Chapter Text
The world had an irritating way of being absurd when one least expected it.
Jaskier had only stopped by the river to refill his canteen and curse the blisters on his feet — perfectly ordinary pursuits for a man newly estranged from his dearest friend. A week since that damned mountain, and he still caught himself looking over his shoulder, half expecting a white-haired Witcher to appear out of the mist and grumble about the tempo of his songs.
Instead, he found a child.
The boy stood ankle-deep in the shallows, trousers rolled to his knees, tossing pebbles into the river with exuberant concentration. He was talking to himself — or perhaps to the fish — and humming tunelessly, curls bouncing as he crouched to find another perfect stone.
Brown curls, Jaskier noted, not white. Brown eyes, wide and bright and full of mischief. His shirt was half-untucked, his face smudged with dirt and river spray, and there was a tear at one knee that had clearly been earned through an enthusiastic tumble.
Still, something about the child made the bard pause mid-step, as though the air itself had shifted.
“Ahoy there, young man,” Jaskier called lightly. “You seem to be conducting a most thorough geological survey.”
The boy startled — then grinned, wide and unguarded. “I’m trying to make the stones bounce,” he said proudly. “I almost got one to skip three times!”
“Three times, you say? A record worthy of a ballad.”
The child beamed, utterly taken in by the compliment. “Really?”
“Truly,” Jaskier said solemnly. “The minstrels of Oxenfurt shall sing of the boy who bested the river itself.”
The boy laughed — a clear, ringing sound that seemed to shake the weariness from the air. He picked up another stone and flung it with great enthusiasm. It sank immediately.
Jaskier chuckled despite himself. “Tragic. The river, alas, has claimed victory once more.”
The boy squinted at him. “You talk funny.”
“I’m afraid it’s a chronic condition.”
That earned him another smile, quick and crooked. The boy wiped his hands on his shirt and clambered up the bank toward him, undaunted by mud or manners.
“You’re a bard,” he declared, pointing to the lute slung over Jaskier’s shoulder.
“I am indeed.”
“I like songs. My mum sings when she works.”
“Does she now?” Jaskier said gently. “And where might your mother be, young master...?”
“Geralt,” the boy supplied cheerfully. “Son of Visenna.”
The world tilted.
Jaskier stared, sure he’d misheard. Then the name sank in like a stone through deep water. “I— beg your pardon?”
“Geralt,” the boy repeated, perfectly at ease. “You look like you’ve swallowed a fly.”
The bard coughed, quite unable to think of anything more coherent. Geralt. The name burned in his ears. The same set to the mouth, the same stubborn brow — only softened by youth and laughter and sunlight.
It was impossible. Entirely, catastrophically impossible.
And yet there he stood: the Witcher — no, the boy — gazing up at him with muddy feet and a gap-toothed grin.
Jaskier found his voice at last. “Tell me, Geralt... how did you come to be here?”
The boy’s brow furrowed, but not unhappily. “I was fetching water,” he said, pointing at the river. “For my mother. But then I blinked and—poof! I was here instead.” He spread his arms wide, as if the mystery delighted rather than frightened him.
Jaskier’s mind whirled through a hundred explanations: curses, illusions, time fractures, divine pranks. But the boy was tugging on his sleeve now, oblivious to the storm of dread gathering in the bard’s chest.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Er—yes, actually. To the next village. There’s an inn, and I was planning to eat something not composed entirely of regret.”
The child tilted his head. “Can I come?”
Jaskier hesitated. It would be madness to drag an unknown boy—let alone a possibly de-aged, memory-wiped Geralt—along. And yet, those earnest brown eyes made it impossible to say no.
“Of course,” he heard himself say. “Can’t have a knight-errant go hungry.”
Geralt grinned so broadly Jaskier’s heart gave a painful twist. The boy slipped his small hand into Jaskier’s without a thought, and together they began down the dirt path.
Geralt didn’t just walk. He skipped — a half-hop, half-bounce that sent dust and laughter into the air. Every now and then, he’d stop to point out something marvelously ordinary: a beetle, a crooked cloud, the way the sunlight made the river sparkle.
Jaskier found himself smiling, despite the strangeness of it all. “You’re rather a cheerful lad, aren’t you?”
Geralt nodded solemnly. “Mum says being grumpy makes wrinkles.”
“Ah, if only certain Witchers had learned that wisdom,” Jaskier muttered under his breath.
They reached the edge of the village as dusk fell, lanterns flickering to life one by one. Geralt’s skipping slowed to a walk, but his hand stayed in Jaskier’s. His eyes darted curiously over the cottages and smoke, wonder replacing any trace of fear.
“Jaskier?” he said softly.
“Yes, lad?”
“Are there monsters here?”
The question made the bard’s chest tighten, though Geralt’s tone held no fear — only the bright curiosity of a child still too young to know what monsters truly were.
“Not tonight,” Jaskier said gently. “You’ve my word.”
Geralt nodded, satisfied, and smiled again. “Good. Then Mum won’t worry.”
Jaskier looked down at him — at the impossible, radiant child with mud on his knees and laughter still in his eyes — and knew, with weary certainty, that his life had just become infinitely more complicated.