Of Bards and Witchers

Sixth

    The Witcher tries to leave without him the morning after his song debuts— which went fantastically, as it happens, and the way Geralt’s face twisted up into something close to disdain as he sang at him from the center of the tavern floor was quite funny. All in all it leaves him dejected but no less determined to follow. In the end he convinces the man to wait— “Else I’ll stumble my way through the woods after you all on my lonesome, how about it? Don’t test me, Witcher!” To which the man bares his teeth, but at the bards incessant insistence he caves— and they depart by midday, once he’s collected his coin from the innkeeper and gathered his things, which, by the man’s face, he determines is much later than he would’ve liked.

    “What,” Jaskier huffs. The Witcher stares openly at him as he follows beside his mare. “You really thought you’d be rid of me after one run-in with a Devil?”
 
    Geralt regards him with little more than a quirk of his eyebrow before turning to look ahead and says, rather gruffly, “Sylvan.”
 
    “Yes, Witcher.” Jaskier’s lips quirk as he inclines his head. “I was only being clever, I could hardly forget Torque after a night of song practically dedicated to him.”
 
    “Hmm.”
 
    “The lute is nice,” he says.
 
    Well, that’s quite an understatement. He’s positive that he’s never held a finer instrument in his life. Their first night after Dol Blathanna he’d run his fingers over every inch of it— over the lettering engraved in its neck ( Elvish, obviously— he’d studied it back at the academy and was able to speak it at a conversational level but was hard pressed to translate this scripture. It is Old Elvish. The lute was likely older than Filavandrel himself. ) and the runes etched around the edge of its bodice ( He’d have no hope translating those. Geralt, perhaps. Or a witch. ). He was hard pressed to find sleep that night, edging between white noise and resurfacing at the twang of every other hollow note.
 
    “Its tuning is impeccable,” he goes on to say. “A night of playing like that and not a single sour note even towards the end. And the craftsmanship is marvelous— She’s old and she’s been cared for so gingerly and with such devotion that you can hardly tell she wasn’t crafted just yesterday.”
 
    The Witcher is staring again. This time when Jaskier looks back and smiles, he doesn’t turn away.
 
    “Hmm.”
 
    —
 
    “You don’t have a bedroll.”
 
    Jaskier shrugs from the tree he’s sat against, head tilted back toward the canopy. He’s more preoccupied with the instrument in his lap— there’s this riff that’s been stuck in his head for the last hour or so and he’s trying to determine if he’s heard it somewhere or if it’s something he’d come up with on the spot. In all honesty he’s hoping for the latter, but if it’s the former he’d like the lyrics to pop back up with it at the very least.
 
    “No blanket,” the Witcher states.
 
    “There’s a fire,” he says. “Have you heard this tune before, Geralt?”
 
    “Fires die out.”
 
    The bard stills his fingers at the statement. When he turns look, the Witcher is staring from across the flames. That’s something he does quite often— stare, that is. At everything, as if trying to puzzle something out, or memorize each and every detail with his searing gaze. “They do,” he agrees, belatedly, albeit a little confused. “They can also be rekindled. Is everything alright?”
 
    Geralt merely grunts and rises, trudging off toward his mare. Jaskier’s eyes follow, but his thoughts drift back towards the riff nudging persistently at his attention, so he resumes his position and gazes into the fire as he continues where he’d left off.
 
   And is promptly hit in the face as the Witcher throws a rolled up blanket at him— “Melitele’s sake, Witcher!”
 
    “Hmm.”
 
    The blanket falls to his side, and as he looks up Geralt is already making his way back to his seat. He finds the riff has left him entirely and feels its loss strangely, acutely, in his chest, so he sets the lute beside him and unrolls the blanket to drape across his lap. It is only then that he realizes the Witcher had been asking after him, and then offered— well, thrown— his blanket by way of concern.
 
    “Witchers are unfeeling,” a patron says in passing to his companion. “It’s the mutations. The spellwork and sacrifices. Twists them up inside. They’re as much of a beast as the ones they’re made to kill.”
 
    The Devil of Posada kneels at his side and mourns with him as he cradles the broken bodice of his most treasured possession. Toruviel looks on remorsefully, shuffling where she stands before him. The White Wolf of Rivia encourages him to accept the Elven king’s gift and worries that he might get cold.
 
    “Thank you,” he says, after a moment.
 
    The Witcher ignores him entirely in favor of closing his eyes where he sits— meditating, presumably.
 
    Stifling.
 
    Jaskier stares. Then blinks. Then asks,  “Will you be alright without it?”
 
    Geralt opens his eyes. He isn’t sure what they’re saying.
 
   —
 
    The Witcher wakes him at the crack of dawn and he decides then and there that he is not and never will be a morning person. They dress and break bread in companionable silence— well, companionable humming on his part— over the dying embers of their fire and he cradles his lute to his chest like a mother might cradle her babe; and they walk— he walks, the Witcher rides— for well over an hour before his brain catches up enough for him to realize Geralt had packed away all their things before bothering to wake him.
 
    “Oi,” he says, with nothing less than utter eloquence.
 
    Geralt blinks down at him.
 
    “Next time wake me so I can help you pack,” the bard says. “Least I can do as your companion is help around a bit.”
 
    “Companion,” the man states, ignoring his request entirely. Jaskier finds that the Witcher states many things, even when he means to phrase them in question, so he nods his head and looks back at the road.
 
    “Yes, companion. That’s what it’s called when you travel with someone you enjoy having around. Companionship.”
 
    “I enjoy you?”
 
    “Hah, Witcher!” He says, settling his lute across his back and kicking a stone ahead of him. “You’ve known me mere days and, dare I say, you adore me. Fret not, it happens to the best of folk. Just so happens I’m the ultimate companion. The whole package.”
 
    “Hmm.”
 
    “Oh-! Look, Witcher!”
 
    The bard diverts off into the brush, pleased to hear the clopping of hooves cease as Geralt slows his steed to a halt. It’s only a moment of rustling through the grasses before he returns with his prize. Geralt is not quite impressed.
 
   “Flowers,” he grunts. He watches quietly as Jaskier ties them into the horse’s mane— she huffs but offers no other protest, to which the Witcher raises a brow— then tucks one behind his own ear.
 
    “Buttercups!” He corrects.
 
    “Julian—!” She cries.
 
    “Jaskier,” the Witcher states, with a roll of his eyes as he sets his steed back into motion.
 
    Jaskier flashes a grin and follows after.