Chapter Text
By the time he reached the town at the base of the mountain, Jaskier could hardly remember the journey down. He had only stopped when absolutely necessary over the days it took to descend, walking well into dusk and rising before the sun had crested the trees. He needed to get away from that mountain. He needed to get away from Geralt.
Objectively, he knew why Geralt had said those things to him. His attempt at distraction and levity, while often met with a grunt or no response at all, was the last straw for Geralt in that moment, so the Witcher lashed out. He put all his rage and his heartbreak into a few sentences that would do the greatest amount of damage, cause the most hurt.
It worked.
Jaskier had stood there, stunned nearly into speechlessness – a minor miracle in itself – unconsciously rubbing his calloused fingertips together trying to wrap his mind around what Geralt had said to him.
If life could give me one blessing
If life could give me one blessing
If life could give me one blessing
As he stumbled away from Geralt and the dragon’s cave – not fled , thank you very much – he barely had the presence of mind to gather his meager belongings from the campsite where he’d awoken alone only an hour before. Once he’d gotten his things and begun the trek down to The Pensive Dragon, the tavern where this ill-fated quest had begun, Jaskier found his feet carrying him faster and faster along the path. He needed to get away from Geralt. He realized hours later that he hadn’t bothered to ask anyone else about what had happened at the cave. It suddenly no longer mattered.
When he arrived at the tavern, he contemplated not stopping at all, merely restocking his thin supplies and moving on, but the wave of exhaustion he felt when he entered the town meant he would at least be staying for the night. He had the oddest sensation of hope flaring in his chest intermingled with a sharp sense of panic at the idea that Geralt might find him here, maybe even come looking for him. He knew Geralt better than to expect an apology, to expect that Geralt would even think an apology necessary, but many a fight of theirs in the past had merely fizzled after a little time had passed. Geralt would grunt and Jaskier would make a joke, and they’d return to the Path together as though nothing had happened. It perhaps wasn’t the most mature and robust communication method, but Jaskier appreciated that Geralt never held a grudge, no matter how annoyed he’d been with Jaskier over one thing or another.
That is, Jaskier had thought Geralt hadn’t held a grudge. Apparently he was mistaken. Geralt was stewing with frustration-turned-rage, resentful and bitter at the inconvenience that Jaskier represented in his life. He was so angry . Angrier than Jaskier had ever seen him, which is saying something for a friendship that spanned several decades. Now Jaskier understood where he fit in Geralt’s life, which was not at all.
Despite the risk of Geralt following the same route and finding Jaskier here, the bard found himself overcome with fatigue and knew he needed rest before moving on to…wherever he was going. His travels with Geralt had been meandering, but also felt purposeful, intentional. Now he was truly on his own without having made the choice to be so. He had no semester of teaching lined up at Oxenfurt, no invitation to stay at court for a season. The only inkling of intent he had was the desire he had so foolishly let slip to Geralt the day before. The coast .
Just trying to work out what pleases me , he’d told Geralt.
Taking a room at the inn and ordering a bath with most of the coin he had left, Jaskier scrubbed himself raw until his skin was pink and aching. His mind drifted back to that day, when they’d watched Borch and Téa and Véa fall from the mountain and Geralt sat perched on a rock afterward, more lost than Jaskier had ever seen him. Maybe it was Jaskier’s own confused grief at the loss of their travel companions, or maybe it was his dismay at knowing that Geralt blamed himself for their deaths that made the words fall out of Jaskier’s mouth. Before he realized the significance of what he was saying, he was asking Geralt to go away with him to the coast, offering himself in a way that he swore he’d never reveal to the Witcher. Just trying to work out what pleases me .
Geralt, of course, didn’t take him up on it, said nothing in response at all, and ended up in the witch’s tent. Jaskier spent half of that night staring up at the cloud-dimmed stars, cursing himself for baring his heart in a way he’d genuinely never intended. If one were to ask Geralt, the Witcher would probably say that Jaskier had no secrets, no hidden depths and certainly not from Geralt, mostly because he could hardly shut up a moment while they were on the road. Jaskier wouldn’t say that he was content, exactly, with Geralt thinking that of him; after all, the secret he harbored in the depths of his heart ached every minute he was with Geralt, like an old injury that throbbed in warning of an incoming storm. As closely as he guarded that secret, a piece of him foolishly wished that Geralt would just figure it out already so it could stop eating away at him. Fortunately, he was never quite idiotic enough to let that piece of him take the reins; suffering in silence was awful, but not as bad as being shunned entirely.
But now he had the distinct pleasure of enduring both. He’d lost his best friend, the person he cared for most in all the world, and it wasn’t even for a particularly good reason. He hadn’t confessed anything, he hadn’t revealed the darkest corners of his soul. He’d hung on to that secret no matter how much it hurt, and for what? To be tossed aside anyway, like a particularly offensive piece of garbage.
As Jaskier finished his sorely-needed bath at the inn, he dressed in his cleanest braies, made sure the fire would burn for a while, and climbed into bed. He knew he would hardly sleep, running over the hunt in his head and how it ended, vacillating between heartbreak and anger and grief and bitterness and confusion. The bard was so sure that he would find no rest that the sudden appearance of sunlight in his room came as quite a shock. The blessing of a dreamless sleep was the kindest bit of luck he’d had since before they set foot in The Pensive Dragon. As the aches, both physical and mental, made themselves known, Jaskier decided he would allow himself a single hot meal at the tavern and a trip to the minuscule marketplace the town boasted, and then he’d be off.
Both tasks accomplished, his coin purse very light but his bags modestly full, Jaskier set off for the south, not caring about a particular direction or destination, but careful to pick a route that wasn’t the one that had brought him and Geralt here only a week prior. He’d need to make some coin soon, enough to keep himself fed and supplied, but he could go probably a week or two without needing anything beyond what was on his back. Geralt was usually the one who hunted while they were between settlements, but over the years, Jaskier had gone from helpless to merely unskilled, and could likely snare a rabbit or catch some fish if he stuck close to rivers. Geralt liked to poke fun at the bard for being hopeless in the wilderness, far from the creature comforts Jaskier so enjoyed in the larger cities, but the reality was that Jaskier – as all bards must be – was intensely perceptive and attentive to everything around him. Even if he didn’t deign to hunt deer or build the fire or what have you, he had observed Geralt doing them enough times that Jaskier felt reasonably assured that he could travel as successfully alone as he had when at Geralt’s side.
Jaskier smoothed a hand down his face as he made his way out of Caingorn, chiding himself for continuing to obsess over the Witcher. Geralt said this, Geralt thought that, Geralt did such-and-such thing. The sooner he put the Witcher out of his mind, the sooner he could figure out what the fuck to do with himself now that he was operating solo. He decided to head for Hengfors, a city large enough to be distasteful to Geralt, and therefore as good a place as any to begin his Geralt-less life.
In the end, it took over two weeks to reach Hengfors, and though he’d played at several tiny taverns along the way, he was low on both coin and supplies when he arrived. He bartered with the proprietor of the first inn he found, agreeing to play in the tavern downstairs in exchange for a meal and a room for the night. If he wanted to retain any coin, he’d have to play nightly for some time, maybe see if there were any competitions or other events he could worm his way into. After all, the name Jaskier got him further these days than it did when he was getting pelted with bread in Posada. If he needed to spend a few nights camping on the outskirts of the city to save some coin, so be it. As his most recent travels had confirmed for him, he could make it just fine on his own.
His performance at the tavern got off to a rocky start when he tried to stick to his non-Witcher repertoire. Sure, everyone’s a fan of “Fishmonger’s Daughter” and the like, but eventually somebody wants to hear “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” or some of Jaskier’s other White Wolf tunes. The curse of being known, he supposed. He made a weak attempt to convince the patrons that he needn’t play them such songs in order to entertain them, but the jeers sent in his direction along with a stern look from the proprietor who’d agreed to let him the room for the night made it clear that he was very much expected to perform the songs for which he was now best known.
As he strummed the opening chords to “Toss a Coin” and even managed to get out the lyric “with Geralt of Rivia” without losing his footing, he felt a strength building in him that he’d been missing for weeks. Arriving at the chorus, he feared he’d have some sort of emotional breakdown, but instead he stood taller, dancing nimbly from table to table, surprised to feel a grin stretching his face wide. He was endlessly pleased and relieved to find that, for all his heartbreak over Geralt and how they parted on the mountain, he was still Master Jaskier, renowned bard. His music could and would still bring him joy, and Geralt’s mulishness couldn’t take that from him. He felt born again, fresh and new and full of possibility.
Towards the end of his set, he even ventured to play his newest composition, one he’d only finished on that cursed dragon hunt. He’d taken ages to finalize the lyrics, and ironically it had been Yennefer’s appearance on the hunt that helped him get it sorted. The gobsmacked expression on Geralt’s face when he saw Yennefer enter the tavern practically wrote the song for him. In the back of his mind, he’d assumed he might not ever play it publicly, knowing how revealing it was even for someone as literal as the Witcher, but now he had no reason to withhold it. It was a good song, and so he debuted “Her Sweet Kiss” to a slightly-above-lukewarm reception in Hengfors.
If he sobbed quietly for an hour in his room after the performance, that was neither here nor there. One can’t be expected to rise from the ashes without a few burns that needed time to heal.