Yenna

An Ankle

Yenna is pretty out of it by the time they reach the next outpost of civilization. It's almost like following up running in the middle of the night with taking off again as soon as he stopped wasn't the best set of choices a kid could make. He gives her a shake as they approach the inn, expecting the smell of food and offer of supper to perk her up, but she doesn't react and when they stop at the counter she's swaying like she's going to fall asleep on top of it.

It makes Jaskier feel worse about spending the day pointedly eating the remaining pears in front of her but maybe now she'll finally understand that there's slightly more to her getting home than just doggedly walking in a direction and if she wants to live long enough to actually reach Gulet and her family she needs to stop running away from money and food and an adult who actually knows what he's doing.

So, room first. He orders a bunch of roasted potatoes as well, thinking maybe she'll wake up enough to eat later if she takes a nap now.

When they enter his eyes catch on the window and he takes a moment to point to it and tell Yenna that she will die if she jumps out. On the third repetition of this she nods, which doesn't really convince him she's hearing anything he's saying so Jaskier gets a rope and ties the shutters together. Hopefully that's enough of a complicated knot to discourage Yenna from making an even stupider decision than her other ones so far. She's currently trying and failing to remove her shoes so he figures she probably can't get up to too much trouble on her lonesome while Jaskier is downstairs.

Downstairs is a great improvement. The people there appreciate having Jaskier, famous bard and generally lovely, witty, charming person, around. Putting all of Sodden Hill into song is going to take a while but he's got some nice verses in the first draft already and once he's sufficiently entertained everyone with some of his well-polished existing repertoire the crowd is happy to take part in a bit of workshopping.

You see, there's just so much going on during the battle and so many different mages, and if maybe some parts aren't as clearly credited as others, well, that's hardly lying. Let's be real, there is no way she was there the whole time and then agreed to hold back and coordinate during the final battle, they either spent half the fight trying to convince her to help or she only showed up at the end and they're just saying otherwise to butter her up, so very possibly Jaskier's will end up the version that's closer to the truth.

Ugh, he could've gone his whole life without finding out that apparently even other sorceresses are scared of Yennefer. He thought she was just a terrifying freak by normal people standards.

He needs to make sure his newest masterpiece flows nicely and no one's getting confused and especially they're not getting confused in the sort of way where they mistakenly think there's any agenda in wholly artistic choices about ambiguity because he is so very attached to his penis and would like to stay that way forever. According to this test audience, what he's got so far is a rousing tale of numerous very heroic mages saving everyone. Some of them are even dead, Yennefer, and dead people get top billing and if you have a problem with that maybe you could've tried harder and gotten killed yourself.

"I heard Yennefer of Vengerberg was dead as well," says one of them, because apparently think of the devil and someone will bring her up. "The fifteenth death."

"Only fourteen mages died. The gods would never be so kind to me as to remove Yennefer from this world," Jaskier says. "Besides, my idiot friend bound their fates together. If it were anything serious Destiny would've ensured Geralt show up at the fight as well, yet no one around here saw hide nor hair of him - and I assure you, no one could miss either."

"The White Wolf!" a woman who's particularly drunk cheers, no doubt very proud she managed to follow the sentence well enough to work out what he meant, and Jaskier nods and replies, "The White Wolf indeed! Quite impossible to miss when he shows up."

Another man belches. "Bards. Of course you believe in fables, it's your trade."

"Ah, I myself once thought the same as you! Destiny, surely, was but yet another thing we made up in service of prettier songs. But if you'd seen what I have you'd know Destiny is very real and with the worst sense of humor. Yennefer is certainly still roaming the continent somewhere. Likely not even any worse for wear. If we're lucky, she got a taste for blood that last battle and headed south to find more poor Nilfgaardian bastards to burn, and neither of them will be our problem for some time."

Everyone's willing to drink to that fine future.

It's quite late when he goes back to the room. The pile of roasted potatoes looks the same as before, so he guesses she didn't wake up. Well, that's breakfast taken care of. Hopefully Yenna will at least have the sense to eat first if it's between her and the door out.

The next morning he finds her sitting on the floor by the bed. She's staring at the food, one leg stretched out suspiciously. As if, say, someone twisted an ankle and then spent the rest of the day walking on it and not saying anything.

"Go on, eat," he says, and goes to the window only to find that it's a lot harder to untie a knot than tie one. He spends a while cursing at it before finally sawing it off with a knife.

"That's wasteful," Yenna observes from the floor. He glances back to find she's suddenly learned manners and is painstakingly nibbling her way through the single potato half she took off the top.

She also hasn't stood up, just scooched across the floor so she can reach the plate on the table. "It's just some rope. How's the ankle?" he asks.

Yenna just stares at him.

"Yeah, I thought so. See, that's why we don't walk at night. And what possessed you to take off from a perfectly nice little village on a twisted ankle?"

She shoves the rest of the potato into her mouth and grabs two more chunks.

Ugh, kids. But in the light from the opened window her face is also the blotchy red of someone who's been crying.

"We'll stay here for the day or two so you can stay off your ankle," he says, watching the next piece disappear fast enough he expects her to choke. "See, rushing and bad decisions just make things take longer for everyone. If you want to actually make it home you need to behave better."

She swallows thickly, then manages, "You could leave me."

"You have done a just appalling job of convincing me to do that."

"How come?"

Jaskier is never really at a loss for words, but words that are not wholly insensitive is a significantly higher bar. He runs through a variety before settling on, "If I'd left you to your own devices you would be dead in a ditch by now."

The girl scowls. "I would not." Note to self: songs about dead idiot children apparently too subtle for the idiot children who most need the message. Maybe he should make some verses designed to let you drop in names of differing lengths, really include the audience in the song.

"Do you understand that food is not just a nice thing to have because it makes your stomach feel better but you would literally die without it?"

"I'm not stupid," Yenna says, which is easily the stupidest thing she's said so far. She then follows it up with another strong contender: "And you wouldn't get in trouble if I did die."

He informs her, "As it happens, I do not make decisions based on if I'll get in trouble with someone. I have decided that it would be morally wrong to leave you to discover if you'll manage to break your neck before you find a kikimora to eat you, because I have a responsibility to you as a fellow human being to help when you so obviously need it. You are welcome."

And apparently that finally gets through to her. She sags a little and drops her gaze to the floor. "Thank you. For helping me."

He beams. "There, that wasn't so hard. Now, let's see about that ankle."