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Picture this: You are a bard and you are in love and you are dying at the usual rate. This is the only story you have and the only one you won’t sing.
*
You are five when you get your first taste of love in the mother of your playmate of the day. You see her when she comes to grab her daughter from the town square where she is playing make believe with you (and in this game you are a prince and she is a damsel but you are scared of monsters so you haven’t saved her). She is tall and blonde and her hair is long and you want to make her smile. That’s all it takes.
You start going to the square by yourself every morning, with flowers picked fresh from the field behind your home grasped tightly in your hands. She kisses your cheek the first time you give them to her and you think this will be the only thing I want for the rest of my life but on the third time you give them to her she is forced to let you down gently and you keep going to the square in the mornings but you don’t see her again. Well enough- you find others to give the flowers too.
*
Three months of you giving flowers to every girl and woman in town who will take them before your father sits you down and says enough is enough, Jaskier. I know you that you enjoy the attention but enough. The young girls have started fighting with each other and their brothers and fathers keep knocking on our door to complain. You are only causing trouble.
Your mother comes up behind you and brushes your hair back from your face. He has made you cry and your hair is a mess from where you’ve been furiously wiping your tears away.
Better that he be noticed. The brightest things are the ones that they keep around, She says and is answered back sharply by your father: Don’t put ideas in the boy’s head.
Of course he is mad about the flowers and your recent bout of singing and your complete lack of responsibility even at such a young age. You are not in a wealthy family and you are setting yourself up for failure for your station in life. This much is obvious and you cry harder. You suspect that he has never experienced the feeling you do when you give away the flowers. He has never brought your mother flowers and you realize, sitting there, that they have never been in love. You do not stop crying until you’ve made yourself sick with it.
*
You won’t admit it, not in this lifetime, but you do like the attention. You stop giving flowers to the girls and instead put them in your hair and you start singing by the shops and your heart jumps everytime a kind stranger drops a coin by your feet (and again if they throw food at you- if they’re throwing they’re looking).
What little coin you earn with this venture is spent on silk and sateen- the best fabrics in the most bold colors. Your father starts to look at you like he would an interloper and really what a strange creature you must seem to him. He had expected different from his child. Your mother, on the other hand, worries herself into exhaustion always waiting on you to come home. Sometimes you don’t.
*
At 15 you have tired of kissing every girl in town and they have tired of kissing you. You wander into a tavern a town over and bargain with barkeep to sing for your ale. Surprisingly, she let’s you.
You only know three ballads and only one of them you wrote yourself but you know them well and you don’t drop your smile once during the performance even as they throw their food at you and jeer.
The entire time that you’re singing a boy not much older than you, glared at you from a barstool, hand gripped tight around his ale. He is dark haired and tall and he could almost be called handsome- perhaps he’ll earn the title as he ages.You cannot stop looking at him.
When you’ve had your drink, you decide to sing one more song, just for him. This time, you meet his glare head on.
On your way out he grabs you by the arm and shoves you against the wall and kisses you and you think oh. This I can have too then .
He drags into the woods, far enough away to where you won’t be heard, and he puts you on your knees, where you try and mostly do manage to figure out how sucking a cock works. When he’s had his fun, he hauls you up and beats you to a pulp and you limp home broken-hearted. You loved him for a moment and then it was gone.
*
You leave home for good shortly after that. The continent is too big you tell your mother and This place is too small for me you tell your father.
As a parting gift, your mother gives you an elven lute and you have no idea where she would’ve gotten such a thing or how she could’ve afforded it but you don’t ask. Why ruin the moment? You know somewhere inside yourself that you will never come back here, and she must sense it too. Your father does not care, and he does not bother to say goodbye to you.
*
So you wing it, mostly. You weren’t particularly prepared to live on the road but you can learn.
Things you pick up within the first year: From a fellow traveler you learn how to start a fire, an enthusiastic school teacher shows you which plants are edible and which to avoid, and the woman who takes your virginity (a mother of two toddlers, soft in the face and sweet in disposition. She was eager to touch but quick to leave after. You did not tell her she was your first.) only does so after telling you how to get the most possible out of your coin.
So for those first years on the road you do okay for yourself and you write so many poems and songs that you have to buy a book to keep them in. This you consider to be an accomplishment.
*
You are 19 when you meet the wolf, and well, you just can’t help yourself but to prod the beast (at some point you find that you are most drawn to the ones that you should be scared of). Like always, You see him and you want, and so you reach.
There have been so many since the first- women and men, and they keep you for an hour, a day, a month, and you love them and you love being wanted- but you know immediately, instinctively, that this one will be different. For one- he wants nothing of you. For two- he wants nothing of anybody. And for three- neither of those facts can stop you. This one you will love forever.
It is a miracle that he allows you to travel with him at all.
*
On your first adventure he saves your life and you write a song about him ( waxing poetic you later realize and cut the line about his beauty- you were toeing the edge with that one.) that is widely successful. A bonafide hit, if you do say so yourself. Besides it does wonder for Geralt’s reputation. You decide that that makes you even.
*
Here’s how it goes: you do not stay together all of the time but your paths cross more often than not and you travel together for between a single day to a notable stretch of nearly a full year of each other’s company.
Here’s how it goes: You listen for news of him and occasionally you follow his trail.
Here’s how it goes: You flirt with him and he ignores you. Oh, and he hates your songs.
Here’s how it goes: You spend four years putting yourself through school at Oxenfurt Academy and you do not see him once during this period of time. You miss him terribly. He could come to Redania but he doesn’t.
Here’s how it goes: You finally track him down and sing your song for him and beg him to come to a banquet in Cintra with you. Partially because you’re bored. Mostly because you’re lonely. You’re not sure why he agrees but you like to think that you have endeared yourself to him.
Here’s how it goes: The banquet is a disaster and it’s probably for the best that you brought him. He claims the law of surprise and leaves you again but at least you have the Countess de Stael. There are some bright spots.
*
It does not last with Countess de Stael. You love her, but it is not the same. She calls you on it and you cave and she leaves you immediately for another. You set off to find Geralt.
*
You find the witcher tired and angry and you push back at him because that is what you do. In the process, you are attacked by a Djinn and you absolutely do not want to die. You are a bard and you are in love and the world is too big and you do not want to die. Geralt does not let you.
*
The price for saving you is a great one: Yennefer of Vengerberg. She is terrifying and you beg Geralt to leave her be but he persist ( She saved your life, Jaskier) and when it’s all said and done you watch them fuck through a window and you knew already but now you know without a doubt that you and your poor heart never stood a chance. You are horribly alive.
*
Then there is a dragon and a mountain and some other stuff in between and his infatuation with the mage is more than clear but you push on. One more go, you tell yourself. And you ask him to go away with you, to the coast. You could not have made it more clear- you are trying to figure out what pleases you .
But his witch turns him away and he turns you away and you stare out at the mountain line and think all this, for nothing . Two decades and how many more do you have left?
*
Then there’s a war on and you are in your middle age and you have never been able to make yourself smaller so you don’t even bother to try. Where would you hide anyways? You are famous and easy to track.
You keep performing your songs for high courts, for soldiers, for taverns. If they come for you, let them. You will die at your best and brightest and they will still sing your songs long after you are gone.
*
You would avoid the wolf if you could but you have heard nothing of him. Eventually, though, you run into Yennefer, because it is inevitable that you would and what do you call that? Destiny? No. For Yennefer sought you out and if you picked up one thing from your time with Geralt it is this: That every animal is capable of learning when it is being hunted. That it does not stop them from dying.
*
Her offer is simple enough. As it turns out, the witcher and the witch need a go- between or they will tear each other to shreds. Later on, privately, you will be disappointed when they don’t, but for now, you say yes because this is the simple truth of your life: You will always say yes. You will reach for the unattainable and it will always come at a cost and you will very rarely be rewarded for your efforts but you will always say yes. That is love for you.
*
Geralt never apologizes but the sex is phenomenal so it is alright.
The first time with them you are unsure, falling over yourself like in a daze. You feel like an intruder on a holy land. They are rough with each other and too intense. They burn too much and there you are, in the middle of it, lapping the flames right up.
Geralt enters you while Yennefer straddles your face and afterwards half dizzy you look over at them cuddled up together and her hand is your in hair and really it’s like putting on an old hat at this point; her too then. You love her too.
*
Oh, and there’s the child of surprise.
*
They’re like a little family, the three of them. Cirilla looks up to them, admires them even and they in turn are gentle with her. There is no room for you here. But still, if you cross paths you let them have you. If they call, you come. It is only a little pathetic.
*
They have to keep moving for the child’s protection and you for work so it is rare that you do run into each other organically. More often it is Yennefer pulling you through a portal by your collar and then returning you at your request. You’ve gotten to where you pick the most beautiful flowers you come by and keep them on your person just in case- a gift for her. She makes snide remarks about them but occasionally you’ll see her tuck them behind her ear or in her dress. The world has been unkind to her and this is your way of making up for it.
Geralt too, is softer. He is more forthcoming with tales of his latest contracts. You no longer have to needle the details out of him and sometimes he’ll even ask about your work. It is a pity he could not have been this man for you but you will take what you can get. Only, it hurts to be with them for more than a day at a time- to be just outside of their happiness and their love. Destiny is laughing at you , you think, Look at what you cannot have. And you are always getting older.
*
And there are the others, outside of them- countless. You forget their names but you always remember the feelings and when they leave you it always feels just like the first time. You will fall in love again and again and again- what does it matter if they don’t love you back?
*
One day Cirilla asks you bluntly Why don’t you ever stay? Geralt says you used to stay longer.
You are incredibly fond of the child but you can’t tell her the real reason so instead you say Dearest Princess, what type of question is that? I’ve so much love to give the world, what should I be tied down for? and muster your best wink.
She smiles sadly at you and you wonder if she must know more about the nature of your relationship with her guardians than she let's on but you will not take pity from a child so you play her your most ridiculous tunes until she forgets what you were discussing.
*
Picture this: You are a bard and you are in love with the White Wolf and his terrifying witch and you are dying at the usual rate and there is nothing you can do about it. This is the only story there was ever going to be.
*
And then there are the others-