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The thick canopy of Brokilon forest allows but a handful of rays to reach the ground. Ancient trees stand tall, gnarled branches and thick barks serve as a home to many creatures that skitter around and prepare for the winter to come.
There, below a century-old oak, cradled by its dark thick shadow, a newborn child takes its first breath and cries. Women made of the trees themselves, tall and strong, unwavering and steadfast to the forest, gather around the babe.
They’ve been awaiting a gift of their Mother Forest for many seasons now, the last girl born is already old enough to start training in their magic, their culture and history. They’ve been awaiting a new girl for far too long. And yet, the babe that their forest gave to them is… wrong.
It can’t be; Mother Forest is millennia old, wise and all-knowing. But even she makes mistakes.
It can’t be, and yet it cries before them.
A boy.
A boy was born. And it cries and cries like no other dryad babe before.
That can’t be good, they think. This isn’t right. The last boy born ended up a monster after all. Haunting the eastern woods for hundreds of years, until a witcher managed to end him.
Mother Forest gave them a monster in the making.
They make a promise that day, to keep the boy under tight surveillance until it’s old enough to live on its own. In another forest. Preferably far far away.
The boy grows up feeling unwanted. None of his many sisters wants to have anything to do with him. He doesn’t know what he did wrong; what made his siblings dislike him so.
At first, he thinks that that’s the norm. To grow up in silence. To be offered the barest scraps of food, of the forest’s water, of education. But then, when the boy is approaching his tenth year on the Continent and is still unnamed, a new babe is born. A girl this time, like all dryads before the boy. And his sisters, they smile and coo at the new babe, they cradle her and sing soft songs for her. They name her Oak as soon as they see those big brown eyes of hers. She gets her own little home when she’s old enough, a home the boy never got; damned to be drifting from tree to tree to hide from the elements.
He knows then that it’s him they shove away. It’s him they don’t want.
And it hurts his little heart so much. It hurts and hurts and hurts until he feels there’s no air in the world left to fill his little lungs.
No matter how many tears he sheds no matter how much he pleads, no one listens. No one cares.
They have the decency to teach him how to use his innate chaos at the very least. How to hunt. How to connect with Mother Forest.
They aren't cruel, they tell him.
As the years pass and he’s approaching adulthood, he grows resentful of them. His pain soaring every time Oak is praised, every time they include her in their tribe’s gatherings to which he is –and always will be– unwelcome.
He knows now; it’s wrong to feel this way, to be mistreated so.
He’s sixteen summers old when he’s finally had enough. He packs his meagre belongings; a book of human stories he snagged from one of his elder sisters when she was away tending to the forest, his lone change of clothes and some mushrooms he foraged when the warm autumn rain hit Brokilon. And he leaves for good.
He has no idea what awaits him outside the safety of the thick canopy and the fence of trees. Yet, he finds out he doesn’t care.
Maybe he’ll find those humans from the stories in his book. Maybe he’ll find another forest to call home.
Home, the one thing his heart desires.
The boy, now a young man, travels to the south-east of Brokilon. He’s lucky, in his unluckiness, the path out of the forest clear of any beasts that may bring him harm. He walks and walks until his feet wear blisters until his soles are hard and thick from misuse.
It takes him a week to pass the hills outside of his Mother Forest, to reach another wooded area. During this week the lone person he meets is one that resembles him, not his sisters. Not their frame, but his. It’s another man, he realises and stares with awe.
The man speaks to him in an odd version of his language; like it’s his mother tongue but somehow different? Still, the boy understands him.
“What are you doing walking around without a hat on?” the stranger asks, a sense of urgency colouring his voice, and the boy arches an eyebrow. “They’ll hunt you. Kill you for sport. Quick, take my spare one!” he hands the boy a grey felt hat.
“Who?” the boy asks.
“The humans. They hunt anyone with ears like ours.”
The man is not lying. He can see it on his face. So, the boy thanks him, wears the hat the man gave him and bids him farewell.
Anxiety swirling in his stomach, fidgety and snapping his head around to every minor sound, the boy finally makes it to the next forest.
This forest is smaller than Brokilon. So much smaller. The trees are tiny compared to the centuries-old oaks and willows of Mother. The underbrush though, much lusher. (Not many things can grow where the sun won’t reach after all.)
He decides to make this forest his home. He’ll care for it -embed his chaos in its core- and in return, the forest will care for him too.
He builds a cabin out of fallen trees, weaves his magic and spurts some ivy and woodbine to wrap the building so that the rain and cold won’t be able to breach its walls.
It’s by no means perfect, but it’s his.
Soon enough he finds out that humans hunt in his woods, laying all sorts of traps for the little creatures that dwell in the burrows. He makes sure to stay out of sight when one nears his home, hiding in the lush vegetation. From them, he picks up a few words; rabbit, doe, careful, wolf, no, yes, kill.
It’s a warm sunny day and he’s tending to his little garden, making sure the earth will not dry-out, that his plants will not wither and die before their time has come. A scent he’s come to associate with his sisters, with powerful ancient magic, suddenly fills his lungs and he startles, accidentally snapping a tender branch from his beanstalk.
His breath hitches when a girl, with dark wavy hair and caramel skin, a crooked back and deformed jaw lands on his bed of lilac. Unable to move, his eyes meet her brilliant purple gaze. The colour of his lilacs.
The girl speaks to him but he doesn’t understand what she’s saying. “I don’t speak human,” he says, the mangled beanstalk still firm in his grasp.
“Aen Sidhe?” she asks trying to get up, her twisted spine hindering her movements.
He shakes his head and moves to help her get on her feet. She doesn’t look dangerous, even if she stinks of chaos.
“Yennefer,” she says, pointing to herself, and gestures a ‘thank you’. Yennefer. Must be her name, he thinks. Pretty name. Unusual. She then points to him, hand turning in question.
He frowns, brows knitting together in shame. He’s seventeen summers old and still, he has no name to call himself. He tried to find one fitting, but nothing ever felt right.
“No name?” she queries in the human tongue.
“Name,” he echoes, gears clicking at the meaning of the word, “No name,” he answers simply.
She looks at him with big sad eyes for a moment before she speaks again, finger pointing to his chest, “Geralt.”
“Geralt,” he smiles. He likes the sound of it. Ge-Ra-lt. It has a nice ring to it. “Thank you, Yennefer,” he nods courtly and she tilts her head in confusion.
And once again, the scent of chaos permeates his nose and a portal opens where Yennefer stands. She disappears as quickly as she appeared. And Geralt can only think that he wants to see her again.
A few years pass and his antlers are finally making their appearance. They’re very small still, but they are there. Yennefer returns to his little house from time to time, always staying very little and always bringing out a smile on his face. With every visit they get a little bit better in understanding one another; he learns her language and she learns his.
There are days that Geralt looks at her and feels he’s watching the Sun herself. Her existence is so bright and beautiful, so fierce. His heart beats for her in a way unlike for anything else in the world.
And then, a bright spring day, surrounded by myriads of flowers, she meets his eyes, runs her digits through his auburn curls and whispers, “I love you, Geralt.”
Love.
The word echoes and repeats, dances through his brain, and sends pleasant shivers down his spine.
Love.
A word he never thought he’d ever hear in his lifetime. A word so strangely fitting with the warmth he feels spreading throughout his body when he looks at her when he hears her laugh, sees her beautiful lilac eyes shine with mirth.
He loves her. By Brokilon, he loves her!
Geralt leans forward and presses their foreheads together. A deep rumble bubbles in his chest. After many years of loneliness, he feels at peace. Content.
Yennefer bites her lower lip, and he feels her soft breath against his skin. She wraps her arms around his head and sinks just enough so that their lips meet, reluctant and fragile. The contact sends a buzz throughout his body and he finds himself wanting more- he wants to taste her lips again and again until it leaves them both breathless.
“I love you too,” he breathes against her lips, “You’re so fucking perfect, Yen.”
Yennefer’s visits grow longer and more frequent, as their relationship progresses. When she’s with him his heart blooms and she is all he can think of; when she’s away an ache settles deep in his bones and visions of beautiful lilac eyes plague his dreams.
It’s the beginning of spring -his little garden just now starting to bloom- and Yen isn’t going to pay him a visit for two more weeks. He misses her a lot but he understands that her studies in Aretuza are important to her. The closer she’s to graduating, she tells him, the more she has to focus so that she is assigned a good position as a court mage. She hopes to go to Aedirn, Vengerberg, where she stems from.
She’s strong and intelligent and Geralt knows in his heart she can achieve whatever she desires. He just hopes -as selfish as it is- that she’ll choose him in the end. That she’ll spend her free time with him, together in their little cottage in the depths of Sodden forest, cuddling under the stars.
It’s spring and as the lilac flowers bloom, the hollow in his heart gets bigger. He can’t look at them and not think of his beautiful sorceress. He can’t look at them and so he stays inside his little cottage, brooding alone.
He wants to follow Yen to the end of the world. But he can’t. Not when he’s so blatantly non-human. Not when he hears whispers of the great war mankind has started with the Aen Sidhe. He’s not an elf -he knows that- but to the eyes of the humans he might as well be.
A loud yelp and heavy panting interrupt his thoughts. Geralt leaps to the little window, peering outside for any danger.
And then he sees him. A man wielding a big sword, just outside his field of buttercups, fending off a pack of nekkers.
Geralt watches in awe as the man pirouettes around the little monsters, slashes and cuts, and throws blasts of magic at them. The beastlings are many, however, and the man seems tired; his movements getting slower by the minute.
He should go out and help this man. Nekkers have always been a plague in Geralt’s forest. One he couldn’t be rid of, not even with Yennefer’s help.
Geralt should help the man, but who’s to say that the man will want his help. That he won’t see Geralt’s antlers and pointed ears and cry monster. That’s why he stays inside his little house and watches the fight unfold.
The swordsman struggles, his blood paints Geralt’s buttercups red, and Geralt feels his pain, knows that if he doesn’t intervene in time he’ll have to bury a corpse tonight. He doesn’t want that. It’s not right.
Before he can think his decision through, he leaps through the door and reaches for the chaos of the land -of the core of his forest- to aid him. He raises his hands to the sky and vines grow from the ground tangling the remaining nekkers, rendering them immobile. With one sluggish swing of his sword, the swordsman cuts the beasts and drops on the field of buttercups unconscious.
Geralt tends to the swordsman’s many wounds for the next few days, as the man lays sleeping off the poison running in his veins from the nekkers’ deadly bite. Each day Geralt administers the antidote to the man, he cleans and dresses the cuts and bites that litter his lithe body.
On the morning of the fifth day, the man jerks awake, buttercup yellow eyes meeting Geralt’s moss green.
Geralt flinches and retreats at the corner of his little home, as far away from the simple cot, on which the man now sits, as he can. “I-” Geralt curls into himself as those beastly slit pupiled buttercup eyes stare at him, “You’re awake,” he manages to say, “I’m glad.”
“Where am I? Who are you?” the man fiddles with his bandages, his voice steady and calm.
“I’m Geralt and you’re in my home. Those nekkers almost got you, swordsman.”
“Witcher,” the man says and Geralt tilts his head in question, “I’m a witcher. A monster hunter,” the witcher fixes his gaze on Geralt’s horns and Geralt’s stomach churns in fear. The man chuckles and smiles, showcasing sharp canines, “I won’t harm you, Geralt. See, I’m not in the business of hunting… cursed elves?”
“Dryad,” Geralt corrects and steps closer.
The witcher gasps, his buttercup eyes shining with curiosity, “A male dryad! How rare! That’s amazing!” he claps his hands.
“Nothing amazing about that,” Geralt sighs, “More a curse than a blessing.” He doesn’t know why he’s telling the stranger all this, why he trusts those yellow eyes so easily. There’s something about this witcher- something special. He reeks of Destiny.
“That’s too bad,” the witcher frowns, “Ah, but where are my manners, Geralt. I’m such a terrible guest! I haven’t introduced myself yet!” he stands up and bows theatrically, “I’m Jaskier of Rivia.”
Jaskier. Buttercup. Fitting.
Geralt smiles.
Jaskier stays for a couple more days -by Geralt’s insistence- until he’s fully recovered and Geralt is sure he won’t die in his woods. The witcher is a very talkative man and soon enough Geralt learns his whole life-story. He’s young for a witcher, barely in his fifth year on the Path. He tells Geralt of the cruel trials who stripped him of humanity and many of his friends, of the call of the Path and of saving countless villages from all sorts of monsters the dryad has never had the chance to encounter in his short life.
Having been through so much shit, Jaskier is oddly optimistic. Geralt admires that about him.
Early on the second morning, Jaskier bids him farewell and promises to visit when he’s in this part of the Continent again. Hours later Yennefer steps out of a portal, a furious expression painted on her face.
“I can’t fucking get it through my mind, Geralt,” she huffs, “I trusted him and he betrayed me! He told his bloody shit-stain of a master that I’m part elf! That fucking bastard!” she screams, tears running down her cheeks.
“Istredd?” Geralt asks even though he knows the answer, and takes her into his embrace. She sobs for a while in the hollow of his neck, her tears staining his cotton chemise.
“I can’t- I can’t get the position in Aedirn because of my blood,” she says when she’s calmed down a bit, “They want to send me to Nilfgaard, Geralt. Fucking backwater, excuse of a kingdom, Nilfgaard. I refuse to spend my life serving a shit monarch.” He hums, not knowing what to say to help her. “Oh,” she tilts her head, meeting his eyes, “I have an idea.”
He doesn’t like that look; it spells trouble. But he says nothing.
The next time he sees Yennefer he almost doesn’t recognise her. If it weren’t the fondness in her smile and the love in her lilac eyes, he would have thought a strange sorceress landed in his garden. Yennefer’s spine is no longer twisted, and her jaw is perfect and symmetrical.
“I got the position, Geralt,” she says and smiles brightly, “I’ve been assigned to Aedirn.”
“I’m happy for you,” he says in a low rumble, silently wondering what she must have exchanged for this… new look.
“Come,” she says, her lips brushing his, “Let’s have some fun. We deserve it.”
Years pass and Geralt’s antlers are fully grown, tall and majestic (and very very inconvenient.) In those years he grows closer to Jaskier, the witcher visits are frequent and always followed by stories and laughter. A spot in Geralt’s heart decides it wants the witcher around, it wants the witcher like it wants the sorceress.
He never thought it possible to feel like drowning in love. And yet here he is. He loves them both so much that every time they are with him his heart feels close to bursting.
Strangely, Yennefer and Jaskier never meet. They both know of the existence of the other; Geralt is not one to lie to people he cares about. And yet, he’s never found himself with both of them together.
Somewhere along the line, Jaskier confesses his love to Geralt and the aftermath is several days and nights spent in the embrace of one another.
Yennefer visits one dark winter day, eyes rimmed red and swollen from crying.
She tells him of a babe buried on the coastal sand, its crime being born the wrong gender.
He cries with her that day and so does the sky.
An urgent knock on the door wakes Geralt up in the middle of a cold autumn night. Geralt takes a deep breath and goes to the door. He finds Jaskier battered and bruised, a long infested scar starting from above his left eyebrow and stretching towards his left ear, barely missing his eyeball.
“Hi, Geralt,” he waves weakly and collapses on Geralt’s chest.
When the fever subsides after a week, Jaskier tells him of a cursed princess and an evil mage. Of the lesser evil that doesn’t exist and of a massacre in a town called Blaviken.
Geralt’s heart aches for his witcher, and he feels so lost, so worthless. He’s stuck in Sodden, unable to join Jaskier on his travels, unable to find this mage and rip him apart inch by inch.
Geralt doesn’t know how long he’s spent confined in Sodden forest. The seasons blend with one another, his only highlights the visits from his two lovers.
He hears from Jaskier about a banquet at some point. About a child of Surprise and an angry queen.
He hears from Yennefer of helping a whole town of people with their marital problems.
But that’s all he ever does; he hears stories. He doesn’t experience them.
Maybe he ought to ask Yen for help the next time he sees her. Maybe it’s time to leave Sodden behind and explore the world.
A djinn almost takes Yen’s life. Geralt is mad at her recklessness. What was she thinking? Inviting an evil spirit to live in her body! And for what?
He lashes out at her with cruel words, blinded by anger. And she screams back. She accuses him of being selfish, of choosing the forest over her, over and over again. She says he has no right to be mad at her for trying to restore something she’s lost and so dearly wants. He has no right when he remained passive during everything. Staying safe, under the thick canopy of Sodden forest.
It stings. It hurts. But she’s right, he’s been selfish.
“What’s on your mind, love?” Jaskier rests his head on Geralt’s shoulder, one deft hand playing with the dryad’s long auburn curls. Geralt grunts. “Oh, don’t be so brutish, dear heart. You know I don’t speak grunt. I’m just worried; you’ve been too quiet- and even for you that’s strange.”
“I’m fine, Jask,” Geralt pulls the witcher into a deep slow kiss, hoping that this will fill the hole in his heart where Yennefer resided for so many years.
“If you say so,” Jaskier hums against Geralt’s lips, “You know,” he continues, “I met the most incredible woman,” he smiles.
Geralt rolls his eyes and smiles fondly, bracing himself for the tale of yet another human that caught his witcher’s eye. Last time it was a countess. Before that, a troubadour in Oxenfurt. Who knows what kind of person this one is?
Of course, Jaskier fell for Yennefer. Of course, Destiny would be so cruel, to bring his two most important people together just when he fell out with one of them.
Fuck Destiny.
Fuck that shit.
Why couldn't they have been all together years now? Why did Jaskier and Yennefer never meet before Geralt stupidly drove Yennefer away?
Why?
A war is brewing; Geralt can feel it in the air, in the earth, in the corrupted chaos that fills the world.
He hopes Jaskier stays out of it. He hopes he’ll protect that child-surprise he always talked about.
Part of Geralt still thinks about Yennefer. He hopes she proves smart enough to avoid this war. (He has the feeling she’ll find herself right in the middle of it.)
It’s not long before the war reaches his doorstep. Before his forest cries for help as blades and magic clash beneath its canopy.
He has to do something, anything, to protect the only home he’s ever known. He can’t sit and wait in the relative safety of his house as if this is just another storm that will pass.
Geralt calls his forest’s core to his aid, a thing he hasn’t done since he saved Jaskier this fateful day so many decades ago. He taps deep into the core’s power and sees the army of black and gold, their countless mages sapping power from his land, and when this proves lacking they start sacrificing each other. It’s sickening. It’s so horribly wrong.
He calls all creatures that haven’t yet vacated Sodden to help him; the wolves and bears, the birds and hares. And they respond.
They assault the intruders from left and right, bringing havoc wherever they go. Geralt knows this won’t be enough to drive them off, that many of inhabitants of his beloved forest will perish in the fight. So he reaches for the plants too, weaving traps and barriers, disorienting the corrupted army, stalling them.
He sees that in the fortress far on the Sodden hill a different army makes its stand, slinging spells at bombs at the unrelenting attackers. He sees them falling like trees, one by one, until they’re only a handful of them left.
And then he feels her magic. It’s Yen. His Yen, standing at a rock on the hill a giant ball of flame growing in front of her extended hands.
He barely has the time to react, to retread further back before the fire hits his forest.
Geralt finds Yennefer unconscious at the rock on the hill when the fires subside. She might hate him for this, but he can’t leave her there.
He cradles her at his arms and brings her back to a cave in his half-burned forest, his hut destroyed by a wild blast of magic.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, again and again, tears welling in his eyes, as he slathers a healing salve on her burned arms. “Please wake up Yen. I can’t - I’m not ready to lose you.”
“Geralt?” she croaks, her voice rough from unuse.
“I’m here, Yen. I’m here.”
“I’m sorry too.”
It’s a restless night for Geralt. It’s exhausting but he keeps up his connection with Sodden’s core scanning every inch of the forest for a threat. Aside from a few ghouls that seem to cause trouble, there doesn’t seem to be any real danger left. That is, until the first rays of sun hit the earth.
“Geralt?” Yennefer asks, her voice barely a whisper, “What’s wrong?”
“Jaskier,” he responds, “a ghoul bit him.”
“Fuck,” she hisses, and attempts to get up, “Of course, he is your witcher.”
“Don’t,” Geralt says, “Rest. I’ll go get him.”
Geralt runs and runs, the trees showing him the ever-changing path of the witcher. He runs until his soles bleed. He runs until he sees Jaskier downing a potion at the back of a merchant’s cart, Roach trotting beside him.
He sighs in relief. His witcher is fine. He’s alive.
And then Jaskier gets up before Geralt can step out of the lush vegetation, and runs towards the forest. There’s something urgent in his eyes, something otherworldly Geralt can only place as the pull of magic.
Geralt follows him to a clearing where a young girl with ashen hair runs to embrace the witcher.
“Ciri,” Jaskier breathes out, “you’re alive, sweetheart. I’m-”
“Jaskier,” the girl leans into the embrace, tears glistening in her eyes. “Who’s this?” her eyes widen as her gaze meets Geralt’s.
He steps out behind the bark of a tall oak, “Jask,” Geralt says, a smile of relief painted on his face, “I see you found your child-surprise.”
“I never lost her,” the witcher purses his lips and a snort of laughter escapes Geralt’s mouth. “What? I knew she left the citadel and was following her trail!”
Geralt hums, “I see. Come with me, I’m sure Yennefer will be happy to see you with all limbs attached.”
“Yennefer?” Jaskier shrieks, “Since when do you know Yennefer, Geralt?” Geralt rolls his eyes. “Oh. Oh nonononono! She’s your witch? Gods, Geralt! A man should know of these things before he attempts a relationship with his lover’s lover! Why can’t you never mention names in conversations? Gods!”
“I don’t mind that you two are together,” Geralt simply says.
“Yes, but I do! Melitele’s tits Geralt! You’re telling me we could have all been together years now?”
Geralt hums, “Yen and I fought around the same time you met her for the first time.”
“That’s some shit luck,” a humourless laugh leaves Jaskier’s lips.
“Tell me about it.”
“How long have you and Yenna been together?” Jaskier asks as they are approaching the small cave the sorceress is resting in.
“Since we were nineteen,” Yennefer responds before Geralt can answer leaning on a sturdy branch at the cave's mouth. “You and Geralt a bit later, correct?”
“I was twenty-three,” Jaskier rushes to the sorceress’ side to support her with walking even when he himself is favouring one leg due to the ghoul’s bite.
“I was twenty-two… probably,” Geralt adds.
Ciri coughs, “Jaskier… Where will we go now? We surely, won’t stay here-” she gestures at the cave, “-forever.”
“Yeah, no, don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m planning to take you to my home. Nilfgaard won’t find you there. You’ll be safe.” Jaskier’s buttercup eyes shift between Yen and Geralt, a question unvoiced: ’Will you come with?’.
Yennefer smiles fondly, “I’ll come with you, if you’ll have me.” Geralt feels everyone’s gaze fixed at him. “What will it be, tree boy?” Yennefer is the one to ask, extending a hand towards him, “Will you come with us?”
Geralt’s heart swells with love; finally complete after years of feeling like something was always missing. He nods and takes Yen’s hand. “I love you both so much,” he mumbles under his breath and wraps all of them in a group hug.
“We love you too, you fool.”