Visiting Marilka - Chapter 2
Title: Visiting Marilka
Author: gwyllion
Genre: Canon era
Pairing: Geralt of Rivia | Geralt z Rivii/Jaskier |Dandelion
Rating: R
Words: 57,262
Warnings: Brief mention of sexual desires by an underaged minor character. Genderfluid minor character.
A/N: Visiting Marilka was written for the 2021 Witcher Big Bang. Thanks to my artist, Rogue Pyrola whose awesome artwork can be seen below, seren and the Witcher Big Bang mod team, and my wonderful beta Gillian who always makes my writing better. Thanks to The Witcher’s author, showrunners, and actors, (especially Mia McKenna-Bruce!), who inspire us to make more art.
This fic is dedicated to Nathan, who conceived it to be so.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading!
Before dawn, Geralt wiped down his armour and sharpened and oiled his swords. The habit hadn’t diminished in the months Geralt travelled without Jaskier. Vesemir had taught the young witchers that few things were more important than a sharp sword. Geralt sharpened his faithfully every morn, whether he had used a sword or not in the previous day.
Jaskier snored lazily from the bed.
The witcher didn’t remember Jaskier stirring in the night. Nor did the bard weep like a bereaved human. Any grief that Jaskier felt over the loss of his father seemed to be remedied by sleep.
At daybreak, the innkeeper’s wife came to collect the laundry.
Geralt considered washing his trousers and tunic in the tub. The water had cooled, and a soapy film lingered on the surface. He decided against it, letting the innkeeper’s wife take the lot of it to be washed-Jaskier’s chemise and trousers, along with the witcher’s filthy clothing. They barely filled one armload.
Holding the blade to the sun that streamed through the window, Geralt inspected his work. It would suffice until he plunged the blade into the next monster. He tucked away his whetstone and began to pack his potion bottles into their case when Jaskier stirred.
Blinking his eyes open, then taking time to rub at them with his fists, Jaskier yawned.
“You’re up early,” Jaskier said, his voice hoarse from ale and last night’s performance.
“Hmm,” Geralt grumbled. He had hoped to be gone by the time Jaskier awoke, although he understood the futility of the plan when he let the innkeeper’s wife take the laundry.
“It seems like a dream,” Jaskier said sitting up, the bedclothes pooling at his waist. “My father is dead. You reappeared in the same tavern as me. Did last night really happen?”
“I’m afraid so,” Geralt said.
Jaskier lurched forward and studied the floor beside the bed.
“You slept on the floor?” he asked.
“Meditated,” Geralt said, latching closed the box of potion bottles.
“Ah, yes,” Jaskier said. “And my clothing?”
“Sent it off to the laundry,” Geralt replied.
Jaskier bolted from the bed. He strode to the chair, where he had left his long crimson leather coat. “At least you had sense to keep the launderess’ hands off this beauty,” Jaskier said, lifting the coat from the chair and stroking the supple collar. “I paid more than a month’s worth of coin for such an elaborate tailoring job.”
“Hmm,” Geralt snorted.
Jaskier replaced the coat on the chair and walked across the room to the tub. “It’s like old times,” he said wistfully.
Geralt loaded his potion case into its proper location in his saddlebag.
“I was too tired for a bath last night,” Jaskier said, letting his fingers skim the surface of the water, “but I could go for a bath today, as long as we’re waiting for laundry.”
Geralt took his eyes off the potions long enough to see Jaskier strip off his nightshirt. He anticipated the request for hot water and prepared to cast the sign at the tub. Jaskier’s nude body stood directly in Geralt’s line of sight.
“Heat?” Geralt asked, keeping his voice calm.
It had been months since he had seen Jaskier naked, but the sight lived in his memory when they were apart. His lean frame, muscular arms from hauling his gear everywhere, strong legs from walking at Geralt’s side… and all that hair. Jaskier could have been half faun, judging by the dense swirls of dark hair that covered his chest. Geralt knew it to be silky soft, unlike the hair that grew coarser as it descended over his belly and down to where Jaskier’s proud cock was the talk of the brothels from Aedirn to Zerrikania.
“If you would be so kind, witcher,” Jaskier politely asked.
Geralt cast the sign for Igni, heating the water so it would provide Jaskier with a good temperature for a soak. He quickly returned his eyes to his supplies as soon as the signing finished. He didn’t need to see Jaskier as he lifted one leg over the side of the tub to test the water before stepping into the bath. It was bad enough that the bard lasciviously groaned with pleasure as the water swirled around him.
Geralt organized his belongings, packing his swords into their sheaths. He’d wait until the launderess returned his clothing before seeing to Roach. His eyes flitted around the room, making sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind.
Jaskier hummed a tune as he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and massaged his soapy hands through his hair.
Geralt avoided looking at Jaskier, although the tiny room made it nearly impossible.
“I was just thinking, witcher,” Jaskier began.
Geralt grunted with disinterest at the bard.
Jaskier dunked his head into the water and, after rinsing the fragrant soap out of his hair, he continued, “If you’re travelling from town to town looking for contracts, you might consider joining me as I return to Lettenhove.”
“Jaskier,” Geralt pleaded. It would have been a good time for Geralt to dissolve the guilt over letting the bard travel with him for so long. But Geralt was resolute.
“Think about it,” Jaskier said, his arms folded atop the edge of the tub. “Oh Jaskier, I hear you say, I’ve run you off already. I’ve broken your heart. You shouldn’t want to have me as a travelling companion ever again.”
“Hmm,” Geralt mumbled. Jaskier had it right. And yet the bard persisted.
“But I have room in my heart for you, former friend,” Jaskier continued, resting his chin on his arms. “I have a forgiving heart, you’ll be thankful to know.”
Geralt snorted. This was wrong. Jaskier should have been furious with him.
“I thought I’d stay to look after you for one evening because of your father’s death. That was the plan.”
“Plans change, Geralt,” Jaskier said, slapping the edge of the tub.
To hear Jaskier say his name lent some realism to the relationship they had built for more than twenty years of wandering the Continent together. Geralt’s chest hurt.
“Can’t plans change when something else comes up?” Jaskier asked, standing in the tub. He dragged a linen sheet over his body, blocking Geralt’s view, although he didn’t do it out of modesty.
Geralt couldn’t accompany Jaskier. Witchers were meant to travel alone. He had set Jaskier free. He needed to let Jaskier find his own way, enjoy his own successes.
“Of course, it’s not as if I could force you to come with me,” Jaskier said.
Geralt detected the pang of sadness in the bard’s voice.
“I need to check on the laundry,” Geralt said, trying desperately to change the subject.
“I won’t beg for you to come with me,” Jaskier said.
“Of course not,” Geralt said, locking eyes with Jaskier. He struggled to keep his gaze from wandering to Jaskier’s physique. “That wouldn’t serve either of us.”
Geralt turned to the door. He sensed Jaskier moving behind him, but he hoped it was only to don some clothes. He touched the door latch with his sword-calloused fingers and pulled the door open. He stepped into the hall and quietly closed the door behind him. Leaning against the wall outside their room, his chest clenched as he inhaled deeply. Relieved that Jaskier couldn’t sense the change in his heartbeat from behind the closed door, Geralt collected himself and went to the kitchen to check the status of their clothing.
“Nearly dry,” the innkeeper’s wife said with a smile. She wiped the sweat from her brow and resumed kneading a loaf of bread with two chubby hands.
Geralt ignored her and pulled his tunic and trousers from the line that stretched above the stove. They were dry enough for his purposes. Jaskier could collect his clothes later.
~
A day’s ride from Kovir, Geralt tried to put Jaskier out of his mind. But he couldn’t forget Jaskier’s sleep-mussed hair, nor his sad pout when Geralt wished him safe travels to Lettenhove. The bard seemed well, despite the loss of a parent. He had looked hearty and hale during his performance. The time had come for Jaskier to resume his journey on a separate road from that of the witcher.
Not wanting to interfere with the bard’s path, Geralt guided Roach in a circuitous route that would put some distance between himself and Jaskier. When the bard travelled south to Lettenhove, Geralt travelled north. He gathered enough herbs and roots to replenish his stock of potions, although it would take some time working out the alchemy for each. Satisfied that he had done his best, he spent the night in the woods, alone by a small campfire, with a pair of partridges roasting on a spit.
When Geralt reached the gates of Creyden, he approached the notice board mounted outside the entrance to the town’s main road. Sometimes such public notices announced the need for a witcher. One monster or another often set their sights upon human folk who tried to avoid their peril. Dismounting from Roach’s back, Geralt approached the board and scanned the announcements for the offering of a contract.
A rusted nail held a thin piece of wood in place. The lettering had faded in the sun as if the sign had hung from the door for many months. No witcher had passed this way on his travels from Kaedwen to the coast or they would have resolved Creyden’s monster issue. Unfortunately, the sign failed to identify the exact type of monster that needed dispatching, but it directed the candidate to ask for the alderman when they reached the meeting hall at the centre of town.
Geralt took Roach by the reins and led her through the gate. Her hooves clopped down the road, damp with dew from the morning fog. A few buildings stood at each side of the road. Straight ahead, a group of larger buildings surrounded a square formed by a crossroad. A pair of young men snickered at Geralt as he passed. A mother tugged her child to the other side of the road, giving the witcher a wide berth.
The town smelled of fresh hay, which made Roach’s nose twitch with interest.
“We’ll see if we can find you some breakfast,” Geralt muttered to the horse.
Roach nodded her head as if she understood.
A tavern stood on one corner of the crossroads. An artfully painted sign depicting a fox holding a tankard, announced its name to be The Witty Fox. In Geralt’s experience, a tavern served as the best place to gather information about people or beasts that plagued a town. He stepped toward the building, passing a row of merchants who bustled around wooden carts that displayed their wares.
Market day would bring more shoppers to the square as the morning hours passed, but the stalls already buzzed with activity.
A fruit vendor scolded a boy for spilling a crate of apples that he had tried to lift onto her cart.
Outside a blacksmith’s forge, a display of long chains jangled in the morning breeze. Heat rose in waves off the building’s roof as the echo of a hammer striking an anvil rang out through the square.
A woman selling flower crowns had shaped a tangled woody vine into a circlet adorned with scarlet chrysanthemums. “There,” she said, placing the circlet atop a little girl’s head. “Just like a princess.”
The little girl laughed with glee, but Geralt shuddered, remembering another princess of Creyden, one born under the curse of the black sun.
Geralt picked up his pace. His memories could never be replaced by dreams of what might have been.
In the tavern, Geralt obtained directions to the alderman’s office. The robust alderman, with a bulbous nose and a felted top hat, described a problem with drowners on the local pond. He had posted the sign advertising the contract at the beginning of summer, but no witcher had passed through. Only a few cats and dogs had been reported missing, but with the autumn rains coming, the alderman didn’t want the drowners to imperil the town’s resources. It would only be a matter of time before they started in on the livestock or, gods forbid, the local children.
The witcher grunted his assent.
Geralt set up camp in the hilly woodlands above the pond where the alderman suspected drowner activity. He sat with his back against a stout tree, his sword sharp and ready. The five orens per head was less than Geralt should have settled for. But the past months taught him that he needed to keep his coin pouch full, since he no longer relied on what Jaskier could earn performing on stage when times were lean.
Only a day had passed since seeing Jaskier again. Geralt shook his head. He wouldn’t let himself be distracted by thoughts of what might have happened had he agreed to join the bard on the journey to Lettenhove. Jaskier had enough on his mind with the loss of his father. He didn’t need Geralt affecting his emotions on the journey.
However, travel with the bard did have its advantages, Geralt conceded. If he had agreed to travel with Jaskier, the bard could have looked after Roach. Or he could have watched Geralt’s back during the hunt, from a safe distance, of course. Jaskier could have warned Geralt when one of the drowners slithered behind him while he was dispatching the others.
Geralt wouldn’t have found himself nursing his ale with only fifteen orens as payment for an evening of work… and a nasty gash from a drowner’s claw on his forearm.
~
Three days later, Geralt rode into Tridan.
He intentionally skirted around Blaviken.
Always.
Nearly fifty years had passed since Renfri’s death, but the wound still cut deep. Geralt had spent much of his life trying to forget the event that gave him that awful moniker.
The Butcher of Blaviken.
Over the years, Jaskier had done a lot to dispel the reputation that Geralt had earned on that day. Outside of Tridan, a sign with carved letters indicated the way to Blaviken in the west. Crinfrid to the south.
Geralt traced the letters with a finger. The name of the town carved into a road sign brought back memories that haunted Geralt’s dreams. So long ago, the day he refused to make a choice. He rubbed his fingers together, still feeling the sticky blood that flowed from Renfri, staining the Blaviken Square with red.
“Get out of Blaviken, Geralt. Don’t ever come back.”
And he never did.
Geralt let out a heavy sigh. Jaskier’s catchy tune about tossing a coin warmed Geralt and brought some cheer to his days. He knew that his wolf brothers, too, benefited from the popularity Jaskier’s tune brought upon them.
A chill swept through the countryside, bending the trees that lined the road Geralt travelled. Soon winter would come and Geralt would return to Kaer Morhen. His brothers would ask what became of the bard who had followed him for more than twenty years, creating songs that made people of the Continent hold the guild of Witchers in high esteem.
Geralt would tell them the truth. That Jaskier had followed him for long enough. That it was time for the bard to have a life of his own. Words uttered in haste and fury had ensured that Jaskier would leave to find his own way.
Like Blaviken, Jaskier would be better off if Geralt stayed away, never to return.
Geralt barely noticed that the road took him and Roach south toward Redania. The road they travelled grew wider to accommodate the merchants and travellers who would venture to Redania’s largest cities. The Nimnar flowed wide and deep. The road followed the river all the way to the coast and the city of Roggeveen. A wide bank of grasses and wildflowers bordered the river, separating it from the road. Redania’s founders had anticipated the flooding that would take place in the spring and so to prevent the road from being washed out, they built an embankment to contain the river when it overflowed its natural banks.
Geralt let Roach wander freely in the safety of the wide bank. Carts and travellers had plenty of room on the road. Roach chomped on the grasses that grew on the bank while Geralt meditated beneath the sunny sky.
The road had little traffic during the heat of the day. People travelling into Redania had already arrived, people leaving had already passed this way. So Geralt was surprised when he looked down the long road and saw a pair of teenaged girls chattering amiably to each other as they approached the witcher.
The two could not have been older than his child of surprise, Geralt thought, although he had little idea what Calanthe’s granddaughter looked like, or how tall she stood, or what colour hair cascaded from her head. He guessed she would be their age. He examined his thoughts to learn if a pang of fatherly yearning made itself known to him, but none came.
As the girls got closer, they stopped their chattering and slowed their pace. Geralt was accustomed to most strangers, especially young girls, moving to the opposite side of the road with suspicion upon seeing a witcher, but the two girls pressed on without changing their route.
The girl with vibrant auburn hair that fell to her shoulders lifted a hand to cover her mouth and conceal a giggle. The second girl, shorter than the first and wearing a lively-patterned scarf over her hair, pushed her friend toward the witcher as they passed.
Geralt noticed that both girls carried rucksacks on their backs. Flecks of dust from the road covered their worn boots as if they had been traveling for a long while.
“My friend wants to ask you something,” the girl with the scarf said, laughing nervously as she stopped in front of Geralt.
“No, I don’t,” her friend laughed, her cheeks growing nearly as red as her hair. “You can ask him, Sammi.”
Geralt narrowed his eyes. In his long lifetime, he had heard his share of questions directed at a witcher. Young and old alike sometimes could not conceal their curiosity. Only a few dared to ask questions of the monster-slayer. It seemed like something Jaskier would do.
Geralt weighed his options. Surely these young girls wouldn’t ask anything he hadn’t been asked before. What harm could come from indulging in a bit of human companionship?
“I’ll answer your question, Sammi,” Geralt said, careful to neither raise his voice in cheer, nor lower his voice to instil caution in the girls as they approached a potential danger.
“Are you Geralt of Rivia?” the girl asked.
The question caught Geralt off-guard. He never suspected that girls travelling the Redanian countryside would know his name.
“Yes,” Geralt answered. “I am he.”
“The witcher?” she asked with a sway of her hips.
Geralt tilted his head. “Is something troubling you girls?”
The redhead shook her head and interjected, “If you’re the witcher, where’s Jaskier-the famous bard who travels with you?”
An arrow bolt could not have struck Geralt more true. The girls waited. The sun beat down on the riverside road.
Crickets chirped from the grassy berm.
“He’s not with me,” Geralt said. The heat that flushed his face had little to do with the midday sun.
“Livi and I are looking for him,” Sammi admitted.
“We heard he’ll be performing tonight in Crinfrid,” said Livi.
“That’s what a rider told us when we saw him last night.”
Geralt shook his head. Crinfrid lay halfway between Hirt and Roggeveen. Jaskier was making good time, considering he travelled on foot. If these girls spoke the truth, the bard planned a few stops to earn coin on his way to Lettenhove.
“You girls are travelling there to look for him?” Geralt asked.
“Oh yes,” Livi exclaimed. “We go to all his performances.”
“Whenever he is in the north,” Sammi added.
“You’ve heard him sing, Geralt of Rivia. He has the voice of an angel,” Livi said.
“And his eyes… they’re so dreamy! I would kneel for him, the moment he gazed upon me,” Sammi said licking her lips lasciviously.
Geralt’s imagination ran wild with thoughts of Jaskier, his pupils blown wide, his mouth panting in ecstasy as his cock slipped between ripe pink lips.
Livi slapped at Sammi, “Don’t tell the witcher that! He’ll probably tattle to our fathers about us.”
Geralt’s tolerance had reached its limit with these human girls. Runaways and whores within one turn of the moon. He thought again about his child surprise. He cringed at the thought of his child offering herself up for a night with a cad like Jaskier.
“He won’t tell,” Sammi concluded. “He’s not even heading in the direction of Hengfors.”
“You young ladies have travelled all the way from Hengfors?” Geralt asked.
The girls nodded as they gazed back down the road they had travelled.
“You’re a long way from home,” Geralt noted. The distance explained the condition of their boots and the rucksacks they carried. Their enthusiasm explained another thing entirely.
“We would travel anywhere to hear the bard sing,” Sammi said.
“I want him to make me with child so he will marry me and sing to me every night,” Livi said with a coquettishness that was too advanced for a girl of her age.
Geralt began to understand. The young girls had run away from home. They seemed to have no other purpose but to chase down Jaskier, to whom they would gladly offer their nubile bodies. The way they glared down the road toward Hengfors told Geralt that their angry fathers would not be far behind.
An angry husband would be vengeful.
But an angry father would be murderous.
The bard had to be warned.
~
“Are you following me? You scamp!” Jaskier sputtered.
“It’s not like that,” Geralt said, hustling the bard into the stable.
Geralt had arrived in Crinfrid well before dark, thank the gods. He immediately spotted Jaskier meandering through the town’s main thoroughfare. Not many Crinfridians wore a full-length crimson leather coat before the sun went down. Nor did they wear such a get-up when the sun was risen, for that matter. The hat with the bold feather only made Jaskier more obvious amongst the normal folks. These folks worked hard all day so they could afford to spend their evenings listening to people like Jaskier performing in the tavern. The lute that Jaskier carried across his back gave him away entirely, if Geralt had any further doubt about the showman’s identity.
“Well, if you’re not following me, then what exactly are you doing here?” Jaskier asked. He wriggled out of Geralt’s rough grip and stood with his hands on his hips.
Geralt caught his breath and scratched the back of his neck with a gloved hand. “You’re in danger,” Geralt said.
“Danger?” Jaskier asked. “I’ve been in Crinfrid for one solid day. I’ve had no trouble. Besides, how likely am I to get into trouble when I’m grieving the loss of my father?”
“It’s not the trouble you’re in,” Geralt said through gritted teeth. “It’s the trouble that’s coming your way.”
“What kind of trouble?” Jaskier asked. A few strands of hair had come loose from its tie and found their way into Jaskier’s open mouth. He blew out a breath that might as well have come from a dragon’s nostrils, such was his fury. The breath cleared the hair from the bard’s mouth, but it did nothing to calm his mood.
Geralt shook his head, wanting to tell Jaskier about the girls, their motives, and their angry fathers, but he came up short.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Jaskier said, waving his finger in Geralt’s face. “First you tell me to get lost, then we spend the night together, then you leave me, and now you’re trying to hurry me out of Crinfrid. I demand to know why.”
Geralt stroked Roach’s mane with one hand, hoping to calm her agitation. But Roach hadn’t stirred during Jaskier’s tirade.
Jaskier shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for an answer.
Geralt stepped toward the doorway of the stables and chanced a peek outside. He looked up and down the street, listening for any signs of danger. His witcher medallion rested quietly against his chest. No one had heard Jaskier’s outburst. The last thing Geralt needed was a mob accusing him of kidnapping Jaskier. Relieved, he stepped back into the stable.
Jaskier tilted his head to one side and reached for Geralt. He tapped Geralt’s cheek with the fingers of one hand.
“Now, witcher, what is this danger all about?” Jaskier asked.
~
“Girls!” I have never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life,” Jaskier laughed, throwing his hands in the air.
“You wouldn’t be laughing, if you met their fathers,” Geralt said. He tore the meat off the roasted rabbit with his teeth.
An afternoon on the road, where Geralt kept a close watch to ensure that no stray girls from Hengfors had followed them, brought them to the outskirts of Troy. Geralt left Jaskier to set up the camp while he foraged for some dinner. They enjoyed a rustic meal while sitting on a log before a fire.
Little had changed in their arrangement.
And yet, everything had changed.
“That’s actually something my mother once did,” Jaskier said, staring into the fire after eating his fill.
“Hmm?” Geralt grunted. He recalled that he had never bothered to learn about the bard’s family before. Another night spent sharing a campfire might give him the chance to remedy his error and quell some of the regret that well inside him from time to time.
Jaskier poured some water from their waterskin onto his hands, sticky with juice from the meat. Satisfied that his fingers were clean, he wiped his hands on his trousers.
“There was a bard, back in the days when my mother was a young lass. He went by the stage name of Geoffrey of Loras, or Lubec… or maybe Litchfield… or some such place forgotten by time. Anyway, my mother, along with a few of her friends, were keen on his music,” Jaskier said.
“And his looks,” Geralt surmised, as he shifted his gaze to Jaskier.
“Did you know him?” Jaskier asked, brightening.
Geralt shook his head. Following bards around the Continent wasn’t a habit he made today, nor decades ago when Jaskier’s mother would have been a young girl.
“I didn’t think so. In any case, Geoffrey had much to do with how she met my father,” Jaskier said.
Geralt watched as Jaskier turned his eyes to the sky. Darkness had fallen to reveal a starlit night. Perhaps the bard reflected on the loss of his father as he shared the tale about how his parents met. Geralt fought the urge to offer him some comfort. He knew humans appreciated such things in times of distress. Instead, he speculated about the next bit of story Jaskier told, “Either your father bested this Geoffrey fellow?” Geralt asked. “Or maybe he introduced your parents to each other?”
Jaskier laughed. “You might say he did.”
“Go on,” Geralt said, tossing a rabbit bone into the fire. He had missed hearing the rich sound of Jaskier’s voice as he wove a tale. The bard was a master storyteller. People travelled for miles to hear him perform with his lute or craft a song out of happenings that took place before any living person was born. Geralt listened intently, remembering his regret that he hadn’t paid more attention to Jaskier when he performed for all those years to a privileged audience of only one grumpy witcher.
“Unbeknownst to her parents, my mother snuck away from her home in the middle of the night,” Jaskier said.
“Probably just like your fans, Sammi and Livi did,” Geralt remarked.
“That may be,” Jaskier continued. “She met up with her friends and they travelled on foot for weeks to get to Kerack because they had heard Geoffrey whatever-his-name would be performing at the annual Beltane celebration.”
“Sounds like fun,” Geralt said.
“It is fun-in fact Lettenhove holds the celebration every year. My, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been back there,” Jaskier said, nodding his head while reminiscing.
Geralt sensed that Jaskier regretted not travelling back to Lettenhove more often. Of course, he wished the bard was revisiting his childhood home under happier circumstances. “That’s a long journey for a young girl, Geralt said.
“It was a mad adventure!” Jaskier said. “Oh, the stories she told about their trip!”
“So tell me how she met your father?” Geralt asked, genuinely curious.
“Well, my mother, who was much too young to be drinking unwatered ale mind you, found the local ale house that supplied the Beltane celebration with food and drink. She convinced the barman that she and her friends were much older than their years. The barman kept their thirst quenched for the evening,” Jaskier said, his eyes bright with fondness for the girl who would become his mother.
“Sounds like trouble,” Geralt said. “Next you’ll tell me you were conceived in the smoke of the Beltane fire.”
“That would be honourable and fitting for a bard of my outstanding talents,” Jaskier laughed. “But no, I’m afraid your tawdry speculation about my mother’s reputation is false.”
Geralt placed his hand over his heart, mocking his pain from the bard’s words.
“The next morning, my mother awoke, wrapped in a blanket against the chill. Her friends later told her that she danced the night away with a local lad from Kerack. It was he who gave her the blanket that he had brought to the festival.”
“And let me guess,” Geralt said. “He was wrapped up in the blanket with her?”
“No! What do you take my mother for?” Jaskier asked, slapping Geralt’s knee.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Geralt said, without apology.
Jaskier laughed loudly and said, “That’s very likely, perhaps you’ve met my mother before!”
Geralt shook his head. Leave it to Jaskier to imply that his mother was an exceedingly lively youth. “How did she find him again, then?” Geralt asked.
“The poor lad that had danced all night with her had actually fallen asleep with her on the blanket by the Beltane fire.”
“Hmm, I thought so.”
“When he woke up in the middle of the night, he didn’t want to embarrass the drunken girl-”
“Your mother,” Geralt said.
“My mother,” Jaskier acknowledged. “Well, there was still quite a party taking place. So, he simply wrapped her in his blanket and went off to join his friends.”
“His drunken friends,” Geralt added, standing to toss another log onto the campfire.
“Indeed! But he kept watch over the sleeping maiden to make sure no other lad took advantage of her in her inebriated state,” Jaskier said.
“What a noble lad,” Geralt said, returning to sit on the log beside Jaskier.
Jaskier looked at Geralt with a gleam in his eye. “In the morning, she berated him for his audacity. He dared to think that she couldn’t defend herself? Pffft! She was furious,” he laughed.
“She doesn’t sound like a typical defenceless maiden,” Geralt said.
“My mother was far from typical when she was young,” Jaskier laughed, rubbing his knees with his hands. “But she returned his blanket to him. He invited her to his home for breakfast. As it turned out, he was Josef, the son of Count Alfred Pankratz.”
“That’s your middle name,” Geralt mused. “Alfred.”
“How on earth did you know that?” Jaskier asked, his eyes flying open wide. “I didn’t think you’d ever noticed anything like that.”
“I overheard you telling Yarpen Zigrin, when you introduced yourself to the dwarves, that day….” Geralt instantly wished he hadn’t said so much. The last thing Jaskier needed was a reminder of the time Geralt told him to get out of his life. He tried to change the direction that he had steered into.
Jaskier hummed, remembering, but he didn’t speak.
The campfire coals glowed red, an echo of the pain Geralt inflicted on himself.
“Don’t stop,” Geralt said, hoping it would be enough for Jaskier to forget his sorrow for a moment. “Tell me more.”
Jaskier looked at him fondly before continuing. “Of course, my grandfather was only a minor noble in a big place like Kerack, but he was of noble birth, nonetheless. Like all good romances, the pair of youngsters fell in love. My mother went to live in Kerack, becoming Countess Josef Pankratz although she said she hated to be called by her noble title,” Jaskier said.
“Hmm,” Geralt hummed to indicate he was listening, perhaps for the first time, as Jaskier spoke about his family.
Jaskier then whispered, as if he were telling a secret, “I think she truly enjoyed having a title though.”
“She attained a level of societal importance,” Geralt nodded.
Jaskier continued, quieter than he had been speaking when his story began. “Her parents were angry that she had run off in the night. It was their worst fear. But they grew to understand that she needed to find her own happiness. She had been born the daughter of an alderman, but she always longed to leave the shithole place of her birth so she could travel and see the Continent.”
“And did she?” Geralt asked, hoping that she did.
“Oh yes,” Jaskier said enthusiastically, “my parents vacationed in the Skellige Isles every summer and they had a winter residence in Ebbing, where they’d spend the cold months enjoying the warm sunshine.”
“Hmm,” Geralt murmured. It seemed Jaskier’s parents were quite different than he had imagined, not that he ever thought about them very much. For some reason, he thought Jaskier had been disowned by a tyrannical father and an overbearing mother. But from the way Jaskier now described his parents, this didn’t seem to be the case at all.
Jaskier yawned and stretched his legs out before the hot coals in the dwindling fire.
Geralt had grown tired, too. It had been a long day, saving Jaskier from the girls who sought to defile him. His mouth twisted into a grin that he concealed from Jaskier.
Jaskier stood from where he sat on the log. He stepped toward the fire and turned to warm his backside.
“They had a good life together,” Jaskier said, facing Geralt. “Although they disagreed about some things, they agreed on most. My father was keen on protocol, but my mother would simply give him a piece of her mind if he took things too seriously. She’d remind him that a drunken night at the Beltane fires had left him with the best of wives and three children who outshone them both in talent and intelligence.”
“Hah!” Geralt exclaimed. “Three?”
“My sisters, Leocretia and Ainsley,” Jaskier said. “Surely I’ve mentioned them?”
“You’ve never,” Geralt said, shaking his head. He hadn’t heard Jaskier so much as whisper their names before. Or perhaps he did, and Geralt simply hadn’t noticed. He chided himself for being so inattentive.
Jaskier wandered into the trees beyond the campfire to relieve himself. “I suppose the title of Count will fall to one of us,” he called over his shoulder. “Leocretia can have it, as far as I’m concerned. She’ll make a better Count than most anyone I know.”
Geralt grunted and tossed the last of the rabbit scraps onto the fire. “Can a woman be a Count in Lettenhove?”
“She’d find a way. I’ll tell you more about my sisters in the morning,” Jaskier said as he unfurled his bedroll. He adjusted it several times until he was satisfied that it lay a suitable distance from the fire. He looked to Geralt and finding his eyes, he added, “if you’re still here.”
Geralt didn’t look away. He simply muttered, “I’ll be here.”
He didn’t consider any other option.
~
Author: gwyllion
Genre: Canon era
Pairing: Geralt of Rivia | Geralt z Rivii/Jaskier |Dandelion
Rating: R
Words: 57,262
Warnings: Brief mention of sexual desires by an underaged minor character. Genderfluid minor character.
A/N: Visiting Marilka was written for the 2021 Witcher Big Bang. Thanks to my artist, Rogue Pyrola whose awesome artwork can be seen below, seren and the Witcher Big Bang mod team, and my wonderful beta Gillian who always makes my writing better. Thanks to The Witcher’s author, showrunners, and actors, (especially Mia McKenna-Bruce!), who inspire us to make more art.
This fic is dedicated to Nathan, who conceived it to be so.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading!
Before dawn, Geralt wiped down his armour and sharpened and oiled his swords. The habit hadn’t diminished in the months Geralt travelled without Jaskier. Vesemir had taught the young witchers that few things were more important than a sharp sword. Geralt sharpened his faithfully every morn, whether he had used a sword or not in the previous day.
Jaskier snored lazily from the bed.
The witcher didn’t remember Jaskier stirring in the night. Nor did the bard weep like a bereaved human. Any grief that Jaskier felt over the loss of his father seemed to be remedied by sleep.
At daybreak, the innkeeper’s wife came to collect the laundry.
Geralt considered washing his trousers and tunic in the tub. The water had cooled, and a soapy film lingered on the surface. He decided against it, letting the innkeeper’s wife take the lot of it to be washed-Jaskier’s chemise and trousers, along with the witcher’s filthy clothing. They barely filled one armload.
Holding the blade to the sun that streamed through the window, Geralt inspected his work. It would suffice until he plunged the blade into the next monster. He tucked away his whetstone and began to pack his potion bottles into their case when Jaskier stirred.
Blinking his eyes open, then taking time to rub at them with his fists, Jaskier yawned.
“You’re up early,” Jaskier said, his voice hoarse from ale and last night’s performance.
“Hmm,” Geralt grumbled. He had hoped to be gone by the time Jaskier awoke, although he understood the futility of the plan when he let the innkeeper’s wife take the laundry.
“It seems like a dream,” Jaskier said sitting up, the bedclothes pooling at his waist. “My father is dead. You reappeared in the same tavern as me. Did last night really happen?”
“I’m afraid so,” Geralt said.
Jaskier lurched forward and studied the floor beside the bed.
“You slept on the floor?” he asked.
“Meditated,” Geralt said, latching closed the box of potion bottles.
“Ah, yes,” Jaskier said. “And my clothing?”
“Sent it off to the laundry,” Geralt replied.
Jaskier bolted from the bed. He strode to the chair, where he had left his long crimson leather coat. “At least you had sense to keep the launderess’ hands off this beauty,” Jaskier said, lifting the coat from the chair and stroking the supple collar. “I paid more than a month’s worth of coin for such an elaborate tailoring job.”
“Hmm,” Geralt snorted.
Jaskier replaced the coat on the chair and walked across the room to the tub. “It’s like old times,” he said wistfully.
Geralt loaded his potion case into its proper location in his saddlebag.
“I was too tired for a bath last night,” Jaskier said, letting his fingers skim the surface of the water, “but I could go for a bath today, as long as we’re waiting for laundry.”
Geralt took his eyes off the potions long enough to see Jaskier strip off his nightshirt. He anticipated the request for hot water and prepared to cast the sign at the tub. Jaskier’s nude body stood directly in Geralt’s line of sight.
“Heat?” Geralt asked, keeping his voice calm.
It had been months since he had seen Jaskier naked, but the sight lived in his memory when they were apart. His lean frame, muscular arms from hauling his gear everywhere, strong legs from walking at Geralt’s side… and all that hair. Jaskier could have been half faun, judging by the dense swirls of dark hair that covered his chest. Geralt knew it to be silky soft, unlike the hair that grew coarser as it descended over his belly and down to where Jaskier’s proud cock was the talk of the brothels from Aedirn to Zerrikania.
“If you would be so kind, witcher,” Jaskier politely asked.
Geralt cast the sign for Igni, heating the water so it would provide Jaskier with a good temperature for a soak. He quickly returned his eyes to his supplies as soon as the signing finished. He didn’t need to see Jaskier as he lifted one leg over the side of the tub to test the water before stepping into the bath. It was bad enough that the bard lasciviously groaned with pleasure as the water swirled around him.
Geralt organized his belongings, packing his swords into their sheaths. He’d wait until the launderess returned his clothing before seeing to Roach. His eyes flitted around the room, making sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind.
Jaskier hummed a tune as he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and massaged his soapy hands through his hair.
Geralt avoided looking at Jaskier, although the tiny room made it nearly impossible.
“I was just thinking, witcher,” Jaskier began.
Geralt grunted with disinterest at the bard.
Jaskier dunked his head into the water and, after rinsing the fragrant soap out of his hair, he continued, “If you’re travelling from town to town looking for contracts, you might consider joining me as I return to Lettenhove.”
“Jaskier,” Geralt pleaded. It would have been a good time for Geralt to dissolve the guilt over letting the bard travel with him for so long. But Geralt was resolute.
“Think about it,” Jaskier said, his arms folded atop the edge of the tub. “Oh Jaskier, I hear you say, I’ve run you off already. I’ve broken your heart. You shouldn’t want to have me as a travelling companion ever again.”
“Hmm,” Geralt mumbled. Jaskier had it right. And yet the bard persisted.
“But I have room in my heart for you, former friend,” Jaskier continued, resting his chin on his arms. “I have a forgiving heart, you’ll be thankful to know.”
Geralt snorted. This was wrong. Jaskier should have been furious with him.
“I thought I’d stay to look after you for one evening because of your father’s death. That was the plan.”
“Plans change, Geralt,” Jaskier said, slapping the edge of the tub.
To hear Jaskier say his name lent some realism to the relationship they had built for more than twenty years of wandering the Continent together. Geralt’s chest hurt.
“Can’t plans change when something else comes up?” Jaskier asked, standing in the tub. He dragged a linen sheet over his body, blocking Geralt’s view, although he didn’t do it out of modesty.
Geralt couldn’t accompany Jaskier. Witchers were meant to travel alone. He had set Jaskier free. He needed to let Jaskier find his own way, enjoy his own successes.
“Of course, it’s not as if I could force you to come with me,” Jaskier said.
Geralt detected the pang of sadness in the bard’s voice.
“I need to check on the laundry,” Geralt said, trying desperately to change the subject.
“I won’t beg for you to come with me,” Jaskier said.
“Of course not,” Geralt said, locking eyes with Jaskier. He struggled to keep his gaze from wandering to Jaskier’s physique. “That wouldn’t serve either of us.”
Geralt turned to the door. He sensed Jaskier moving behind him, but he hoped it was only to don some clothes. He touched the door latch with his sword-calloused fingers and pulled the door open. He stepped into the hall and quietly closed the door behind him. Leaning against the wall outside their room, his chest clenched as he inhaled deeply. Relieved that Jaskier couldn’t sense the change in his heartbeat from behind the closed door, Geralt collected himself and went to the kitchen to check the status of their clothing.
“Nearly dry,” the innkeeper’s wife said with a smile. She wiped the sweat from her brow and resumed kneading a loaf of bread with two chubby hands.
Geralt ignored her and pulled his tunic and trousers from the line that stretched above the stove. They were dry enough for his purposes. Jaskier could collect his clothes later.
~
A day’s ride from Kovir, Geralt tried to put Jaskier out of his mind. But he couldn’t forget Jaskier’s sleep-mussed hair, nor his sad pout when Geralt wished him safe travels to Lettenhove. The bard seemed well, despite the loss of a parent. He had looked hearty and hale during his performance. The time had come for Jaskier to resume his journey on a separate road from that of the witcher.
Not wanting to interfere with the bard’s path, Geralt guided Roach in a circuitous route that would put some distance between himself and Jaskier. When the bard travelled south to Lettenhove, Geralt travelled north. He gathered enough herbs and roots to replenish his stock of potions, although it would take some time working out the alchemy for each. Satisfied that he had done his best, he spent the night in the woods, alone by a small campfire, with a pair of partridges roasting on a spit.
When Geralt reached the gates of Creyden, he approached the notice board mounted outside the entrance to the town’s main road. Sometimes such public notices announced the need for a witcher. One monster or another often set their sights upon human folk who tried to avoid their peril. Dismounting from Roach’s back, Geralt approached the board and scanned the announcements for the offering of a contract.
A rusted nail held a thin piece of wood in place. The lettering had faded in the sun as if the sign had hung from the door for many months. No witcher had passed this way on his travels from Kaedwen to the coast or they would have resolved Creyden’s monster issue. Unfortunately, the sign failed to identify the exact type of monster that needed dispatching, but it directed the candidate to ask for the alderman when they reached the meeting hall at the centre of town.
Geralt took Roach by the reins and led her through the gate. Her hooves clopped down the road, damp with dew from the morning fog. A few buildings stood at each side of the road. Straight ahead, a group of larger buildings surrounded a square formed by a crossroad. A pair of young men snickered at Geralt as he passed. A mother tugged her child to the other side of the road, giving the witcher a wide berth.
The town smelled of fresh hay, which made Roach’s nose twitch with interest.
“We’ll see if we can find you some breakfast,” Geralt muttered to the horse.
Roach nodded her head as if she understood.
A tavern stood on one corner of the crossroads. An artfully painted sign depicting a fox holding a tankard, announced its name to be The Witty Fox. In Geralt’s experience, a tavern served as the best place to gather information about people or beasts that plagued a town. He stepped toward the building, passing a row of merchants who bustled around wooden carts that displayed their wares.
Market day would bring more shoppers to the square as the morning hours passed, but the stalls already buzzed with activity.
A fruit vendor scolded a boy for spilling a crate of apples that he had tried to lift onto her cart.
Outside a blacksmith’s forge, a display of long chains jangled in the morning breeze. Heat rose in waves off the building’s roof as the echo of a hammer striking an anvil rang out through the square.
A woman selling flower crowns had shaped a tangled woody vine into a circlet adorned with scarlet chrysanthemums. “There,” she said, placing the circlet atop a little girl’s head. “Just like a princess.”
The little girl laughed with glee, but Geralt shuddered, remembering another princess of Creyden, one born under the curse of the black sun.
Geralt picked up his pace. His memories could never be replaced by dreams of what might have been.
In the tavern, Geralt obtained directions to the alderman’s office. The robust alderman, with a bulbous nose and a felted top hat, described a problem with drowners on the local pond. He had posted the sign advertising the contract at the beginning of summer, but no witcher had passed through. Only a few cats and dogs had been reported missing, but with the autumn rains coming, the alderman didn’t want the drowners to imperil the town’s resources. It would only be a matter of time before they started in on the livestock or, gods forbid, the local children.
The witcher grunted his assent.
Geralt set up camp in the hilly woodlands above the pond where the alderman suspected drowner activity. He sat with his back against a stout tree, his sword sharp and ready. The five orens per head was less than Geralt should have settled for. But the past months taught him that he needed to keep his coin pouch full, since he no longer relied on what Jaskier could earn performing on stage when times were lean.
Only a day had passed since seeing Jaskier again. Geralt shook his head. He wouldn’t let himself be distracted by thoughts of what might have happened had he agreed to join the bard on the journey to Lettenhove. Jaskier had enough on his mind with the loss of his father. He didn’t need Geralt affecting his emotions on the journey.
However, travel with the bard did have its advantages, Geralt conceded. If he had agreed to travel with Jaskier, the bard could have looked after Roach. Or he could have watched Geralt’s back during the hunt, from a safe distance, of course. Jaskier could have warned Geralt when one of the drowners slithered behind him while he was dispatching the others.
Geralt wouldn’t have found himself nursing his ale with only fifteen orens as payment for an evening of work… and a nasty gash from a drowner’s claw on his forearm.
~
Three days later, Geralt rode into Tridan.
He intentionally skirted around Blaviken.
Always.
Nearly fifty years had passed since Renfri’s death, but the wound still cut deep. Geralt had spent much of his life trying to forget the event that gave him that awful moniker.
The Butcher of Blaviken.
Over the years, Jaskier had done a lot to dispel the reputation that Geralt had earned on that day. Outside of Tridan, a sign with carved letters indicated the way to Blaviken in the west. Crinfrid to the south.
Geralt traced the letters with a finger. The name of the town carved into a road sign brought back memories that haunted Geralt’s dreams. So long ago, the day he refused to make a choice. He rubbed his fingers together, still feeling the sticky blood that flowed from Renfri, staining the Blaviken Square with red.
“Get out of Blaviken, Geralt. Don’t ever come back.”
And he never did.
Geralt let out a heavy sigh. Jaskier’s catchy tune about tossing a coin warmed Geralt and brought some cheer to his days. He knew that his wolf brothers, too, benefited from the popularity Jaskier’s tune brought upon them.
A chill swept through the countryside, bending the trees that lined the road Geralt travelled. Soon winter would come and Geralt would return to Kaer Morhen. His brothers would ask what became of the bard who had followed him for more than twenty years, creating songs that made people of the Continent hold the guild of Witchers in high esteem.
Geralt would tell them the truth. That Jaskier had followed him for long enough. That it was time for the bard to have a life of his own. Words uttered in haste and fury had ensured that Jaskier would leave to find his own way.
Like Blaviken, Jaskier would be better off if Geralt stayed away, never to return.
Geralt barely noticed that the road took him and Roach south toward Redania. The road they travelled grew wider to accommodate the merchants and travellers who would venture to Redania’s largest cities. The Nimnar flowed wide and deep. The road followed the river all the way to the coast and the city of Roggeveen. A wide bank of grasses and wildflowers bordered the river, separating it from the road. Redania’s founders had anticipated the flooding that would take place in the spring and so to prevent the road from being washed out, they built an embankment to contain the river when it overflowed its natural banks.
Geralt let Roach wander freely in the safety of the wide bank. Carts and travellers had plenty of room on the road. Roach chomped on the grasses that grew on the bank while Geralt meditated beneath the sunny sky.
The road had little traffic during the heat of the day. People travelling into Redania had already arrived, people leaving had already passed this way. So Geralt was surprised when he looked down the long road and saw a pair of teenaged girls chattering amiably to each other as they approached the witcher.
The two could not have been older than his child of surprise, Geralt thought, although he had little idea what Calanthe’s granddaughter looked like, or how tall she stood, or what colour hair cascaded from her head. He guessed she would be their age. He examined his thoughts to learn if a pang of fatherly yearning made itself known to him, but none came.
As the girls got closer, they stopped their chattering and slowed their pace. Geralt was accustomed to most strangers, especially young girls, moving to the opposite side of the road with suspicion upon seeing a witcher, but the two girls pressed on without changing their route.
The girl with vibrant auburn hair that fell to her shoulders lifted a hand to cover her mouth and conceal a giggle. The second girl, shorter than the first and wearing a lively-patterned scarf over her hair, pushed her friend toward the witcher as they passed.
Geralt noticed that both girls carried rucksacks on their backs. Flecks of dust from the road covered their worn boots as if they had been traveling for a long while.
“My friend wants to ask you something,” the girl with the scarf said, laughing nervously as she stopped in front of Geralt.
“No, I don’t,” her friend laughed, her cheeks growing nearly as red as her hair. “You can ask him, Sammi.”
Geralt narrowed his eyes. In his long lifetime, he had heard his share of questions directed at a witcher. Young and old alike sometimes could not conceal their curiosity. Only a few dared to ask questions of the monster-slayer. It seemed like something Jaskier would do.
Geralt weighed his options. Surely these young girls wouldn’t ask anything he hadn’t been asked before. What harm could come from indulging in a bit of human companionship?
“I’ll answer your question, Sammi,” Geralt said, careful to neither raise his voice in cheer, nor lower his voice to instil caution in the girls as they approached a potential danger.
“Are you Geralt of Rivia?” the girl asked.
The question caught Geralt off-guard. He never suspected that girls travelling the Redanian countryside would know his name.
“Yes,” Geralt answered. “I am he.”
“The witcher?” she asked with a sway of her hips.
Geralt tilted his head. “Is something troubling you girls?”
The redhead shook her head and interjected, “If you’re the witcher, where’s Jaskier-the famous bard who travels with you?”
An arrow bolt could not have struck Geralt more true. The girls waited. The sun beat down on the riverside road.
Crickets chirped from the grassy berm.
“He’s not with me,” Geralt said. The heat that flushed his face had little to do with the midday sun.
“Livi and I are looking for him,” Sammi admitted.
“We heard he’ll be performing tonight in Crinfrid,” said Livi.
“That’s what a rider told us when we saw him last night.”
Geralt shook his head. Crinfrid lay halfway between Hirt and Roggeveen. Jaskier was making good time, considering he travelled on foot. If these girls spoke the truth, the bard planned a few stops to earn coin on his way to Lettenhove.
“You girls are travelling there to look for him?” Geralt asked.
“Oh yes,” Livi exclaimed. “We go to all his performances.”
“Whenever he is in the north,” Sammi added.
“You’ve heard him sing, Geralt of Rivia. He has the voice of an angel,” Livi said.
“And his eyes… they’re so dreamy! I would kneel for him, the moment he gazed upon me,” Sammi said licking her lips lasciviously.
Geralt’s imagination ran wild with thoughts of Jaskier, his pupils blown wide, his mouth panting in ecstasy as his cock slipped between ripe pink lips.
Livi slapped at Sammi, “Don’t tell the witcher that! He’ll probably tattle to our fathers about us.”
Geralt’s tolerance had reached its limit with these human girls. Runaways and whores within one turn of the moon. He thought again about his child surprise. He cringed at the thought of his child offering herself up for a night with a cad like Jaskier.
“He won’t tell,” Sammi concluded. “He’s not even heading in the direction of Hengfors.”
“You young ladies have travelled all the way from Hengfors?” Geralt asked.
The girls nodded as they gazed back down the road they had travelled.
“You’re a long way from home,” Geralt noted. The distance explained the condition of their boots and the rucksacks they carried. Their enthusiasm explained another thing entirely.
“We would travel anywhere to hear the bard sing,” Sammi said.
“I want him to make me with child so he will marry me and sing to me every night,” Livi said with a coquettishness that was too advanced for a girl of her age.
Geralt began to understand. The young girls had run away from home. They seemed to have no other purpose but to chase down Jaskier, to whom they would gladly offer their nubile bodies. The way they glared down the road toward Hengfors told Geralt that their angry fathers would not be far behind.
An angry husband would be vengeful.
But an angry father would be murderous.
The bard had to be warned.
~
“Are you following me? You scamp!” Jaskier sputtered.
“It’s not like that,” Geralt said, hustling the bard into the stable.
Geralt had arrived in Crinfrid well before dark, thank the gods. He immediately spotted Jaskier meandering through the town’s main thoroughfare. Not many Crinfridians wore a full-length crimson leather coat before the sun went down. Nor did they wear such a get-up when the sun was risen, for that matter. The hat with the bold feather only made Jaskier more obvious amongst the normal folks. These folks worked hard all day so they could afford to spend their evenings listening to people like Jaskier performing in the tavern. The lute that Jaskier carried across his back gave him away entirely, if Geralt had any further doubt about the showman’s identity.
“Well, if you’re not following me, then what exactly are you doing here?” Jaskier asked. He wriggled out of Geralt’s rough grip and stood with his hands on his hips.
Geralt caught his breath and scratched the back of his neck with a gloved hand. “You’re in danger,” Geralt said.
“Danger?” Jaskier asked. “I’ve been in Crinfrid for one solid day. I’ve had no trouble. Besides, how likely am I to get into trouble when I’m grieving the loss of my father?”
“It’s not the trouble you’re in,” Geralt said through gritted teeth. “It’s the trouble that’s coming your way.”
“What kind of trouble?” Jaskier asked. A few strands of hair had come loose from its tie and found their way into Jaskier’s open mouth. He blew out a breath that might as well have come from a dragon’s nostrils, such was his fury. The breath cleared the hair from the bard’s mouth, but it did nothing to calm his mood.
Geralt shook his head, wanting to tell Jaskier about the girls, their motives, and their angry fathers, but he came up short.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Jaskier said, waving his finger in Geralt’s face. “First you tell me to get lost, then we spend the night together, then you leave me, and now you’re trying to hurry me out of Crinfrid. I demand to know why.”
Geralt stroked Roach’s mane with one hand, hoping to calm her agitation. But Roach hadn’t stirred during Jaskier’s tirade.
Jaskier shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for an answer.
Geralt stepped toward the doorway of the stables and chanced a peek outside. He looked up and down the street, listening for any signs of danger. His witcher medallion rested quietly against his chest. No one had heard Jaskier’s outburst. The last thing Geralt needed was a mob accusing him of kidnapping Jaskier. Relieved, he stepped back into the stable.
Jaskier tilted his head to one side and reached for Geralt. He tapped Geralt’s cheek with the fingers of one hand.
“Now, witcher, what is this danger all about?” Jaskier asked.
~
“Girls!” I have never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life,” Jaskier laughed, throwing his hands in the air.
“You wouldn’t be laughing, if you met their fathers,” Geralt said. He tore the meat off the roasted rabbit with his teeth.
An afternoon on the road, where Geralt kept a close watch to ensure that no stray girls from Hengfors had followed them, brought them to the outskirts of Troy. Geralt left Jaskier to set up the camp while he foraged for some dinner. They enjoyed a rustic meal while sitting on a log before a fire.
Little had changed in their arrangement.
And yet, everything had changed.
“That’s actually something my mother once did,” Jaskier said, staring into the fire after eating his fill.
“Hmm?” Geralt grunted. He recalled that he had never bothered to learn about the bard’s family before. Another night spent sharing a campfire might give him the chance to remedy his error and quell some of the regret that well inside him from time to time.
Jaskier poured some water from their waterskin onto his hands, sticky with juice from the meat. Satisfied that his fingers were clean, he wiped his hands on his trousers.
“There was a bard, back in the days when my mother was a young lass. He went by the stage name of Geoffrey of Loras, or Lubec… or maybe Litchfield… or some such place forgotten by time. Anyway, my mother, along with a few of her friends, were keen on his music,” Jaskier said.
“And his looks,” Geralt surmised, as he shifted his gaze to Jaskier.
“Did you know him?” Jaskier asked, brightening.
Geralt shook his head. Following bards around the Continent wasn’t a habit he made today, nor decades ago when Jaskier’s mother would have been a young girl.
“I didn’t think so. In any case, Geoffrey had much to do with how she met my father,” Jaskier said.
Geralt watched as Jaskier turned his eyes to the sky. Darkness had fallen to reveal a starlit night. Perhaps the bard reflected on the loss of his father as he shared the tale about how his parents met. Geralt fought the urge to offer him some comfort. He knew humans appreciated such things in times of distress. Instead, he speculated about the next bit of story Jaskier told, “Either your father bested this Geoffrey fellow?” Geralt asked. “Or maybe he introduced your parents to each other?”
Jaskier laughed. “You might say he did.”
“Go on,” Geralt said, tossing a rabbit bone into the fire. He had missed hearing the rich sound of Jaskier’s voice as he wove a tale. The bard was a master storyteller. People travelled for miles to hear him perform with his lute or craft a song out of happenings that took place before any living person was born. Geralt listened intently, remembering his regret that he hadn’t paid more attention to Jaskier when he performed for all those years to a privileged audience of only one grumpy witcher.
“Unbeknownst to her parents, my mother snuck away from her home in the middle of the night,” Jaskier said.
“Probably just like your fans, Sammi and Livi did,” Geralt remarked.
“That may be,” Jaskier continued. “She met up with her friends and they travelled on foot for weeks to get to Kerack because they had heard Geoffrey whatever-his-name would be performing at the annual Beltane celebration.”
“Sounds like fun,” Geralt said.
“It is fun-in fact Lettenhove holds the celebration every year. My, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been back there,” Jaskier said, nodding his head while reminiscing.
Geralt sensed that Jaskier regretted not travelling back to Lettenhove more often. Of course, he wished the bard was revisiting his childhood home under happier circumstances. “That’s a long journey for a young girl, Geralt said.
“It was a mad adventure!” Jaskier said. “Oh, the stories she told about their trip!”
“So tell me how she met your father?” Geralt asked, genuinely curious.
“Well, my mother, who was much too young to be drinking unwatered ale mind you, found the local ale house that supplied the Beltane celebration with food and drink. She convinced the barman that she and her friends were much older than their years. The barman kept their thirst quenched for the evening,” Jaskier said, his eyes bright with fondness for the girl who would become his mother.
“Sounds like trouble,” Geralt said. “Next you’ll tell me you were conceived in the smoke of the Beltane fire.”
“That would be honourable and fitting for a bard of my outstanding talents,” Jaskier laughed. “But no, I’m afraid your tawdry speculation about my mother’s reputation is false.”
Geralt placed his hand over his heart, mocking his pain from the bard’s words.
“The next morning, my mother awoke, wrapped in a blanket against the chill. Her friends later told her that she danced the night away with a local lad from Kerack. It was he who gave her the blanket that he had brought to the festival.”
“And let me guess,” Geralt said. “He was wrapped up in the blanket with her?”
“No! What do you take my mother for?” Jaskier asked, slapping Geralt’s knee.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Geralt said, without apology.
Jaskier laughed loudly and said, “That’s very likely, perhaps you’ve met my mother before!”
Geralt shook his head. Leave it to Jaskier to imply that his mother was an exceedingly lively youth. “How did she find him again, then?” Geralt asked.
“The poor lad that had danced all night with her had actually fallen asleep with her on the blanket by the Beltane fire.”
“Hmm, I thought so.”
“When he woke up in the middle of the night, he didn’t want to embarrass the drunken girl-”
“Your mother,” Geralt said.
“My mother,” Jaskier acknowledged. “Well, there was still quite a party taking place. So, he simply wrapped her in his blanket and went off to join his friends.”
“His drunken friends,” Geralt added, standing to toss another log onto the campfire.
“Indeed! But he kept watch over the sleeping maiden to make sure no other lad took advantage of her in her inebriated state,” Jaskier said.
“What a noble lad,” Geralt said, returning to sit on the log beside Jaskier.
Jaskier looked at Geralt with a gleam in his eye. “In the morning, she berated him for his audacity. He dared to think that she couldn’t defend herself? Pffft! She was furious,” he laughed.
“She doesn’t sound like a typical defenceless maiden,” Geralt said.
“My mother was far from typical when she was young,” Jaskier laughed, rubbing his knees with his hands. “But she returned his blanket to him. He invited her to his home for breakfast. As it turned out, he was Josef, the son of Count Alfred Pankratz.”
“That’s your middle name,” Geralt mused. “Alfred.”
“How on earth did you know that?” Jaskier asked, his eyes flying open wide. “I didn’t think you’d ever noticed anything like that.”
“I overheard you telling Yarpen Zigrin, when you introduced yourself to the dwarves, that day….” Geralt instantly wished he hadn’t said so much. The last thing Jaskier needed was a reminder of the time Geralt told him to get out of his life. He tried to change the direction that he had steered into.
Jaskier hummed, remembering, but he didn’t speak.
The campfire coals glowed red, an echo of the pain Geralt inflicted on himself.
“Don’t stop,” Geralt said, hoping it would be enough for Jaskier to forget his sorrow for a moment. “Tell me more.”
Jaskier looked at him fondly before continuing. “Of course, my grandfather was only a minor noble in a big place like Kerack, but he was of noble birth, nonetheless. Like all good romances, the pair of youngsters fell in love. My mother went to live in Kerack, becoming Countess Josef Pankratz although she said she hated to be called by her noble title,” Jaskier said.
“Hmm,” Geralt hummed to indicate he was listening, perhaps for the first time, as Jaskier spoke about his family.
Jaskier then whispered, as if he were telling a secret, “I think she truly enjoyed having a title though.”
“She attained a level of societal importance,” Geralt nodded.
Jaskier continued, quieter than he had been speaking when his story began. “Her parents were angry that she had run off in the night. It was their worst fear. But they grew to understand that she needed to find her own happiness. She had been born the daughter of an alderman, but she always longed to leave the shithole place of her birth so she could travel and see the Continent.”
“And did she?” Geralt asked, hoping that she did.
“Oh yes,” Jaskier said enthusiastically, “my parents vacationed in the Skellige Isles every summer and they had a winter residence in Ebbing, where they’d spend the cold months enjoying the warm sunshine.”
“Hmm,” Geralt murmured. It seemed Jaskier’s parents were quite different than he had imagined, not that he ever thought about them very much. For some reason, he thought Jaskier had been disowned by a tyrannical father and an overbearing mother. But from the way Jaskier now described his parents, this didn’t seem to be the case at all.
Jaskier yawned and stretched his legs out before the hot coals in the dwindling fire.
Geralt had grown tired, too. It had been a long day, saving Jaskier from the girls who sought to defile him. His mouth twisted into a grin that he concealed from Jaskier.
Jaskier stood from where he sat on the log. He stepped toward the fire and turned to warm his backside.
“They had a good life together,” Jaskier said, facing Geralt. “Although they disagreed about some things, they agreed on most. My father was keen on protocol, but my mother would simply give him a piece of her mind if he took things too seriously. She’d remind him that a drunken night at the Beltane fires had left him with the best of wives and three children who outshone them both in talent and intelligence.”
“Hah!” Geralt exclaimed. “Three?”
“My sisters, Leocretia and Ainsley,” Jaskier said. “Surely I’ve mentioned them?”
“You’ve never,” Geralt said, shaking his head. He hadn’t heard Jaskier so much as whisper their names before. Or perhaps he did, and Geralt simply hadn’t noticed. He chided himself for being so inattentive.
Jaskier wandered into the trees beyond the campfire to relieve himself. “I suppose the title of Count will fall to one of us,” he called over his shoulder. “Leocretia can have it, as far as I’m concerned. She’ll make a better Count than most anyone I know.”
Geralt grunted and tossed the last of the rabbit scraps onto the fire. “Can a woman be a Count in Lettenhove?”
“She’d find a way. I’ll tell you more about my sisters in the morning,” Jaskier said as he unfurled his bedroll. He adjusted it several times until he was satisfied that it lay a suitable distance from the fire. He looked to Geralt and finding his eyes, he added, “if you’re still here.”
Geralt didn’t look away. He simply muttered, “I’ll be here.”
He didn’t consider any other option.
~