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Winters became something the witchers looked forward to. A couple of months to just be themselves without worry, without the constant threat of being run out of town. Before Jaskier, they used to try and leave it as long as possible to return, avoiding the other witchers as much as possible. Now though, as soon as acceptable to rest from the trudge along their path, they were there.
So nobody expected to hear Jaskier hollering from the mountainside, voice breaking as he tried to get attention. It sounded suspiciously like “help”. Lambert and Eskel were on their horses in an instant, riding hard to find their bard and hoped they weren’t too help with whatever ill had befallen him.
It wasn’t Jaskier in trouble. It was Geralt. He was propped up against a tree, bleeding sluggishly and giving Jaskier a fierce scowl.
“I’ll be fine,” he grumbled, even as he turned to look at his brothers approaching.
“Fine? You have a forktail dive bomb you, lift you above the trees, only to drop you again. I watched your leg snap like a twig!”
Now that Lambert looked, he could see where it was still a little twisted, not quite in line. That was going to hurt like a bitch.
“How did a forktail get the drop on you?” Eskel was crouching down next to Geralt and poking at the bite on his shoulder.
An uncomfortable silence followed and even Jaskier wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes as he shuffled a little. Lambert and Eskel looked between them.
“Were you seriously getting it on in the woods so close to home?” Lambert asked, disbelief pitching his voice higher than usual.
“No!” Both Jaskier and Geralt looked mortified and offended by the very idea.
“Why would I risk nettle to the bollocks like that when we have a perfectly good bed not an hour’s ride away?” Jaskier scoffed. Much more quietly, he added, “Geralt was defending me.”
It transpired that Jaskier had thought he was being helpful as Geralt fought the forktail but all he had really been was a distraction and underfoot. When the forktail had turned from Geralt to Jaskier, the only option had been for Geralt to bodily shove his bard out of the way and take the bite to the shoulder. If he hadn’t, Jaskier’s head would have been forktail snack.
It was a bit of a painful ride back, Geralt gritted his teeth as Lambert urged his horse to carry them while Eskel took a slightly more leisurely pace behind them, Jaskier atop of Roach.
“I only wanted to help,” he sniffed, a little disheartened.
“I know, Geralt knows, hell, I think the whole of Kaer Morhen knows. But maybe it’s time we taught you something for a change.”
While recovery was faster for a witcher than a regular human, it still took Geralt a good few weeks to be back on his feet. Whether it was good or not was a matter of opinion, he looked better rested than Jaskier had ever seen him before. By contrast, Jaskier was exhausted by the end of each day. As a group, the witchers had decided it was a great idea to teach Jaskier how to defend himself.
While Jaskier had been a kind and patient teacher, only taking an hour of the day for learning, the others weren’t as considerate. Lambert barged into the room at the crack of dawn and all but dragged Jaskier from the bed. Geralt grumbled and snarled until the blanket was returned then he went back to sleep like the disloyal bastard he was. Jaskier couldn’t quite forgive him until he hobbled down to the training hall with lunch in hand and made no comment about how disgustingly sweaty Jaskier was. Because Lambert was teaching him hand to hand combat.
By contrast, the afternoons were taken up by Eskel. At first, it was all theory about blades and their uses, designs and advantages over each other. That bit, Jaskier actually enjoyed. Then a training sword was shoved in his hand and the hard work started.
Evenings found Jaskier barely able to stand or lift his arms. So they were spent by the fire with Vesemir who taught him poisons. Which, actually Jaskier already knew a fair chunk about. He didn’t grow up in courts filled with back stabbings and assassinations for nothing. Some of his knowledge was new to Vesemir so they traded recipes and tips on best ways to discreetly off someone.
Geralt was a silent shadow through his day. Sometimes he would offer a comment or two on his form or suggested moves to try and best Lambert or Eskel. Most of those tips were dirty tactics, revealing that Lambert was surprisingly ticklish on his sides or that Eskel’s left knee didn’t always take his weight so was vulnerable. Which was how Jaskier truly learned that fighting wasn’t a noble or fair thing. The duels in courts for honour were more a charade and an act rather than a real fight.
The end of winter saw the witchers and Jaskier in a pile, Geralt healed up and bundling into the rough and tumble that had become the norm. They’d learned that Jaskier wasn’t as fragile as they feared humans to be while Jaskier learned how to protect himself and fight. Vesemir showed him the books on monsters. It was a crash course in self-defence, Jaskier wasn’t by any means on the same level as a witcher. But now, if they were ambushed or attacked, Geralt didn’t have to worry about him. Instead, Jaskier could sometimes even help. Their partnership had come a long way since that first meeting. And Jaskier loved it all almost as much as he loved Geralt.