If life could give me one blessing...

He walked - part 2

He walked far. He couldn't find himself to care about whether he ate, whether he slept, he didn't need that anymore. At some point, he took his boots off and left them on the ground. He needed to feel the earth like he was born to. Never before did he think of his decision for getting a human body with regrets. Now? Now when all he wanted to do was to run, to walk, to jump over cliffs and into the sea, to pierce someone's heart with his horn or to just run far, run back home and lie down in his forest for the animals to eat him? Now he felt like this human body was too small.

He walked for weeks. He felt his body changing, the bone-deep sadness hurting him in a way neither hunger nor thirst could. He left his lute. It got stuck on a branch when he was walking through some thorny bushes, so he left it there. He didn't need it anymore.

His mind was lost. His life turned into pictures that were appearing and disappearing in front of his eyes when he blinked. He remembered the time he met Geralt for the first time in Posada more than twenty years ago. He remembered their travels, the child surprise, the faces of people they met. He remembered his visits to the Cintran court and the young princess. He remembered golden eyes and white hair and all of the different Roaches.

He remembered the mountain. He cried, silver painting the leaves he walked through. He remembered times long ago, his herd. He remembered one of the others walking away from the herd after his love was lost. They called it the last journey, he walked away to be reunited with his love. He guessed this was his last journey, even though he didn't know where he was going.

He thought of the other times he thought he would die before. There were some dangerous moments when traveling with a witcher. But he enjoyed those and he knew he was safe most of the time. There were a few moments before he met Geralt, after acquiring the human body and trying to figure out, how humans worked. And of course. There was that one time.

Maybe that was the reason why he wasn't afraid of Geralt at all when they first met. He already knew one witcher before that. The man who saved his life when he was caught by a human lord and kept as an attraction. It was that moment that made him so determined to get a human body. Had it not been for silverhair, he would've been kept there like a prisoner. A talking horse to amuse humans, a gold mine for any sorceress, that would find out about him.

Had silverhair not helped him escape and find a reliable mage to get what he needed from, he would've been dead. So Jaskier believed in witchers. He liked them and he felt indebted to them. When he found his calling in form of music and when he chose his name, he remembered them. He wanted to help. That's why he followed Geralt.

That was how his heart opened to creatures with golden eyes and how he fell in love with one of them. That was how his heart broke and he walked now. His feet bloody and freezing taking step after step through the slowly rising layer of snow, as he felt the cold envelop him and freeze him to his bones. It was pleasant because he could feel it. The cold was so bad it almost burned and even the emptiness didn't feel that empty and dark for a moment.

The world around him was white, trees around him blurry as it snowed and snowed and snowed. It reminded him of his home forest in the winter. It was calm. When he let his mind wander, he could almost hear the laughter and see white shapes moving behind the trees. He stopped for a moment and tilted his head to listen. Funny, it was almost like they were calling his name. But they couldn't know this one. He wasn't Jaskier before, after all.

"...skier. Jaskier!" suddenly there were strong hands shaking him and his eyes focused for a moment to see a pair of searing golden eyes staring at his face. He felt a bit of awareness returning to him and he blinked.

"Lambert?" he asked, voice raspy from unuse, and he tilted his head. He recognized the man. He met him a few times before when he was traveling with Geralt. He thought the man seemed concerned, almost afraid, but Jaskier didn't understand why. He was just walking, there was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

All of a sudden he could not walk anymore, as he has been lifted and Lambert started carrying him somewhere. At first he felt an itch and wanted to get off, but when the witcher got a hold of his horse again and turned around to walk in the right direction, he calmed down a little and tilted his head back, so he could watch the sky and the tree branches above their heads.

And then the branches disappeared and he saw a dark stone above his head. He heard the horses hooves clap on the terrain and he turned his head a little so he could see. He felt like he should walk somewhere. But where was it again?

He heard voices, teasing voices, that turned into worried ones.

"What the hell Lambert? Who's that?"

"Wait, Eskel, get Geralt! That's Jaskier, he's weird, I don't know what to do," sounded an especially pained voice from the person that was holding him. Ah, Lambert. But there was something else worth attention in those words.

"Geralt?" Jaskier rasped and all of a sudden felt a pang od pain right in the chest, silver tears filling his eyes again. No. No no no. He started flailing again, forcing Lambert to drop him, not listening to any of their voices, when he managed to scramble to his legs again and turned around. For a short moment, he could see. He could see the people running out of the giant black castle that must've been Kaer Morhen, for he had never seen this many witchers at one place.

He could see snow and stone and stairs and on those stairs a tall dark figure with glowing eyes, that suddenly gasped and came down the stairs, not running but walking fast, before the man stopped in front of him and watched him with recognition and concern.

"Silverhair?" Jaskier watched the man with silver filling his eyes and the man nodded, taking the last step to wrap his strong arms around the dying unicorn. Jaskier closed his eyes.