Songs of Fire °Jaskier, The Witcher

°0.5°

0.5 |My child|

VALERIA WAS ALONE AGAIN. Or well, almost alone. To her surprise Geralt followed Jaskier so she had no choice but to come along aswell. Geralt was about to leave the two alone. Valeria had no choice but to stay behind and leave Geralt on his own with this hunt.

"I must leave you here, Geralt. The risk is to high for me to enter this kingdom," she whispered to him while Jaskier stood a few feet away.
Valeria stopped her mare. Geralt turned his horse around to look at the young woman.
"Why?"
She looked away. Pursing her lips she glared into the distance.
"King Foltest traded a lot with master Kreach. He has seen me numerous times when I was still serving. Although slaves and lowborns were happy with me killing the masters of Naath, people like him were not," she turned back to look Geralt in the eye, "King Foltest would probably love to put a knife in the heart of the reason for a great loss of his income."

"Good, I wouldn't let you come anyway."
Valeria smiled at the witcher. She gave him a curt nod.
"I'll wait for your return here, where it's safe. Good luck, Geralt."
Roach started its way to Temeria. Geralt looked back one last time at the smaller woman. He gave a nod back with a miniscule smile.
"Don't worry, I'll look after the bard!" she yelled when the witcher got smaller in the distance.

Her eyes followed the man. She couldn't help it but something felt off.
"So, what do we do now?
With a sigh she looked back at the bard with his hands on his hips.
"We wait. In silence."

Hours had passed since Geralt's leaving and Valeria wanted to smash her head into the ground. The bard had been talking and singing ever since they set up camp, in the woods nearby the borders of Temeria. Eventhough Valeria never responded, he kept on blabbering.

"Don't you ever get tired of yourself!"
The young woman threw the logs, she collected for the fire, on the ground after she got tired off his voice constantly ringing in her ears.
"No, not really no. Why?"
The bard looked at her in confusion.
She sat down on her knees, right next to the burning fire, throwing a few twigs in the red flower of hotness.
"Well we've been alone for a few hours now and you haven't shut that mouth of yours for a second. It's exhausting to listen to."
Her eyes gazed over the fire at the man across from her. His lips were pursed while his eyebrows were knitted together. Maybe she was a bit harsh on the bard.
With a sigh she stood back up.
"I'm sorry, that was a bit harsh wasn't it?" she waited for his response and he nodded in agreement, "I guess it's quite a change from having Geralt as company to you."
A small smile graced her face.

Jaskier's eyes followed her every movement when she paced back towards her white mare.
An apple was thrown his way.
"It's not much but I can try to hunt later in the evening."
His eyes grew and he leaned back.
"Hunt?"
His dramatic voice caused the woman to roll her eyes.
"Yes, Jaskier. I will hunt for some meat."

The sky above Jaskier and Valeria had turned into a dark vastness, the only light being the warm fire, a source deadly to men but a comfort to Valeria.
Both of the people sat in silence while biting down on the rabbit Valeria managed to catch.
"So how come a princess can hunt animals and travels with a witcher?"
Valeria stopped eating and eyed the bard. Was it too much to hope he would be silent for more than five minutes?
"Don't call me that. I'm not a princess, not anymore."
Her eyes went back to the rabbit leg in her hand.
"Alright. Sorry, didn't mean to offend you or anything," she heard the bard murmuring.
God, she was awful at making friends.
Scooting dangerously close to the fire she cut of another piece of the rabbit cooking above the fire.
"Careful there, you might get burned."
With a small smile she rolled her eyes and put some distance between her and the hot source. It was sweet of him to look out for her but Valeria never had to be careful around fire. What could it possibly do to the unburnt.
"Dont worry, Jaskier. Now do you still want an answer to that question or not?"
With a surprised look he nodded his head.
"Yeah, yeah, of course I do."

"Well Geralt and I go a long way back. I met him a few years ago in Naath."
She got cut of by the bard.
"Wait that's where the Mother of Dragons is from. Have you met her? Or even seen her?"
She threw a rabbit bone against his head to shut him up.
"Can I atleast finish my story. You can ask questions later. Anyway, we met and I had plans to leave Naath for a while. Leaving my trusted place, I would need to know how to defend myself," the bitterness was clear in her voice while talking about the place,"Believe it or not but Geralt let me come with him. He sort of became my mentor and you know how good of a fighter witchers are."
Jaskier waited for a few seconds. When he was completely sure, she wouldn't say anything else, the questions flooded out.
"So you lived in Naath? Have you ever met her? Or-or does the Mother of Dragons even exist?"
Valeria raised her hands.
"Wait, wait. One question at a time!"
She slowly lowered her hands.

She knitted her eyebrows together and a small glare was directed towards the bard.
"How come you get to ask all the questions and I barely know anything about you? Like how did you decide to travel across the land and sing ridiculous songs? What did your parents think of it, hmm?"
Valeria raised one eyebrow while pursing her lips.
Jaskier's usual careless expression was gone. The young woman sat up straighter. Did she say something wrong?
"I don't want to talk about that."
His voice was softer than normal. Valeria knew immediately this was a touchy subject.
"Let me guess, they didn't approve of you becoming a singer, but you didn't listen to their whining because it's your life, so you decided to travel the Continent anyway trying to earn your coin and bedding every woman you can."
Jaskier looked in shock at the woman. He scooted a bit further away from her. "How do you know that? "

"Well I travel with another man so it's not hard to guess how you fill your time and well the parent thing is familiar," a scoff escaped her lips while she looked down at the ground, "My father found me a failure because I refused to kill innocent men. The cruel bastard ruined so much lives, mine included."

Finally there was silence around their little camp. However, Valeria wished that the bard said something this time.
"So, you know how not to treat you children in the future."

"I already have treated mine differently."
A smile came on her face. Her child, the one thing that would give her hope in this cruel world.
"You have a child?"
Jaskier's voice was higher than normal. A laugh escaped Valeria's mouth and she shook her head.
The bard layed his hand on his heart and he sighed dramatically.
"He's not really my child, not by blood. Come to think of it he isn't really a child anymore."

Jaskier saw the woman's face lit up when speaking of this child. He couldn't help but smile as well. Finally some happiness on her face. Valeria purposely left out the fact that her child was a fire-breathing killing machine. Even though it was obvious he loved the tales of the Mother of Dragons, Jaskier didn't need to know all of it just yet.
"And what's his name?"

"His name is Rhenvys. I was the first one to cradle him when he was born and I raised him until he was old enough to explore the world on his own. I must say, Geralt was a great help."
Her smile grew more, the longer she talked about Rhenvys. The bard sat across from her in complete confusion.
"Geralt helped you raise a child?"
It was clear in his voice that he couldn't believe his ears. The emotionless witcher raising a child.
With a grin, Valeria nodded.
"Well I did the most work because Rhenvys barely allowed him close but when he could he would help."

"Geralt with a child. Who would've believed it?"