Of Bards and Witchers

Fifth

    As it happens, Posada has a devil problem. The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, The White Wolf, The Butcher of— Well, he’d found out quite quickly that Geralt isn’t fond of that particular moniker—
 
    “Come here.”
 
    “Eh? ... Oof!”
 
    That’s okay. As Geralt’s barker, he supposes he’ll just have to get rid of it.
 
    In any case, there is a Devil, and the townsfolk have hired Geralt of Rivia to get rid of it. They’re fed up enough by the trouble it’s causing— stealing grain, mostly— that they seem sincere in their offerings of payment. They’ve also made it clear that they do not want it dead. Odd.
 
    It takes some convincing for the Witcher to let him tag along as such— by which he means he’s stumbled after him like a kicked puppy and resolutely ignored any and all glowering or threats in favor of babbling at him curiously without waiting for a response. Quite frankly, the Witcher is a terrible conversationalist. It’s a good thing Jaskier can keep up the conversation well enough for the both of them.
 
    The silence is stifling.
 
    “So, a devil,” he says, rolling his shoulders contemplatively. The Witcher pays him no mind, intent on staring resolutely ahead. “Will it have horns? Pointed teeth? Fangs, even? What would a devil even want with Posada’s grain? It’s a ghost town filled with whoresons and innkeepers with very scary brooms—“ Aha—! A glance— “Yes, that’s right, I said brooms. You thought those twin blades were scary, did you?” He raises his brows. Geralt looks away, but he also doesn’t rip him in half, so he takes it as a win. He might even go so far as take the answering huff as something akin to a laugh. At the very least he has a somewhat captive audience, and that raises his spirits just a bit more.
 
    “In any case,” he says. “If I were a devil I wouldn’t risk it. Those brooms are terrifying— and I’m sure the grain is just as dusty as the earth.”
 
    Jaskier isn’t used to traversing the off roads. His boots are scuffed to hell and they’ve been walking— in Geralt’s case, riding— for what seems like hours in no particular direction. The landscape isn’t much to his taste, either. Most of it is dry dirt and rocks, but he’ll admit easily that from a distance it is quite captivating— spires of stone tilted precariously yet holding their ground. Reading about such landscapes from dusty tomes is nothing like living them and he’s grateful for the opportunity, even if he does feel like he’s as dusty as the books back in Oxenfurt.
 
    Then they come to a clearing. Geralt ties his mare off some ways back and trudges forward; Jaskier follows excitedly— “a devil!”
 
    “It isn’t a devil.”
 
    “Well how would you know?”
 
    Geralt’s face is spectacularly stony as he regards him.
 
    Jaskier shrugs. “I just mean to say, you haven’t yet seen what it is.”
 
    “Devils do not exist,” the Witcher says.
 
    “You have not seen a devil,” the bard corrects, “so you do not know if they exist. Maybe they’re recluses.”
 
    “Shut up, bard.”
 
    He does shut up, for about thirty seconds while he watches Geralt survey their surroundings. And then he surges forward— “Jaskier—!” opens his mouth and gets shot in the head.
 
    A fifth because he never learns.
 
    —
 
    The Devil of Posada was not, in fact, a devil, but he does have spectacular horns, and hooves, and, well, he’s a goat-man! Which Jaskier might have come to appreciate, if not for the gorgeous elven woman threatening to kill him outright for his audaciousness in existing in the same dimension as her. Which, okay, fair. He was an educated man. He was from Kerack. He knows enough of his people’s ‘glorious conquests’ to know that they were utterly selfish bastards running a race out of lands that were rightfully theirs for the sake of fortune.
 
    Besides that, he was tied back-to-back to a passed out Witcher, and his head was pounding in a dull but borderline intolerable manner— and she has his lute! There wasn’t much he could do besides kindle her spieling and buy time for his companion to waken. So he resigns himself to that wait, and through that spieling he learns some things.
 
    Her name is Toruviel and she is sharp-tongued and fiery to say the least. She cuts herself off enough with wracking coughs that he knows she is sickly in some manner. They are being held in Dol Blathanna within the Blue Mountains, where Filavandrel and his subjects have been hiding for quite some time now— “But you had to go and ruin it all. Filavandrel will have you killed.” It is clear that the elves— or at the very least this one, in particular— would rather be anywhere else.
 
   This is all well and good, but one thing is persistently nagging at him.
 
   Jaskier wets his lips... He shouldn’t, he most definitely shouldn’t... But he has to. It will eat him from the inside out if he doesn’t. The bard shifts to look over his shoulder as best he can. It’s an incredibly awkward and strenuous position that ends up with his arms feeling both numb and as if they’re about to pop out of his shoulders at the same time, and has his chin practically poised on Geralt’s shoulder.
 
   “Good sir,” he says, eyes wide with wonder, as he gazes at the goat-man. “You are splendid— pardon my ignorance, I mean not at all to offend, but what are you?”
 
    The creature, taken aback, opens his mouth.
 
    Toruviel kicks him so hard that he passes out. Again.

    —
 
    He isn’t out long. Three things tell him this— the ache of his ribs, Toruviel’s face and seemingly unending rant, and the fact that the Witcher still isn’t awake. For Melitele’s sake. Take your time, why don’t you?
 
    There is, however, a second elf. Not Filavandrel— this is another woman. She leans against the wall just behind Toruviel and worries at her lip, eyes flickering between Geralt and himself, then sparingly to the woman before her. He inclines his head as their gazes meet and settles against his companion— might as well be somewhat comfortable if the front-most woman insists on spouting drivel his way.
 
    Gods know how long he’s suffered in silence before the Witcher stirs.
 
    “Oh ho ho!” He says, squirming resolutely. “You’re in for it now!”
 
    Geralt grunts.
 
    Toruviel sneers and puts a boot through his lute.
 
    Again. Again. Again.
 
    Jaskier loathes to admit he loses himself to a cascade of white noise. The devastation wreaks through his chest like nothing he’s ever known— he’s centered his entire being around the splintered mess of wood that tumbles to his side. The first thing he’d bought purely for himself. Because no one could expect anything of a noble with a lute— they’d think it decorum before life-line. Hobby before please, please, please, give me something— give me anything— there must be more to it all than this. His throat tightens. His life burns at a boot and an instrument busted into tinder for the flames.
 
    He doesn’t know when Filavandrel enters, nor how the Witcher negotiates their release. He’s drowning; too caught up in please, please, please, and scrambling over to cradle the wood and snapped strings to his chest. Belatedly he notices Geralt is staring at him strangely, but he brings a snapped key to his lips and swallows thickly.
 
   The Devil of Posada kneels at his side, and it’s a strange feeling to find comfort in a creature who’s just shot and kidnapped you, but his face is empathetic, if you can believe it.
 
    Filavandrel offers him his lute.
 
    The bard stares dumbly at it until the Witcher nudges the white noise away with the toe of his boot, which stirs him to action. He grasps the instrument with shaking hands and, “Thank you, thank you, gods, thank you.” He must look as torn up as he feels, for Toruviel has the sense to look sorry, even if she doesn’t say as much. Geralt tells him later that it was the Devil— “Torque,” he says, “the Sylvan—“ who’d talked the king into giving his instrument to him. He even tolerates Jaskier’s questions for the most part, even if his answers are curt and very to-the-point, but it’s very much appreciated.
 
    He’s feeling much more himself the closer they get to town; his fingers cascade over the strings, the neck feels as if it was made to rest in his palms and there is a pleasant weight to the whole of it.
 
    “I have quite the song for you, Witcher—“
 
    The key sits like a stone in his pocket.