Chapter Text
“Speak to him.”
That was the ground-breaking advice of Kaer Morhen’s senior sorceress.
Well, that was the advice she had settled on after, “’Let me read his mind’ and, ‘Let me read your mind’” had both been rejected.
The former felt like an unacceptable violation. The latter filled Geralt with fear.
“Speak to him then. See if it jogs anything.”
So here Geralt was, taking a stroll around the Keep’s outer walls with its newest resident.
It had taken him three days to work up the nerve to ask for the meeting.
He’d had fights with multiple Kikimore Warriors that were less stressful.
What does one even say to a bard?
As it turned out, one didn’t need to say much. Bards could do all the talking themselves.
“…now you would think smuggling the pigs out of the farm would be the hard part,” Jaskier laughed, hands gesticulating wildly as he spoke, regaling Geralt with tales from his time as a student at Oxenfurt Academy, “but no, the hard part was sneaking into the faculty building with them, then holding them still long enough to coat them in the lard.”
Up in the guard towers Geralt heard sniggering as the Witcher’s keeping watch were unashamedly eavesdropping on the pair.
“Oh, ho, ho, and I haven’t even told you the best part.” Jaskier paused his walking to laugh, doubled over clutching his stomach. “We…oh Melitele…we labelled them…four pigs…covered in grease…and we painted numbers on their backs; one, two, three, and five!”
Up in the watchtower there was a Manticore laughing almost as hard as the bard.
“It took them nine hours to catch all the pigs,” Jaskier cackled, “Then another two days before they gave up searching for number four!”
Geralt smiled, amused. Not as amused as the Cat up on the wall who had just bitten his own tongue to quiet himself, but even with the strange melancholy the bard inspired in him Geralt could still admit it was an entertaining tale. It’s the kind of stunt he and Eskel would have pulled once upon a time.
“Were you born in Oxenfurt?” he asked, surprising himself almost as much as Jaskier who froze, cutting off mid laugh.
Not an entirely unreasonable reaction Gerald supposed, it was the first real input he’d made to the conversation since they started their walk, content until now to just let the other ramble.
“Was I? Oh…um…well…yes, I suppose I was.” Jaskier nodded, an odd smile taking over his face, “I, Jaskier the Bard, was born in Oxenfurt.” He nodded again, more to himself than to Geralt. “Yes.”
There was no lie that Geralt could detect in the words, and yet there was something not quite right about the statement.
“Hmm.”
“Were you born here?” Jaskier asked, gesturing towards the Keep, then his eyes widened and he shook his head rapidly, “No, wait. Silly question that,” he chuckled. “You were born in Rivia, weren’t you?”
“Hmm. No. To both.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“How interesting.”
“Not really.”
“Right. Uh.” Jaskier shuffled nervously, his previous jubilant demeanour evaporating in the face of Geralt's stilted answers. This, Geralt reminded himself, was why it was better when he didn’t participate in the conversation. A handful of words and he’d already ruined it.
“Well…where were you born?” Jaskier asked, valiantly trying to revive things.
“Don’t remember.” Why did he even bother to speak if this was the best he could do? Get it together Wolf.
“Right.”
“I visited Oxenfurt once.” Better.
Jaskier lit up like he’d been given a gift. “You did?”
“For a hunt. There was a monster in the sewers.” Much better.
“What sort of monster?”
“Don’t know.” Fucking useless.
“Oh.”
“It killed people. I killed it.”
The bard lips twitched like he was going to laugh again but managed to talk himself out of it.
“Well, on behalf of myself and all the other residents of Oxenfurt, I thank you for ridding us of the monster. Whatever it was.” He was definitely laughing now, and Geralt found himself letting out a soft chuckle as well as they fell into step and resumed their stroll.
“You’re welcome.”