Chapter Text
Jaskier looks around the familiar rooms, his stomach knotted with dread. Frustration bubbles up inside him, and he kicks viciously at the edge of the hearth. Of course, like much of the fabled Oxenfurt university it is made of granite, and therefore much more durable than the mere calcification of his bones. “Fuck” he curses loudly, grasping onto the abused appendage and hopping around, desperately trying to keep his balance. The pain is vicious, but compared to the shard of nostalgia that lodged in his chest before he has even left the university grounds, it is nothing.
He has barely managed to blink the tears out of his eyes when there’s a sharp knock at his door. It opens before he can give the okay to enter. He’d expected to see the cities’ liveried soldiers, but he hadn’t expected them to be accompanied by the two very people who have so neatly managed to get rid of him.
Jaskier takes in the dean and professor Valdo fucking Marx, and allows himself a beat to feel all the righteous indignation and anger he’s been building up for the past few days. He very nearly opens his mouth to shout at them, but then one of the soldiers drops a hand to the pommel of his sword. He manages to keep his vitriolic words behind his teeth, but it’s a near thing, and Valdo’s damned smirk tells him it’s obvious in his face.
“Time for you to leave, professor Pankratz,” the dean says, his face and expression carefully neutral.
“We all know why you’re really getting rid of me,” Jaskier answers, making no move to acquiesce. “Swallow down your cowardice for once, and at least have the decency to acknowledge it to my face,” he bites out.
The dean makes a gesture, and two more soldiers come into the room. Really, if he wasn’t so upset about it all, Jaskier might have been flattered that they thought they could possibly need more than one. That soldiers were needed at all, honestly.
It’s Valdo who answers, shrugging. “You should have known better than to plagiarise my work. You can hardly remain an Oxenfurt professor when the only originals you can put your name to are little more than drivel, aimed to please the masses. You always did lack depth, even as a student.”
Jaskier stares at Valdo. More than anything, more than being given the boot after teaching at Oxenfurt for six years, from when he graduated at twenty four, it rankles him that this is the official story. He’s angry— incensed to be honest, that his works, his, will no longer bear his name, but will be presented as if they were written by Valdo fucking Marx.
—000—
At thirty, Jaskier is a fully grown adult, with little more than he can carry to his name. A name that will be struck from all his officially published works, only to be replaced by someone with the creativity of an earthworm. A particularly slimy one at that.
Granted, the things he carries are not entirely without value. His lute for example, is worth quite a bit of gold. Its worth to him is immeasurable though, and he would sooner sleep out on the streets than sell it to get by.
Speaking of getting by, Jaskier has no idea how he’s going to go about that. Not only has he been fired and banned from Oxenfurt, but he’s been commanded to leave the city itself, by nightfall. It’s not that he didn’t save anything over the past years, or that he blew through the sum he earned by selling Lettenhove after his parents’ deaths. He has a very respectable amount of money, actually. If only that money wasn’t seized as reparations, for his supposed deceit and exploitation of another’s work.
So, Jaskier has nothing more than the clothes on his back, the pack he’s stuffed to bursting, and his lute. He’d say it’s all he needs, but he has never before been without funds or a roof over his head, and he’s not quite sure how to handle the insecurity of it.
He supposes he could sing for his supper, but he can’t do so in Oxenfurt. His face is well known enough that his continued presence after nightfall is bound to be noticed. He might want to sleep under a roof, but he has no desire for that roof to be the city jail’s.
There are, of course, friends and former colleagues he could prevail upon. There are those who know the real reason Jaskier is banned from the city, and who share his political views and position. But, prevailing upon them would put them in the awkward position of having their own sympathies become public knowledge, and he hardly wants to force any of them into the same situation he finds himself stuck in now.
He comes to the very awkward, very daunting conclusion that he has no idea where to go, but he has to get out of the city nonetheless. Maybe if he leaves and just keeps walking he’ll eventually reach a village where he might be able to sing in exchange for a bed.
Jaskier looks up at the sky. It’s the soft, pale blue of spring, and the sun is just about to reach its zenith. If he’s going to walk, he’d better start. It’s already far too likely he’ll have to spend the night under the open sky. The part of him that holds his poet’s heart thinks it’s almost—romantic, and imagines the vast expanse of darkness above him, littered with twinkling stars. The more sensible part of him knows he has very little in the way of survival skills, and dreads how easy a target he’ll make out in the continent by himself.
—000—
He’s not entirely sure what makes him duck into the tiny little shop. It might be that the display in the window seems to hold a bit of everything. It’s a strange collection, from curiously large feathers —how big can birds get, really?— to delicate glass bottles with dried herbs and colourful liquids, twinkling strings of beads that catch the sunlight and refract it in colourful patches on the walls, to a few taxidermied animals he can’t hope to guess the names of. It’s close to the western city gate, and Jaskier thinks he has never seen it here before. It’s just the kind of shop he likes to peruse though, interesting things to examine in every tucked away corner of it.
He has no money to buy anything, but there’s a small sign in the window that states they’re willing to buy anything interesting. And that’s really kind of unspecific, isn’t it? Anything can be interesting, to the right person. Jaskier needs money though, and he fidgets with the gold signet ring on his left hand. It’s his mother’s. It’s the only thing he was allowed to keep when they seized the rest of his jewelry as part of his assets. He doesn’t really want to part with it, but he also doesn’t want to be out in the world with no money to speak of, and he thinks coins will take him further than a single ring. His mother would understand. She’d approve, even. She always was the more the practical sort, unlike her husband. Unlike their son.
He takes a deep breath, and opens the shop door to slip inside.
It’s almost as if he steps into twilight itself. The light in the shop is low, the sunlight somehow filtered through the store window. The motes of dust in the air reflect what little light penetrates, and Jaskier has to chuckle at the fancy notion that they resemble tiny little stars floating all around him. The air is heavy with the scents of herbs and spices, and it sort of makes him want to sneeze. Under the myriad of smells there is a scent that seems more pervasive than the others. It takes him a little bit to place it. It is sweet and citrusy at the same time, not quite floral and not quite fruity. Lilac and gooseberries, he decides after a moment.
Despite the shop definitely being open, there’s no one there. He debates calling out, suspecting the proprietor might be busy in the back, but then he sees the small, brass bell set on the counter. It’s a delicate little thing, craftsmanship clear in the exquisite floral motif engraved into the metal. He chuckles a little when he sees the type of flower. “Buttercups,” he murmurs under his breath. “Apparently fate thinks I’m meant to be here.” He picks up the bell and rings it, a delicate sound that seems to vibrate something deep inside his chest.
When nothing happens he sighs, fidgeting with his ring. He almost decides to leave, but then his eyes are pulled to a few bunches of dried flowers, hanging from a beam. Despite their state of preservation, they are beautiful, and he reaches out a hand toward the one closest to him.
“Don’t touch that,” a smooth, female voice says behind him, and Jaskier twirls around quickly enough the neck of his lute case bumps into the counter and unbalances him. With the weight of his pack pulling at him he barely manages to remain upright, his arms windmilling briefly for balance.
Behind the counter, where seconds ago there was nothing but empty space, stands a tall, ethereally beautiful woman. He distantly registers the scent of lilac and gooseberries seems to have gotten stronger, but he’s mostly distracted by the way her dress is quite different from current Redanian fashion, and by the intense purple of her eyes. When she raises a dark, elegant brow at him, he realises he’s been staring
“Ah, I’m so sorry,” he babbles. “I was just curious, I’ve never seen flowers like that before.” He looks around the store again consideringly. “I’ve never seen much of all of this before,” he continues, eyeing one of the stuffed creatures. Its fur looks soft enough to stroke, if it weren’t for the several pairs of legs too many. “What is that?” he can’t help but ask, before glancing and pointing at what seems to be a whirl of translucent smoke that is somehow pinned to the wall behind the counter. “What is that?” he adds, belatedly hearing his own tone of horrified fascination. “That looks like it should live in a cloud of some sort, mist, maybe.”
Slowly, the woman raises her other brow to join the first, and Jaskier makes a weakly apologetic gesture, hoping she’ll forgive him for his nervous babble. “That,” she says, tipping her head toward the smoke-thing, “is a wisp.”
Jaskier sucks in a breath, his eyes wide. “I’ve read about those,” he says.
The woman’s mouth curls into a smile that’s somehow friendly and not at the same time. “Then you know not to follow them, don’t you?”
Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Everyone knows not to follow the little lights in a bank of mist,” he scoffs.
“And yet wisps manage to survive,” the woman says wryly. She looks him up and down, and Jaskier cannot help but fidget a little under her purple gaze. “Something tells me that other than reading about them, you’ve never in your life been close to encountering one.”
It’s true, but the way she says it has Jaskier wanting to defend himself. “I’ve been out in the world. Not my fault if I prefer not to wander around the moors in the dark of night, thank you,” he argues. No need to mention that the only places on the continent he’s really been are Oxenfurt and Lettenhove, and the stretch of travel in between. Never mind he’s always hoped to see more. She doesn’t know that about him, and neither does she need to.
The woman shakes her head, annoyance creeping into her expression. “Sheltered, spoiled little thing,” she says, and Jaskier feels the insult hook under his skin like tiny little barbs that will burrow their way inside. There is an embarrassed flush burning in his cheeks and he’s just about to angrily retort that she knows absolutely nothing about him, when the smoke-thing quite thoroughly distracts him by moving away from the wall.
“It— it’s alive? What is it doing?” he says, fascinated by the way the light gray seems to lighten and darken in places as it moves. When it floats toward him, he makes a soft noise of alarm. Part of him wants to bolt away from this very strange store and even stranger encounter, and part of him is too in awe of the mist-like creature so close to him.
“Oh. That’s interesting,” the woman murmurs, looking at where the wisp is now floating directly over Jaskier’s head. “Guess I was wrong.”
“Is it— supposed to do that?” he asks, his voice coming out more squeaky than he likes.
“It is,” the woman says. “You were meant to ring that bell, after all.”
Jaskier has no hope of interpreting what she means by that, and keeps glancing up at the wisp and back at her thoughtful expression. She leans forward to rest her elbow on the counter, placing her chin in her palm and tapping her fingers against her cheek as she regards him.
“Why did you come in here?”
Jaskier quickly glances at her, before looking up at the apparently very alive creature floating right above him. “Isn’t this dangerous?” he asks cautiously.
The woman tuts patronisingly, shaking her head. “Hardly,” she says. “It wants to be your friend, as baffling as that is.”
“Oh,” Jaskier says, slowly feeling confident enough to look away from the wisp. He supposes that right now, there really isn’t any risk of it luring him into a swamp, right in the middle of a city shop as they are. He fidgets with his ring again, slowly pulling it from his finger, stroking the tip of his index finger over the engraved crest, before gingerly stepping forward and laying it on the counter in front of her.
Her eyebrows raise again. “What’s this?”
“The sign in your window. It says you buy interesting things?”
She scoffs a little, picking up the ring and holding it up against the light. “And this is supposed to be interesting?”
Jaskier carefully suppresses the urge to snatch it back from her hand, angry at her immediate disregard of something that is important to him. There is a cold sensation at the back of his neck, almost like little droplets of dew, dripping down his nape. “Oh— oh holy Melitele, what is that?!” he screeches, jumping about half a foot in the air as soon as he realises it was the freaking mist-creature brushing over his skin. He wipes his palm over the back of his neck and it comes away wet. He shoots the thing an accusatory glance, before looking back at the woman when she speaks.
“You were angry about my reaction,” she says. “It felt that.”
Jaskier blinks a few times and looks back at the wisp. It is floating at eye height now, tendrils of smokey grey moving as if on a gentle breeze. “Oh,” he says, and before he realises it, he finds himself addressing the thing, like it will be able to understand. “You were trying to comfort me, thank you.” The wisp floats there for a few seconds longer, and then goes back to its position directly above his head.
When he looks back at the woman, her expression seems to be more openly friendly at least, and she holds out a hand to him. “Yennefer,” she says after Jaskier takes it.
“Jaskier,” he offers her his name in turn.
Her eyebrows raise. “Ah. Buttercup,” she says, her finger trailing over the little bell delicately. Jaskier feels another unwelcome rush of heat to his face. “You don’t really want to sell this ring,” she states.
Jaskier shifts from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “Not really, no. But seeing as I am without funds and without a roof over my head, I am forced to sell what little of value I have.”
He sees Yennefer’s purple eyes flick to his lute case and grasps hold of the strap a little more firmly. “That’s not for sale,” he says.
“Wasn’t offering to buy it,” she answers casually, twirling his ring around on an elegant pinky finger. “You wouldn’t happen to be the disgraced poetry professor, would you?”
Jaskier’s breath catches, and he half wants the floor to open up under his feet and swallow him whole. Does news travel this fast? He’d hoped he’d be out of the city at least, by the time the whole wretched situation became public knowledge. Again, there is that cold, wet sensation at the back of his neck, and he shakes his head a little. “Wrongfully accused, more like it,” he mutters under his breath.
Yennefer tips her head to the side. “Wrongfully accused— gotten rid of, perhaps?”
Jaskier considers taking a careful step away from her. “How would you know that?”
Yennefer shakes back her long, dark hair. “I have a way of knowing things,” she says with a smile that’s equal parts lovely and dangerous.
Jaskier looks around himself, taking in the myriad fascinating things in the store, previously unknown to him. He looks up at the wisp, still floating above his head, and back at Yennefer, at the way she seems to brim with power, and at her intensely purple eyes.
“You’re a mage,” he concludes. Really— why and how didn’t he see? He might not have encountered a mage before, but he’s read about them, just as he has read of the wisp. He really should be more observant than this, he thought he was.
Yennefer smiles, and there’s a little crackle of something in the air. “Don’t feel bad, Buttercup. We are decidedly rare nowadays. Most people have never in their lives encountered a mage.”
Jaskier feels fascinated despite himself, despite the nerves that leave his skin prickling. The mage looks at him while twirling his ring between her fingers, as if she’s considering him. Then she holds out the jewelry, hooked over the tip of her index finger. Jaskier takes it and slides the signet back onto his hand. He sighs a little. It feels right, exactly where it should be. Trying to part with it wasn’t a good idea.
“Keep the ring,” Yennefer says. “I have an altogether different proposal for you.”
—000—
So if I step through this portal, it’ll take me to Kaer Morhen? Jaskier asks sceptically.
Yennefer makes an impatient noise at the back of her throat. “How many times do you need me to say it? Yes, it’ll take you to Kaer Morhen.”
Jaskier makes a face at her. Forgive him, for never before having travelled by portal. Very few people have, and for all he knows, the mage might drop him into an abyss somewhere as soon as he steps through. She smiles as she looks at him, not entirely reassuringly, as if she knows what he’s currently thinking.
He’s heard of Kaer Morhen, of course. The school up in the mountains is as famous as Oxenfurt, maybe even more so. Very few people have ever seen it though, and Jaskier certainly hasn’t. He believes half the continent might actually think it to be a myth in some way shape or form. He’s not entirely sure he didn’t believe the same, until now.
“And the— the guardians, they won’t eat me as soon as I step foot on the grounds?” he asks nervously, the wisp coolly tickling against the back of his neck.
Yennefer’s smile is far from reassuring. Someone should tell her to work on that, really. “The witchers won’t eat you,” she says, and pauses. “Probably,” she adds, and Jaskier makes a face at her.
“Am I even really suitable to teach there?” he asks, fidgeting in front of the swirling mass of light and chaos right in front of him. He might have gaped a little when Yennefer first conjured it, but really, who could blame him? “I mean, what do I know about how dwarves learn, how elves do? Or even humans with an aptitude for chaos? What do I know of the musical sensibilities of sprites, or dragons, even?” he says, his tone becoming a little hysterical.
“You’ll learn,” Yennefer says matter of factly. “If you get the job.”
“Right,” Jaskier nods. Sweet Melitele, he’s supposed to interview first, of course. He’s supposed to have a conversation with the dean, one of the famed guardians of Kaer Morhen himself, along with a few of its teachers. He can’t imagine they’ll find him suitable. “And if I don’t get hired?” he asks, his voice smaller than he’d like.
The mage sighs. “Just be honest in your interview. I think you’ll do well.”
Jaskier has no idea how she would know that. She’s barely known him for more than the few hours it took to convince him to let her portal him up to a castle in the mountains that’s the equivalent of what Oxenfurt is, but for all sorts of non humans. Granted, it’s precisely his views on education for everyone, including non humans, that got him into this pickle in the first place. He’s still not sure he’ll be welcomed there. He is a former Oxenfurt professor after all, publicly disgraced or not. Oxenfurt only welcomes humans, and he wouldn’t blame Kaer Morhen at all if it shunned humans in turn. “But if I don’t— do well?” he insists.
“I’ll portal you back, and I’ll buy that ring you really don’t want to sell,” Yennefer says, briefly rolling her purple eyes.
Right. Of course she would. That’s not reassuring at all. Jaskier doesn’t really want to sell his ring, and he doesn’t really want to find out how long he can survive out in the wilderness by himself. He takes a deep breath, and glances at the wisp that’s now floating above his shoulder. “Are you coming with me?” he asks it, and Yennefer snorts. The wisp’s smoky tendrils seem to stretch toward him though, and Jaskier chooses to interpret that as an affirmative answer.
“Don’t make me push you through, bard,” the mage says, crossing her arms and tapping her fingers impatiently.
“No need to get all witchy about it,” Jaskier snarks back at her, relieved to see a twinkle in her purple eyes. He didn’t mean to call her that, but nerves unfortunately have some serious detrimental influence on his brain-to-mouth filter. He glances back through the shop one more time, at the part of the city wall he can spot through the window. He wonders if he’ll ever see it again. Either way, and whatever happens, he doesn’t regret a thing.
Except maybe for not socking Valdo fucking Marx one, when he had the chance.