In a nocturnal conversation in the middle of the forest, and obviously both of them were overdosed.
Jaskier: You know, I approached you because I thought we had a lot in common.
Geralt: What could we have in common? You're a bard and I'm a witcher, you write cheesy songs and I kill monsters.
Jaskier: We both ran away from what we were meant to be, you were meant to be a witcher without feelings, a bad man, and I was meant to be a boring viscount, and here we are, you being a good man and full of feelings and me being someone who has a life like a carnival, singing from dusk to dawn... We are what we weren't meant to be....
i saw a tiktok post by @/violadagoomba who does gregorian chant talking about the guidonian hand, which was a visual way music instructors taught music theory by indicating places on their hand which correlated to different notes and was first depicted/used to teach hexachord in the 12th century or so. which meeeeeans~~~ guess who TOTALLY not only learned with but also taught using the guidonian hand??
THATS RIGHT!!
MASTER OF THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS VICOUNT JULIAN ALFRED PANKRATZ, MORE WIDELY KNOWN AS
THE BARD JASKIER.
so what i immediately need is references to this in fic!!!! geralt watches jaskier teach a class and wonders why he's gesturing to his hand. jaskier communicates specific notes to another bard across a loud room by pointing them out. teaching geralt the placement and sound of the notes. jaskier doing the musical equivalent of finger counting or going through the hand as a grounding mech or practicing it when bored, singing each note as he ticks them off on his hand.
USING THE GUIDONIAN HAND AS A SILENT/SECRET CODE LANGUAGE WITH GERALT OR OTHER BARDS???
there's SO MUCH use one could get out of this and it would be SO COOL.
anyway time to go write another fanfic wip exclusively to add this into it
Jaskier, finishing his twentieth round of "Fishmonger's Daughter": My job
Geralt: Hmmm
Geralt: Who's paying you?
Jaskier: Lambert
Jaskier: He says it's payback for something or other. I didn't ask too many questions, or listen all that diligently. This is the funnest gig I've had in ages
Geralt: ... How much for you to bother him instead?
Jaskier: Oh I am fucking IN
.
.
.
Lambert, hearing Jaskier coming down the hall singing "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher": Oh no
The Mountain – Mountain with a capital, because it was an event that will forever be etched into Geralt’s memories – was a complete shit show. By the time the witcher realized what he had done, an hour after standing alone on that damned Mountain, his heart had skipped a beat, and naught a moment later he was sprinting down the side of the Mountain to try and catch up to his bard.
It took several days to get to the bottom of the Mountain, not taking the short-cut the dwarves had suggested – Geralt couldn’t quite face that yet – but never once did the witcher run into his bard.
Fearful, Geralt slowed and spent time looking for his bard.
Heart heavy, he even looked for a body.
There wasn’t a single sign of Jaskier.
There was nothing.
He came upon the campsite that had once been bustling with too many people, now empty and deserted, with Roach greeting him enthusiastically after being alone for too long.
There wasn’t a single sign of Jaskier left at the camp.
There was nothing.
Geralt’s heart clenched. At least he knew that his bard had made it down the Mountain safely, but it did nothing to quell the deep and heavy sadness that was enveloping the witcher.
The witcher spent the next following weeks searching the local villages, in hopes that his bard was staying in one, but he was unfortunate in his search. In fact, no one could confirm that they had ever saw a young man with brown hair and blue eyes, elven lute strung across his back, walk through town. Geralt was once again gripped with fear.
There wasn’t a single sign of Jaskier.
There was nothing.
Months passed before Geralt was forced to give up, lest he be snowed-in at a random backwater village, unable to get back to Kaer Morhen in time for winter.
Heart heavy, he trudged the path he had walked all his life.
Only this time, Jaskier didn’t come with him.
<><><><>
It was years before Geralt got to lay his eyes on his bard again.
Years and years were spent, still running from Destiny, a war on the rise, the catalyst of everything drawing close. Geralt could feel it, the same way his medallion could sense Chaos and magic. He knew something big was going to happen soon.
He had long given up searching for his bard. Jaskier must have at least been in his forties the last time the two had seen each other, which was over half of a regular human lifespan. Jaskier must have settled down and found a nice wife, in a nice court, and finally set roots down without a nasty witcher holding him back from his rightful life. His birthright life. Geralt had no hope in ever seeing him again, let alone that he was still alive, what with the tensions and conflicts across the Continent rising.
So, imagine his shock, when he walked into an unknown tavern and heard the first few strings of a lute being plucked, painfully familiar and beautiful all at once.
Dreading, heart surging with hope, Geralt spun around, and he lost his breath.
Because there, upon the makeshift stage, was his bard.
His beautiful, beautiful bard.
Geralt was so shocked and relieved that he didn’t even notice that Jaskier looked the same as the day they met in Posada; of course, he didn’t question it. That was how it was. That was how Jaskier was supposed to look, youthful and beautiful. Jaskier was never meant to look worn and old and of course Geralt wouldn’t question it, because there wasn’t even an alternative in his mind.
But then Jaskier continued his song, soft and forlorn and voice raw with emotion. Geralt felt himself fall into the seat of the back-corner table, in a daze, unable to stop himself.
Her Sweet Kiss had been an instant favourite across the Continent.
Geralt hated it. He hated it so much.
But Geralt thought that he hated this new song even more.
“I’ll bring you a dream, I’ll bring you a rhyme.
Follow me and we will have a grand time.
If you come with me.
“We’ll walk, we’ll run, we’ll tumble and fall.
Together we’ll go through the king’s long hall.
If you come with me.
“I’ll watch over you until our breaths are cut,
and we’ll hide the fear with the windows shut.
If you come with me.
“I’ll be by your side wherever,
and we’ll be together forever.
If you come with me.
“So, pour me a glass, good or bad,
and we’ll have a jolly time, sane or mad.
If you come with me.
“If you come with me,
then you’re bound to see,
the joy from being free.
Heyo bouncy, coming to collect my fic for the Geralt with w/ nip piercings edit! Can i get some monster-ish looking geralt (or go full monster cryptid if ya want) with a jaskier who loves him v much fangs claws and all? Spice level up to u, just pls dont make it super sad as I cry like a lil bitch. (Also feel free to hit me more tat/piercing edits and ill do my best to deliver!)
(Ayyy thank you so much for that edit by the way. Excellent addition to the Tiddy Discourse)
it will be fluffy as fuck, my friend
featuring a real British cryptid that I have appropriated for my purposes (this is NOT related to my BATB crossover series)
---
Jaskier whistled a jaunty tune and pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as he picked his way over fallen branches and twining roots. The wind was starting to pick up and he felt the biting cold in his face and hands; hopefully he was growing close enough to summon his lover’s aid.
“Geralt?” he called, cupping his hands around his mouth, “Geralt, where are you?”
There was a dark flash of shadow from the corner of Jaskier’s weak human vision and then there he was in all his shaggy, canine-heavy glory: the Beast of Bohdren Moor.
Geralt stood just over six-and-a-half feet tall, even when he stooped his shoulders forward to seem more menacing. His hair was a wild, snow-white mess; though it was more tamable now that it had been when Jaskier first stumbled upon the strange creature’s lair. He made sure to braid it back and out of the monster’s way whenever he returned to humanity.
“Jaskier,” the Beast snarled, stepping closer and reaching out his claw-tipped hands. The young bard fell against his lover’s chest and sighed. The creature buried his nose against Jaskier’s hair and breathed in deeply. “Smell good. Like fruit.”
“I am a little on the fruity side,” the bard giggled. He shivered then, and burrowed closer to the furnace that was Geralt. “It’s cold out here, love.”
“Cave, then.”
“Alright.”
The giddy bard allowed himself to be swept off his feet and carried the short distance between the clearing and Geralt’s cave, babbling all the while about his latest lessons and new compositions and look Geralt, I’ve brought you some wine and a new blanket for winter.
“You don’t have to do these things,” the Beast asserted, placing Jaskier back on his feet at the mouth of his cave/home.
“I know, but I enjoy it. There are very few people left in my life that I want to spoil, Geralt, please allow me to take out that frustration on you. There’s nobody more deserving of gifts and affection than you, my darling creature of the night.”
“Hmm.”
Jaskier pulled the wine from his travel basket and allowed Geralt to pop the cork with his impressively sharp teeth. “Well done, lover mine.”
“Hmm.”
One of Geralt’s sharp claws made its way down the outside of Jaskier’s clothed thigh and the younger man shivered. “Later, darling. You’ll get what you want later; let’s have something to eat and drink first. And you can tell me all about the people you’ve frightened and the monsters you’ve dispatched from the area.”
“Hmm,” the Beast hummed yet again and reached out to pull the bard closer. Jaskier allowed himself to be folded and maneuvered safely onto Geralt’s wide lap. “Stay.”
“Well,” the young bard smiled, cuddling close to his darling wild-man. “I can’t argue with that, now, can I?”
