Chapter Text
Jaskier has been Jaskier so completely and for so many years now that sometimes he forgets that Jaskier isn’t the whole of him. It makes it easier to keep up the persona, at least. Somehow, though, it only takes one innocent question, post-winter reunion with Geralt to nearly bring the whole thing crashing down.
“So, how was your winter, darling?”
“Hmm…”
For all that this is Geralt’s standard answer, there is something about his tone that provokes Jaskier to question him further. Something thoughtful, and a little sad. Jaskier is so surprised that he stops in the middle of the path.
“Did something happen, Geralt? All of your brothers made it back from the path, didn’t they?” Jaskier asks, alarmed.
Geralt nods, glancing at Jaskier to make eye contact for a brief moment. There’s a bit of warmth, of thankfulness in his eyes, as if he’s surprised by the little kindness of Jaskier being concerned for his brother’s well-being.
“Lambert was… he was in mourning.”
“Oh?”
Geralt nods.
“His best friend, apparently,” he says, with a weighty significance which implies that, maybe, ‘best friends’ isn’t the whole of the story, “He was a cat witcher.”
A cold lash of fear whips through Jaskier. He instantly smothers it, hoping Geralt couldn’t smell it. He wants to ask, he needs to ask who? Who was it? Which one of my siblings is dead? He wants to demand answers. But of course, he cannot. Not without losing everything. It is too steep a price for information that, statistically, is almost certainly meaningless to him. There is only one name Geralt could say that would truly make a difference to Jaskier.
“Well,” Jaskier begins, his throat tight, “I’m sorry for his loss. I know how difficult it is to see your brother hurting.”
Geralt smiles softly, if a bit sadly, at him in response. Jaskier takes it in, looks his fill at this beautiful man he calls his best friend, and puts his irrational fears out of mind.
It can’t be him. One man out of an entire caravan. Only one man, one brother that Jaskier gives a damn about. There's no way it’s him Geralt spoke of. He isn’t dead. He’s alive, and walking the path. Maybe he even thinks of Jaskier, or of the man-- the witcher-- Jaskier used to be, mours him, or thinks fondly of the dramatics-prone, rage-fueled child who he once protected. Who he protected as if Jaskier truly was his own younger brother, by blood rather than by the cruel whims of destiny.
It can’t be him. The odds are in Jaskier’s favor, this once, that it isn’t him.
But it must be him. After all, they had so much in common. Jaskier knew what it was to fall in love with a wolf. He knew it in the depths of his soul, and in the calluses of his fingers, and in the silver of his daggers-- he knew it in every version of himself there was. Somewhere, buried deep within himself next to his love for Geralt, and the secrets of his past, Jaskier knew there was only one cat who could possibly share this experience. One other cat who could love a wolf.
But that way lay madness. It couldn’t be him. The odds are in Jaskier’s favor.
After the mountain, Jaskier very nearly goes back to the path. Jaskier is this close to removing his glamor, to beginning the process which would slowly unwind the chaos woven through every fiber of his body into non-existence. He snaps out of it, realizing at the last minute that he’s being an idiot. He didn’t become Jaskier for Geralt. He did it for himself. He wasn’t made to be a witcher. Was he good at it? Certainly. Was he still, at his core, the vicious little rage-filled outcast that made him the perfect candidate for the cat witcher trials? Oh, yes, very much so. But he also loved the world, wholly and irrevocably. He was an artist, too, afterall. He could not help but look at the world and see it’s beauty and joy as well as it’s pain and darkness. Years on the path, playing the merciless and immoral witcher, the perfect pupil of the cat school, and either dwelling in the dark or watching the light get snuffed out under his boot, well. It became too much. So he became something new. For his own sake. For his own happiness, even. He was a selfish man, but for this decision, he would not repent.
So Jaskier leaves his glamor on. But he needs a change, still. Especially as it is quickly becoming apparent that merely being a known companion of the white wolf is enough to have pursuers on his tail nearly permanently. He starts growing his hair out, washes it with a special blend that makes it darker. To his surprise, it starts falling in loose curls once it reaches his chin. He stops its progress at his shoulders. With a change to his wardrobe and his recently altered, more serious demeanor, along with the nearly 20 years it has been since he was in any one place for a significant amount of time, he suspects he is safe.
He kills Jaskier the Bard, companion to the white wolf, with one carefully placed rumor. And then he sets a course for Oxenfurt. He thinks it’s time to put another one of his seven liberal arts to use.
Professor Dandelion, professional academic and playwright, is sitting in a tavern just far enough off campus to avoid his students when he spots the witcher. He wears a wolf medallion-- one of Geralt’s brothers, then. This is Lambert, Jaskier is almost certain, though he is working from the admittedly brief descriptions Geralt had given.
Jaskier gestures to the barkeep for another ale. He walks over to the other witcher’s table. He sits, and slides over the ale.
“It is dangerous, my friend,” Jaskier begins, lowly enough that only a witcher could hear, “for someone of your school to be here, taking no precautions. Even this far north, there are those who would pursue you.”
“Who are you to advise me, my friend?” Lambert snarls quietly.
In only this one sentence, Jaskier can see why it was different for Lambert and his cat than it was for Geralt and Jaskier. Why Lambert could love his mystery cat whereas Geralt could never love Jaskier. There was a fire in Lambert, a twin to the one in Jaskier’s own chest. A deep rage, inseparable from their souls. Lambert may be a wolf, but Jaskier recognizes the cat in him. It makes sense that Lambert would be able to look past the reputation and facade of his cat, and see what lay beneath. To see his cat in a way that Geralt, so cold and distant in his rage, would never see or accept Jaskier for the whole of what he was. Yet, still Jaskier had kept trying. Kept giving him gifts, and providing for him, and following him, and loving him in every way he knew how, even the silly little ways Geralt would never understand. And he kept waiting, hopelessly, for Geralt to one day reciprocate. As if that day would ever come.
But Jaskier digresses.
Jaskier smiles at Lambert fondly. Sharply.
“Exactly as you say. A friend,” Jaskier says, quietly, before saying, louder and more casually for the benefit of any onlookers, “Professor Dandelion of Oxenfurt, at your service.”
Lambert’s eyes are suspicious, but he inclines his head nonetheless.
“Now, tell me why precisely you have decided to parade around with your medallion practically on display? At least your swords are hidden. You do know Nilfgaurd pursues your brother, and anyone connected to him, yes?”
Lambert shrugs.
“Who cares?”
Jaskier’s face twitches for a moment before he gets himself under control. He knows Lambert can smell the anger that snaps, instantly, into his scent at the words. Suicide. That’s what this is. Suicide.
“Tuck in your medallion. Now, pup. I am not a patient man, at the moment.”
Lambert does so immediately, as if on instinct. Yes, this man has definitely shared his life with a cat before, Jaskier thinks. Lambert knows when it is best to listen, even if it is not really Jaskier he is listening to-- it is the memory of his lover.
“Good. Now, tell me why you have developed a death wish.”
“Who cares?” Lambert repeats, but this time it isn’t a brush off. It is the truth.
Jaskier is very still. He is not sure if he can ask the question without seeming suspicious, but he thinks he may be able to get away with it. He has waited long enough. It is time to pounce.
“The person who would have cared. The person you lost. What was their name?”
Lambert’s expression shutters, utterly unreadable now. But he still answers.
“Aiden. His name was Aiden.”
Later, after Jaskier has talked Lambert down from the ledge, given him a passable disguise, and sent him on to Kaer Morhen, Jaskier stares into a mirror. Poor Professor Dandelion. He had so much life left in him, so much more time and potential left in this persona. A few generations more of students, and a few more literary masterpieces, at least. But Jaskier cannot bring himself to regret it much as he breaks his glamor and watches the first changes take place. He watches the beginning of the process that will take, conservatively, several more months to complete given how interwoven the glamor has become with his being. No, Jaskier cannot regret his decision. Afterall, he has a brother to save.
Given that the path is called The Killer, Jaskier expects it is a difficult climb even in the best of conditions. This is not the best of conditions.
Aiden is badly injured from his extended stay in a lordling’s dungeon— the very lordling that had, supposedly, had Aiden executed several years ago now. It was a sentence Aiden had ‘earned’ by accepting upfront payment for a contract, and then refusing to finish the job when he discovered the lord’s true motivations. Torture, a witcher can withstand. Tortue of both the mind and body, over a period of several years with no hope of escape? Even a witcher would succumb. So, yes, Aiden is badly injured, in both mind and body. He is responsive, and growing more so every day. He is able to walk and climb, to care for his own needs and protect himself. Jaskier has hope he will make a recovery, but at the moment he is a shell of himself.
Jaskier tries to focus on the fact that he had been insane and stubborn enough to go rescue Aiden at all. He tries to be proud that he held out hope that his brother’s heart still beat, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Sometimes, he is successful. But Jaskier knows that, had he the time, he would be going mad with worry, and grief, and anger because why hadn’t he gone sooner? Why hadn’t he ripped off the glamor and reclaimed his power the second Geralt had told him? He had known, deep down, that it was Aiden. Why hadn’t he-- But Jaskier didn’t have the time. He had to keep them both alive.
To make the whole thing worse, Jaskier is injured as well. He’d been captured by Nilfguard for a few weeks while on his quest to find Aiden. Thankfully, they had only caught him because, though his glamour was only about thirty-five percent faded at this point, he was recognizable as a witcher upon close inspection. If they had caught him as the white wolf’s bard, he doubts the watch he was under would have been as light as it was. If there had been even one more soldier guarding him, Jaskier doubts he would have been able to escape in this state, at less than half strength and injured from their torture on top of that. Jaskier is thankful for even the smallest of mercies.
Oh, and did he mention? It is storming. And it is far too late in winter to be climbing the trail, though Jaskier is certain the pass had not closed yet. It musn’t have. If they died of hypothermia before Jaksier can get them to the keep, Jaskier is going to kill someone. Possibly Meletlie herself.