Chapter Text
For years Jaskier walked beside Geralt, and it took nearly a dozen before the man ever mentioned Kaer Morhen. It was a quiet moment after a quiet day, when Jaskier mentioned that there wasn’t much he missed of home but sometimes he wondered what it would be like to return. Geralt, uncharacteristically conversational, said he returned home to Kaer Morhen most winters and he still wasn’t sure whether he missed it in the interim. Since then, Jaskier had taken any mention of Kaer Morhen like a pearl in his pouch, held precious and secret and far from any of his ballads. He held it precious and secret just like his hope that someday, if he was patient enough, Geralt might return his friendship enough to let him see it. Now as the walls of the keep finally surrounded him, he could not take in a single ancient stone for the rage that blinded him.
“My heart is not what it was when you first started trying to murder me on sight a decade ago, witch,” he hissed as he kept step with Yennefer, “so you’ll have to stop this humorless and violent teasing.”
“I am in no mood to tease you – it would not serve anyone to give Geralt forewarning of your arrival and let him piss and moan and drive us all mad. You had to come, and his opinion was not part of the equation. And well,” she says picking at the gathered debris on her skirt, “he will know about it now if you keep tossing a lung about it.”
He whispers viciously as he followed her, “Did you think that this would end in anything but blood and tears? My blood and tears specifically?”
“It is delightful to see that you are still this dramatic in your old age,” she answers, “but as a matter of fact I don’t really care about your blood or your tears.”
“Oh! Oh, she doesn’t care! Imagine my surprise,” he shouts.
“This isn’t about you,” she tells him with finality, “this isn’t about either of you. This is about Cirilla.”
The reminder gives Jaskier pause, and he licks at his chapped lips. He finally looked around the great hall they stood in, gathering his thoughts.
“I was happy to come and help her when I thought Geralt had agreed to the plan, when I thought it was his idea. What makes you think he’ll let me any where near his Child Surprise – what makes you think anything I have to teach her will be worth what you are about to put me through?”
“I told you already, Cirilla will not survive on Chaos and sword slinging alone – her enemies play the cruel games of words that you are skilled at, not to mention her formal education is lacking. She deserves better than to simply survive as we have been forced to.”
They stare at each other in a stalemate that lasts long enough for their masks to fall, for them to see each other – strangers with their fates entwined, never meant to be close and yet unable to escape each other.
She takes his chin and pulls it up like an old demanding aunt taking stock of a young debutante. She frowns, her voice quiet and sincere, “You really do look very tired Jaskier.”
“I really am very tired Yennefer,” he answers simply, “and I really am getting old.”
“You’re a bardling yet,” she says with the whisper of a smile.
There is a pointed cough and Jaskier feels his stomach, heart, and other viscera at his throat. When Yennefer looks over his shoulder her face eases into her mask of grace and superiority.
“Vesemir,” Yennefer she greets, “I got the bard.”
Jaskier squares his shoulder and sets on a smile as he turns to see an older man who was once very handsome and is now very old and scarred. His eyes are still very attractive indeed. The elder Witcher nods with quite a pleasant smile for someone who raised Geralt of Rivia.
“Master Jaskier, we are honored to receive you at Kaer Morhen,” he says with deep sincerity, shaking his hand fiercely, “It has been nearly a century since we’ve welcomed a bard.”
“The honor is entirely my own,” he says with a short bow.
“It has been a balm to hear the praises of witchers sung from town to town,” he says, taking him by the shoulders, “you have made all of our Paths that much lighter.”
“Melitele’s tits this is exhausting, I feel like I’m back at court,” she groans, with a roll of her eyes.
“Well, that is precisely why Master Jaskier is here, isn’t that right? To bring some courtly grace and some diplomatic malice to the child.”
“I suppose,” Yennifer sighs before her eyes roam over Jaskier, “you look worse than usual bardling, you should lie down.”
“As backhanded as that is I think I should,” Jaskier mutters, “especially since instead of Geralt’s silent disdain I now have to put up with his surprised ire.”
“You’ll put up with neither tonight,” Vesemir informs him, “I’ve sent him away on sundry errands. Supplies before his brothers come home – it’ll give you time to settle.”
“That is very considerate,” Jaskier says with an exhausted smile, “though perhaps I should see my young charge.”
“You will need all of your energy for the cub,” Vesemir laughs, “come, I’ll take you to your rooms.”
Yennefer does not say goodbye as she walks away towards a staircase in the direction opposite where Vesemir leads him. They walk silently for a few moments before Jaskier can no longer help himself.
“I have always wanted to visit the keep,” he starts, wishing he could stop sounding like a schoolboy in his eagerness, “every crumb of information inspired a thousand poems – though of course I have never set any to ink or shared them. I know how important secrecy is.”
“Geralt must trust you a great deal,” Vesemir nods as they walk, “it is all we have left, Jaskier, we do not hold it jealously for the sake of it.”
“I understand,” he says promptly, “I mean… I probably don’t, but I hope to prove myself as trustworthy as Geralt once found me.”
If Vesemir notes the past tense of his statement, he makes no mention of it, instead falling easily into a tour of the wing they currently find themselves in.
By the time they reach the door Vesemir has indicated as his, Jaskier is briming with inspiration.
“You know,” the old man says with a knowing smile, “if ever there was a place where you could recite and sing of Kaer Morhen, it is within her walls. Perhaps your stay will bring some lightness to all of us and not only the child and Geralt.”
Jaskier hides the stab of pain at the implication that Geralt might be glad to see him, instead he offers another simple bow and thanks Vesemir for his hospitality before fleeing into the room.
“Oh, you fool,” he whispers to himself as he falls into a nearby seat, “you bloody heartsick fool, you should have run. Why don’t you ever run?”
His exhaustion wraps around him like the furs he sinks into, the room is warm and smells like cinnamon and spice and sleep takes him before he can chastise himself further.