Imagine if Jaskier was the god of singing.
Jaskier knew what the older, more powerful gods thought of his choice to live amongst mortals. He knew the danger it posed, the risk it brought to allow oneself to be shaped, to be influenced by the whims and minds of temporary beings. He remembered the anger, the worry his sister had shown him all those years ago, that Jaskier would somehow lose his will to sing, to maintain his godhood.
Jaskier had laughed at the very idea that one day, he would lose the will, the desire, to sing.
Jaskier wasn’t laughing now though.
He wasn’t really doing much of anything.
After all, what good is a bard without a lute? What’s even the point of a bard when they’re trying to do the opposite of drawing attention to their motley group of mage, witcher, and wanted princess?
Nothing, that’s what.
And for the first time Jaskier feared less what happened to a god that walked away from their domain and more what Geralt would do if he—if he managed to piss him off enough to—
(Jaskier couldn’t, he wouldn’t, go back to that life, of singing songs to other gods and goddesses who had no interest in music and dying slowly from the inside.)
Jaskier wasn’t sure how gods and goddesses died though. Not really. So when one early morning, he woke up to Geralt frantically patting him, to the witcher speaking of a heartbeat that had stopped and a form that seemed to flicker, Jaskier was just as surprised as him. But then there was a second—just a split second, truly, Jaskier would swear on it—where the bard’s recognition must have been written on his face, because Geralt froze. He stared at Jaskier as the bard tried to stammer out an excuse for what must have happened, of catches of light and strange breathing patterns and—
“You’re lying.” The witcher said, voice flatter than Jaskier had ever heard it and impossibly distant.
Jaskier looked away, because he knew. He was intimately aware of how no one could truly lie to a witcher, not even a god, not with how—how weak, he’d recently become. The birds didn’t chirp as brightly as before, the streams gurgled harshly, and even Geralt had looked at his sword in confusion for a moment, the other day, when he went through forms with Ciri and the steel didn’t seem to—
Jaskier should care, he thought, that he was dooming the world to live without song by his actions.
In reality, as Geralt turned the bard’s face until he was forced to look into smoldering golden eyes, he found he couldn’t care less if it meant the witcher put up with him for one more day.
“What is wrong, Jaskier?” Geralt asked, voice low and faintly demanding.
Jaskier glanced to the side, surprised, distantly, to find that Yennefer and Ciri were awake now and talking quietly a distance away. They looked his way for a moment, and Jaskier could see in the grey of dawn the…the concern, on their faces. And that was—he hadn’t meant to—
“Jaskier,” the witcher—he’d been gripping the bard’s shoulders before, but now was leaning over him, and oh—when had—Jaskier hadn’t mean to lie down—
“It happened again,” the witcher hissed, voice noticeably more ragged than before. “Jaskier, I don’t care what you did, but you need to tell me what’s happening. I can’t—I can’t fix it, not if I don’t—”
Jaskier shook his head, ignoring the witcher's growl as he blinked—
Jaskier stared at the small group surrounding him now, wondering when that had happened. Three pairs of eyes looked down on him with a mixture of concern and relief, which was—it was—
"Sing, Jaskier," the mage said, and Jaskier stared at her, trying to figure out how she knew— "you need to sing, now!"
Jaskier frowned, honestly not really wanting to sing. He felt so...so floaty, so detached from his own body, in a way that felt nice. Like all of the world's problems were just floating away from him, or really that it was him, flying away from them all—
"Please, Jaskier. Sing for me?"
And—and oh, the sweet child seemed so sad, so distraught, and he could—he could fix that, right? He knew just the right—
Against his will, his eyes found Geralt, and he let his mouth fall shut. That was right, he wasn't supposed to—
"Sing, Lark. You don't—let me hear you sing," the witcher said, voice strangely choked, and no, that wasn't right, Geralt shouldn't—
"Pick me flowers from the paths, we walk together, hand-in-hand," Jaskier sang, his voice little more than a whisper. "A different bouquet every time, and not one that's bought from a stand."
Jaskier inhaled, finding the action easier than it had been in weeks. "So all the times I walk alone, I feel your presence always there," he smiled a bit, at the lyrics to the old lullaby. "In every fragrance that I smell, by forests, lakes, nigh everywhere."
Jaskier closed his eyes a moment in the silence that followed, only to feel a small hand wrap around his wrist, squeezing insistently until he opened them again.
"The one about the dove, Jaskier," Ciri said, voice shaky but insistent. "The—you know—"
Jaskier nodded as best he could, and felt as the witcher moved behind him, helping him to sit up some. "There is a dove that's hard to catch, it's sweet and lovely as can be. It comes to those who have good hearts, it does not judge by what eyes see."
Jaskier took a deep breath, "And it avoids those who are cruel, all those who'd like to do it harm. Although they grin and play pretend, the bird avoids them with alarm."
The bard frowned a bit, wishing Ciri had requested something a bit nicer. Something that wasn't so painfully real, that made him feel grounded in a way he no longer wanted to be. "The worst people in life are those, who know they won't receive your love. And so they settle for your tears—these are the ones who shoot the dove."
"Good, that's—that's good, Jaskier," the witcher spoke, his words a rumble through Jaskier's chest. The bard realized, suddenly, that he was practically sitting in the witcher's lap. "How do you..."
"Better," Jaskier confessed quietly, noticing suddenly that his voice was now barely audible over the sound of the birds in the trees and the wind pulling leaves to and fro.
The witcher's arms tightened around him, just a bit. "I've...I like the dancing one," Geralt confessed, sounding painfully awkward at his admission. " With the stars."
Jaskier swallowed, biting back a laugh at the realization that of all the songs Jaskier had written over the years, the hundred or so alone he'd written about the witcher himself, Geralt had requested the one song Jaskier had ever sung about himself. About a glimpse of what he was, before he was the White Wolf's bard.
It took him a second to even remember the tune, as it had been many years since he'd even thought about it, but when he did...
"I danced amongst the twinkling stars, I laughed and twirled and spun and sang. Time had no start and thus no end, of pain I felt no single pang." Jaskier smiled, brighter this time, taking in the genuine looks of interest on Yennefer’s and Ciri's faces to the song that was new to them. "The asteroids played their music so, they strung the strings within my soul. Colliding with such awe-some bangs—artistically, with great control."
Jaskier's fingers tapped out a quiet beat on his thigh, "And suns beamed down upon my face, the spotlight I had often yearned. Of brighter things I had seen none, but my eyes twinkled, unconcerned."
Jaskier rocked his head a bit, instead of the full-bodied thing he usually did at this part. "The black holes pulled me here and there, they wanted me within their grips. And so I swayed between them all, with leaps and sometimes even dips."
Jaskier laughed in surprise as Geralt leaned them both back at his words, like the bard was wont to do at that part. And then, voice almost too quiet for him to hear, let alone the others, he sung, "the planets moved their moons along, still never did I try to stop. For if I ever tried to breath, I fear it's then that I would drop."
Jaskier settled his head against the witcher's shoulder, feeling strangely drained. But it was, for once, a good feeling. Like the ache in one's muscles after a long day of walking, or the sting of Jaskier's fingers after a long performance.
"Rest," Geralt said, voice softer and warmer than it had been since he'd—since—
Jaskier closed his eyes once more, allowing himself to put aside that thought for later. For now, he would let the sound of his traveling companions whispering lull him back to sleep.
It was, he remarked mentally with a small smile hidden by a black tunic, music to his ears.