One of the witchers makes a comment about Jaskier “aging well.”
And Jaskier’s like, “Thank you! I put a lot of thought into the amount of wrinkles and grey hair is realistic, yet sexy.”
Geralt, who’s been having a full-on crisis about Jaskier’s mortality: “what?”
With a snap of his fingers, Jaskier gradually transformed, reverting to the youthful appearance Geralt remembered from their first meeting all those years ago. Yet, even then, there had always been something... sharper about him. Or had there? Geralt couldn't quite recall.
"Feels good to get that glamour off," Jaskier remarked with a smile, stretching his arms. "They can get a bit stuffy after a while."
Geralt stared at the bard, utterly dumbfounded. "You were wearing a glamour?"
"I thought you knew," Jaskier replied, his expression mirroring Geralt's confusion. "I’m a Fae. We don’t really age."
Jaskier is cursed. He's completely lost all sound. He can't speak, sing, hum, whistle, hell even his gasps, laughs, and sobs are silent.
There is only one cure. Geralt must perform, like a proper bard, until he earns as many coins as Jaskier's age. Easy, Geralt thinks. He just has to whine and bitch until enough sorry sods give him 30 to 40 coins. If he tells the sob story of Jaskier, songbird of the continent, losing his voice, they're sure to throw in a coin per person.
However when he says this to Jaskier, Jaskier's face pales. He scribbles down the starts of a conversation in his notebook immediately.
"You have to earn my age?"
"Yes? What's wrong with that?"
"...Geralt.. I'm not 40."
50, then? He looks quite well for a human that age, Geralt thinks. Hardly looks 30.
"Geralt."
"Yes, Jaskier?"
"Geralt, I'm in my hundreds."
But imagine Eskel comes across Geralt and Jaskier in the woods and is very confused about also finding a cat in camp
Eskel: why is there a cat?
Roach: neigh
Jaskier: why shouldn't there be a cat?
Eskel: cats hate witchers!
Jaskier: well that tracks, he really does hate Geralt. But absolutely adores his momma
Eskel: you let your bard adopt a cat
Jaskier: 1. I don't need geralts permission to do things
Geralt: 2. Not his cat
Eskel: then whose cat is it!?
Jaskier (hands on hips): i just said he only likes his momma whose cat do you think it is!?
Eskel (pulling his hair out): idk! It's not yours and it's not geralts the only one left is Roach. Which is stupid cause she's a horse!
Roach: neigh
Roach, trying to get dinner for her baby out of Jaskiers coat pocket
Jaskier: damnit Roach I told you Gordon is not dinner
Roach: neigh!
Jaskier: we told you if you kept Baby then you'd have to teach him to hunt yourself! And to leave Gordon out of it
Gordon: squeak, squeak, squeak
Jaskier, the mouse raised to eye level: 3. You are not the father! And 4. I told you aren't allowed to help with hunting lessons until baby accepts your not food.
Geralt, calming making dinner: hmmmmm
Eskel walks out of camp screaming thinking he's lost his mind only to learn that winter that Jaskier was in fact holding a full fledged conversation with the animals
So here are my headcanons, because I refuse to believe that our ball of sunshine has an expiration date...
So, I know Lauren said that Jaskier not aging in the show was just a filming mistake, something they simply forgot to do and on a completely logical level I am fully aware that in canon Jaskier is completely human, 100%. And I also know that they're not gonna change it, no matter how much some of us may wish they did (Although why not? They already strayed so far from the books and made so many changes, might as well go the extra mile)
Realistic-ish headcanons:
- Jaskier is part elf, perhaps quarter elf like Yennefer, it is an entirely justifiable headcanon, theoretically, Jaskier's human father could have married a half elf commoner woman (who may or may not have had the pointy tips on her ears cut off with a knife to avoid human prejudice)
- Jaskier has a fae ancestor, somewhere many many generations back in his ancestry, so his entire family is suspiciously long lived but nobody cares because Lettenhove isn't politically important and therefore doesn't catch the attention of the prejudiced Nobles farther up the royal court chain.
- Jaskier unintentionally drinks the same elixir mages/sorcerers drink to prolong their life. I read that chaos wielders don't have naturally long lifespans, they semi-regularly drink an elixir with mandrake roots in it to slow the aging process. According to Witcher Wiki, you can only buy mandrake root in Lindenvale and my headcanon is that Jaskier experiments with many different tea blends to see which one is more effective for soothing his throat after singing. So at the age of 29-30, he wanders into Lindenvale and buys some dried mandrake to make a tea, after one sip he felt more rejuvenated than ever and since that day, mandrake root tea has become his number one go-to, he drinks it as often as he can.
More fanfic centric, less canon possible headcanons:
- Jaskier is a Dryad. (Yayyy trans Jaskier headcanon) Since Lettenhove is so tiny, it isn't even on the Witcher continent map, but a simple Google search says that it is Located somewhere in Kerack. Kerack borders with Brokilon, so it's kind of a nifty little loophole for fanfic writers to use and place Lettenhove somewhere near the forests where Dryads live.
And while most Dryads treat any man that enters their realm as a mere sperm donor, Witcher Wiki does also mention that some Dryads can form emotional relationships and fall in love with humans and/or elves, but in the end, all Dryad born offspring is AFAB. So imagine this, Jaskier's father falls in love with a Dryad, she falls in love with him, they have Jaskier, Jaskier notices early on that he feels like a boy and his rich Viscount father hires a mage to help Jaskier transition early.
- Jaskier is a higher vampire, higher vampires are a HIGHLY secretive society, even in canon, part of the reason why even Witchers have so little information about them is because they prefer to hide in plain sight and are ridiculously good at it. Jaskier doesn't age, has no self-preservation instincts, doesn't buy a horse and yet still keeps up with Geralt on foot for 20 years. Jaskier's personality isn't fake, he doesn't act like someone else, it's all him, but his clumsiness is a little bit of an act, he also purposefully avoids physical fights, it comes across as fear of getting hurt but in reality it's because he's afraid of appearing too strong and exposing himself. Lettenhove doesn't appear on maps, because it doesn't exist legally, it's just a castle hidden in the woods, a safe place for higher vampires, kinda like Kaer Morhen is for Witchers, Jaskier's parents just happen to be the ones who run it.
