where the sky meets the sea | 2
Jaskier shuffled the tiniest bit closer to her, face resting in the hollow of her throat and the scent of lilacs and gooseberries settling around him like the blanket she’d covered them with. Then with the barest whisper of a sigh against her skin, drifted to sleep in her arms.
Rating: M
Warnings: mentioned canonical torture & presumed after-effects, canonical minor character death
Pairings: Jaskier/Yennefer of Vengerberg
for @jaskierminibang 2022
check out the wonderful art by @flosimo! and special thanks to my beta @dandelionwishes0234, for keeping me sane during this trying time HAHA
The next two days of travel passed similarly to the first.
Jaskier and Yennefer would find moments to converse amongst themselves during the march—exchanging stories of amusing mishaps, conquests, and annoyances—while Geralt and the Princess led the front. On occasion, Cirilla would fall behind to listen in on the conversations, and shyly mention stories of her own which the two adults were more than delighted to listen to.
But mealtimes remained filled with tense silences, excluding the times Geralt would run drills with Cirilla to keep up her muscle memory, the battlefield of their relationships with one another still too fresh to tread without sparking conflict. And truthfully, no one was ready to take the vulnerable first step of attempting to rebuild burnt bridges just yet.
The nights were spent with Jaskier and Yennefer sequestered in the latter's tent, drawing out the Chaos in Jaskier's wounds, the agony of treatment decreasing steadily as less and less Chaos was left behind. And when they were done, they'd wash up and stumble into bed in each other's arms.
Their motley group reached Yspaden in the dead of the following night.
"Why Yspaden of all places?" Jaskier finally asked when they stopped almost a kilometre from the town. Cirilla nearly toppled off Roach in her attempt to dismount, swaying more than standing where she'd landed and struggling to keep her eyes open.
"Because it's close to Blaviken," Geralt answered gruffly, refusing to look up from where he was fiddling with Roach's tack.
It was the first time Jaskier and Geralt had had anything resembling a conversation since they'd left Kaer Morhen.
"Ah..." was all Jaskier had to say to that.
It was a decent choice, tactically speaking.
Everyone knew that the White Wolf had never travelled anywhere close to the site where he'd been crowned the moniker of the Butcher of Blaviken. Humans had very long memories for those sorts of things, and once the word had spread, hostility towards witchers had spread its tendrils from the area it had originated to wrap around those else it could reach.
It also meant that Geralt could not be seen anywhere near the place, lest word spread of his presence and they get chased out with pitchforks and torches. Sadly Jaskier meant that very literally. It was an actual thing he'd experienced multiple times on his travels with Geralt, especially when they'd first started their... business partnership.
He winced at the reminder of the latest song about Geralt he'd debuted. He'd played it for the first time in public right before Firefucker rather ironically got hold of him. Hopefully that meant the song hadn't spread. Especially not in this direction.
Heartbreak was a petty bitch but hindsight had no qualms kicking down the door of denial.
Perhaps it was a good thing that his and Geralt's bridge had already been burnt to cinders with only cursory attempts to sift through the wreckage. At least that meant that he'd only set fire to the ashes with that mess.
"So what's the plan? If tall, dark, and broody over here can't actually enter?" he questioned, shaking his head clear of those thoughts.
"He's not going to," Yennefer replied. "None of us are as a matter of fact. Only you."
Jaskier's head spun so fast to face the sorceress that his neck cracked. Loudly.
"WHAT?!"
"Shhh!" Cirilla shushed him sleepily, then yawned, teeth flashing exactly like her namesake.
"I have a contact in the town who is expecting a courier from me," Yennefer continued as if she hadn't been interrupted. "They have supplies and other materials we need packed and waiting. You will just need to head to the drop-off, collect them, and come right back. Meanwhile Geralt and I will set up camp nearby, and we'll all leave early in the morning. In and out. Not long enough for anyone to notice we were here."
It was, Jaskier realised, the perfect opportunity for him to prove his worth to the group. Exactly as Yennefer had laid out in front of Geralt at Kaer Morhen. And that, more than anything else, made up his mind.
"I'll do it," he replied seriously, now wide-awake, the thrum of adrenaline beginning to seep into his veins.
Yennefer shot him a brief grin, fierce and proud, then pressed something into his gloved hand. "Take this. It'll serve as proof of authenticity. My contact should be one of the townsfolk living at the edges of town. You'll recognise them by the roses outside their house and embossed on their door."
Jaskier looked down. A silver ring nestled in the leather palm of his glove, gleaming in the cloudless moonlit night. He turned it over and revealed an elegant coat of arms pressed into the metal: a hind, flanked by sprigs of lilacs.
He slipped it onto the chain around his neck without a word. While Yennefer's ring most probably had the ability to magically resize itself to fit its wearer, it was not like he could take off his glove to put it on anyway. Jaskier cleared his throat and gave the mage a faint smile.
"I'll be off then," he said, pulling his gifted cloak more securely over his shoulders and throwing the hood up.
Thanks to Yennefer's aesthetic, it was a deep black in colour, drawing all light into its depths. If he stood perfectly still in the shadows, there was no doubt that he'd be overlooked without a second thought.
Yennefer nodded, and then playfully shoved him to set him off down the path to Yspaden. He laughed, and stumbled away, sticking out his tongue at her as he left.
"Jaskier," a gravelly voice called after him.
He froze. Then turned back to face Geralt. "Yes?" he inquired politely.
The witcher looked at him, face carefully blank. "Stay safe."
Jaskier had no idea what to say to such a sentiment, which had never been expressed so blatantly before. Definitely not in explicit words at least. And absolutely not after he'd been blamed for everything wrong in Geralt's life, called a shit-shoveller, and only been brought back for what little use he could be to the other.
So he merely nodded and turned back around, eager to put as much distance between him and the awkwardness as possible. He certainly did not envy Yennefer for being stuck behind.
The trip to Yspaden, a walk alone in the dark, was nerve-wracking but uneventful.
Melitele must have taken pity on him, for there was no need to carry a torch to see where he was going. Not only would that have stood out, but he had the feeling that while a campfire with Yennefer nearby did not set him off, having to carry a lit torch by himself over a long distance would not be as kind to his nerves. And he did not want to test his reaction to that in front of people who could ask too many questions.
So on he trudged with only the road and moonlight to guide him, staying close to the shadows offered by the trees lining one side and irregularly checking the open path ahead and behind him for any signs of life.
It was easy enough to slip into town unnoticed. And skulking through the shadows for a few minutes soon revealed the house where he would find Yennefer's contact. Rose bushes with red, white, and pink roses, barely in bud, lined the garden. Even from a distance, the beautiful carvings of roses along the wooden front door made it clear that this was the place he was searching for.
But he could hardly just walk right up to the front door and knock. The sound would surely raise any nosy neighbours. And a midnight visit from a stranger who could not be found in the morning? Why, the story would be all over town within an hour!
Jaskier circled the house, looking for a less conspicuous entrance. And found it soon enough. At the back of the house, steeped in shadow, away from prying eyes and ears, a lone lit candle stood sentinel at a windowsill.
Even as Jaskier steadied his breathing, his pulse picked up. It was showtime. Then with the barest glance to check if the coast was still clear, he hastened towards the marker.
Safely soaked in the shadow of the house, Jaskier bent down to grope around for a small handful of gravel. Then with the unerring accuracy he'd honed over the years as a performer, flicked a small pebble at the windowsill. A soft crack as the stone hit wood and glass echoed. Loud enough for people inside to hear, but soft enough to be unnoticed by passersby.
He counted down the seconds, and then flicked another. The window slid open.
"Token," a light feminine voice demanded.
Jaskier hastily pulled Yennefer's ring off the chain, and held it out towards the window. A dainty hand reached back and snatched it from his gloved palm.
For a few moments, there was nothing more than the silence that filled the night. Then the window slid open fully to reveal a beautiful woman, in her late 20s, if Jaskier was estimating correctly.
She dropped the ring back into Jaskier's fumbling hand, then bent down to heave a large travelling bag out of the windowsill and into Jaskier's arms. A heavy rucksack quickly followed.
"That's all," she said. "Give Lady Yennefer my regards."
"I most assuredly will, my beautiful lady, and wish you—"
The window slid shut in his face and the candle winked out.
"—a most pleasant night," Jaskier awkwardly finished to empty air.
Then sighed, slung the rucksack over his shoulders, wrestled the hefty travelling bag into his arms, and set back off to rejoin the group.
He was a few hundred metres away from where he'd left Yennefer and the others when a figure abruptly melted out of the shadows in front of him. Jaskier had barely managed to stifle a yell, jerking backwards and almost toppling over in his hurry to back away, when the shape resolved itself into a familiar bulk.
"Melitele's tits, Geralt!" Jaskier swore, slumping in relief. "You scared the shit out of me."
The witcher huffed, the sound what Jaskier had once assumed to be a noise of fond amusement, then stole the travelling bag right out of Jaskier's aching arms.
"Let me," was all he said, turning around and disappearing back into the treeline.
What the actual—?
Jaskier realised he was getting left behind, swore again, then hurried after the witcher. Just like the old times.
It took them quarter of an hour to make it to the clearing where Yennefer was waiting, allowances made for Jaskier's human eyesight and endurance.
"My dearest, darling witch, what the everloving fuck are in these bags?" Jaskier panted, stumbling to a stop near her. "Rocks? Gold bars?"
Another soft huff came from beside him before Geralt swept past them into Yennefer's tent and reappeared without the bag he'd lifted off Jaskier. He then vanished into the far more utilitarian tent he shared with Ciri.
Yennefer snorted, then wrapped her hand around Jaskier's forearm and led him inside their own. "Books, bardling, and more provisions."
Jaskier let the rucksack slide off his shoulders and gently placed it on the floor near the table. Across it, alchemical supplies were scattered around like in the laboratory of Kaer Morhen when the mage worked her magic, and the two tins of paste sat closed.
"It was time to remake the balms," said Yennefer, gaze following Jaskier's. "I altered the formula slightly to be more potent without saturating it in Chaos."
Taking the hint, Jaskier pulled off his gloves and laid his hands out on the table.
They'd managed to finetune this nightly ritual almost perfectly, and it took them barely an hour to be done with all the ugly parts of it and get ready for bed. Jaskier sat on the chair with his eyes closed, bandaged fingers rubbing the delightful fabric of his latest Yennefer-procured clothing in a self-soothing gesture he'd adopted over the last few days, as the agony in his hands slowly drained out.
"You never did tell me," he murmured, "just how all of this is possible."
"I won't bore you with the theory of it, for it would take weeks and an in-depth understanding of Chaos to explain," Yennefer answered just as quietly as she sat on the table beside him, "but the long and short of it is that the tent itself is heavily warded to isolate whatever Chaos is used within it to contain and conceal any magical signatures and noise. I travelled a lot, after leaving my posting at Aerdin, and it's easier sometimes to have a portable set-up that can't be tracked whenever I venture to more dangerous or exotic locations."
"And that's why Geralt doesn't know of all of... this," Jaskier concluded, waving a bandaged hand.
Yennefer idly tugged on a lock of his hair. "Yes. This isn't my most advanced set-up," she said absently. "I do have a version with a portable laboratory as well, but this one is far less large and draining."
"Did you design this whole thing yourself?" he asked.
The mage remained silent for long moments.
"No," she finally answered. "There was someone else that I had worked on this with. A joint project when I was still a trainee at Aretuza. We'd conceptualised a lot of the theory together."
Jaskier could guess at what was being left unsaid. So he simply breathed out an over-the-top sigh and leaned into her.
"Well, time for bed, my lovely wife? I fear my weary bones will never recover if I don't catch some beauty sleep before we get dragged around the Continent again."
Yennefer laughed softly and tweaked his nose. "What beauty sleep?" she teased. "I haven’t seen any drastic change for that to have worked at any point."
Jaskier squawked like a bird with ruffled feathers. "You take that back!" he demanded, jabbing her in the side.
The sorceress merely snickered at him and hopped off the table to evade his pointy elbows. Jaskier huffed and slumped back in his chair, pouting. He watched as she strode over to the rucksack he'd carried, and pulled out a large wooden box. Turning around, the mage grinned cheekily at his curious bird-like head tilt, violet eyes sparkling.
"I was thinking we could try some of these before we head to bed, husband dearest," she said, depositing the intricately carved box onto the cleared table.
Jaskier barely had time to admire the woodwork before the lid was flipped open and the cloth covering the contents was pulled away.
"Chruściki!" he exclaimed, lighting up at the whole pile in front of them.
A piece was swiped from under his nose, a satisfied smirk playing at Yennefer's lips even as she took delicate bites out of the honey-drizzled pastry. Jaskier looked at the pile, then at his bandaged fingers with their dainty tied-off bows, then widened his eyes and gave Yennefer the most pitiful stare he could manage.
She looked him in the eye, finished her piece, reached for another, and chomped down on half of it.
Jaskier turned his gaze back to the mouth-watering treats, so close yet so far out of reach, and despaired.
A breathy laugh brushed past his ear, leaving tingles in its wake. Then the remaining half of the chruściki appeared near his mouth. Jaskier side-eyed Yennefer, who simply raised an eyebrow at him and waved the pastry enticingly in front of him. Cautiously, Jaskier opened his mouth and slowly leaned in, certain that she was only mocking him and would pull it away at the last second.
Yennefer rolled her eyes and shoved the pastry into his mouth. And snickered at the way he spluttered around his stuffed mouth in shock. Jaskier gave up trying to understand the infuriating woman and chewed on the pastry, a delighted hum escaping him at the wonderful taste.
"You have a little..." the mage said, gesturing at the corner of her mouth.
He could feel the little globule of honey smeared across his cheek where she'd indicated, but shrugged and continued enjoying the treat. He could deal with it later, it wasn't like he could do anything about it with the bandages wrapped around his hands anyway.
The sorceress sighed fondly and used her own thumb to wipe it off. Then brought the digit up to her mouth to suck it clean.
Jaskier's breath caught in his throat. The brief flash of her teeth and the way her lips glistened in the soft orange lighting of the braziers in the tent set molten heat running through his veins.
He wanted to press his mouth against her own, steal the traces of the sweet honey from her tongue, feel the dangerous press of her teeth against his skin. He wanted nothing more than to be devoured with the same care and lack of she'd consumed her pick of the lot with. To throw himself on the pyre of her being and dissolve into ash for her to breathe in and settle within her veins.
He wanted, he wanted, he wanted.
"Do you want one more?" Yennefer asked, hand hovering over the box before finally deciding on a piece.
Jaskier swallowed harshly, the sweetness of the pastry turning sickeningly cloying in his mouth with realisation. He truly never learnt. He'd already set himself up for his next grand heartbreak.
"No," he replied cheerily, "I'm afraid I no longer can stuff myself with many of these as I used to in one sitting. And I'd rather save them for the journey since we'll have precious little treats. I'm sure Cirilla would greatly enjoy having some tomorrow."
"That's for certain," Yennefer said and then shrugged. "More for me now then."
Jaskier rose and stretched, groaning in relief as his joints cracked satisfyingly. "I'm going to bed first, do join me when you're finished, my darling wife."
Yennefer hummed, then covered the remaining pastries with the cloth and set the box closed. As Jaskier slid into the plush bed and got comfortable, she wiped her hands clean on a damp cloth and then crawled in after him. They lay curled on their sides beneath the blankets facing each other, close enough to share breath.
With the wave of Yennefer's hand, the lights dimmed to a faint glow, darkness settling over them.
"Good night, my beloved wife."
"Good night, my darling husband."
As promised, before the sun had even begun to breach the horizon, they were back on the road.
Much of the trek was spent in silence, everyone feeling the lack of sleep and the toll of the previous day's march. All except Geralt, who was his usual grumpy, grouchy, silent self.
So while lunch remained as quiet as usual, at least this time it was more of the comfortable silence of everyone commiserating in their misery together, rather than the tense silence before a battle. When everything was packed up and they were ready to set off again, Yennefer retrieved the wooden box from the night before.
"Ciri," she called out.
The girl looked up glumly from where she was dragging her feet to get back on Roach. "Yes, Lady Yennefer?"
"Jaskier and I thought," she hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second, "that you might like to share some of this with us before we start off again."
Cirilla seemed to perk up at that. "Share what?" she asked with restrained curiosity.
Yennefer opened the box and pulled back the cloth.
"Chruściki!" the girl cried out gleefully, then bounded over to stop in front of the box. "Really, Lady Yennefer?! Can I—" she broke off, glancing back at Geralt.
Who was staring at them all, eyebrows pinched and nostrils flaring ever so slightly. Yennefer's back stiffened, but she said nothing. A flare of anger sparked in Jaskier, and he pressed himself against the mage, standing shoulder to shoulder with her.
"I don't see why not, right, Geralt?" he said with faux casualness.
Withdrawing a clean handkerchief, the same cream and lavender one Yennefer had been sneaking into his pocket as a joke ever since that night in Kaer Morhen, he plucked a piece off the pile and broke it in half. Then popped one half into his mouth and chewed loudly. And pointedly. Before offering the other to Yennefer, whose lips quirked into a faint smile as she took the remaining half and finished it in a few dainty bites.
"The offer extends to you too, Scowly," Jaskier continued, staring him dead in the eye even as he picked up another to share with Yennefer. "I know you like to pretend to be a stone-cold witcher, untempted by paltry human things like sweet treats, but I promise that sharing a pastry with your Child Surprise will not destroy your reputation with the masses."
'I might have done that all by myself,' he thought wryly.
Jaskier held out one in his handkerchief and waved it at Geralt, as he had done many times Before, and held his breath.
Geralt scowled at him for a moment longer, really living up to Jaskier’s nickname for him, then resignedly trudged over to accept the chruściki. He broke it in half and nibbled on it, offering the other half to his delighted Child Surprise.
Jaskier raised a patronising eyebrow at him. ‘See? Not poisoned, or otherwise altered.’
Cirilla's clear pleasure at getting to eat the truly magnificent creation was more than enough to make Jaskier's day. Yennefer's soft look that she quickly hid told him it had made hers too. The poor girl probably had few pleasures like this since the fall of Cintra, and he was just glad she could experience moments of joy among all the cruelty she'd been through lately.
She looked longingly at the rest, and at Yennefer's nod, eagerly picked another. Then brought it up to her mouth before hesitating. With great care, she broke the pastry in half.
"Have some, Geralt," she said, lifting one half towards him with a smile.
Geralt brought up a hand and started, "Ciri, it's—"
The girl's face dropped ever so slightly. Jaskier and Yennefer bored twin glares through Geralt's skull, just daring him to not get the message.
"—very nice of you. Thank you," the witcher abruptly changed tracks, accepting the offered half.
Handing Cirilla one last piece for the road, Yennefer packed up the box and stowed it away at the top of Jaskier's rucksack. The contents of the ones he'd brought back the night before had already been distributed amongst the rest of the bags they carried earlier that morning, save for the majority of the books which Yennefer kept within the tent's magical storage.
And with that, they were back on the path.
Jaskier wished he could say that things changed for the better afterwards, but frankly it was the same old.
Silent breakfast, march, awkward lunch, march, equally silent and awkward dinner, vanish into tents, work, sleep, wake, repeat.
It was painfully obvious that the only thing holding together the adults’ fragile truce was Cirilla’s presence and well-being. If not for the girl flitting between them for the various things they could provide—be it education, entertainment, or a just familiar figure to lean on—well, Jaskier had the feeling that none of them would be there together in the first place.
Except maybe him being with Yen, but that was only the mage had deigned to keep him close ever since the whole Kaer Morhen mess for some reason.
The only real changes were one: their path took an abrupt veer into the monster-infested, people-avoiding heart of Redania. And two: Jaskier's contributions to Yennefer's reading and experimenting at night became more and more useful, as less and less of Firefucker's Chaos lingered in his hand.
Soon enough, he could bend his fingers without too much stiffness and pain and reasonably hold things without it becoming a major problem, which according to Yennefer, boded well for the future healing she'd need to do to get his hands back in shape. And had promptly put him to work in the evenings after dinner: helping her stir mixtures, retrieving ingredients or items as and when needed, dictating instructions, measuring out and pouring liquids, reading tomes...
Which was why he was currently lounging abed and carefully flipping through one such book, hair wet from his bath and fingers freshly bandaged, while his taskmaster of a wife attended to some magical mixture or another boiling away in the section of the tent she'd reappropriated to be a makeshift laboratory.
"Nothing," he announced glumly, letting the book fall shut. "Just the same myths and deductions and rubbish being repeated over and over."
"Can't say I expected any better," Yennefer sighed, switching off the flame. "Not much is available about Elder Blood. And whatever legitimate information is there has been snatched up and hoarded by the Brotherhoods, if not tucked away in the hands of private collectors who'd rather see their collections burn than leave their sight."
She covered the mixture and wandered over to the bed, tossing the book onto the bedside table to join the others and crawling in beside Jaskier. With the wave of her hand, the braziers dimmed to a faint glow, and the two of them made themselves comfortable, tangled up in one another.
"What's the thingy you're working on, then?" Jaskier asked around a yawn.
There was a long moment of silence.
"It's... for something I have a suspicion about," Yennefer finally answered, tone carefully even. "I've... been looking over things for a while and... this... is something that would prove it definitely."
Jaskier wiggled slightly to face her. "Is it... dangerous?" he asked delicately.
Yennefer exhaled, fiddling with one of the drawstrings on his shirt absently.
"Not immediately, no," she replied quietly, seeming to Jaskier—well, for the lack of a better word—downcast. "And not to Ciri or Geralt either."
"But maybe for you," Jaskier filled in what was being left unsaid. "Yennefer, what—"
"Not now, Jaskier," she breathed out. Then shook her head as if to clear it. "Let's talk about something else."
"Alright," he murmured, shifting closer to her and snagging his fingers in hers. Then grinned at her. "Let's talk about me then! What weird and wonderful fact about the most famous bard on the Continent would you like to know today?"
Yennefer barked a laugh. "Humble much, bardling?" she teased.
"One must take pride in their work after all, my darling wife," he snarked back.
She hummed, amused and unconvinced. "Well in that case. Which of all your performances was your favourite to do?"
"Oooh, asking the tough questions already." Jaskier hummed as he thought it over.
"If I had to pick," he began slowly, "it wouldn't be an actual performance performance."
"Oh?" Jaskier's response had clearly perked Yennefer's interest. "Which one would it be then?"
"There was this impromptu thing some of us did when we went back to the Academy years ago—It's... it's hard to explain what made it so different from all the other stuff I've done. Just—It was all of it. You'd have to be there to understand why it was so special."
Yennefer pulled at a lock of his hair. "Good thing I'm a sorceress then, no? We can just take a walk through your memories and you can show me."
"Wait, you can do that?" Jaskier asked, voice and eyebrows shooting up.
"There's a lot you don't know that I can do, husband," Yennefer replied mysteriously.
Jaskier laughed. "Of course there is. Sure, why not? What do we need to do?"
"Close your eyes."
Jaskier easily let them fall shut. In the silence of the tent, he caught the slightest sound of a quick inhale. Then he felt the mattress shift as Yennefer drew herself level and closer to him. A hand came to rest softly against the side of his face: two fingers pressing against his temple while the palm curved against his cheek.
"Think about where you'd like the memory to start," the mage murmured. "I'll handle the rest."
Jaskier cast his memory back to that night: the rush of sneaking out of their apartments like children, smuggling blankets, food and drink, cloaks thrown over their heads. And abruptly found himself there, watching it play out through his eyes.
"Melitele's tits!" he sputtered, feeling strangely disembodied. Like he was somehow solidly himself, watching all of this play out in front of him like a spectator, yet still caged in a body that was his but moved and felt without his input.
His body was walking itself down a road as Pris and Val (the fucker) argued in loud whispers amongst themselves ahead of him. A soft but bright laugh sounded beside him and he registered the sensation of a hand resting on his (but not his) forearm, extended gallantly towards the girl clinging to him. A large bright blue eye peaked out at him from blonde curls, a grin curling her pink lips.
"Poppet," Jaskier breathed out. His eyes burned. "My darling Poppet."
She spoke—something or another that Jaskier could not hear through the buzzing that filled his ears—and his body (the one he did not control, or rather, once had) shook with stifled laughter.
"Who is she?" Yennefer asked quietly from beside him.
Jaskier swallowed the lump that had risen in his (incorporeal) throat. "Essi," he managed to choke out after a long moment of just drinking the sight of her in. "Her name is—was—Essi Daven. She went by Little Eye."
Yennefer's hand wrapped around his, lacing their fingers together. "Who is she to you?" she asked gently.
"Where to even begin?" he laughed, the sound watery.
"Poppet was just starting off her final year at the Academy when I first met her, during one of my stints as a lecturer. It was maybe under a decade since I had known Geralt. We got on like fire. Took her under my wing, and soon Pris and Val wanted to know about her too. They would come by more and more often and we all just clicked. She was sort of a younger sister and sort of our child."
He hastily dashed away the tears that started to fall.
"She was always so self-possessed. But you know how it is when it's your final exams that determine whether you've successfully made it. Officially it would be a formal recital at the end of the year. Unofficially it would be a court performance the professors would schedule for us in groups. We all had the worst case of nerves during ours. She did too. So we—Pris, Val, and I—all made a whole production of things to get her to relax. We packed up a picnic supper, snuck into her room and stole her away like dashing rouges from songs, and well—you'll see in a bit."
"Where are we going, Dandelion?" Essi asked, barely hiding a yawn.
"Almost there, Poppet," came Jaskier's voice. "Just a mile or so more."
"This better be worth dragging me out of bed for," she grumbled, leaning her weight on him.
"Oh it very much is, darling," Pris called back.
The group abruptly veered off the road and into the woods, Val handing out torches to better light the way. They trampled through the undergrowth, following the notches they'd made to find the way back, then in the blink of an eye, they found themselves on the other side. A grassy field stretched out in front of them, lit brightly by moonlight. In another blink, the group of them were approaching the ruins that remained.
"Oh wow..." Essi breathed out. "How did you all find this place?"
"You have Jas to thank for that," said Pris, elbowing Jaskier's side.
"He got lost," snorted Val.
"Hey!"
"It's beautiful, Dandelion!" said their darling youngest.
And it was. The elven architecture favoured high arches and open space, allowing nature to easily claim back the abandoned structure. Flowering vines in lovely pastels and gleaming jewel tones curled around the crumbling stone, forcing their way in through broken windows and walls, draping them in a blanket of gorgeous foliage. Soft moss carpeted the floor, and more plants made themselves home in whatever crevices they could find.
The group meandered through the empty hallways, pausing occasionally for Essi to admire the reclaimed rooms and flora that lovingly decorated the damaged spaces. With Jaskier's subtle nudges to direct their path, they soon stumbled onto the crowning jewel of the place—the real thing that they'd been waiting to surprise Essi with.
"Sweet Melitele's tits!" gasped Little Eye as they entered.
"Essi!!" came three outraged voices, and one incorporeal one. Yennefer stifled a laugh.
"Oh shut it, you all," replied Essi with a roll of her eyes. "Especially you, Dandelion, stop gaping like that. Unless you plan on catching flies. Not that you've at all been particular about what you put in your mouth and where you do it."
Both versions of the bards' mouths snapped shut from the offended gasps they were expressing. Meanwhile, Pris and Val were not even attempting to hide their laughter. Neither was Yennefer now; traitors the whole lot of them.
"Ohhh, I like her, bardling," the sorceress snickered.
"Hmph!" said bardling sniffed haughtily. "Good for you then. Because if you didn't, wife mine, we'd be getting a divorce."
"Hah. As if you could escape me that easily," Yennefer murmured into his ear, a smile audible in her voice.
The duo watched through Jaskier's eyes as Essi drank in the surroundings from where they all stood at the entrance of a small but grand chamber.
It boasted the same high arches and ceilings of the rest. But the real beauty of it, was that the walls were primarily made of glass. And somehow, this particular room had been spared from the significant amount of weathering experienced by the rest of the structure—save for its now missing ceiling. Most of the glass remained intact—with the exception of the odd, shattered holes where stubborn vines had burst through—and not even the layer of grime on it stopped the beams of moonlight above from filtering through, washing the space alight with a silvery glow.
Additionally, instead of the level or raised floors seen earlier during their wanderings, this chamber's floor resembled a shallow basin: a few stone steps were carved into the perimeter of the room, which descended to a flat bottom. Scattered around the space were a few stone benches, most of them worn and crumbling in pieces—a stark contrast to the remarkable well-preservedness of the room's architecture itself.
"Come on, darling," said Pris. She grabbed Essi's hand and pulled her into the room. "Let's set up the picnic!"
Val and Jaskier's body followed them, and the group set up their feast in the open centre of the room. Laughing and teasing, they ate and made merry, passing around a skin of wine or two as well. From within, Jaskier drank in the sight of them all happy together. Yennefer watched quietly beside him.
Not long after they'd finished the food and brushed away the crumbs, Val rose to his feet and spoke. "And now, sweet Essi, for the final part of your gift!"
"Wait, there's more?" she gasped, a hand rising to her mouth. "This is already so much! You didn't have to!"
"Ah, but we wanted to, Poppet," Jaskier said with a wink. "Come on. Up, up!"
They were all on their feet, and soon had everything packed into the baskets and placed away on one of the benches at the side.
"Well, what is it?" Essi asked, bouncing on her toes.
Val smirked.
"Check this out," he said. Then threw his head back, and belted out a sonorous note. "Aaaaaaaaa..."
The sound bounced around the room, the musical echo building greater and higher the longer he held it. Its resonance seeped through their skin, setting nerves alight and tingling goosebumps racing across their bodies. Then it lingered in the air, trailing gently off as delicately as freshly falling snow as he brought the note to an end.
A reverent silence hung in the air.
"Valdo..." breathed Essi, blinking back tears. "That was..."
"It is, isn't it?" Pris whispered. Her eyes were bright with emotion. "Better than any music hall."
"We thought," added Jaskier, voice equally hushed, "that it would be the perfect place to sing that song we've been piecing together from the library."
"Yes," said Little Eye, a bright smile spreading across her face. "Sweet Melitele, yes!"
The four of them stood in a circle in the centre of the space, the silvery moonlight streaming in from the collapsed ceiling and the damaged high windows serving as a spotlight, lighting the group in an ethereal glow. Pris raised a hand and they began to hum, their voices seeping into the open space and filling it. Then Essi's high, clear soprano rose into the air.
"May it be, an evening star," she sang sweetly. "Shines bright upon you."
"May it be, when darkness falls," sang Pris in alto. "Your heart will be true."
"You walk a lonely road," came Val's tenor.
"Oh how far you are from home," Jaskier finished.
Their voices twined in chorus:
"Mornië utúlië. Believe and you will find your way. Mornië alantië. A promise lives within you now."
"May it be, the shadow's call," Jaskier sang. "Will fly away."
"May it be, you journey on," sang Val. "To light the day."
"When the night is overcome," Pris followed.
"You may rise to find the sun," finished Essi.
They once more began in chorus, but one by one, their voices dropped back into humming that faded away.
"Mornië utúlië. Believe and you will find your way. Mornië alantië. A promise lives within you now."
"A promise lives within you now," Essi's voice hung in the air as she finished the last line, alone.
Each bard's face was wet, the glittering trails that had spilled down their cheeks gleaming in the light of the moon. Even Jaskier, the one watching the memory, had shed tears as the emotion of the song swelled, even more heart-wrenching now with the knowledge that the happiness had passed.
"Fuck..." Yennefer choked out, her voice throaty and hoarse. She dashed her free hand across her eyes. "Fuck, Jaskier..."
He blinked, and they were pulled out of the memory. The darkness of the tent and the dim glow of the braziers resolved themselves. The pressure of Yennefer's hand along his face lifted as it slipped down to tangle in his shirt.
"I can see why that would be your most dear performance," she said, voice rough. "It truly was exquisite."
Jaskier's lips twitched into a feeble smile. He cleared his throat harshly. "It was."
Yennefer shifted, and Jaskier drew closer to her as they tangled themselves up in one another, his face pressed to her throat, lilacs and gooseberries engulfing him. Slender fingers stroked through his hair.
"She did so well at that performance," the words spilled out of his mouth, faster than he could catch them. "She was amazing. Val, Pris, and I snuck in to watch her. She blew everyone out of the water. Even got an offer for a betrothal performance not long after."
"Pris and Val couldn't make it for that one, they had their own commitments. But I broke off from travelling with Geralt around then and trailed along the coast. Snagged a spot at the banquet she performed at. They were all eating out of the palm of her hand, as they should've. We then wandered the stretch for a while, performing together and simply spending time with one another. We even met a mermaid."
Yennefer's hand briefly paused. "A mermaid?"
"Mhm. Her name was Sh'eenaz. And Yen, she sang so wonderfully. It was practically a dream come true for Essi and I, that we'd get to sing with someone so remarkable!"
"Let me guess," the mage said wryly, "you both fell for each other?"
A laugh was startled out of Jaskier. "Ah, it would make for a lovely story, wouldn't it? A land-locked bard falling for a beautiful sea-dwelling singer." He sighed dramatically. "But alas, I was not to be the bard in that tale. Sh'eenaz's eyes were only for Essi while we were there."
"A woman of good taste," she said approvingly.
"Hey!"
Yennefer patted him condescendingly. "Go on."
Jaskier huffed. Then fell silent.
"We had to split ways not long after," he finally continued, subdued. "Not much coin to split between two bards, and it was hardly beneficial for her to constantly be seen with more established ones. We wrote, all of us, but rarely saw each other in person. But four years later—"
His voice broke.
Yennefer stayed quiet, only tightening her hold on him. Jaskier cleared his throat, even as wet heat spilled over closed lids.
"The pox, in Vizima," was all he managed to say, before his body began to tremble violently. "Yen, she died in my arms. And then they tossed her out with the others. They were going to burn her with the rest! I couldn't—!"
He sucked in huge, shuddering breaths as he forced his body to still.
"So I pulled her out. Carried her out of the city. Found a beautiful clearing in the forest. And dug her grave with my hands. Buried her there with her lute and this lovely blue pearl I found for her during that trip to the coast."
"It matched her stunning eyes," he managed to grit out through his teeth. "My Poppet's blue, blue eyes."
The last words were ripped out from his throat.
Jaskier shattered then, and wailed long and loud, a wounded sound that did little to express the terrible agony that consumed him. Yennefer held the smashed pieces of a broken man together as he screamed and sobbed, the festering in his heart bursting forth to finally drain away, at this decade-later reveal of a terrible truth never before told.
If in the outpouring of grief that filled the tent, more than one pair of eyes shed tears, nobody else was there to notice.
Hours passed, before the last of the shaking stopped and there were no more tears to shed. Jaskier felt painfully wrung out, like a towel violently twisted to squeeze as much water out of it as possible. He lay limp in Yennefer's arms, a sort of peace settling over him, the calm of the settled wreckage in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane.
"I had asked him," he would later whisper into the crook of her neck, voice ragged, "to come to the coast with me. On that mountain."
There would be nothing the sorceress could say.
Two days later, it was Cirilla who ended up inadvertently bringing the issue of what Yennefer was working on to a head.
"We're on the way to Rinde, aren't we?" she asked Geralt from her perch on Roach, voice carrying in the wind. "I've been keeping track like you showed me to, and my guess is we're heading to Rinde."
Behind them, Jaskier came to an abrupt halt.
Geralt hummed in agreement, a faint proud smile on his face. "Yes. Good job, Ciri."
A dull whine began to build in Jaskier's ears, the surroundings beginning to darken and swim as he abruptly found no air making it into his lungs even as his breaths began to come faster. The shrill noise only grew louder as his pulse picked up.
"But why Rinde?" Cirilla pressed, the girl's voice coming from far away.
The shatter of clay on the ground. A bulge rising in his throat. The barest wheeze of sound making it past bloodied lips.
Waking in a foreign bed. A body slamming him into a wall. The blade digging into his neck and the threat to his privates.
A snarled demand. "Make your wish!"
"The Djinn! The Child Surprise! All of it! If life could give me one blessing—"
"Jaskier, Jaskier." The pressure of a hand shaking his shoulder dragged him out of the memories with a gasp.
The waking world swum back into view, a blur of colour. Jaskier closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe in slowly and deeply. The high-pitched sound gradually faded as his breathing and pulse steadied, and he blinked to refocus his vision. Violet eyes greeted him.
He flinched backwards instinctively.
Yennefer dropped her hand from his shoulder like she'd been burned, a flash of hurt crossing her face before it was quickly tucked away. She spun sharply to her horse waiting a few paces ahead, and made to go towards it.
Jaskier's gloved hand shot out without thinking. He grasped the tips of the mage's fingers desperately, holding on tight, but the grip still insecure enough to be broken free of easily.
Yennefer made no move to do so, poised as perfectly as a carved marble statue.
He stepped closer, then rested his head on her shoulder. A hot, shuddering sigh escaped him.
"No, Yen—It was just... memories," he breathed out into the space between their bodies, an explanation as much as a reminder to himself that they were just that.
The line of the sorceress' shoulders relaxed. Then tensed in realisation as she put together the pieces to form the picture of what had prompted that particular reaction. They stood, frozen in tableau.
"I would still do it again," Yennefer finally said, voice measuredly casual as she spoke of their first true interaction.
Jaskier laughed, tension draining out of him. "I would expect no less of you, my darling wicked witch."
She turned around, lacing her fingers with his, her other hand shifting to rest on the curve of his waist, thumb brushing against his ribs. Jaskier's free hand automatically grasped the fabric of her skirt, as if fearful of her leaving, still.
"But Jaskier," said Yennefer, those blazing eyes holding his. "Know this for certain, from now on. You are safe with me. I will not hurt you."
Jaskier's mouth pulled into a smile.
"No one can promise zero hurt in any relationship, wife mine," he said softly, squeezing their joined hands. "But I am certain you will do your best. And I promise you the same."
"Besides," he continued cheerfully, "some types of hurts are plenty of fun."
He waggled his eyebrows at her with a sleazy grin and felt his stomach flop with delight at the fondly exasperated eyeroll and smack to his side he received in turn.
"Jaaaaaskierrrrr!! Laaaady Yenneferrrrr!! Are you comingggg?!" Cirilla hollered from a distance.
The two of them turned to face the source of the racket. Geralt and his Child Surprise were waiting about a hundred metres ahead: the witcher standing facing them—a gloved hand still tangled in Roach's reins—while Cirilla had twisted herself around in her seat to yell at them, cupped hands hovering at her chest from when she'd raised them to help her yell across.
"We're coming!" Yennefer shouted back.
She let her hand fall from Jaskier's side and pulled him over to her patient mount by their interlocked fingers. When she let go to climb on, Jaskier felt a deep pang of loss, his hand abruptly growing cold. With the click of her tongue, the horse began to plod forward.
Jaskier kept pace beside them, eyes fixed on Roach. Then something dropped to hang beside him, right at the edge of his peripheral vision. He tilted his head to get a better view of it.
Yennefer's free hand was dangling by her side between them, the other holding the reins and resting on the horse's neck.
Warmth surged through him, lighting him up with tingling joy and drawing a smile out of him. Drawing closer, he hooked his fingers with hers, their joined hands mostly concealed by her skirts.
Above him, the corners of Yennefer's mouth tipped up in subtle pleasure.
Jaskier's breath caught in his throat. Discreetly clearing it, he turned back to the front, the glee of getting to hold hands like children buoying him.
Cirilla was staring at them, that same strange look on her face, while Geralt's expression was inscrutable, his mouth pressed into a line.
Once again, a dull sense of loss panged in his chest. But this one was easier to feel and then slowly release.
He'd had well over a year to mourn the idea of their friendship, and the thought that at one point, he'd been able to decipher the miniscule fluctuations of Geralt's expressions. And between that time and now, he'd realised that perhaps he had never been able to read them properly.
So there was no real difference, truly. Only that now, he didn't quite find himself compelled to try.
"So, why exactly are we heading to Rinde, of all the wretched places to pick?" Jaskier asked, as the two of them settled down for the night.
There was the barest hint of a pause before Yennefer replied.
"It was noted that none of us have passed through the town since our last rather... chaotic... interactions within it."
Jaskier snorted. "So basically we're all personae non gratae there and hence would be assumed to avoid it as Geralt still avoids Blaviken."
This time, the pause was longer.
"Yes."
Jaskier shifted to look her in the eye.
"Don't treat me as obtuse, Yennefer," he said quietly. "There's something more, isn't there. I've been thinking about it ever since Cirilla brought this whole thing up. Something that never quite made sense to me about the way things ended between Geralt and I on that fucking mountain."
The mage's eyes glittered in the light of the braziers. Her face was blank and expressionless.
"Dammit, Jaskier. The djinn, the Child Surprise, all of it," Jaskier murmured slowly. "If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands."
The words hung in the air. Then Yennefer's mask cracked—barely leashed fury forcing its way out to the surface.
"He said that to you?" she asked softly, deadly cold. Ice that threatened to blister and burn from the other end of the spectrum.
"With a few more words in between, but yes," Jaskier admitted. "Yet, it doesn't fully add up. Firstly, it had been about a decade between those events and the mountain. He's had plenty of time to make those particular grievances known by then."
"And mind you," he continued, gathering steam, "I wasn't the one stupid enough to call for the Law of Surprise, especially after just witnessing Destiny play out through it. That was all him! And he spent years running away from that responsibility, content to shove his head in the sand, plug his ears with wax, and avoid anything to do with the child."
"Knowing him, saving the baby dragon had triggered some sense of guilt in him about his own abandoned child surprise. But really, what did it matter? Both him and Calanthe were content to pretend the whole thing had never happened! He could've just carried on his merry—or rather, grumpy, brooding—way in denial... except... why the djinn first?" he said quietly.
"If thoughts of the child had truly been plaguing him that much on the mountain, if he'd carried that festering hate within him for so long, it would've been the first charge he threw in my face. Chronologically, it would match. But it was the djinn he blamed me for first. Ha! I certainly was not the one who nearly killed my friend for the want of sleep. And one could argue that he was the one who gained anything out of it."
They watched each other in silence.
"But you were on that mountain too," Jaskier said slowly. "I heard nothing, but you both fought about something, before you left. It had something to do with the djinn, didn't it. That's why we're here. Not solely because of the reputation we have in Rinde."
Yennefer's eyes squeezed shut.
"Yes," she gritted out.
They lay in bed, silent, minutes passing as the braziers slowly dimmed further and further.
"What do you know about djinn wishes?" she asked.
Jaskier shifted closer to the sorceress. His bandaged fingers brushed over hers where they rested between their bodies.
"You get three," he finally answered. "And that if you're not careful about how you phrase them, they might not work out the way you want them to."
Yennefer laughed, the sound bitter. "Yes, you've experienced that for yourself with Geralt's first wish."
Jaskier said nothing.
What was there to say? She was right.
"Djinns..." she said after a long pause, "they're twisted creatures, filled with seething rage about their imprisonment. While they cannot take it out directly on their new masters, the ones who release them from the vessels, they can exact vengeance through loopholes in the wording used for the wishes demanded from them. Wishes powerful enough to rival Destiny itself."
"Can you imagine?" she said softly. "That much sentient rage and power, percolating in a tiny bottle?"
The very thought had every hair raising on Jaskier's body. What could such a creature have distorted his prideful foolish ramblings into, on that day if he had been the djinn's master? He'd not truly understood what that had meant, despite paying for Geralt's foolishness.
He had taken the stories at face-value. As parables meant to discourage people from being greedy, or selfish, or some other vice. Even after having travelled with Geralt and seen for himself just how different and dangerous the things from stories could be.
His blood ran cold as the dots connected.
"What did he wish for?" he breathed out.
"Yen, what did he wish for with you?"
He felt more than saw the mirthless smile that crossed her face.
"He bound us. He thought that the djinn would kill me for trying to catch it, if all the wishes were used. So he tied us together, assuming that the djinn could therefore not harm either of us. An invisible leash that I had no idea of as we kept being drawn to each other, over and over, at an unnatural frequency. A pull that was damn near irresistible. Until the illusion fell apart."
Jaskier inhaled sharply.
Yennefer walking up to them at the base of the mountain.
"How is it I've walked this earth for decades without coming across a witcher, and the first one I meet, I can't get rid of?"
"What we had... what I thought we had, or what I foolishly dared to hope might have been, it was nothing more than Chaos. A wish made and concealed for years, till Borch forced it into the light."
"Fuck, that's... Yen..." was all he could say.
"Don't pity me, Jaskier," she said coldly. "I couldn't bear it."
He reached for her hastily. "No! No, it's not pity, Yen. It's just..." he trailed off helplessly.
Yennefer of Vengerberg was a wildfire. A force of nature against anything that stood in her way, unimaginably powerful and so self-possessed. Even without her chaos, the core of her remained the same unyielding stone: unstoppable in whatever she set her mind to, heedless—or regardless—of the obstacles that loomed in her path.
The thought of anyone attempting to chain her, to force her down and tame the fierce blaze into something they could use... For all his faults, Jaskier knew that Geralt was someone who always tried to do the right thing. He had likely never intended it to be that way but...
A djinn in a bottle.
Yennefer sighed, her breath a puff of air that caressed his skin.
"Either way, I am bound," she said bitterly.
"In the time after the dragon hunt, I attempted to identify the Chaos of the wish, to determine how much of myself had been affected. To see if I could parse out what was real and what wasn't."
She snorted.
"I failed miserably. No doubt the djinn had exacted its revenge for me foiling the first wish as I did. And it knew now, that I knew it was there. So it hid itself within my Chaos, till I couldn't tell where its magic ended and mine began. Which meant that nothing Geralt and I had had been real once that fucking wish was made. Or if it was, I would never be able to tell."
"How do you trust someone, when because of their actions, you can no longer trust your own mind?" she asked, though she seemed to be speaking more to herself than Jaskier. "When you have to fight a pull in their direction every day, as helpless as the tides to the moon? A tether, turned into a noose?"
"You can't," she concluded. "If you are unable to distinguish if what you feel or what you do, is not a product of your own wants and desires or if they are someone else's, it will never be a relationship of equals. It's no loving relationship at all."
Yennefer stared him dead in the eye, the violet of her irises flashing in the gloom.
"To live forever second-guessing your every thought, every action... or to accept it and live till your dying breath with the fact that you could be pulled along like a puppet on a string, at the whims and mercies of someone else... I refuse."
"I will not stand idle as my mind is turned inside out by something planted there by someone else without my knowledge. Or accept its presence and live in fear of others or myself. And if your mind is already compromised..."
A joyless smile twitched her lips, ugly in its self-recrimination. "You don't tend to realise that something else has made its way inside. And I think we both know how that recently played out."
Jaskier tasted blood on his tongue.
"Did you know," Yennefer continued casually, "that the bloody fucking witch could by-pass dimeritium? I'd had the strangest dream while in those shackles and cut off from my Chaos in a far more permanent way, not long after I burned down Sodden Hill. I'd dreamt of a little farmyard hovel. Fixed of my physical ailments, heavily pregnant, and throwing myself into Geralt's arms, after he'd come home from doing whatever farmers do."
The familiar twisting in his chest at the reminder of what he could never have had made itself known, though unlike other times, it faded away like smoke on the wind.
She laughed again, this time the sound more amused than anything else.
"In hindsight, it is hilarious that she thought it would work. She'd dug her fingers in all my weak points, yes. But her fantasy had so many gaping holes, it was a fucking joke. Can you imagine? Me, being happy and satisfied as a simple farmgirl, waiting for my husband to get home?"
Jaskier poorly concealed his snort at the thought. "Not in the least, wife mine."
"Dimeritium might not have worked on Voleth Meir, likely since she was not of this sphere," Yennefer commented absently. "But the djinn wish… that can be dealt with— though rather ineffectively—using it."
Jaskier was getting a horrible sinking feeling. "What do you mean?"
"The djinn is a creature of this realm. And the wish had thoroughly entwined itself with my own Chaos to conceal itself from me. It was difficult to notice in those moments due to all the stressors in various situations, but when I was in dimeritium and without my Chaos, there was no pull. I theorised it to be because the dimeritium isolated the bond, an insulator between the current of the wish connecting Geralt and I."
"So I tested it with a dimeritium cuff I procured, and you brought back from Yspaden. Over the past few days I wore the cuff for a significant period of time each day, and every day it successfully neutralised the pull of the wish, though my access to my own Chaos was denied in turn."
"Fuck, Yen, that's—"
"The risks were only to myself, and worth it," she cut him off.
"And before the mess with Nilfgaard, I had been working on figuring out a way to isolate the signature of the djinn wish from my Chaos. Breaking the effects of that first wish on you was hard enough. You were lucky that the wish had not manifested in other ways. But with the djinn aware of my meddling? The wish Geralt made about me is about as binding as Destiny. Unless I can find another djinn to undo the wish."
Yennefer shifted closer, the mattress dipping slightly.
"You had asked earlier on... what I've been doing. That's the thing I've been working on. To find a way to isolate the wish from myself, even if I can't break it as I would rather have. So that I can truly know my mind. To choose how to proceed in any relationship, myself."
"What can I do to help?" Jaskier asked quietly.
For a moment, there was just silence. Then a slender finger was tracing down the bridge of his nose, along the curve of his lips, and came to rest against the dip of his chin. The hand slid down, following the curve of his neck to then rest against the beating pulse at his throat.
"Jaskier," whispered Yennefer. "You are the realest thing I've known since the start of this whole mess."
"In our meetings after the djinn, you've always stood against me as an equal, blind to the fact that I could crush you with the twist of my hand. When you hated me, you still never tried to use me. When I was nothing, you offered me your unconditional help. When you're vulnerable, you still trust my claws with your belly."
"There are no hidden games with you. No catches, no debts, no masks, no tricks. When I cannot trust the pull in my head that clouds my thoughts, stronger for the lack of distance, I am certain only in you."
"Bardling, you have already done so much for me," she breathed out.
Jaskier's eyes welled up and twin tears spilled over as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Oh. Oh.
He inhaled hotly, then laid his hand over Yennefer's where it rested on his neck.
Fuck... Fuck, he was so, so in love with her.
"I never hated you," he spoke thickly. "Jealous as sin, yes, resentful even more so at times, but never hate. I don’t think it’s possible to know you and hate you, Yen. And of course I'd help you. Besides, you're the one who saved me from certain death, with everything to lose. Even now you're protecting me!"
Yennefer huffed, amused. "Let's just agree that we both look out for each other and call it a night then, husband mine."
Jaskier laughed wetly. "As you wish, darling wife."
When they arrived at the outskirts of Rinde barely two days later, it was Jaskier who was once more tasked with obtaining supplies. But to adults' dismay, Cirilla insisted on going with him, planting her feet and refusing to be moved.
After a long, spirited debate between Geralt, Yennefer, and Cirilla, to their complete and utter surprise, it was the youngest who won their argument. No one was quite sure how, not even Cirilla herself.
So while Geralt made his displeasure about the situation known by grumping all over the camp, it was Jaskier and Yennefer who helped Cirilla undergo a transformation to accompany Jaskier while posing as a father-daughter pair of traders examining the selection in Rinde.
With her hair and eyebrows dyed a deep brown to match Jaskier's own, features carefully altered with the judicious use of makeup under the combined expertise of the two adults, and a change of clothes that Yennefer had prepared a while back for just such scenarios, the pair were ready to head to Rinde.
Though not before Yennefer slipped them each an amulet that would portal them to safety if required.
"Only if your identities are revealed, or under the most dire of circumstances, should you use these, do you understand?" Yennefer had warned them. "Trigger them, and we'll have mages crawling all over the place, trying to track you both. So no using them, unless things have well and truly gone to shit and you need a quick escape."
And with that lovely warning, Jaskier and Cirilla set off, on their hopefully-not-an-adventure.
The trip to Rinde was filled mostly with silence, though Cirilla often glanced at him with that strange look seen so many times before. If not for his time as a lecturer in Oxenfurt, he'd be far more worried about her behaviour. Luckily for him, he knew that all Cirilla needed was time. Whatever she wanted to say or know, she would spit it out when she was ready, no point rushing her before that.
Thankfully for Jaskier's continued sanity, Rinde itself was entirely uneventful this time around. He wandered around town, collecting provisions and making small talk, while Cirilla trailed after him with wide, curious eyes. She followed along quietly as he visited the apothecary with Yennefer's list and the florist contact of hers who required to see the signet ring before handing him a picnic basket.
Feeling a little sorry for the girl getting dragged around everywhere with nothing to truly gain, he ushered her to the bakery, and encouraged her to get a pastry or two for herself. Her quiet delight with the chruściki earlier on in their journey had told him all he needed to know about her sweet tooth.
With their bounty successfully collected without drawing attention, and their pastries in hand, Jaskier and Cirilla began the trek back to where Geralt and Yennefer were waiting for them.
It was then, halfway back and when his guard was down, that the Lion Cub of Cintra pounced.
"So Jaskier... you, Geralt, and Lady Yennefer, all have a history of some sort, don't you?" she asked, casual as anything as she bit into her pastry.
'Ah,' thought Jaskier. 'There it was.'
"Mmm... We all go quite a while back," he replied, equally casual. "Why?"
"Because I don't understand how you all fit together," Cirilla said bluntly. "Everything I've seen about your relationships with one another contradicts itself. And Geralt is near useless in giving information that's not about witchering."
Jaskier huffed a laugh. "Yeah, he is. Though I wager he's not very good at giving information about witchering either."
"Explain it to me," Cirilla demanded.
He sighed.
"Well, the long and short of it, Princess, is that Geralt and I were travel companions for over 20 years. We met Yennefer during a misadventure 16 years into our companionship, and Geralt and Yennefer had a bit of an on-off relationship going on, which lasted 6 years, till we all had a falling out and went our separate ways. Then after things all went to shit, Yennefer and I reconnected, then Yennefer and Geralt I assume, then Geralt and I did. Which is how we all ended up at Kaer Morhen together, for the very first time ever."
Cirilla was silent for a few moments before she turned to face Jaskier. "That just made things even more confusing!"
"I don't understand!" she continued. "If you and Geralt had travelled together for so long, why is he so mean to you?! But when Lady Yennefer betrayed his trust, he just tossed me in your direction without explaining anything! And I thought he and Lady Yennefer were in love because I walked in on them kissing, but she doesn't seem to be able to stand him anymore! But she's the one who betrayed him! And you!" she jabbed a finger in his direction, "You don’t seem to be able to look at him!"
'Sweet Melitele’s tits, he really was not suited for dealing with this kind of crisis,' Jaskier thought despairingly.
Heck, he barely had any idea of what their relationships with one another were either!
"About Geralt and I," he started with a sigh. "We're just two people who spent a long time together due to our professions. He knows I'd do just about anything for him, and for someone in need. And I know if I were in danger and he knew, he would come for me. Or at least try to. But that doesn't necessarily mean we like each other."
Cirilla stared at him like he’d lost his mind. "What? Why would you spend so much time together, do all of that for one another, if you don't even like each other?"
"It's... a bit more complicated than that..." he said awkwardly.
"How is it complicated?" Cirilla asked him exasperatedly.
Jaskier had to take a few moments to figure out some way to explain it.
"In your grandmother's court, there were some people she disliked, yes?"
The princess snorted. "It was more like there were only a few she truly did like."
"But it didn't stop her from working with them, when they needed to, did it?"
Cirilla hesitated, clearly searching through her memories. Then nodded reluctantly.
"See that's the thing. When doing business, it matters not if you find that you can't imagine the individual as a friend. A good leader and business-doer can set aside their personal feelings and biases to work with people they dislike, if the dislike is emotional rather than because they're someone who does horrible things. There are times to stand firm, and times to bend."
He paused. "Whether Geralt and I like each other is irrelevant. The reasons we may or may not do so concern us alone. But we both trust the other to provide a service. Whatever our personal feelings are to each other, I can promise you that they will not affect your safety and security in any way. We are united in the common goal of giving you the very best that we can."
Cirilla did not seem particularly satisfied with that answer about his and Geralt's relationship, but she was aware that because it did not involve her, it was not hers to know about.
Jaskier was simply thankful that she did not seem inclined to pursue that line of questioning. It would not do well for her to know that Geralt had seen his child surprise as a curse, and had blamed Jaskier with unbridled hate for it.
They walked in silence while Cirilla mulled it over.
"What about Geralt and Lady Yennefer then?" she asked finally. "You said they were sort of together, before you all fell out. And I had thought they were together when we met but—" she cut herself off.
Jaskier shoved his gloved hands into his pockets.
"I think," he said carefully, "that this is a matter you would have better luck asking Geralt or rather, Yennefer, about. Because what little I do know about their relationship, Cirilla, it is heavily biased. And I cannot tell you much without breaking their confidence."
The princess seemed frustrated by his non-answer, but from her lack of response, it was clear that she had not truly expected Jaskier to answer either, given his earlier evasiveness.
"Fine," she huffed, balling the paper that had held her pastry into a crumpled mess. "What is your relationship with Lady Yennefer then."
Jaskier shot her a grin. "Now that, I can answer. Can you believe, that before the falling out, I would've called that she-hag an arch nemesis of mine?"
"What? No way!"
He laughed. "Yes way. Alright fine, nemesis is probably an exaggeration, but we certainly didn't like each other. Every encounter was a battle of wits, though I'm ashamed to admit I had more losses than wins. It's because she's ancient I tell you, she's practically a fossil!"
"Sounds like you're just a sore loser," Cirilla sniped with a cheeky grin.
Jaskier gasped in exaggerated offence. "What—No! I am not—!"
"Hmm, seems to me like you are," she replied smugly.
"Why, you—! Horrible, terrible, gremlin child! No respect for your seniors, I tell you," he grumbled.
"Sooo?" Cirilla prodded, cheerfully ignoring his muttering. "What happened next? You both now seem... cosy."
"Well, at great risk to herself and no benefit at all, she saved my life," Jaskier said simply.
"That's all it took?" she asked incredulously.
Jaskier shrugged. "Well there were a couple of other things after that, but those are far more personal."
Cirilla eyed him warily. "Are you both—?"
"Doing the do? Absolutely not," he replied with great amusement at the inherent disgust kids had of discovering what the adults in their lives got up to in their private time. "We're not quite there in our relationship. Or at all."
"Hmmm," she said, sounding painfully like her father surprise.
They meandered along in companionable silence for a while, before Jaskier—having chewed on the words for a significant time now—decided to take a risk.
"You have suffered great losses in your life, Cirilla," he said delicately, "and I would not claim to know how you feel. I do not ask you to trust Yennefer. Whatever the reason, she did betray your trust. It is not my place to determine how you should think or feel about that and her."
"But I do ask," he continued carefully, "that you consider giving her a chance. Yen is a powerful sorceress, yes, perhaps even one of the most powerful to walk the Continent. But even she is not unfailing. And once inside your head, Voleth Meir is not easy to defeat. Perhaps I shouldn't be telling you this, but she had been working on getting her hands on you for a long time, longer than you might guess."
"So please, I know it is not my place, but I ask you that you not judge Yen too harshly for her actions under significant duress," he spoke quietly as they neared the camp. "She is only as fallible as the rest of us."
They travelled the rest of the way in silence, Cirilla staring at the ground while every muscle of Jaskier's body held tense, hoping against hope that he had not inadvertently made things worse in his attempt to fix them.
Stepping into the campsite, they found Geralt meditating at the other end, Yennefer seated on the ground a short distance away, back ramrod straight. The witcher's eyes opened, and Yennefer surged to her feet, hastily crossing towards them, eyes fixed on Cirilla, before faltering and coming to a stop in the centre of the camp.
They all watched each other in that strange tableau, as if someone had forgotten their lines, uncertain of what they should be doing next.
Then Cirilla set her shoulders and started forward.
Warily, Geralt, Jaskier and Yennefer all followed her movements as she drew closer and closer to the mage, growing more and more tense.
And all inhaled sharply as she wrapped her arms around Yennefer and held on.
Stunned, it took the sorceress a moment to realise what was happening, before she gingerly placed her hands around the girl, a hand resting on her back and the other on her hair. They stood like that for a long minute, relaxing incrementally as time passed.
Finally, Cirilla drew back. Turning back, she gave the bard a faint smile, then made her way over to Geralt.
Pleasantly shocked, Yennefer simply stared at Jaskier. Who found himself moving over to her without thinking. He stopped in front of her, and held something wrapped in paper out.
"Um, so I, ah, got you something," he stumbled over his words.
Yennefer took the offered package, the smell of baked goods wafting enticingly from it. Then looked up at him, violet eyes shining with something that looked like amazed wonder at the gifts he'd given her.
"Yeah?" she breathed out.
The corners of Jaskier’s mouth pulled up.
"Yeah," he murmured back.
Strangely enough, after their visit to Rinde, some of the tension that had permeated the air when they were all forced to interact together had faded. Cirilla began to spend more time with Yennefer, flitting between her and Geralt, relaxing enough to be more curious about Chaos and ask about it.
At night, she would visit Yennefer and Jaskier in their tent, Geralt attempting to loom discreetly at one corner as the sorceress engaged her in some of the more theoretical aspects of Chaos. Jaskier watched with quiet happiness as the two women grew closer, assisting with some of the potions work or lounging in bed with a book.
Occasionally, he would feel the weight of golden eyes on him, but where he would've tensed up under the pressure—especially after the mountain—he found himself easily forgetting it even existed, attention wholly taken up by the other two. And when Geralt and Cirilla would leave for the night, there was only Yennefer in his thoughts.
Under her ministrations, the dark magics trapped under his skin were fully expunged, and she healed the wounds left behind bit by bit over the course of three nights. While he regained nearly full flexibility and mobility, the surface scarring she could do nothing about, not without skinning his hands to regrow a fresh layer anew.
Every now and then, Jaskier would find himself feeling self-conscious about the blemishes, retreating to the safety of the concealment provided by the gloves Yennefer had gifted him, particularly in moments he felt far too seen by Geralt. But with Yennefer's gentle nudging, he found himself clinging to the crutch less and less.
Meanwhile, with Jaskier's hands fully treated, Yennefer turned her full attention back to the problem of the djinn wish. And Melitele must have been smiling down on them, because not long after, the mage had successfully created the potion that could parse and isolate the djinn magic from Yennefer's own Chaos.
They reached Gors Velen the midday after.
With passes from Yennefer's fellow mages—Triss and Sabrina—delivered to them by a messenger not long before they reached the gates, the company of four were waved through with just a brief glance. Even with Yennefer’s and Geralt's hoods thrown up, while Jaskier and Cirilla had donned their disguises from Rinde. Perks of having connections with people in high places, Jaskier supposed.
Once within the city, the group made their way to an unobtrusive inn, to book rooms and eat food that was not simply rations or caught and cooked over a campfire, and sleep in beds that resided in structures with more permanent foundations.
Cirilla devoured the food placed in front of her like she hadn't eaten in years, stuffing herself full, growing lethargic and sleepy not long after. Taking her cue, the rest hastily finished their food and headed back up to their rooms: Geralt and Ciri sharing one, while Yennefer and Jaskier shared the other.
The latter two took the opportunity to order baths, scrubbing themselves free of the road dust and then collapsing together in bed to take a nap, certain that if there was any real danger, Geralt would be the first to know and tell them.
A few hours later, Jaskier was abruptly woken by a hand shaking his shoulder, and jerked upright.
"Whaz happening? Yen?"
He noticed the finger at her lips and winced in apology. The mage bent down to whisper into his ear.
"Come with me, we're going to deal with the wish."
Jaskier found himself wide awake.
"Yen, not to be a downer, but won't your use of Chaos be noticed? Isn’t that why we never used it on the road?" Jaskier panted as they stumbled down to the shoreline.
With his boots in one hand, Jaskier found it surprisingly hard to balance the three hefty branches that he and Yen had scoured the coast for, the mage incredibly picky about the size and shape of them for some reason.
"This close to Gors Velen, where the mages are gathering before heading to Thanedd, the amount of Chaos being used on a daily level would make the casters mostly indistinguishable," Yennefer replied.
She too held her boots in one hand, and carried the basket he’d brought back from Rinde in the other.
"I've also taken the liberty of arranging for dampening wards laid down before we arrived. Triss, a friend of mine, has also arranged for an event requiring a large amount of Chaos to be conducted in sync with us, to mask our presence further."
She shaded her eyes and looked around, as though searching for landmarks to orient her position—not that Jaskier could see anything that particularly stood out as one along the wide empty stretch of beach.
"We're in the right spot," Yennefer announced. She hefted up a rock from the sand, and used it to draw a large X on the ground. "Let's set up the tripod here."
Jaskier put down his load with a relieved sigh and obeyed.
Using the three stout pieces of wood and some twine, the two of them managed to build themself a large tripod and firmly planted it deep into the sand, piling stones and driftwood they scavenged from the shore to further reinforce the structure.
Once they'd finished, the mage headed over to the basket, lying by their discarded boots, and withdrew a scale pan and a chalice from within. Jaskier eyed the items with interest.
The scale pan was made of pure silver: from the pan itself to the chains that trailed from it to the point it would be hung from. Runes and Elder speech as well as more "artistic" (in Jaskier’s opinion) etchings swirled along the surface, covering it in its entirety.
The chalice on the other hand, was a beautiful, delicate piece of crystal, but simple in its design. This too was etched, though only just below its rim, and along the outer edge of the chalice's base.
With a length of purple ribbon, Yennefer attached the scale pan to the apex of the tripod, letting it dangle at waist height in the middle. Satisfied with its positioning, she then tilted her head to study the horizon that spanned before them, shading her eyes with a hand. Around them, the sand was soaked a dark orange as the sun neared its final descent of the day.
"Bardling, hand me the hourglass, the potion, and the bracelet in the basket," Yennefer said absently.
Jaskier rushed to do her bidding, retrieving the final few items from the wicker basket.
Aside from the fact that it belonged to a mage, the hourglass he pulled out of it was seeming entirely ordinary, much to Jaskier’s disappointment.
The bracelet, next to be removed, was a delicate piece of jewellery that Jaskier would never have associated with Yennefer, made of pure silver and consisting of a pattern of flowers and leaves, though Jaskier did not have the time to examine the design more closely.
However, the most interesting of the three, was the potion he pulled out: a thin golden fluid the colour of champagne, stoppered in a bottle a few sizes larger than the ones Geralt used for his elixirs.
Under the mage's direction, he placed the hourglass on a flat rock set in front of their setup, and handed the potion and bracelet to her.
The sorceress placed the chalice dead centre on the scale pan. Light from the dying sun caught in the crystal, reflecting and refracting off it such that it seemed to have been set ablaze.
"Get ready, Jaskier," Yennefer ordered. "When I say 'turn', I need you to flip the hourglass. Then you are to run back to stand behind me."
Jaskier nodded, and knelt down beside the rock, placing his fingers on the stem of the timepiece. "Yeah, I can do that."
Then as the edge of the sun touched the horizon, Yennefer upended the potion into the chalice.
"Turn!" she yelled, and Jaskier did. Then he sprinted back to her, as she began to murmur in Elder.
The etchings along the pan and the chalice abruptly glowed a brilliant white.
All of a sudden, the cooling sea breeze started to pick up. Grains of sand swirled around them as the wind grew stronger, ripping at their hair and clothes. The waves smashed closer and closer, frothing white foam inching higher and higher where they swelled near the shore.
At the heart of it all, Yennefer remained unfazed as the elements raged around them, their feeble tripod and the fragile contents dangling from it somehow remaining undisturbed in the chaos. Out of the corner of his squinted eyes, Jaskier noticed the hourglass resetting itself, the more magical version of Chaos no doubt being involved somehow.
The spell, or whatever it was that Yennefer was attempting, seemed to last forever. Jaskier would never have known about time passing if not for the occasional reset of the timepiece that he caught sight of, or the fact that the sun seemed to have dipped lower without him noticing when he could bear to glance at it.
When the sun had exactly halfway set, Yennefer tossed the jewellery clenched in her fist into the chalice with a cry.
Nature roared back.
Then, there was an imperceptible shift in the air.
Bit by bit, the seething elements calmed as the sun inched its way down. The vigour and pace of Yennefer's chanting slowed, the movement of her hands softening. And as the last edge of the sun slipped below the surface of the sea, there was a blinding flash of green across the water—and the potion in the chalice exploded in a froth of bubbles that evaporated into nothingness, leaving only the delicate piece of jewellery behind.
Yennefer's voice trailed off. And in the ensuing silence, as the ocean breeze gently brushed against them and soothing waves lightly lapped at the sandy shore, nothing but the beauty of the coast remained.
Stepping out from behind Yennefer, Jaskier watched as the sorceress lifted the bracelet out from the chalice, a minute tremble running through her fingers. He remained silent and unobtrusive as she attempted to put it on herself, fumbling with the clasp.
Sometimes the best thing to do was nothing. To interfere and try to help her put it on would only undermine her hard-fought-for agency, a trophy turning to a new shackle.
He held his breath as the clasp locked in place, but the look of wonder that spread across Yennefer's face stole it right out of his lungs.
"Its hold is gone," she whispered, awestruck. "I mean, the wish is still there, in one corner, but it's been locked away."
She laughed, a bright burst of pure joy. Then whirled around to face Jaskier, a wide smile threatening to split the corners of her mouth.
"Fuck! Fuck, I beat it! It's gone! Jaskier, it's gone!"
A fierce happiness swallowed him, and Jaskier found himself grinning madly back. "Fuck, Yen, you did it!"
She laughed once more, a wild untamed thing, and then threw herself at him. Jaskier surged forward to catch her, sweeping her into his arms and twirling them around in a bone-crushing hug, both of them laughing madly—Yennefer's head thrown back and her hair streaming around them.
They slowed to a standstill, panting, smiles never leaving their faces, watching each other as Jaskier swayed them gently.
"I have a choice again," Yennefer murmured, her lips softening their curve, but her smile no less genuine for it.
"You do," Jaskier agreed softly, his grin gentling to match hers.
The mage tenderly pressed a hand against his cheek, brushing her thumb against the arch of the bone.
"I think... I'd like to make that choice now," she said.
Hope dared to bloom in Jaskier's chest.
"Yeah?" he breathed out.
"Yeah," she whispered.
With the barest twitch of her hand, they found themselves falling into one another.
Falling, falling, but finding the softest landing, as their lips met in a gentle press while they kissed at the coast, silhouetted against a violet night and an ocean blue—
—where the sky met the sea.
