Chapter Text
It starts with a drowned baby. It is, sadly, not an unfamiliar story. An affair entered into against the wishes of a father, a girl much too young trying to hide her growing belly under her winter woolens, and then the sharp, high pitched scream of a baby boy as he is torn from his mother's arms, still covered in blood, his umbilical cord barely tied.
His grandfather takes him down to the river that begins in the hills surrounding the village. A village so tiny it does not appear on any map. The wailing infant is tossed unceremoniously into a sack before it is plunged into the river, a fast current carrying it out of sight. The baby boy screams for his mother, for any mother, before the water seeps through the roughly woven cloth and enters his tiny lungs.
Far, far away, one mother does hear his cut-off cries. She reaches out her long arms, arms that can stretch all the way from Cintra and Verden in the west to the Blue Mountains in the east, and scoops up the babe and brings him close to her heart.
Mama Yaruga cradles her newest child to her breast, cooing softly and stroking an elegant finger down his tiny nose. The infant’s cold skin warms against her own and eyes that were supposed to be forever closed open wide. The water disappears from his lungs and he lets out a gurgle.
She knows which of her many tributary rivers he has come from and can see clearly the place where he was thrown in (a steep river bank covered in green grass dotted with yellow flowers). She names him appropriately.
Jaskier Pankratz, the new god of the Pankratz River and the youngest of Mama Yaruga's many children.
***
Little Jaskier grows up in Cintra in a big house by the docks, surrounded by his many siblings, though none live permanently with him and Mama. They are older and tend to stick to their own rivers, though they must all come back to Mama's court at Beltane to pay her tribute. Even other, unrelated Rivers come to Mama's court and pay their respects, for she is the largest river in the Northern Kingdoms and her power is vast and unpredictable. When Jaskier is small, Old Father Pontar sometimes comes to visit and he dangles Jaskier on his knee while telling him stories of the floods Mama inflicts on the lands of those who do not show her proper regard.
“We are Rivers, little Jaskier,” he tells the small god who has the tails of his moustache wrapped in each tiny hand. “We can give much, but we can also destroy. Give and take, that is the balance of our relationship with the world. It is a fool who tries to take from us without paying a fair price for what they receive. Respect a River and we can give much in return.” He winces as Jaskier tugs sharply on his moustache and Mama laughs at them from her throne.
When he is older, Mama sends Jaskier off to school. He is one of her envoys in the world and she will not have him disgracing her with ignorance. He cries when she tells him he is going away and Old Father Pontar steps in and suggests that Mama send him to Oxenfurt, right on Father's doorstep.
“I can keep an eye on him,” the old man tells her fondly. “And he will feel right at home with myself and my children so you need not worry about him offending one of those pretentious Rivers down south.”
Mama has an ongoing feud with Sansretour, who runs through Toussaint, and does not require much persuading. When the time comes to leave, Jaskier dutifully kisses his mother goodbye and promises to return soon.
“No my little Buttercup, not too soon,” Mama smooths the hair back from his forehead and peppers kisses over his face. “You must grow up and go out to experience the world like your brothers and sisters did before you. Do not be in a hurry to return too quickly.”
Jaskier cannot imagine why he would not hurry back to her, but when he gets to Oxenfurt he begins to understand. Life in Mama's house is filled with love but not much life. Few humans can withstand Mama's presence for long without losing themselves in worship of her, and so Jaskier has had little experience of them. For the first time in his fourteen years, he fully enters the human world and, like so many of his siblings, he falls in love.
There are many things he loves about humanity. The clothes, the food, the conversation. The way humans can be so consistent and yet so fickle all at the same time. But it is the stories they create that really intrigue him. Stories of gods and monsters and yet they cannot tell that a god sits at their table, drinks their wine and breaks bread with them. Shortly after the stories comes music, and any hope Mama may have had for Jaskier acquiring a respectable profession (his sister Ina is a healer and one of Mama's favourites) is dashed the instant his music professor strums the first chords on her lute.
Jaskier has never heard anything so magical. Not even Mama in her full goddess splendour can sound as sweet and as powerful as Professor Morden when she plays a simple little ditty for her students. Jaskier is lost and willingly surrenders himself to a love affair he knows will last his entire, vast lifetime.
There is no dissuading him from his chosen path when he graduates, despite numerous attempts by his siblings. Mama and Father are unable to attend the ceremony, their presence too much for mortals, but each sends a representative and Jaskier smirks as he is awarded the highest honours Oxenfurt Academy can bestow in front of Ina; she may have a career Mama approves of, but even she cannot claim this achievement. Embla, one of the Old Father’s daughters, shakes her head at him in amusement as they contemplate Ina's sour-looking face over a glass of wine in The Alchemist once the formalities are over.
Their presence is causing quite a stir.
By himself, Jaskier is no stranger to the free drinks patrons decide on a whim to send his way, and takes for granted how a table will be cleared for him and his companions the moment he enters an establishment. Ordinary folk may not consciously know what he is, but that small, hidden part of their brain that remembers what it was like centuries earlier (before they learnt to build town walls and forge steel swords to keep the predators at bay) has not forgotten. That part of the brain still recognises the fickle, unharnessed power that is Jaskier and it aims to please.
On his own, Jaskier can sway a couple of young lasses to throw their drinks in each other's faces as they compete for the prize of bedding him - quite often he will solve this by suggesting both come back to his room. With three Rivers present, a brawl breaks out as they lounge on the best seats, the ones the innkeeper had his sons carry down from his private rooms, as both men and women bite and scratch their way to the bar to buy the gods their next drink.
“You must be careful,” Ina admonishes. She often complains that Mama was too soft on him, letting him off with a stern look when his older brother and sisters would have been turned over her knee. Jaskier suspects it's because Mama now has his older siblings to turn him over their knees and so sees no need to do it herself.
Jaskier is already beginning to tune her out. When Ina gets to lecturing, she tends to carry on at great length and find ways to include his many (in her eyes) failings. He catches sight of a handsome lad who has been staring at him from a corner for most of the night, and Jaskier flashes a grin that is really a promise in the young man's direction.
Ina raps his knuckles sharply. “You need to pay attention,” she snaps and Jaskier glowers at her.
“What Ina is trying to explain,” Embla steps in smoothly, defusing the tension, “is that you'll need to work on how you balance yourself. Don’t show too much of yourself to the humans. Older and wiser Rivers than you have been imprisoned and killed by scared mobs and power-hungry mages. Avoid sorcerers whenever possible, though druids are usually alright. They respect the natural order of the world at least.”
Jaskier knows that Embla has some kind of weird relationship with a Skellige druid. He’d come to the Continent seeking 'Ancient Truths' according to Old Father Pontar and discovered Embla instead. Twenty years later and he has yet to return to Skellige, having not moved from the hut he’d built on her shores. Every sunrise he walks down from his home and into her waters and screams his adoration of her to the heavens. Jaskier does not understand this at all, but Embla seems happy.
“However, you must never try to convince yourself that you're human either,” Embla continues. “Let that power build up, and it will overflow. Before you know it, half of Aerdin will be underwater. The trick is to control the flow. A constant, steady trickle is what’s needed and you'll never find yourself without a room at an inn or a hot meal in your belly.”
A short while later he bids his two companions farewell and meanders slowly back to his rooms. The handsome lad from The Alchemist is waiting at his door and they trade kisses as Jaskier fishes out his key to let them in. What better way to spend his last night in Oxenfurt?
A travelling bard must start somewhere and the following day he will set off with his lute to begin his adventure. He plans to head north east, a pilgrimage of sorts, to the Blue Mountains where his Mother began. From there, who knows?