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Silence enveloped him.
It was the kind of deep, undisturbed silence that felt pensive, like a held breath.
It rang in his ears and made the cords in his throat vibrate with the need to break it.
But he held still, knowing that all of this was an illusion and that to shatter it - to shift against it - would undo all the work that had brought him here, to this place of quiet.
Of silence.
His memory, such as it was, spiralled away from him in ribbon, colours soaked into the edges and refracting like rainbows against the black backdrop of his eyelids and despite the absolute stillness of the space around him, his heart ached as each one unravelled. It was like losing bits of himself. Each ribbon of memory glowing bright before fading into nothing.
Jaskier, something whispered against his senses, breaking the silence, but not, somehow. It was a voice that made him want to reach out and recoil at once. Jaskier, remember your name.
He was startled to realize that he hadn’t, for a moment, thought that the voice was speaking to him. My name? his thoughts drifted hazily to the surface. Is that my name?
Amusement coloured the voice when it spoke again, feeling like a ripple of bright purple and green against his mind. Yes. Amongst so many others. But this one, you chose for yourself.
A name he chose for himself. What did that mean? And why was he here? What purpose did he serve? Why couldn’t he remember?
There was a sigh, like the breaking of waves before a storm. You were always difficult, my Buttercup. But this time - this time you will be unstoppable.
Before he could ask what that meant, the darkness around him splintered. Shards of absolute black pierced him, driving themselves through skin and bone and lodging themselves deep inside. When he tried to take a breath, to gasp, to cry, to scream, it felt like he was drowning in a sea of glass.
It was tearing him apart.
As the silence gave way to the rushing sound of the shattered dark, Jaskier felt himself falling. The voice was humming now, a soothing sound in counterpoint to the excruciating pain that was pouring itself through his body. It was a lullaby, like the quiet hum of stars in the night sky he remembered when he was just created.
When his mother first spun him out of darkness and space and brought him into being.
He remembered.
Jaskier gathered himself, somehow willing the shards of darkness into their proper place. Now that he knew who he was - what he was - he could fix this. He could remake himself, undo what his brother had done and turn back the clock.
He could save the world.
*
Valdo glanced around at the two other Witchers, nervousness getting the better of him. They’d been standing under the willow tree in the vast room for what seemed like hours, trying to work out what to do next.
“I don’t suppose either of you have a plan if this doesn’t work?” he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and toeing at a loose tuft of grass. “I’m not even sure what’s going to happen let alone what ‘works’ or ‘doesn’t work’ even means,” he continued, grumbling mostly to himself.
“I think,” Eskel started slowly, obviously choosing his words with care. “That this is far beyond anything we three can understand.”
Beside him, Letho snorted. “That’s an understatement.”
Valdo scowled. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck Jaskier meant when he brought us here and why this elaborate prison was set up for a celestial being, or whatever, but I’ve lived long enough to know that I don’t like being lied to, and I certainly don’t like being dragged over half the fucking Continent and not get any answers!”
He knew he was being irrational. He knew he probably looked like a boiled tomato right now. And he especially knew that yelling about it wouldn’t get him any answers any sooner, but after climbing an interminable amount of stairs and having Jaskier introduce them to his mother of all people, only to have said mother grab Jaskier and disappear before any of them could react, he decided he was entitled to at least one little breakdown.
He watched Eskel raise his hands in a placating gesture and reminded himself that he loved the man and that strangling him at this moment would be a terrible idea. “I think,” he repeated, and it took Valdo considerable effort not to roll his eyes, “that we need to trust Jaskier on this. It’s not like he can make things worse.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Letho mumbled under his breath, hand coming up to cover his eyes. “You know when you say things like that, something even worse is going to happen and, from my perspective, it’s going to be completely your fault.”
Eskel sighed. “As I said before, Jaskier knows what he’s doing - “
“That’d be a first,” Valdo scoffed.
“Valdo can we please focus,” Eskel growled, causing a shiver to pass involuntarily down Valdo’s spine and Eskel to groan in frustration. “Not the fucking time!”
Letho suddenly looked incredibly amused. “Well, when you put it that way - “
“Not helping!”
This time Valdo did give in and rolled his eyes.
It was at that moment that a portal appeared in front of them and a figure with a cascade of deep indigo coloured hair surrounding a heart-shaped face with eyes as blue as summer skies stepped out. In their arms they carried what looked like Jaskier, his limp body glowing with a strange light. Just under the surface of his skin, like a tangled skein of yarn, white threads gathered and flowed down into the backs of his hands and the center of his chest where they seemed to be sucked into a black void.
“Jaskier,” Valdo whispered, hands raised as if to take him from the brown-skinned figure. He wanted more than anything to know what had happened to his friend. But more than that, he wanted to know if he was alive, if he would remember them all.
“He sleeps,” the mother of Time spoke, their voice quiet and strange. “I have done all I can to do as he asked. I have unravelled his past and future and shown him the threads he must pull. It is up to him now.” Their gaze rested on the trio in front of them and turned contemplative, if not a little cunning. “And you. He kept your threads. But you will still have to fit back into your lives afterwards.”
Looking between themselves, Eskel, Letho and Valdo nodded. They weren’t certain what that meant, but for Jaskier, for the sake of Time, they would try.
“Good,” they spoke, settling under the great willow tree and cradling their son in their lap. “Now, let me help you save this world.”