Of Bards and Witchers

Eighteenth

Zoltan holds a scroll practically to Jaskier's nose- he's shaking something fierce, and with it being so close to his face he can hardly make anything out. He reaches out a hand-- Zoltan spins away fiercely, stomping across the floor.

   "How on this blasted Earth," the dwarf bellows, waving the parchment vigorously,  "do you manage something like this?"

    The minstrel smiles bemusedly at his friend's antics. "Well perhaps I could tell you if you'd allow me to read it," he says. "Careful not to tear it with your parading about."

    Zoltan seems not to have heard him, settling himself at the room's provided desk and spreading the scroll across it to read over it twice, thrice-- however many times he's read it before he'd arrived. Jaskier brings himself to the man's side and leans to get a look. Not a letter, obviously-- an official document, one scrawled with utmost care by a practiced scribe--

    "Oh," he breathes.

    His companion looks up. "Inheritance," he says.

    "By one Alonso Wiley--"

    "Whoreson Senior--"

    "Zoltan--"

    "Leaves to Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, bard Jaskier, the establishment known as Rosemary and Thyme--"

    "I'm an establishment owner?"

    "Brothel, specifically."

    "Oh ho ho!" The bard exclaims through his ear splitting grin, clasping his hands together as he practically bounces about the room. "And yet it can be so much more! Think of it, Zoltan--"

    The dwarf raises his brows. "Think of it? What will you do with it?"

    "We!" Jaskier rushes back over and clasps his hands over his friend's shoulders. "A tavern, of course. You and I, how about it?"

    "We?" the man echoes, incredulously. "A seasoned warrior, a bard, and a tavern."

    The bard nods vigorously.

    "Have you any idea how to run a tavern?" He inquires.

    "Not in the slightest."

    They peer back over to the parchment-- if it's possible the bard's smile widens. To own a Novigrad establishment by way of inheritance, simply for his bardic renown-- Zoltan shifts beneath his hands, folds his arms across his chest.

    "Well," the dwarf says, "I suppose--"

    Jaskier hardly hears him, already cackling and dancing about triumphantly. "We own a tavern! And it will be one of utmost prestige, undoubtedly!"

    "Melitele's tits, bard, rouse the whole Inn--"

    --

    Its been, well-- a while, since he's seen the Witcher so angry. Although maybe not angry, more confused, scared, uncertainty masquerading as anger. Not that he'd voice any of these things to the man as he broods in his seat before the fire.

    Jaskier leans against the bedpost; he shuffles for probably the hundredth time in what could only have been a few moments-- fiddles with his sleeves, the buttons of his doublet, his collar. He'd like to say something but he can't quite find the words.

    Sorry I inadvertently pegged you with a child, even if it was still, technically, completely your fault.

    You couldn't have known... Well--

     Who invokes the Law of Surprise as a joke? A man who doesn't believe in destiny. A man with humor as dry as twice burned ashes.

    He doesn't feel as if anything he might say will be taken well. The silence is killing him.

    "Some months before I met you," he says, "I found a pup just outside a village called Blackwater--"

    "Bard." Shut up.

    Sorry. I can't. "I named him Beastie, as he was scuffling around my boots so excitedly he'd almost tripped me up. Brought him to the local inn with, and it was there that I met the owner, lovely woman named Sara, scrubbing the bar with impossible vigor. I had not a copper to my name at the time-- well, I had a few. It was either a hot meal for myself and Beastie or a bed for the night, but of course I wasn't going to let the pup starve--"

    Geralt hums, so the bard perches himself at the end of the bed and turns his head to the window, content his companion is listening, to continue his tale.

    "It turns out I needn't have worried at all," he says, "for Sara, bless her heart, offered me a room and meal in turn for my services... I played my heart out that night, both by way of thanks and through desperately needing coin. She was so enamored with my performance that she offered me refuge, and I was so delighted that I reached across the counter and kissed her square on the mouth. And she backhanded me, hit me with a filthy rag. Made me sweep the tavern twice with this splinter-y, torturous broom.

    I stayed there... Well, I can't quite remember how long-- a week at the very least. Toward the end of my stay I found out not only was she widowed, but she was carrying. I was elated, and also devastated that she hadn't told me sooner-- more-so that I hadn't noticed. Afterward I spent days pouring over parchment to craft a lullaby specially for the child-- little cherub I called it, a divine babe born of a saint. Toiled over it. And she wept as I sang it. Her shoulders shook in the candlelight and I thought to myself-- This is what I've been running toward. I want the words that pass my lips to have purpose and meaning, to ignite eyes and move hearts, and to see it as it happens-- and should I drown in this feeling, I would do so gladly."

    The silence is kept at bay only by the crackling of the fire and faint murmurs of the patrons below. Jaskier holds himself-- not quite cold, but--

    "And the pup?" The Witcher asks.

    The question takes him by surprise, even more so when he turns to look and their eyes meet; he isn't sure when it had happened, but the man had turned to face him fully. In all their time together, he couldn't remember a single instance where Geralt asked him to continue. To have his full attention was almost as stifling as it was invigorating. The bard swallows.

    "Beastie," he says, lips lilting into a small smile. "The village folk fell in love with him within moments, it seemed like. Children snuck him scraps and patrons kneeled in the dirt to pet him. Sara kept him, it wasn't as if I could take him with me-- could you imagine if I had walked up to you that day in Posada with a dog at my heels?"