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Jaskier had something of an epiphany on one of those rare nights where chaos exhausted itself of its violent temper.
Between contracts, the party had settled into a stupor around a campfire in some unremarkable forest. They’d quietly laid out their bedrolls and tents scarcely minutes before the last dregs of sunset were snatched away by the oncoming tendrils of fall winds. The still-green canopies rattled dully, framing their hazy patch of night sky littered with constellations Jaskier could pick out by feel alone.
Geralt materialized at the tree line, arms piled high with kindling. His hair was gathered loosely at the nape of his neck, shirtsleeves pushed carelessly up his forearms. He shifted the kindling to one arm as he reached up to pat Roach. Far from the first time, Jaskier found his hands absentmindedly strumming a half-formed melody as he studied the witcher’s profile in the flickering firelight.
He turned toward the camp, and Jaskier busied himself retuning his lute. Never mind he’d already done it ten minutes prior.
Wordlessly, Geralt walked to the twin felled trunks they’d been using as benches. He dropped the kindling with little fanfare near the gnarled roots and grunted a soft greeting. Jaskier flashed a smile at him from across the fire. It wasn’t often Geralt would talk first.
Jaskier shifted to make room for his witcher just as the mage’s skirts rustled in silent invitation. Cheeks burning unpleasantly and bark snagging at his pants, he watched as Geralt sunk into a crouch at her side.
Yennefer hardly acknowledged his presence except to lean her weight into Geralt’s shoulder. She stared laconically into the flames, fingers twitching in some muted dance of chaos and explosions. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and her hands folded primly in her lap.
Opposite Yennefer’s perch, Ciri folded her hands just a moment later. Her mirroring was not as subtle as she would like to believe.
Jaskier had been so jealous when Yennefer had won that bitter, silent fight for Ciri’s favor. Now, that sting had settled into resignation. He’d been a fool to think his little expressions of affection—a hastily scribbled ode, the softest patch of forest floor, quick smiles and visits to bakershop windows—could compete with the mage’s desperation. Eternity’s maw, he supposed, must have been a terrifying thing to face alone. His motivation for befriending Ciri wasn’t nearly so consequential. Yennefer’s victory was a bygone conclusion.
It had started with small things. Interrupting a game of hopping over the previous night’s embers to draw the lion cub deeper into the woods and coax flames into her cupped palms. Happening upon them as Jaskier weighed a bangle in each hand at a market stand, asking which she preferred, and Yennefer plucking both from his fingers to buy the cart’s whole wares. Cirilla being pulled happily out of his orbit, and Geralt smiling tentatively at Yennefer’s bright grin every time Ciri would seek her out.
The three made a striking picture.
As a boy, his father had hounds.
Mother never allowed them in the house, but they were a constant presence, nonetheless.
Father let them run the grounds, their bays echoing across the well-kempt greens as they chased some hapless rabbit and tore it to shreds in their scramble to deposit its bloodied body to Father’s outstretched hand.
He’d nod as they gleefully brushed themselves against Father’s pantlegs, lean down to give a perfunctory scratch behind some lucky dog’s ear and close the door on his way to the kitchens.
Mother’s nose would twitch at dinner as Father announced to guests where the meat was sourced, and Julian would sit and stare out the window as the hounds’ snouts pressed insistently at the windowpanes.
Julian hardly bothered to keep track of each hound’s name. They hardly lived more than five years on the estate, easily replaceable and nowhere near as important as Father and Mother.
He’d squirm in his chair throughout the first three courses and perk up as the servants finally carted out dessert. Father would finally turn his attention to Julian, holding his dessert plate out of reach and ask what he’d accomplished that day.
Sometimes, Julian would recite a line of poetry. Other times, he’d proudly display a landscape painting. Once, he’d stumbled through some scales.
Father would nod and place his dessert plate before Julian. Then, he’d turn back to his guests.
Much like his hounds, much like Mother, Father tolerated Julian.
Viscount Julian Alfred Pankratz de Lettenhove had been heavy on his tongue. For years, he’d gagged at its weight until he finally thought to chip away at its glamor with his teeth, and he’d been left with the beginnings of a new life where that steel bit of expectation suddenly stopped biting at the corners of his mouth.
As he’d slipped out his stale Oxenfurt room, nothing but a lute strapped to his back and a couple coins tucked into his unbroken boots, he’d never felt so much like himself.
He supposed that giddy freedom had distracted him from that slip rope Geralt had unwittingly fitted around his neck at their first meeting in Posada. Like a stray dog, he’d come running to the witcher’s heels looking for some scrap of connection. Oh, and how his appetite had been whetted from that taste of adventure… of protection. In that first year of travelling together, Jaskier felt—well, not exactly wanted—he felt he’d found a constant.
He would talk. Geralt would grunt. He would sing. Geralt would grunt. He would hurry out the range of some hellish demon that looked suspiciously like his uncle. Geralt would grunt and exasperatedly run his sword through it. He’d wake up with an obnoxious yawn to Geralt kicking dirt into the last night’s fire. Geralt would grunt.
When he’d been young, he’d thought Geralt might have loved him, too.
How naive he’d been, slowly decaying, hurtling through mortality, and believing such a thing.
Two decades trailing behind this man, and Jaskier had seen how Geralt truly loved. He was passionate, talkative, tactile, gentle, protective, apologetic.
He tolerated Jaskier.
Oh, and did that realization not steal his breath.
Geralt looked up sharply. No doubt he had noticed Jaskier’s jackrabbiting heart. (How many beats did it have left? Perhaps, he should start rationing them. Draw out the inevitable.)
Jaskier ignored Geralt’s appraising stare and read the Dragon constellation as if it was a scrap of sheet music. The callouses on his fingertips dragged satisfyingly, numbly against the lute strings.
This elven craft may even outlast him.
No use worrying about his mortality. They’d hardly mourn him as they trudged through eternity together.