To Thaw A Frozen Heart

~ chapter 16 ~

authors note:
in the upcoming chapters - the timeline is wrong
i know it's wrong! im sorry, but it's just how i want to write it... don't hate me please 😋😋
let's just pretend that jaskier and geralt have already met and had their encounter with filevandrel and that geralt is already the butcher of blaviken, and that Antea knows this
just go with it
💛💛💛

third person POV

two days later
Antea lay there silently, the only movement was the shallow rise ans fall of her chest when she breathed.
Geralt stood in the corner, not blinking, his focus entirely on the weak body that Triss was prodding at.
Triss had spent the past two days testing Antea with various different herbs and spells to try and figure out what happened to her, but she had had no luck. She was now poking and prodding, taking hair samples and nail samples to experiment with, and Geralt didn't like it. Triss was just about to insert some kind of tube into Antea's arm when Geralt started forward and grabbed Triss' hand.
'Enough.' he growled.
'Geralt, unhand me. You know I'm doing this for her own good - what she is isn't natural-.' Triss started but stopped herself short,
'What... she is?' Geralt stated slowly, inching closer to her face. 'Triss, what are you doing...'
'Geralt she can't keep these powers - you don't know what she could-'
Her sentence was interrupted as Geralt pushed her to the side and approached Antea with haste. He unattached Triss' experiments and lifted her body into his arms.
'We're leaving.' He said, and without giving Triss a second glance, he went outside to Roach and set Antea's body on the front of his saddle, swiftly climbing up behind her. He nudged Roach, and off they rode.

————— time skip, 1 week —————

Antea woke in a strange bed, wearing strange garments, and her whole body ached. Everything was bright - too bright - but after a minute or two things came into focus. She flung her legs over the side of the wooden cot she lay in and rubbed her head. She glanced around, she had no idea where she was, but it looked similar to the room she had in Oxenfurt. A small white and brown dress lay at the end of the bed, next to a pair of brown boots. As she dressed, she heard a commotion coming from below her. Exiting the small room, she found her way to a stairs. As she followed the stairs down, she realised she was, in fact, in an inn - much like her home towns inn, but a little different.
There was a huge crowd gathered, all seeming to be focusing on one point in the room. She stood on her toes to see what the commotion was all about, and saw a colourfully dressed man sitting at a table, talking nonsense to those around him. Realisation struck her.

'Jaskier?' she spoke,
The man at the table turned suddenly, and a smile swept across his face,
'Antea, darling! How good of you to wake!' He stood swiftly and embraced her small body, engulfing her in a warm, floral scent.
"Jaskier, how are you here? Why are you here? I haven't seen you since - " she stuttered.
'Since Oxenfurt. Yes, yes, those were good times.' he paused, and let out a nostalgic sigh,
"See I was travelling around, you know, the usual - and I bumped into an old friend - Geralt, you know him, of course, and uh, well he needed a little help- with, well... with you.' he gave her a small smile.
"So!' he continued, with a laugh and a clap, "here I am, awaiting his return from yet another classic Geralt adventure!"

Antea frowned, lost for words, her old acquaintance in an odd place she didn't recognise waiting for Geralt to return? Where was he? What was she doing here?
She opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted.

An old man stumbled into the bar, yelling about how a witcher was swallowed whole by a Selkiemore. Antea and Jaskier exchanged looks. He was covered in blood and looked terrified. "I tell you no lie, I swallowed the whole village, it did. Not a bone to be found! Of, don't give me that look, shitling. That's why we had to call him... The White Wolf!"
Jaskier looked up at the man and was taking notes from him.
"And he stood in the middle of that frozen lake like he knew it was coming for him. The ice cracked open and a Selkiemore shot out! Oh, you've never seen one, but it'd take down a ship with its cavernous mouth full of devil's teeth! And it... swallowed that witcher whole!"
"Oh, this is brilliant!" Jaskier cheered and Antea shot him a rude look.
"Oh, sorry. It's just Geralt's usually so stingy with the details. Uh... and then what happened?'
"He died.' The man said, and the crowd gasped.
"Eh..." Jaskier frowned. "He's fine."
"Look, I was there. I saw it with my own-' The man's sentence was cut off by the door being kicked open.
"See?" Jaskier laughed