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Jaskier has never known fear like this.
He's seen Geralt hurt before. Far too many times, come to that, over all the years they've known each other. Jaskier has learned the hard way how to stem the flow of blood, how to sew stitches into flesh as best he can, and even on one horrifically memorable occasion to cauterise a wound with heated steel.
He's been afraid each time - afraid of what he's had to do, and afraid for Geralt's life. He thought he knew terror then.
None of it was anything to finding Geralt in Brokilon looking half a breath from death.
It's then that he realises that, for all his fear, he's never really thought Geralt would die. Oh, he knows Geralt is only mortal; for all his mutations, he's still mostly human in the end, whatever he says to the contrary. But for all those wounds he's witnessed, Jaskier has also always seen Geralt heal. He's never seen Geralt so wounded that he can't get back up.
He might be dying, Yennefer had said, and Jaskier can hardly breathe through his terror.
He does not count the days they spend in Brokilon. It's a strange place anyway, liminal, outside the bounds of the mortal world. It's easy to think that the forest will remain that way forever, but there are no forevers any more. Jaskier hopes Brokilon will endure, but human avarice is a monster that not even a witcher can kill.
Even were it not for the forest's strange magic, he would not be able to track the time in anything more than the breaths that creak through Geralt's chest.
"Fuck, Geralt, I'm sorry," he whispers to the darkness one night. He's sitting on the low stool at Geralt's bedside, as he has been for a long time. They are alone - the dryads are elsewhere, and the man he loves is dying.
Movement startles him. Geralt's arm flops out from the bed, and his hand finds Jaskier's leg. He flounders there, fingers twitching, and Jaskier's heart breaks more than he can bear.
He takes the hand himself, knowing that Geralt was trying to reach him. It is singularly awful to see so little strength remaining within the most powerful person he's ever known. He twists their fingers together, willing some of his own warmth to pass into Geralt.
"Not your fault," Geralt rasps. The effort of speaking is clearly still immeasurably painful.
"Hey." Jaskier lays his other hand on Geralt's chest, feather-light. "I thought you were asleep. Don't talk, just rest."
Geralt, of course, pays no attention to anything Jaskier tells him. "How - could it be your fault?" he manages, faltering in a way he never normally would.
Jaskier huffs, and in another lifetime it might have been laughter. Now there are only tears in his eyes. "You left her with me. I was meant to protect her, and instead..."
"You couldn't have stopped her." Geralt grimaces, his chest stuttering. This feels like the first time Jaskier's ever wished for him to stop talking.
"I've been such a fucking fool." His guilt means nothing in the face of what Geralt is suffering, but he finds that he can't bear any longer to have Geralt trust him like this without knowing. "I... met someone. I thought he cared about me."
Geralt's eyes are so hazy, but their focus on him is as overwhelming as it's ever been. "Do you love him?"
Does he love Radovid? Jaskier has loved many people in many ways, but he knows love is a more straightforward thing to Geralt - that the only kind of love Geralt means is the absolute, unwavering kind. The sort that shifts mountains, changes lives. Love that burrows into your heart and never leaves.
"No," he says, and it's honest. His love for Radovid could have grown, but it would never have been that. What Geralt speaks of is a kind of love that Jaskier's heart already knows, and one it will only ever know once. "But I liked him. And I think there's truth in his claim that he cared about me too. But it wasn't enough. I let him distract me, Geralt. He would have tried to take Ciri if she hadn't already left. And because I was with him when I woke, and not with her, I couldn't stop her."
The look fixed on him is unwavering, but without judgement. "Tell me what happened."
Geralt has only ever asked so little of him, and yet he also asks the world. Jaskier tells him all the same because there is nothing else he can do; Geralt deserves the truth.
There is, somehow, no rage in Geralt's eyes when the story is told.
"Even if he'd walked in while she was sleeping, he couldn't have taken her." Geralt's eyes slide closed, but he's still awake; his lips curl into a weary facsimile of a smile. "She's more of a warrior than most soldiers."
"And he's no soldier," Jaskier says, for there's no comparison between Radovid (who, if he even owned a weapon, has never given Jaskier any sign of it) and Ciri, who stabbed that aeschna in the head without flinching. "And she was gone before he arrived. But if I'd been there, I could've talked her out of it. I should've been there to stop her."
"Would she have listened?" Geralt opens his eyes again, and it kills Jaskier how tired he looks. How broken. "I should have killed Vilgefortz. Perhaps Yennefer shouldn't have gone back to Thanedd. Fucking Calanthe should have protected Cintra-" He breaks off, wheezing, his lungs straining terribly for air, and Jaskier's heart seizes in his chest. Geralt's fingers flex around his, still far too weak. "We all failed her."
"I thought you'd be angry at me," he says. He feels raw, like he's exposing all the ugliest parts of himself for Geralt to see. His failures. His misjudged trust. Ciri is gone, lost to unimaginable danger. Geralt's child. Their - can he say their child, for he loves her too, so much that he is rendered desperately afraid by it?
Geralt's throat works for a moment before he manages to speak. "I don't blame you for it. I'd blame the one who tricked you. Who hurt you. But none of it mattered in the end."
"We'll get her back." The words come unthinkingly, automatically, because he can't bear this - can't bear the misery that's destroying Geralt. The fact that he might die like this, in so much pain and utterly without hope. He might just give up, here and now, and go where Jaskier cannot pull him back.
"How?" The agony in Geralt's voice is not only from his injuries. "She could be in Nilfgaard by now."
"Ciri's strong. They won't find her so easy to take anywhere against her will. Maybe she's escaped already and is trying to find us."
He gains strength even as he speaks, and finds that it comes more easily than it has in days. This isn't about being strong for himself - he feels weak and miserable and overcome with grief, and couldn't dredge up any hope on his own account through the entire journey here or the long vigil that's followed. But Geralt needs strength to draw upon now, like any mage seeking a source for their power. Jaskier can be that for him.
"And if they take her to Nilfgaard, so what?" he says, and he can't pretend the idea doesn't petrify him but there is ferocity in him too. "We'll go to the heart of the empire if we have to and you can cut that prick's head off. We'll find her, Geralt, only you have to live. I'm begging you. She needs you. We all need you."
Jaskier bows his head over Geralt's hand, close to losing the fight against his tears. There is no lord to whom he would swear fealty, no king he'd pledge himself to - but he would kiss this hand, would swear his love to this man. Not duty, but devotion; not obligation, but choice.
This is what Radovid didn't understand. Jaskier's heart has always been a flighty thing, his affections many and far-reaching, but its dichotomy is that it has always been as unyielding as the mountains too. He fell in love at eighteen quite sure that his love would never be returned, and that he has grown older and loved many more people does not change that. He could not have gone with Radovid because this is family: this is the roots of the tree of Jaskier's life. This is what his life depends upon, and there is nothing that matters more to him.
Ciri, who he has already begun to love as his own child. Yennefer, the most unexpected of friends. Geralt, the dearest companion he's ever had.
That Radovid would have tried to take Ciri by trickery and force, and still thought there could be a future for him and Jaskier, shows only that he did not understand that Jaskier can no longer breathe without his family.
"'We'," Geralt echoes. It's hard to try and guess his thoughts; all the usual tells Jaskier relies upon are washed away in a river of pain. "You mean to stay?"
Where the fuck would I go? The words come almost automatically, but Geralt's eyes skip away from his for a heartbeat and - oh.
"Geralt," he says, and now his voice seems to rasp too, fighting its way out past unshed tears. "You have to know by now. There's nowhere on the Continent I'd choose to be but here. There's no place, no people, that matters to me like you do. Like finding Ciri does. They'd literally have to kill me to drag me away from you now."
Geralt's hand spasms, and he shifts as if he means to move; his body clearly screams at the same time as Jaskier yelps out a protest, because Geralt barely makes it an inch before his muscles give way again, sinking back down onto the bed with a snarl.
"Don't," he grinds out, and there are tears trickling down into his hair, and Jaskier doesn't know if they're from pain or grief. "Don't say that. I didn't know - if you were alive. When Ciri came alone - and when they brought me here. I thought - you could be gone too."
The words come out disjointed, the pauses uneven where he has to stop to breathe after so little speech. Between that and the fact that Geralt has deemed this important enough that he has to say it now anyway, Jaskier feels like he might shake apart.
Because like with all Geralt's words and all his actions, this says much more than it seems. Geralt was afraid for him. For him, for Jaskier, for the one of all of them least likely to be in danger, because he's never thrown himself into fights the way the rest of his family does; he is no warrior. But Geralt knows him well enough to know that he would have tried to defend Ciri anyway, and that he would go to Thanedd to seek her despite the danger.
And that fear is only there because he cares. Because he doesn't want to lose Jaskier either.
That, too, is love. Is it the same form of love that Jaskier feels for Geralt? He doesn't know, and now isn't the time to wonder. There will be other days.
There have to be.
"Fuck, Geralt, please don't die," Jaskier says, and he wraps his other hand around Geralt's now, and draws them both up to his own chest. Geralt's hand is too limp, too cold, and the wrongness of it is like a knife between his ribs. "I won't leave you. Please don't leave me."
Geralt breathes in. Breathes out. Lifetimes pass.
"I'll try," he says.
And he does.
The dryads' healing has failed, but that is the night Yennefer comes. Jaskier has never been more glad to see her, because though she comes despairing, to him she is the face of hope. They embrace by Geralt's bed and he relinquishes his seat to her, instead kneeling at Geralt's side while she recites her spells, and keeps his hands tight around Geralt's like he can hold him in life. Every stifled grunt of pain is agony to him too, but Geralt is strong.
He lives.
Yennefer stays no longer than an hour, and Jaskier fears for her when she goes, for all the grief and worries that weigh so heavy upon her. But he cannot aid them both, and Yennefer's path has always gone places he cannot follow - and he could not leave Geralt now. He has sworn it, both aloud tonight and long, long ago in his heart.
In the morning Geralt can stand again, can walk unaided. The dryads give him a new sword, and Jaskier feels lighter than he has in weeks when he sees him fight again. Not as he was, perhaps, still wounded in body and spirit, but himself. Unbroken.
Jaskier feels so joyful he could weep with it - it's a kind of happiness that is also terror and grief. It was beyond comprehension, the idea of a world where he would have to go on without Geralt. Now he feels that he's come alive again himself.
Milva still condemns him for his unwavering support of Geralt, for being willing to follow him without trying to stop him, even when it proved that Geralt had misjudged his own strength. Jaskier has seen him do remarkable things, and true, it was only hope that drove him, and that proved misplaced before he was healed.
But the thing about love - the thing about this love - is that Jaskier's choice is to support Geralt in his choices. In a perfect world, yes, he would try to make Geralt rest, insomuch as he can ever make Geralt do anything. He might even succeed, because it wouldn't be by force, it would be by pleading; by doing his utmost to make Geralt understand his own value, the need for his body to be healthy, to prioritise rest and care. But in that perfect world, Ciri would be here already, and Yennefer.
He is afraid for Geralt. Jaskier knows he's not ready, that pushing now may mean he never fully recovers from these hurts.
But he knows, too, that there are worse things. It is Geralt's choice to carry on now. It would be unforgivable for Jaskier to try to take that choice from him, when what is at stake is Geralt's entire world. All he can do is respect what Geralt values, and value it as much himself.
If Geralt walks with a limp for the rest of his life - if he is always in some degree of pain - if he can never go back to his work as a witcher after this...
What is all that, weighed against Ciri's life?
Jaskier would make the same trade, and he's not even her father. He cannot ask Geralt to do any less, even though it breaks his heart.
That's just love. He always knew it was going to hurt. Any poet does. He's also always known it would be worth it.
It's no surprise that they leave Brokilon soon after that. Yennefer arriving when she did was practically a miracle; Jaskier's fairly sure Geralt would have tried to crawl out of the forest soon if she hadn't, and their rescue mission would have been a decidedly slow and possibly doomed one.
He'd have gone with him, obviously, but he's glad it hasn't come to that.
And then comes the skirmish with the Nilfgaardian soldiers at the check point. For Ciri's sake, with Geralt's injuries as they were, it would have been safer to carry on, to walk away.
Yet he cannot bring himself to regret that they stay. Obviously it's easier when he sees that Geralt survives the fight with no indication of having worsened his injuries, even if that's largely because of Milva at the end of the battle.
But it's more than that. He's glad for the lives freed by their actions, of course, and all the aid given right down to the doll returned to the child. And he's glad that Geralt did it for Geralt's own sake too. Neutrality has kept Geralt's head above water for decades - it's not that he doesn't understand that. It must be its own agony to see time and lives pass as Geralt has, how every evil that falls is replaced by another, how every good is beset by corruption. It's no wonder Geralt has always had so little hope, for all that he has never given up the fight.
Now, though, neutrality is no longer a path to safety, and Geralt has chosen a side. Not for politics, not to favour one king above another. No, this is for love; this is for his daughter. There is no greater cause, and for nothing less would he challenge an emperor. For this, Jaskier does not doubt, he will bring an empire to its knees.
It only strikes him later, several miles down the road, that even when the Nilfgaardians were dead Geralt did not go back for Renfri's brooch.
He mulls on the thought for a while, as they ride. It's too late to go back, and besides, he doesn't think it was an accident.
That brooch has been a reminder to Geralt all these years of his grief; of the choice not to take a side, and the princess who died as a result.
It is not, perhaps, so hard to see why he left it behind now of all times.
Although from a purely fiscal perspective, Jaskier might have preferred to keep it with them until they could exchange it for food.
They are, in fact, completely penniless and bereft of supplies barring the little they've obtained from the saddlebags of the pilfered horses. Jaskier's well used to nights spent under the stars with Geralt, but figures they'll be limited to any food he himself can snare for a while, because he fully intends to order Geralt to rest when they camp. But Milva turns out to be a willing hunter as well as a skilled one, for all that she's rather snide about the whole thing.
She'll warm up to him. Jaskier's a delight like that.
They travel on like this for days, following the roads as much as they can, though they have to take particular care now to avoid any sign of Nilfgaardians - one of the consequences of choosing a side, of course, is that the surviving soldier or any of the other witnesses might at any time have spread the word of Geralt's one-man war against Nilfgaard sufficiently far for them to face trouble. They're also on the bad side of enough kings and mages that they can't risk any towns or cities, where guards and lords are likely to ask unfortunate questions.
But they need food, and they need coin. Geralt can't take a contract; advertising his identity as a witcher would be deeply counterproductive, he's not in fit shape for it, and it's a delay they can't afford.
When they near a village, though, Milva volunteers the idea of bringing in a few of the wild birds she's been shooting lately to sell. Jaskier tags along, figuring he can see whether there's anyone around willing to part with a few coins in exchange for some entertainment.
They both try to convince Geralt to wait in the woods, but this is as successful as persuading a fish that it would have a great time living in a meadow. Given that they don't even have a cloak to hide him under, it's a relief that he at least agrees to lurk relatively subtly out of the way while Milva and Jaskier try their luck.
There's not a market as such, it's too small a village for that, but Milva makes a point of offering the birds up for sale and draws a little interest. She's brought a good catch in, though her efforts at haggling are mildly hampered by her attitude; sensing that this observation would be unwelcome, Jaskier grins to himself and wanders off to strum his lute ostentatiously by the well in the centre of the settlement.
Things go fairly well for him from there. It's a remote village, so no one here's heard of him, but it also means they get few travelling musicians through. The songs he offers are mostly new here and he gathers a decent little crowd, getting requests for songs passed over with coins or, more frequently, offerings of food. He receives all of them well, because it's food they'd want to buy with the coin anyway.
It's only once he's a dozen or so songs in, pausing to accept the cup of water a child offers him, when he realises that Geralt is watching him.
He's crept closer, unnoticed by the villagers. He's still unobtrusive, standing in the shadows between two little thatched houses, but his eyes are fixed on Jaskier.
Guarding him, or watching the show? Perhaps both, Jaskier thinks, and it makes him smile.
And then he runs his thumb over the spine of the notebook snugly tucked inside his coat.
Well. This village seems friendly enough; judging from the reception to his other songs, they've had witchers here once or twice over the years, and seem grateful to them. And he wants this song to be heard. He wants the Continent to know.
He wants Geralt to know.
"One last song, my friends," he says, and he pitches his voice low but grabs their attention in an instant. "A new composition. You are my first audience."
The hush that falls is very flattering. More importantly, Geralt's eyes are fixed on him like golden stars.
Jaskier strums the lute, and sings.
Ride, Witcher, ride,
With the wind that moves the trees
Ride, Witcher, ride
For the child of destiny...
He sings with everything he has. The words flow seamlessly, the tune as natural to him as breath. For all that he worked and reworked the song in Brokilon, he thinks now that this is the best song he's ever written - that this is the song he was born to write. He's always wondered if he'd find it one day.
That this audience is so small means nothing. He wants this song to sweep the Continent - but it was written for an audience of one.
Ride, Witcher, ride
With the wind that howls, it howls for thee
Oh, ride, Witcher, ride
Don't fear that wind, it howls for thee
Don't fear that wind, it howls for thee
It howls for thee
They applaud him once he's done. They're probably reacting more to the fire in his voice rather than understanding what he means, but that doesn't matter. He was watching Geralt the whole time anyway.
He concludes his show with a smile and grand words of farewell, gathering up the offerings. When he looks back up, Geralt's gone, but Milva rejoins him with a sniff.
"Not the worst thing I've ever heard, I suppose," she says, holding her bag open so he can add the food and coin to what she's gathered there.
"High praise, thank you." Well, from Milva, it is, really. She leaves at a brisk pace and Jaskier has to scramble to catch up.
Gods, this is like befriending Geralt all over again. It's going to be a really long march to Nilfgaard.
"Does he know you're in love with him?"
Jaskier blinks at her for a second too long before he manages to conceal any part of his reaction. "Ah, fuck off," he says congenially, as though the matter is nothing to him. "I thought I wasn't even his friend."
"That was before I realised every song you write is about him, including those cloying love songs."
"Cloying?" he starts indignantly, but Milva cuts him off with a rather pointy elbow to the ribs.
"I do not need to hear it," she says primly. "I'm going to scout the road to the south. Do not catch up with me for however long this takes."
"However long what takes?" he demands, but she's started running, already halfway back to where they've left the horses grazing at the edge of the wood. "Hey, don't go, you've got all the food - oh, she's gone. Fuck's sake."
Jaskier sighs, hitches his lute properly onto his back, and refuses to jump when Geralt seems to melt out of thin air to appear beside him.
This time, Jaskier doesn't have to ask for a review, Geralt volunteers one all on his own. And that, Jaskier thinks on behalf of the eighteen year old he was in Posada, is progress.
"That's a new one."
Moderate progress.
"It is," he agrees mildly.
"You were working on that in Brokilon."
"I knew you were eavesdropping on me."
"Seemed wise to keep an eye on you. Wasn't sure if you were going to start flirting with dryads."
"There are enough people trying to kill me already, thanks." Jaskier considers the matter, and decides to let loose a little honesty. "It didn't occur to me, anyway. Other priorities, I suppose."
"Is that so?" Geralt isn't looking at him, and is in fact apparently very focused upon the road ahead, but in a way that feels quite deliberate.
Jaskier's heart does a neat little somersault in his chest. He's reminded sharply of that moment when Geralt asked if he loved Radovid, and if Jaskier intended to leave or stay.
It's not like Geralt to ask questions like that once, let alone bring it up again.
For once in his life, he can't think what to say.
They reach the woods in silence. Milva's horse, predictably, is long gone. Jaskier vaguely hopes she intends to come back soon, but not even the demands of his stomach are enough to make him want to hurry now. He unties his horse's reins from the tree, patting her on the neck in greeting, but all his focus is elsewhere.
Geralt stops beside him and turns purposefully, like he's settled on a decision.
"I liked the song," he says abruptly. "Thank you, Jaskier. For believing. For being here."
Geralt's hand comes up to where Jaskier's is loosely holding the bridle. So different now to when he lay in Brokilon - there is strength in Geralt's hand when it closes around Jaskier's, warmth and fierceness in that touch.
It burns, but not like fire - never like fire. This is more like finding yourself capable of surviving the touch of starlight.
The song, he thinks, has done its job. There is a light back in Geralt's eyes, and Jaskier will ensure it never goes out again.
"Always, Geralt," he says, and his voice breaks a little. He gives everything away with those words, he knows. But then he's given it all away every day anyway. He's given it all to Geralt in the new song - all his faith, all his hope, all the enormity of his belief.
All his love.
Love is a truth, not a question. And yet if it was a question, he would have his answer here, in the way that Geralt smiles. Despite the pain, the loss, the guilt and the grief, and all the long miles ahead, he smiles, and it's beautiful. And it's Jaskier's.
"Let's ride, then," Geralt says, and Jaskier laughs for the first time in longer than he knows because this is his family at its core, this resilience, this loyalty, this hope. They will find Ciri, and Yennefer will come back to them, and they will be together again.
They ride, witcher and bard together, and Jaskier sings into the wind.