Chapter Text
Jaskier was, unsurprisingly, the one that itched to move about. Late the next morning he was sitting up, albeit a little awkwardly and pained, and bored he complained. Full of cheese and some kind of brew meant to restore strength he fidgeted until he’d had enough and pushed himself to his feet.
“Of course I’m in pain.” He’d replied to Jorvhin’s question. “But what’s agonizing is sitting here in this room with nothing to do, and you aren’t exactly the chatty type. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s just…” He looked up pleadingly. “Help me downstairs? I want to see Buttercup.”
So Jorvhin, because he was awkward, fisted the back of Jaskier’s jacket and helped him down the stairs like a mother cat would carry her wayward kitten. His hood was pulled up to obscure his face like it had been when he’d visited the village many a time before, but it seemed not to matter. The few people below grew silent as they descended, no doubt because they knew. At the last step he released the bard’s jacket to rest his palm between his shoulder blades. The men that had been tied to the center beam were gone.
They made it halfway to the door before a voice spoke up.
“Witcher!”
He paused, and swallowed. It was Terin. She rounded her bar and approached a bit apprehensively.
“I just…” She looked as if she wanted to reach out, but instead wrung her hands together close to her collarbone. “I wanted to thank you again– and for all the kindness you’ve given me in the past years.” Her eyes grew watery and had a sparke to them. “I can’t imagine it’s been easy, I know how most folk feel about you, but it… it never would have bothered me, dear. I’m sorry you felt you needed to hide. I hope you won’t anymore.”
He was speechless. It must have been evident, because she offered a small sympathetic smile, and nodded before returning to man her bar.
In front of him Jaskier was beaming, and he could tell because his smile stretched nearly to his ears.
Outside with the two horses there was a mite of privacy. The tavern had a tiny stable that was rarely used on the side of the building less travelled, and he felt more at ease. Hesitantly he reached up and pulled the hood of his cloak from his head. His hair spilled forth, and he caught Jaskier watching with a smile still on his face.
It grew back into that beaming manifestation of sunshine as they grew closer to the horses, and Buttercup nickered happily when she recognized him.
“Oh, little Buttercup!” He cried out in joy. He threw his arms around her neck. “Oh, it’s so good to see you alive! Are you alright? Did they treat you terribly?” He looked her up and down, tutting as he did so. “Gods be good they didn’t brush you once, did they? The state of your mane and tail… don’t worry, we’ll get you fixed up.” She whinnied happily as he babbled.
Without his hood up, Strider appeared confused. He nosed at Jorvhin’s hair curiously.
“Do you like that handsome stallion? He’s wonderful, honest. A true gentleman. He’s kept us safe since we parted, you can trust him.”
Jorvhin smiled. “I saw them last night. They get along fine.”
“Oh, I knew they would. Two gentle, loving souls. I think they make a wonderful pair.” Jaskier stepped back to take in the sight of them both, and then looked up to Jorvhin. He was still smiling.
“You seem happy.” Jorvhin commented. “I thought you would be sad that you have to stay. That the man that tried to kill you is still alive.”
The fact ate at him. It was all he could think about in the evening– that Macrich could be prowling the forest like a predator. He would be back, he was certain. Angrier than ever before at the loss of his hand.
“Oh I’m a little worried, and a little sore.” Jaskier rubbed gingerly at his side through his shirt. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just happy I’m alive. Arriving late to Oxenfurt seems trivial now. I think I’ll be alright to stay a while longer.”
Jorvhin tried to ignore how… pleased he felt at the idea.
“One more night in the tavern. Then we’ll ride back.” Jorvhin hummed.
“To where?”
“Home.”
He’d never called it home before.
With a thoughtful hum, he led the horses out of the stable and into the sunshine to graze a nearby patch of new grass. Buttercup seemed far more interested in her rider, however, and approached him to seek out attention. He laughed at her insistent nosing. He wrapped his arms around her snout, and ever so gently, she helped him lower himself down to sit.
Jorvhin watched. “You taught her that?” He asked.
The bard beamed up at her. “No– that man that traded her? He had a young son previously that had no use of his legs, and I suppose he trained her to help him get around. That son had passed by the time she came into my care.”
Buttercup circled him, and with a shake of her head, lowered herself to sit as close as she could get to Jaskier without smushing him.
“She trusts you– it takes a great deal of love for an animal to feel that way.” The Witcher tied Strider to the stable’s post, and retrieved a brush from inside his saddlebag. “I didn’t realize you were so well versed in horses.”
At that, Jaskier snickered. “I traveled alongside a very opinionated mare for nearly two decades. I learned the basics– so don’t think for a second I can do any of that fancy riding, or jump her, or gods forbid know anything about pedigrees or some such thing. I think the most important thing I learned was to listen to what she needed.”
“Hm.” Jorvhin handed him the brush, and retreated to the shade of a tree to lean on it and keep watching.
A good hour or more was spent making their horses presentable. By the end Buttercup’s mane had been neatly braided, and Strider was brushed free of clinging dirt and sweat. They lazed about in the grass; full, comfortable, and content.
Jaskier, ever restless, circled the tavern’s outside and inside as the day dragged on. A little slower, and with frequent breaks. He flitted between villagers like a little bird as they came and went, chattering with those who gave him the time of day. Most did, considering his role in the turmoil just the day prior. That seemed to be the main point of conversation, anyway. In his hands he had a petit journal– one he had fished out of Buttercups saddlebag. Most of his belongings were still inside, tossed around and dirtied, but miraculously left. His coin was gone, of course, but most of what he carried apparently lacked monetary value to the thieves.
His book of progress he called it. A journal for composing his songs. It was thick and well loved, three-quarters of the way full and one of many that he had back in Oxenfurt. He never brought up what he was working on, but Jorvhin had an idea.
They tucked themselves into a quiet nook by the stairs of the tavern as evening approached. Jaskier still had his nose in his book, picking at the food Terin had given him close to an hour ago. Jorvhin watched him write. His hood was down, but only because of how hidden they were from the rest of the tavern. At the sound of footsteps that grew close, they both looked up.
It was Conrad. He didn’t look as pale, and his wheeze was noticeably better. He nodded to Jorvhin politely first, and smiled at Jaskier. “Just wanted to see how you were faring.” He said, and glanced back at the Witcher. “Both of you, mind. Ugly thing what happened yesterday.”
“Oh, thank you. We’re alright, I believe.” Jaskier’s smile was pleasant. It fell as Conrad produced a coin from his pocket, and slid it across the tiny wooden table with two fingers.
“Don’t think me deaf and dumb yet, lad.” He had a big smile on his face. “I was quick in my younger years, and I know a few tricks myself. It was a gift– never asked for payment.”
Jaskier laughed, and shrugged. He placed the quill in his book and closed it to rest it on his knee. “Alright, alright.”
“Really. Years back when I saw you play, it brought my wife a great deal of joy. Swear– that woman would hum the same ballads over and over, and they were yours. When she passed… I picked up on the humming for her, I think. Always wanted to thank you for making her happy.”
A breath passed, and Jaskier blinked and swallowed. “That… that means much and more, really, I…” He swallowed again, and coughed into his fist, obviously choked up. “I always wanted to bring joy. It’s… it’s wonderful to know I truly did.”
“Ack!” Conrad scoffed. “You’re talkin’ like it’s in the past! You’ve got a good many years ahead of you. Plenty o’ ballads and songs to croon to little old ladies.” He placed a large, warm hand on Jaskier’s shoulder in the way a father might his son.
He turned to look at Jorvhin hiding in the shadows. “And you– you saved a great many lives. I might not have been at the business end o’ any weapons, but you saved me from that blasted cough.” His smile turned warm, fond. “You’re a good man, strong of heart. Should you need anything, you know where you can go.”
Jorvhin hesitated. “Thank you.” He finally managed.
Having said his piece, he left them for the evening.
Days later found them back at the tiny isolated cottage. It had been peaceful since the terror that had gripped the little valley, and the time passed easily. They settled around each other without much friction. Perhaps it was the afterglow of having cheated death that smoothed the abrasions. The two horses became inseparable– bettered one another, even. Buttercup wasn’t as flighty while next to her towering companion, and Strider seemed less aloof, so long as she was near. They spent their time grazing close to the cottage, perfectly content. Their humans did much the same. Jorvhin tended to the home, and Jaskier used the idleness to heal and compose.
His hand had scabbed over and lost the irritation, and the wound in his side had remained uninfected. Jorvhin made sure of it.
It was midday of perhaps their fourth sunrise since returning that they wandered from the home. The Witcher was preparing an extra saddlebag when Jaskier awoke from a pleasant doze. His hair was stuck to the corner of his mouth, and his cheek had reddened lines from where it had rested on his folded up jacket. He looked like a barn cat as he blinked and stretched luxuriously.
“Where are you off to?” He asked around a squeaky yawn.
Jorvhin checked the bottom of the satchel for holes, and upon finding none, swung it over his shoulder. His cloak was hanging up on a hook close to the door. Too warm was his excuse. “To forage.”
“Can I come?” The bard asked. “I know some herbs– and yes, the kind you need, assuming that’s what you’re looking for. If not, I won’t get in the way, I promise.” He pushed himself to stand with a little wince. “I just need out of his house, lovely and cozy as it is. I never was one for sitting still.”
“Okay.” Jorvhin replied. “Can you ride?”
Jaskier hummed in thought. “I think I’ll manage on my girl.”
Together they left the cottage. Jaskier left his own red leather jacket behind once he had begun to sweat in the late morning. He was dressed in a thin, white cotton shirt that was most definitely a few sizes too large. It hung from him loosely, similar too how Kymil’s nightshirt had, and was tucked into his pants. His hat cast a shadow over his eyes from the sun high in the sky. His lute was in its rightful place upon his back. Jorvhin himself was dressed in fewer layers than normal. His black shirt hugged his broad shoulders, and was untied in the center to allow the cut of his shirt open nearly to his ribs. He had no hat, and his hair waved gently in the breeze as they approached the horses.
He helped Jaskier onto his mount with a hand under his boot, and without so much as a grunt for his efforts. The bard made most of the noise, clutching his side until he was settled.
“Alright?” Jorvhin eyed him, his yellow eyes close to glowing in the sunshine.
“I’ll make it.” Jaskier sighed.
The Witcher climbed atop Strider, and the four set off at a slow, gentle pace into the woods behind the cottage. They followed a game trail, and it wasn’t long until Jaskier recognized where they were. A pebbled stream gurgled close by.
“This is where I was nearly eaten. The first time.” He said.
“You sound strangely fond.” Jorvhin said over his shoulder.
“Ha!” Jaskier laughed. “Not at all, you must be imagining it.”
Jorvhin made that strange little laughing huff. “Don’t worry. What I’m looking for isn’t that way.” He turned Strider to follow a different narrow little trail that led from the stream, and Buttercup followed.
“Lucky I went the way I did. You know, it was the oddest thing– it stopped chasing me once I left the treeline at your home. I’ve never known Ghouls to have that kind of restraint. Not that I know them well, just what I’ve seen when Geralt hunted them. They’re alarmingly rabid.”
The horses descended a hill, and Jorvhin hummed.
“They are, but they have instincts not unlike an animal. The one that chased you I kept around to deter strangers from finding where I lived. They respond to strength– dominance. It eats rabbits, mostly.” Jorvhin admitted.
“Like a pet?” Jaskier raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“I wouldn’t call it that. It worked. It may not have killed you the second time because you… smelled of me.”
“Oh.” Jaskier snapped his mouth shut. “That– ah.” He did sleep in his bed. Heat rose to his face. “Well I can’t say I’ve heard of a Witcher using monsters like guard dogs.”
“No.” Jorvhin shook his head. “I shouldn’t have. I’ll need to kill it when I see it next, lest it does start hunting humans.”
The forest opened into a meadow at the base of the valley. A different stream flowed through it, and the tall, green grass was sprinkled with flowers blooming in all different colors. Birds and butterflies fluttered around them, and a small herd of deer raised their heads at their arrival. They watched for a moment, but didn’t flee. Close to the stream there was a towering oak that they rode towards.
Jorvhin helped Jaskier down from the saddle, and left the bard to lean on the tree and compose himself. He set about removing the more cumbersome pieces of tack from the horses, and hung it from a low branch. Strider and Buttercup trotted around one another once they were freed, and settled in close by to graze.
“So what are we after?” Jaskier asked after catching his breath.
“Chamomile and Blue Skullcaps.” He replied.
“Ah,” Jaskier replied, “those are fairly innocent. They’re for…?”
“Sleep.” Jorvhin began walking slowly enough that Jaskier could follow without much struggle. “For me.”
The bard hummed. “Do all Witchers have trouble sleeping?”
“Depends.”
“It reminds me of an odd misadventure I had with Geralt some years back.” He began.
As they walked, Jaskier recounted the tale of the Wolf Witcher’s insomnia, the Djinn, the way his throat had nearly swollen and popped, and all the messy nonsense that came with it. He recalled Yennefer, the weird sex party, and how the Djinn had nearly killed them all in the end. Somehow it transitioned into the nasty affair with the golden dragon, and the chilly mountaintop. Jaskier hadn’t wanted to talk about it before, but it felt natural to speak of it now.
“Careless.” Jorvhin murmured as he stooped low to pick a white flower.
“Who?” Jaskier picked a different flower that they weren’t looking for, and added it to the crown he had started to make some time ago.
“Your Witcher.” He said, and ignored Jaskier’s quick rebuttal that he wasn’t his Witcher by any means. “Geralt. The more you speak of him, the more cruel he sounds.”
“He isn’t at all.” Jaskier interjected quickly. “We’re very close friends– I promise. He just doesn’t understand how to deal with his moody outbursts. His solution is to get angry and then isolate. I hate to make the comparison but it’s apt– you remind me of him. Not in the bad ways, mind you. You both seem… hurt.”
They stopped at the treeline.
“I wouldn’t–”
“I should have made you leave the night I found you.” Jaskier quoted.
Jorvhin was quiet for a long moment as he stared down at the little flower within his large palm. “I’m sorry.” He finally replied.
Jaskier smiled. He lowered himself to sit on a rock, and continued to weave the many different flowers and grasses in his hand. “I forgave you that same day. I already apologized, but I will again for snooping.”
“You weren’t snooping, I realized that the next morning.” Jorvhin sighed. He stashed the herb away in his satchel.
Jaskier sighed dramatically, and placed his finished crown atop his head. The sunlight hit his hair, and gave him a halo of warmth. “Would that we had made a few realizations earlier.” He snickered, and set about picking more flowers nearby. “At least it seems to have worked out.”
He eyed Jorvhin from under his lashes. “What do you plan to do?”
Jorvhin had long since given up on organizing his herbs, and was instead watching the two horses mingle across the meadow. “I don’t know.” He murmured. “I can’t stay.”
The bard knitted his brow, but Jorvhin didn’t let him speak. “But I can return.” He said. “Macrich will stop at nothing to kill me and anyone who stands in his way. No one is safe while I remain, and what they said… I’ve reason to believe it isn’t just me they want to kill. Perhaps it’s every Witcher on the Continent.”
“I have to… to do something. If not fight, then tell someone. Anyone.” He hung his head. “He was right– that… man. I am the last Bear Witcher as far as I know. Whether I like it or not, I am a piece of history. I have a duty to what I am. What we were made to do.”
Jaskier was looking at him in some kind of way when he lifted his gaze. Maybe it was… fondness? Perhaps a bit of reverent adoration. “You could go to Geralt.” He offered softly. “I know all his usual trails, and much as I dread it we need to speak. If we miss him on the path, Kaer Morhen still stands. He goes there for the winter.”
“Kaer Morhen.” Jorvhin murmured to himself.
“Will you return to the path?” Jaskier asked gently.
He wasn’t sure. His silence must have been answer enough, because Jaskier smiled sympathetically. He pointed to a clump of tiny, delicate buttercups next to Jorvhin’s boot. “Pick those for me?”
The Witcher knelt to gently snap the flower free, and ultimately sit himself as he handed it over silently. He hummed at the thanks he received, and turned his head back to their horses. They were trotting around one another again, like the spheres he’d seen on diagrams in the past, caught in a graceful orbit.
“You’ll need someone to lead you to where he may be– Geralt.” Jaskier said. “If you’ll have me, I’d help.”
“It’ll most certainly be dangerous.” Jorvhin frowned. “And I’m a miserable man to travel with.”
“Nonsense.” Jaskier smiled. “I’m used to Witcher-danger, and you’re not nearly as horrible as you like to pretend to be. We’ve been coexisting just delightfully.”
Of course, because they were living rather domestically at the moment, and not fighting for scraps or fending off men and monsters on the path. They were picking flowers, and returning to dinner and a warm bed, not hungry, cold and injured miles from civilization.
Jaskier drew him from his thoughts. “May I?” He was holding a second completed flower crown up.
Hesitantly, Jorvhin bowed his head. If it was anyone else he wouldn’t have let it happen. The bard’s hands were gentle where they smoothed out his long hair first, and then carefully set the ring of freshly picked flowers onto his head. He’d moved from his rock and onto his knees to better reach the Witcher, close enough that when Jorvhin looked up he could take in the tiniest details on the bard’s face. His eyes were cornflower blue, beautiful and endless with flecks of green like the northern sea.
“You have freckles.” Jaskier murmured. “Like a dusting of gold ore on a riverbed.”
“I do?” He hadn’t bothered looking closely at his own reflection in so long.
“Yes.”
He wasn’t scared.
“Can I kiss you?” Jaskier whispered.
He wasn’t sure how he felt.
“Okay.”
It was gentle, like the weight of the flowers upon his head when Jaskier leaned in and pressed his lips to Jorvhin’s. Warm, innocent, entirely… safe. That vicious lance of fear didn’t pierce his gut and make him want to recoil, if anything a fluttering in his chest made him want to seek out more. He felt… light. Jaskier’s softer fingers took hold of his face, slow and careful, and he withdrew a mere few inches to reopen his eyes. He was searching, checking for some kind of reaction. So sweet and considerate.
Jorvhin swallowed. “This won’t work.” He whispered. “I’m a Witcher, and worse– a broken man. I can’t promise I won’t kill you by accident while flailing from a night terror.”
“I’m used to Witcher-danger.” Jaskier repeated. He brushed an errant flower stem from his forehead. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take– the good with the bad. The best things are often something you have to work for.”
“You remind me of him.” Jorvhin said sadly. At a questioning hum, he knitted his brows. “Gwayne. When I said we travelled together, it was a partial truth. We loved one another. We knew it was stupid, and reckless, and likely to end in tragedy, but he… he managed to soothe my worries, all while I chastised him for his optimism.”
“You made me fight.” The Witcher sighed. “I hadn’t raised my sword in close to a decade. I thought I would die alone by either my own hand, or some stranger’s. And I’m grateful.”
Jaskier leaned in again, and pressed a second gentle kiss to his lips. It was chaste, and still full of emotion.
“There is good in you Jorv’-- I know there is. You risked your life when you very well could have sent Hamlin back on his own. You’ve bettered the village as a man, by not having to use your sword. Just because you’re broken doesn’t mean you’re irreparable. I’ve seen pottery made all the more beautiful by the gold used to put it back together.”
The Witcher huffed. “A bard’s tongue, for sure.”
“Alright then–” Jaskier grinned. “Forsake me to hell for conveying how I feel using flowery words, Gods forbid it.”
Jorvhin laughed his chuffing, odd laugh. His chest felt tight, but not in a way that left him petrified, gasping for air.
He gazed down at Jaskier, and felt grounded.