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When he dies, Jaskier wants to be buried in a great field of flowers. Buttercups, maybe, or dandelions. Something bright and garish, just like him. A dead body hidden under miles and miles of beauty. It’s poetic, no bard can deny that - whether you write about dead things lurking under your picnic blanket or old life feeding new life, it’ll make for a good song.
That’s all he wants, really. A song. A poem. Something not quite tangible but still there, something that a mother can pass down for decades and decades more. Something that can exist and thrive and tell a damned good story, even if his name is lost eventually. If he wanted it to be extra romantic about the whole thing, he’d insist Geralt write it for him - he’s written a dozen songs continuing that bastards legacy, the least he could do is return the favor.
But then it would be a shit song, and Jaskier would rather have nothing over that .
All that’s for the future, though. Right now, laying on his back in a field that isn’t quite up to snuff on what he considers a proper resting place, he doesn’t need to dwell on songs or who should write them. He doesn’t even need to think of Geralt. That ship’s sailed - unfortunate for his heart, very fortunate for his lungs - and it doesn’t bring Jaskier any joy to think of him. It doesn’t really bring any profound sadness, either.
Melancholy . He thinks that’s the perfect emotion for one to feel while lying in a field of wilting flowers. Melancholy.
---
They’re traveling together again. It’s ridiculous, he knows , but one doesn’t take a Witcher’s apology lightly. Oh, and he did apologize. There wasn’t as much groveling as Jaskier would’ve liked, but Geralt of Rivia showing up at your doorstep (or, more appropriately, tracking you down between towns and refusing to let you be) and saying he’d been an absolute ass who was wrong is the normal-person equivalent of getting on your knees and weeping.
So, they’re traveling together again, after three years of radio silence between them.
Jaskier’s been coughing more, of course, even more so than the good ‘ol days, when he followed Geralt around from humid forest to frigid mountain, all while singing his praises. He barely has breath in his lungs for the former, nevermind the latter. He doubts Geralt’s noticed - or, if he has, then he’s happy about the change. Getting to see Jaskier without having to hear him is, no doubt, a fantasy he’s been harboring for the past decade.
He strums his lute, still, and once they reach an inn or a camp he can actually sing a bit, but it’s harder, now. The last healer he visited - lovely old thing, really, gave him all his teas and medicines for next to nothing - practically begged him to find a place to live out the last few years of his life, while he still had them left. He told her he would.
He won’t.
---
When he dies, Jaskier wants to be cremated and tossed into the sea. He wants his ashes scattered delicately and lovingly. He wants to join the waves, which crash against the rocks and see parts of the ocean so deep and dark that not even monsters have seen what lies below. It has to be a lovely ocean, of course, one with clear waters. One where he could’ve bathed without minding the salt too much.
It lacks the gentle delicacy of a dandelion field, but it’s just as poetic. The ocean is everywhere all at once, always exploring and traveling to new and exciting places. Jaskier has said to geralt on more than one occasion (it’s just a very clever idea, is all) that a grain of sand in the sea has probably seen more than every adventurer combined . Wouldn’t that be a fitting end for a traveling bard, such as himself?
That’s not the only poetry in a watery grave, though. People like him, the ones with this dreaded Cough, like to live by the sea. Healers say it does good for the lungs, clears them like no tea or magic herb ever could. Some people insist that those with his Cough belong to the sea - their skin is saltier than most, after all, and they breathe easy by its waves. Jaskier would be a poor poet if he went and dismissed the theory entirely (something so magical and strange could work for a song or two), but he won’t say it has a lot of merit, either.
Whatever the reason for the sea’s ease on his lungs, he’s thankful. He and Geralt are traveling by the coast, for once , and he can breathe far easier here than he can in those dreaded forests Witchers love so much. His lungs are far more grateful for the rolling waves than they are for a patch of flowers and all their dreaded perfumes, and though they might be nice to look at, dandelions won’t make a proper grave. They’re sad and sweet, sure, and would make for a marvelous tune, but Jaskier thinks he’d much rather have a nice, winding poem about explorers exploring evermore and a sea of ghosts that breathe easier under the waves.
It’s not so melancholic, here, but the emotion still sticks to Jaskier like glue. Is that just what dying feels like?
---
Geralt has definitely noticed. He said he can smell a sickness on Jaskier, one that’s worsening. Jaskier told him that it doesn’t take a Witcher to figure out that when a man is coughing, he’s probably got a cold. Geralt wouldn’t drop it though, still won’t, and frustrating. Jaskier won’t tell him a thing. The chances of Geralt telling him to fuck off and settle down in an inn somewhere are high - either out of concern for Jaskier’s health or the threat of being slowed down on his damn Path.
Geralt keeps side-eying him when he coughs. Jaskier can’t comfortably hack up half a lung anymore without the Witcher scowling at him from up on Roach, or glaring at him through their campfire. He’s not the caring type, really, but he’s asked twice in four days why the hell that sick is clinging to Jaskier the way it does. Each time, he brings up that it’s always been there, it’s just worse, now. Jaskier doesn’t need a Witcher to tell him the same thing every healer has been telling him for the past five years, thanks, but Geralt won’t let up.
Jaskier is just worried for when he starts coughing up blood.
---
When he dies, Jaskier wants to be buried on a low hillside, gazing out over a green view. A pond glittering over there, a grouping of trees over here, maybe a little cottage puffing smoke into the sky. Hell, maybe there’s even a patch of dandelions, all smiling up at him with yellow faces. Just over the horizon, he’ll hear ocean waves, crashing against the distant rocks, and the breathing won’t be easy but it will be easier than it is now.
He’ll be seen, upon that hill. It’ll be like he’s back in an inn, but one of the nice ones that have raised platforms for bards to stand on. In a few moments, he’ll be hopping off his little stand and grabbing a free meal, two tankards of ale, and then he’ll sit in Geralt’s shadowy corner booth and talk enough for the both of them. The breeze will carry his voice, just an echo now, down the hillside and the grass move freely in the breeze like a few particularly drunk fans of his, all dancing to his songs.
It’ll be peaceful. Not exceptionally pretty or adventurous, but peaceful . There’s poetry in that. A bard who spent his whole life chasing a dangerous man and his monsters, laid to rest in safety. Because, of course, his little hilltop will be nestled in the safest valley Geralt can find. And people can visit freely, and sing his own songs back to him, or write a few in his honor. He supposes a tiny hillside doesn’t work so well for a grand song or an epic poem, so maybe it’ll just have to work as a story instead. One a mother can tell her children before bedtime.
“Have you ever heard of the bard Jaskier? He traveled far and wide, singing songs of adventure and danger and love. He’s buried on a hillside, and some say you can still hear him singing for his Witcher. Toss a coin on the right hilltop, and you’ll be blessed with the finest voice in all the land.”
It makes him smile, which he really isn’t doing a lot of these days. Wouldn’t it be fitting to have a story told instead of a song? The Cough has nearly taken his voice already, and the thought of being unable to sing his own epic tune is a downright travesty. Just the thought makes him sad, but then he thinks of being able to speak his story instead - he’s a storyteller at heart, really - and the feeling subsides a bit.
That dreaded melancholy won’t leave him. It clings to his skin and clogs his throat more than mucus and illness ever could. He thinks it’s a lot less pensive, now, and a lot more depressing. He’ll keep calling the whole situation melancholic, though, because that’s prettier than “devastating” and less upsetting, and it makes him think of yellow flowers and forgotten songs rather than rotting bodies and early deaths.
---
Breathing is a pain, now. His chest rattles and his voice is stolen, no matter what he drinks to sooth it. His hand trembles on his lute when he tries to play, but he can still hold a tune, so at least there’s that. He can’t laugh without dissolving into a fit of painful coughing, and he can’t even tell a story without breaking down from the sheer amount of talking he has to do.
Geralt seems angry so much of the time, now, and shoots Jaskier worried looks like he can hear the rumbling in his lungs even when the bard can’t. Healers look at him with pity and give him elixirs for free.
“Just something to ease my throat,” he’ll plead, because he knows there’s no chance at recovery now. They’ll sigh and tell him to find an inn and rest, they’ll even offer him drinks to make the whole thing end now , quickly, before his lungs have a chance to throw a proper mutiny and kill him in the most painful way they can. He accepts them but doesn’t drink them. Not yet. He’s not ready.
He still doesn’t even know where he wants to be buried.
---
When he dies, Jaskier doesn’t want to be buried in the mountains. They carry too many bad memories, and they’re shut off from the world - how is anyone supposed to come see him? How is he meant to explore? How is he meant to share his wonderful self and all his songs? He supposes there’s something poetic in being buried in the same place where he had his great fight with Geralt, but it’s cheap poetry. Like comparing a lover’s lips to roses or using bright stones to describe someone’s eyes.
When he dies, Jaskier doesn’t want to be buried in a desert. He’s always hated sand, it’s coarse and it gets everywhere , and Jaskier simply refuses to be buried in the stuff. There’s nothing interesting in a desert. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be okay with being buried in an oasis within a desert, but only because it could be a cheap metaphor for something. But nobody is going to come out to see some bard buried in the desert - even one as influential as he.
When he dies, Jaskier doesn’t want to be buried in a graveyard. That is the last thing he wants. He’s always enjoyed the finer things in life, and he’ll take an inn to the hard dirt any day, but the thought of being thrown in some city’s cemetery makes him physically ill.
Or, more ill than usual, anyway.
What is a graveyard to a bard? It’s hell. Any bard worth their salt will beg to be put anywhere but. Even the ones most craving of attention, the ones hungriest for masses of visitors to line up and deposit flowers and sing weepy tunes - bards like Jaskier - wouldn’t want a cemetery. Where’s the poetry in that? Jaskier can’t think of a single poet he knows who didn’t have to claw and fight their way out of what their families planned for them, and at the end of that damn plan was a nice family plot with neat headstone.
The whole thing pushes him past melancholy to sad, to angry, to desperate. The thought of being buried somewhere nice is the only thing that keeps him from breaking down, some days. It’s easy for him to dismiss the Cough when he can dress it up in flowery language and claim it’s only a new beginning or some shit. Just another chance for him to explore, a way to continue his legacy. It’s only when he imagines himself lined up with a dozen other coffins, just another box of bones buried beneath trim lawns, that he feels hopeless. Not melancholic, not depressed.
Hopeless .
---
They’re in the forest when it happens. Jaskier coughs, like he’s done so many times before, and it’s different. It hooks in his throat when he tries to inhale, and he coughs again. And again. He can’t take a proper breath for the life of him - literally - and he’s stumbling and falling and clutching at his chest because he knows what’s happening. Geralt stops ahead, turns to look back with the same half-annoyed, half-concerned look he’s been wearing for weeks, and then he’s running forward. He doesn’t quite catch Jaskier when he collapses, but he’s still by his side in an instant, hands hovering, face tight and confused.
Geralt is talking, Jaskier is sure of that, but he can’t make out what he’s saying. Breathing deeply hurts more than it had before, and he can only take shallow, quick breaths.
“ Healer .” He chokes out, and Geralt is picking him up like he weighs nothing and - are they on Roach? Did it really take him dying to ride her? Jaskier would laugh if he wasn’t sure it would kill him sooner. They arrive somewhere, and Jaskier remembers nothing but being moved and having something forced down his throat and someone’s chanting something , and-
He wakes up, surprisingly. Unsurprisingly, the first thing he hears - aside from Geralt’s relieved “Jaskier!” - is that he doesn’t have any time left. A day or two, maybe . The healer says he’d have had a year at least if he hadn’t spent all his time running around and getting thrown against trees and clawed by beasties. He doesn’t need to hear that from some healer, and neither does Geralt, who looks torn between throttling Jaskier or himself.
Jaskier does his best to explain the Cough, explain that really, he’s rather lucky to have made it this far in life. Most with his illness die as children, few make it into their twenties. Geralt doesn’t seem reassured by this. In fact, the whole conversation seems to only upset him more, as this small bit of information is broken up by numerous coughing fits. He leaves after, comes back an hour later when he remembers he has two days with Jaskier left, and then leaves again and performs the whole song and dance four more times.
Jaskier just asks him to stay, at one point, and he does. Listens to Jaskier weakly talk about everything and nothing, and then, when Jaskier can’t work up the energy for even that, he starts talking. He talks about journeys he took before they met up, telling them in greater detail than he ever had before. He even laughs when Jaskier whines about how he’s only giving him all this information now when he can’t even write a proper song about it all. It’s short-lived, though, and by the time the words have properly sunk in he’s grim-faced and dreary.
That night, at about twelve in the morning, Jaskier mutters a quiet “Goodnight, Geralt.” and roles over best he can. He’s just so tired . They’ll work it all out in the morning.
---
When Jaskier dies, he’s buried on the side of a nameless road.
He clutches his lute firmly in his grasp. Jaskier had talked of burial the night he died, and where he wanted to be laid to rest. Geralt had left before they could come to a proper decision - the whole conversation had left him feeling… drained. But he knew Jaskier wanted something pretty. Something that would let his spirit wander, something peaceful.
“Let my death make something.” he’d said. And Geralt tried.
The road is one they’d taken before. Trees shade it nicely - Jaskier always complained when a path led them under the sun for too long. There’s a stream nearby, quiet and deep. Geralt likes to think it feeds into the ocean. The surrounding forest is nearly bereft of monsters and oft traveled through, as there is an inn just a few miles away. Jaskier had played there, once, loud and sweet, and the crowd had loved him.
The best part, though, and the thing Geralt prides himself on the most, are the birds. There are many in this forest, bluejays, and robins and nightingales, all clustered in the treetops and singing just as high and clear as Jaskier had. Geralt has no doubts that people will sing Jaskier’s songs for decades to come, and he hopes his name won’t be lost too soon. And maybe, if he refers to that narrow path as Jaskier’s Road from here on out, it will catch on, and lovers of his music can travel down it. Make it a story , a trail that aspiring poets and musicians want to find and walk on. Want to write poems and songs about.
But even if all that fails, then at the very least, the birds will sing for Jaskier, and that, Geralt thinks, is enough.