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“Hand me the reigns,” Jaskier ordered.
“Reins,” Geralt grunted, as if Jaskier hadn’t just said the exact same thing. He continued to plod along at Roach’s head without making any move to allow Jaskier to steer her himself.
“Yes, the reigns,” Jaskier repeated slowly. They hadn’t been travelling together long, and to say that Jaskier hadn’t figured out the witcher’s communication style would imply the witcher had a communication style.
“Reins,” Geralt repeated. “There’s no silent ‘g’ in it.”
“What? How do you know I’m putting a silent ‘g’ in it?”
“Can smell it.”
And Jaskier might be a little high on whatever foul concoction the witcher had dumped down his throat when he broke his ankle, but he knew what that smelled like. “Bullshit. Bull fucking shit. You cannot smell grammar.”
“Maybe you can’t—”
“No one can smell a silent ‘g’!”
“Know you’re using one, though.” Geralt shrugged. “Might be the tone of voice. Like you’re a reigning fucking king up there.”
Jaskier crossed his arms and pouted until he realized that his silence was exactly what the witcher wanted.
“A reining king?” Jaskier asked.
“No, that one has a ‘g’ in it. Actually two g’s, the first one is silent.”
Jaskier pouted again, only louder. “Since when are you an expert in spelling?”
“Not.”
“I should say you are not,” Jaskier said. “You do the fighting, I do the…wording.” Shit, maybe he was higher than he thought.
“How’s that working out for you up there, bard?” Geralt put an awful lot of emphasis on Jaskier’s preferred profession.
“Shut up, I can word…good.”
Geralt snorted at him, then, gods forbid, kept talking. “You use reins to steer a horse, and most people can rein in themselves. Not you though—”
“Hey!”
“And a king reigns over his kingdom. Lot’s of ‘g’s’…kings reign over kingdoms.”
“Right,” Jaskier repeated. “You word good too, Geralt. Not often, but. It’s good when you do.” Yup, definitely high as the hot Zerrikanean sun, that was Jaskier, because he was getting sappy.
“Hmm,” Geralt said, no doubt just to be a shit. People underestimated just how much of a shit he was.
“Hmm,” Jaskier echoed. He thought for a minute. “I’m going to write a song about this, you know. It will be called ‘Reining in the Reigning King’, and everyone will be singing it by midwinter.”
“Doubt it.”
“Well. Hopefully it will amuse someone, anyway.” Jaskier sighed. A broken ankle, a dwindling high, and being corrected on his grammar by a witcher, he truly was reaching new lows every day.
Geralt glanced back at Jaskier as if he could sense the sudden downturn in his mood. Or smell it. The beautiful asshole probably could, too.
“It would amuse me,” Geralt said. “A song like that, it would amuse me.”
The smile that spread across Jaskier’s face was too sweet, too revealing, and he knew it, but Geralt smiled back easily.
“Hand me the reins?” Jaskier asked, just to break the tension.
“No,” Geralt said, huffing as he turned back to the road. “You’re high, you wouldn’t know what to do with them.”
“Actually,” Jaskier said, “I can think of several interesting uses for reins. Have I ever told you about my affair with…”