Chapter Text
Looking back on it, Jaskier is glad Geralt wasn’t there that night, even if his presence would have prevented all of the pain and terror that came next. Despite it all…Jaskier is still fervently grateful Geralt wasn’t there to see him at his absolute lowest.
It was embarrassing, really, how long Jaskier sulked after he and Geralt parted ways on the mountain. Or, rather, after Geralt stormed off like a raging striga and Jaskier slunk away like a kicked goat with its tail between its legs. And with the remains of its shattered heart dripping from its fingertips.
Jaskier went back to the only thing he could do, the only thing he was good at, but his heart wasn’t in it. Unsurprisingly, the general populace began to turn on him for his lackluster performances. No one enjoyed listening to a maudlin, raspy-voiced, drunkard of a bard when visiting the local tavern with childhood friends. It reminded them too much of their own sad, stagnant lives. Everyone wanted to hear about the Witcher, the great White Wolf, and all Jaskier wanted to do was forget that the Witcher in question had ever existed.
On the night in question, Jaskier was well and truly sloshed, and he knew this performance would be a losing battle before even picking up his lute. He certainly wasn’t putting his best foot forward with his appearance—his doublet was buttoned up incorrectly, his hair was askew due to sheer lack of attention, and the circles under his eyes clued everyone in to his current energy level. (Though it may have been fashionable to grow a beard in times of intense grief, Jaskier was still clean-shaven—he did have standards, gods damn it.)
Jaskier plucked at his lute and mentally sorted through his catalogue of ballads. Instinct—and several long years on the road—told him this this crowd was ripe for a jig or a drinking song, but Jaskier was feeling maudlin, and unfortunately for the assembled crew of fishermen, merchants, carpenters, paupers, and fellow drunkards, Jaskier was the one onstage, holding an instrument, with the complete attention of every being in the room.
He began to croon something he had written a couple of months into his travels with Geralt, in which the Witcher is grievously injured by a bloedzuiger, but his heroic companion—purported to be just a humble bard—manages to whisk the Witcher away to safety, stitch up his wounds, and then finish off the beast himself. Jaskier had played it for Geralt first, a private performance by the campfire they had set up outside of village whateverthefuck, and Geralt had laughed uproariously. Well, he had rolled his eyes as his mouth quirked upward in a not-so-potent grimace. Which Jaskier had counted as an uproarious laugh.
Jaskier idly wondered if perhaps he’d still be traveling with Geralt, if he were more like the heroic bard from his ballad.
His finger slipped and he struck a discordant note.
After that, it didn’t take long for the crowd to turn on him, as crowds are wont to do when their expectations aren’t met. Jaskier managed to dodge most of the food pelted at him from all corners of the tavern, but the rejection still stung. (Even though he probably deserved it this time.) It reminded him of the time he first met Geralt—
No. He refused to think of that right now, because Geralt wasn’t there to show him kindness.
After being unceremoniously booed offstage, Jaskier shuffled over the innkeeper, who parted reluctantly with the coinpurse Jaskier was owed (a performance was a performance, after all) and then suggested (not unkindly) that Jaskier go for a walk to clear his head before turning in for the evening.
(Though Jaskier knew it wasn’t his head that was the problem.)
Which is why, when the Nilfgaardian soldiers showed up to abduct him, Jaskier was disappointingly sober.
One by one they emerged from the shadows, until Jaskier found himself surrounded by a host of menacing, scowling thugs with big, pointy swords. He entertained a brief feeling of flattery that they had thought to bring so many men to take him down, before the familiar feeling of dread came over him.
The leader—medium-build, stark blonde hair, with an oddly intricate royal blue sash—stepped forward and held out his palms in a gesture of peace.
“You’re the White Wolf’s bard, are you not?”
Jaskier tightened his grip on his lute strap but did not answer. Which was rare for him, of course, since as Geralt could attest, normally he never shuts up. In fact, if Geralt were here—
Well. Geralt would have gotten him out of this. But Geralt was not here, so Jaskier would have to improvise.
He put on his best stage grin and said loudly, “Ah, yes, I see my fame precedes me! Always an honor to meet my fans. Geralt should be along shortly, in which case I strongly suggest you—”
“Oh, I doubt that.” The man with the blue sash grinned even wider, but his eyes were ice-cold. “Geralt of Rivia hasn’t been seen around these parts in months.”
Jaskier’s heart dropped.
“Fortunately for us,” the man drawled, “You show up, bringing us that much closer to our goal! The gods can be very kind indeed sometimes, don’t you think?”
Jaskier eyed the soldiers warily. “What do you want with him, exactly?”
“What do we…?” The blue-sashed man looked at his men in consternation. He adopted an expression of extreme faux-exasperation, one that Jaskier himself had perfected in his many months of traveling with a grumpy Witcher who had seemingly no concern at all for his own well-being or personal hygiene.
“Do you mean to say,” the man continued slowly, when Jaskier still hadn’t answered, “That you don’t know anything about the Witcher’s new traveling companion?”
Jaskier’s heart turned to ice.
“So he’s replaced me already?” Jaskier aimed desperately for humor, tripped at the finish line, and watched his chances for escape soar majestically into the horizon. “Good to know I was so appreciated all that ti—”
A blow across his face left him reeling. Gloved hands caught him before his face could properly greet the ground, and a blue sash sauntered into his swimming vision. The leader lifted up Jaskier’s chin to force him to meet his cold gaze. Through a haze of shock and pain, Jaskier was vaguely startled to see that the man’s eyes were curiously similar to his own.
“You’re funny,” the man said matter-of-factly. “And talkative, as well. That’s good—we have a lot to talk about. But not here, of course. We have more... comfortable accommodations set up.”
He nodded to one of the soldiers gripping Jaskier, and Jaskier’s witty retort became a whisper in the wind as another sharp pain flared in the back of his head, and he tumbled into blackness.
When Jaskier was little, he would tell everyone he met that he knew he was meant for something more. Swashbuckling adventures, grand (...doomed) romances, monsters, magic, and mayhem. The usual fare for a child growing up without any actual monsters to contend with.
Until he ferried himself away from the constricting life he was spoon-fed growing up, and struck out on his own. (Jaskier was still fiddling with the particular details of that grand escape—how he would memorialize himself in his final, epic ballad, looking back on his long life while lying in bed at the ripe old age of forever, strumming on his lute, surrounded by the touch, the scent, the feel of...someone….)
Right now, however, he was lying on a damp stone floor, at a tender young age, sans his precious lute and very much missing...someone. Who was probably (...hopefully) far, far away from this hellhole, making a new life for himself with his Child Surprise.
Jaskier prayed to whatever gods might be listening that Ciri actually was with Geralt, because that would mean she was safe, and happy, albeit probably slightly exasperated, though very much better than being dead. Like Jaskier himself was certainly about to be.
He felt a thrill of fear shudder through him.
Jaskier closed his eyes and tried not to think about the one person he couldn’t stop thinking about, one person they were absolutely going to ask him about. The cold floor felt soothing against his aching head.
His respite did not last long.
The click of boots outside was the only warning he had before the door to his cell was thrown open. A sudden gust of air tickled his sore face and raised goosebumps on his arms.
“Hello, bard,” said the Nilfgaardian captain with the blue sash. “Sleep well?”
Jaskier cracked open his eyes. “No.”
“That’s too bad.” Blue Sash sounded so genuinely disappointed that Jaskier almost actually believed him. That is, until he nodded curtly to the two guards flanking him, and Jaskier was torn from the stone floor and unceremoniously slammed against the wall. His stomach churned at the sudden movement.
The captain leaned in so that he was nose-to-nose with Jaskier. “Where is Princess Cirilla?” he asked softly.
Jaskier winced at the soldiers’ iron grips on his arms. “Erm,” he swallowed. “...In Cintra?”
The breath was stolen from his lungs as one of the guards dug a heavily armored fist into his stomach.
“I sense that you’re not planning on being very cooperative,” leered the captain. “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”
The dramatist in Jaskier rolled his eyes at the captain’s unforgivable cliche.
But his sense of self-preservation finally began to kick in as one of the guards raised his fist to strike him again. “Wait!” Jaskier flinched, and immediately hated himself for doing so. “I...I did hear that Geralt had found the Lion Cub of Cintra. B-But I don’t know where they are, I swear!”
“Oh he swears,” the captain jeered, looking to the two guards for a sycophantic guffaw. (They complied admirably.)
Jaskier’s heart jumped to his throat. He swallowed around the fear and said again, as steadily as he could manage, “I don’t know where they are.”
The captain’s cold blue eyes swept over Jaskier’s face. “I see.” He gestured to the guard on his right and nodded. “Loosen his tongue.”
“NO!” Jaskier yelled after the retreating steps of the man with the blue sash. “I-I know nothing, I haven’t seen Geralt in...You know I haven’t been traveling with him, how could I know where they are? WAIT!”
Later, bruised and bloodied, curled up around the thrumming pain, spitting out blood onto the cold, stone floor, Jaskier refused to let himself think about how quickly he would have given them up if he actually did have any information to share.
After what felt like a lifetime, Jaskier dragged his stiff and battered body over to the damp wall and slowly moved to a sitting position. He drew his knees up, wincing as the motion pulled at his ribs, and let his head sink back against the wall. He shook with pain, grief, and shame.
He wished he had courage. He wished he had strength. Most of all, he wished he had Geralt.
Jaskier’s stomach lurched as he heard the now familiar clicking sound of footsteps followed by the creak of his cell door opening. He shrunk against the back wall, fear crawling through his veins like fire ants.
“Please…” His voice hitched around his dry throat, humiliation curdling in his gut at the thin, pleading tone of his usually sonorous voice. “You have to believe me. I don’t know where he is. I wish I knew where he was, so that I could—”
So that he could what? Disappoint him once again? Debase himself further? Betray him?
Just...see him one last time...
A pair of tall, pristine boots halted in his line of vision.
“Don’t worry, bard,” the captain drawled, crouching down to look Jaskier in the eye. His icy gaze made Jaskier shiver. “I believe you. But I also believe we can find a use for you yet, to draw the Witcher out of hiding. Drop a limb from his precious bard in each of the towns we pass along the way back to Nilfgaard…”
Jaskier choked. “You...you’ll run out of leverage pretty quickly.”
“You’re right.” The captain smiled, and there was a cruel glint to his gaze that Jaskier hadn’t seen before. “Maybe I should just cut off your head and be done with it.”
Jaskier’s hands jerked up involuntarily, as though attempting to ward off the killing blow. The captain laughed. He reached out a finger to Jaskier’s jaw, where a trickle of drying blood was making its way down his neck. Looking thoughtful, he rubbed the droplet of blood between his two fingers, then looked up at Jaskier with another cutting smile. “But where would be the fun in that?”
Many miles away, a Witcher tore a sheet of paper from a noticeboard. It was not the first time he was seeing this particular flyer.
He then reached for the small, oblong vial hanging from a string next to where the paper was placed. The vial contained a thick, red, viscous liquid.
The Witcher crumpled the paper in one fist and clutched the vial with the red liquid in the other.
If anyone were looking closely, they might have noticed that he appeared to be in a heightened state of anguish. But of course, everyone was careful to avert their eyes in his presence.
The Witcher vaulted himself onto his horse and rode, and rode, and rode.
Dear Butcher of Blaviken,
The Imperator of Nilfgaard humbly requests your presence, as the Bard is becoming quite tiresome.
Come and play!