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He had walked this path many times before.
The seasons might change, the world might march forever forward but he was still here, and if life could give him one blessing it would be to walk this path for as long as he could.
Birds called as they flew in elaborate formations, ready for their annual migration, and the moon was still up despite dawn painting the sky first soft lavender and then pretty pink. It was another loop of the endless circle of life as the world was caught in its forever waltz around the sun. Geralt scoffed softly.
Jaskier would have loved this sentiment. Probably would have spun poetry around it. Probably had done so, but he had been too young and foolish to truly appreciate it at the time. Even if a Witcher loved as much as a Witcher could love, there were things only time could teach a man.
Though a human bard kept safe and warm - as much as one could keep Jaskier safe and warm - could live for a very long time; he was still only a human. And though humans aged that much faster than immortal beings such as Witchers and sorceresses, it also seemed they also gained wisdom that much faster. (Or they just loved very fiercely and loudly, and Geralt’s dull heart could barely keep up with all those bright feelings.)
Whatever the case was, Jaskier had at one point become the voice of reason, however laughable that seemed at first.
But Geralt had lived long enough to know now what it truly meant for the bard to make him swear at his deathbed. Frail and white, and very very old, Jaskier had held his hand at the end. He had been buried between soft sheets and feather pillows, covered head-to-toe with velvet-soft silken clothes and the finest jewellery a retired Witcher could gather for him when the end was nigh. Geralt had pretended to be the one holding his mate’s hand, but in truth, it was Jaskier who held him together that night and made him swear.
Witchers couldn’t cry. Something in the Trials had killed the thing in them which gave people the ability to cry tears and dulled their hearts against very strong emotions. However, somehow Jaskier had known exactly what Geralt needed at that point to keep going. And though his annual migration to the coast might have been hard at first, eventually time itself had taught him that it all was nothing compared to what Jaskier had to do.
He had to let go of Geralt.
And he might have screamed this throat bloody, not unlike after two rounds of Grasses, and might have gotten unimaginably drunk with his brothers around the funeral pyre; that pain was nothing compared to the letting go. Because even after all these years (decades… centuries…), Geralt would rather walk this path down to the coast forever than let Jaskier’s memory go.
As it turns out, if nothing killed Witchers, they were pretty much immortal like sorceresses and mages. It could have been pretty obvious with the literal lifetime he had spent with his bard, but not too long after that, Geralt realised he was watching Ciri growing up and getting old. Yennefer had been a wreck and hid in her impenetrable fortress of chaos for at least a century before she had summoned Geralt again, and they could share in the grief.
At least they had a painting of Ciri.
Jaskier had only left behind his poetry and songs for Geralt, and soon enough, the world started to forget those words. Geralt started to forget Jaskier’s face, or at the very least, it all got morphed into one; the young bardling with bright eyes and a hunger for adventure, the mature man with a taste for fine things and gentle smiles, the crowfeet and laugh lines, the dark hair, the salt and pepper hair, and the white hair… time had morphed them all into a picture Geralt couldn’t really pick apart for any specific memories anymore.
So he didn’t bother.
Jaskier was both old and wise, and young and stupid in all his memories. His picture was both reckless and chaotic, fighting nasty and touching gently and loving fiercely even when Geralt remembered their worst moments together. He was always singing, and speaking, and telling tales in the daylight and mumbling under his nose composing in the evenings.
Geralt had walked this path many, many times before.
The world might have changed around him; as had Jaskier, as had Ciri, as had any mortal being who had loved and cherished an immortal one. At one point, the Continent turned out to be not the only one. Not too much later, electricity was discovered, and something in its resonance eventually drowned out chaos. Mortal beings lived a short but eventful life, and it was easy for them to forget chaos when it didn’t threaten their lives with monsters. People all but forgot about immortal beings too.
Geralt had walked this path for a long, long time, and he remembered the first time he didn’t choose a new living Roach for his annual migration. He remembered when Roach became a machine of steel and fuel instead of one with a heartbeat and condescending looks. Don’t get him wrong, he still adored horses. Took care of them, in fact. He just found a new fascination with this insane invention called automobiles - and a little later motorbikes.
He had walked this path when it was nothing but that. A hidden path through the wilderness, narrow and treacherous if one was not careful. He had experienced year after year as the path widened and the forest became safer for people to walk through. He had walked under the lavender moon and migrating geese when the land had become desolate, and then again when it brimmed with bustling life, and later again, when it had become a nature reserve. (That might have had Eskel’s hand in it so the path could stay for as long as possible.)
Geralt would have walked this path forever if he could. Even if everything was changing all the time, even if Jaskier’s face was a mash of expressions, lines, little scars, and glinting eyes. Even if it hurt walking through the path of memories because Jaskier and Ciri were no longer.
In a strange, fucked up, tragic way (in a Witcher way); Geralt loved this path. It meant he had loved, and he had been loved entirely, as much as a person could love another.
As he emerged from the treeline to the shore and saw the fire already burning, he thought he was still loved. Eskel and Lambert were playing cards by the campfire as the waves softly crashed into the sand again and again in the endless push and pull of the tide. Yennefer was a bit further away, standing tall on a nearby rock, conversing softly with the sea. (Soon, he would too address Ciri’s memory as he did each year.)
The sun was getting higher in the sky, and the soft lavender turned to pretty pink, then brightened all the way into daylight, and the moon slowly got outshone by all that light.
Time could teach a thing or two, even to an old Witcher. As Geralt waved to his brothers and stepped close to the crashing waves, he scoffed with good humour. Because apparently time also could teach a Witcher to use his words.
“Hi Jaskier,” he murmured to the waves and looked up to catch a last glimpse of the disappearing birds. “This year was good. We have a new foal at the farm. You would like her…”