to sing a loftier song [jaskier x reader]

1. the wave not yet broken

When Geralt says, in not so many words, that he is going to Kaer Morhen for the winter, Jaskier... flounders. Just a bit. They've spent the last two winters together, slogging through snow and ice and anything else that wanted to befall them, and — it feels like being left behind in a way that waking up alone in a strange town never has.

And then Geralt says, again in not so many words, that he is willing to meet back up on purpose in the spring, and —

What that really means is that he has to find somewhere to winter, because of course he does but also because they need to determine where it might be reasonable to meet again. Or, he will, when he's done internally cheering over the olive branch that Geralt has offered him.

There aren't actually a great deal of options for places to weather the season. He could go back to Lettenhove, but that's the worst idea he's ever had. He could try to charm his way into some noble's good graces to spend the winter at their estate in exchange for his lute and his voice, but that only has half a chance of working. It's not his fault that so many of the highborn lords and ladies in Temeria and Redania both are bored of their lives and marriages, but —

Well, it doesn't matter.

The only other real option left to him is Oxenfurt, and when he thinks back to his memories of the place — the buildings of the University, the sea so close at hand — it's an easy enough decision to make. The city is large enough and bustling and there are surely at least a few of his friends from school that might let him stay for a little while. Or, if he has to, he'll make his way playing in inns every day for the next several months — it is still a surprise to be in such demand as he is, even though it is also a point of pride.

When he tells Geralt his plans, the other man nods. Hums and thinks and eventually tells him to meet him between Murivel and Rinde, along the Pontar. It's some village that Jaskier has never heard of, and that's including that he spent a considerable amount of time with geography and history texts when he was still a student.

Still — he gets directions, or what counts for them when given by a man like Geralt — and they part ways for the winter.

Despite the few weeks he has spent traveling to get to Oxenfurt, Jaskier has not actually spent much time considering the specifics of who he might stay with when he actually arrives. He knows he will find somewhere, one way or another, but —

He could talk to the Dean that was his adviser when he was still a student and look into getting a winter appointment — that would come with rooms, and likely even a stipend. But he would have to actually teach — and he does remember being a student, remembers his classmates too — and it would be less than easy to leave when spring rolled around... And there is no world where he is going to leave Geralt, who offered to meet back up with him, waiting.

He could ask Shani, but for all that they have always gotten along well — her in her sharp way, him in his... own way — they have never been that sort of close.