Chapter Text
“Sooo, are you sure this is the place where this sorceress is supposed to live?”
There came a low hum from the witcher in front of him as he dismounted Roach. They had followed a narrow, beaten path through a forest in the area around Oxenfurt city, which Jaskier wouldn’t have been able to find even if the life of his dear mother had depended on it. So even though the path had basically reeked of magic, Jaskier couldn’t quite believe that the house they found at its end would home a sorceress. Well, calling it a house might be an exaggeration.
“So, you’re telling me,” Jaskier went on as he proceeded to dismount his own horse, “that a sorceress - you know, those magic wielding, power and luxury loving women – would live in a hut? In the woods? What is she even doing here? Luring little children down this path to take away their youth and make herself young and pretty again?”
“Don’t be silly,” Geralt said with a pointed look in Jaskier’s direction. “Everybody knows sorceresses don’t age.” He patted Roach’s neck and tied the mare’s reins to the little wooden fence which did a pretty sad job of shielding the hut and the little adjacent herb garden from the wilderness of the forest. Jaskier followed Geralt’s lead. He then unknotted his lute from where it had been tied to his horse’s saddlebags to strap it across his back.
“Don’t tell me not to be silly,” Jaskier huffed, following his friend to the hut’s door. “This whole situation is silly! I mean, tell me again, why are we here? So you could return this ‘magic lamp’ to this sorceress friend of yours, whom you don’t even know about whether she’s still living in this shabby hut? Doesn’t seem any silly to you?”
“You’re just mad because your newest ballad isn’t coming along the way you’d like it to. Now, shut up and be nice.”
“Oh, that’s rich! You telling me to be nice!” Jaskier shot back, crossing his arms over his chest. Geralt didn’t respond this time but went straight ahead to knocking at the excuse of a door which was creaking at its hinges at the impact. “I’d still bet that we’re not going to find a single soul in – “
„My, if it isn’t Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf himself!”
The door had swung open livelier and quicker than Jaskier would have ever thought the old dead wood capable of. In the doorway then stood a young looking, blonde woman with her dress’ neckline as low cut as they would come. Her eyes were sparkling with something Jaskier couldn’t quite name, but if he had to, he would have probably called it mischief.
“Keira Metz, still living her best life in the woods,” Geralt responded with a small smirk.
“Very funny, White One,” Keira responded drily, crossing her arms over her chest. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t listen to every word we uttered since we set foot on your path? No magical ears around the forest?”
“Well, if you put it like that, I’m glad that you dropped by to return my lamp,” she said with a smile. “And no, I didn’t listen to your every word because I grew tired of you two bickering like an old married couple rather quickly. Speaking of which: Who’s this lovely young man who calls my home a shabby old hut?”
Geralt and the sorceress were now both staring at Jaskier.
“I, uh – “ he started eloquently, “my name’s Jaskier, bard and poet of all the lands enjoying the fine arts. It’s a pleasure to meet you, mistress of magic.”
“Mistress of magic,” Keira repeated, now looking at Geralt. “A fine poet you got yourself there, Geralt. My, I haven’t been called like that since my time at the court. But why have this conversation standing? Please, if you would follow me into my shabby hut.”
The ‘shabby hut’ turned out to be anything but shabby - or a hut - from the inside. Even though appearing small from the outside, the inside of the hut provided more space than what should have been physically possible – without magic, of course. Luxurious furniture carved from expensive woods, covered in plush pillows in combination with overburdened bookshelves covering the walls made up for a rather nice home décor. Actually, so nice that upon looking around Jaskier had to admit that he’d seen nobles in Novigrad living more modest than this. His mouth started watering a little upon spotting huge, deeply red strawberries in a bowl on a heavy oak table.
In conclusion, he was pretty sure that this whole place was almost entirely made up of magic.
“Well,” he said then after clearing his throat. “Geralt, you could have told me that we were going to visit a lady of such fine tastes. I would have at least changed my boots.”
“Oh, your little bard seems impressed if I just went from a witch who lures little children into the woods to a lady of fine tastes,” Keira smiled sweetly at Geralt, seemingly amused by Jaskier.
“You could have also told me that she could hear every word we said,” Jaskier then hissed, his cheeks tinting slightly pink.
“First of all, he’s not my little bard,” Geralt said to Keira before turning to Jaskier. “Second of all, you were so caught up in spinning your little tale about a witch in the woods, so who am I to interfere with such imagination?”
“Oh, I love it when you go all sarcastic on me. Gives you a real sophisticated air.”
“And you’re back to bickering like you were married with five kids,” Keira sighed. “What’s this about, Geralt? Last time I see you, you’re this brooding, mysterious witcher, taking off to talking to dead people with my lamp. And now you’re here with this little pretty boy, having a relationship crisis? I’m sorry, old friend, but if you two actually came here for some relationship advice, then I’m afeard you came to the wrong sorceress.”
“Come again?” Jaskier said, his voice pitched embarrassingly high. Sure, he and Geralt had been traveling together for quite some time now and they were prone to bickering. But this was the first time someone called them out on it and took their behavior for…something different than friendship or a travel companionship at the very least. …Not that Jaskier had never imagined another type of relationship with the witcher. But those were thoughts most suited for another time, when no potentially mind reading sorceress was present while Jaskier was thinking them.
“Keira,” Geralt said seemingly much more composed than Jaskier, were it not for his lips tightly pressed together. “Stop calling Jaskier ‘little bard’ or ‘pretty boy’. He does have a name.”
At this comment, Jaskier felt himself flush a little. He couldn’t help reacting like that when Geralt was showing some degree of possessiveness over him. Even though he thought that being called ‘pretty boy’ was quite justified.
“And please stop just making things up as you go,” Geralt continued then. He walked over to a low table standing next to an impossibly comfy looking wing chair and placed the bag he had brought with them into the hut on it. Geralt then retrieved the lamp, which this whole visit was all about, from it and carefully placed it on the table. “After all, we came here with good intentions, not to start an argument.”
“Yes, yes, good intentions.” Keira walked over to the table and lifted the lamp up to eye level to inspect it. “Well, in spite of you living on the road and fighting monsters day and night, it still looks like the day I left it in your care. Awfully nice of you to return it, as well. Had some nice chats with the dead?”
Geralt was about to answer but Keira didn’t give him the chance. “Actually, nevermind that question. I’m infinitely more interested in the answers to my next questions. So, Geralt, dear old friend, would you mind accompanying me for a moment?”
Jaskier raised a questioning eyebrow at those words, waiting for Geralt’s reaction.
“If it must be,” was his eventual answer, gesturing for Keira to lead the way.
“Absolutely delightful. And Jaskier? Please feel free to make yourself at home. I shan’t take your witcher from you for too long.”
A sigh from Geralt was the last thing to be heard before he followed Keira, the lamp still in hand, out of the room.
At first, Jaskier just stood, a bit at a loss for what to do. He had to admit that he had very mixed feelings regarding this woman. He didn’t like the way she was talking to Geralt and more or less completely ignoring Jaskier himself. But then again, he had very mixed feelings about sorceresses in general. Even though endlessly beautiful, intelligent and fascinating, they could also be very cruel, cold hearted and dreadfully frightening. So to shake off the unpleasant feeling he was getting from thinking about it, he reached for the lute on his back and gently started plucking at its chords. A mindless melody started resonating from the instrument as Jaskier started walking around the room, inspecting it more closely.
After he had started traveling with Geralt, occasions for visits in luxurious homes like this had become far and few in between. A performance at court even rarer so. So Jaskier especially enjoyed the feeling of the wing chair’s soft embrace as he lowered himself into it, still plucking away at his lute. He also started humming in tune with the melody created by the play of his fingers. Yes, he had missed this kind of ambience, and yes, he had also missed the softness of expensive furniture, or just furniture in general, compared to the bedrolls they would use when the nights would fall on their journeys through the wilderness. But honestly? He would never trade traveling with Geralt for the luxury of a home stuffed with pretty things. Because Jaskier liked traveling with Geralt. Roaming the lands together with the witcher made up for an exciting life full of new things, undiscovered places. A life full of wonder.
Such a life also came with the nice side effect of Jaskier writing better ballads than he probably ever had before. Well, at least he thought so himself because on the road his audience was rarely ever made up of more than a witcher and two horses.
But besides the traveling and the new approach to everyday life, Jaskier also liked, well, Geralt. Of course, one would come to this conclusion given the assumption that one would need to like each other to travel together. But. You know. Thing is they didn’t like each other in the beginning. Or at least Geralt didn’t like Jaskier in the beginning. In fact, he had been extraordinarily keen on getting rid of Jaskier from the very moment they first met. But Jaskier stuck around because at first he had been fascinated by the idea of traveling with a witcher. No, not just any witcher. With Geralt of Rivia.
And not before too long, his fascination turned into something else. Because it turned out that Geralt was so much more than what people thought a witcher would be, should be. Sure, Geralt was a monster slayer after all, and he needed the coin which would come with a job well done like any other man needed coin. But those were about all the expectations Geralt would fulfill. Because he was by no means heartless or emotionless. In fact, Geralt had a better heart than probably most of the people he struck deals with. Also, he swore when a job had gone awry, he would be taken aback when he would learn that a friend of his had died, he would laugh at a good joke and cringe at a bad one. Speaking of which: Strangely enough, once Geralt would get comfortable enough to indulge one with more than just sarcasm, which probably came with the job, Geralt was downright fun. Jaskier especially liked that trait because it would conveniently come along with rather stunning smiles. Yes, at first he had also been surprised by the fact that the almost all the time stern looking, brooding witcher’s facial muscles were still capable of forming a smile. Later on, he was only surprised by the sheer amount and variety of smiles Geralt was capable of. And now, Jaskier would only be surprised if those smiles would disappear.
So yeah, he was still fascinated by the witcher. But now just in a wholly different way.
But he would probably never confess this to anyone but himself. Jaskier breathed out a sigh and struck up a melancholy tune on his lute. God, he was being embarrassingly sappy. Which was quite the statement considering a great part of his profession was about singing sappy songs. Good ones, of course, but still sappy. He was about to start singing just such a song when the sorceress and Geralt finally returned.
Jaskier jumped up and out of the wing chair, feeling like he’d been caught wishfully thinking about the witcher, which felt like being caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Geralt!” was the only thing that came to mind as he walked over to the two of them. Jaskier really hoped that he hadn’t given away the nature of his thoughts by anything when the two of them had entered the room. So rather flustered, he slung his lute back over his back and only now took a closer look at Geralt’s and Keira’s expressions.
Keira, on one side, didn’t look much different from before, safe for the smug smile and the even more mischievous gleam in her eyes. Geralt, on the other side, looked, for a lack of a better word to describe a witcher, a little flustered. And 'a little' meaning a whole lot in a witcher context. Well, at least it was much more than what you’d usually expect to be openly expressed by the normally composed and brooding Geralt. Sure, Geralt could be flustered. It was just that it almost never happened. So Jaskier felt like something was off. Quite suspicious even. It almost felt like Geralt was the one who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“What happened?” Jaskier asked then, eyeing the two of them with narrowed eyes.
“Nothing,” Geralt answered briskly, avoiding the bard’s gaze.
Nothing, my ass, Jaskier thought, but didn’t say so. He really started wondering what had transpired between the sorceress and the witcher while he had been sitting here daydreaming.
“Oh, it’s absolutely wonderful, my little bard,” Keira smiled, seemingly delighted with something. “Just look at the two of you, absolutely wonderful!”
Jaskier was growing more confused by the minute. He first looked at Geralt, who was still avoiding his gaze, then back at Keira.
“What’s with the two of us?”
“Well, well, that’s a good question. Maybe we’ll be able to find out in the course of dinner. Yes, I’m inviting the two of you to have dinner with me. You see, it’s been a long time since I last had company I might enjoy dining with. So, what do you say?”
“Well,” Jaskier started, still trying to make eye contact with Geralt.
“No thanks,” the man in question stated brusquely, giving Jaskier enough reason to furrow his brow in confusion once again.
“Oh Geralt, look at you being delightfully grumpy. It’s hilarious, really,” Keira retorted, slightly rolling her eyes. “But are you sure you want to miss out on roasted chicken with rosemary? The sweetest seasonal fruits around? A fine wine from Cintra? Really, you don’t want to make a woman beg, do you?”
At the mere thought of having such a meal, Jaskier went a little weak at the knees. His eyes also darted once again to the strawberries sitting on the oak table. Ah, a kingdom for some strawberries.
“Also,” Keira continued, smiling at Jaskier’s longing gaze, “I would love if you’d perform a song or two for us, Jaskier. I heard you playing earlier, and I would be delighted to hear it again.”
That was all Jaskier needed to hear.
“Why, of course! Who am I to deny the lady a wish? I shall be honored to accompany our dinner with my humble performance,” Jaskier grinned broadly, indicating a little bow towards Keira. Well, what could he say? He was a simple bard. Someone would praise his playing and wished for a performance, and Jaskier’s spirits would soar immediately.
“Wonderful! Make yourselves comfortable, I shall be back in a minute!” And like this, Keira was gone.
“Geralt, can you believe this? At first I thought this house would be dead empty, or at the utmost inhabited by a little old hag, but – ”
“Jaskier.”
“ – now it turns out to be a magic home with, with wing chairs and we’re getting a real dinner, and – ”
“Jaskier!”
“Yes, Geralt?”
“I still think we should get going.”
“Why, have you been bitten by a Nekker and are now starting to get delirious? This is the first time in ages we’ve had a proper dinner and, more so, are being offered one for free!” He then started walking over to the heavy oak table near the fireplace of the room, which wasn’t lit, and pulled back one of the chairs to sit down. Quite demonstratively, he hoped. “Besides, didn’t you say she is an old friend of yours? What harm is there in dining with an old friend?”
Geralt sighed a sigh of the long suffering but eventually came to sit across from Jaskier. “Right. What harm?”
------
The dinner had been an absolute blast. The chicken had been the best, and admittedly only, magically cooked chicken Jaskier had ever eaten. The wine from Cintra had tasted delicious, but sadly had been gone way too soon. Luckily Keira had come up with a new bottle of wine right away. And after that, right away with a third one. At the fourth bottle – or was it the third? – Geralt had looked a little funny at the wine, asking what it was with its smell. But Keira had only made big eyes at him, asking the witcher whether he’d never smelled a wine from Toussaint before.
Jaskier also performed one of his newest works for Keira, a more risqué song called ‘The backdoor to her heart’. She seemed to quite enjoy it, so Jaskier counted it as a success. In the end, all of them were in differing states of drunkenness, chatting about this and that, laughing at stories being told, and all in all just having a good time, the strange air from before the dinner long forgotten. Jaskier even got to eat those damned strawberries.
Next thing he knew, they were back on horseback, apparently content on still getting some miles behind their backs before night would fall for good. Yes, the sun was still peeking out atop the trees, and yes, it seemed they’ve had a rather early dinner. And anyways, they had both agreed that they wanted to be back on the road again. Well, at least Jaskier had said ‘Avennture awaits, lessgo!’, which was understood perfectly by Geralt.
So even though Jaskier was a little worse for wear than Geralt, he was still managing to keep himself in his saddle.
“Wasn’t that great, Geralt? I knew it would be great! Didn’t I tell you that it would be great?” Jaskier said, the words a bit slurred and much louder than he had intended. But it was good that the words turned out so loud, because Jaskier thought that it made his point much clearer.
Geralt, only swaying a tiny bit in Roach’s saddle, smiled and said, “Whatever you say, love.”
Jaskier then turned to look at Geralt, leaning out of his saddle to look more closely at the witcher. He leaned a little too far and even might have fallen from his horse if it weren’t for Geralt pushing him back into his saddle. “What’d you say? Geralt?”
Geralt then furrowed his brow, like he was thinking hard, apparently trying to remember the words he had just uttered. “Hm, I said, wait – I said, ‘Whatever you say…..love’. Wait, did I say that?”
“Pfffh, yeah, you totally said that. Geralt, you’re funny. And drunk. Very drunk. Pfffh, calling me ‘love’. That’s funny, a funny thing, yes. Wait, how drunk are you, exactly?” This time, Jaskier’s slurring was much worse than before, probably because he was just blabbing away. He knew he was blabbing. But for a reason. Because it seemed like it was important to find out how far gone Geralt actually was. And to let him know that he thought it funny, not, you know, cute. Or heart stopping. Or anything. Yeah, that also seemed important.
At that Geralt blinked several times before saying, “Very drunk.”
And then, like adding an afterthought, “I guess.”