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“Geralt, there’s something out there.”
Geralt presses his hand flat to the soft warmth of Roach’s neck and listens. The trees are dark and whispering around them, the daylight long since vanished into the bitter chill of winter on the road, and they probably shouldn’t have risked a fire, he knew they shouldn’t have risked a fire, but there are holes in Ciri’s boots and her dull brown cloak is thin and threadbare. She needs the heat – but there are other things that need the heat, too.
He tilts his head, and hears the soft whisper of pawprints in the night.
“It’s an animal,” he says, then sniffs the air, smells the faintest trace of fur and blood. “A wolf, I think.”
“A wolf?” Ciri’s eyes are wide.
“Injured,” Geralt says, smoothing a hand down Roach’s neck. She must have caught the scent, too, because she snorts quietly, shuffles her hooves. “Easy,” he says, quiet and calm, then looks back to Ciri. Her face is small and pale in the firelight. “Wolves hunt in packs,” he says. “Lone wolves are rarely dangerous, more likely to avoid humans than attack them – unless they’re hungry, or they’re threatened.”
“Isn’t an injured wolf both hungry and threatened?” Ciri points out, unerringly logical.
Geralt hums, and draws a knife from his hip. He doesn’t need a sword for a damn wolf, even a hungry, threatened one, but Ciri is right. No use in taking chances.
“Geralt,” Ciri hisses.
Geralt steps away from Roach and follows her gaze. The animal is still a little way off in the trees, picking its way carefully through the undergrowth, but its bright white coat gives it away, glinting in the firelight. Its eyes are as yellow as Geralt’s, and it’s looking at them, watching them, its hackles lowered, its tail practically brushing along the ground.
“It’s hurt,” Ciri whispers, her hand fastening in Geralt’s sleeve. “There, its front paw.”
Geralt sees it: the wolf’s right foreleg is bloody and chewed up, and it limps whenever it puts weight on it. The marks are familiar. “Poachers,” Geralt says. “Looks like it got caught in one of their traps. Probably meant for deer. Although a pelt that colour could be valuable in certain markets.”
“It doesn’t look like it’s going to attack us,” Ciri says.
“That’s exactly when you have to be most concerned that it will,” Geralt says, mainly because, yet again, she’s got a point. The wolf isn’t displaying any signs of aggression, any indications of fear. It’s come to a halt in the undergrowth, right forepaw raised off the ground, and it’s just… watching them, eyes wolfishly bright.
Ciri seems to have forgotten her initial nervousness. She gets to her feet, fishes a rabbit bone out of the stew they ate earlier, and—ignoring Geralt’s hissed commands to stay out—edges further into the trees. “Here,” she says in the same damn voice that she probably used to speak to her grandmother’s hounds in the Cintran court. “There’s a little meat left.” She tosses the bone into the trees, only a little way in front of the wolf’s muzzle.
It snatches it up, gnaws it, cracks it, devours it in less than a minute, then settles back down, watching them warily.
Ciri looks up at Geralt. “I want to help it,” she says with that emphatically regal primness she still hasn’t managed to lose.
“It’s a wolf, not a dog,” Geralt says flatly.
“It’s hurt.”
“It’s a wolf.”
“I’m helping it,” Ciri says, ignoring him, and turns back to the wolf. “Come on,” she says, holding out another scrap of rabbit meat. “We won’t hurt you.”
The wolf eyes Geralt, and doesn’t move.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Ciri instructs the damn wolf. “He likes people to think he’s big and mean, but he’s actually not.” The wolf huffs out a breath through its nostrils, and is Geralt imagining things or did that wild animal just laugh at him? “Come on,” Ciri says again, shaking the scrap of meat. “You can have this, then we can have a look at your leg.”
The wolf looks at Geralt a moment longer, something assessing in its animal gaze, then it gets to its feet and starts to limp towards them. It takes the meat from Ciri with surprisingly gentleness—Geralt’s hand tightens on his knife when its teeth get near, but he doesn’t have to act—then slinks back to the treeline. It eats quickly, like it’s starving, like it hasn’t eaten in days, all the while watching Geralt with an animalistic fear in its eyes.
Wait.
Geralt’s hand goes to the medallion around his neck, vibrating softly against his chest.
In the trees, the wolf whines.
Geralt’s head snaps back up, eyes narrowing. He’s moving forward really before he’s thinking, silver sword springing to his hand, pushing Ciri to one side – because there’s something not right, something strange, something that shouldn’t be here. Magic swirls around the damn wolf in a cloud, spinning his medallion harder the closer he gets to it – but it doesn’t back away, doesn’t run, just flattens its ears to its skull and whines higher. Geralt isn’t going to be taken in by whatever monster is lurking under that white fur, no matter how hard it protests its innocence, so he grabs it by the scruff of its neck, hauls it into the firelight, ignores its yowl as its injured leg drags across the ground.
“Geralt!” Ciri snaps. “Stop it!”
“It’s not a wolf,” Geralt says shortly, pressing the silver blade against the wolf’s throat. “I can feel it, it’s something more.” The silver doesn’t cause any reaction, which is a surprise. Geralt was sure there was something monstrous here, but the wolf just lies still under his hands, looking up at him with those bright yellow eyes. It’s… placid. Accepting. He suddenly knows in that moment that whatever he does now, whatever he chooses to do, to slaughter or to spare, the wolf will let him do it.
Ciri shoves Geralt away and, caught off guard, he lets her. “Stop it,” she barks, putting herself between him and the wolf that’s not a wolf. “Whatever it is, it’s hurt. And it’s not hurting us. So we’re going to help it.”
Geralt grits his teeth, eyes the wolf.
“Geralt, we’re going to help it,” Ciri repeats sharply. “Correct?”
“Fine,” Geralt grinds out, and goes to fetch his medical supplies out of Roach’s saddlebags.
When he comes back, Ciri’s stroking the wolf’s bright white fur, murmuring quiet words and feeding it scraps leftover from their meal. It eats the food quietly, calmly, looking up at her with its yellow, animal eyes, listening to her whispers, accepting her touches. Geralt kneels next to them, his silver sword still slung across his shoulders, then reaches out takes hold of the wolf’s injured leg. It yelps, high-pitched and full of pain, but doesn’t pull away, doesn’t bare its teeth, just buries its nose in Ciri’s cloak and whines as Geralt studies the wound.
“Is it bad?” Ciri asks.
“The wounds are fairly clean,” Geralt says, “but they are deep. I’ll clean it and wrap it, that’s all I can really do.” Ciri gives him an unimpressed look, and he fights the urge to snap at her. “It’s a wolf, Ciri,” he says flatly. “I’m not exactly experienced in patching up animals.”
His fingers must slip because the wolf yips, sharp and high, and pulls away from him.
Ciri soothes it, scratching between its ears. “It’s okay,” she says. “He’s doing his best. He won’t hurt you.”
The wolf growls in the back of its throat, low and quiet, but allows Geralt to finish tending its wound. He washes as much of the blood off as possible, unmatting the shining white fur, then cleans out the wounds and smears them with healing salve. The wolf’s nostrils flare at the sting of the salve but it doesn’t protest, just leans further into Ciri’s affectionate hands. Geralt wraps a short length of bandage tightly around the wolf’s foreleg, ties it off and sits back on his heels. “That’s as much as I can do,” he says. “It’ll probably tear the bandage off before long.”
The wolf huffs, and noses gently at the bandage.
“It won’t,” Ciri says confidently, rubbing at the bridge of the wolf’s nose. “Will you?”
The wolf licks at her fingers and huffs again.
Wait a minute. Is it… answering?
Geralt frowns. He shifts, moving closer to the wolf, which looks back to him, startled, yellow eyes wide. “Raise your paw,” he says.
“Geralt?” Ciri asks.
The wolf blinks, and raises its paw.
“Growl,” Geralt says.
The wolf growls.
Ciri’s eyes are wide. “Stand up,” she says, and the wolf gets to its feet. “Wag your tail.” The wolf wags its tail. “Sit.” The wolf sits, and its tongue is hanging out of its mouth, now, breath panting in excitement. Ciri looks at Geralt. “Can it understand us?” she asks, and before Geralt can answer the wolf yips loudly, jumps to its feet, prances around the fire – and, well, Geralt figures that answers that question. “How?” Ciri asks, raising a hand to the wolf’s muzzle as it comes back, scratching its jaw.
Geralt’s medallion is still thrumming against his chest. “I think,” he says slowly, “that it’s not a wolf at all. I think it’s—” He pauses, glances quickly under the wolf’s belly. “I think he’s human. An enchanted human.” He makes eye contact with the not-wolf, which is sitting there, head at an angle, eyes keen and knowing. “I’m right, aren’t I?” Geralt asks the wolf, still feeling like a bit of an idiot, but then the wolf watches him, sitting close to Ciri’s side, weight held off its—his—front paw, and fucking nods.
Well, shit.
“Can you turn him back?” Ciri asks.
“No,” Geralt answers, and for a moment he almost thinks he sees disappointment in those yellow eyes. “This is… strong magic. Way beyond me.”
“But we can’t leave him like this!” Ciri says.
Geralt reaches out, grips her shoulder, squeezes. “We’ll do what we can,” he says shortly. “But, for now, it’s late. You need to rest.”
Ciri eyes him suspiciously. “Do you promise that you won’t chase him away while I’m asleep?”
The wolf makes a wheezing noise that Geralt is pretty sure means he’s being laughed at. “I promise,” he says, and Ciri accepts with a nod. She shifts onto her bedroll, pulling her blanket over her, then looks at the wolf, which is still sitting a little awkwardly next to the fire. “When I was little,” she says, after a moment, “I had a dog called Hero. He would sleep in my bed with me, especially when I had bad dreams.” Geralt’s stomach twists because he knows Ciri’s dreams, he’s heard them screamed out into forest clearings and cheap inns across the Continent. Ciri is still looking at the wolf, her green eyes wide. “I know you’re not a dog,” she says, and the wolf watches her keenly, “and I know you’re not even really a wolf, you’re a person, but would you?”
The wolf gets up and limps over to her, nuzzles its nose through her hair and flops down next to her. It curls up against her, muzzle resting on her shoulder, tail lying across her waist, and she makes a soft sound of contentment. Her hand works into the wolf’s soft white fur and she closes her eyes.
Geralt sits there until the fire gutters down to embers, something tight and strangely painful in his throat.
In the morning, the wolf sits and watches as Geralt breaks camp. The bandage is still wrapped around its foreleg, only a little blood seeping through, and the intelligence in its eyes is more than a little disconcerting. Geralt still hasn’t quite got on board with the idea that it’s not a wolf, it’s a human being stuck in a wolf’s body, but every time it—he—responds to something Ciri says, nudges against shoulder, looks up at Geralt with a strange familiarity that he can’t place, well, it gets a little more real.
When Roach is loaded up and they’re ready to go, the wolf comes to stand in front of Geralt, its front paws practically on his boots, and growls at him.
Geralt frowns. “What?”
The wolf takes a few steps into the trees, then looks back over his shoulder at them. He whines, and waits.
“I think he wants us to follow him,” Ciri says helpfully, sitting on Roach’s back.
“Yeah,” Geralt says, and doesn’t move.
“We should follow him,” Ciri says.
“No,” Geralt says. “We don’t know anything about him. There must be a reason he was cursed.”
“We’re following him,” Ciri says flatly, and digs her heels into Roach’s sides.
Geralt grits his teeth, and follows. They shouldn’t be doing this, he knows, they should push on to Kaer Morhen because the winter is coming in fast and they don’t have much time to spare – but at the same time, there’s something about that damn wolf. It looks at him like it knows him, like it’s seen him before, and that doesn’t quite sit right in Geralt’s stomach.
So the wolf leads them further into the forest, and they go with it.
It’s midday by the time they come to a halt. The wolf sits down at the edge of a small clearing in the trees, holding its foreleg carefully against its chest, then looks back at Geralt, and whines quietly, almost mournfully. Geralt pats Roach’s neck, a quiet command to stay back, and steps past the wolf. There’s clear signs that there was someone camping here fairly recently, the ashes of a fire, remnants of a meal, and there, across the firepit, a meagre pile of belongings.
“It’s his camp, isn’t it?” Ciri asks, peering around the trees, and the wolf makes a small noise of agreement.
Geralt steps closer, nudges through the pile with the tip of his boot. There’s a well-used bedroll, a slim dagger, a small medical kit, a bright silk jerkin—
Wait.
Geralt sinks to his knees, picks up the jerkin. Oh shit, he knows this jerkin – and as he moves it, shifts it to one side, he sees what’s beneath. A lute, inlaid with careful filigree and delicate tracery. Jaskier’s lute, underneath Jaskier’s jerkin.
Geralt’s head snaps up. The wolf is closer, now, standing awkwardly on its injured leg, looking between Geralt and the lute with something that might almost be trepidation – and all of a sudden, Geralt understands. “Jaskier?” he says, incredulous, but the wolf just keeps staring at him, solemn and serious, and dips his head in a nod.
Geralt’s mouth works soundlessly for a moment.
The wolf—Jaskier—sits back on its haunches, paws gently at the lute, and grumbles in the back of his throat.
“What happened?” Geralt finally manages.
Jaskier gives him a look with his wolfish eyes that Geralt is pretty sure means what do you think, Geralt?
“Sorcerer?” Geralt asks. Jaskier agrees with a yip. “Yennefer?” Jaskier growls. Geralt will take that as a no. “Why?” Jaskier just looks at him, then awkwardly raises his injured leg and pats Geralt’s shoulder with his paw. Geralt frowns. “I don’t understand.”
Jaskier’s answering whine is exasperated.
“I think I do,” Ciri says. She comes padding into the clearing, leading Roach by the reins. “Jaskier,” she says, peering at the wolf, then looks at Geralt, her forehead furrowed. “He’s the bard, right? The one who sings about you?”
“He was,” Geralt says, trying not to think about the mountain, about what he said, about the venom in his voice and the hurt in Jaskier’s eyes.
“He’s the one who started calling you the White Wolf?”
Geralt closes his eyes, rubs at his forehead. “It’s a joke,” he says flatly. “You pissed off a sorcerer with a sense of humour.”
Jaskier yips his confirmation.
“Fuck,” Geralt growls.
Jaskier smacks him lightly with his injured paw, then growls.
Ciri giggles. “I think he’s telling you not to swear at me,” she says.
Geralt decides that that’s a train of conversation he’s not willing to go down. “We’ll find a sorcerer or a witch on the way to Kaer Morhen,” he says to Jaskier, who’s just staring at him with those eyes that are such a perfect mirror of Geralt’s own – and, damnit, why didn’t he realise earlier? “Get them to turn you back.” He pauses, suddenly unsure, because he remembers how tentative Jaskier was the night before, how nervous. They haven’t seen each other since the mountain. “If that’s what you want?”
Even in wolf form, Jaskier seems to know exactly what he’s thinking. He dips his muzzle, nudges his nose against Geralt’s knee, and if this whole situation wasn’t so fucking weird, Geralt would probably realise how much he’s missed Jaskier’s touch.
Geralt packs up Jaskier’s scattered belongings, tucks his lute back into its case with Jaskier pattering nervously around him, making high-pitched yelping noises whenever Geralt bumps the instrument or shoves too hard at the delicate fabric of his jerkin. The small package of Jaskier’s life fits easily among Roach’s saddlebags – and, well, why didn’t Geralt notice that before? Roach doesn’t shy away from Jaskier, doesn’t try to trample him like she would with an actual wolf. She bends down to him, snuffles through the fur on the top of his head, and in turn he rubs up against her forelocks, rumbling low in his chest.
“You realise you’re a wolf, not a cat, Jaskier?” Geralt says, eyebrow raised.
“Leave him alone,” Ciri says, batting his arm. “I think he makes a lovely wolf.”
Jaskier howls softly, and looks up at Geralt with those yellow, wolfish eyes.
It takes them longer to get to the next town than Geralt planned. Jaskier’s leg is what slows them down, blood seeping slowly but surely through the bandage, until Geralt figures that the easiest thing to do is to just heft him up to join Ciri on Roach’s back. He lies across Ciri’s knees like a damn fur rug, responding to Ciri’s chattering questions as much as he can with his current vocal restrictions, and they pick up the pace.
It’s an odd travelling situation, but it seems to be working for now.
Occasionally Geralt will cast a sideways glance at Jaskier, and he’ll find those wolfish eyes staring right back at him. Jaskier doesn’t look away, doesn’t drop his gaze, just keeps on watching him until Geralt is the one who has to turn his back. It’s uncomfortable. It’s unsettling.
Geralt tries not to think about how much he’s missed the bard’s chatter in the months since he last saw him.
The next town they come across is large enough that they find a sorcerer fairly easily, camped out on the outskirts with a garden full of noxious-smelling herbs and a shed that Geralt is pretty sure keeps changing size. They take a circuitous route there so as to avoid attention, and Jaskier slinks along at Geralt’s heels, doing his best to look like a family dog rather than an injured wolf – but, if Geralt’s being honest, Jaskier doesn’t make a particularly menacing wolf anyway, so it’s not that hard.
Ciri stays swathed in a dark, muddy cloak, hood pulled low over her hair and face. This far north, they should be safe from Nilfgaard, but Geralt’s not taking any chances.
“Witcher!” the sorcerer says brightly when he opens the door, then glances down at Jaskier, frowns, and says, “Ah, I understand. Come in.”
The sorcerer introduces himself as Vand, but he really seems more interested in Jaskier than Geralt and Ciri, which works for Geralt. Vand helps Jaskier to hop up onto the table, then heals his foreleg with a murmured word—Jaskier yips his thanks—and then looks him over, running long-fingered hands over Jaskier’s fur with a distinct air of having done this before.
“Can you help him?” Geralt asks.
Vand sighs. “I’m not sure,” he answers. “The magic is strong, very strong. Possibly stronger than I can deal with.” Jaskier whines, his ears pressed flat to his skull, and Vand runs a hand down his neck, scratching in his fur. There’s a strange feeling in Geralt’s gut at the sight, because he doesn’t mind if it’s Ciri, that’s fine, but some stranger? Touching Jaskier like that? “If it’s okay,” Vand says to Jaskier, “I’d like to read your mind, see if you know anything that might help. Is that alright?”
Jaskier pauses for a moment, his yellow eyes flickering to Geralt, then he yips, and bows his head.
Vand settles his palm between Jaskier’s ears, and closes his eyes.
There’s that feeling in Geralt’s gut again, tight and bitter. Ciri stands close at his side, quiet, waiting.
“Oh,” Vand says after a moment, his voice tight. He opens his eyes, looks down at Jaskier. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
Jaskier whines, curling into himself on the sorcerer’s table.
Geralt’s heart beats louder in his chest. “What is it?” he asks, fighting the urge to grab Jaskier, pull him close, not let him go.
Vand’s expression is tight. “There’s nothing I can do,” he says, and there’s genuine sadness in his voice. “The woman who did this to him was… vindictive. She took against his singing, particularly his songs about yourself, my good Witcher, and so she cursed him to be like this until…” He trails off, strokes Jaskier’s fur. “Until he sings,” he completes. “He’s like this until he sings again.”
“He’s a wolf,” Geralt says flatly. “He can’t sing.”
“I believe that was the point,” Vand says heavily.
“So he’s stuck like this?” Geralt asks, voice darkening, and Jaskier shies away from Vand’s touch, leaps down off the table, pushes his head against Geralt’s thigh. “Can’t you break the curse yourself?”
Vand shakes his head. “This is old magic,” he says. “The only way to reverse it is to meet its conditions, for him to sing. Even the witch who cursed him couldn’t break it.” He pauses, his jaw tight. “And I’m afraid that’s not all, Witcher.”
“What else?” Geralt grinds out, aware of Ciri’s hands in Jaskier’s fur, calming him, soothing him.
“The longer he stays like this, the less human he will become,” Vand answers, and there’s a clinicality to his tone that sets Geralt’s nerves on edge. “It’s always a risk with these animal transfiguration spells. The beast takes over. In time, he will cease to be himself, and become solely the wolf.”
Jaskier whines, and Ciri drops to her knees, wraps her arms around his neck.
“How long?” Geralt asks.
“I can’t say,” Vand answers. “Maybe a few months. Maybe less, maybe more. It will depend how strong his will is.”
Jaskier growls, nose buried in Ciri’s hair, and Geralt bares his teeth. “He’s strong,” he says, speaking for Jaskier because, right now, Jaskier can’t. “He’ll fight it.”
“Good,” Vand says, and then: “I wish you luck, Witcher.” He looks at Jaskier, his hands folded at his waist. “And you, too, bard.”
They stay in an inn that night, one as off the beaten track as they can manage. Ciri is exhausted from the weeks on the road so she’s asleep in moments, curled up on one of the two narrow beds with the blankets drawn up over her head, but Geralt stays awake, sitting on the edge of his bed as Jaskier prowls in circles, his nails clicking on the wooden floor. “We’ll work it out,” he says finally, as quiet as he can. “We’ll fix this.”
Jaskier growls, then whacks his tail against his lute case, laid carefully at the foot of Ciri’s bed.
“I know,” Geralt says. “But we’ll figure something out. We’ll go to Kaer Morhen, and maybe Vesemir will be able to help. Or we’ll summon witches, I’ll summon fucking Yennefer, whatever it takes.”
Jaskier huffs out a breath, drops to his haunches and sits still. His yellow eyes flare bright in the candlelight, and he watches Geralt keenly, levelly.
Guilt suddenly flares hot in Geralt’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he says abruptly. “This is my fault.” Jaskier cocks his head, muzzle wrinkling, and Geralt’s pretty sure that’s the lupine equivalent of how is this your bloody fault, Geralt? “If I’d been with you, I could have stopped this,” Geralt says. “If I hadn’t said what I did on the mountain, you wouldn’t be… like this.”
Jaskier stares at him a moment longer, luminous and bright, then huffs out a wolfish sigh and gets to his feet. He pads over to Geralt, rests his head on Geralt’s knee, and looks up at him, trusting, affectionate, then settles into a sitting position, plastered against his leg.
Geralt isn’t quite sure what to do for a moment, but there’s a strange warmth blossoming in his heart that he can’t ignore. He settles his hand on Jaskier’s head, feeling the softness of his fur, the flick of his ears, and says, “Thank you.”
Jaskier bats his paw against Geralt’s shin and sighs into his hand.
They press on to Kaer Morhen, Ciri on Roach’s back, Geralt walking alongside, Jaskier trotting along at his heels. The roads get quieter as the winter turns harsher, colder, and before long Geralt is swathing himself in his winter cloak, shivering against the bite of the wind. Ciri struggles, too, sitting wrapped in blankets and cloaks and pelts on Roach’s back, unused to this kind of life.
Jaskier, however, seems… fine? Which is a surprise, given how many years Geralt spent listening to him complain about his cold hands and cold feet and cold everything, even on summer nights that definitely weren’t that bad. Jaskier as a wolf, though, is in his element. He spends the days darting around the path, chattering away to himself in yips and whines and quiet little howls, pestering Roach and annoying Geralt and entertaining Ciri—all somehow without actually being able to say a single intelligible word—and then he’ll disappear off into the trees for an hour, maybe two, and come back with a rabbit in his jaws, or a grouse, or on one occasion a young deer. Geralt isn’t that surprised, to be honest, because Jaskier was never that bad a trapper, once Geralt taught him how, but sometimes when Jaskier comes trotting back with blood on his muzzle and mud on his paws, it twists something in Geralt’s heart. He doesn’t look like Jaskier as a wolf, in those moments. He just looks like a wolf.
But he always waits until the meat is cooked to eat it.
Geralt breathes through the cold in his lungs.
The nights are different, though. It’s cold now, bitterly so, and Geralt brings Ciri’s bedroll to join his, piles furs and blankets on top of her and tugs her into his arms in an attempt to keep her warm. In the nights, Jaskier doesn’t roam. He curls himself around Ciri’s other side, his wolfish body radiating heat, and she sleeps, as warm and secure as a traumatised child running from the world can be. In those nights, Ciri held between them like a gift, Geralt lets himself run his hands through the softness of Jaskier’s white fur, lets himself touch, lets himself be sure that Jaskier is still here, still alive.
Jaskier just curls deeper and lets him.
The forest glens to the south of Kaer Morhen are swathed in snow by the time they reach them, and Roach trudges slow and weary through the drifts. Geralt rides behind Ciri, now, sharing their body heat even as Jaskier dances through the trees around them, his fur making him practically invisible unless he wants to be seen. It’s strangely reassuring, Geralt finds, knowing that even though he can’t see him, he’s always there, always watching.
Snow is falling softly, quietly, and Ciri is dozing off against Geralt’s chest.
All of a sudden, there’s a shriek in the air and pain blooms in his right shoulder. He doesn’t make a sound, just looks down in confusion – and, oh, there’s a crossbow quarrel sunk deep into his flesh. Another whine sounds in the air, sharp and piercing, and Ciri screams as another quarrel comes hot on the heels of the fist, sinking deep into Geralt’s side – inches away from Ciri’s head.
Geralt swears and snaps Roach’s reins, hunkers forward over Ciri, protecting her with his body, and drives them forward on the trail. “Stay down,” he hisses to Ciri, ducking as another bolt goes sailing over his head, then shouts, “Jaskier, run!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees dark shapes weaving between the trees – three of them, three men, bandits or robbers or just hungry people who’ve decided to attack a man and his girl. Three is usually no match for him, but he wasn’t expecting any trouble this close to home and now he’s got two crossbow bolts in his chest, blood seeping into his clothes, staining Ciri’s hair. Kaer Morhen is less than a day’s ride away but he can’t lead these bastards there, can’t let—
A white streak blurs past Roach’s hooves, and one of his attackers screams, high and piercing.
Geralt knows without thinking. “Jaskier,” he roars, wheeling Roach around, because he might be a wolf, now, but he’s still just a bard, he’s not a fighter, not a killer.
Jaskier seems to have missed that memo.
One of the bandits is already dead, throat ripped clean out and heartsblood sprayed hot and red across the snow. A second is on back, trying to crawl away from the snarling, bloody muzzle of a the yellow-eyed wolf only a hairsbreadth away from him – trying and failing, because Jaskier might be a bard-wolf but he’s still fucking quick. His jaws are buried in the second bandit’s throat in a heartbeat, but that distracts him, draws his attention, because the third murderous arsehole is behind him with an axe, swinging it high, ready to strike.
The third falls to the snow with a thud, one of Geralt’s knives buried between his eyes.
“Jaskier!” Ciri shouts, and the wolf turns, hunched low over its kill, jaws peeled back in a snarl, muzzle dripping with gore. There’s no humanity in those yellow eyes, no intelligence, no soft humour, no love, and the wolf howls at them, a warning, a threat.
Geralt feels fear settle deep and bitter in his gut.
It only lasts a moment.
Jaskier shakes himself, whines, backs away from the slaughter he’s paw-deep in, and frantically wipes his muzzle through the snow, trying to get rid of the worse of the blood. He spits up, stringy red flesh vomiting out of his jaws, and then looks up at Geralt and Ciri, the same fear that’s nestling in Geralt’s heart loud and proud in his eyes – but then he clearly sees the quarrels in Geralt’s body, the pain in his every breath, and his body language shifts, changes. He snaps a yowl, runs up to Roach, plants his paws on her shoulder and noses against Geralt’s boot.
“I’m fine,” Geralt says, jaw tight, clearly not fine. He studies Jaskier for a moment, looking for wounds, for cuts, for pain, but all he can see is other people’s blood. “You hurt?”
Jaskier growls a negative.
“Geralt,” Ciri says, her voice quiet. “Can you make it?”
“Yeah,” Geralt forces out. “It’s not far, now. Roach knows the way.”
Jaskier whines, and drops back to the ground. He nudges at Roach’s legs, pushes her back onto the path they were following before, and then Ciri takes the reins from Geralt’s nerveless fingers, urges Roach onwards. “Hold onto me,” she says, high and tight. “Hold on, Geralt.”
Roach carries them at a gallop towards Kaer Morhen, and Jaskier runs along at her side, a bloody streak in the white snow.
The sun sinks through the sky, and Geralt hangs on.
By the time Kaer Morhen rears up in front of them, black and forbidding against the moonlit sky, Geralt is on the verge of passing out. His blood is dripping down Roach’s flanks, landing in Jaskier’s fur, and he’s got a hand pressed to the bolt in his side, trying to control the pain as much as he can. It’s not helping, and it’s all he can do to just keep on breathing.
At Roach’s side, Jaskier lets out a long, piercing howl, and, far away in the mountains, answering howls sound through the night.
The gates of Kaer Morhen are open when they come clattering along the cobbled path, and even though Geralt’s vision is fuzzy and hazy by now he recognises the face of the man who catches Roach’s reins, brings her to a halt. “Eskel,” he mutters, blinking through the pain.
“Don’t speak, Geralt,” Eskel says, lifting Ciri bodily out of the saddle before catching Geralt as he slides to the ground. “Lambert, Coen! Get Vesemir, he needs help. And get that bloody wolf out of here.”
Geralt moans in protest, but Ciri’s way ahead of him. “No,” she snaps, gripping a handful of Jaskier’s bloody fur and pulling him to her side. “He’s Geralt’s friend, he’s my friend.”
“It’s a fucking wolf, girl,” Lambert snarls, hoving into view, shoving her away and grabbing Jaskier by his scruff.
“No,” Geralt rasps, managing to force the single word out through the haze of pain.
“Lock the damn thing in the empty stables,” Eskel snaps. “We’ll deal with it later. Geralt’s losing a lot of blood, shit, a lot of blood.”
“It’ll be those bandits we spotted in the forest last week,” Coen says, grabbing Geralt’s other arm and slinging it over his shoulder. “I said we should have dealt with them, driven them away.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eskel mutters, but everything’s all sort of fading away, now, colours and shapes blurring into each other, and the last thing Geralt remembers before he passes out is Lambert, opening the door to the disused west stables and bodily throwing a smear of white fur and red blood inside.
Geralt wakes slowly, sorely.
He lies there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember where he is, what he was doing, how he got here. There’s a weight on the bed next to him and something warm thrown over his feet, and he shifts, peers down – and it comes flooding back. His torso is bare and bandaged, old blood bloomed through the bandages at his shoulder and his ribs, and Ciri is curled up on the bed next to him, fast asleep, her ash-blonde hair spread out across the pillow. There’s a blanket across his waist and thighs, thick and scratchy, and there, across his feet, is a heap of warm white fur, breathing slow and long against the skin of his calves.
“Morning, Geralt,” Vesemir says, sitting back in a chair to the side of his sickbed.
Geralt’s throat is dry, and Vesemir handles him a skin of water, watches as he drinks. “Vesemir,” he says finally. “Thank you.”
Vesemir just nods, then eyes his bedmates. “You brought us a princess,” he says, “and a cursed bard?”
“I brought you the princess,” Geralt corrects. “The bard is my problem.”
Vesemir nods. “Ciri explained what happened to him,” he says. “After she was finished screaming at Lambert for locking him in the stables, that is.”
Geralt grunts, and lets his head fall back against the pillows. “How long was I out?”
“A couple of days,” Vesemir answers. “You’d lost a lot of blood. What happened?”
“Bandits, in the glens to the south,” Geralt answers, and at his side, Ciri shifts, frowns. He reaches up, strokes her hair gently.
Vesemir grimaces. “We heard reports,” he says. “Didn’t do anything about them. Thought they’d move on.”
“Jaskier dealt with them,” Geralt says.
“The bard did?” Vesemir raises an eyebrow. “I know he’s a wolf at the moment, but that seems a little out of character for a poet.”
“It was,” Geralt says, bile rising in his throat. “It’s getting worse, Vesemir. The wolf is taking over.” He blows a breath out through his nose, focuses on Jaskier’s weight on his feet. “Is there anything you can do to help?”
Vesemir’s expression is grim. “I’ve already looked through what books we have on animal transfiguration,” he says. “The loss of humanity is a normal side effect with long-term transformation. The only cure is for the affected individual to return to their natural state – but I understand that that may not be possible.”
Geralt grits his teeth. “Yennefer,” he says finally.
“Yennefer of Vengerberg?” Vesemir says. “Your sorceress?”
“She’s not my sorceress,” Geralt says. “Contact her, please. Ask her to come, to help.”
“Geralt—”
“Please,” Geralt snaps, too loud, and feels Jaskier stir on his feet, sees his yellow eyes flicker open.
Vesemir sees, too, and his expression stills. He nods, gets to his feet. “Lambert will bring you up something to eat,” he says, “but you’re still weak, so stay in bed.”
Geralt hums his agreement, and Vesemir goes.
Jaskier clambers to his feet and climbs up over Geralt, nudging Ciri awake with one paw and stepping heavily on Geralt’s stomach in his haste to get to him. He whines, butts his head into Geralt’s chin, then proceeds to cover as much of his face as he can reach in short, frantic licks. Geralt grunts, pushes him away with a short, “Get off, Jaskier,” and Jaskier digs himself into his side instead, pushes his head against Geralt’s neck and whines again.
“Geralt!” Ciri says, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Like I got shot with a crossbow,” Geralt says.
Jaskier whimpers, his paws heavy on Geralt’s shoulder.
“We thought you were going to die,” Ciri says. “There was so much blood. And then Eskel and Coen took you away, wouldn’t let me see you, and Lambert wouldn’t let Jaskier out of the stables because he was covered in blood, human blood, and I tried to explain that it was because he was protecting us, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Geralt hushes her, pulls her close. “It’s okay,” he says, running one hand through her hair, working the other into the soft tangles of Jaskier’s fur. “I’m okay. It’s okay.”
Ciri sobs once, and nestles into his side.
When Lambert comes in ten minutes later with a bowl of stew and a hunk of bread, both Geralt and Ciri are fast asleep again, breaths wheezing and slow in the warm air. The wolf, however, is awake, and it raises its head, eyes yellow-bright, and watches Lambert come inside. Its hackles raise when he gets too close, lips peeling back from its teeth in an animal snarl, and Lambert has seen the intelligence in the wolf’s eyes, felt the thrum of his medallion that supports the girl’s story, but right now? Right now the wolf just looks like a wolf.
Lambert puts the bowl down on the low table in the corner, and leaves Geralt with his girl and his wolf.
He comes back half an hour later with a strip of raw beef in his hand, which he gingerly sets on the bed next to the wolf. “A peace offering,” he says quietly. “For throwing you in the stables.”
The wolf eyes the meat for a second, then eats it in two sharp, snapping bites.
Geralt is out of bed in another few days, his side still tender and his shoulder still sore but very much alive. Ciri clings to his side for a little while, but then Coen invites her to spar with him and Eskel starts teaching her balance and poise and before long she’s seeing more of Geralt’s fellow Witchers than she is of Geralt himself. That’s okay, though, Geralt doesn’t mind – because that’s why he brought her here, isn’t it? To learn? To learn to defend herself? And when he’s healed up, he’ll be out there teaching her as well.
But not yet.
Geralt presses a hand against his ribs and winces, hisses out a breath.
At his side, Jaskier nudges his hip, looks up at him enquiringly.
“I’m fine, Jaskier,” Geralt says, reaching down and running a gentle hand over Jaskier’s ears. “Just sore.”
Jaskier seems to accept it, then sits down, cocks his leg, and starts to clean himself. Once, Geralt would have laughed at that – but now? Now, it just twists something in his gut. It’s what an animal would do. It’s not what Jaskier would do.
And it’s not just personal hygiene, either. Geralt’s seen Jaskier stiffen around the other Witchers, seen his suspicion whenever Coen claps Geralt on the back and heard his growls whenever Lambert knocks Ciri back on the training floor. He doesn’t trust them with his friends, doesn’t trust them with his pack, and that’s understandable behaviour for a wolf but it’s not like Jaskier at all. Jaskier is open and affectionate and loving to a fault. He doesn’t growl, he doesn’t snarl. He doesn’t rip the throats out of bandits who attack them on the highway, doesn’t spray their arterial blood across the trees.
Ciri slips her hand into Geralt’s in the evening, watching as Jaskier prowls around outside the stables, sniffing the air. The horses are restless in their stalls, even Roach, smelling wolf on the air – and Ciri lets out a tight breath, squeezes Geralt’s hand. “He’s getting worse, isn’t he?” she asks in a whisper.
Geralt doesn’t answer. “Yennefer sent word,” he says. “She’s on her way.”
Ciri nods silently.
In the wintry air, a howl sounds from far across the mountains. Jaskier pauses, cocks his head, and then howls in response, hauntingly musical in the snowy air.
“Geralt!”
Geralt jerks awake, bleary-eyed and exhausted, to the sound of a fist hammering on his door. His shoulder throbs sharply as he props himself up on it, but he breathes through the pain. “What?” he barks.
The door crashes open. Eskel’s standing there, expression dark, blood dripping from his hands – and all of a sudden Geralt is wide awake. He scrambles out of bed, reaching for a shirt. “Ciri?” he says sharply.
“She’s fine,” Eskel says. “It’s your damn wolf, Geralt.”
The bottom drops out of Geralt’s stomach, and he stares at the blood under Eskel’s fingernails. “What happened?”
“It got in the stables,” Eskel says, jaw tight. “Slaughtered my horse. Ripped out its throat, then started eating. The other horses panicked, nearly stampeded. They broke down the door to get out, would have done more damage if Lambert hadn’t rounded them up.”
Geralt thinks he might vomit. “Fuck,” he barks. “Where’s Jaskier? Is he hurt?”
“He’s not hurt,” Eskel says quietly. “He’s locked in one of the rooms down by the armoury. But, Geralt…” He trails off, doesn’t meet Geralt’s gaze.
“What?”
“It’s not a pretty sight,” Eskel says finally.
Geralt goes anyway.
The cell—because, realistically, that’s what it is—that they’ve locked Jaskier in is small, too small, far too small for a wolf that’s clearly hopped up on adrenaline and blood. Jaskier’s pacing, four steps one way, four steps back, lashing out at the walls, clawing at the bars of the door, and there’s blood and gore smeared across his muzzle, a red mess that he shows no signs of wanting to clean away. Geralt feels sick to his stomach but that doesn’t stop him ignoring Eskel’s warnings and opening the door, crouching down and reaching out. “Jaskier,” he says, voice tight with an emotion he’s choosing not to look at – but when Jaskier turns to face him, tail lashing against the confining walls, his yellow eyes are pure animal, rage and hunger.
But then the rage and hunger melts away, and Jaskier sits back on his haunches, paws at his bloody muzzle, and whimpers, full of fear.
“Shit,” Geralt hears Eskel curse behind him.
Geralt goes to Jaskier, runs his hand down the back of his neck, scrunching in his fur. “It’s okay,” he says, pressing his forehead to Jaskier’s bloody muzzle. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
Jaskier doesn’t make a sound at that, just pants soft and low in the quiet of the cell.
“He can’t come out, Geralt,” Eskel says quietly. “He can’t control it anymore. He’s a risk to all of us.”
Geralt wants to deny it, wants to tell Eskel he’s wrong, tell him to fuck off, tell him to stay away, but the truth of his words is written in blood through Jaskier’s white fur. “Fuck,” he says again, and Jaskier makes a noise low in his throat, a noise of fear and hopelessness that Geralt never wants to hear ever again.
Jaskier stays in the cell, cowering in the corner, yellow eyes wide and afraid until they’re not, until there’s nothing but rage there, animalistic and bitter. He paces through the night, nails clicking against the stone floor, barks and howls echoing through the corridors of Kaer Morhen.
The next morning, Yennefer steps through a whirling portal, hair perfect, make-up perfect, clothes perfect. She casts a brief gaze over the other Witchers, lingers a little longer on Ciri, then looks to Geralt. “I got your message,” she says.
“Thank you for coming, Yen,” Geralt says, feeling the awkwardness of what they used to have stretching between them.
“Where is he?” Yennefer asks, all business.
Geralt leads the way.
Jaskier is crouching in the back corner of his cell, watching warily as they approach. He starts growling when Geralt opens the door, bares his teeth when Geralt says his name, snaps at him when Geralt tries to touch him. There’s nothing human in his eyes, nothing of Jaskier there at all, and Geralt doesn’t need to see the troubled glance that Yennefer shares with Vesemir to know that Jaskier’s in trouble. She makes a movement with her hand, murmurs a spell, and Jaskier’s legs go limp under him and he collapses to the stone, tongue lolling out from between his jaws, eyes wild and goggling. Geralt hoists his wolf into his arms, holds him still while Yennefer presses her hand to his skull, and he watches as Yennefer’s gaze shifts from apprehension to sadness to pity. “Geralt…” she says slowly.
Geralt doesn’t want to hear it. “What?” he grinds out.
“Jaskier’s almost gone, Geralt,” Yennefer says softly. “He’s just a whisper, barely even that. The wolf has consumed practically everything.”
Geralt’s throat is choked. “Can he hear you?” he asks tightly. “Can you reach him?”
Yennefer strokes the delicate fur between Jaskier’s ears. “He’s buried too deep,” she says. “There’s nothing I can do. Geralt, I’m so sorry. He didn’t deserve this.”
“No,” Geralt says, shaking his head. “No, there must be something.”
Yennefer grips his shoulder, doesn’t let go. “I can give him peace,” she says slowly. “The spell he’s under now, it relaxes his body, yes, but it relaxes his mind as well. He’s calm. The wolf isn’t angry, and Jaskier isn’t afraid. I can keep him like this, and then I can… put an end to it.”
Geralt stiffens. “No.”
“Geralt,” Vesemir says, gravelly and rough. “He can’t stay here forever, and you can’t keep him with you when you leave after winter. He’s too dangerous. And he’s tasted human blood, in the forest. He can’t be allowed to go free, he’d be a risk to anyone around.”
“He’s suffering, Geralt,” Yennefer says quietly. “I can’t feel much of Jaskier or his thoughts, but I can feel that. He’s being crushed out of existence. It’s agony for him.”
“Get out,” Geralt grinds between gritted teeth.
“Geralt—”
“Get out!”
Yennefer gets to her feet, brushes her hands down over her skirts. “Call me when you make a decision,” she says gently. “He’ll be calm like this until you do.” She goes, taking Vesemir with her, and they close the door behind them. “We’ll give him some privacy,” Geralt hears Yennefer say to Vesemir as they leave. “Give him a chance to say goodbye.”
Geralt closes his eyes and presses his forehead into Jaskier’s fur.
He stays like that for a long time, Jaskier’s quietly panting wolf-body in his arms, heavy and warm and still. Jaskier doesn’t whine, doesn’t yip, doesn’t growl, just lies there, limp and still, eyes wide and yellow and glassy.
“Fuck,” Geralt bites, his hands tight in Jaskier’s fur. “Fuck, I can’t. You can’t. Jaskier, please.”
Jaskier doesn’t answer.
“I can’t lose you,” Geralt husks, face buried in Jaskier’s fur. “I can’t.” And he shakes him, shakes the limp, white-furred body, shakes him again. “Jaskier!”
But Jaskier’s gone.
Geralt sits there for a long, long time, the wolf that stole his friend cradled in his arms. The cold of the stone seeps through his shirt into his skin, chilling him to the bone, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t even dream of it, because he’s spent years with Jaskier at his side, years with him chattering and singing and laughing, and now he’s here but he’s not.
“I’m so sorry,” Geralt whispers, running his fingers through Jaskier’s fur. “I should have saved you.” Jaskier’s eyes are yellow as the sun, and they watch lazily, emptily, as Geralt presses a kiss to his forehead, gentle, soft, barely a whisper of a thought. “I’ll be here,” he says, eventually. “Until the end.”
And Geralt thinks about Jaskier, about Jaskier’s smile, Jaskier’s lips, Jaskier’s voice, and he thinks about all the songs he’s sung for Geralt over the years, ballads and epics and quick, biting couplets fired across Roach’s back on a summer’s day. Geralt rubs his fingers between Jaskier’s ears, strokes his thumb across his muzzle, and slowly, croakingly, he starts to sing to him. He hasn’t sung for a long time, as long as he can remember, and he doesn’t actually know any proper songs that aren’t Jaskier’s invention – so he sings the only thing he can remember, a lullaby that some whispering corner of his mind remembers from his childhood, a lullaby without words because he can’t remember them, a lullaby that, on his Witcher lips, is just a mostly-tuneless melody.
Geralt sings, hoarse and rasping, and says goodbye.
Except.
Something is happening.
The body lying in Geralt’s lap is… shifting. Jaskier isn’t moving, no, it isn’t that Yennefer’s spell is wearing off, it’s just that his body is… changing?
Changing back.
Geralt’s heart is all of a sudden beating a riot in his chest. “Jaskier?” he hisses, watching as white fur shades into pale skin, as the wolf’s body stretches and twists, as the muzzle cracks into nothingness and a familiar face emerges in a haze of magic. Jaskier’s eyes flicker open and just for a second they’re that same wolfish yellow, a mirror to Geralt’s own, but then they’re sinking back into cornflower blue and, oh.
“Geralt?” Jaskier husks, voice hoarse from disuse, and then his eyes go wide, he grabs at his face, at his throat, his chest, and he gasps, “Fuck, Geralt, you did it!”
Geralt doesn’t know what to think, so he does the only thing he can think to do: drags a very naked but very human Jaskier into his lap, seizes his face between his hands, and kisses him. “How?” he asks when he breaks away, the question whispered between Jaskier’s lips. “I thought you were gone. I thought—”
Jaskier surges forward, kisses the fear off his lips. “I got it wrong,” he says, laughing, eyes bright with delirium, with joy. “That fucking bitter witch with no appreciation for art, I got it wrong. She didn’t say that the curse would be lifted when I sang.”
Geralt frowns. “But Vand said—”
“He said what I thought the witch meant,” Jaskier breathes. “The witch told me that the curse would be lifted when a white wolf sings, and I just assumed she meant me because, you know, I’m the singer and she was cursing me and she turned me into a fucking white wolf so she clearly had no real creativity in her—”
“But it was me,” Geralt interrupts.
“It was you,” Jaskier agrees, breathless, and kisses him again. “My white fucking wolf, it was you.”
“Yennefer said you were almost gone,” Geralt says, his hands cupping Jaskier’s face, his fingers in Jaskier’s hair – just as soft as the wolf’s, just as luxurious against his fingertips. “She said she could barely reach you under the wolf. She said you were suffering.”
Jaskier’s expression twists. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, she wasn’t wrong.” He takes a shaky breath. “Gods, I killed people, Geralt,” he says, a strangled note in his voice. “Those bandits, I bit their throats out. And I ate Eskel’s horse.” He gags, a sour note of panic threading into his scent, and Geralt pulls him down, holds him close, kisses him until that sourness is gone, fully gone. “Also,” Jaskier says when Geralt lets him go, “I am still mad at Lambert for throwing me in a fucking stable and then locking me in. Is that any way to treat a world-renowned bard, poet, troubadour, artiste?”
Geralt laughs, rich and low, and disentangles himself from Jaskier’s sprawling limbs. “Well, then,” he says. “Let’s go express your disapproval.”
“And get me some clothes,” Jaskier says, running his hands down his chest and thighs like he’s remembering what it’s like to have them. He tries to get to his feet, only manages to stand for a second or so before his legs go out from under him and Geralt has to catch him. He offers Geralt a weak smile. “Guess I’m more used to four legs than two.”
Geralt holds him up, and opens the door. “Come on,” he says, and tries not to think about how it was only a moment ago that he thought Jaskier was gone, he thought he’d lost him, he thought he’d failed him.
But he didn’t.
They go to Geralt’s room, to the corner where Jaskier’s pack has been sitting since they arrived at Kaer Morhen. Jaskier’s legs are still shaky so he sits on the edge of Geralt’s bed and instructs Geralt as to what clothes to bring him, tells Geralt how to dress him, and when Geralt pauses, grips his arm, turns it over, traces the ring of new scars dug into his forearm, he takes a shaky breath and offers Geralt a smile. “I thought I might die in those woods,” he says. “I’d been there for days before I smelled your food, hurt like that, and then when I saw it was you…” He trails off.
“You weren’t sure if I would help you,” Geralt supplies.
Jaskier flashes him a sad smile. “Wolf me or human me,” he confirms.
“I would always help you,” Geralt says, the words tight in his throat. “No matter what. I would never let you get hurt if I could help it.”
The skin crinkles around Jaskier’s eyes. “I love you, too,” he says softly, reverently, and it’s simultaneously a punch to Geralt’s chest and the most tender thing he’s ever heard.
When Jaskier is dressed and can mostly stand on his own two feet, they go to the hall where the others are gathered. Geralt knows they’ll be there, waiting for him, waiting for him to come back with a limp, lupine body in his arms, waiting for him to grit his teeth and nod to Yennefer, waiting for him to grieve. Instead, he pushes open the door to all those sad, sympathetic eyes – and then Jaskier goes waltzing in past him, hands spread, grin plastered on his face, and declares into the maudlin atmosphere, “Not a wolf!”
Everything sort of descends into chaos for a bit after that.
Ciri launches herself at Jaskier with a wordless cry, and he catches her in his arms, whirls her around and kisses the tears off her cheeks. Vesemir grips Geralt’s shoulder, squeezes tight, and Lambert says something loud and rude that Jaskier then takes him to task over because there’s a child in the room, Lambert, and a royal child at that, so watch your tongue! “And also you still owe me for the stable thing,” Jaskier says, Ciri laughing in his arms, then rounds on Eskel, pulls an apologetic face, and says, “By the way, I’m really sorry about your horse.”
Eskel just laughs, and clasps Jaskier’s scarred forearm in his.
Yennefer comes to Geralt’s side. “True love’s kiss?” she asks, quiet and soft, a smile on her lips.
“Not quite,” Geralt answers, gruff in his throat, watching as Vesemir greets Jaskier properly, welcoming him to Kaer Morhen with a formality that twists Geralt’s heart.
“Okay, so the kissing was after the curse was lifted, then?” Yennefer persists.
Geralt frowns at her. “Yen…”
Yennefer smiles at him. “I saw the look on your face when you thought you lost him, Geralt,” she says. “I’m not an idiot.”
“No,” Geralt says slowly, “but I think I am.”
Yennefer laughs, short and sharp. “I could have told you that,” she says wryly. “Now, Geralt, are you going to introduce me to your Child Surprise and tell me why exactly she reeks of power?”
Later, when the night is dark and Yennefer is sitting with Ciri on her lap, when Jaskier’s halfway through a bottle of Witcher vodka with Eskel on one side and Coen on the other, Geralt has a thought. He gets to his feet, slips quietly out of the door, and pads back to his room. He goes to that bundle of Jaskier’s belongings, unfolds the clothes and blankets and trinkets, and takes what he came for.
Geralt goes back to the hall, goes back to his brothers and his bard, goes back to the man he thought he’d lost, goes and stands in front of Jaskier and offers him his lute. “I thought you might want to get reacquainted,” he says softly, and Jaskier makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, flexes his fingers, and stands. He takes the lute from Geralt, runs his fingers over the strings, then looks up at him, smiles, smiles so wide it hurts Geralt’s heart.
“Go on then, bard,” Vesemir says, lounging by the fire. “We’ve heard great stories of your singing – mainly from you, admittedly.” Coen snorts a laugh. “So won’t you give us a song?”
Jaskier beams. “Who am I to refuse a performance to the great Witchers of Kaer Morhen?” he says, eyes heavy on Geralt. “The noblest audience this humble bard could ask for.”
Geralt watches as Jaskier’s fingers pluck a tune from the strings, a little hesitant at first but then faster, nimbler, like he never put it down, like there was never a question of him putting it down. The scars around his forearm gleam in the firelight, bright as the teeth of a white wolf, and, tossing Geralt a final, beaming smile, he starts to sing.