Work Text:
Invisible Friends
by duointherain
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Witcher or any krakens. My roommates would throw me right on out, with my kraken if I tried that.
Notes: Jaskier is maybe seven in this story.
Julian’s room was three rooms. The room with his bed and his bathtub was the smallest, though it hadn’t felt small until the moved the big bed in. Next was the study, full of books and homework. Finally there was a space with food. The food showed up three times a day, even if he never saw or heard anyone bring it. The doors to the hall were always locked and he was told it was for his own security, but he still didn’t like it.
Sometimes his father would come and eat with him, read him books. Often, the Viscount would spend the week before The Ritual with his son. He had been taught the days of the week, the months of the year, but they meant no more than the sounds a cow or a pig might make, never having been near neither one.
What he dreamed about in the big bed, sunk down in the fluffy feather downiness of it, under silken covers was a dog. In his dreams he imagined it as tall as he was, an angelic yellow color, and it would read him books as he leaned against it. It would be a dog just like in several of his picture books, but it would get so big that it could just press its paws against the doors to the hall and they would open right up. Then the two of them would run through the halls looking for his father. In that dream there was laughter and light, joy and bouncing, and song!
His dream ended with a loud scraping noise and a sing-songy voice calling his name. The room was cold and he didn’t want to get out from under the nest of covers, but the voice kept calling him. There were big windows at the side of his bedroom and through them he could see that it was midday. There was a sliver of blue above The Ritual Tower and he wished he could see more of it. It seemed like it would be warm, such a lovely blue.
By then he was sitting up and looking for his socks that he’d left by his pillow. Big fluffy yellow socks with grippy leather hearts sewn to the soles. Wearing his socks and shoulder length brown hair, he scooted to the side of his bed and stared down at the floor, which was far, far away. There really couldn’t be anyone calling his name, but it was his duty to check.
So he rolled onto his belly and held onto the blankets as he lowered himself towards the floor. There was a strange smell in the air too. Sometimes his windows would open after a storm, sometimes it smelled like what his rooms smelled like. Papa had said it was the ocean. There were books with pictures of the ocean in them and someday he was going to see the ocean. Fish live in the ocean and he very much liked to eat fish.
As soon as his feet hit the floor, he let go of the blankets and felt a huge sense of victory! “Hello!” he yelled out to the voice that kept calling for him. “Who are you?”
“Come here, Julian,” the woman called, “I have something for you!”
He followed the sound towards the food room. When he got there there was water on the floor, but it wasn’t his fault. In the center of the room, there was a moon set in the mosaic of the floor and it lifted up as he set stamped in the flooded floor. When the water touched him, he turned a vivid bright blue, which made him very happy. He jumped up and down in the puddles of ocean water. The moon shifted and a tentacle reached out.
Julian laughed, delighted and reached out to the tentacle. “Hello! Do you want to play?”
The very young octopus wrapped its tentacle around Julian’s wrist and started to climb up his arm. “Hello,” he said in a very sing-songy voice, in a language he knew, but didn’t remember hearing before. “Let’s be friends.”
“Yes!” Julian said, drawing his new friend into a hug. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have a name. Give me a name. I want a name.”
“You can be Bob! I’m Julian, but I don’t really like that name.”
Bob snuggled up to Julian’s shoulder, tentacles curling in the long brown hair. “Your mother calls you Dandelion. I’ll call you Dandelion too.”
“I like that,” Julian said excitedly, one hand splashing in the water still surging into the food room from the hole in the floor.
A blue hand pushed a bucket up and onto the floor. A woman followed, green hair and green lips, with wings that stretched out the width of the food room. “Hello, Dandelion.”
“Hello, Siren. Are you going to eat me?”
“Of course not,” she said, leaning over chin on her palms, elbows on the floor. “I brought you a friend. I can feel your loneliness all the way in my own palace. It won’t last forever. This summer you will come visit me.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your mother. Take good care of Bob. One day he will be a mighty kraken and your staunchest defender.”
“I thought kraken were monsters and you’re a siren, but I’m a human.”
She reached out to tenderly wrap her hand around his leg. His skin turned as blue as hers from the water on her hand. “Some things are hard to understand, even if someone is grown up. Everyday someone will bring a bucket of fish for Bob. Leave the well open. It leads all the way to the harbor. If you are ever very frightened, just jump in the well with Bob and he will bring you to me.”
“Are you married to Papa?”
“Not according to the rules of humans, but yes, in my kingdom we are married. You’re going to change the world, Dandelion, make it a better place.”
He looked at the blue handprint on his ankle, reached down to feel the different skin texture. “Is this why people are afraid of me?”
“Yes, my darling, but one day you will be tall and you will make your own life and world. Make sure to keep Bob wet. He’ll get sick if he gets too dry.”
“Water,” Bob sang, tentacles directing an invisible choir. “Fish. I want a fish.”
The woman reached into the bucket and pulled out a small fish which she held close to Bob’s beak.
“Can I have a fish too,” Dandelion asked.
“Of course, dear. Don’t let Bob have bread or cake. He should only eat fish.” She grabbed a smaller fish and held it out to her son, who grabbed it with suddenly very sharp teeth, tearing it apart and swallowing it happily.
“What should I call you?”
“Mama, if you like Eligier if you are talking about me to other people. I’m Queen Eligier. Now be a brave boy. Everything will be okay.”
With that she disappeared back into the dark well of water. He got up, and slowly hauled the bucket of fish and water back to his bedroom. The servants wouldn’t find it there. Bob scurried down his arm and into the bucket of water so he could chomp fish. “Books! Read me a book!”
“Okay, but we can’t get it wet,” Dandelion said. He felt better about everything! He was Dandelion. “Stay here in the water. I’ll get some books.”
He ran back into the study room, grabbed his shirt that he’d worn the day before and a few of his favorite books. Soon he was back by the bucket with Bob half on his shoulder and half in the bucket. “This one is called Ten in Bed.”
“What’s a bed?”
Dandelion pointed at his bed. “That. It’s where I sleep. And the little one said ‘roll over, roll over!’ Then one fell out of the bed!”
“We should sleep in the water. You can’t fall out.”
“But then we have to count how many are still left in the bed. See? It’s fun like that.”
“Okay,” Bob said, a tentacle tapping the cartoon bears in the bed along with Dandelion’s little finger.