His Little Bird: Jaskier

Chapter 12

When Y/n awoke the next morning, she felt a slight pressure against her back. Blinking her eyes open, she turned her head to look over her shoulder, and made a doubletake when she saw Jaskier sleeping so close to her, his chest pressed against her back. Slowly and carefully, making sure not to wake the bard, she edged away from him and stood, making to erase the event from her mind. How they even got so close in sleep, she did not know. Grabbing her things from the ground, she quickly finished getting ready and walked over to the others to finish preparations.

She helped Geralt with a few things, before they saw Yennefer standing aimlessly in the middle of the camp, calling out, "Has anyone seen my escort?"

"What? He didn't join you?" Y/n said back, half mockingly, half genuinely confused.

"Would I be asking if he had?" the mage snapped.

Before either woman could continue, they heard Yarpen yell out and shout, "Ah! Bloody ball sacks!" Following his voice, they looked over the edge of a drop-off to see Yarpen standing next to a quite dead Ser Eyck, his pants around his ankles from his struggles the night before, and his throat cleanly cut. Jaskier had been awoken from the exclamations, and look on in horror.

"Who slits a man's throat while he's relieving his bowels? Is nothing sacred anymore?" he rhetorically questioned as he put a hand over his cheek.

Yarpen exclaimed in disgust of the body he stood beside, and Yennefer turned away while muttering, "Fuck."

"Why did we come?" Y/n whispered to herself, her ire becoming more and more shining. She hissed in a sudden pain, for her arm had begun to painfully throb. She ignored it, simply rolling her shoulder to get over it as she picked up her knapsack and continued on with the rest.

"We're halfway to the dragon's lair, but it's getting dangerous," Véa said as the Reavers worked ahead of the rest of them. "We cannot continue like this."

"The warrior woman is right," Yarpen added on. "Someone killed that self-righteous fud, and it wasn't any of us. Somebody's not playin' fair. Our people used to mine these mountains. We know a shortcut that will cut a half a day off our journey. Let the Reavers take the long way around. We'll nab the treasure before they even set foot in the cave. We'll watch each other's backs until we reach the next peak, then every man for himself. What say ye?"

"Let's go," Borch enthusiastically agreed, and Yarpen began leading them once more.

"Geralt?" Y/n questioned when the witcher didn't move. His eyes were set on the grey clad witch ahead of them all, going a different direction.

"Go on. I'll catch up," he told her, leaving before she could get another word in.

Y/n sighed, watching as her friend left, saying, "What women do to the weak, fool-hardy hearts of men." She scoffed, smiling bitterly as she turned and started up towards the group, Jaskier close behind her. Enough to hear her say, "I will forever be glad to be a woman."

They followed the dwarven path, noticing how it became far rockier and narrowed as they continued forward. It was like this until they entered a skinny pathway in a mountain pass, chipped rocks lining the walls as fragile debris fell. "Mind the scree fallin', hear me? Can get a bit rocky 'round here if it's windy," they heard Yarpen yell back to them, which didn't seem to help the falling chips of stone. "Which... it is."

When they turned a corner, Y/n pales as she looked on the path. It stopped completely, dropping off the side of the mountain and giving them the perfect few of the misty clouds below. The height of the drop was impossible to determine, making Y/n quiver slightly as she stepped closer to the edge. The only way to go was either down, or the narrow wooden bridge that hung on the rocks of the mountain, a steep path with a steep drop. The wind whistled in her ears, matching that of the grey atmosphere around them.