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First snowfall at Kaer Morhen always felt like a breath of relief.
Jaskier had been surprised at that when he first spent a winter in the hallowed halls of the once-mighty keep. After all, the first snow signalled the close of the mountain pass. Nobody would come in, nor go out for the remainder of the winter months. Jaskier had been happy to get to spend so long with Geralt, but he’d also always had wanderlust in his soul. He’d never been a fan of staying still.
Winter at Kaer Morhen was different.
Here, he got to see what so few others saw. The witchers – the social outcasts, the so-called monsters, the brave, the fighters, the mutated – became, for a time, simply people. It was as if a weight was lifted from their shoulders. Geralt smiled more. Lambert would pick up a duet with Jaskier, dancing around like they were children. Eskel would no longer hold the reserve of a man marred by scars but instead would act as if he’d never seen looks of disgust tossed in his direction.
It was a privilege, to get to witness it. More than that, Jaskier found that here at Kaer Morhen, he was with family. More so than he had ever been in his home growing up. The world went away, and for three sparkling months, they lived without its interference simply enjoying one another’s company.
After that first time, Jaskier never wanted to winter anywhere else again.
Things changed, of course. Geralt claimed a child-surprise and eventually, destiny brought them to one another, no matter how far Geralt tried to run from it. Geralt made a wish that bound him and a stunningly terrifying mage together, and suddenly Yennefer entered their life like a storm in the night.
Jaskier fell in love. Twice, actually. Once with a man who had been his best friend for many years, once with a woman who could command chaos with less than a word.
Their lives grew more complicated, plots upon plots, politics, schemes. The world became a harsher place. Kaer Morhen’s winter months became even more of a refuge than they had once been.
Now, he lay in one of the huge beds in the towers at Kaer Morhen, and first snowfall fell outside. A fire roared in the hearth, and Jaskier felt his soul settle. Nine months of toil and fear, of running from Nilfguard and the brotherhood, and all those who wished Ciri harm, of monsters and magic and madness, and finally, finally, they could relax.
His lovers lay with him, naked, after a few glorious rounds of frankly excellent sex. Jaskier had placed himself behind them so that both of them were half leant against his chest.
Nobody needed to talk, though Yennefer, at some point, had started humming. It was a beautiful tune, sounded something like a nursery rhyme. Perhaps tomorrow, Jaskier would ask her where it came from and if he might steal the notes for his next ballad. Not now though.
Now he fiddled with their hair. He loved playing with their hair. When he’d lived in Oxenfurt, he used to go out with the street children in the festival months, help braid long strands of golds and browns into pretty patterns for the celebrations. When he’d met Geralt, he began braiding the other's hair back, so it was easier to keep clean and free of monster guts. When they’d finally been reunited after the mountain, Ciri in tow, he’d done hers simply to give the girl some mediocre degree of her old life where she otherwise was facing nothing but trials, tribulation and grief.
Such training had prepared him rather nicely, for the joys of fiddling with his lovers hair after sex.
He’d perhaps gone a bit too far this time, though they’d seemingly yet to notice. He’d begun with a few strands of Yennefer’s and then a few strands of Geralt’s. The contrasting colours looked good together, he thought, as he began to tangle them up. It wasn’t until he was almost at the end of his braid that he realised he’d effectively tied them both together.
“Oops,” he chuckled under his breath, “don’t move too far away from one another, will you?”
Geralt grunted, opened his eyes where he’d closed them, “what did you do?” he grunted.
“Nothing! Just—”
Geralt tried to sit up, and Yennefer made a noise of discontent.
“Tied you together,” Jaskier finished lamely.
He had a feeling, if they could turn round, they would be glaring at him.
“What?” Jaskier said, indignant at their pointed silence, “I’ll untie you later. Just for now, …your hair contrasts so nicely, you know that?” He sighed, shifting out from behind them.
Awkwardly, and with twin sighs of exasperation, Geralt and Yennefer shifted up the bed, careful in their movements so as not to tug too much, until they were sat against the headboard, and Jaskier could come to sit half in their laps, in front of them instead of behind.
“Besides, there are advantages to having you so close together,” Jaskier wiggled his eyebrows, mischief sparking in his eyes as he leaned in, lips pressed feather-light to Geralt’s, and then feather-light to Yennefer’s a moment later. “Close enough to barely have to move when I do this.”
Geralt’s chuckle was soft in the background as he deepened the kiss with Yennefer, a startled laugh falling out of his own lips when Geralt tugged on his waist to steal him back.
They went back and forth like that for a brief while, Jaskier kissing them both lazily, happily, the snowfall outside promising many nights just like this one in the near future.
“You know,” Jaskier mumbled, a little later, pulling from their tempting lips to spread himself out in their laps, his feet tangling with theirs, “This reminds me of a story I heard once in Oxenfurt.”
“Why do I get the feeling your about to tell us all about it?” Yennefer arched an eyebrow.
Jaskier lightly pinched her leg in retaliation, sticking out his tongue. “You love my stories. Anyway,” he let his eyes drift closed as he spoke, “there are tales, to the east, about all these little strings that tie us together. Red strings of fate, they’re called. The strings can stretch and tangle over thousands and thousands of miles, but they’ll never ever break, and they’ll always pull you right back where you belong, close to one another.”
“Sounds like more bullshit destiny,” Geralt grunted.
Jaskier opened his eyes to bop him lightly on the nose, “none of that. Destiny gave you Ciri. It gave you Yennefer.”
“And what are you, in that equation?” Geralt’s fingers stroked a gentle path over Jaskier’s cheekbone.
“A very lucky bystander,” Jaskier breathed out, gently. He knew that he didn’t have any big destiny, not like the others. He was the bard, and that was that. The fact that he’d found them though…the fact that they let him have a piece of their fate…it was gift enough.
“Shut up,” Yennefer jabbed his side.
“Hey!”
“You’re not just a bystander, idiot,” she rolled her eyes, “You’re just as…tied to us as we are to you. With your little…strings, or whatever the story is.”
Jaskier felt a bright smile come across his face, “my dear lady Yennefer, are you saying that I’m your soulmate?”
Yennefer wrinkled her nose, “don’t get sappy about it, bard,” she warned, and though there was a slight edge to her voice, there was a softness there too.
He leaned upwards to kiss her, and she leaned downwards too and—
“Ow,” Geralt grunted, at the same time Yennefer gave a soft yelp.
This time, Jaskier could see them glare at him.
“Alright, alright!” he laughed, “I’ll undo it, jeez, hold on a moment, dearhearts.” He shifted so he could get at the braid, careful not to tug or pull as he began the careful process of unravelling it, “you know, you do look good with black in your hair and white in your hair though. Both of you. It suits you. A little piece of each other. It’s sweet.”
“Hmm,” Geralt’s monosyllabic, the standard reply was rather expected by now.
Jaskier sat back when he finished, “sleep?”
“Unless you want to go another round?” Yennefer asked, faux-innocently to the groans of both men.
“You're insatiable,” Geralt accused.
“Not even I can go for as many as you can,” Jaskier snuggled himself in the middle, throwing an arm over Yennefer’s bare belly.
Yennefer laughed, “hmmm, we’ll work up to it, one day. Sleep now though.”
And with first snowfall falling outside their window, and laying next to those they trusted, sleep was easy to come by.
-///-
Winters at Kaer Morhen might be a refuge, but they couldn’t last forever.
They had lives to lead, perilous dangerous lives, ones that they couldn’t always tackle together.
“I don’t want you to go,” Jaskier murmured in the inn room. He understood why Yennefer had to go back to the brotherhood, but the brotherhood was a den of vipers, and the mages who had fought at Sodden Hill seemed to one by one be disappearing. The last thing Jaskier wanted was for Yennefer to be added to that number.
But it wasn’t just Yennefer that was leaving this time. Geralt was too. And Jaskier was being put in charge of Ciri’s care. Ciri was a little older now, near a woman grown, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t their little girl, it didn’t mean she wasn’t precious.
It was a good plan though, he knew. Geralt was too identifiable and Jaskier – for all his loudness and attention-seeking – was good at pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He and Ciri would make it across the continent far quicker and easier without Geralt by their side.
Still, he could tell that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t particularly like the plan.
Ciri was holding a brave face, but this would be the first time that she was away from Geralt since they met in that forest.
Eventually, Geralt came to sit before her, Yennefer on the girls other side. They were a perfect family, Jaskier reflected. He was oh so lucky to get to say he was a part of it.
“We will see you soon,” Yennefer murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind Ciri’s ear. She was so gentle, with Ciri, more so than she was with anyone. Her care for the girl always warmed Jaskier’s heart and broke it in equal measures, knowing nobody had bothered to give Yennefer such affection when she was young.
“And we will be with you, even when we are not,” Geralt voice was a low rumble, his words about as poetic as Geralt got.
“Here,” Yennefer spoke. She raised her dagger, and Jaskier thought she might be gifting it to Ciri for a moment. Instead, however, Yennefer moved to cut a strand of her hair from her head, passing the blade to Geralt so he could do the same. “Jaskier can put these into your braids. So you know how close we are.”
Jaskier felt his heart bursting at the motion, Ciri’s fingers wrapped carefully around white and black strands.
“Jaskier?” she asked, raising her head.
Jaskier went to her, because of course he did.
When he braided them into Ciri’s hair, they looked beautiful there, two contrasting colours in her nest of beautiful gold.
They were always with each other, even when they were apart. Maybe Yennefer was right. Maybe Jaskier was also tied to them by destiny, by a secret thread nobody could see. Still, it was nice to have tangible reminders, like the locks he’d braided into Ciri’s hair.
Regardless, he knew that next winter, they would be back at Kaer Morhen, breathing the sigh of relief that came with the first snow. He trusted that.
They would always find their way back to one another.
Always.