Chapter Text
It was well known across the continent that Jaskier the Conqueror had a love for witchers.
There had been a rumour circling during the wars that the reason for Jaskier the Great’s campaign was due to his desire for the witchers. A vicious rumour spread that a witcher had rebuked his attentions and deciding that he wouldn’t stand for it conquered the continent in search for him.
For one did not go after a witcher alone if they were a simple man. An army would be needed if they were to meet other witchers or resistance. And witchers would always resist the desires of man unless there was enough coin in it.
Despite this it was well known that witchers, though they would take your coin, were not whores. Jaskier the Bard would not have the witcher as a conquest. Therefore, he needed to conquer the entire continent to locate and eradicate the witcher.
Jaskier himself did not know of the rumours and whispers. He was too busy planning how to keep the land he and his army had acquired. They would need mages for the next phase, ensuring that the kings remained under his command.
This would be, he thought, an issue, for during the war many mages, magic folk and witchers had retreated from public spaces. Hiding away from the battles of man, not willing to fight for or against Jaskier. So, it was reasonable to assume that they would be hard to locate and find.
Not two weeks into his reign a battered mage was delivered to him by a well-meaning state. The next few days they arrived in groups. Each king worried that the new Emperor would favour another.
Jaskier didn’t know what to do with these battered mages. Men, women, those who identified as neither, and children dropped at his doorstep like dead birds from a cat. Grotesque and horrifying for the unsuspecting owner.
Then the dead mages were delivered. Immediately Jaskier decreed that any and all mages were to be delivered unharmed and alive if a king expected to earn his favour.
Any and all mages were immediately taken into his citadel to be treated. It was rough going at first, healing the mages without magic.
Most immediately distrusted the healers and guards. Not trusting that they were there to help, not to keep them in. Slowly Jaskier showed that they were permitted to leave. They would need to be relocated to remote areas, due to the kings and lords hunting magic folk, but they need not be locked in the citadel. Very few took this offer, and those that did, despite relocation to the furthest corners, eventually ended back on his doorstep, on the brink of death. They did not leave the citadel again.
Similar happened with other magic folk after the kings stopped finding mages, stopped finding those that he sent free from the citadel. Elves, sylvans and a whole range of others were delivered instead. Always outside, after the very first mage was brought to Jaskier’s ballroom, paraded for all to see, Jaskier had closed his doors to those who did not have express permission to enter. None of the current kings or other important members of state outside of his council and army were permitted to enter.
Slowly the citadel filled, once empty, after the initial sacking by Jaskier’s army.
Everything was slow to build. Houses, buildings, trust. But Jaskier built connections, took time to see his people, for these were his people. Their position or original status didn’t matter to him. Within his citadel he had members of the Brotherhood, mages who counselled kings and emperors before he was even born, but he treated all equally.
Then, they started sending him witchers.
***
The witchers were somehow in worse condition to the other magic folk delivered to the citadel. They were stripped of everything, clothing, their swords and the medallions that marked them as witchers.
Though they were stripped of their usual identifiers they could not be mistaken as mere mortal men. Scars criss-crossed every corner of skin, stretching across their bodies as a painful map of their lives. None but a witcher would be able to survive those wounds.
With the assistance of his healers, now with mages and other magic folk, the witchers were treated well and efficiently.
The very first witcher, Lambert of the School of Wolf, was a handful. Jaskier would argue he was worth every handful of the people he commanded. And he commanded quite a lot.
Lambert swore and attacked any who ventured near him, save some mages whom he recognised. It took months of discussion and conversation for the man to allow Jaskier to speak with him. Even then Lambert had requested that there be no guards privy to the conversation.
Despite the risks, of his death or injury to his person, Jaskier agreed only if his First Mage, Yennefer of Vengerberg and his Second Mage, Triss Merigold, be allowed to attend.
The meeting went as planned, as soon as his guards had left Lamberts hearing range, which was quite a long hearing range, the witcher had pinned Jaskier in a chokehold intent on killing him. What Lambert hadn’t intended for was for the two women to attack him in turn, restrain him and protect the new Warlord from him.
That was the moment Lambert actually started listening to Jaskier and those around him in the citadel.
Any and all following witchers delivered to Jaskier, enough that Jaskier was overwhelmed by just how many there were, were first introduced to Lambert. He acted as Jaskier’s liaison to the injured witchers that came to the citadel.
Soon the citadel was renamed by its inhabitants, the city was named Harmonia. And Harmonia truly was a place of harmony, the inhabitants lived equally, started businesses and families and lived peacefully.
Witchers, mages, elves, Jaskiers men, all lived together in a peaceful coexistence.
At least until the White Wolf, most notorious of witchers, was gifted to Jaskier.
***
By the time the White Wolf was sent to the Conqueror, Jaskier had already met others of the School of Wolf. Lambert and Eskel were amongst the first that had been sent to Harmonia and sat on his council. There were three representatives from each of the peoples of Harmonia.
Jaskier’s favourites of his council were Triss, Yennefer, Eskel, Lambert and an elf named Filavandrel who shared a similar love of music as Jaskier did.
Though several members had had some contact with the White Wolf, those being witchers or older mages who had worked with him, Jaskier wasn’t quite prepared to face the foreboding witcher. Both due to personal history and what Jaskier had heard about during and after the war.
For there was usually a grain of truth in rumours. Yes, Jaskier did start a war over a witcher, but he did not do it because the White Wolf rejected him, quite the opposite really. After playing at an inn that had a kikimora issue, Jaskier the Bard had been followed outside by a group of men who meant him ill.
As they were going to lay upon him a witcher, still covered in the gore of the monster he had just slain, set about killing more monsters, the ones reserved for steel. He'd used his silver sword though, for silver always works on monsters of any variety, and saved the then bard.
In that moment Jaskier the Bard recognised the inherent evil in the world he lived in. It had lurked at the edge of his consciousness since he was young, as it did for everyone, but it had been on the edge, he hadn’t confronted it truly. Now though, with the evidence that the witcher who saved him from monsters, saved all from monsters, was going to walk into the same inn he had played for, and was going to be spit upon, reviled and treated like those that had been about to harm Jaskier, the Conqueror awoke.
No man, woman or child, no one who tried to ensure others safety and health, should be treated in such a way. None.
So Jaskier the Bard had given the witcher his earnings for the night, as well as his room in the quite lovely whorehouse down the street, and saddled his horse immediately to set off.
He found those of like mind, quite a few young heirs, heiresses and people in power. They banded together, under one banner, and decided to make a difference. They started with that town that Jaskier had met the White Wolf, the witcher who had changed the fate of the continent, and made their way outwards.
Ultimately, despite no longer being Jaskier the Bard, the man who the White Wolf had saved from being raped and brutalised, Jaskier was in no way prepared to face the witcher who he was undoubtedly and irrevocably in love with.