I am so passed April fools cause life hard and busy but I hope we're still in a silly mood ;;v;;
(very belated) April Black Butler Animo Black Arts Magazine- Ciel Dies.
I really needed to participate in this months mag for 2 reasons, 1) because I missed doing last months mag even though the prompt that I had pitched since day 1 of me joining (wild west) was finally selected... and I didn't even get to participate. so I'm bummed. and 2) because I actually also am mostly responsible for conceiving this prompt and I am proud of myself(as well as everyone else who participated hahaaa) for having an idea. so yes.
So, many moons ago, I saw a post from @meteors-lotr about how The Company basically lied to Bard's face and he probably assumed Bilbo and Thorin were married.
Well, thank you for the inspiration and here is the fic.
Read it here on A03 - The trials and tribulations of a married hobbit (a bowman's persepctive)
When the Master called Thorin out, it was Bilbo who stood forward, who all but declared his respect for the dwarf in front of him. It was then, when Thorin looked at Bilbo with his heart in his eyes and Bilbo smiled back bashfully, that Bard understood. No wonder the hobbit left his land of mists and secrecy. Bard would have run after his wife if she had smiled at him like this.
Bilbo had obviously done the same with his husband, the dwarven king. Bard would have desperately loved to hear the story of their meeting and marriage, but he knew better than to ask, especially as they seemed to be keeping it private.
Now Bard knew they were married, he could actually see it. The soft smiles, the gentle touches. The way Bilbo made sure Thorin was eating and Thorin made sure Bilbo was safe, especially from the water, as Bilbo seemed to have a hatred for it. Bard was surprised it had taken him so long to see the relationship between the two, considering how glaringly obvious it was
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Can I interest anyone in some h/c bard whump on this fine monday morning? ✨ This is a fic I wrote a while ago and haven’t got around to sharing on here yet. I don’t know about you guys but I love stories where there isn’t really an antagonist. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy the Nilfgaardian Prison Cell TM as much as the next woman but sometimes a bit of suffering that’s to no heroic end is also good? So I wrote a bit of suffering for myself as a treat. Hope you enjoy!
Summary:
alternative title: Jaskier's terrible awful no good very bad hiking trip
After the breakup, Jaskier starts out down the mountain heartbroken and craving a warm bed, ale in which to drown his sorrows and some good company. However, the path they took up the mountain is now impassable, and he soon finds himself hopelessly and utterly lost.
I looked up the dangers of getting lost in the wilderness and this fic is just me making all of them happen to Jaskier. This is a survival guide, in reverse. If you're ever lost in the wilderness, do NONE of these things.
[Hello all-- hope you are having a great week. I am hoping to be inspired enough to write at least another chapter for this one, but not sure how far I’ll go. All my love -R]
Geralt dismounted Roach with a grunt, approaching the heavy wooden door signifying the final barrier between him and the village healer. Normally he would simply care for his own wounds (possibly the reason for his many ill-healed scars) but a rather nasty cut had been contaminated with acid from the basilisk that had inflicted it, leading him to seek an expert opinion (although he mourned the loss of his coin that was sure to follow). With any luck, the basilisk’s body could be sold to an alchemist—or perhaps a mage—and he would at least break even before departing this village. This place was not new to him. In his many years, he had ended up here before, for a pint of ale or a similar visit to a healer. He had come once after Blaviken, being met with fear and scorn from the villagers that had paid him little mind before, and had determined not to return, more for their sake than his. Of course, after Jaskier’s… work, their attitude towards him had changed significantly.
Jaskier.
It had been nearly six months since their “conversation” on the mountain. Geralt was sure that mountain had been cursed somehow. It was there that Yennefer had rejected him—seemingly permanently—and what did he do but drive away one of the few people he could call “friend” (not that he would, as he surely would never hear the end of it). For a few months after they so unceremoniously parted ways it seemed that the people in taverns and pubs across the Continent would not shut up about him, asking Geralt what happened between them and if he knew why the bard wouldn’t sing “Toss a Coin” anymore and if he had heard the new songs he was performing, very odd really, almost like they had never traveled in the first place, haven’t you heard, Geralt? The witcher often would choose not to respond, simply growling instead, which would definitely stop the other patrons from bothering him although he would still hear the whole conversation about his former traveling companion, just from across the room.
He hadn’t heard anything about the bard, by choice or otherwise, in nearly a month. He would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t concerned. Jaskier had a certain quality that made others talk about him just as much as he talked in general, so to hear nothing about him “being seen naked running from some government official’s house being chased by a cuckolded husband” or “playing at the same government official’s daughter’s wedding” or even “being banned from an entire kingdom after playing a song about what a good lay the government official’s wife was at said wedding” was unusual. Geralt had pondered many times whether to attempt to repair their broken friendship, ultimately deciding it was better to let the more social outspoken extrovert make the first move. And if he didn’t, Geralt would know he had taken things a step too far, leave the bard alone, and move on.
But still, that being said—hearing nothing? Maybe Jaskier had settled down with someone, or gone back to Oxenfurt. Maybe, just maybe, everything was fine, and he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere, having finally “buttered the wrong biscuit” (as Jask would say).
Roach gave him a questioning look, almost as if she was asking “Well? Are you going to go in?” he had been absent-mindedly standing next to the longsuffering horse, wound oozing onto his already-ruined shirt.
“Sorry, Roach. Just thinking. You know how it is.” A villager walked by, opening their mouth to say something before deciding not to after all and walking on.
He knocked twice before opening the door, being met with the aroma of old books, fireplace ashes, tea, and incense.
“Gods have mercy, you frightened me,” said the weathered old woman, crouching by the fire, stirring a pot of soup. “I must have been lost in thought.”
“You’re not the only one,” said Geralt, heavy footsteps creaking on the wooden floor.
The old woman put on a pair of small glasses—seeming nearly as old as she was—as her expression changed to a friendly smile. “Why, if it isn’t Geralt of Rivia! That’s quite a wound you’ve brought for me, dear boy.” (In her old age, she seemed to have forgotten meeting Geralt for the first time as a young girl, when her mother was the healer in this village.)
“Ran into a basilisk on the way here,” he said, half-smiling. She had been one of the few who never feared him, even before Jaskier’s pro-Witcher propaganda reached this part of the Continent. “Know anyone willing to buy a dead one?”
“I’d buy it myself, but luckily for you I have plenty of basilisk antivenin squirreled away in my cupboards,” she stood before the white-haired man, looking him in the eye despite her stature, shrunken and hunched by the passage of time. “Most people die before I get to use it.”
“Not a very good healer then, are you?”
She smirked, smile lines on her face deepening. “Not my fault they take so long to get to me. Here, sit. Let’s take a look.”
Geralt sat on a small stool near the warmth of the fire, grimacing as he peeled his shirt off the weeping skin on his shoulder. The healer stood eye level with his shoulder, poking, prodding, and humming, muttering to herself. She wet a small rag with warm water, wiping the half-clotted blood off the wound, being met with an involuntary hiss from Geralt.
His eyes wandered the room as she worked, taking in the sights and smells. Through the oppressive scent of the old woman’s home he could sense something comfortingly familiar, yet too dim to distinguish its source.
“This is going to sting for a minute,” the woman said, interrupting his train of thought.
“Hm.” Geralt shrugged with the unaffected shoulder. He was no stranger to pain of all kinds, and it was lucky for him, really. To be so accustomed to those physical pains of the inevitable cycle of injury and recovery was a benefit to a witcher. She was right, though, and it did sting, Geralt gritting his teeth as she poured a potion of cleansing across the bloodied laceration. It reacted quickly, foaming up as the old woman continued dabbing it with the rag, glasses sliding down her nose. The fire made a loud pop sound, and a voice behind a door to another small room in the home made a small moan in response.
“Sorry,” she said flippantly. “Got a live-in, for once,”
“Must be pretty bad for you to give up your solitude.”
“To be honest, not sure if he’ll make it. Whoever got a hold of him did a number on the poor dear.”
Geralt only hummed in response, squeezing his eyes closed as she poured more of the potion across the wound.
“That should do it for the venom. Mind if I sew you up?”
“You’re the expert,” Geralt checked her work out of the corner of his eye. “And really, what’s another scar?”
She laughed, a time-worn sound. “I think you’ve got a few from me now, haven’t you?”
“At this point I’ve lost track.”
The woman moved to a shelf, pulling out a small box and carefully choosing a needle, holding each and every one up close to aged eyes. Geralt turned to look over his unaffected shoulder, stretching sore muscles in his neck, spotting an object in the corner of the room that gave a hint to the source of the familiar scent. Familiar, yet oddly less comforting, the more he thought about it.
Filavandrel’s lute.
It felt like the world stood still for a moment. The pain in Geralt’s shoulder faded to a whisper compared to the cacophony of his racing thoughts.
“You doing alright?” The healer was a few stitches deep in Geralt’s shoulder. He hadn’t even noticed.
“Fine. Where did you get that?”
“Hm?” the old woman looked up from her work. “Oh, that’s not mine.”
You’re damn right it’s not, Geralt thought. “Whose is it, then?”
“It belongs to the bard,” she said, sighing, focus back to the wound. “I was going to try and get some broth in him before you came along and interrupted.”
“He’s your patient?” Geralt tried desperately to keep his voice even and measured.
“Sure is. Why? I would say the lute’s not for sale, for his sake, but I don’t know if he’ll play it anymore.”
He’ll play that damned thing till his dying breath, said the voice in Geralt’s head.
“I, um.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. Keep your cool. “I know him. He’s a… traveling companion of mine.”
“Hm. Lute’s that distinct, eh? Well, I’m almost done. You can go in to him, if you want. Like I said…” she sighed, pulling the thread tight. “He’s in bad shape.”
“What happened to him?”
“Not sure. He was sort of dumped on my doorstep. My guess is that he was tortured. Not sure why they didn’t take the lute, though. It looks valuable.”
The healer’s gnarled hand gave Geralt a gentle pat on the back.
“All done, witcher dear. Now, do me a favor and see if my patient will eat.” She shoved a wooden bowl into his hand, its fragrant broth sloshing out onto the floor. “And don’t worry about payment today. Getting rid of a basilisk is a service to our community.”
“Thank you.”
She waved her hand flippantly as she picked up a yellowed book lying face down on a table. “Don’t mention it. I don’t want anyone else in town trying to kill monsters for free care.”
Geralt stood, pulling on his shirt, the only sounds remaining in the room the crackling of the fire and the old woman licking her fingers to turn ancient pages. He cautiously pushed open the door at the back of the room.
The bedroom was shrouded in darkness, and a figure was lying supine on the bed in the corner. Their forehead and eyes were covered with a small cloth. The bard’s left hand clasped the blanket on top of him. Despite its pallor, the hand was definitively Jaskier’s. Thin, agile fingers, nails once manicured but worn now, skin soft yet callused in just the right places. The other hand hung limply off the bed.
“Jaskier?”
The man did not stir. His chest was gently rising and falling, and as Geralt approached, he could see angry, multicolored bruises on the man’s neck.
“Jaskier, wake up.”
Geralt set the bowl of soup on the floor, crouching by the bed. Jaskier’s hand was completely bandaged, and something seemed…off about his arm. His scent was marked with illness and fear. Geralt brushed the back of his fingers across the other man’s cheek, cool to the touch. He stood, drawing the curtain open for just a little bit of light, and sat back on the floor. He reached for Jaskier’s hand before pulling back suddenly.
Jaskier’s hand.
His left hand, knuckles white, gripping the light blanket as if his life depended on it, thin fingers, pale, yet his.
His right hand…
Geralt’s brow furrowed. He reached again for the bandaged limb, realizing his was shaking as his fingers closed around Jaskier’s.
It wasn’t a hand.
Geralt’s brain short circuited. He could hear the healer’s voice echoing in his mind. I don’t know if he’ll play it anymore, my guess is that he was tortured, and not sure why they didn’t take the lute, though.
Whoever had hurt Jaskier, he didn’t know. He only knew that they had taken the bard’s hand. His right hand, the hand he strummed his lute with, the hand he wrote in his book with, the hand he wore his ring on.
The man let out a whimper as Geralt realized he had been gripping his arm perhaps a little too tightly.
Then a sob. “Fuck,” he whispered, tears trickling down from the corners of his eyes to the well-worn pillow below.
“Jaskier.” Geralt whispered the name as if a child trying out a new swear word. When was the last time he heard Jaskier play? Once an annoying, near accursed noise that he couldn’t seem to tune out when they traveled together, now a sound lost to time and the cruelty of man.
The bard tensed at the sound of his voice. “Geralt?”
“Yes, Jask, it’s me.” His free hand reached up to move the cloth from the bard’s face. Blue eyes, dulled and rimmed with red, stared back at him, more weary and sorrowful than he had ever seen them before. Jaskier’s hair had begun to gray at the temples.
“I thought you would come for me.” The words seemed to suck all the breath from Geralt’s lungs.
He searched for a response for a moment, silently, his mind turning over the magnitude of harm that had been done to his friend, harm that could have been avoided had he not…
“I’m sorry.”
The broth lay on the floor growing cold. The fire crackled, the woman in the other room humming to no one in particular, turning the pages of her book, unaware of the painful reunion going on in her own home.
Jaskier shut his eyes, lips quivering, struggling to remain relatively composed.
“Jaskier, I—“
The flood gates opened, the smaller man beginning to weep. Geralt set his jaw in an attempt to refrain from the same.
