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In his dream, Jaskier stepped through the dew-slick grass, fog swirling around his bare ankles. The moon overhead was full and silver, gleaming brightly upon the white marble statues which surrounded him in the glen.
They were all beautiful nudes - women with regal noses drawing back bowstrings, men with empty eyes in the midst of battle, deer frozen at the moment of their flight. They were so precise in their detail that it seemed as if they breathed, each evoking a whisper, a trace of a memory which Jaskier struggled to solidify.
He moved from one to another with his hands clasped behind his back.
In the middle of the glen was a piece which made him pause.
The statue depicted a man with his head bowed, his hair stringy and knotted, falling around his face. He was on one knee, holding a sword aloft, but there was no triumph in his stance. Instead, he held the sword before him defensively, his face turned away, resignation and pain in the hunch of his shoulders.
Jaskier found himself hesitating, his fingers twitching behind his back. Slowly, he stepped closer, gingerly reaching a palm to touch the swell of the statue’s shoulder. The shock of cold against his skin startled him. For a moment he had almost expected to encounter flesh.
Idly, Jaskier traced his fingers over the taut cut of muscle in the man’s shoulders, his spine and exposed ribs exposing his desperate hunger. There was a constellation of scars across his back, rendered in loving, grotesque detail less afforded to the other statues in the glen, all of which now seemed too perfect, too posed in comparison.
Again, there was … the shadow of a memory. Jaskier frowned, walking around the statue, examining it from each angle, wondering at the skill of an artist which could evoke such pity for a man that did not exist.
Lowering to his knees in the grass, Jaskier leaned forward to rest his forehead, then his cheek between the statue’s shoulder blades. He drew his arms around its waist, pressing the length of it against his own front, taking its cold to the core of him, until his teeth began to chatter.
Here, in his dream, Jaskier didn’t need to ask himself why.
Presently, the cold marble began to warm to the heat of his body, and Jaskier thought that he could hear a heartbeat under his ear. Jaskier pulled his arms back as the statue began to stir, watching it lower its sword, then raise its head and turn-
–
Jaskier awoke with tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. He was sunk deep in a purple divan, the smell of incense and myrrh thick in the air.
“You finally slept,” the mage drew near, her skirts swinging around her legs, “What did you dream of?”
Jaskier shook his head, pushing himself up to sitting. Every coherent thought felt drowned in honey. “I don’t remember. Something sad.”
The mage nodded, “As expected, it will take a few treatments.” From the table beside the divan she picked up a glass vial which contained the dredges of something viscous and dark, “Twenty years … is quite a long time to forget.”
--
The potions made everything the same consistency, until Jaskier could no longer distinguish between waking life and dreaming. His parents were certainly thrilled to have their heir where he belonged, docile and biddable, finally taking on the responsibilities his younger brother had been shouldering in his stead, though Jaskier had a habit of dozing off during meetings with his steward.
Indeed, his dreams began to grow intensely vivid, until reality seemed grey-washed and watery in comparison. One moment, Jaskier was attending one of the endlessly tedious matchmaking dinners his mother subjected him to, absent-mindedly passing the salt to a nervous young lady hardly out of her short skirts, and the next, he was sitting on a sunlit surf, the water of the ocean foaming around his toes.
Jaskier took in a lungful of salt air, looking around. The sun was setting on the horizon, the beach empty but for the young man lying next to him, hands clasped to his chest and sleeping with the face of an angel. His long, white hair was spayed over the sand. This was a memory, perhaps. Jaskier was also young. He looked down and his hands were soft, unlined, the calluses from his lute still tender blisters.
The young man stirred. Jaskier felt a sudden, sharp ache to touch his face, to brush the hair from his eyes. Instead, he stood and kicked sand upon him.
“Come swim before the sun sets!” Jaskier called, or something to the effect. He turned and ran towards the water, wading until the cold, cold water swallowed his calves, his thighs, making his stomach jump.
A slippery hand grabbed his own, tangling their fingers. The young man had calluses from holding a sword. There was rough artlessness in his expression. Jaskier thought his heart would beat from his chest, how eager he was for this touch.
“Don’t go too far from me,” the young man said.
“What will you do?” Jaskier asked, slipping his hand from his grasp and moving into deeper water, until his toes barely brushed the sand. “Will you catch me?”
The young man lunged for him and Jaskier slid out of his grasp, laughing.
“Hey,” the young man was frowning now. Jaskier turned and dived under the water.
The sound of pounding surf disappeared and everything was cold, cold, cold. Jaskier forced the air from his lungs, clusters of glossy air bubbles dancing past his eyes. Deeper and deeper he swam, and there was no accompanying burning in his throat or need for air. Just the blue of the water darkening as he fell further and further from the surface.
Distantly, he could hear someone calling for him. A brush of fingers on the arch of his foot. Jaskier kept swimming, now sinking into the depths. He turned to look at the surface, so small and distant above him. It was nothing more than a smatter of lights.
–
Geralt shook awake gasping for air, his body wracking with coughs as he sat up in bed.
“Geralt?” Ciri asked, her tone sharp with worry. So young and she was already accustomed with waking suddenly in the night, shaken and forced to leave with only what she could carry. She was curled tight against Geralt’s side.
“Nothing,” Geralt said roughly, then, in a gentler tone, “Just a bad dream.”
Ciri made a noise, then rolled over, gathering the blankets around herself like a cocoon. Geralt watched her return to sleep, the small, fragile shape she made in the bed.
The details of his dream were already fading from his memory, but what remained was the impression of the moment, the feeling of something precious at his fingertips, something so sweet, so close. And losing it to the depths.
--
He was still on the road to Kaer Morhen with Ciri when the first snows began to fall. She did not react to the swirling flakes with the joy befitting a child, instead drawing inside her cloak, growing quiet.
“We’ll sleep inside,” Geralt assured her, “I have coin enough for that.” It wasn’t strictly true, but it was all he could think to say. It was difficult enough to keep the child safe and fed, much less easing the burden of her trauma.
When they travelled, it was as if they existed on separate spheres. She was at times cold, at times needy. Obedient and possessing of a childish curiosity, yet lapsed more and more frequently into melancholic silences. Geralt found himself fretting over her in a manner he had never another being before.
What would Yennefer do with this child, he wondered. He had never seen her with one before, and was not foolish enough to believe that her sex imbued upon her an innate ability to mother. Certainly she wouldn’t target the child with her sharp wit and careless whims, though Geralt also did not know what Yennefer would do with this knot that pain and grief and terror had made of this girl, what she would do to untangle it, if she could.
He better knew Jaskier, who, though he professed to care little for children, was at least gifted in putting people at ease. He would sing, or make foolish chatter at her, and draw forth a smile. It would be a sight better than her stricken face, scrunched in worry even as she slept.
The thought of Jaskier made Geralt’s chest clench. He had successfully avoided thinking of the Mountain for a time, single-minded in his journey to his Child Surprise. When he did … well. The pain of losing Yennefer, that was sharp and clean as a knife through the gut. It was a wound that healed, though slowly, because Geralt knew deeply that it would have never ended differently.
Losing Jaskier was like losing a finger. In the grind of daily life, Geralt could still function, could still put one foot before the other. But he was slower, less sharp, more harried without someone to patch up his wounds and bargain down the price of rooms. And at night, when the silence stretched taut between him and Ciri, he ached for Jaskier’s song.
--
Geralt rarely remembered his dreams, but this he did.
He walked through a dark, thick wood with no moon in the sky to light his way. Every rustle, every noise made him wary, and he could tell no better whether he was the predator or prey.
Witcher, my Witcher, what do you seek?
You left me to die upon the peak,
The wind is my tongue and my ribs are the lute,
My hair make the strings and my bones make the flute
The song played in his ear with no clear source. Geralt stilled when he saw a Hart in the distance, so white it was almost glowing in the low light. With silent steps, he followed as it bounded ahead of him, pausing, nose twitching, in an open glen.
There was a bow in his hand. Though Geralt was no practiced bowman, he raised it and drew a bead without thinking, pulling the bowstring taut, trembling in his fingers before releasing the arrow like the exhale of breath.
It hit truer than anything he had ever shot, spearing the Hart through its eye.
What have I done? Geralt felt sudden regret as the Hart crumbled to the ground, its fragile beauty extinguished like the flame of a candle.
Witcher, my Witcher, where must you run?
Where can you hide from the light of the sun?
As the stars in the sky continue to weep,
The seeds that you’ve sown will be the wheat that you reap
Geralt walked forward. As he drew closer, the flesh of the Hart began to tear away as if consumed by some large, invisible animal. By the time he stood in the glen, all that remained were the bones of the creature, which gleamed white under the moon. In the rib cage, its wings beating feverishly against bone, was a trapped songbird.
Seeing Geralt, it paused in its fluttering, and sang,
Witcher, my Witcher so breaks the day,
I wish not to go but I cannot stay,
And though we may never find what we have sought,
I merely implore that thee forget me not
Geralt bent back the bare ribs of the Hart, shattering the bone, and the bird flew free.
--
“What did you dream of this time?” the mage asked, when Jaskier stirred awake.
He merely shook his head mutely, pressing a hand to his chest.
--
By and by Jaskier shook himself from his stupor. He visited Oxenfurt and decided to stay through the winter, much to the chagrin of his parents, who had been growing used to doting on their prodigal son.
Oxenfurt, moreso than even his childhood home, brought Jaskier firmly back to a younger time. It had changed little since he left, the once-bright students now indolent faculty, the mouldering, drafty old buildings charming under a fresh layer of snow, the taverns swarming with bickering students and watered-down ale.
Nothing, no news of warfare or strife, seemed to penetrate the walls of this hallowed institution.
Jaskier found himself joining the dusty academics in the library as snow fell heavily outside the window. He spent hours pulling tome after tome of ancient text, struggling to decipher the Elder Speech.
The elves were quite romantic, he found, in their epics.
... and Mendechaus was fair, the brightness of his face unmatched among the elves. This I can say, but the words written of him, the songs sung of him, are an imprint of a shadow, and all that I know of him will be lost in time...
In a purely academic fashion, Jaskier wondered whether a poet could ever untangle their fascination for their subject from their fascination with their art.
--
“Hm,” Jaskier said, “That sounds familiar.”
The tavern was boisterous and crowded, filled with celebrants as Yule drew ever closer. Over the chatter of the crowd, Jaskier could hear the strumming of a lute, a female Bard singing in a husky voice.
“That’s one of yours, isn’t it?” Priscilla asked, cocking her head. “The Witcher song.”
Jaskier thought for a moment, but the memories were slippery and no face came immediately to mind. “Perhaps,” he said, taking a drink. “She’s changed quite a few of the lyrics though.”
--
He kissed Priscilla with the firelight in her hair. She was soft and tasted of wine, laughing as he mumbled poetry at her. Everything about her was … effortless. Enjoyable. Frivolous.
After, Jaskier lay in the sweat-damp bed with her sweet weight on his arm and stared at the ceiling, wondering why he felt like there was something missing.
--
Jaskier dreamed for the first time since he left Lettenhove.
He was very young, trying desperately to muffle his laughter as he pressed himself against the wall. Around him, other children scattered, revealing, in the middle of the room, a blindfolded boy holding his arms outstretched, hands grasping at air.
Jaskier held his breath as the blindfolded boy lurched towards him … closer … closer … until Jaskier’s heart was pounding in his small chest, hunching his shoulders, clasping his hands tight over his mouth.
This close, Jaskier could see that the boy’s expression was intent, scowling under his blindfold. Unlike the other children, he didn’t seem to be enjoying this game.
“Where are you?” the boy called. His tone was petulant, just barely quivering.
Not here, Jaskier thought, Not here, not here.
“Dead man!” a voice came from the opposite corner, and the boy swung around, stumbling towards the sound.
Jaskier breathed a sigh of quiet relief, watching the boy stumble away. He made it a handful of steps before falling, skidding his knee on the floor and crying out.
Without thinking, Jaskier ran to his side, “Are you hurt?” he asked worriedly. Suddenly, Jaskier felt a hand slap against his chest, warm and firm above his fluttering heart.
The boy’s face split into a grin as he tore the scarf from his eyes, “Got you.”
--
“Blind man’s bluff,” Ciri said, “I used to play with Martin and Korin, before …” she trailed off, looking contemplative.
“Hmm,” Geralt said. He was keeping pace with Roach as Ciri rode, the thin layer of frost on the ground crunching crisply under his boots. “We always called it Dead Man’s Bluff.”
“I didn’t think Witchers played,” Ciri said shyly, “Like children.”
“It was training, of sorts,” Geralt inclined his head. It was so long ago that he had almost forgotten - the boys he had trained with, feverish with unspent energy when kept inside during the winter, swarming the keep, tumbling over each other like puppies. Freckled faces and voices hardly broken … most of them dead now.
Geralt had dreamt of it last night, and remembered it clearly after. It was such so long ago, it had been half-forgotten… why his mind decided to dredge that up now was a mystery.
“Are there any Witcher children there now? My age?” Ciri asked.
Geralt frowned, thinking of the rough cloth of a boy’s shirt, twisted in his own childish fist. Tousled brown hair and bright blue eyes. Jaskier’s eyes. “No,” he said, the pieces shifting in his head, “None left at all.”
--
Geralt dreamt that he stood at the end of a long, winding hall. One of the many labyrinthe passages in Kaer Morhen. But instead of doors, the hall was filled with large mirrors. Geralt walked to stand before the closest and was surprised to see his reflection in a dark wood. Geralt whipped his head around, assessing the room, but his surroundings had not changed. Just the background in the mirror.
That wasn’t the only difference. His reflection, though it copied his exact movements, was wearing different clothing, his hair mud-splattered and his face … younger.
Geralt reached for the surface of the mirror, his fingertips encountering not glass, but the ripple of liquid. He found that when he pushed his entire hand into the mirror, his reflection wavered and disappeared, and he could feel the humidity of early spring, almost hear the birdsong and the soft sound of Renfri turning in her sleep.
Quickly, Geralt drew back and his reflection re-formed, its expression stricken.
He continued down the hall, his reflections slipping from one scene to another. Some triggered distant memories, others seemed little more than fancy. Here he was at Calanthe’s ball, in his dove-grey merchant’s silks, a goblet of wine in his hand and a sour look on his face. Here he was in Rinde, in his blood-smeared tunic surrounded by writhing bodies.
The flick of a shadow distracted Geralt and he turned his head to see a figure slipping into a mirror at the end of the hall.
“Hey!” Geralt called, breaking into a sprint, “Hey, stop!” He didn’t hesitate as he followed the man into the mirror, its surface separating around him, cool and liquid, like diving beneath water. Then suddenly, disorientingly, Geralt was at the top of Niedamir’s mountains, the air cold on his face.
This moment. He could remember this moment exactly. Yennefer had turned from him. Jaskier had left. Even Borsch was gone and Geralt …
Geralt stood all alone.
--
Jaskier found a letter he had written to himself:
Buttercup, it began, a childhood name he had always protested. Your life is too short to question why. Just know that the pain was too much. Maybe now it will fade, like an old story, an old song. Maybe one day it will be distant enough to look back and think of only the bright moments, each shining like a star in the dark tapestry of your history. For now, face ever forward. Every time your heart pains, when you doubt or regret. Face ever forward.
Yours absolutely,
Jaskier
--
“When did I come here?” Jaskier asked, finding Priscilla in the faculty hall, taking breakfast.
Priscilla looked up, an apple in her mouth. She took a loud bite before answering, “What’d you mean? You’ve been at Oxenfurt since the start of winter.”
“Yes,” Jaskier said faintly, “But … before that.”
Priscilla gave him a strange look and went back to drafting her poetry. Jaskier supposed that it was a strange thing to ask, but … before he returned to Lettenhove, where had he returned from? The more he probed in his own mind, the more the details of his life previous seemed like … words on a page. He could bring to mind the events which occurred, but no images, no real memories.
He thought of the letter he’d written himself. No memory of writing it either. But what it might mean …
“Priscilla, have you …” Jaskier sat across the table from her, nervously twisting his signet ring around his thumb. “Do you know of mages that alter memories?”
“Of course,” Priscilla said, glancing up again, annoyed at having been interrupted again. “That’s what they do, no? It’s spooky when they stare into your eyes. Like they’re fiddling around with something up there.”
“Hm,” Jaskier grimaced. He tapped fingers across the surface of the table. His past self had thought that he would realize the missing years in his head, and had warned him against prying too deeply. But why? What was so painful, so terrible that he chose this nothingness in the place of these memories?
And what did it have to do with his increasingly vivid dreams?
--
A distant boom.
Jaskier gasped, tasting smoke and iron. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, his fingers dragging over the dirt.
There were bodies around him, breathing and unbreathing. The air was on fire.
Jaskier took a breath and felt his throat burn. Smearing the tears from his eyes, he stood shakily, forcing his stiff body to move, to move forward-
There was someone he had to find, someone he came to this hell to find, someone’s name he had been shouting before he fell. Jaskier steadied himself on a tree, coughing so hard he was doubled over.
... when Mendechaus fell, it was with the name of his people on his lips, and where the ground was touched with his blood there would grow golden fern. In the summer breeze, their leaves would bow their heads, weeping quietly for the death of their king.
Fevered, Jaskier stumbled over the rocky underbrush, hearing screams and bodies falling behind him. He was cradling his abdomen. He could feel blood leaking through his sleeve. Hurt. Badly.
... a thousand, a thousand kisses I would press to his lips, if he allowed me. A thousand years I would ride at his side. A thousand times I would have died in his stead, had he allowed me.
The ground pitched under his feet. Jaskier crumpled, his shoulder jarring as it hit the ground, dirt spraying into the air. Shouting and fire and screams.
Jaskier closed his eyes painfully, the world contracting around him.
He thought he might have imagined a distant call. His name on the smoke-stained breeze.
Jaskier!
Lifted by strong arms. Shaking fingers smoothing his hair from his face. Jaskier. Jaskier.
Someone pressing a kiss to his mouth as the world went dark.
--
When Geralt awoke, it took him a moment to remember where he was - in his room, at Kaer Morhen, thankfully alone. He and Ciri had arrived last night. Heard of what happened at Sodden. How many lost, probably Yennefer among them. He had drunk so much that his head still spun with it.
Slowly, painfully, Geralt pushed himself to a sitting position, his breath staggering in his chest.
His lungs burned. He still remembered the taste of Jaskier’s mouth.
--
“Creatures which enter dreams?” Eskel sounded contemplative. “You speak of succubi.”
“No,” Geralt said quietly, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Not … those kinds of dreams.”
Eskel slid him a questioning look, interrupted from his next words by Ciri running up to them, chased by a sweating Lambert.
“Did you see me on the gauntlet?” she asked Geralt excitedly, her heavy braid thumping against her shoulders as she skidded to a halt.
“She’s faster than last week,” Lambert said, grinning, “Might prove me wrong about the uselessness of girls yet.”
Ciri blew a raspberry at Lambert before turning to Geralt and tugging on his sleeve. “Praise me,” she demanded, “If you think I have done well.”
“You have grown remarkably,” Geralt said, ruffling her soft hair between his fingers. And indeed she had. It seemed that his fellow Witchers and the unquestioning acceptance they offered finally managed to distract Ciri from her melancholia. Each day she threw herself into the regimen with zeal, exerting her body to its limits in sword practice, agility training, and bare-handed sparring.
Geralt, who knew the peace that sometimes only physical exhaustion could bring, did not think to stop her.
Indeed, after just a month, her smiles seemed to return to her, and she was more often bright and inquisitive, how Geralt imagined she had been as a Princess. She had also stopped her habit of crawling into his bed at night, though occasionally, she would still scream in her sleep.
For his part, Geralt’s dreams were still knotted. Confusing. Strained through with the pulp of old memories, though some were pure fantasy. Jaskier appeared again and again, as a wraith, a bright-eyed dancer, a burrowing animal. It seemed that Geralt was ever reaching for him, more and more often caught him, but always at the moment he held Jaskier in his hands, the dream would end abruptly.
He still didn’t have a clue what it all meant, why he was being tortured like this.
Eskel watched Ciri and Lambert depart, smiling, before turning to Geralt. “You’re good with her.”
“It’s not easy,” Geralt said honestly, “raising a child.”
“No,” Eskel replied, his gaze faraway, “But it makes you honest. At least, with yourself.” He turned to Geralt, changing the topic briskly. “If you are troubled by your dreams, perhaps you should attempt to take charge of them.”
“If I can’t?” Geralt asked.
“Then perhaps they are not your dreams.”
--
“It’s hollow, isn’t it?”
Geralt was in a stark white room. It reminded him of the cavern of a cave, slanted openings above him flooding the room with bright sunlight. The walls were curved organically, surrounded by openings which led to winding hallways. All made of the same, white, smooth material.
“It’s bone,” Geralt said, walking to Jaskier, who sat cross-legged in the middle of the room. It was, he realized, the first time he was allowed to speak plainly to Jaskier in his dreams.
He looked the same as Geralt remembered, perhaps younger than when they had parted company, but Jaskier had always aged well. Geralt devoured Jaskier’s appearance hungrily. A shadow he might have been, but a reminder of a welcome friendship. Perhaps all that was left of it.
“Why are you here?” Geralt asked, lowering to one knee, then another. He examined Jaskier’s face for a sign … any indication of familiarity. But Jaskier looked as perplexed as he was.
“I was hoping you would know,” Jaskier said, laughing shortly. “Man who keeps appearing in my dreams.”
“You don’t … recognize me?” Geralt asked, his voice low.
“Should I?” Jaskier cocked his head. “Are you not merely an apparition bourne of longing and regret?”
“Maybe you are,” Geralt muttered, and Jaskier looked thoughtful.
“Days after the warmth of your body fades, when your absence aches like the cold in my bones, I dream of the Mendechaus who lives only in my memory, a faithless recreation created only for my pleasure,” Jaskier recited in what Geralt recognized as Elder, “Perhaps you should tell me what you know of me, dream man.”
“You are …” Geralt said, and stopped, suddenly unable to vocalize the enormity of the history between them. Years of teasing comradery, shared joys and shared pain, the warmth of Jaskier’s body against his under the cold night sky.
Geralt reached for Jaskier, clasped him to his chest in a hard hug.
“Ah,” Jaskier said in surprise, then his arms went around Geralt’s shoulders like they always belonged there. And clung, tight and warm.
Geralt pressed his face against the curve of Jaskier’s neck, his scent evoking a fevered rush of memory. If this was, as Jaskier said, an apparition of longing and regret, then at last Geralt could put a name to the ache in his chest.
“Does my body remember yours?” Jaskier asked quietly.
Before Geralt could answer, the floor beneath them began to crack. Bars of light began to penetrate the room, and Geralt tightened his grip on Jaskier frantically, but the muscle and sinew and bone under his hands were changing, shrinking, and suddenly what Geralt held trapped in his hand was a small, blue bird, its fragile wings beating frantically.
Geralt tipped his head and saw the opened sky above, the broken ribs of their bone cave jutting into the horizon.
To hold the small thing in his hand for longer would mean to crush it to death.
Geralt swallowed. And opened his cupped hands.
--
Jaskier found the mage in an enclosed garden, which was lush with flowers hanging from vines and trees heavy with dark red fruit despite the heavy winter snow just outside the garden walls. The mage was seated by a pool, her legs drawn up underneath her as she idly dipped her fingers in a pond of small silver fish.
“I knew you would come,” she said, her eyes hard when they flicked to meet his.
“How?” Jaskier asked.
“Because you warned me yourself that you would,” she said, withdrawing her fingers from the pond as specks of silver swarmed in the ripples she had left behind.
“I don’t know what I was thinking when I asked you to do what you did,” Jaskier said, heat creeping into his voice, “But I can’t stand not knowing such a large part of my own history! Whatever you did … please reverse it. I’ll pay any cost.”
The mage shook her head, sliding a lock of raven hair behind her ear. “You still don’t understand, do you?”
Jaskier shook his head in frustration. “Of course not! I can’t even remember what happened!”
“That's a blessing to most,” the mage said, her voice dull. “To live a tranquil life. To leave the pain behind.”
“You’re speaking in riddles,” Jaskier said, sullen.
The mage smiled thinly, “You have only yourself to blame for that. I am, after all, almost entirely your own construction.”
“I don’t understand,” Jaskier said faintly.
“The sinister mage with mysterious, memory-altering potions? The cryptic letter? The man with golden eyes who seems ever, ever out of reach?” the mage’s violet eyes bore into his own. “Wake up, Jaskier.”
“I don’t …”
“Wake up!”
--
And finally, Jaskier opened his eyes.
--
The Temple of Melitele outside of Ellander was a riot of spring blooms, with neat, manicured beds around the walls and wildflowers twisting around the iron bars of its gate. The honey-brown stones of the temple glittered under the sunlight as young girls in white frocks chased each other just inside the walls.
“What if I’m not suited here?” Ciri asked plaintively as Geralt dismounted Roach, jumping down before he could offer her his hand.
“You belong here more than Kaer Morhen,” Geralt said gruffly, which was the wrong thing to say, as Ciri’s expression pulled into a betrayed frown. “I mean,” he corrected hurriedly, “You were unsure when we arrived at the keep at first. Now, it’s your home. You’ll make this place suited to you.”
Ciri’s mouth twisted, “I don’t know why I can’t stay with you.”
“The Path is no place for a young girl,” Geralt said, thinking of the urgency that had gripped him as soon as the spring frosts broke. Jaskier … he needed to find Jaskier. Though Geralt’s heart felt tugged in all different directions when Ciri pushed her lips together and lowered her eyes.
“I understand,” she said sullenly, following Geralt as he walked to the office of the head rectoress.
Upon entering the door of the temple, a yellow-haired priestess in plain clothing looked startled when he gave his name. “Geralt of Rivia?” she repeated slowly.
“Yes,” Geralt said uncomfortably, “Vesemir sent a letter before me.”
“Yes,” the priestess said, “Of course.” She glanced at Geralt consideringly before calling for another priestess to collect Ciri.
Ciri squeezed Geralt’s hand in her hers, then released it. “Swear that you will return for me in the autumn,” she said, raising her chin.
“I swear,” Geralt said, placing his palm briefly, warmly on the crown of Ciri’s head. He watched her turn and walk after the priestess, clutching her small pack of possessions to her chest.
“Forgive me,” murmured the yellow-haired priestess, cutting into his thoughts. “Geralt … we have a patient in our wards who speaks that name.”
Geralt stiffened, turning to her, “who?”
The priestess shook her head. “A poor soul brought to us from the fields of Sodden. He was put down for magesleep and hasn’t awakened since. No one has been able to find his name.”
“Take me to him,” Geralt said urgently.
--
Clean sheets. An empty washbasin. A small, plain room lit by sunshine.
Jaskier pushed himself up on the bed, surprised at how weak his muscles felt. His head felt stuffed full of cotton, the echoes of his dream - his memories? - still ringing like the sound of a dying bell in his head. Oxenfurt ... Lettenhove ... cold moonlight on marble ... the deep blue of the ocean ... the honey of Priscilla’s hair. Jaskier ground his palms into his eyes, trying to right the events of his own history. It felt like stacking marbles on sand.
A muffled clatter drew his attention to the door.
“Jaskier!”
For one, terrifying, moment, Jaskier could not recognize the man in framed in the doorway, his eyes wide and frantic, his voice breaking as he repeated Jaskier’s name.
“Geralt,” Jaskier exhaled, and it was as if a levee had broken. He found himself trembling, grabbing at the sheets beside him as the priestess stepped into the hall, calling for a healer.
“I’m here,” Geralt said, grabbing Jaskier’s hand, kneeling by his bed. “You found me.”
“Finally,” Jaskier said, laughter and tears bubbling out of him in equal measures as he clasped Geralt’s shoulders. “Finally.”
--
“What were you doing in Sodden?” Geralt asked, watching Jaskier carefully pace the boundaries of his room, stumbling coltishly on muscles that had been slumbering for half a year.
“Chasing after history and heartbreak,” Jaskier said, laughing shortly as Geralt grabbed his arm, preventing him from careening into a wall.
The healer had pronounced him a miracle of Melitele, awaking so long after magesleep was nearly unheard of. His physical ailments had been healed within the first few months, so his healer had merely left a strong-smelling draught and strict instructions not to over-exert himself.
Jaskier, it seemed, was determined to disobey that last instruction to the best of his abilities.
“I’m coming with you, of course,” Jaskier said, as Geralt guided him back towards the bed. “Bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“You’re in no shape,” Geralt said sternly, pushing Jaskier back against the pillows with a firm hand. Thinking briefly, wildly of Jaskier whispering, does my body remember yours?
Jaskier shook his head. “You remember, don’t you?” He looked at Geralt, then down at their hands, still clasped on his lap. “I’m still picking through the debris in my head, separating dreams from the memories.”
Geralt nodded stiffly, pulling a seat near to sit by Jaskier’s bedside. “I won’t leave without you,” he said quietly. “Not this time.”
Jaskier smiled ruefully, hanging his head. “I had hoped to become a better travel companion.”
Geralt brushed his thumb against Jaskier’s knuckles, his touch tentative, halting. “Why did you go to Sodden?” he asked quietly.
“I followed the rumors of Yennefer,” Jaskier said softly, “I thought I’d find you.”
“Foolish,” Geralt muttered, pressing Jaskier’s head against his chest, “Reckless.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Jaskier said, breathing in, his fingers twisting in Geralt’s shirt.
--
That night, they shared the narrow hospital cot, their limbs overlapping and their breaths in tandem. Whatever they dreamt, they could not remember in the morning, but perhaps there was sunshine, a field of buttercups, and a long trail, winding into the horizon.