6. Who gave you that black eye?!
87. Is that a blood stain?
96. Just hold my hand, please.
Hi!! thank you for the prompts!!! It took a few days, I rewrote it a couple of times before I got something I liked, but it was fun! I managed to fit all three sentences in! Here it is :)
“Jaskier?” Geralt called again through the echoing hallways of the unsettlingly empty and silent manor. When Jaskier hadn’t shown up at their agreed meeting point in Novigrad he started to worry. So after a day of waiting the witcher left a note with the innkeeper and went to look for his bard.
They had split up a few days prior. Jaskier did not want to watch Geralt fight drowners for the hundredth time and Geralt had refused to accompany him to a ball he had been requested to play at. Jaskier had never before been to this estate so the danger of being stabbed by a cuckolded spouse was slim and Geralt’s services as bodyguard were not needed. The witcher couldn’t deny that he favored a nest of drowners over a royal ball.
But now he was questioning if he had let Jaskier walk into some kind of trap all on his own. This manor where the ball should have taken place didn’t look like it had been lived in for at least ten years, let alone like it had been the venue of a ball recently. Thick layers of dust covered cupboards and windowsills, curtains were yellowed, some fallen to the floor and the garden had been helplessly overgrown.
Huge wooden double doors greeted the witcher at the end of the dark hallway. They opened with a creaking sound as he pushed.
The room behind them, a huge hall, was a mess. It looked like some kind of fight had happened there. Turned over tables, cups and bottles lay scattered on the floor and there was… “Jaskier,” Geralt said more urgently this time, and when he heard his name said in a familiar but hoarse voice, he rushed towards it. It came from a massive golden … cage? It was knocked over and lay on the side and in it was his bard.
“Geralt,” Jaskier said again from behind golden bars, “you came…”
The witcher made the last few steps towards the cage and knelt down, “of course. Jaskier, what happened? Is that a blood stain?”
“Not mine,” he replied with an unusually raspy and quiet voice. Geralt reached between thick golden bars and carefully cupped Jaskier’s cheek, softly stroking right under the bard’s eye with his thumb, “and who gave you that black eye?” His voice was soft but under the calmness rage started to bubble up. Jaskier pressed his face lightly into Geralt’s hand, closing his eyes, inhaling deeply.
“That man,” Jaskier said a moment later, eyes open again and pointing to a motionless figure lying on the floor only a few meters away. Geralt’s head whipped around and asked in a stern voice, “is he dead?”
He felt Jaskier shake his head, “as much as he deserves it, I am quite sure that he is just unconscious. But he will probably get a nasty bump on his ugly head.” Geralt nodded. Now that he concentrated he could feel the faint heartbeat of the man and saw the slow rise and fall of his chest.
“What the fuck did this asshole do to you?” he growled, “and is this...a giant bird cage?”
Geralt stood up slowly, taking in the golden construction. It was round, maybe 1,5 meters in diameter, 2,5 meters tall with bars coming together on the top to form a cupola. There was even a fucking swing, wide enough for an adult human.
“This asshole,” Jaskier spat out, pointing again towards the unmoving man, “tried to hit me unconscious upon arrival, but I learned a thing or two from you and could hold him off for a bit, landing a few punches myself,” he said and then pointed at his eye, “but he landed a few more so I got this and in the end he managed to shackle me and put me in this abomination, telling me I will be his fucking songbird from now on.”
Geralt was silently debating whether to kill the man who had hurt Jaskier right here and now. But he assessed from the slow breathing and heartbeat that he would be knocked out for a while longer and decided that getting Jaskier out of the cage was more important for now.
He breathed in deeply and asked, “and how did that happen?” He gestured between the unconscious man and the fallen cage Jaskier was still sitting inside.
“He started to poke me with a fucking stick when I didn’t sing for him, but I wasn’t fast enough to grab the stick…”
“So you pushed over the cage from inside?”
Jaskier nodded, “I wanted to bury him under it, grab the keys and escape, but the bastard had the audacity to stumble backwards, trip over and hit is head on the table, out of my fucking reach.”
Jaskier was fuming, but he looked pale and held his head in his hands. “And you managed to hit your own head in the process,” Geralt said and sighed.
“Let me turn up the cage and get you out of there,” he continued. He grabbed the cage and slowly, to give Jaskier the time to adjust, lifted the cage till it stood upright once more. With the keyes he got from the unconscious man he opened it and Jaskier stumbled out.
“Do you want me to kill him?” Geralt wasn’t quite sure if he actually meant it. Jaskier grinned wickedly but said, “no, the potential backlash is not worth it. Just let him lie here, maybe I’m lucky and he’ll die of inner bleeding all on his own.”
Geralt snorted and said, “come on, let’s get out of here.”
He made his way towards the door when he heard Jaskier say, “Geralt, could you...just hold my hand, please? I feel a bit light headed.” He stopped and turned towards him. Admittedly the bard had seen better days. His doublet and trousers were rumpled and dirty, his hair dishevelled and he was still paler than usual. Taking a few steps back towards him, Geralt didn’t take his hand but wrapped an arm firmly around Jaskier’s waist, holding him steadily against him.
“Better?” he asked quietly and Jaskier nodded with a smile as they made their way out of the manor.
Does anybody else wants to be tagged when I post my fics? (Is it weird to ask this? I feel weird :D)
