Work Text:
Violets -
'The sweet-scented violet flower symbolizes truth and loyalty, while also embodying a sense of modesty, spiritual wisdom, and humility.'
◇
Jaskier is dying.
It's simple, really. He's been dying ever since he first laid his lonely eyes on the Witcher. Took in the burning amber- the liquid gold that was Geralt's gaze. Jaskier has been dying ever since that tavern in Posada. Before the djinn, before Yennefer, before the mountain, before what comes after.
That damned mountain.
Jaskier has always been dying, but now it seems so much worse. The flowers keep falling from his lips. It started so slow he didn't even notice. A few dry coughs here and there. The smell came first, a waft of smell that he couldn't quite remember afterward. So, he forgot. Figured it was perfume, or pollen traveling on the wind.
Geralt didn't notice, either, so it was alright.
Then it happened... more. The smell was there when he coughed. Clung to his arms when he tucked his mouth to his elbow and hacked until his face was red and eyes teary. Geralt left for the winter, left within the last week of October, and Jaskier was on his own for the winter.
There, alone and in an even lonelier tavern, Jaskier gagged over his first petal. So small, so tiny. Bright cobalt blue-purple. A violet. And he knew. He laughed, first, crushing the petal in his leather-bound journal to forget. Of course, he didn't. How could he? The petals didn't come any more commonly. More sickly sweet smells he quickly forgot, as if he couldn't physically remember, no matter how hard he tried. A trick of magick, perhaps.
Then Geralt came back, and it was fine. It was. They spoke and Jaskier laughed like always and Geralt hid his smiles by hiding his face and clucking for Roach to move faster. Jaskier doesn't cough so much around him, so it's okay.
Until it isn't. Until Jaskier is drunk and crying into a pail, hiding away from Geralt. He sent the- never his- Witcher on a useless errand to get him away. So he wouldn't see what Jaskier has become. And Jaskier cries, over that bucket, as he spits out more and more petals. They stick to his tongue and teeth and his lips. He scrubs his face with a cloth until his mouth is raw, sore and bloody, but the petals are gone. His tongue tastes floral, his throat burns.
◇
Julian's mother dies when he's eight years old. They're outside, all of them. His mother, his father, his stepmother. His brothers and sisters. Even now, though, while his stepmother hugs them all to her chest- especially Julian, the youngest, his mom only has eyes for his father.
He isn't sure what the arrangement is. He's young, and he doesn't fully understand. His mom loves his father. His father loves his stepmother. His stepmother loves his father and the children. His stepmother can't have her own kids.
His mom is sick. They all know it. She heaves big, gasping coughs, gags over rose petals and thorns. She has for months, years. First tiny ones- barely the size of Julian's pinky nail. But bigger, worse, as time continues.
She loves his dad too much, and she's dying from it.
"I'm scared," Julian whimpers into his stepmother stomach, and she clings to him tighter.
"It's okay to be scared," she soothes, lowering herself to her knees, even though it stains her dress. "We're here. All of us. She won't be alone, and that's the worst thing that could happen to anybody."
Julian thinks dying bebause you love someone who doesn't love you is the worst thing that could happen to anyone, actually. But he bites his tongue, and when his mother rasps his name, he falls to her side and holds her hand.
This, he thinks, watching as thorns rip from her skin, tearing her open as she gasps and cries, is the worst thing.
"Percival." His mom whispers, oh so quietly. When he looks, his father is looking at her, but he's holding his wife, Julian's new mother, to his chest.
As she's ripped apart my thorn the size of gold coins, and flowers force their way to the sun, to his father, Julian promises he'll never die like this- begging for his one true love one last time. He runs to his stepmother, hiding her her stomach. Letting her hands clasp over his ears to drown out the noise of his mother's whimpers.
She dies in pain, not alone, but alone all the same.
◇
Geralt returns to his bard having sung himself hoarse, romping around the bar, sweeping locals into dances and taking gold and copper and silver coins with the grace of a swan.
He never did find the rosin Jaskier asked after. Spent hours trying to hunt it down, nostrils flaring. Cities smell terrible, that's the fact. And he couldn't smell the dried pine resin.
When he asked the nearest music shop, the keeper had laughed in his face.
"Lutes don't use rosin, Witcher, your bard sent you on a fools journey."
Geralt settles himself into a corner, dark and quiet where no one will notice him so much, where the attention is on his bard, and watches. He always does. Jaskier is the moon, and Geralt is the wolf. It's always like this, now. Geralt sits and watches his friend, his only real friend, perform. Jaskier is the moon, the stars, and Geralt watches and enjoys. He's the wolf, the Butcher of Blaviken, that's somehow enamored by these songs. They draw him in and it's everything he can do but sit and listen, helpless, frozen in wonderment. They're stronger than any chaos, any blade.
If the wolf sees the redness of bards mouth, skin rubbed raw, and the faint smell of flowers- well, that's Jaskiers business, not his. Jaskier rhomps with who he wants, which includes a great number of people. Jaskier speaks of his newest escapades, his newest loves, commonly. He speaks of his true love with the golden hair and the palest eyes he's seen, sometimes, wistfully, staring at the sky or at his feet.
Jaskier sent him on a fools journey to have someone in bed.
But that isn't Geralt's business. So he orders an ale, and stew, and eats and drinks while Jaskier sings for the crowd. The bar is stuffed full as the night goes on, boots stomping the ground and hands clapping. Women whistle and kids cheer and men raise their drinks.
Jaskier sings. He doesn't seem quite so human at times like this. He seems like more. Impossible. Beauty. Unstoppable to all that watch him; unstoppable to himself. He sings his ballads and war cries and everything in between. He lowers his voice for the raunchy lines and trills high and loud for others. The crowds love him, they always do, ever since Posada.
And if the white wolf is pleased that Jaskier doesn't disappear for the night, so he can keep an eye on the bard, well, his relief is his own. It stays his own as Jaskier and he climb the stairs, and Jaskier barely pulls his boots off before collapsing into bed.
If Geralt sighs from his nose, and twists the bard to untie his blue doublett, that is no one's business but his own. Its his own as he tucks it into the bards pack, rolling his eyes at the notebook crammed inside and the little else inside. He wonders of reading it, sometimes. Glipsing at the unfinished songs and drawings Jaskier sometimes shows him. Heavyset eyes that seem to glow even when drawn with ink and coal. Arching brows. Roach's white on her snout.
As it is his as he sits on the only chair in the room, and pulls his swords closer to sharpen them, ever dutifully caring for them as he waits.
Come morning, they will go. Jaskier will rise, count their gold, and stumble from the door, fingers already latched into the strings of his lute. He's quieter, in the mornings, more focused on plucking strings than talking.
After a hasty breakfast on the road, Jaskier will sling the lute over his shoulder and talk about everything and nothing. And Geralt will listen, as he always does.
But, alone in the night- if he finds the bucket of crushed flowers, and assumes a woman did not find Jaskier as charming as he does- its his business. Certaintly not anyone else's.
If he did.
But as he casts a glance to the bard in the bed, he wonders why anyone would decline.
The only noise that fills the room is the sound of his blades being sharpened, and the occasional cough.
Jaskier is the moon that brightens the night, and Geralt is the wolf that howls and follows. Ever loyal, ever protecting.
And that is his business.
His blades weep as he drags the whetstone down. The room is lit by nothing but the night. The stars are nothing compared to the great planet in the sky. Light spills onto the floor from the window, liquid silver.
No wolves howl, tonight.
Jaskier coughs.
Faintly, Geralt wonders why he smells flowers.
◇
The mountain only made it worse, Jaskier thinks. He almost died, alone, cold and hungry. But he didn't. He manged to pick himself up, dust himself off, and keep going. Geralt had left him, and Jaskier would not die for the man that blamed all of his problems on his friend. His friend that had been with him for over two decades.
Jaskier can't die by age. Numbers don't touch him, not since he was cursed long ago. He heals just a little faster than any ordinary person, witchers and those gifted with magick excluded. But he heals, and he ages slowly, and he cannot fathom how Geralt hasn't picked up on it.
Witcher senses and smarts can only get you so far, apparently.
The more you age, the faster time goes. Time is impossible, now. Some seasons seem to skip by, others seem to never show at all. Jaskier can only guess his age, can only guess he is well over a hundred. He's seen so much, has seen unimaginable sights, has gone through more than any normal man.
He had seen his mother get sick from the flowers.
He has not fallen from them, not yet, and hopes he won't, now that he is free from Geralt, from his love. He coughed, yes, and gagged over small stems, but slowly, faster than they came, they stopped. His music becomes louder, angry.
Because he's angry. Geralt turned his back because- and yes, Jaskier maybe shouldn't have written the day off, but he didn't know what to do, and he was so close to toppling over onto his knees amd gassing over flowers that he wasn't really thinking- but that doesn't mean it's his fault.
The djinn wasn't on him. Geralt was angry, after Cintra, and Jaskier just wanted his friend. He was worried, so worried it hurt. He hadn't thought of the wishes. He just wanted Geralt to be alright. And Geralt had the wishes, anyway.
And Jaskier still remembers the feeling of his throat- bulging and bloody and somehow worse and better than the flowers and their roots digging into his lungs.
Cintra wasn't Jaskiers fault, either. Because he knew what Geralt was going to do, and he shook his head- tried his damnest to get his friend to do whatever stupidity was about to unfold. But Geralt ignored him, and spoke Law of Surprise, and then Pavetta threw up.
And Geralt left him, there. When Jaskier was finally able to escape- the Lioness held a knife to his throat, hissed and spat in his face like a feral cat- Geralt was long gone. Jaskier spent the night in a tavern before trying to find his friend, and he couldn't. So he turned to Oxenfurt for the winter, bitter and hurting.
Jaskier doesn't often think of Cintra. It hurts. Even if, occasionally, he travels to the city and sings in taverns, crawling closer to the castle day by day.
Last visit, a crowd of boys- and a girl cleverly hiding herself- begged him to sing for them. Even with her hair tucked, and her face dirty, Jaskier recognized Cirilla of Cintra. She looks just like her mother.
Pavetta is the one that convinced the Lioness to let Jaksier go, eyes pleading as Duny held her. Without the princess, Jaskier would be dead in that hall, body thrown into an unmarked hole.
And, maybe if that had happened, Geralt would look for him.
And the mountain sure as shit is not his fault. Geralt can be an idiot, they all kow that. But to bind- to bind Yennefer's fate to his own?
Jaskier may not love the witch. May not like her at all, either. But both of them are companions through the pain Geralt holds around himself. Yennefer strode through a portal without even looking back. But Jaakier saw her tears. He wonders if Geralt could smell the salt and misery.
Jaskier stumbled down the mountain and pretended he didn't. Pretended he didn't stop at the bottom, and waited, and waited, before he knew Geralt wasn't going to come down to get him.
'If life would give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!'
So, he pats Roach. The horse likes him, now, after so long. Old, now. Face white and eyes droopy, but still strong, and fast, and smart. Geralts one and true only friend. She's waiting closer to the trail than the camp. She would climb all the way to the top, by herself, to check on Geralt.
And Jaskier is the same.
He does to the camp. It's taken down, now. Ashes in the firepit, scrapes and signs of life hastily packed away. He drops his bedroom from his pack, and sits. And waits.
An hour turns into the afternoon. Afternoon to night. Jaskier sleeps fitfully, coughing into his arms until he tastes blood and violets are stuck in his teeth and on his cheeks and his hair. Then the sun rises, burning hot. Still, he waits, eating some of the last of his food.
Then it's night, again, and he can't wait, anymore.
Jaskier leaves.
He writes his worst song, his song of lies and hate, by a fire, mourning Geralts protection, missing his dry jokes and jabbing sarcasm.he misses Roach and her snuffles and limp bottom lip when he scratches her neck just right, or the small noises she makes whenever he presented her with apples or blocks of sugar. He stares into the flames and hates and mourns and, worst of all, worst of anything, he loves.
He coughs crimson and purple and blue onto his pages, until the colors blended with his ink and there was no telling when one ended and the other began.
He writes of memories and flames and hate. He writes of the Butcher of Blaviken, and regret, and fire. Burning the witcher for what he has done, scorning him and his mistakes.
When he sings of him, he does so with bile in his throat, tears stinging behind his eyes, and flowers in his lungs. The first few times, his voice quakes. His fingers tremble, but remain true.
The taverns cry outrage.
He isn't quite sure when he stops coughing. After Burn, Butcher, Burn. Two years of time spent in a daze before he, just as slowly, realizes he's moving on. He keeps that notebook, tattered and filled with dozens and dozens of pressed violets, always at his side. A reminder to not fall, again. That perhaps he could love another.
But he doesn't take many to his bed, nor does he make anyone amy flower crowns, or pay for their drinks, or for their armor to be cleaned and repaired and their horse to be brushed.
Even healing, he knows there will be no one else that comes close to Geralt. Geralt is the sun, he sometimes muses. Burning everyone who gets too close, who spends too long beside him.
Then the elves. Gods, the elves. Jaskier thought he could, for once, help. He could, for once, be brave.
So he does. He takes to performing at the docks, to wearing brighter and flashier clothes, to smuggling women and men board vessels, saddened but glad that, at least- at least- there are no children. No babies wailing or small girls and boys holding onto their parents with those same dead eyes. No children to try and be brave for. Only elves that have seen it before, who know. Their eyes may be scarred from their time alive, but they know how to survive.
It would be cruel, for elven children to be born, now. Not with Nilfgaard and everything else.
Jaskier is the Sandpiper. The weak, downtrodden soul that smuggles elves to safety, to new lives, while risking his own.
Cintra burns, and Jaskier does too. Cirillia, Geralt's child surprise, a girl who's fate is tied to him, has just lost her home. Her family. Her country. Everything.
Jaskier doesn't believe she's dead. Not if she's anything like the late Queen, the Lioness of Cintra, Calanthe. Not if she's anything like Geralt, who has walked with the worst wounds Jaskier has ever seen but let the bard ride Roach because he twisted his ankle and snapped a lute string when the monster got too close and tried to get away.
So Jaskier keeps singing. Keeps protecting the elves. It's hard, terrible, and he's afraid every moment of the day. But he's alive, he isn't coughing, and the flowers are gone. The only ones that remain are stubborn roots and the ones pressed between pages in his journal.
The elves thank him, shivering in dark in the ship, when he hides them. Hug him to them and sniffle and cry and beg for any God to have mercy on him. Some look with knowing, murmur in Elder that one so kind, so brave, should not have to face the flowers. Should not be cursed as he is.
He only smiles, those times. He wears his heart on his sleeves. He isn't afraid of the violets, not anymore. Sometimes, he'll look in his journal, turn the pages. Smell the flowers and the blood to remind himself that he can't go back, not after the mountain.
Then Yennefer finds him, blasted witch, but she seemed changed. Different. Ruined. Torn apart and put together again in the wrong order, with the wrong colors, the wrong glue. He has been, too, but he was fixed in that same moment he first spoke to Geralt.
'Don't want to keep a man with, ah, bread in his pants waiting, do you?'
Jaskier was a fool. Jaskier is a fool. He helps Yennefer, of course he does, and is faced with true fear-- fear he hasn't felt for years. Even in the road, on the path, there was no true fear. Not like this, not all-consuming terror. Geralt was there, so there was no reason to- to be afraid.
But now Geralt isn't here, and there's a sorcerer in front of him, breaking his hands, burning his fingers, flames hotter than they've ever been. The sorcerer doesn't stop, and Jaskier is tired, and so, so afraid. The sorcerer says his name is Rience, and he wants Geralt. He wants Ciri.
Jaskier doesn't know where Geralt is. Hasn't known since the mountain, since he walked down, numb and defeated, since he sat at the camp and waited for days. He was left alone, and Geralt didn't come for him.
Not when Jaskier waited, and kept waiting, until he knew. Even the dwarves had left, awkwardly pausing at the sight of him and inviting him along. Their ramshackle leader had been determined to get the bard to travel with them, but he refused, again and again.
There's only one way down that mountain, and Geralt didn't come for him. Barely any food, water from a frigid stream. A fire that never quite stayed lit. He huddled into himself and the remains of whatever tent was left for days before he finally stood, and like so many times before, ran. Took his lute and ran.
Jaskier is a coward. He has always been a coward.
But that hadn't stop him from looking back at that mountain, and it hadn't stop his from crying as he wheezed past the violets in his throat.
But that doesn't change things. Jaskier doesn't know where Geralt is, but the sorcerer doesn't believe him. Why would he? Everyone knows of the Witcher's bard. Not his own, even still, even after five years. And even is Jaskier would betray Geralr- because, in a different world, maybe he's strong enough to hate Geralt, to spite him, but he will never betray Ciri. He will never do anything to hurt her. Ciri is his family, the girl he visited in secret yesr after year. He would never give her up.
Time moved differently with the witcher. Fast and slow all at once. Day by day that Jaskier never counted.
But now he always counts. Hasn't forgotten a day since he walked, in the might, some part of him hoping a monster would take him.
After that awful man, Rience, after Yennefer saves him, and leaves him in the same breath, and he's rotting in a prison cell, small and cramped and tiny and terrible, his hands never ceasing their shaking, their phantom pains, he is alone again.
He tries to play his imaginary lute. His fingers crack and hurt with every movement until he gives up altogether. He pretends he doesn't mourn the lute just as much as he did Geralt. The lute was a part of him, saw him through years on the path. Geralt was the reason he was gifted it. An elven lute, beautifully tuned, carved by hand and always shining, no matter the season. Beautiful and priceless. Given by a poor king who ost his country because of humans, yet gave a human a gift, anyway. A selfless king.
A lute that helped free and protect hundreds of elves. The lute that repaid whatever debt was between him and Filavandrel.
And now she is broken, charred pieces, lost and forgotten, just as he.
He sings to the rats, the bugs, the guards. Everything and everyone he can think of. Even his true regret, his song that he hates as much as the crowd loves it, he sings.
'Watch me burn all of the memories of you,'
He lied. None of those cursed words were right. He regrets the song, regrets how much he still loves it, still is one with it. He regrets how he hates Geralt as much as he loves him.
Cruel Geralt, sniding Geralt, rough Geralt.
Kind Geralt, quiet Geralt, gentle, gentle Geralt that held Jaskier like glass any time he was hurt.
Geralt that sat and waited on Jaskier hand and foot through a vicious flu just so Jaskier wouldn't be alone, even as the bard burned from the insane and froze from the outside.
Gentle, kind Geralt that never loved him back, not in the way Jaskier needed. Geralt that loved him as a friend, a brother. One of his own.
Jaskier sings and sings until the guards go crazy, until they hurt him, until they keep hurting him. He can never play, now, not with how crooked his fingers are. Bloody and bruised and ruined. Not with his ribs cracked and ruined. Definitely not the way one of the guards clasped his hands around Jaskiers throat and screamed for him to shut up, to just shut up, unless Jaskier wanted to meet his sword.
But, still, Jaskier sang, voice rough and throat torn, roots in his lungs aching like never before.
Then, somehow, somehow, Geralt is there, in the doorway, and everything hurts. Jaskier wants to scream and cry and hurt him. Jaskier wants to fall into his arms and cry and kiss him. Jaskier wants to run, run, run. Jaskier wants to scream and never stop.
"I... need your help."
Jaskier wants to burn.
But he loves Geralt, again, in that moment, and the flowers are growing again. He can feel them, the roots slowly stretching, the first leaves unfurling at the bottom of his throat, the flowers tentatively blossoming. Geralt, in that doorway, buttery gold eyes gentle and angry all the same as he looks at Jaskier, sees his wounds. Sees him. Geralt is the same, after all these years. So, so afraid. Afraid to step closer. Afraid to look at Jaskier and see what his bard has been through.
Bevause Geralt will never be Jaskiers. That isn't hoMw this works.
But Jaskier will always, always be Geralt's.
"Okay."
Geralt doesn't notice his hands. Not really. He notices the blood and ribs and everything else. He stops to throw a guard out of the window, snarling, raging, but Jaskier ushers them on. There is Ciri, there is the aftermath of a war, there is Nilfgaard. Two guards that hurt Jaskier is nothing.
Yennefer is there, at some point, and everything is twisting and churning. It's everything Jaskier can do to hold on, to pray he makes it at all.
He's at Kaer Morhen, hours or days later, he doesnt know. The first time in all of his traveling with Geralt. How long has he been following Geralt? He can't remember. It feels like his entire life. The years before his friend, his best friend, his only friend, are a blur. Ale and women and Valdo Marx, who died many years ago. So many people that Jaskier can't remember. His mother.
Ciri is there, too, and Yennefer, and all of the other Witchers. Vesemir. He is useless, compared to them. He is no help. He cannot cheer them, he cannot lift spirits. Even with the lute Geralt discovered, and leaves by his door, he can't. It isn't tuned, and he can't make his hands bend the way they need to to fix it.
He plucks the strings and cries. It hurts, so badly Jaskier can't tell if it's just his hands or something in his head, his heart, too. His fingers snap and crack and don't bend anymore. He can't tune it, can't play it.
He's played since he was a boy. Music has been in his bones since he was born in a storm, wind and lightning and thunder coming together in a crescendo around him. His mother humming through it, keeping her babe calm. As of she didn't feel her own flowers tickling her throat.
He puts the lute on a chair and doesn't try again. Not for a long time.
◇
Ciri's killed almost everyone. But Ciri isn't Ciri, and Jaskier can't help. He's cowering, as he always does, terror stricken and afraid. Yennefer, beautiful Yennefer that Jaskier has always been envious of, presses a stone in his hands and tells him to go.
He does, somehow. Geralt knows something he doesn't, and knows what to do. Geralt is useful. Strong, like he always is. Jaskier is cowering beneath a table.
Afterwards, after Ciri has screamed and almost brought Kaer Morhen to its bloodied knees, Jaskier goes outside. He sits, and he coughs, and he finds he can barely stop. Petals and vines and leaves and blood. His ruined hands are covered in it.
It rains, and Jaskier stays beneath it until he knows the smells are washed away. Even then, he stays, until his hands no longer hurt, until his skin is ice and he is numb. He's shaking, teeth chattering, but for the first time in weeks he isn't in pain.
He raises his face to the sky and imagines he cries stars.
He doesn't think anyone notices he's there, really. Geralt and the few other witchers are rebuilding, and digging graves, are mourning. Yennefer, magick regained, is training the princess. Vesemir, the keeper of the hold, oversees everything. Jaskier is an extra, a useless man that can't lift rocks that weigh as much as he does, nor can he cook, play, or clean. He can't do anything.
Jaskier fades into the background. It's only normal, after all this time. And it gives him a freedom, this invisbility. He climbs the broken wall he knows they won't get to for weeks yet, and coughs until he stops. Sometimes its just minutes, other times it isn't. Other times he gagging, vomiting over bile and blood and flowers until he is empty, then he heaves, body revolting against the floral virus inside him.
Because, even now, he loves Geralt.
He is weak, and he is wanting. He watches Geralt, his Witcher who was never his to begin with, circle and dance with Yennefer. They are always in an inexplicable pull, even after the djinn's wish is lifted. A back and forth, twisting and spinning from each other, always just outside of reach. If just one would lean in, they would explode with a thousand colors and come together as they should.
But they don't. It's a game, to them, one that only has one loser, one that isn't even playing. Jaskier watched, and he learns, and he loses.
He goes to the wall again and again, the others none the wiser, unseeing.
One day, Vesemir is there. He's never spoken to the old Witcher alone, but he's too tired, too exhausted, to be afraid of whatever the keeper wishes to say. He climbs the stones, swallows down his regrets and fear and flowers that are rooting beneath his skin.
Vesemir says nothing for a very, very, long time, until Jaskier can't hold the coughs back any longer, until he's doubling over and wheezing and gagging and choking. Flowers fall out in entire blossoms, wet with saliva and vomit and blood. The vines don't have thorns, but they hurt, and they scratch, and they bleed.
"You're dying." Vesemir says, as of it all makes sense, now. He turns his steady, strong gaze onto Jaskier, and he suddenly feels so small. "How long?"
"I don't know." His voice is cracked and raw, broken to his own ears. It hurts to speak, now, every day. "Years. Years. It, ah, was better." He thinks back to those five awful years he never saw his best friend, his soul mate-- even if Geralt is tied to another. "Then I saw him again."
"You're going to die here. Unless Yennefer takes you away."
Jaskier doesn't laugh, or cry, or both. But it is a close thing.
"I'll die here. With him. With them. I don't have anywhere else to go." But Jaskier thinks of home, of his mother's grave, and wonders if that's true.
Vesemir understands, because of course he does. "I can make you potions. It won't stop it, or slow it, but it will help with the pain."
The man stands and leaves. Jaskier bends at the waist, more petals crumbling from his lips, unfurling into beautiful, striking blossoms. Amethyst hues of deep, rich purple.
It strikes him, in that moment, that these are Yennefer's colors. She has always been royal, been purple of all shades. Her eyes, her clothes, her very soul seems to be capped in violet-purple. And Jaskier wants to laugh, he does, but he cries, instead, flowers new and old splattered across the snow covered ground far beneath him.
Jaskier wants, but he is a coward. He wipes his lips of the blood and climbs down the wall. He goes into the keep, the warmth from the fire bringing an unpleasant chill down his spine. It feels colder within the warm walls than it does outside, in the cold and snow. He doesn't look at the flames. He finds them uncomfortable, now. It reminds him too much of the white hot heat licking and laving and devouring his hands until there was nothing left. Nothing but brittle, charred skin, and melting bones.
Yennefer did what she could, of course. She tried. Jaskier knows she did. He cared for her when she sent herself into a restless sleep that lasted a day and a half, even though he couldn't use his hands yet. It was torture, it was pain, and Yennefer eventually woke up but it was too late for either of them. His hands couldn't be fixed anymore, and her magick was drained. Gone.
Jaskier wants. He's always wanted, ever since he was a boy. He wanted his mother to live. He wanted his father to stop hurting him. He wanted to be free. He wanted to sing. He wanted to fall in love, so deep and so strong there was no escaping. He wanted so, so much. He wanted a fate that was his own.
He got what he wanted; that love.
And he still wants, even now. He watches Geralt laugh and smile as he never did with Jaskier, touching Cirilla freely-- soft hands on her shoulders, soft hands guiding her stance, soft Geralt, gentle Geralt that was a rare treat for Jaskier. He's common, now, even with the arguing and fighting and snarling with his brothers and Vesemir.
And Jaskier wants. But Jaskier is a coward. He wanted but he never tried until he was presumed dead, bandits raiding his carriage as he traveled to a different Viscount's land, waiting to be auctioned off into a marriage he didn't believe in. He nearly died, but it gained his freedom. He slipped away and everyone moved on. Maybe that life would have been easier. Bed his wife, rule the lands, have children. Be spoiled with chefs and servants.
Jaskier can't do that, here. Eventually, someone comes looking. Mostly Yennefer and Ciri. Geralt, sometimes, though the Witcher seems to never know how to talk to him, anymore. Seems to ache whenever he looks upon the bard, at his hands.
It was Aiden that asked. Saw the lute by his door and wondered why he didn't play. They weren't alone, no one ever is, in the keep, except him. But Geralt hadn't been in the room. Jaskier hadn't thought so, anyway, so he told the wotcher his story.
Flames, twisting bones, the torture, the sorcerer that didn't believe him. Yennefer trying to help, but being weak, again, like she was so long ago. Jaskier only ruining his hands more as he cared for her.
Geralt was told. Jaskier knows because he had never heard the howl of rage that escaped his Witcher ever before. Never expected the way Geralt has found him, so easily amd so fast, and gathered Jaskier's shaking hands in his, and simply looked at then.
Twisted, swollen, sensitive, wrong. Skin pulled taunt and pale from burns.
Geralt had left in a storm, disappeared into one of Yennefers portals for days.
Jaskier doesn't know what he did, only that Geralt hurts like he never has before. That he needs Jaskier, now, but doesn't know how to reach for him. Doesn't know how to help.
And Jaskier himself hurts too much to try.
◇
Yennefer finds him. Jaskier is coughing, crying as he heaves. He's on the floor, unsteadily rocking back and forth, flowers littering the faded rug beneath him.
Yennefer says not a word. With a wave of her hand the flowers and gone, and she pulls him to his feet.
"Seems drunk," she calls over her shoulder, eyes the same color of his violets staring him down. Concern and fear and worry all cloud together. He looks back, desperation and fear and hopelessness. "Not tonight, Geralt, try later."
Geralt.
It's the magick word. His mere name causes his lungs to shake in their place, flowers growing and choking him. His Witcher. His greatest wonder, his muse. He cries, now, and he can hear Geralt getting closer.
"No, Geralt. He's fine. He's fine." Yennefer bites, leaning Jaskier onto her shoulder.
"Rience." Jaskier mumbles, a way to cover his pain that comes from his Witcher. Geralt can't know, Geralt can't ever know. "It still hurts." He knows Geralt heard. He knows. The Witcher stops moving. Jaskiers skin crawls. "Hurts."
"Alright. Okay. Come on, then, let's get you better."
Yennefer drags him down the hall, away from Geralt, away from his silent killer. How poetic, he thinks, afraid to look behind him. But he does, because, as always, with Geralt, he can't resist.
His Witcher is staring at the floor, hands fisted, shoulders shaking. He isn't crying, isn't mourning. He's angrier than Jaskier thinks he's ever seen him. But that seems wrong.
It seems wrong to watch a drop fall to the floawayhes never seen Geralt cry. Not once.
He turns away. The flowers in his chest tighten.
"I did what I could." Yenneger whispers, reaching for his hands. "It's too late."
"Oh, you blasted witch," Jaskier mutters. "I know. I've known. You've told me."
He isn't sure if they're talking about his hands or the flowers.
"I'm sorry." Jaskier wants to pause, wants to cry, wants to blame her for his broken hands and how he can't even play anything anymore. Instead, he leans further into her, lays his cheek against her hair.
"It's alright, Yennefer. You tried."
"Have you--" She pauses, grimaces. "Have you tried to play at all?"
"I can't."
Behind them, Geralt downright snarls. Jaskier doesn't, can't, look at him again. Geralt stomps away, footsteps heavy enough to tremble through the stone floor.
That night, when he thinks all are asleep, he carefully picks up his lute. It isn't anything like his glorious, faithful instrument that had been at his side for years. This one still isn't tuned, is dull, the wood weak and unfinished.
His hands shake and ache. But he sits, staring at this precious beauty in his lap. His hands move into perfect place, as always. Years and years of muscle memory. It hurts all the way up his shoulder when he plucks a note. He recoils, sharply exhaling. There's a creak, outside the door, one Jaskier doesn't notice. Even if he had, he would think it the floors of the fortress shifting and settling.
He just wants one last song. His hands, shaking, now, finds the notes. Lower, deeper, slower, sadder.
"I'm weak, my love, and I am wanting," Jaskier whispers, music flooding his chest, squeezing, flowers desperately climbing his throat. He swallows them down. "If this is the path I must trudge, I welcome my sentence," His voice wavers, his throat itches, flowers closer to bursting forth. "Give you my penance, garroter, jury, and judge, but the story is this." He lets himself trail off, hands trembling too much, losing their notes. The stings twang, the dissonant note echoing back at him. "She'll destroy with a sweet kiss, her sweet kiss, but I am weak, my love, and I am wanting."
The line sounds out of place, but it is his story. He's weak, he's wanting, he's dying.
He tries to play the lute more, but those few lines, the single stanza, was too much. His hands are shaking, calluses gone despite Yennefers magick. He's bleeding, skin torn from his fingertips.
He sets the lute down, and does not cry. He doesn't.
It's too late for that, too late for him.
He cries anyway.
◇
Some time later, hours or days, Jaskier isn't sure, he finds a flower pushing through his skin as he is changing. Purple petals and green vine poking beneath the surface, hidden by his long sleeves and buttoned shirts. He doesn't panic, he doesn't scream and wail as he feels he should.
No, Jaskier just looks. He sits on his bed and rubs his fingers over the delicate bloom inside of him.
He's going to die soon.
He can feel it, stronger than it has ever been. It's closer, now. From scented, light coughs, to petals, to flowers, to stems, to roots crawling beneath his skin, roots he didn't really notice, to flowers growing all inside him.
The funny thing about violets is you can't remember how they smell, after a few minutes. The smell disappears, and comes back again and again, as swiftly as it goes. It isn't magick. It just is.
Violets. I return your love.
Oh, how poetic. There's no love to return.
Jaskier has sung and danced and helped Geralt for years. Decades. He can barely remember a time before him- before the man that sees himself a monster. Before the wolf was befriended by a songbird. Before a lonely, bleak soul looked and saw the sun within Jaskier. Before the wolf snapped and growled and the bird only twittered back, fearlessly traveled just above the reach of his gnashing teeth.
Yennefer hovers around him, now. So he hides the plants beneath his skin, takes the potions Vesemir gives him. They help, they numb him. He can play his lute, like this, late at night. As long as he closes his eyes, he doesn't notice the blood. As long as he washes it off and doesn't look at his fingertips, he doesn't see the skin worn away to flesh. He doesn't cough as much, now. The violets are stronger, forcefully growing him a new throat out of twisted stems. Turning him into flora from the inside out. He drinks more ale, eats less. He isn't so hungry, anymore.
He aches for the sun. For gold.
Geralt watches him. Sees his bleeding hands and grinds his jaw. Watches as he scrapes his fork and knife across his plate, but barely eats. Jaskier finds its too difficult to eat most things, now. Vesemir gives him his potions and thin soups when he can, but the lord of the keep has many duties. He can't devote his time to a dying man, and Jaskier doesn't begrudge him of that.
Geralt watches as Jaskier sits on the walls. It's almost spring, now, the snow melting away as the sun peeks from behind the clouds. The wind is warm and cold all at once.
"Jaskier?" Ciri. She is, perhaps, the worst to see. She's but a girl, and he visited her as often as he could before Cintra fell. Pretending he didnt know the girl hiding as a boy was the princess. He'd but a bard that told the princess stories of forests and monsters and wolves and birds.
"Yes, dearheart?" Jaskier answers, afraid to look into her eyes. Ciri has seen many deaths, and she doesn't deserve to see more. But she knows, and he knows it. She knows more than anyone expects her to. She'll be underestimated in her life, and she can use that. Will use it.
"You're dying, aren't you?" She whispers it- the terrible thing she shouldn't know.
They're alone, and he's never been more thankful for the wall he's perched upon, far away from the training grounds, from the other witchers brutally fighting each other, practicing new sword moves and grapples into mud.
"I am." Even now, Jaskier can't lie. Not to her.
"I don't want you to die, uncle. Please." Ciri clings to his side, her thin leather armor digging into his arm. He's numb, yet it still aches. He's been having to take those potions more and more, these days. "You can't leave me."
He turns to her, draws her into his arms. "Oh, Ciri. I don't want to go, either."
"You're sick, right? Yennefer can help you. Vesemir can. They-they can make potions. Please. I need you. Please. You can't leave me."
Long ago, Geralt had said he never wants anyone to need him. Jaskier had set his elbows on the edge of the wooden tub, and said, 'well, here we are.'
Jaskier just holds Ciri tighter. "You're brave, Ciri. You'll be okay. You have Geralt and Yennefer and all of the other Witchers."
"No! You can't! You can't!"
"Ciri--" The girl rips from his arms, eyes red and face blotchy, tears running down her cheeks and onto her neck. She's shaking like a leaf, but recoils when Jaskier reaches for her.
"No!"
She turns, and runs, and Jaskier tries to follow. But he's numb, and weak, and can barely make it to his knees before he falls, flowers tumbling from his mouth. He tastes blood, sees blood splatter against the snow and grey stone beneath his hands. There's blood running down his shirt, slowly falling down his hands. He wipes at it, unsteady, still unable to climb to his feet. Below, the training grounds are quiet.
"Ciri, Ciri, please, come back." Jaskier calls, but the girl is gone. And Jaskier is alone. This wall that was once his haven is now a crushing weight against his chest. Or they're the beautiful blossoms killing him from the inside out.Everything is twisted and ruined.
"Ciri." He tries, again, voice a rough whisper torn away by the wind. "Ciri."
◇
The first time Ciri sees the bard, she's won her second game of knucklebones, and she is six. The boys boo and shuffle, irritated scowls pointed her way. She's gloating, as always, dragging her prizes closer. Two of the boys scoff, and one stands.
"This is stupid! She always wins!" He complains, then he's stomping away. Ciri leaps to her feet.
"Wait! Don't go! Jakob!"
But the boy leaves, anyway. Which him, the rest follow.
"Knucklebones, ey?" A sly voice mutters. She turns, looking up at the man standing by them, hands in his hips. He's wearing the brightest clothes she's ever seen and- admittedly- a stupid hat. And he has a lute.
The Witchers bard, her mind whispers, and she gasps. She doesnt know how she knows, but she does.
"Are you Jaskier?" She asks, and the man laughs, and bows deeply, arms sweeping up to the side.
"Jaskier the bard, at your service!" He laughs, again, standing so quickly she's left wondering of he gave himself a headache. "And you," he leans in, winks, whispers, "must be Princess Cirilla."
When she hesitates, stricken, and steps back, his smile turns a little smaller. "It's alright, I was at the banquet when your mom married your father. Pavetta was a wonderful woman, Duny was very brave."
The boys that ran away, and their game of knucklebones, doesn't matter anymore. She steps closer, eyes widening.
"Can you tell me about my mother? And my dad?" Jaskier laughs, again, and plucks his hat from his head. He drops it onto hers, even though she already has one, and she sputters.
"Of course I can! Of course, after we find something to eat." He swings his lute from his back and plays a fast pace ditty that has her reeling. She isn't sure how his fingers move so fast. Before she can even ask how he does it, he's moving through the crowd, bright green doublett contrasting the grey and brown of the city.
She gapes, then stumbles after him. "Wait! Wait! Jaskier!"
◇
Ciri waits impatiently at the doors, glancing behind her. Her grandmother has a meeting, and should be busy, but she guards will be looking for her, and so will Mousesack. And Jaskier promised her that he would tell her about her Witcher- the White Wolf of his songs. He's late, though, and she's worried. He should have been here days ago. She waits every day by the city gates, trying nit to seem so obvious.
She wears the hat he got her, and the boy clothes. It's easier to hide like this.
He's told her for years that, some day, he would tell her everything. His story, Geralts. Even, he has murmured, about the witch, and the djinn.
The last letter he wrote, he said he was going on a dragon hunt, and he would be in Cintra in a month, and to wait for him, and he'd send another letter when he was coming. But he hasn't, and she worries. All day long, even in her dreams. He's sick. She isn't stupid. She sees him coughing, sometimes. Once she found a petal.
Mousesack told her it was impossible. That Jaskier couldn't be sick like that, because he would already be dead.
'The flowers don't care, and aren't merciful,' he had said, eyes sad as he looked at the half formed flower, twisting it between his fingers. 'Any man would be dead in weeks. Besides,' he had added, handing the flower back to her, 'only those with fae blood get this sickness. Fae have been gone for centuries.'
He doesn't come. Day after day.
She hears 'Burn, Butcher, Burn' in a tavern two and a half weeks later.
One of the first times he had visited, years ago, now, he had told her his secret: that he wasn't all human, that he was cursed, and he isn't sure what all he is.
She thinks of that flower she has in a vase by her bed. It's never died, even without water, without being cared for. It stays blooming in that vase, for years, until Cintra falls, and it burns in the fire.
She wishes she had remembered to grab it.
◇
Jaskier knows love. He is a creature born of it, one who breathes it and sings it and understands it. He loves fast, hard, wonderfully.
He loves a baker for his tarts, he loves a mortuist for dressing and cleaning the dead with respect he hadn't ever quite seen before. He loves one and all. Every traveler he meets, every wild dog that's afraid of human touches from too many kicks. He loves the barn cats that he can only pet if he's very, very quiet, and very very patient.
He loves the women and men he takes to bed. He loves mapping skin with his fingers, he loves gentle touches and gentle whispers and gentle laughs in the darkness of night. He loves Roach, loves Ciri, loves Yennefer. Loves Vesemir for all the old man does for all of his children, his witchers, the witch and the princess and the dying bard.
Most of all, Jaskier loves Geralt. He loves the hidden smiles, the quiet, rare jokes, the way Geralt will spend hours brushing Roach and making sure she's comfortable, cleaning her hooves and tack and spoiling her rotten at every city they reach. The way he murmurs to her as they travel and as he brushes her. His best friend.
He loves Geralt's golden eyes, molten in the sun, he loves the way those eyes melt into black and his skin pales into marble when he downs his potions. He loves Geralt deeply, truly, irrevocably.
He loves Geralt even as it kills him. His heart is heavy with it, his head cloudy with it. He has sonnets and ballads and poems tucked away and hidden in his journal, all of his Geralt. His eyes, his bravery, his kindness. His charity to orphans and street urchins who can't feed themselves. The compassion he bestows on poor widows. Everything and anything, he finds he will love Geralt. Anger, fear, hatred, admiration, and that something close to love between Geralt and Yennefer that kills him, but he loves.
Some day, those two will come together. They'll explode in thousands of colors and become what they need. Yennefer and Geralt, together at last.
And Jaskier will be there, violets growing in Kaer Morhen, until the last stones crumble, then he will grow where it once stood. He will grow against the tree, surrounding the lost medallions with bright hues of purples. He will be forgotten, in decades, maybe centuries. Once Geralt dies on the path, or when Geralt dies as the keep master. Once his songs fade from time. Jaskier, the bard, will be forgotten. But violet flowers will still be growing, will haunt where he dies until time ends.
Cursed flowers never die. Not in winter, not through snow and storms. They are cursed to live forever, their love for another so strong it cannot be destroyed.
Jaskier has found flower fields, before. Bright petals moving in wind, surrounded by dead grass. The village was long abandoned, but those flowers stayed. He was young, had just ran from home, was alone on the road for weeks. They were buttercups, soft and bright, orange growing forever.
Buttercups. Joy, happiness, friendship.
Jaskier, Buttercup, Dandelion, had sat beside those flowers and loved them. Mourned the soul that felt the worst of all deaths.
His mother died from the flowers. Her death was gentle. She watched his father love his viscountess. His mother was merely a concubine, but she had had Jaskier. His father loved him, but Jaskier was never in line to be Viscount. Not really. His father was a stern man, a loving man. He spent every day with his wife, doted on her and loved her. Spent his time with his children that they all pretended were the vicountess'.
All while his mother sat by with smiles and laughs and told Jaskier the story of her love, how it grew and grew until her body couldn't hold it anymore. How his father was a wonderful man, but one who loved his wife and his sons, even Julian, Jaskier, even though he wasn't going to be the next Viscount of their lands. She told him how his fathers wife couldn't carry anymore, it wasn't safe, but they wanted more children. And she had always loved his father, so she made a proposal. To be a concubine, to birth their children if only to see him, to pretend to be at his side.
Jaskier's mother didn't die alone. He was there, as were his brothers and sisters and father and this other mother. They were a family, a broken one, once she passed. Once the flowers broke from her skin and she slowly sank into the earth. She wasn't alone. But she may as well have been.
Jaskier wants to die beside her flowers. To blend together with her. Violets and begonias. Julian and Thyre. Jaskier and Mom. Son and mother intertwined.
But Jaskier won't. He's in Kaer Morhen, in the mountains, impossibly far away from his home, from his long deceased family, from his mother's grave, from the ocean. He just wants to go home. Jaskier wants, always will. He's a creature of love and wanting.
"Come on, up up." Yennefer is there, all long, royal dress and fur coats. He nods, flowers climbing his throat, strangling him from the inside out. "Come on, don't die up here, it's a waste."
In her love, she is cruel. It's the only love she's ever been shown. Shunned and hated. She's afraid to feel, to let herself fall. So she plays the game with Geralt, knowing neither of them will give.
Jaskier manages a short huff, a laugh at his own demise. But Yennefer smiles, anyway, and gets him to his feet. He loves Yennefer, in this moment, how strong the witch is to carry him to his room. Jaskier wants to deny her, to tell her to carry him outside so he may rest. He wishes her to carry him to the tree covered with wolf medallions, to lay down and watch them glitter above him until he's no longer flesh and bone, but stems and blossoms, climing through the branches, delicate petals unfurling right next to silver medallions. Maybe they'll shake, for him, tinkling together from the old curse of the flowers.
But she doesn't carry him down, and he doesn't ask. Doesn't beg and grovel at her feet like he wishes he could. She takes him to his room, and she tips a potion down his throat, and she stays by his side. She tells stories. Of a girl with a twisted spine who lived in a barn and just wanted to be loved. Of a girl who grew powerful enough to shape-shift. Of a girl who became so powerful she toppled an entire battlefield with her fire, even though it left her weak and broken.
She tells him the story of a brave bard who never seemed afraid of monsters, of a bard who befriended a weary and battle-tired wolf, of a bard that befriended an awful witch. She tells him of the Viscounts of Lettenhove, of the story of their cursed line.
She tells him of the beach, the ocean. A babe that had a selfish mother who just wanted to live, and who didn't survive the cold water. Of a king that wanted a son. Of a princess a broken man saved, and the bard that sung of it. She tells him her story, his story, Geralt's story.
He thinks he can talk, now, and wants to beg to go home.
"I'm afraid," is what he says, instead. Hoarse and quiet but the terrible witch hears him, anyway. She blinks what seems to be tears away, amethyst eyes gone red and glittery.
"You're a brave bard, Jaskier, but everyone dies." Not witches, and not witchers, not like this. She purses her lips, reaches down and holds her hand against his arm. "I just wish-- I can't take you home. Not now. Not with the war. But, soon, after, I can take you. I'll plant you next to your mother."
Jaskier has never been more thankful for the witch and her nosiness. For all that he complained of her thought reading, her mind robbing, he doesn't mind it now. It's easier, this way. He's burning, aching. He wants Geralt. He always has. He needs him like an addiction needs opium.
Yennefer says nothing. She raises her hand and whispers, a portal shimmering in the air before her. She holds him against her, and walks through. They're not in the keep, anymore. They're far above in, in an area missed by snow. Stubborn grasses and early spring flowers struggle to push their way through the half frozen dirt. It's magick, the snow being all gone, but Yennefer says nothing as she sits him down and takes a graceful seat beside him. He watches the keep, watches Geralt from far above. His Witcher is graceful, spinning between blades with a show of strength none of the others can compete with. They're laughing, playing. Ciri is there, too, thrown to the ground again and again. She's angry, face red even from here.
She has her grandmother's rage, and her mother's steel spine hidden behind her softness.
The sun is warm against his skin. He carefully, slowly, tiredly, takes his coat off. He sets it beside him. Then he pulls his tunic off, no doubt ruining his hair.
"I feel hair is the least of your worries," Yennefer whispers. She reaches, and helps. His tunic is laid across his doublett.
Violets are pushing from his skin. It doesn't hurt, thanks to the potion. The same ones his mother drank, when she was like this. Green stems, purple blossoms. He's become them, slowly but surely. Roots sink out of his skin, reach for the ground, tugs him down-down-down.
He's afraid. He is so, so afraid.
"Ciri?"
Yennefer shakes her head, black hair pushed Crozs her shoulders. "She doesn't need to see this. It's easier, this way. I'm sorry." She's lying, he knows, something deep inside him breaking. Ciri doesn't know. Ciri can't say goodbye. Ciri said she needed him. And he's leaving, anyway.
That hurts more than the lie.
"Geralt. Please." He's scared, so scared, eyes wide and blurred with tears. The petals growing through his face caress them as they fall down his cheeks and down his temples and into his hair.
"I'll get him. But not yet. He... can't see you like this. I won't let him. I won't let you make that choice." She's angry, eyes burning fire. "This will ruin him."
Jaskier is a creature of wanting, of selfishness and love. He wants to see Geralt, has no care for how Geralt will feel. He needs him. Wants him. Now and always. Geralt. He should get that choice. This is his death, his suffering.
"I'm sorry, Jaskier, but I won't."
He's angry, but not at the witch yet also only at her. He knows she's lying, in a way. She's being selfish, herself. Protecting Geralt from seeing his friend die, damning Jaskier to die wishing and wanting and yearning. But she helped him. Helped heal him, helped take him away, to the sun and the clouds and a field she made for him. The sun is warm against his skin, heating him from the inside out. His blossoms reach for it.
He's laying down, now, sinking further into the warm, homey dirt. He doesn't have the strength to sit up, anymore, and the roots wont let him. He isn't sure when he stopped sitting. When he stopped the strength. The clouds are gently rolling across the sky. The sun burns his eyes, and so do the tears.
"Geralt."
"I can't."
"Geralt," he pleads, anyway. "Geralt."
"I won't." The witch finally speaks her truth, violet eyes burning. Rage. He can't quite tell the emotions in them, anymore. Anger. Despair. Stubborn finality. Her lip trembles and she bites it, turns her face away. He still watches her, how her hair moves in the wind.
She and he aren't friends. Never have been. Rivals and enemies. Unkind to one another until the end. She's a downright bitch.
But he loves her. He reaches, hand finding hers. She clanches it, a gut-wrenching noise falling from her lips. She turns to him. He sees the tears, her shaking shoulders. Crying freely for the bard.
"Stupid bard," she says. Her hand, holding his, grips tighter with every passing second.
It doesn't hurt, now, to become his flowers. It happens quickly; dozens of blossoms ripping from his skin, his bones, roots creeping from his back and scalp and arms. He's a part of the earth below him, a part of the sky above him.
"It isn't so bad," Jaskier chokes, final words a whisper as he tilts his head. Watches his Witcher clap his brother on the shoulder and smile. "Not like this."
Not when he can see Geralt. Not when it's Geralt killing him.
He breathes until he doesn't. He is until he isn't. He's a patch of violets in a grass field, other flowers not yet grown. Maybe they'll never grow, and only he will. The violets reach for their sun, reach for golden eyes far below. Even now, they wish for the Witcher, for the wolf and the bird, for the songs that seem to shimmer in the air around them. Familiar songs, familiar words, familiar, familiar.
The witch stands, and watches the flowers, for a long while. She is crying, but she is quiet. She does not speak. She is angry, enraged, heart she's only just found breaking.
Then the witch is gone, for some time. The flowers don't mind. They have the sun, the sky, the warm earth around their roots. They are alive, and they are happy. They are simple creations. Wind rustles them and they enjoy it, love the coolness, love the music their leaves and petals make as they brush against one another. Song and beauty and life.
"Where is he? Where's Jaskier?"
Gone, is he, the Witcher's Bard. Jaskier the coward. Jaskier the beautiful, the wonderful. Jaskier the wanderer.
The blossoms bloom wide beneath gold eyes, as heated as the sun.
The flowers do not know this Witcher, but they know he is as important as the sun, as the rain, as the earth that grows them. He is their life. They open for him- blossom as best they can. They're beautiful, not made of the earth, made of ancient, never understood magick.
And the witcher falls.
"No, no, Jaskier. This can't-- Jaskier!"
The witcher screams, then. He clenched his fists into the flowers that welcome him, wind helping them sing for him. Greedy leaves with to pull him in, to never let go. These flowers want, and want, they yearn.
◇
Geralt should have known. All along. He k ows of curses, of monsters, hundreds of books read in his time.
But he was blind to the signs.
And now he's here. The violets crawling on his skin, dragging him down.
Geralt killed him- killed him- and Jaskier still loves him.
"Geralt?"
Ciri. Her voice is smaller than he's ever heard, uncertain and weary. But he can't stop the snarl that leaves his throat, unable to move, afraid to rip the flowers straight from the ground. He doesn't know what will happen.
"Geralt, wheres Jaskier? Wheres my uncle?"
Uncle.
How long has Jaskier been visiting her? Caring for her regardless of Geralt's hatred of Cintra? How long? What else did Jaskier do that Geralt doesn't know of?
He listened, those nights Jaskier last played. Stood outside the door and wondered when he would be brave enough to knock, listening as the bards wavering voice still sung with clarity, as the smell of blood rose in the air and he knew Jaskier was playing even though it hurt him.
The bird that flew too close to the wolf and was bitten. Ravaged. Devoured whole and left as nothing.
How long has Jaskier been dying?
Geralt tries to think- but he can't. Because Jaskier always smelled like violets. Sweat and mud and every other unpleasant smell imagibale- sex,sometimes, hair mussed as he stepped into the room, swagger in his steps. And, still, the violets persisted.
Perfume, he had thought. Scented oils that Jaskier had always been fond of. Scented oils he dumped into Geralt's baths, scrubbed into his hair with the patience of aSaint, and the stomach of a child, gagging when he removed bits of monster.
'Downright dreadful, Geralt, the smell is going to kill me before any monster does.'
Before any monster.
But here he is. A monster in his own right, not brave enough to open his eyes, not brave enough to face Ciri as the girl batters at his back with her fists, screaming and clawing. A lion club growing into a grown one.
"I hate you! I hate you! This is all your fault! He loved you! Damn you!" Yennefer steps forward, her own lungs quaking in her chest, heartbeats heavy and hard against her ribs. Mourning for the bard she always spoke ill of until just weeks ago. "Why didn't you love him?"
"Ciri," Yennefer says, voice cracked and raw.
"No! It isnt fair! I-I need Jaskier!"
The witch gathers Ciri into her arms, and then they're gone.
Still, Geralt can hear Ciri's screams echo from the keep. The rock walls that have stood for centuries tremble. When was Jaskier sick? When the fever hit him, and he was delirious, and Geralt kept a cold rag on his forehead, and tipped broth into his mouth every hour?
When had Jaskier fallen in love with him?
When did Geralt realize he would never love him back? Weeks, years, days after he noticed the looks Jaskier cast his way? The sly glances, the heavy smirks, the body language- it all pointed that Jaskier was in love with him. And Geralt ignored it- of course he did. Jaskier was only human.
But no human lasted through this curse as he did.
And Geralt never loved him.
He wonders if he does-if he could- now, chest concave and empty, kneeled in the field of flowers that slowly grows. Moments ago he could make out Jaskier's shape, and now it's gone. If he listens, focuses on his hearing so much his head and jaw aches- he can hear something.
It'd almost like it's Jaskier, with him still. Fingers strumming the lute as he walks beside Roach, laughing and humming and-
And oh, so in love with Geralt that he swallows down the flowers he knows are killing him, and smiles anyway.
Geralt burns.
◇
The flowers sing.
They are silly, weak little things, violets are, with stems that break beneath his fallen knees and his rough hands that dig into the dirt as he screams again. They break and petals crumple beneath the cutting pain, but they love him, anyway, reach for his shining eyes. The violets love and yearn for him as he roars, rages, digs his hands into their roots, throws them away.
He's crying.
He could never hurt them, even as the violets throb with pain, sharing it through their woven roots. He can't hurt them, anymore, not like this. Not as they draw him in, climb his arms, cling to his hair, twine around his swords.
All the flowers want is Geralt.
Cruel Geralt, sniding Geralt, rough Geralt. Kind Geralt, quiet Geralt, gentle, gentle Geralt.
All of him, everywhere, anywhere.
◇
'So tell me love, tell me love How is that just?'
◇
As it always comes to be, eventually, Geralt leaves. But he comes back.
Sometimes he is silent. Sometimes he cries. Sometimes he topples into his knees, a ghost of his first visit, digs his fingers into the dirt, and heaves.
Most of the time, he pulls a lute onto his lap, stained with blood, and he plucks the strings. He carries it with him, now, strung on his back beside his swords. It hinders him, sometimes, but Yennefer is there, too, and so is Ciri. They all are. When he sits, the flowers bloom bigger, brighter, stems and vines crawling across his lap, holding him as he plays.
He doesn't play. Not really. He tries, in his own privacy. Stumbles along songs that are seared into his heart- flipping open Jaskiers notebook, reading the notes and playing along. Petting the petals that remain alive after all this time, thumbing at the bloodstains. Never in this field, but where Jaskier sleeps. He plucks notes and listens as the ghost of his friend sings.
He listens, and listens, and he can fool himself into believing Jaskier is right there, beside him again. As it should be. Pulling songs from thin air, whistling with the birds, fingers flying across his strings with a sort of grace Geralt will never achieve.
Sometimes, it works, and Geralt lifts his head to look beside him, but there is nothing.
Only violets.
And Geralt burns.
◇
'But the story is this
She'll destroy with her sweet kiss
Her sweet kiss
But the story is this
She'll destroy with her sweet kiss
The story is this
She'll destroy with her sweet kiss'