Chapter Text
In the silence of the night, Jaskier had learned to be afraid. He never trusted silence; he never trusted the dark.
Things had been a little better while traveling with Geralt, things, in general, had been better when he traveled with a Witcher. But said Witcher was the reason he was in this mess, to begin with.
Jaskier groaned, throwing his head back and looking to the sky in despair. Now the adrenaline had left his body, Jaskier had become very aware of the pain he was in.
His shoulder was throbbing, his hands didn’t stretch. He felt the sweat on his skin and yet he couldn’t get warm.
“How far from home are you, Oisin?” Jaskier asked the horse. Jaskier supposed he was rather blessed he had the stallion. Jaskier loved stories of the old land, he often had read them with his parents and discussed them. The one that remained Jaskier’s favourite was the story of Oisin and Maeve. Oisin had been a knight, stolen away by a fairy queen, and married her. Oisin lived by her side for nearly three hundred years, then one day decided he wanted to return home. Maeve had agreed but told him that should he get off the horse, he’d die. Oisin agreed, getting on the horse, and riding back out into the hills of Ireland. Oisin never got off until he saw a group of men struggling to push a rock up a hill, and in a moment of blindness, Oisin got off and was dead before his feet even touched the earth.
Jaskier always loved that story. And he felt like Oisin now, riding the horse. He felt if he got off him, he’d die.
The horse was clever. He never went too fast, but kept a good pace, and kept himself balanced so Jaskier would be spared of pain.
A few times, they had to stop to let Jaskier throw up, and then they’d continue in silence.
“I did everything I could for him,” Jaskier eventually whispered. “I loved him too,” letting out a wet chuckle. Jaskier closed his eyes, blinking hard. “There’s always that, isn’t there? We always love someone we shouldn’t. He hated his eyes; I knew he did. I always thought they looked like the moon. He was my moon, cutting through the sea of endless nothing. Would’ve helped if I had told him this,” Jaskier laughed. It just brought more tears, and soon sobs were wrecking his body.
Oisin came to a stop, swinging his head round to look at Jaskier, and Jaskier really was trying. He was trying to get it together; he was trying to be strong. But he was exhausted. He was sick. When was the last time he ate? When was the last time he slept? Everything just blurred into one.
And Toss a Coin still echoed in his head.
“I’m so sorry,” Jaskier gasped, sniffling, and scrubbing his face. “Why am I apologizing to a horse? You couldn’t care less, could you?” he sighed. He tried to hold the reins, but they fell through his fingers like sand. And Jaskier was beginning to care less and less until there was a snap of a twig.
Oisin stopped sharply, bringing his head up to full height and his ears twitching to the source of the sound.
“Hoooo, pretty lad, easy,” Jaskier whispered, grabbing a fist full of mane. “Nothing to worry about yet, nothing to be scared off. It’s just some… wrench?” Jaskier blinked, looking at the woman in the dirt who was staggering to her feet. She looked as bad as Jaskier felt, her face littered in cuts, mud smearing her skin and hair.
“Excuse me,” Jaskier called. “Are you alright?” he didn’t know what he was going to do if she said no, but it was nice to offer.
Until her eyes met Jaskier’s.
“Yennefer?”
*
If someone asked Jaskier where would he be in the future, he would not have said sat beside Yennefer of Vengerberg in front of a tiny fire in the middle of nowhere.
“Well, isn’t this cozy,” Jaskier said, looking at her. The mage’s gaze hadn’t broken from the flames before them. She looked nearly worse than Jaskier did.
“You’re on your own?”
“Yes. Just escaped torture actually,” Jaskier said. “Made a new friend. Oisin meet Yennefer, Yennefer meet Oisin.”
“Oisin?”
The horse grunted in answer.
“Yes, Oisin. Do you have a problem with the name?”
“Oisin was an obnoxious know-it-all who had an attitude problem,” Yennefer answered.
“Did you know him?”
“Of course, I did,” she answered, looking not at Jaskier but the other way, which made Jaskier narrow his eyes.
“I’m over here, Yennefer.”
“I know, I’m looking at you.”
“You’re… you’re not,” Jaskier said quietly. He heard a noise escape Yennefer, and his heart broke a little. While Jaskier had no sympathy for the witch, he would never wish someone to be blind.
“You smell disgusting,” she added.
And any sympathy Jaskier had was gone.
“They… they cut the tendons in my hands,” he explained quietly. “The smell is the infection.”
“Oh,” Yennefer answered. “I could heal them?”
“You could heal me but not yourself?” Jaskier asked. He saw the pinch in her face when he said, perhaps he had overstepped a line. But there were no lines now. They both were on an equal playing field. Yennefer couldn’t see, and Jaskier couldn’t use his hands.
“It is different for me. Magic did this to me, and so I need to find a mage to undo it.”
“Well, I’m not a witch. So don’t go healing my hands expecting the favour to be returned,” Jaskier muttered.
Yennefer rolled her eyes, moving closer to him and taking one of his hands in her. The movement made him wince, hissing loudly. The pain burned through him. Her touch was nothing short of a feather, her fingertips barely touching him.
“I can see it,” she explained, “I can feel where they hurt you.”
“How?”
“The blood has stopped going to it,” Yennefer shifted a little closer. “The damage they did is permanent, Jaskier.”
“I- I know,” Jaskier said quietly.
Yennefer brushed her fingers over his palm. Jaskier watched the skin begin to sew itself back together. It was sickening to watch; he was nearly ready to throw up. He watched as she cleared the infection, the smell vanishing.
The damage remained though. While the slashes were finally closed and the smell is gone, his fingers wouldn’t stretch as they once had. Jaskier’s teeth clamped down on his bottom lip, he swallowed hard and tried to pry his fingers open, but they didn’t shift. They stretched enough he would be able to hold Oisin’s reins and perhaps a quill, but a lute? To pluck and strum? It wasn’t going to happen.
Jaskier scrunched his face uptight, a shaky breath escaping him.
“Are you alright?” Yennefer asked.
“I’m fine,” Jaskier answered, the pitch was too high, and Yennefer quipped an eyebrow.
“Your hands…”
“No point crying over spilled milk,” he chuckled, brushing the dust off him. “No point crying over spilled milk. I once could use my hands, and now I cannot.”
“Jaskier… it’s ok to be upset,” she whispered.
“What will being upset do? Will it give me back my hands? Will it bring Geralt back? No. It will do none of those things. I have no time to be upset. The world will not let me,” he snapped.
Yennefer tilted her head curiously at him, like a cat inspecting prey.
“I never thought you to be so hardened,” she mused.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I thought you would be writing ballads.”
“Oh, I wrote several,” Jaskier laughed. “I wrote several. And they were beautiful. But writing ballads only helps part of the process.”
“What’s the other part of the process?”
“Moving on,” Jaskier smiled sadly.
“Can I hear one of the songs you wrote?” Yennefer asked hesitantly.
“I can’t play,” Jaskier whispered.
“I know,” she responded. “But you can still sing, can’t you?”
The words of the man echoed in the back of Jaskiers head. Saying how he would make him sing.
Jaskier sat up, clearing his throat. He would reclaim it. He would reclaim the pieces of himself that the men took.
“"I can't wait forever, "
Is all that you said
Before you stood up
And you won't disappoint me
I can do that myself
And I'm glad that you've come
Now if you don't mind,
Leave
Leave
Free yourself at the same time, leave
Leave.” Jaskier sang, he swallowed the lump of emotion. His soul ached to move his fingers, to play the chords and complete the song. He couldn’t. Not anymore.
“Leave
Let go of my hand
You said what you came to, now
Leave
Leave
Let go of my hand
You said you have to, now,
Leave,”
Singing left Jaskier breathless. He finished the song quietly, not powerfully as he had done before. He finished and looked to Yennefer who had returned her gaze to the fire.
“He hurt us both,” she said quietly. Jaskier couldn’t help himself but laugh.
“An understatement,” he teased. “He destroyed me.”
“Why do we do it to ourselves?”
“I think it’s a given. An unacknowledged truth of sorts that every human knows, if they love someone truly, it is always going to hurt. Someone has to leave first that’s how the stories go, and if the other doesn’t hurt then it must have never been real,” Jaskier sighed.
“How deep,” Yennefer mused. She sat back slightly, tilting her head upwards to the moonlight. It was haunting, how the shadow of silver light cast itself over her skin and made her glow.
“I can feel you looking at me,” she muttered.
“Someone should write a song about you.”
Yennefer scoffed, laughing, and shaking her head. “I think not.”
“Why?”
“That means letting someone see me, doesn’t it? Make me human. It’s what you did with Geralt, you made the Butcher become a hero.”
“I made him what he needed to be. That is the wonder of art, it mirrors life. I would paint you as a… Goddess. A Queen of an ancient land beyond our own understanding. And how you waged wars and sailed through storms.”
“That sounds more heroic than what I am, Jaskier.”
“Sometimes that what we need, we just need someone to see us as a better version of ourselves,” he smiled sadly, poking the fire.
“Is that what Geralt did with you?”
“God no,” Jaskier laughed. “No. Maybe, once he did. But generally, no, he never showed me a better version of me. Yet he made me feel so alive, in a time when I thought I was standing still.”
Yennefer tilted her head in thought, then sighing quietly. “What are we going to do, Jaskier?”
“Well. I had intended to return to Oxenfurt, reclaim my title as a lecturer, and live my life as though I never met Geralt.”
“We both know it’s not as easy as that,” Yennefer sighed.
“Tragically, I know,” Jaskier tsked. “I’ve nothing to offer you on the road, Yenn. I only have a horse.”
“It’s better than being alone and blind, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose, I’ll help you as best I can. Where are you going to?”
“Kaer Morhen.”