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The waves roar as they crash into the cliffs, loud enough to echo through the ages. There is a sheer, stark beauty to it all that steals Jaskier’s breath, suffocates him even half a mile and well over a millennium removed from the Sea’s relentless grasp on this desolate corner of the world.
How fitting, he thinks as he watches the memory still embedded in these stones, that he started this life with a trip to the edge of the world, and restarts it now at a place equally – if not more so – deserving of that title.
Does he want to restart it? He hadn’t asked – hadn’t known to ask – this question two and a half decades ago. But he isn’t that same wide-eyed sapling any longer, has lost much of his naïve loving wonder in the meantime. The loss aches, bone-deep and with a roar not dissimilar to the waves below. Their foam is reaching for him like tiny reverse shooting stars.
He still loves – fiercely, too much, a smouldering thirst for knowledge and curiosities that singes his core, an uncontrollable leak into nothingness – and he still yearns, but these days more for what he has lost than what he believes he could become.
The Sea’s ghost below him chastises him with the largest wave yet, crashing against the mountain side as though she could reach him, and taking a chunk out of the cliff instead. Even with all the time and distance between them, she would hug him and sweep him away, if only he said the word.
He doesn’t.
But the salt in the air – a breeze he hasn’t felt in too long – is almost that. A sweeping hug.
A smile steals onto his face, bordering on unbidden. She is beautiful, is the Sea, momentous and untamed and uncaring at first glance – but if she didn’t care, would she return again and again and again, throw herself at the mountain despite knowing the futility? She knows, unbound by time and yet tempered in its linearity. Jaskier sitting here is proof, and so is the keep behind him. And yet, she is undeterred.
Jaskier always loves her – will always have a special place in his heart for her, his first love – but he loves her for this most of all. He loves her, and he could go with her – join her current self, calm and tame compared to how she once was but not tamed in any sense of the word.
Or… or he could stay here and start over.
He is tired of starting over.
It is easier to look down at her gown and her hunger, her determination even though she knows her own impotence. Though – is it truly impotence? She has left her mark, after all, visible for millennia and beyond, outlasting human and non-human alike.
So absorbed in his thoughts is Jaskier that he only becomes aware of another presence with him on this remote bit of the fortress when there’s a sharply in-drawn breath, followed by a flurry of light footsteps down the watchtower’s winding stairs.
Ciri.
She is so surefooted in the crumbling keep, like she grew up here as a Witcher’s daughter and not a princess.
Jaskier’s smile tastes sad with more than mere melancholy. It is not necessarily a kind thing, to grow up a Witcher’s daughter.
He could stay for her, he knows. Except – except that wouldn’t be fair, would it? To saddle her with the resentment that is sure to grow over being chained to an entire group because of one person. Over leeching off of others who would wish him far away, if they had their choice.
Jaskier rather has experience with that. He isn’t keen on gathering more.
No, if he stays and restarts this life, it cannot be because of nothing but Ciri.
… he might as well be asking for a real-life miracle, put like that, the sort neither he nor his siblings can provide. Or at least not in a way that feels genuine. Jaskier would, after all, always know that he’d cheated – that he’d chained the other person to him, which would bring him right back to the point he’d started from.
Not to mention that he’d borne witness to the fallout from such an action rather personally. Another thing he isn’t keen on repeating.
And still, the Sea nestles close and recedes, a constant flux that they both know will take her away some day in her future, a distant day from Jaskier’s now. Like Jaskier thought he would take himself away – take himself off a certain someone’s hands – except here he is, all alone on the ramparts of a crumbling keep, his only company his first love who hasn’t been here in one and a half millennia.
A particularly tall wave reaches for him, falling considerably short but making him catch a smile regardless. Were there people in her current now, witnessing this spectacle? Do they wonder why the sea is this unruly? Or did she wait for a stormy day to seek him out?
I would always be alone with you, he tells her, the answering giggle – coy, playful, joined by dozens of small, overlapping waves petting the mountain side like she cannot pet him at the moment – filling him with enough warmth to give him goosebumps.
The words taste wrong on his tongue regardless, and a moment later he knows why: footsteps on the stairs, hurried and heavy, faster than humanly possible.
Think of the nocnica, Jaskier thinks, and doesn’t move.
The footsteps pause half a flight before the top, just shy of where his human perception would reach. They are deliberately audible when they resume, a careful, measured tread.
Always so careful. And yet so often careless where Jaskier is concerned. He sighs.
“– Jaskier.”
Of course it’s Geralt – but he sounds… strangled. Afraid. Has Ciri injured herself? “Are you – please – I’m sorry.”
Jaskier’s heart clenches in his chest. He has become well-versed in Geralt’s voices over the years, but he cannot recall him ever sounding like this. When his ill-worded wish for peace tried to kill Jaskier, mayhaps, and neither the djinn nor the Witcher knew how futile that was. There’s an edge of desperation to him, shivering over Jaskier’s bare arms and sinking its claws into him, yanking him directionlessly towards fixing whatever has Geralt this upset.
It shouldn’t still be this strong. He doesn’t think it will ever wane.
“Jaskier,” Geralt says again, soft and agonised. “Aren’t you cold?”
He isn’t, but he probably should be. Would be, if he were fully human. Geralt doesn’t know that, though, so Jaskier gives a noncommittal sound and leans forward a bit, trying to catch another misplaced salty breeze.
“Jaskier,” Geralt begs again, slowly coming closer, and Jaskier still doesn’t know what Geralt wants until Geralt continues, still in that strangled voice, “Please don’t – please … take my hand. Come away from the ledge.”
It might be the most words Geralt has said to him since he sprung Jaskier from prison – might be more than he said in that cell, even. And then the implications from his words hit Jaskier.
“I’m not about to fall,” he says, careful to keep his voice in his now even though the Sea below reaches for him like he could come play with her, like they aren’t separated by however many miles the coast is away from these mountains or over a millennium. The wall he is sitting on is wide, after all, and not slick at all. Even if Jaskier were fully human, there is no way he could just – slip.
“I’m – glad,” Geralt says, still so strangled. There’s a crinkle of leather, as though he’d reached for Jaskier physically and has now dropped his hand. “But – it’s not safe. And – at least take my coat?”
Right. Jaskier had eschewed over clothes when he had come out here, not expecting anyone to find him and question how an apparent human was sitting on the ramparts in the middle of Imbaelk in nothing but short sleeves.
He sighs.
Soon, he promises the Sea, the same as he has for the past four decades. What are few decades – centuries, millennia – for creatures as old as them? A blink, at most, which is part of the reason Jaskier keeps to the confines of time’s linearity these days. It gives each day a heft, and spice in the way he can still be surprised.
But this is not a surprise, and not a question. Soon, he repeats.
He takes a moment before he turns around. It isn’t easy, folding himself back into something so small, wrestling his perception back into the human constrains of the here and now. And then he takes another moment, until he stops feeling blind and deaf and swathed in cotton.
The drop into valley looks considerably more intimidating like this, even thought it is no more able to touch him than it was a minute ago.
“Ba– Jaskier?”
“Witch,” Jaskier says, and finally swings his legs back over the stones of the ramparts and turns around. He truly feels deaf; he hasn’t heard her approach. “Witcher.”
They don’t smile, or scoff. Instead they look – scared. Confused. Maybe. Jaskier isn’t settled enough in the here and now to properly parse their expressions, but he is fairly certain he doesn’t mistake those emotions, at least.
He’s seen them more often on both their faces than he ever wanted to, with this whole demon-business just a couple of weeks ago.
His feet have barely touched the ground when Geralt grabs his arms, yanking him away from the wall at his back.
“Fuck – Jaskier.” Geralt says his name like a prayer, which feels strange when it’s this particular name, and then wraps his arms around Jaskier and just folds in on himself, like he’s suddenly lost all strength.
Jaskier stands stock still for a long moment, unsure how to react. Sure, he’s always wished he could just sink into Geralt, have Geralt hold him up, but he’d given up on that two years ago atop a windy mountain, not unlike this one except that it hadn’t been quite as cold. He doesn’t know what to do with Geralt wrapped to him like he doesn’t have the strength for anything else.
He is even more – discombobulated, yes, that is a good word – when Yennefer crosses over to them, moulding herself to his back with the same … urgency, both of them clinging to him like he is about to up and disappear, like they haven’t both wanted exactly that for the past however many years they’ve each known Jaskier.
When they haven’t let go after twenty seconds or so, Jaskier carefully wraps one arm around Geralt and finds Yennefer’s hand with his other hand, squeezing them both. He isn’t entirely sure what’s gotten into them, but it seems like a safe thing to do.
“Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” Yennefer tells him.
“What?” Jaskier asks. Come up here without a coat? Or – sit on the ramparts? They’re never this worried when it’s Ciri, scaling walls and obstacle courses that have much more potential for harm.
“Please,” Geralt adds, and Jaskier genuinely starts considering having tripped into a parallel dimension – he’s done it before, after all, though the trip was unpleasant to say the least and the mismatch to his usual reality painfully obvious. How else can he explain the unprecedented number of times Geralt has said please over the past couple of minutes, though?
“What’s gotten into you?” Jaskier drops his arms, a silent offer for them to step back and let him go. They don’t. If anything, they appear to cling even tighter.
“What’s gotten into us?” Yennefer repeats incredulously, squeezing him hard enough he can feel his very human bones creak. “What’s gotten into you!”
“Thinking about where to go from here,” he says softly, more truthfully than he maybe intended.
Geralt’s breath hitches. “Please – stay.”
Jaskier can barely believe the words. Yes – Geralt had said sorry. But there’s a difference between saying sorry and wanting him to stay.
“Are you sure?” Geralt’s breath hitches again, but Jaskier barrels on before he can interject, “Because I – I cannot stay here now and have the – and always wonder if… if I’ll end up shovelling shit again, until you want nothing more than for me to be taken off your hands.”
He wishes he could take the words back immediately. He’s been trying – trying so hard not to voice that question, ever since Geralt said I need your help back in Oxenfurt. But folded into this body, what can Jaskier offer? Nothing, as evidenced by the demon fight. And he is already folded so small. He cannot fold himself even smaller just to avoid annoying Geralt.
Yennefer draws in a sharp breath, not unlike Ciri earlier. “Geralt –”
“I never – you didn’t deserve those words. It was wrong of me to blame you.”
The words hit Jaskier like a blow. If it weren’t for Yennefer still at his back, he is sure he would stumble away, Geralt’s hold on him be damned.
“Geralt,” Jaskier breathes, and then wraps both arms around Geralt again. Geralt is solid against him, and Jaskier hopes – prays, for all that he will get shit for this later – that this isn’t just a dream. He could check, but that suddenly seems even more daunting.
“What were you going to do?” Yennefer asks and moves so she’s at his side and can see her face.
Jaskier shrugs.
“I was thinking of going to the coast.” There – not a lie, and less hair-raising than saying, I was talking to a long lost echo of my first love and considering letting her sweep me away.
“The – is that a euphemism?” Yennefer takes a step back, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at him.
Jaskier frowns at her in confusion. “A euphemism?”
“For –” She makes a evocative gesture with her hands.
“Oh.” Jaskier glances behind himself, and considers for once the chain of events that have led to Geralt and Yennefer both storming the ramparts minutes after Ciri saw him sitting there, feet dangling over the edge. Oh. “It is not. I did mean the actual coast, not –”
He starts and yanks himself free of Geralt’s arms, suddenly desperate for some distance between them. “Wait – did you – were you – do you truly regret those words, or did you just say them because you thought –” thought I’d jump. He cannot make himself voice the thoughts.
Geralt rears back, hands half-raised in something like surrender, and a wide-eyed look on his face. “No. I was … I just needed … a push, I guess. To say them.” There’s a small smile just barely visible on Geralt’s face, uncertain like he isn’t sure it’s appropriate, like he isn’t sure Jaskier will join.
Jaskier joins. He doesn’t think he could stop himself even if he wanted, his heart jumping to his throat and pushing traitorous tears into his eyes.
“I – I’m sorry, too,” he croaks out. Sorry for being tone-deaf. Sorry for overstepping Geralt’s boundaries again and again, until Geralt felt the need to lash out on that mountain top. Sorry that he, of all people, cannot seem to find the words now.
Yennefer huffs. “If you’re quite done with all the – sappiness,” she says, but there’s a softness to her, too, like she was genuinely worried about Jaskier, “might I suggest you take this up again after you’ve gotten out of the cold?”
As if on cue, Jaskier’s more-human-than-not body registers the cold, now that he isn’t sandwiched between two people who tend to run hotter than mere humans. He shivers.
“Yes, p-please do before you have a b-bardcicle,” Jaskier manages through his suddenly chattering teeth.
Geralt rolls his eyes and spreads his arms in a silent offer. Jaskier barely hesitates before he steps into them again. “Still have time to figure out where to go next.”
Jaskier snorts as Geralt guides them back towards the door to the keep proper. “And I promise you – I’m not planning on taking a nose-dive into the ravine.”
“Please don’t do so accidentally, either,” Yennefer says, walking close enough that her arm brushes Jaskier’s every other step. It adds to the warmth inside him that has nothing to do with the absence of cold air.
“As if such a thing could bring me down.” He isn’t sure anything could bring him down, now that Geralt’s words are slowly sinking in.
Well. They still need to talk about things. Figure out how to avoid the mistakes of the past.
But Geralt gives a soft chuckle at his words, and Yennefer elbows him, and he suddenly is a lot more… optimistic. Downright hopeful, compared to how he was just a couple minutes earlier.
Another misplaced salty breeze wafts around him, a hint of roaring waves in the back of his mind.
No cheating, he tells the Sea, but it buoys his mood, and it makes Geralt’s next words seem even more weighty.
“Who knows,” Geralt says gruffly, his deep voice rumbling through Jaskier, “maybe our next steps will take us to the coast. If… if that offer still extends to me. To… us.”
Jaskier’s heart doesn’t just jump into his throat: it threatens to leap right out of his chest.
“Of course,” he chokes out. “Always.”
Neither Geralt or Yennefer know quite what the coast means to him – cannot know. But maybe… maybe they still get an inkling.
And maybe, if they do go to the coast, he might get a chance to show them what it truly means to him. And maybe… what they mean to him. Both of them, at this point.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, he chastises himself, but he’s never been good at that, and, well. The Sea gave her blessing. Maybe he can allow his thoughts to roam.
The thought is freeing, and he indeed floats on that feeling for the rest of their stay in Kaer Morhen, and all the way down the mountain as they head towards the coast, two years after he first proposed the plan and with two more people than expected.
To Jaskier’s surprise, it feels like a more than fair bargain.