was not making—no,” He interrupted himself. ”That’s not right. I was making fun of you but mocking you was never my intention.” He gave her a small, sincere bow.

She drew breath through her teeth and turned her back on him, glaring at the pile of rubble that a moment ago was a giant boulder.

”What’s wrong?”

”Nothing!” she snapped over her shoulder. He hummed, sounding way too much like Geralt, making her temper flare again. ”It’s just—I don’t—aarrgghhh!”

Her frustrated scream cleaved the ground in front of her, ripping out trees and exploding more rocks that happened to be in the way of her ire. The resulting gouge looked like a wound, too ragged to be cleanly cut with a knife. More like a whiplash.

”Better?” Jaskier asked.

Not really, no, but she wasn’t going to admit it. Instead, she sat on the ground, ignoring the way wet moss seeped through her clothes, adding to her misery.

”I hate this,” she muttered sullenly.

Jaskier hummed as he sat next to her, somehow sprawling and dignified at the same time. ”And what is that, exactly? Do you hate being here with Geralt and me or do you hate the training regimen you’ve been put through? Or do you hate what Voleth Meir did? Or what?”

”All of this!” she exploded. ”I hate being useless and I hate being weak, I hate being afraid and I hate that I don’t know what’s going to happen!” She took a breath and then another, and realized she was gasping like she’d been running for the whole day.

Jaskier leaned closer and cocked his head. ”Sweetheart, everyone’s afraid. It’s part of what being human means.” He shrugged and offered her a self-deprecating smile. ”I’ve been afraid a lot recently and I don’t think it’s something I can let go of any time soon.”

”It’s different for you,” she said. ”You’re not—”

Jaskier waited for a moment and when he realized she wasn’t going to continue, he huffed. ”I’m not a fighter? You’re right about that. It doesn’t mean I haven’t killed or been nearly killed. Or tortured. Or hurt beyond your imagination.”

She bit her lip and stared at the scrape on her pant knee.

”Ciri, you’re far from useless,” Jaskier continued in a softer voice. ”You’re unbelievably brave and amazingly tenacious. You’ve survived far more than many people could ever dream of, and you’re still going strong. I know you’re frustrated—”

”Don’t pity me!” she snapped, biting back both a scream and tears.

Jaskier clicked his tongue. ”Don’t confuse empathy for pity, princess. I pity no one but I empathize with many, especially with you. The world is on fire but it doesn’t mean I didn’t wish things went differently for you.” He sighed. ”Ciri—”

She drew air through her teeth, curled her hands into fists against a red-hot surge of emotion. ”Stop patronizing me!” she yelled, turning around.

Her frustration and fear poured out of her in an uncontrollable burst of power that she was too slow to stop or even redirect. It hit Jaskier straight in the chest, hurling him across the clearing and landing him in a heap on the moss.

She screamed his name, scrambled to get to him, and reached out for him with a trembling hand and dread in her heart. He was pale, breathing stuttering wheezes in and out, pushing pink foam to coat the corner of his mouth. His doublet was torn and speckled with moss and mud but that wasn’t what made her stop.

No.

It was the way his whole chest was wrong; where she should’ve seen his ribcage’s familiar shape shielding his heart and lungs, was instead an inverted shape of something soft, something malleable, yielding. As if in a trance, she reached out to touch, yanking her hand back when her fingers sunk in like it was dough instead of flesh and bone.

”Jaskier?”

There was no sound, not even the uneven wheezing. The bright, brilliant, kind man she’d learned to know and love was still.

”No, please,” she whispered. ”No, no nonono NO!”

Her last scream exploded the air above them, raining down ice, splintered wood, dust, and moss, and it didn’t matter because Jaskier didn’t move.

He never wished this to happen.

He never—

This is the exact reason he wanted Jaskier gone, tried to push him to keep his distance, to stay away, to be safe.

He’s supposed to be the monster, not Jaskier.

Never Jaskier.

The wind carries with it the faint sound of howling and Geralt looks up at the sky.

It’s full moon tonight and The White Wolf is about to rip his own heart out.

”I can control it now,” Jaskier said, wide eyes frantic. ”I know I can—I’ve been practicing! And even if I couldn’t, the door will hold! Right? All you need to do is to lock it. You can do that for me, Geralt?”

”I—”

”Please?”

It was that final plea that did him in. Over the years, Geralt had been able to deny Jaskier less and less and apparently, this wasn’t where he drew the line.

”Fine,” he grunted unhappily, averting his eyes from the blatant relief in his friend’s eyes. 

”Thank you,” Jaskier breathed and took a moment to collect himself. ”If nothing else, this will provide me with so much material!” he laughed with a wink that contorted his face into a grimace.

Geralt averted his eyes and turned to go. Before he closed the massive oak door, he took a last look at Jaskier sitting on the thin mattress on the floor, hugging himself, almost vibrating with tension.

”Two nights, right?”

”Yes, Geralt. That should be more than enough.”

With a sigh, he cocks his head and scents the air. The woods are silent around him almost like the space around him is holding its breath. Who knows, perhaps it is. 

He wants to turn around. He wants to walk away and forget that any of this ever happened, forget the manic light in Jaskier’s eyes, forget the blood under his fingernails, the scent of death that perpetually hung around him. He wants to go back to simpler times when all they needed to worry about was their next meal and a roof over their heads.

He wants to—

He wants so many things and none of them is no longer possible.

Silent as a ghost, he draws his sword from its scabbard and carefully drops pale liquid from an opaque vial on the blade.

Steel for human, silver for—

The liquid shimmers in the pale moonlight, turning his tool of death into something almost beautiful. Jaskier would probably find something poetic to say about it.

Geralt doesn’t want to think about it. 

”I can’t help you,” Yennefer said in a tight voice. ”It’s…I can’t.”

Geralt wanted to scream. Or growl. Or punch something—anything to make this terrible feeling in his chest go away. ”I know you hate me but this is Jaskier—”

Yennefer let out a mocking huff of laughter. ”Believe me, it has nothing to do with you,” she sneered. ”And it has even less to do with your annoying bard. I can’t do it because I. Can’t.”

Geralt frowned. ”What—”

”My magic is gone, Geralt,” she said in a toneless voice, looking around the humble room she’d rented. ”I burned myself out in Sodden and this is how the Universe sees fit to thank me. I can’t help you because I have nothing to help you with.”

”Oh,” he said. ”Then what about—”

She shook her head, impatient. ”I don’t know where Triss is and I have no idea whether Tissaia is even alive,” she snapped. 

He sat heavily down on a bench and swallowed. There were only a handful of sorceresses he could trust and they were out of reach. Asking the Brotherhood was out of the question—they were more likely to trap Jaskier for their sick experiments than actually help.

”I’m truly sorry, Geralt,” Yennefer said softly. ”I know how much he means to you.”

He grunted, gritting his teeth. ”Is there anything—” he started, cutting the sentence short.

After a short pause, she sighed, dug around her bag, and handed him a small, opaque vial. ”It will be painless.”

Geralt swallowed back bile, took the vial, and walked out.

The moon hangs full and heavy overhead as he follows the trail. He doesn’t bother trying to be stealthy; his prey won’t try to run, not tonight. Not when the full power of the moon courses through its veins, driving it out of its mind and making it overconfident.

It feels more like following a well-trodden path than tracking; the ground shows clear marks of something heavy being dragged and flecks of fresh blood adorn the snapped twigs and torn leaves. He walks steadily onward, holding his sword in his hand, refusing to dwell on the memories gathered over two decades worth of shared adventures. There is the hunt and the kill, thinking can come after.

He hears it before he sees it, low growling and crunching, wet tearing sounds, and a thud when something heavy drops on the forest floor. For a moment, he doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to see but—this is his job, his mess to clear up. 

He owes this to Jaskier.

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath and then lets it slowly out.

He steps into the clearing.

”Did—did I kill someone?” Jaskier asked in the morning. He coughed and drew a heaving breath, making a face at whatever he tasted in his mouth. ”Oh, gods. I did. Fuck.”

Geralt leaned against the wall, arms crossed on his chest. ”Yeah.”

”Fuck,” Jaskier whispered. ”Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

”For what it’s worth, it was the farmer who pointed us to the forest,” Geralt said, trying for levity and falling flat.

”Yeah, no, not helping,” Jaskier muttered. ”Did I eat him? Please tell me I didn’t eat him. Fuck.”

”No.”

Jaskier scowled at him. ”No as in I didn’t eat him or no as in you’re not telling me.”

”No, Jaskier, you didn’t eat him,” Geralt said. ”You ate two rabbits and a half-rotten rat.”

”Oh, gods,” Jaskier said again, turned, and threw up into the bucket by the bed. His sick smelled like blood and guts and rot, and it made Geralt’s stomach turn.

”What are we going to do?” Jaskier asked later in a small, subdued voice.

Geralt wanted to wrap him in his arms and tell him not to worry but he settled with gripping his shoulder. ”I’ll contact Yennefer. We’ll figure this out.”

”Yeah,” Jaskier said. ”Okay.”

He sounded as doubtful as Geralt felt.

There’s no recognition in those beautiful, bright blue eyes Geralt has learned to love. They track his movements with feverish intensity even though it never ceases to tear into its game. The squelching sounds of blood and guts grate at Geralt—not because they make him sick but because they’re sounds that never should come from Jaskier.

There’s no point in trying to speak. The creature in front of him is unlikely to understand him anyway, and he doesn’t want to taint his memories of his—his friend with anything that would be appropriate to the monster across the field. 

It stops and tilts its head in a strangely attentive way when Geralt steps forward with his sword in his hand. 

”I know you’re in there somewhere,” Geralt says. ”For what it’s worth, I never wanted it to end like this.”

With a couple of jerky moves, it swallows the last pieces of carcass, then shakes itself before turning to stare at Geralt again. It blinks lazily and scents the air, looking tamer than it actually is. Thinking it’s harmless would be a fatal mistake.

Geralt decides not to think at all.

A sudden burst of speed brings it to his sword’s range and he slashes at its foreleg, feeling grimly satisfied when the blade meets skin. One cut is enough, he knows, and one cut is all he can manage before a massive paw hits his side and smacks him across the field and into a tree. Pain erupts through him as bones and tissue break but he finds himself unable to give a fuck.

In front of him, the beast seizes up mid-lunge.

Geralt felt red rage descend upon him as he saw the bard fly through the air. This job had been a fucking failure from the get-go, starting with the farmer lying about what he’d seen and ending with a meeting with a fucking werewolf. And then the werewolf had turned on Jaskier and—

With a snarl, Geralt charged. His potions gave him speed and strength but this werewolf was old, cunning, and huge. It took a bite out of his flank and the resulting blinding pain drove him to his knees.

”GERALT!” Jaskier screamed like the idiot he was, drawing the werewolf’s attention to himself again. The foolish, idiotic bard was now baring his teeth at the beast in stupid, futile defiance that was going to bite him in the ass. Literally.

”Don’t you dare fucking touch my Witcher,” Jaskier snarled. ”You hideous excuse of a mutt, you—”

The werewolf lunged but instead of going for the jugular, it smacked Jaskier down, held him down with one massive paw on his back, and turned slowly to look at Geralt. 

”No,” he whispered, feeling dread rise inside him like a wave. He struggled to stand but his flank was bleeding profusely and the pain and blood loss made him lightheaded. But he tried, he fucking tried because Jaskier was about to be—

The werewolf cocked its head and its eyes flashed as it lowered its head slowly, nudged Jaskier’s shirt up with a paw, and bit down, never taking its eyes off Geralt. Jaskier let out a strangled scream and struggled against the weight and hold, shaking his head, eyes hazy with pain. And then the monster let go, and with a last, lewd lick at the bite mark on Jaskier’s side, loped off.

”Jaskier!” Geralt called, crawling on his knees to his—his friend. 

”The fucker bit me,” Jaskier mumbled ”Like I’m a chew toy!”

”Too stringy for a chew toy,” Geralt rasped, gripping Jaskier’s wrist in his hand. ”It’ll be alright. Bites rarely take.”

Jaskier’s breath hitched. ”Oh. That’s good then, right?”

”Yeah,” Geralt said, turning gingerly onto his back, still holding on to Jaskier’s wrist.

Above them, a red moon stared back, impassive, foreboding.

As Yennefer’s poison rapidly makes its way through Jaskier’s morphed body, his mutated form sways and starts to slowly keel over. By the time it hits the ground, he’s human again; naked, covered in bruises and scrapes and blood, and so achingly beautiful. He looks like he’s asleep.

There’s a small, purple cut on his left forearm, the place where Geralt nicked the werewolf only a moment ago.

He doesn’t recognize the sound he lets out, a thin, reedy whine of pain and loss. He hauls Jaskier’s body into his lap and bends over it, tries to breathe in his familiar scent for the last time before he has to let go for good.

”I’m sorry,” he whispers. ”I’m so, so sorry.”

There is no reply.

Of course there isn’t. 

The White Wolf is alone again.

It was pure luck that he found the bard.

Or perhaps luck was a wrong word—there was nothing lucky about it. Nothing at all.

But as it was, Geralt had been making his way through a small village a couple of days’ ride from the Dragon Mountain, feeling angry and embarrassed and worried and heartsick when Roach whinnied and tossed her head, refusing to go further. Over the years, Geralt had learned to trust his horses and he obliged now. Later, he’d regret the trust.

They were on the far side of the village where the houses were more run-down, few and far apart. Some of them had lanterns on but most were dark, either due to the late hour or because they were abandoned. Geralt didn’t care either way. He unmounted, patted Roach on the neck, and extended his senses. He couldn’t hear anything but something about the silence tugged at him—it was pressuring, heavy—although it could also be just a figment of his own guilty conscience.

Guilt.

Ha.

He gritted his teeth and stalked carefully forward, sword in hand. The yard was silent and the dilapidated house as well, and when he made his way inside, he didn’t hear anything—no heartbeat, no breathing, no sound.

The house smelled of mold and dust, of forgotten dreams and lives lost, and underneath it, an achingly familiar scent.

”Jaskier!” Geralt hissed urgently, following his nose through the empty room to where the smell of blood was getting stronger, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t mean what he feared. 

He hesitated for a moment at the door to the basement, closed his eyes, and yanked the door open, then nearly faltering under the stench. ”Jaskier!” he yelled, throwing all caution to the wind as he hurried down the rickety stairs.

What he found in the corner made him retch.

What he found in the corner might have once been his…friend, the man he’d treated so callously. His Jaskier. But there was nothing familiar in him anymore. Nothing but the smell of his blood.

It wasn’t until he lifted the mangled remains of his—his Jaskier in his arms, that he saw the writing on the wall:

”Nilfgaard sends its greetings to the White Wolf.”

”Oh. So you are real,” the man says thoughtfully. He’s sitting on a log—or something that his mind has shaped as one—and wears a yellow silk doublet that seems overly bright in the dim light of the un-day.

I wasn’t aware not being real was an option, Death says.

The man snorts and shakes his head. ”Of course my version of you would have a sense of humor,” he says wryly. ”Geralt would—”

Geralt?

The man takes a deep breath and lets a smile stretch his face in a facsimile of happiness. ”My Witcher. Or, not as such. He belonged less to me than he belonged to others—Yennefer, most likely. Or Ciri. Or Vesemir.”

And how would that make him any less yours?

He opens his mouth, then frowns, and narrows his eyes. ”Wait—are you debating semantics with me now?”

Perhaps.

”Why?” he asks, baffled.

Why not?

He cocks his head. ”Aren’t you supposed to be busy collecting dead souls or wreaking havoc in some unfortunate village that caught the plague or something?”

I’m taking a break, Death says mildly. Wreaking havoc is exhausting.

”Unbelievable,” he says. ”Death. Snarking back at me. Sweet Melitele, what even is my life.”

She isn’t that sweet, actually, Death points out. And it isn’t, not anymore. Your life, I mean. You’re quite dead, so your question should be in the past tense. 

He stares, blinks, and rubs a hand over his face. ”What the fuck,” he finally says.

That’s a very broad question.

The flat look on his face tells he’s not amused but before he has the chance to snap anything back, a muffled voice calls, ”JASKIER!”

His eyes blow wide and he jumps up, looking frantically around. ”Geralt? Geralt, is it you?”

He can’t hear you anymore, Death says, not unkindly.

He turns back around. ”May I see him? One, last time? Please?”

It will make no difference.

”Not to you,” he says hotly.

Death looks at him for a long time, and then the air in front of them shimmers and turns into a kind of window. 

He falls on his knees and stares through it at a riverbank where a white-haired Witcher cradles a smaller man in a sky-blue silk doublet. The Witcher calls out the name once more and then raises his face to the sky, showing a face twisted in anguish and yellow eyes brimming with tears.

”Oh,” he says in a small voice as the shimmering window melts away.

He loved you, Death says, wondering why humans did this to themselves and each other. Wouldn’t it be better to talk while they were alive instead of leaving things unsaid and suffering because of it?

He doesn’t comment, just closes his eyes and holds a hand over his mouth.

It’s time to go. Come.

”Goodbye, Geralt. I love you, you stupid, stubborn man,” he whispers. 

And then Jaskier the Bard draws a shuddering breath, pushes himself to stand up, and follows Death into the swirling mists of oblivion.

The air is thick like syrup, tiny droplets of rain hovering in the air like mist. It feels like inhaling a lake, a bit like drowning on dry land, but Jaskier does it anyway. One needs air to breathe, after all, even when the air is more moisture than not.

He shivers and bites down to keep his teeth from making a sound. It’s late, it’s cold, and he’d rather be anywhere but here; in a dingy alleyway where the accumulated contents of several weeks’ bed pots combat for dominance with rotting food and what is probably a corpse. He doesn’t look too closely. Anyway, he’s here because he’s finally getting out of this shitty little town and this shitty little country and these shitty soldiers who have been hunting the Sandpiper for a while now.

It’s been a long couple of months.

Jaskier isn’t sure what pushed him to pick up the role of the Sandpiper. Perhaps it was the fugue state of dragging depression that gripped him after Geralt poured shit all over him and kicked him off the Dragon Mountain. Perhaps it was the grim realization that apart from a couple of catchy songs, he hadn’t actually achieved anything in his life. Perhaps it was boredom. Perhaps it was the need to show that what he did mattered—that he mattered—to someone, anyone.

Perhaps it was his pathetic need to feel important.

Be as it may, that’s what he is and what he has been for a while now. He performs in the taverns, pretends to fuck everything that moves, and smuggles elves out of harm’s way in the cover of the night. It’s a thankless job as the elves rarely have much to pay him but he wouldn’t take their money even if they were drowning in coin. They’ll need all they have to build themselves a new life, and besides, he has his benefactors. It’s not like he needs the money.

The contact he has in here is a new one but a friend of a friend of a friend vouched for her and Jaskier had no other choice but to accept. She’s a wiry woman with cunning eyes and a no-nonsense air about her and he likes her—not in the way to fuck her (to be completely honest, he hasn’t had the urge to fuck anyone in a while) but like she’s an older sister or a cousin who doesn’t buy any of his shit. 

It’s refreshing.

(It reminds him of a certain violet-eyed woman but he pushes the lingering fondness to the side. It’s not like he has the right to remember her fondly anyway.)

A short, soft whistle jerks him out of his thoughts and he lets out a breath. ”Finally,” he mutters and whistles a reply. It’s different from his trilling signature call that’s gotten too recognizable and therefore way too dangerous to use in these parts anymore, but it works just as well. After all, it’s not about the notes or the skill, it’s about the ability to communicate.

”This way,” his contact murmurs when he appears from the alleyway. ”Fucking soldiers everywhere, I had to take several detours to lose them from my trail.”

”It’s fine,” Jaskier says, suppressing a shiver. He just wants to get into somewhere warm and dry, preferably with some mulled wine and a fire, but he’ll settle for warm and dry. He blinks blearily at the houses around them, and after a moment frowns, takes a closer look.

”Wait, where are you taking me?”

She doesn’t reply, merely jerks her head impatiently.

”No, seriously—”

The hand that grips the side of his neck is burning hot and he stumbles, would’ve fallen on his face if not for said hand yanking him up again.

”Careful,” a silky, low voice says so close he feels the breath tickling his hair. ”I wouldn’t want you to break yourself before I’ve had the chance to play with you, now would I?”

The hand still gripping his neck burns even hotter, searing into his skin until a muffled scream rips out, wet and desperate, drowned under the man’s laughter. The last thing Jaskier sees is flames dancing along his skin.