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Chapter Text

The sky had been clear and seas fair for the better part of a month, but the days were getting colder. A northern wind caused men’s lungs to ache and their nights were filled with the sound of congested breathing and mumbled complaints as the crew huddled in their hammocks.

Jaskier couldn’t help but feel the keen absence of trees and their bright autumn colours. He had lived in Nilfgaard as a spy for the north for nearly a decade and every year he had enjoyed the amazing burnt coloured leaves that brought the otherwise drab country to life. The beauty of nature contrasted the Nilfgaardian people who always seemed to favour muted blues, greys and browns.

The most colourful piece of clothing Jaskier owned at sea was a navy blue cloak with light grey lapels, which almost looked like an officers jacket if not for the lack of brocade or embellishments. The other sailors threw him mocking salutes, behind the officer’s back of course, but Jaskier knew they were just jealous of how warm he was on deck.

He’d been placed on his hands and knees for the forenoon shift as he scrubbed the deck clean. A chilling sea spray hit the back of his neck, whipped up and spurred by the wind. They had come across a Redanian ship during the night and although they had won the confrontation, evidence of their losses stained the deck like rust on wood.

While he had never been too precious about manual labour, Jaskier had never done anything quite as consistently taxing as being a crewman aboard a ship. Even after several years aboard various Nilfgaardian vessels he was still surprised at how consistently tired he felt.

He also hadn’t felt clean or dry since setting foot on deck. His skin felt itchy and his hair managed to be both too oily and too dry. He missed fresh fruits and vegetables, and clothes that weren’t roughened from salt water.

Not to mention that being at sea strained his chaos, the thrum of his magic pushing against his eyes like a headache that wouldn’t fully manifest. His magic, he knew, came from not being entirely human and was somehow tied to nature, so it made sense to him that being away from land would feel unnatural. It was, however, easy to ignore.

The worst part of being on a ship, Jaskier had long since learned, was that there was no privacy. If he’d brought so much as a manicure kit or a book that wasn’t the Great Sun teachings, it would be confiscated immediately and, although there were spaces on the ship where one could go to be alone, word of private excursions always got around. Scuttlebutt was unforgiving and indiscriminating.

In that way, it wasn’t too different from the noble households he had grown up in. In his youth he’d frequently run away from his nanny to spend time in the kitchens with servants, where gossiping was treated like a championship sport.

‘Julek, lad.’

Jaskier turned at the call.

‘Aye, sir?’

‘Captain Van Eldand wishes to speak to you.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

He hoisted himself up off the deck, joints giving a slight protest, and rolled his shoulders as he straightened. A few dark curls had fallen from their tie at the nape of his neck and he fiddled for a moment with the rough texture before tucking it behind his ear.

On this particular ship, the Deith’Adan, Jaskier had taken the guise of seventeen year old Julek. He had a small disguise charm tucked into the folds of his shirt that masked his natural hair and toned his skin, while he took advantage of his non-human ancestry to keep his face young and age indeterminate. The main part of his persona, however, came from his performance and attention to detail.

Despite having been on several ships before, Jaskier found he just did not have the mind for sailing as he was more of an academic than a hands on learner, which was a key part in being Julek.

New ship’s boys were usually just gone eleven years old, but, after his father had died, Julek’s uncle called in some favours and he’d been forced aboard a ship to ‘make him a man’. It helped sell his lack of seafaring knowledge and soften him up with Captain Van Eldand.

He moved around the bustle of the crew loading cargo and headed towards the captain’s cabin. He returned a few friendly nods from the sailors and ignored the officers who glanced at him with masked disdain. Their attitudes, he knew, were mostly born from the belief that a lack of sailing experience at Julek’s age made him useless.

But it didn’t matter, as there was no suspicion behind it, and his identity remained safe.

He knocked on the captain’s door and waited for an affirmative noise from the other side before slipping through the doors and into the interior of room, which was stubbornly trying to be warm by the few lit candles.

Captain Van Eldand wore the same black, tan and gold brocaded uniform as all officers, but his hair was cropped shorter than the other lieutenants, dark and curling around his ears. He was one of the younger captains in the navy, but had perpetual crows feet from squinting at sun and papers.

Jaskier quite liked him. Van Eldand kept a stern front, and only ever smiled with his eyes. He was also quite handsome and if Jaskier didn’t feel so awkward laying with someone who thought he was seventeen, it was probably something he would have perused.

Yet he couldn’t resist throwing the captain the occasional flirty smile or accidentally brushing up against him. Nilfgaard was much less understanding about same sex dalliances than the northern countries, and Jaskier had found that bringing a little guilt-ridden comfort was the best way to let into someone’s confidence.

‘You wanted to see me, Captain?’

‘Indeed I did.’ Van Eldand rose from his desk as his eyes softened and stance relaxed. He moved to sit at a bench seat nailed to the wall and Julek moved to sit next to him, their knees lightly touching in a way that was scandalously informal for their ranks.

‘Mister Divar informs me that you speak some Common, is he correct in saying that?’

‘Aye, sir, a little.’ Julek’s family were sheep farmers and wool merchants, who knew that speaking Common was good for business.

‘I thought as much. We’ve taken several prisoners from the ship last night, but they were transporting a passenger, and it’s vitally important that we find out what she knows.’

Julek’s eyes widened and he nodded, radiating curiosity and surprise.

Jaskier knew the Deith’Adan had been sent to intercept a northern vessel carrying a passenger, it was why he had been ordered by his superiors to infiltrate the crew. However, this ship was not a sanctioned northern ship, and Redanian intelligence had no idea who was on that ship or why she was being smuggled out of the north.

‘We’re holding her in the brig for now, away from the other northerners. She’s a guest, not a prisoner, but not one we wish to wander. I was hoping you could make sure she’s comfortable.’

He touched Julek’s arm.

‘In a week, we will be rendezvousing with Captain Ceallach’s ship where we are to hand her over so that they can deliver her to the Emperor and we can continue west. It is … not required, but I suspect it will be in our best interest to find out what she knows.’

‘I don’t know if I know enough Common to interrogate her, sir, but I can try.’

‘Not an interrogation, just try to gain her trust.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

‘I appreciate this, Julek. Mister Divar has been setting up the brig to make it more accommodating for the young lady and they should be moving her in now.’

Captain Van Eldand rose from the bench and stepped back to his desk. Jaskier tracked his movements as he shuffled a sheet of paper under some others before straightening the understated, but gaudy by Nilfgaardian standards, captain’s jacket.

‘Shall we?’

Jaskier gave a submissive nod and filed the paperwork away as something to consider later. He took a moment to pull his coat tight while the captain lead them out of the quarters and out into the battering winds.

Anxiety fizzled in Jaskier’s veins as he considered the opportunity in front of him. He was tired, completely over being at sea, and this young girl was his ticket back to dry land. He just had to gain her trust, and report enough information back to his Redanian commander to perhaps convince him that Jaskier needed to follow her into the palace.

The intelligence had suggested the passenger was most likely a Nilfgaardian spy, who smuggled themselves out of the north to bring information back. However, there was also the chance she was wanting to defect to Nilfgaard, or had been sent by her parents with information she could trade for safety.

The spy was the more likely of the two options, even if she was young. Jaskier doubted they would send a ship, let alone two, just to pick up a potential Redanian ally.

Captain Van Eldand descended the laddered stairs and Jaskier took a moment to retie his hair with the strip of faded black cloth and shake some water from around the neck of his coat.

Below deck was always stifling, even in chilling weather. The warmth of bodies in a cramped and practically non-ventilated area made the air thick enough to cling to Jaskier’s clothes. He could also smell Divar, the boatswain and the longest serving seaman on the ship, who kept dried mint on him as a way of protecting himself from flees and lice.

The older sailor was carrying a chair in one hand and a few books in the other, heading through the forecastle towards the brig on the lower decks, while the rest of the present crew stood from their benches as the captain passed. Jaskier spotted a few of the younger crew and gave an approving nod, as if their ovation was actually for him. There were a few smothered giggles that the captain must have also heard, even though he proceeded as if he hadn’t.

Divar trailed them down another layer into the hold and rounded a makeshift wall of crates and barrels that shielded the cell from the entrance. Two lieutenants, Atrol and Markit, were blocking a small figure in the corner of the cell, keeping her away from the open cell door.

Jaskier couldn’t see much of her, just a thin cloak in deep purple blue and hair like frayed Hessian rope.

Once his hands were free, Divar moved from the cell to stand by Julek and placed a hand on his shoulder.

The lieutenants unshackled the girl and locked the cage door behind them. The captain gave them a dismissive nod and waited until Atrol, Markit and Divar had left the room before he stepped forward towards the cell and gestured for Julek to also step forward.

‘Welcome aboard The Dancing Flame.’ the captain’s Common was heavily accented and stiffly formal, but confident. ‘Do you know why you are here?’

The girl twitched her head away from them, and took a step to take some cover behind the hammock that had been hung for her.

‘I am Captain Edward Van Eldand, and I will be insuring your safe voyage to Nilfgaard, where you will be delivered directly to Emperor Emhyr var Emreis. You will be safe aboard this vessel, provided you behave in a manner that is conductive to this. For your aid, I present Julek.’

The captain turned, his elaborately brocaded coat swished around his narrow waist, and spoke to Jaskier in Nilfgaardian.

‘If she says anything about her identity or why she’s here, you are to report it to me. They’ll be guards outside the door if anything happens so if you need to leave then one of the guards outside will take your place as guardian. She isn’t to be left alone.’

‘Aye, sir.’

The captain hesitated for a moment before he rested a hand in the same place that Divar’s had been before giving a sharp turn and leaving the spy with the captured girl.

Green eyes looked at him between dirtied blonde curtains as she watched what he would do next. Jaskier, with his unnaturally brown eyes, watched back.

Chapter Text

Jaskier shuffled one of the crates against the wall so he could perch and watch the girl with a reasonable space between them. She was tracking his movements like a scared animal, her green eyes wide and barely blinking, and had positioned herself behind her hammock.

She looked to be about thirteen, with delicate features and smooth pale skin. If she was a Nilfgaardian spy, then she must be north born or be disguised by a chaos charm. Seeing her face, regardless of whether it was her natural one or not, made him ache for home and the people from his life before he had been recruited and sent south .

There was a bruise healing across her right cheekbone, and her lips were chapped to the point of splitting. She’d clearly had a rough time of it and the anger and resignation in her eyes gripped his heart. Whether she was a spy, defector or just a random girl on a boat, he was going to make sure she was treated well. She was far too young to look that scared and resigned.

J ulek’s Common hadn’t been taught formally, he had been taught by his father and his merchant friends. His speech was clipped and muddled by a Nilfgaardian accent, but not so much so that he was hard to understand.

‘I am Julek. Are you hungry? I can get food. What is your name?’

He laid on the youthful exuberance a little thick and she blinked at the barrage of questions and kindness. He didn’t smile, but some tension bled from her posture.

‘C-Cirilla… Ciri.’

‘Are you hungry, Cirilla?’

He could taste his chaos on the back of his tongue, jasmine and Toussaint orange, that was conjured by speaking her name. There wasn’t much he could do with he name without his music to properly channel his powers.

Julek smiled at her, bright and confident, before he rounded the corner of crates and moved towards the steps. He instructed one of the guards outside to go to the galley, not wanting to leave her alone so soon, and bring back some of the captain’s breakfast for Cirilla

‘Cook will know what to her.’ he reassured with a wink, ‘and feel free to take one for yourself.’

The guard looked confused but gave a quick nod before setting off.

Because he wasn’t the most experienced on deck, Julek spent a fair amount of time in the galley with the cook, and had made a few special treats that were a touch more decadent than the average ship’s fare. Although he didn’t have his sisters penchant for weaving chaos into food, he enjoyed any time he could spend cooking or baking.

It was very likely that Ciri hadn’t been allowed to wash or eat regularly on the other ship. However, she did seen despondent enough that perhaps she had given the option, but chosen not to eat or wash.

He waited in the doorway, bouncing on the balls of his feet. There were a few shuffling sounds from the room behind him, most likely Ciri taking the time to explore the books and papers in her cell while his eyes weren’t on her.

When Julek returned into Ciri’s room with a bowl of pastries, Jaskier hummed to both announce his presence and wrap a little of his chaos around her. As his vocal chords and power vibrated, he could feel the fear bubbling around her, grief and confusion, and small sparks of indignant anger.

With the all the influence he could put into a soft hum, which admittedly wasn’t much, he tried to calm all the emotions his music could touch.

She was now sitting at the desk as she flicked through pages of the books, seemingly without focus, but her gaze snapped to the plate of food and she took her bottom lip into her mouth.

‘This is for you,’ he passed it through the bars, ‘they’re very sweet.’

She stood, but only came close enough to grab the bowl with her arm fully extended before she pulled it to her chest protectively. She tore the pastries in half so that the flaky layers parted to reveal the gooey molasses-soaked centre.

‘Thank you.’

Jaskier watched the familiar way she quickly brought the pieces to her mouth, but waited until she had finished chewing the previous piece before moving on to the next. He recognised the behaviour as an indication that she had been brought up with strict etiquette, one which prevented her from shoving the whole thing into her mouth, even though it was clear she wanted to do exactly that.

He settled down on the ground and leant his back against a crate. ‘When did you last eat?’.

Ciri paused, shame fluttering over her face as she placed the last bit of pastry down on the plate. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a few days.’

‘No, no. There is no judgement. Please eat. I made them, and it’s good to see you enjoy.’ He gave her a warm smile and shrugged off his woollen jacket and held it out through the bars. ‘Here. You need it more than me.’

She shifted but turned her eyes down to her thin cloak .

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

Jaskier frowned and laid the coat down on the floor on the inside of the cell. Maybe something happened on the other ship to make her particularly skittish beyond the typical distrust of captors.

‘You remind me of my little sister. She would not accept help from anyone either. She is very strong. My mother thought it improper, but my father was very proud...’

As Julek spoke, Ciri settled herself into the hammock. H e filled the silence talk ing about his younger sister, how she would help she a r sheep at their uncle’s farm and come home covered in mud and hay, which caused their mother to shriek and fuss.

S ome parts of what Julek said were true of Jaskier’s sister, although he couldn’t remember what details were invented from imagination or memory .

‘… and in my clothes, everyone thought she was a boy. She had so much fun running around the markets with my cousins.’

She gave a sleepy giggle. ‘I used to dress up as a boy and play knucklebones in the street. It was fun.’

‘Oh, we play that here too, but not with bone! Maybe we can play tomorrow and you will see then.’

‘That’d be nice.’ she mumbled and curled her thin cloak around herself as she drifted away.

*** *** *** *** ***

For the first few nights on board, Ciri would jolt awake at the slightest movement or noise. Jaskier did his best to make her feel as though she was safe, and was always there throughout the night when she woke from whatever demons plagued her dreams. Whenever he had to leave, to relieve himself or such, he would always tell her where he was going, how long it would be, and introduce her to whichever guard would be watching her while he was gone.

It seemed that she was starting to believe he wouldn’t allow anyone to harm her, and had even tried to engage some of the guards in small talk, unsuccessfully as they didn’t speak common, but it left Jaskier proud.

The day after she arrived he had brought her a small bag from the mess. She had tipped its contents into her hand with wide eyes and thumbed the coloured pebbles amongst the small shells.

‘I’ve never seen gems like these.’

‘They’re sea glass. I borrowed them from a crew member. Tougher than regular glass, perfect for playing knuckles with, and less pointier shells.’

She had stared at the pieces of glass in her palm. The silence stretched just long enough to make Jaskier uncomfortable, but then she had looked up at him with a wide genuine smile. Her eyes shimmered, but refused to let tears fall.

They spent the following days following knuckles, as she didn’t have the energy to do much else. The books they’d given her to read were a religious text of The Great Sun and a history of Nilfgaard’s politics, both written in a language Ciri could neither read nor speak.

Julek couldn’t read them to her, as he couldn’t read any language, which was fortunate because Jaskier would rather have been keelhauled than read them again. So they ignored the books and instead told old folk tales to each other, sometimes drawing pictures with the paper and graphite she’d been given.

The accuracy of her drawings showed more than just an average knowledge of biology and architecture. She had drawn a group of horses and a large island castle with detail that indicated she had grown up around both. Jaskier had already thought she was a noble from the way she spoke and carried herself, but he suspected that she was perhaps closer to royalty than his own viscount title.

From the folk tales they’d told, Jaskier believed he almost had her home pinpointed. She knew a wider range of mythologies than he’d expected, including some traditional Skelligan stories. He did, however, notice a disturbingly pro-human colour to most of the tales she had been told.

Three days before the planned rendezvous with Captain Ceallach, Julek stuck his head out of the brig and asked one of the guards to fetch Divar. It didn’t take long for the old man to appear, holding two bowls and balancing a plate of ship’s biscuits on his forearm

‘Ciri, I’m going to go have dinner with the captain and it may take the night. This is Divar, he is going to be watching you while I’m gone.’

Divar smiled at her with his remaining teeth and handed one of the bowls through the bars before turning to Julek,‘The biscuits aren’t as nice as yers, but I picked the softest ones for ‘er.’

‘Thanks, Divar. I appreciate it.’

‘Go on, lad, best not keep the captain waiting.’

Julek waved goodbye to Ciri, who held the bowl close while she frowned and tried to make sense of the Nilfgaardian exchange.

He despaired to find that the weather above deck had gotten worse than the last time he had set foot on the boards. As he made his way to the captain’s quarters he slipped on thick icy sludge several times and had to right himself on the railing. There were a large amount of crew preparing the deck for an oncoming storm, and Jaskier was happy to see the sails secured so that the majority of the younger crewmen had already descended from the ropes.

He took shelter under the eve and clutched his summer coat around himself for warmth while he bounced on the balls of his feet and knocked on the captain’s door.

Rather than being summoned inside, Captain Van Eldand opened the door for him and stood to the side to allow Julek in. There was a formal dining area for officers and visitors, but for one-on-one dinners with officers, or Julek, he preferred to clear one of the tables in his quarters and dine there.

The cold was doing it’s best to penetrate the room, but was being subdued by the smell of cooling stew and warm bread. Jaskier didn’t realise how much he was shivering until the jingling weight of a captain’s jacket was placed around his shoulders.

‘That’s better, and it suits you if I may say so myself.’

‘Thank you, sir, but it’ll get wet.’

‘As long as you’re warm.’ Van Eldand gestured to the table, ‘Please, sit.’

Jaskier sat at the table and restrained from digging into the food until the captain had settles and begun to eat. He had been giving Ciri part of his share each day, and his body was singing for a full, warm meal. The bread was old, but warmed enough that it didn’t matter, a privileged the crew didn’t get, and noticed that the captain left most of the slices for him.

When they were sated, the captain rose and poured wine for them both. On a ship, seventeen was well above drinking age.

‘Has our guest been doing better?’

‘Yes, sir. She hasn’t spoken much, and is sleeping a lot, but I feel she’s relaxing.’

‘Good. It was disconcerting to see someone so young, so still. The men tell me you’ve introduced her to them as Cirilla. Have you found anything else out from her apart from her given name?’

Jaskier took a breath. He had debated how much to tell the captain, but if he presented his suspicions as fact then his reaction could tell him something invaluable.

‘Yes sir. I believe she’s the Last Royal of Cintra.’

Van Eldand paused, the rim of his cup grazing his lips. ‘Queen Calanthe’s grandchild?’ He set the glass down untouched, nearly allowing it to spill as the ship lurched. ‘Are you certain? She does have a resemblance, but there’s no record of who the last royal is, not even whether they’re a female child or male.’

‘It’s just a theory, sir, she hasn’t said so explicitly.’

He sighed heavily. ‘Well, it would explain the emperor’s urgency.’ He tapped his fingers on the desk while Julek waited patiently. The captain’s eyes flashed with deep worry and his posture shifted minutely into something more tired and vulnerable that Jaskier couldn’t help but be drawn towards.

‘They are desperate to get her onto Nilfgaardian soil. We’ve received a raven from Captain Ceallach to change course so that we may rendezvous tomorrow, rather than at our previously agreed upon date and time. As such,’ He grabbed for the wine, ‘We’ll be sailing into witcher territory.’

The spy choked, ‘What?’

‘The captain is concerned there may be a Temarian vessel tailing his course, and believes that they will be too afraid to follow him into mutant waters.’

Jaskier gripped the captain’s coat tighter around him as his mind spun through everything he knew about witchers and the chaos purge, when everything non-human was driven from the continent. There weren’t many official records of witchers, of what they were and could do, but they were one of the few monsters who had been banished rather than exterminated.

To put an entire ship, two ships, at risk of crossing a witcher crew was madness. Even if Cirilla was the lost royal of Cintra, Jaskier couldn’t imagine why they were going to such lengths to keep her out of Temarian hands.

‘And we’re not too afraid?’

Van Eldand huffed a tired laugh through his nose. ‘I’m terrified, Julek, I’ve seen a witcher ship before and it… well, I wouldn’t wish an encounter on Radovid himself. Hopefully the men’s duty will prevail over their fears. There are so few witcher ships, the likelihood of running into one is minimal.’

Julek forced himself to breath around the rising uncertainty.

‘I hope so, sir.’

Chapter Text

Ciri seemed to get along well with Divar. Jaskier had returned to the cells to find them going through some of her pictures, using the images to repeat back and forth the Nilfgaardian and Common words for what she had drawn. There was an excited light in her eyes, and she was more animated and energetic than he’d seen her so far.

‘ Løve . Katte .’ The word s rolled awkwardly off her tongue, but Divar gave her a bright smile. He saw the pictures they had between them were one that Ciri had drawn of a lioness curled on a large pillow, and one Julek had drawn of a cat licking its own behind.

‘ Having fun without me?’ He spoke in common to have Ciri’s excited green eyes turn to him.

‘Divar’s teaching me Nilfgaardian.’ She preened, ‘and I’m teaching him common.’

‘ That’s great!’ Jaskier replied, then turned and smirked at the older man. ‘She says she’s teaching you common, Divar. Plan on wooing some northern ladies with your wit?’

He snorted and hoisted himself of the floor, ‘Jus’ something to preoccupy time.’

Once he was straight, or a straight as a man who had spent his live beneath deck could stand, he gave a polite bow to Ciri, who stood in turn and gave a small but very awkward bow.

‘ I assume yer know where we’re headin’? ’

‘The captain said we’re going into Witcher territory.’

‘Aye, lad. You e’er been in mutant waters before?’

He looked over to Ciri, who had retreated back into her hammock to watch them. She was staring, clearly trying to decipher the conversation from context cues, but didn’t look as scared as she used to when Nilfgaardian was spoken around her .

‘I haven’t. I’ve heard stories, but I don’t know which ones are true or not.’

Divar took a step towards Julek and put a hand on his shoulder as he passed.

‘Lot’s of stories ‘round, but what yer need to know is witchers can hear a guppy on the horizon, so they’ll be silencing all an’ the bells once we get close. No talkin’ on deck, an no lights ‘cause they can see clear as day. You should go an’ play, the boys ‘ave missed your music and will be making a loud night of it ‘fore we ‘have to quiet up. I can watch the girl, ‘long as you promise to play loud enough for us to hear it down ‘ere.’

Despite the unease at leaving Ciri again so soon, he couldn’t keep the smile from pulling on his lips. It had been over a week since he’d played and he did miss the rush. The timing was perfect for it too, as the ship could use a little of his musical talents before they sailed into a tense situation.

He glanced to Ciri and worried his bottom lip.

‘She’ll be fine, lad.’

‘I know.’ He switched to stilted common. ‘Ciri, would you be okay with Divar staying here for the rest of the night?’

‘Why, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, Løve. I am a world famous bard, and my presence has been requested at a party tonight.’ He gave a flourish and an elaborate bow, too sloppy to be Nilfgaardian or northern in form.

She gave a little giggle at the nickname, but raised an eyebrow at the antics. ‘I’m not a baby, Julek. I know something’s wrong. Are they coming for me? Are you going to let them take me away?’

He held up a hand. ‘It’ll be fine. You’re safe. We are about to sail into dangerous waters, and the men need to release some tension before we do. You’ll be able to hear me play my fiddle from down here, so any requests?’

She shrugged, ‘Something happy?’

‘Of course! I am sure there’ll be requests for some dirty songs too, so try not to listen too closely to those, okay?’

‘No promises’

*** *** *** *** ***

As Jaskier played he could the emotions of everyone in the room and, although the predominant feelings were variations of primal fear, there was an undercurrent of excited anticipation from the younger sailors. He did his best to infuse his music with as much chaos as he could so that his fiddle could syphon the anxiety and fear out of the room. He drained the negative swirl from the room so that everyone could, at least, have a good nights sleep, and made sure to play loud enough that Ciri and Divar could hear in the brig.

The crew was circling through the galley as the watches changed. When the sober men came down, cold, sore and tense, he played some hymns and some complicated traditional pieces on his fiddle until they had finished their meals. By the time they’d finished eating and were onto the spirit rations they started requesting more upbeat shanties and some bawdy drinking songs.

By the third round of crew coming off watch, and the third round of When the Ladies go Down South, Jaskier found his throat dry and a dull throb building behind his eyes as his chaos reserves waned. But he was still buzzing with the adrenaline of performing, feeding off the attention an enthusiasm of his audience. As much as he hated being trapped aboard a ship, he had never played for a more appreciative and energetic audience than a ships’s crew missing home.

‘Come play a game with us, Julek. Give the strings a rest.’

Talis waved Julek over to their table. He was a bit younger than Jaskier’s age, and when they had spare time together Julek had been teaching him how to play the fife. They didn’t socialise much on deck, as Talis was one of the best in the rigging and spent most of his days there, but on the rare occasions they had time in the galley together Jaskier quite enjoyed his company.

Julek grinned and swirled his hand at some of the men who had been singing along enthusiastically off key. They picked up the song, putting far too many ‘fucks’ in the lyrics to maintain the metre, and kept the mood of the room lifted as Jaskier took a far too elaborate bow and stepped down from the bench seat.

Talis and a couple others were playing ship’s gwent, which only resembled actual gwent in that it used the same cards. As soon as Julek sat and put the fiddle aside he was handed a Nilfgaardian Empire deck, the only type permitted on the ship, and two dice.

‘We’re going double,’ one of the two midshipmen at the table told him, ‘No point in playing it safe tonight.’

Talis gave a subtle eyeroll to Julek, but smiled and produced two florens from inside his jacket. ‘That’s all I’ve got, sir. One for the silver sword, one for the steel. ’

Talis definitely had more than two coins stashed about his person. Although he respected everyone’s property on the ship, he’d confessed to Julek that he was an excellent pick-pocket on land, and something of a kleptomaniac.

Jaskier reached down to his left boot to hide the smile that pulled at his lips and retrieve three of the coins he kept there.

‘So, do they actually have two swords then?’ He asked, shielding the question behind wide naive eyes.

‘Nuh, it’s dicks they’ve got two of.’ Talis flicked through his deck of cards, not flinching as a midshipman clipped him up the head.

‘They’ve got two.’ One of the midshipmen, Ofire, clarified. ‘Swords, not dicks. I’ve never seen them in action, but I know there’s two and I’ve seen them wearing them on their backs, which is highly impractical. I’m surprised they’re not all dangling from the rigging.’

They took a moment to play some cards face down before Talis spoke up. ‘So you’ve seen one then.’

Ofire took a breath and rolled his dice. ‘Aye. First time out from port and we came across a witcher ship sailing from Skellige-’

‘Skellige isn’t in witcher territory.’

‘-and there was a small merchant ship, in Skellige, a fair way off from the witchers. The mutants dropped from their ship into the water, swords on their backs, then I saw them climb up the side of the merchant ship. It was dead quiet until the merchant ship just exploded, split and de-masted. Thought the witchers had fired on them, but they didn’t have any cannons run out.’

He picked up his tin mug to have a mouthful of spirits.

Talis rolled his eyes. ‘And?’

‘And we put the wind to our backs.’ he snapped, ‘Hail the Great Sun, they didn’t follow.’

Jaskier frowned and leant back from the table, trying to fit the story into what little he knew of witchers from the Oxenfurt library. They did have access to some weak chaos, mostly combat types, so that may have been what had happened.

It was frustrating how little information was available about witchers. He didn’t mind improvisation, it was the bread and butter of undercover spy work, but going into a situation without much information and preparation made him feel ill.

He had some formal training with a sword, even though he preferred more subtle weapons like a dagger or poison, but had no idea how to parry someone wielding two swords. If they got into the hold then Ciri was a sitting duck, locked in a cell with no weapons and no way to run.

Julek could give her his dagger, but he’d need something to replace it. If the witchers killed him, then he wouldn’t be able to protect her. And something might happen to his sisters. He had an agreement with Dijkstra for their protection as long as he served, but if he was killed then there was only the other man’s word to uphold their contract.

‘Julek.’

Talis had placed a hand on Julek’s shoulder and was looking at him with concern. Jaskier realised that it was his turn to roll the dice and play a card, but instead he had been gripping the edge of the table with shaking hands and staring at the wood.

‘Apologies. Just lost in thought.’

‘Here,’ A cup of spirits was pressed into Julek’s chest, forcing him to bring his hands up to avoid getting drenched. ‘Let’s go topside for a moment, get some air.’

Jaskier stood from the table and almost immediately went back down again as his legs failed to support him. Talis reached out to support him and guided him to step over the bench seat and towards the exit, while Jaskier took some deep breaths and tried to get his heart to settle.

It had been a while since he had used so much chaos in one go, and being so far from land meant he didn’t have his usual stamina. He should have been more careful, maybe focused his music on specific people, those who were projecting the most fear, rather than trying to sooth the anxiety of the entire ship. He had definitely touched too much fear with his fiddle.

The cold evening air hit Jaskier like a bucket of cold water, the wind drying the sweat on his brow and making him shiver. He took a breath, and cast his eyes across the crew milling about in the lamplight before looking over to Talis, who had a hand on the small of Julek’s back and was staring out at the constellations beyond the sails.

‘Are you okay?’

Talis gave a strained smile, ‘You know me, Julek, I’m always okay.’

‘Yeah, Tal, I do know you.’ He bumped his hip into the other’s.

‘I just,’ He looked around, ‘I don’t know. My grandpap once told me that when he was a kid that his life was saved by a witcher. He insisted they were heroes. Always known him to be a good judge of character, but everyone else insists they’re monsters.’

‘Maybe it was the one decent witcher on the continent. What did he ask for payment?’

‘The law of surprise. Left town with a goat that had snuck into my grandpap’s house and ate through all his shirts.’

Julek snorted and took his cup of spirits in one mouthful. It instantly burnt his nose and made his tongue want to curl up and die: It was the signature drink of all navy ships.

‘Lets just hope we run into him, and not the butcher or something.’

‘Don’t have any goats on board though.’

‘Ofire’s got the beard for it.’

Talis laughed, but muffled it under his hand as a passing lieutenant shot an unimpressed look their way. The two of them tracked the officer as he walked up to the quarterdeck and had a few whispered words to the helmsman before pulling a small silver whistle from his pocket and sending its shrill sound across the ship.

‘That’s it then.’ they watched as all of the lamps on deck were dimmed to the point of almost being useless. ‘No more talking on deck.’

Talis turned and disappeared below, leaving Julek to watch as the captain exited his quarters and headed to the poop deck for the best view of the upcoming waters. Jaskier took another big breath of fresh air before heading back for the last night of watching over Ciri before they would meet the other ship that would take her to Nilfgaard.

Chapter Text

Jaskier wasn’t able to sleep, which wasn’t particularly surprising. His expended chaos left him feeling heavy and tired, but also hyper aware of any movement or sound, as if his body felt too defenceless to relax. He could taste the sour jasmine and Toussaint orange sticking to the back of his throat like bile, a sign that his magic was still present in the air.

In the cell next to him Ciri was curled up under his coat in her hammock. The ship was the most silent he’d it had ever been, and it was easy to pick the sound of her breathing over the soft lap of waves. He had spent the night in the hammock he had set up in the brig, watching the blankets rise and fall as Ciri slept and trying to match his breathing to the steady rhythm of hers.

It was difficult to know what time it was below deck without the bells, so when Jaskier pulled himself upright and trudged up the steps to relieve himself he was unprepared for the dawning sun. He could have sworn he had only been trying to sleep for a few hours.

The seas were still, but the sky was overcast and threatening to storm, leaving only the faintest bits of sunlight able to push through. The crew on deck were just faint shapes in the dimmed lantern light, but Jaskier knew who each of them were only because he knew who was on the watch rotation. They were moving slow and stiltedly as they went about their tasks with as little noise as possible.

Jaskier could see the shadowy figure of the captain, still on the higher decks looking out across the sea.

He moved as casually as he could across the ship and relieved himself into the ocean. No one paid him any mind as he did, too mind-numbed by their tasks to be bothered with another person on deck as long as they didn’t shatter the silence.

And Ciri should be asleep for a little longer with one of the guards watching over her, so he didn’t need to rush back.

He paced over to the door to the captain’s cabin, keeping his back to the wall and his eyes across the deck, but still no one seemed to notice him. The morning fog and dense cloud cover masked his movements well enough that he felt comfortable turning his back to the deck and pulling a small stiletto knife from it’s place in his boot. It wasn’t the most elegant way to pick a lock, but it was far less suspicious to carry a small knife than a set of tools.

The lock gave way fairly easily and Jaskier slipped inside the room.

Van Eldand had his cabin lamps off, but Jaskier didn’t need light to find what he knew was there. Under the maps and navigation plans he found the few papers that he had seen before, bearing Emperor var Emreis’s crest, and brought them to the cabin window in order to read the angular handwriting.

There were a few details that stood out , the first being that the information included a description and name of a small supply ship travelling from Novigrad to a port in Ard Skellig. The second was that the Emperor knew what Cirilla looked like: A blonde haired, green eyed girl of fourteen.

Considering how much mystery had surrounded the last royal of Cintra, even that much information was impressive. When Cintra fell to Nilfgaard, it was possible that a soldier had discovered her during the siege, or at least gained enough information to identify her. However, even if that was so, the ships details made it obvious that Nilfgaard had a spy in Novigrad.

Jaskier folded the papers and slipped them back under the maps, but stopped and stared at the compass which lay on the grid. There was a mark where they had captured the Redanian ship, but Jaskier knew the north’s routes, and the ship hadn’t been on any trade routes between Novigrad and Ard Skellig.

If the ship came from Novigrad, then it had bypassed the Skellige isles completely before their encounter. It looked as if they were headed towards the witcher’s territory, but no merchant ship in their right mind would cross those boarders. If Jaskier was reading the map correctly, then the Redanian ship would have been headed towards the same spot their ship was now.

Jaskier frowned and checked the note from Captain Ceallach sitting unhidden on the top of the desk’s papers. It was written in formal Nilfgaardian, and although Jaskier didn’t know how the captain’s handwriting, there was a stiltedness where the pen was lifted from the page in places it shouldn’t have been. But it was difficult to write smoothly on a ship, particularly in the weather that they’d been having.

Unsure, and not wanting to test his luck by staying in the cabin, he slipped from the door and back out onto the deck. He hadn’t been inside long enough for the lighting to change, and everyone on deck were still in the same positions as before.

He squinted up at the sky, but could barely see the bottom of the top sail. The ship’s raven was circling low around the mast, making patterns with a small bird that was fluttering around on short wings.

Jaskier jumped when Talis dropped down from the rigging in front of Julek, close enough that he could see the tired lines in on the other’s face. Usually he was quite soft-footed, but his landing created a sound that gracelessly split the silence.

‘Sails off the port quarter.’ he whispered to Julek before sprinting up the slippery steps towards Captain Van Eldand to report the discovery.

It was most likely the other Nilfgaardian vessel, but Jaskier wanted to make sure before waking Ciri up and getting her prepared to leave. He hoped to negotiate his way onto the other ship so that he could stay with her, but wanted time to say goodbye on the off chance he couldn’t.

He made his way to the rail and leant over to squint in the awkward light. He couldn’t see any sails against the dull sky, but thought there was maybe movement somewhere off in the distance.

The rest of the crew seemed to notice the captain’s alertness and the hushed conversation that reverberated across the smothered atmosphere of the deck. The men started to drift to the side of the ship and mirror Jaskier’s position. No one spoke, but Jaskier could feel the questions and desperate need to confirm that the other ship was Nilfgaardian as it slowly came close enough to be visible.

It was full sail to catch the waning wind but had no visible colours flying. It was too far off to make out the masthead or ship class, but Jaskier was fairly sure Ceallach sailed a Man-o-War and the approaching ship had too few sails to be that big of a vessel.

‘Run out the guns! All hands on deck!’

The call came down clear and sharp from the bridge deck, and everyone scattered to their positions. Jaskier glanced up at Van Eldand and, although he couldn’t make out the captain’s expression, could tell from his shoulder he was tense and seeing something concerning through his spyglass.

Jaskier felt as if he should be doing something. Usually when they were called to arms Julek, instructed by Divar, prepared and cleaned cannons between shots. With Ciri on board he should really be down there with her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the approaching ship.

It was Temerian in design, and lithe enough to be handled by a very small crew. It rode high in the water, which indicated it didn’t have many cannons, if any at all.

Then, slowly, the other ship’s flag was hoisted: the profile of snarling wolf facing away from two crossed swords. The Butcher’s flag.

There was a series of shouts on the deck behind Jaskier and an explosion as the Deith’Adan fired her first shot at the witcher ship. The cannonball flew across the ocean, but where it should have made contact to splinter the forecastle it was met with a golden pulse that emanated from the point of contact and rippled across the ship.

Jaskier released his held breath with a soft, ‘What the fuck?’

They sent another two shots across the way, one going for the hull that was slowly being revealed, and another aiming high to crash onto the deck, but they both met with the same shield that blanketed the ship in golden light and left the vessel seemingly unconcerned. The assaults didn’t seem to even slow it down and it turned to meet broadside to broadside.

They were going to board.

‘Fuck. Fuck.’

Jaskier pushed off the railing and fled below deck, bumping against someone and practically sliding down the narrow steps. He flung himself around corners before crashing into the keep, the guard leaving him with Ciri before Julek could say a word.

Ciri was awake and pressed against the bars of the cell, she said Julek’s name but he ignored her in favour of digging out the dagger from his boot.

‘Cirilla, I need you to be honest with me for a moment.’

He didn’t feel the familiar tingle of his chaos reacting to her name, being far to depleted, but she still nodded at him earnestly with wide fearful eyes. ‘What’s happening? Who are we attacking?’

‘Why was that ship taking you to the witchers?’

‘What?’ She recoiled from the bars. ‘They said they were taking me to Skellige. I paid them to take me to Skellige. Did they tell you they were taking me to the witchers?’

Two more cannon fires from the Nilfgaardian ship, and still no shots in retaliation.

Jaskier didn’t know whether it was because of the imminent danger or whether she had just needed a proper sleep, but her eyes were bright and more awake than she had seemed since she came aboard.

‘No. But where we found you, your ship had already passed Skellige and were heading towards them. Do you they know who you are?’

‘I don’t thi-...Do you?’

‘Løve,’ he stressed the nickname. Lion. ‘I’m sorry, but we will have that conversation later. Right now we are about to be taken over by monsters and I think they’re coming for you. So I need you to tell me everything, quickly, so I can keep you safe. Can you do that for me?’

‘Okay.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘Okay. Yes.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ He crouched by the cell’s lock and started in on it with his stiletto. There was a loud crash above deck and a lot of indistinct yelling. ‘Now tell me, how did you come to be on that ship, and did they know who you are.’

There was another crash, Jaskier didn’t allow himself to react, but he saw Ciri jump in the corner of his vision.

‘I was looking for a man. Geralt. Before she… before, my grandmother told me to find him. When I got to Novigrad I thought I was being followed, so I paid a captain to take me to Skellige, but he said he knew Geralt and would take me to him. I-I didn’t think he knew who I was, but if he was going to sell me to the witchers then maybe he did, I don’t know.’

The lock gave and Jaskier flung himself into the cell and locked it behind him. He wasn’t sure what his plan was, but he knew he wanted to be close to Ciri. If the witchers cut their way through the crew enough to reach the brig then there wouldn’t be much he could do, but maybe if he was inside with her then he could used his body as a shield.

There was some more yelling, voiced that seemed unrecognisable to Jaskier, deep and gutteral in a barely human way, and closer than he would have liked.

He used his knife to slice the hammock down and took two long strides to knock the table over, ready to make a hiding spot for Ciri, but then stopped. If the witcher’s made it down here, then chances were everyone else on deck would be dead, and he would just be another Nilfgaardian keeping the princess, the last royal of Cintra, prisoner.

He did have a plan. It may not be the smartest, but it would definitely keep Ciri the safest she could possibly be on a ship overrun by monsters.

Jaskier crouched down and pulled off his shoe. He had a thin leather band woven around his ankle, with a circular charm attached. It was bone, with an elaborate symbol carved into it that made his thumb prickle as he touched the carved groves.

‘Put this on and hum a few notes to activate it. Do not ever take it off.’

She hesitated, but there was a high pitched scream that faded to a gurgle in the room beyond and she snatched it from his hand and hummed.

Her hair, still matted and wild, turned black and coarse while her eyes darkened and the sharp, delicate featured of her face blunted out. Unless someone stared at her a little too long, she looked like an average Nilfgaardian teenage boy with oddly long hair.

She was staring at him in disbelief as his disguise peeled away to reveal that we was not, in fact, Nilfgaardian. He didn’t know exactly what he looked like, it had been years since he had seen his actual face, but he ran a hand through his hair and found that without the curls it now sat close to his collarbone and parts had been sun-lightened from brown to a caramel blond.

Then Ciri’s gaze shifted from Jaskier to something over his shoulder. Something that turned her green and had her backing up against the opposite wall.

Jaskier turned, placing himself between his charge and the black eyed monster that had appeared at the bars. The creature’s lips pealed back to show two sharp fangs that mirrored the bloodied short swords in either hand.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

Chapter Text

Jaskier kept Ciri behind his back and out of the gaze the unblinking black eyes. Similarly coloured veins pulsed in the creature’s face and neck, stark again skin that was so pale it almost glowed in the dim light of the brig. He was taller than Jaskier, with long, dark hair and blood splattered across his skin like macabre freckles.

‘I-I’m Jasper.’ The name came to Jaskier’s tongue quickly, an emergency alias he kept in his back pocket in case he was discovered as a spy. ‘Please don’t hurt us, we have nothing to do with them.’

There was a loud crashing sound on the deck above, and Jaskier felt Ciri flinch and press into his back.

‘Are you the only ones in this cell?’

‘Y-Yes, sir. Just me and my son, Julek.’

The witcher was standing dead still, not a twitch to his muscles bar a small wrinkle appearing between his brows. ‘We’re looking for a girl, northern, should be on the ship.’

Jaskier shook his head, heart pounding against his ribs. It was difficult to tell whether he was looking at Ciri since he had no discernible pupil, but in the very least it seemed like he wasn’t about to kill Jaskier for lying. The witcher’s grip on his two short blades had even relaxed.

There was another shout on deck, and the sound of pistols firing. Jaskier’s eyes flicked to the door, but the witcher didn’t flinch.

The witcher’s eyes narrowed, and his fangs flashed from behind corpse-like lips again as he scowled.

‘So the Nilf’s killed the other prisoners. Why keep you two alive?’

Jaskier knew that there was now a chance he could end up like those other prisoners. It was a risk he took when he gave his charm he had cut all ties to the Nilfgaardian ship, but if the witchers kept anybody alive then he would get his charm back from Ciri before anyone of the crew saw him.

‘I made a deal.’ Jaskier took a breath and a chance. ‘They keep my son and I alive, and I tell them where to find the last royal of Cintra.’

The princess behind him took a strangled breath, like a half choked sob. Jaskier wanted to reassure her, but the most he could do was reach behind and give her arm a squeeze. He knew he had to protect her, not just because she reminded him so much of his sisters back home, but because was Cintra’s only hope to be taken back from Nilfgaard. If he could get her back to Redania, to somewhere safe, then he could report to Dijkstra that the last royal was alive knowing she was tucked away safe from anyone who would want to exploit her.

The mutant stepped forward, crowding Jaskier despite the space and steel bars between them.

‘You know where she is?’

‘Is she who you’re looking for? If you can take us back to Redania then I can help yo-’

‘No!’ Ciri pulled away from Jaskier’s grasp, leaving his back cold. ‘No!’

‘Julek!’ Jaskier warned and half turned so he could see her and keep the witcher in his peripheral vision. He wasn’t sure how intelligent witchers were, but he couldn’t say anything to Ciri that would give them away. She wasn’t trained in subterfuge and speaking in code.

In the time it had taken for him to contemplate his words, Ciri had moved to pull something out of the confines of the woollen coat. He had a moment to see the flash of a metal barrel in her hands, and the witcher raising a sword, before she fired at the mutant.

She dropped the gun in its recoil and her hands flailed up to cover her ears from the controlled explosion. The monster had tried to deflect it with his sword, but the bullet had only clipped its edge and stayed the course. The blade rung like a tuning fork that had struck the inside of Jaskier’s skull.

The witcher went down with an aborted gasp, swords clattering as he raised his hands to his face where the shot hit. Jaskier ducked and grabbed the gun, which he recognised as Divar’s, to keep it from Ciri’s grasp again. When he turned he saw her shaking in the corner, betrayed tears welling in her eyes.

‘I wont let you-’

‘I won’t let them. Trust me, Julek.’

She stared at him with wide brown eyes, some shorter flyaway curls sticking to her forehead from sweat as she panted from adrenaline and stress. He knew they were yelling, the gunshot having knocked their eardrums around, and could most likely be heard from the decks above.

‘I want to,’ she yelled, her voice permeating the chimes in Jaskier’s head. ‘I want to, but I don’t know if I can.’

She pulled his coat tighter around her and stared down at her feet, hunching in on herself and shaking. He reached out and pulled her to his chest with his free hand, keeping the gun at his side and pointing down while he held her and she sobbed into his shirt.

He looked over his shoulder to the fallen mutant, but startled at the presence of another figure hunched over the bloody body. So he spun around to again put Ciri at his back.

It was another witcher, shorter and stockier than the first, crouched over the body of his fallen comrade. He had a hand around a hilt of a sword, bracing against the ground, and his other was a stump, wrapped in a studded leather cuff, placed on his companion’s shoulder. Jaskier could hear the faint hum of conversation between them, as his hearing was starting to return, but couldn’t make out what what being said.

The dark haired witcher seemed to sense that Jaskier’s attention on him and he sprung to his feet while raising his longsword for attack. They looked at each other for a heartbeat and then his head tilted with a sharp, sudden movement before black eyes snapped to the gun in Jasker’s hand.

The witcher said something, his voice to low and face in too much of a snarl for Jaskier to be sure of what was spoken. Then he cast his sword aside and launched himself forward with an audible howl.

He used his freed hand to rip the lock from the cell door and fling it open. Jaskier startled, but the witcher was up in his face before his body could finish responding. A large hand slammed itself into Jaskier’s throat and dragged him forward until the reflection of his own eyes made the witcher’s seem just as blue.

‘You’ll pay for that, fucker.’

Pain blossomed and he squeezed tight enough that Jaskier’s head swam from the pressure on his jugular.

‘Lamb,’ the bleeding witcher rasped, strained and gasping, ‘Captain’s orders.’

The witcher, Lamb, spat in Jaskier’s face. The saliva hit his cheekbone and bunt like he’d been hit with acid, and scalded a trail down his face. He gasped and tried to speak, but when his throat convulsed it felt like he was gagging on the base of his tongue and he clawed at the hand around his throat in desperation.

Then he was swung around by his captor and his shoulder made heavy contact with the cell door frame. The edges of his vision went hazy as pain shot through his side and down his arm.

‘Fuck that. The deep can have him.’

‘Dad!’

Jaskier was dragged out of the room by the iron grip, and he tried to kick out and throw off the stronger man, but any time he created resistance it would just make his vision swim as the pressure on his throat tightened. He flailed an arm and grabbed onto what he thought was the handrail to the steps leading to the upper deck.

It was terrifying that a witcher could survive being shot, and he didn’t want to leave Ciri alone with such a monster. He latched onto the railing, making a gurgling noise of protest in his throat as he tried to halt his forced ascent.

Lamb paused for a moment at the resistance, then released Jaskier’s throat to change his grip to grab Jaskier’s arm and yank it behind him. Something popped in his shoulder and he took a deep gasp before his chest made contact with the stair railing and knocked the hard earned air out of him.

‘You humans think you’re so strong with your fucking guns.’ The breath was warm against the back of his neck. An arm wrapped around his throat, the studs on the stump’s sheath cold against his jugular, and he was matched up onto the deck with the angry witcher at his back.

The cold stung his eyes, and he squinted in the light at the handful of witchers on deck, blades drawn and pointed at the crew to keep them still. There was a witcher by Van Eldand, looming over him in bulk if not height, he was holding the captain’s rapier over the guard while Van Eldand had his empty hand palms out in surrender.

The ponytailed witcher turned to them He had the hairs around his face cut to chin length, but it did little to hide the face marred by grotesque scars and ruddy, flaking skin. Fathomless eyes narrowed at Lamb and Jaskier, and his voice rumbled like a distant avalanche.

‘Lambert, what are you doing?’

‘He shot Aiden.’

The mountain of a mutant’s expression immediately turned to pity, and Lamber’s arm tightened around Jaskier’s throat in response as he snarled a huff. Instinctively, Jaskier looked to Captain Van Eldand for help, but the hard lines of the Nilfgaardian’s face sent a shiver down the spy’s spine.

Lambert swung Jaskier over to the railing, pushing him forward so that all he could see was the choppy ocean beneath and curtains of his lightened hair. Black spots started to cloud at the edges and made his head swim.

‘Dad!’ Ciri’s voice rang out against the rising wind.

‘Woah,’ the avalanche rumbled ‘Easy there, son.’

‘He didn’t do it! Let him go! Let me go! ’

Behind him, Jaskier could hear Lambert speak, but the waves beneath him were making his head spin. Then hand twisting his arm back shoved him and the shortened arm released its pressure on his throat.

Then he was falling, he took a breath to let out a reflective yelp, but he plunged into the frigid sea before it could pass his lips. The suddenness of being submerged almost made his gasp again, his muscles in shock from the temperature change, but instead his lungs expelled all they’re air in a volley of bubbles.

His left arm screamed in pain when he tried to paddle upwards, and the violent shivering made it hard to coordinate, but he managed to break the surface of the water. He had never been the strongest swimmer, despite growing up on a coastal town, and in choppy waters he knew he didn’t stand a chance.

‘Help!’ He rasped, but he knew they wouldn’t hear him, as he could barely hear himself.

A wave hit him in the face and he choked on a mouth full of water, the salt grating against his throat, and he almost couldn’t cough to prevent it from going down. Another wave pushed him under the surface and when he fought his way back up he shook his head to get his hair out of his eyes and tried to orient himself to see the ship.

The Nilfgaardian ship was further away that he was expecting, with the witcher’s vessel barely visible behind it. The rough seas had already pulled him a fair distance away from where he had landed, and tried to claw his way back to the ship on a single arm, but after a night of not being able to sleep, he wasn’t sure how long he could keep his head about water with only one functional arm.

‘Help!’

He coughed on another mouthful of water and his diaphragm convulsed and caused him to heave and spew the ocean back where it same from. The effort of trying to swim against violent waters was stealing his breath, and he wasn’t able to breathe more than a gasp at a time.

As his arms were starting to slow, and the shivers that had wracked his body started to fade, a piercing scream shook the water, and pushed the waved outward from the ship, like a boulder had been cast into the ocean. Debris flew from the deck, and some lighter pieces of wood and even a sword were propelled through the air in all directions.

Jaskier’s instinct was to duck beneath the waves, but his reflexes weren’t quite able to make it happen before a plank of wood came towards him, struck the side of his head, and sent him careening into darkness.

Chapter Text

A dozen or so wyvernflies hovered around the waterfall of seaside daisies, which poured from the gardens, down a short cliff, to the sandy shores below. They avoided the bright snapdragons and tangles of lavender and rose bushes, going sometimes to the hyacinths growing in the old fountain that no longer ran, but mostly kept their distance from the ancient family home a little ways up.

He usually spent late summers and early springs here when the social season was in full swing. His father would stay at their manor to entertain the other nobles and diplomats, and while some children were tolerated, the presence of children with even the slightest of non-human tells were not welcome. For safety reasons, his father reassured, and nothing else.

The coastal cottage belonged to his great-grandmother from his mother’s sid e , Dénia . She was a passionate, if somewhat timid, woman who always wore a golden lace headband, which he knew hid her pointed ears.

Although she was eternally sprite and remained middle aged in appearance, every year since her wife had died she seemed to whither, the house it got a little more decrepit and the gardens a little more wild.

His sisters would use their time here to indulge in their passion for cooking, producing sweet and savoury pastries, pies and breads. Sometimes they would go into town and use the fruits of their labour to enthral men into buying them gifts or plastering them with attention.

His great-grandmother explained that humans couldn’t taste the sickly floral after taste of his sisters’ chaos like he could, and encouraged them to do as they wished as long as they never did anything that would make a mother blush, and never took what the men couldn’t afford.

It was here that he learned that his chaos came from his voice, not his cooking, something which delighted his great-grandmother as her late wife had been a musician.,He had been granted access to her extensive and immaculate music room so that he could spend the days honing his craft, although he mastered every instrument as easily as breathing.

He spent his nights by his great-grandmother’s side, sleeping outside with the sea breeze cutting through the heat and relishing the feel of the flora around them. His sisters would join for a while, curled by his side as much as the heat would allow, but missed the luxury of their manor home and would eventually retreat inside to sleep on beds that were never big nor soft nor hard enough for them.

Drifting off, he would dig his fingers into the grass and dirt to stretch his gifts out so he could feel the unique root systems of every flower reaching for water and some tucking their blooms away to wait for the sun.

‘You’ll always be safest amongst the flowers, Buttercup. They’re your family as much as your sisters and I are, and they’ll keep you healthy and strong.’

The night fell, and the splintering heat turned to ice cold. He reached out to feel the earth around him, but found nothing. Not a single blade of grass, or weed, or anything growing.

He bolted up, his body weak and trembling, and it took several tries to get his limbs to coordinate enough to turn him around and get onto his knees. Nearby was a small patch of sea thrift where his great-grandmother liked to sleep, but instead of Dénia lying in a tangle of dying bushes he saw his youngest sister, Bella, except her hair was matted and platinum, instead of it’s usual auburn, and her eye was green instead of snowy blue. The other had been blown away by a bullet wound that had destroyed her eye-socket and ripped a path across the side of her face. It was oozing deep purple, chunky blood.

He cried her name and grabbed at her form to try to shake her awake. ‘Bell, don’t-’. Then with incrediable speed she sprang to life, grabbed his wrist and flipped him over. The world tipped like he was being spun with Bella on top of him, her remaining eye now black and fearless.

‘You left me!’ She sat straddling his sides with icy blood dipping onto his face. She punched him in the chest, harder than he’d ever felt, ‘You never came home.’ Punch. His rib cracked. ‘You left me to the witchers.’ Punch. Crack. ‘You killed me!’ Punch. Crack.

He cried out at the pain of his heart beating against the splintered ribs. He felt her presence lift and the pressure of his torso released, allowing him to gasp like he had been denied air his whole life.

The inhale made a gurgling noise, and he rolled over to start coughing. It scraped at his throat and he leant over on his elbow to drip up tendrils of saliva before heaving salt water and shards of sea glass that tore through him like a buckshot of nails.

His body cramped with chills, too frozen and tense to even shiver, but as he curled up on the barren land the hot sun felt like it was burning the back of his neck.

‘Bella,’ He gasped, his voice barely audible, and got to his knees to search for his sister. She didn’t seem to be anywhere, and he couldn’t see anything but black sludge and dying coral that reached to the sky like bony fingers. There wasn’t even a trace that anyone else had been there. ‘Belladonna?’

‘That’s a beautiful name,’ came his great-grandmother’s voice. He spun around in circles, tilting his head to try and locate the source, ‘it suits you, my buttercup. The perfect name to protect yourself with.’

‘Granna Dénia?’ he spun around, trying to find his great-grandmother, but even her cottage had disappeared. He started walking towards the cliff that would take him down to the ocean, the only part of the landscape that remained.

Instead of the water he was expecting to see, he looked down at the beach to see a field of buttercups, that rippled in an invisible wind like golden tidal waves. He climbed down the dead tendrils of seaside daisies to reach the floral ocean.

Something told him that his great-grandmother was waiting for him on the other side of the yellow-flowered field, and so he walked.

And walked.

The heat of the day made him feel like his skin was peeling from his flesh, the sweat stuck his shirt between his shoulder blades.

Then the night fell and the air was froze, his body started shivering and fingers turned blue.

He lost count of the nights and days that he walked until one day the sky cracked open and rain started pouring down in tentative drops. It tasted sweet, like the molasses treats he had given to Ciri an age ago, and he tiled his head back and stuck out his tongue.

‘That’s it, Jasper,’ Dénia’s voice was gentle but firm ‘You need to drink.’

Who was Jasper?

His name wasn’t Jasper, was it?

He persisted forward, through the sweltering days and freezing nights. His limbs grew heavy, and his head swam as he started to stumble. Then the world tipped, the horizon tilting to a sharp angle and the gifted liquid in his stomach rolled with it until the acrid tang of bile filled his skull.

The earth came up to meet him, his limbs too heavy to do anything but collapse under their own weight. The buttercups felt soft on his cheek, like rabbit fur, and he shrugged off his heavy woollen jacket to lessen the feeling of being dragged down into the dirt.

Oh, he realised, that’s Julek’s coat.

That seemed right, because he was Julek, wasn’t he?

Free of the coat made from the wool of his family’s farm, Julek was able to drag himself back to his feet and continue his journey to find his great-grandmother. He trusted her to tell him who he was, and he knew that if he could just reach the other side of this ocean field he would find her.

The world continued to tip violently, blood-red lightning struck through the sky and the roll of thunder continued to follow. Every now and again, the sweet rain would fall and Julek would stop and lap at the drops that fell into his mouth.

Then Frozen nights and sweltering days.

Julek was fairly fit, years of working on a ship had ensured that. Even before, he had helped on his family’s sheep farm, even though he preferred to help turn the fleece into wool and the chaos of markets to the manual labour.

But as he walked he started to loose breath, something heavy on his chest making it hard to breathe. He gasped and coughed, but couldn’t seem to draw enough breath to expel what his body wanted to be rid of and the coughs came more as wheezes than anything.

He placed one hand to his chest and the other to his diaphragm, trying to encourage his breath deeper, but was met with the soft silk and hard lines of whalebone. He looked down to see a corset of deep orange.

No wonder he couldn’t breathe.

But he had to wear the corset. Dandelion wouldn’t be caught dead outside the countess’s quarters in anything less than the absolute latest fashion, nor would the countess herself allow it.

And that’s who he was, he was sure. He was Dandelion.

He slowly lowered himself to his knees, still gasping and trying to cough. He clawed at the cravat around his throat and let it drift to the ground before he shed his silk blouse and reached behind to fumble with the gold lacing of the corset.

‘That’s good, Jasper, you’re doing so well.’

But he wasn’t Jasper, he was Dandelion, wasn’t he?

The buttercup field rippled, moved by the breeze, and Dandelion instinctively leant into the smell. It was his great-grandmother’s voice, but her chaos usually smelt of pine and honey, not the rosemary and cherry that was wrapping itself around him.

He worked the lacing out, releasing his chest and lungs. The more he breathed in the strange tasting chaos the more his chest relaxed, but his lungs started to spasm and he coughed into the buttercups an assortment of circular objects, disks with sharp edges. They tore at his stomach and throat, blood mixing with saliva and thick tendrils of mucus.

He looked through streaming eyes as the mess he was bringing up, dozens of disguise charms, circular bones, each engraved with strange glowing symbols. He was on his hands and knees now, but one of his hands was sinking into the ground and being covered and cradled by the warm earth. If he could reach out, he could almost feel the roots of something living in the dirt, something beyond the buttercups that felt bright and comforting.

‘Please,’ Came a whispered voice, small and scared, the life wrapped around his hand ‘please don’t leave me. I don’t know what to do.’ a sob, ‘Please.’

Ciri. The princess of Cintra, who had dragged herself across the continent after everyone she’d known had been killed by Nilfgaard . A young girl, who had been kept from the world until her world had burned around her and she was left bare.

Ciri, who needed Jaskier.

Who needed him.

Chapter Text

Being dragged into wakefulness was a slow, laborious process. The first thing Jaskier became aware of was the acidic taste in his mouth and the bitter tang of sickness that created a hitch in his breath and clogged his sinuses. It was difficult for him to breathe deeply, and when he did he could feel something ticking in his lungs that made him want to cough, but all his energy could manage was a weird wheeze.

A pressure on his hand increased, and Jaskier became aware of someone beside him holding his hand. He turned his head to see Ciri looking at him with her brown eyes red rimmed and tear tracks down her face. Relief flooded through him at seeing her seemingly safe with her disguise still in place.

‘Hey,’ He croaked.

‘Hi.’ She pulled her hand back from his and reached for a stone cup from the ground, ‘Here, this will help.’

He could taste honey in the warm water, and the sweetly nutty notes of fenugreek mixed with something that he couldn’t identify. In the fog of his immediate memories he recalled someone slowly dipping it into his mouth in the moments between coughing fits that convulsed his diaphragm enough to bring it back up.

‘Thank you,’

‘You’re welcome.’ she gave him a bright smile and tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘I’m glad you’re finally feeling better. I’ll go fetch Triss now you’re awake.’ She got up from his bedside and ran through the room before disappearing through a doorway.

When she stood, she towered over him and he realised that he had been set up on the floor, propped up against the wall and supported by bundles of rolled furs and blankets, presumably to make it easier for him to breathe than if he’d been lying in a hammock.

Jaskier didn’t know who Triss was, but he was very sure that they were not a member of The Dancing Flame’s crew, which meant he was either on Captain Ceallach’s or the witcher’s ship. Ciri seemed to be not only be well, but had some degree of freedom, which didn’t seem likely on either vessels.

Taking a long but careful breath, Jaskier closed his eyes and let him sink into the soft furs. If Ciri felt safe enough to go out by herself, and to leave him alone, he trusted it was safe enough for him to go back to sleep

Not that his body was giving him much of a choice.

******

The next time Jaskier woke it was to a sudden jolt as the ship leaned violently to the side. His body had been pitched out of the makeshift bed, and his ribs screamed from the sudden movement which caused him to hiss in pain.

‘Hey. Stop rockin’ the car’van.’

Jaskier went still and silent at the voice that was far closer than he would have liked. There were few torches fixed to the wall, moving in brackets designed to keep their flames in place while the ship tipped, and it was just enough for him to make out the shapes of a few hammocks, unoccupied and hooked out of the way, and one that was weighted down by a body.

The material writhed as whomever was inside tried to stand from it. As soon as the figure’s feet hit the ground they collapsed under him with a small, almost mewling sound. Their face was curtained by black waves, that looked washed and well cared for, but as he grasped the hammock to try and get back up Jaskier could see a swath of bandages that wrapped around his head and over an eye.

He was on the witcher’s ship then, but something didn’t make sense. He had been well cared for, given medicine, and they clearly cared for their injured companion.

‘It’s Aiden, right?’

The witcher turned and looked at him, his exposed eye looked like a golden mirror that reflected the small light in the room and made the orbs glow. ‘Jasper, they gotta stop rocking the ‘van. ‘Snot good for the horses.’

Jaskier nodded, but Aiden was no longer looking at him and was trying again to get back to his feet. He was almost unrecognisable as the stoic warrior he’d been before, as his limbs moved more like a newborn foal rather than a beast who could rip him in half with his bare hands.

Guilt dug behind Jaskier’s heart. He’d heard of people who had suffered severe head injuries loosing a part of themselves, unable to form memories or make sense of the world, and some loosing the ability to hold a spoon or take care of themselves in any way. For a creature as proud and strong as a witcher, he couldn’t imagine a worse fate. Perhaps it would have been more merciful to finish the witcher off after Ciri had maimed him.

The spy could feel weakness in his limbs and knew he wouldn’t be able to stand and cross the room, but he pushed the furs and blanket back anyway and started to crawl across the floor towards Aiden. He had to place most of his weight on one arm, as the other seemed unusually stiff, and by the time he had made the short journey he was out of breath from the exertion.

He stopped just out of arm’s length from the witcher, a safe distance, just in case.

‘Hey, Aiden, you should go back to bed. Don’t worry about the rocking, everything will be fine.’

A golden eye locked onto him. This close, he could see that the witcher’s pupil took up most of his eye, with a thin rim of yellow framing it. There was the sharp crack of thunder, of a storm close enough to touch, and Aiden flinched.

‘It’s a stamp’d. Guxart has t’ slow the horses.’

‘Yes, he does.’ Jaskier agreed gently. ‘I’ll go and tell him to slow them down.’

Aiden gnawed at his bottom lip, eyes darting around the gloom. ‘Do you know where Lambs went? I don’t wan’ him to get caught under the hooves.’

Jaskier shuffled forward and reached out with his palm up to show he wasn’t a threat, his hands shaking as closed the distance between them. He placed it on Aiden’s shoulder and waited to see if the beast would strike out, but Aiden didn’t react except to look him in the eye and give a slow blink.

‘Lambert’s safe, but you should get some rest. I’ll let you know when he’s back, alright? Can you get back into your hammock by yourself? I-I don’t think I can help you up.’

Aiden gave a few rapid blinks before he scrunched his nose, his fangs flashing between his lips for a moment before he got to his hands and knees. ‘Don’t need help for you anyway.’ Jaskier let his hand drop as the other man climbed to his feet.

‘My head fucking hurts.’ Aiden mumbled, barely audible over the storm. His movements were slow, like he was underwater, but he flung himself up into the hammock with surprising swiftness. ‘Where the hell are they?’

‘They should be back soon.’ Jaskier reassured as he dragged himself to the post that Aiden’s hammock was attached to. He slumped against it, his energy spent and body starting to shake. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Pain potions are wearing off. Fucking hurts.’

Oh, so not brain damaged, just high.

‘How are you doing, Jasper? A few days ago you were coughing so hard you nearly brought up a lung.’

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. He wasn’t sure why the witcher would care, but most likely it was to get his mind of his own pain. ‘Is that why my chest hurts so much?’

‘That and the broken ribs. From what I heard, they had to restart your heart after they fished you out of the water.’

So he had died.

‘Oh.’

He had died.

Jaskier hummed a few notes and reached out for his chaos. He relaxed as it’s familiar taste reassured him that it was still there, just weak. The orange jasmine was quickly drowned out by a rosemary cherry that seemed to stick to the back of his sinuses, a clear sign that the room had been exposed to someone else’s chaos so frequently that the space had become its home.

If there was another magic user on the witcher ship, then they would know what he could do as they’d be able to sense his chaos as clearly as he could sense theirs.

‘Hey,’ Aiden’s voice was soft, and fading out as Jaskier’s head started to go fuzzy. ‘You don’t have to be afraid here, Jasper.’

He felt cold, as if his body had only just realised he’d crawled away from his bed and he grasped at the soft linen shirt to try and pull it closer around him. The effort of touching his chaos had tipped his exhaustion over the edge, and his head lolled to the side as he passed out against the wooden support post.

*****

Someone swept his hair back from his face and pressed a hand against his forehead. Jaskier couldn’t seem to bring himself to open his eyes, too exhausted for even that small bit of movement. His breath caught and he instinctively curled away from the other person as a cough tore through him.

‘Easy, Jasper.’ A feminine voice came from behind him while a hand rubbed his back. ‘You probably shouldn’t have gotten out of bed quite yet.’

He could tell that she was the source of the chaos, the cherry being a much richer taste in the air while she was close. Cracking open an eye, Jaskier saw a face covered in sun freckles and a soft smile. She had red hair in a series of well-kept dreadlocks, adored with wooden and metal beads and twisted into two buns at the nape of her neck.

‘Although I’m impressed you were able to move at all.’

She smiled and beaconed behind her. Ciri had been standing back, looking cautious at being so close to the witcher in the hammock but also seemingly hesitant to leave the woman’s side.

‘Triss, I presume.’

She gave a warm smile as she and Ciri helped him up. ‘I have actually introduced myself to you before, but you’re fever was quite high so you can be forgiven for not remembering.’ She took most of his weight as Ciri ducked away to unhook one of the spare hammocks for him.

He climbed into it, the relaxed position easing some of the chills through his body. Ciri handed him a cup, but instead of the sweet tonic that he’d been fed before it was warm, clean water that he drained in less than a second.

‘Thank you.’

‘Your son has made a great healer’s assistant these past few days, you should be proud.’

Jaskier looked to Ciri, who was blushing at the compliment. She had cut her hair since the last time he’d been awake, the dark curls now stopped at her cheekbones in a look that highlighted her masculine disguise but wasn’t in any way flattering. It was clear that she had not only managed to maintained being Julek without his guidance, but leant into it.

‘I’m always proud.’

The Cintran ducked her head.

‘If you’re feeling well enough to stay awake for a while, would you be up for a visit from the captain? I keep telling him you’re still recovering, but he has some questions for you and he’s been an impatient bastard.’

There was giggle from the other hammock. ‘Big bad wolf huffs and puffs.’

Triss smiled. ‘Exactly. He’s been very huffy about this whole thing. I’ll be sure to kick him out if things get to strenuous for you, and it doesn’t have to be right now.’ She fetched a blanket from his previous pile and placed it over him. ‘I’ll send Lambert down soon with something hot for supper.’

Aiden made an odd, but happy sounding trilling noise at the mention of the other witcher, while Jaskier swallowed against the phantom hand against his throat. Ciri seemed to understand as she rested her hand on his forearm and gave it a squeeze.

‘Can I stay with my dad? I’d like to explain what he’s missed while he’s been sick.’

‘Of course, Julek.’

Ciri smiled and her big, brown eyes sparkled with mischief. Jaskier felt his lips lift in response, not a single doubt in his mind that he would be the one explaining himself. She had done so well to trust him so far, and the truth was far overdue.

Chapter Text

Ciri fetched Jaskier another blanket from the pile and curled into her hammock, facing the opposite direction so they could see each other. She had dark circles under her eyes and her lips were chapped, but she moved with more confidence than she had before, which was wonderful to see.

She curled a blanket around herself and glanced over to where Aiden lay, but then gave Jaskier an intense look, with one eyebrow hitched. Jaskier gave her a small nod, although he didn’t need the reminder that they wouldn’t be able to speak openly on a witcher ship.

‘How are you, have they been treating you okay?’

Ciri shrugged a shoulder. ‘They’ve been treating me better than the Nilfs at least. I’ve been allowed to bathe without being watched and they’ve given me a lot of food. I’m not allowed to go on deck on my own, but Triss has let me follow her around even though the weather’s been just awful.’

‘They haven’t hurt you?’

‘No. Aiden told everyone what actually happened, and his boyfriend’s been really mean, but he hasn’t touched me, and Triss said that Lambert always gets mean when he’s worried or scared.’

‘Or embarrassed, or tired, or bored, or hungry, or horny.’

Ciri snorted at the input, and Jaskier smiled. Even though Aiden’s presence was going to limit what they could talk about, he respected that the witcher wasn’t trying to pretend that he wasn’t eavesdropping.

To think of Aiden and Lambert as partners was at odds with what he knew about witchers being emotionless and solitary creatures. Physical companionship, sure, but Lamber’s response to Aiden being injured was a bit too dramatic for their partnering to be solely physical.

Relationships on sea vessels weren’t unheard of, although on Nilfgaardian ships they were a point of contention as two men sharing a hammock was only marginally more acceptable than sharing a bed. If this witcher couple was open enough that Ciri could refer to them as boyfriends, then they must be well established and accepted by the rest of the crew.

Yet, he couldn’t imagine the hand that had nearly killed him, that did kill him, touching anyone with something other than violence.

Jaskier’s memory while he was being choked was vague at best, he could remember Lamber’s name and voice, Van Eldand and a witcher with skin more scarred than not, but he couldn’t much remember anything that was said or done.

‘What exactly happened on the other ship?’

Ciri’s eyes drifted down to her bedding and she started to pick at one of the dark blankets, curling a loose thread around her finger while a small wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. He waited while she fiddled, giving her time to go through what had happened and figure out the best place to start.

‘So I, umm. When Lambert took you, Aiden told me to go get help, but Eskel stopped me and then you went over the edge-’

She explained that she hadn’t been strong enough to break from Eskel’s hold, even when he was distracted and scolding Lambert, as their captain had issued an order that no one was to be killed. They’d argued very briefly before Ciri had cut them off, to tell them to stop arguing and save Jasper.

‘Then, I… I used my power.’ Her eyes flicked up, waiting for a reaction from him.

He couldn’t give her the reassuring words she deserved, not without exposing their farce to Aiden, so he offered a smile and nodded for her to continue.

‘It pushed Eskel off me, and it pushed everything off of the ship. The water barrels, the ropes, the lanterns. Some of the Nilfs near the edge went over into the water. I told them you knew where the princess was, so they had to save you.’

‘You said that in front of the Nilfgaardians?’

‘Yes?’

‘And none of them reacted?’

‘No? I think someone said something, but everyone was distracted by what I’d done, and I think their captain had ordered them not to speak to the witchers. But I’m not sure... Did I do something wrong? Are we in trouble?’

‘No, no it’s fine. You were very brave Løve.’

A corner of her lips pulled up, but she still looked worried.

‘So what happened afterwards?’

‘Then Eskel pushed La-’

‘Into the fucking freezing cold ocean to retrieve your pathetic arse.’ Lambert stood at the entrance to the room, holding a bowl in his left hand and balancing a plate with two bowls on the stump of his other. ‘You are so welcome, by the way.’

Jaskier felt the muscled in his jaw tense as he slunk back into his hammock, conversation tabled while the aggressive witcher was present. Ciri’s looked worried, and a little guarded, but not frightened. She must have been speaking the truth when she’d said he hadn’t touched her.

Lambert seemed to ignore him as approached and sent the plate sliding off his stump and towards Ciri, who startled and fumbled to catch it all. Some of the contents spilt, but it didn’t seem to be hot enough to burn her. She rolled her eyes at him, but accepted the behaviour without comment and lent forward to pass Jaskier his bowl.

He was given a thick, root stew, with a thin layer of stock on top. As he mixed it with the provided spoon, it became much more palatable looking.

Lambert handed his bowl to Aiden before he pulled up a stool and sat with his back to them. Jaskier got the impression that it was a deliberate move, a statement that he didn’t view Jaskier or Ciri as threats that he needed to keep an eye on. He spoke to the injured witcher, a deep base rumble that was too quiet for Jaskier to hear, but Aiden smiled brightly in response to what ever was said.

Jaskier relaxed his white knuckled grip on the bowl and they ate in silence for a while. The meal warmed his insides, despite its tepid temperature, and filled him quickly, but it was clearly made for sustenance and health rather than flavour. He only managed a third of the serving before he started to feel ill.

Once Ciri had finished her serving she collected his bowl shoved them both at Lambert, who snarled, muttered something rude, and left with Aiden snickering at his retreating form.

The spy buried himself deeper into his hammock, his full stomach seemed to press against his lungs and he was forced to take shallower breaths again. He didn’t know when he’d get a proper chance to talk to Ciri, to fill her in on who he was without anyone censoring their conversation, but he felt much more reassured knowing that she had truly been okay while he was out of commission.

Aiden started to talk softly to Ciri, telling him an embarrassing story about Lambert that Jaskier wasn’t paying attention to, but left her giggling and promising to tease him about it in the future.

It didn’t take long for him to drift off to the soft sounds of rain and the conversation around him.

*****

The next day Triss checked his ribs and gave him an ointment to rub on his chest that could help when he started to feel short of breath, but was given the all clear to walk around as long as he didn’t over exert himself. He was given another very filling, but exceptionally bland, vegetable meal for breakfast before Aiden pulled Triss aside and talked to her about trying to ease off his painkillers.

From what Jaskier could hear and deduce from their conversation, the pain Aiden was in was mostly because of his body’s accelerated healing, that pulled his muscles and cracked his skull while it tried rearrange everything back into order. It was also implied that his body may have been trying to regrow his destroyed eye, which was a horrifying concept.

Now that his illness was abating, Jaskier hadn’t been able to sleep properly. He had been startled awake in the middle of the night by Aiden standing from his hammock and stretching his body in long inhuman movements.

They’d then talked for a bit, as the witcher’s mind was sober, and explained that witchers could sense fear. Julek, he’d said, had been terrified of everything when he’d first arrived, but he hadn’t sensed it from him for a while. Still cautious, but gaining confidence, and not a single soul on the ship would ever lay a hand on Julek. Aiden didn’t mention Jaskier’s own fear, for which the spy was thankful, although he could tell the witcher was trying to reassure him in a roundabout way.

‘Jasper, the Captain would like to see you now if you’re feeling to it.’

He had also learned that the butcher’s name was Geralt. The same Geralt that Ciri had set out to find.

The supposed coincidence churned in his stomach like sour milk.

‘Yes, that’s fine. And you don’t need to stay, if anything I’d like to talk to the captain alone about what his plans for my son and I are.’

Ciri looked at Jaskier with a deep frown before she swung herself out of the hammock. ‘I can go up top with Aiden and Triss if you’d prefer I not be here.’

‘I think that’d be for the best. It will probably be exceptionally dull.’

She gave him a small hug before she left, Aiden by her side. Jaskier moved to sit over the side of the hammock, feet on the floor and back straight, in a manor much more appropriate for such a meeting. He ran a hand through his curls in an attempt to not look as haggard as he felt.

Triss collected a few vials from her workbench before she turned to the doorway, but jumped and was stopped when she attempted to leave. ‘Melitele’s tits, Geralt. Don’t lurk outside my sanctuary like that, and be nice.’

Then she left, and her presence was replaced by a tall, broad figure he supposed was Captain Geralt.

Jaskier first noticed the hair. He had seen men and women whose hair was pin straight on land, be cursed with curls in the presence of sea spray. But Geralt’s hair, held back from his face by a strip of black cloth, was perfectly straight.

No one at sea had straight hair. It was physically impossible.

It was unnaturally white, as was the smattering of white five o’clock shadow that highlighted a strong, sharp jaw.

‘Triss says you’ve recovered well.’ His voice rumbled like a distant storm, low and foreboding.

‘Recovering, Captain, I believe I still have a ways to go.’

The corner of his lip twitched up, although Jaskier couldn’t tell whether it was a snarl, snear or half-smile, showing the barest hint of teeth. ‘Regardless, recovering much faster than a human.’

Jaskier straightened, planting his feet on the ground and preparing himself to stand. Witchers were made to kill anything non-human, and did so with terrifying efficiency.

‘Excuse me? You must be mistaken.’

‘Hmmm.’ Captain Geralt tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. Even in the dim light they seemed like gold coins, brighter and more reflective than Aiden and Lambert’s. ‘Julek had some trouble hearing when he came aboard, we examined your ears too. Just in case.’

Jaskier twitched, and instinctively reached up to touch the apex of his ear. The best surgeons his father could afford had left only a faint scar. The disguise charm usually kept them hidden, so much so that he had forgotten about their existence.

‘I assume Julek gets his ability from your shared blood?’

‘Right, yes.’ He put his hands in his lap, although he could still feel phantom fingers on the shells of his ears. ‘Julek has few reasons to feel safe anywhere, but he seems to be making friends here. Aiden had reassured me that the rumours involving witchers and children have been unfairly exaggerated, but I do have to wonder what you intend to do with Julek and I now that we are prisoners aboard your ship.’

‘Hmm.’ Geralt crossed his arms across his very broad chest and frowned, something guarded in his golden eyes. ‘Not sure yet.’

‘I’m not sure of your current bearings, but in lieu of finding asylum in Nilfgaard, I suggest you take us directly to Oxenfurt so that I may regroup with an associate of mine.’ He tilted his chin, in an attempt to not be cowered by the towering witcher, ‘I’m sure you’ve been told that I know the location of The Last Royal, Queen Calanthe’s granddaughter, and I will not give up this information until our safe return is secured.’

The captain’s face remained inscrutable. Jaskier wasn’t used to being so unsure about another’s body language and facial expressions, but the witcher opposite him may as well have been carved from marble. It was deeply unsettling.

‘Although I do appreciate everything you’ve done for us thus far. Triss had been a wonderful healer and made great efforts to make Julek feel included and helpful while I was unwell.’

‘Mmm.’

‘… And your ship, although I haven’t seem much beyond the sickroom, I’m sure is lovely. W-What’s her name?’

‘The Merwolf.’

‘Oh… That’s… A lovely name.’

Geralt shuffled slightly as his stoicism broke and a light, blotchy blush appeared on his neck. ‘I didn’t choose it. My suggestion was overruled by the crew.’

‘What name did you want?’

‘The Roach.’ Geralt said, something warm and fond in his voice.

‘Ah, see, that is much more fitting for a ship such as this. Roach are a wonderful fish.’

‘Mmm.’ Geralt uncrossed his arms, and turned to leave. Jaskier wasn’t sure whether the witcher Captain had been pleased by his response or not, but kept his body language neutral despite feeling so unsure.

‘We can take you and your son to Oxenfurt, but I have a schedule to keep.’ he spoke from the doorway. ‘If we come across another ship. you can try to request a passage across to get there sooner, but you may be a passenger aboard for a while yet.’

Once Geralt had left the room, Jaskier collapsed back onto his hammock, almost panting for how out of breath he felt, and curled up on his side, his knees cracking and ribs aching at the undesirable position as reality settled over him. He had survived his first encounter with the Butcher. Now he just had to do the same for the remainder of the voyage.

Chapter Text

Ciri liked being up on the deck, as it helped to remind her that she wasn’t a prisoner and eased the trapped feeling she always had while being below deck. So far she had stuck by Triss’s side, but was still too nervous to ask when she needed something, so spent most her time hoping that the healer would need to go upstairs so that she could follow and get some air.

She wasn’t sure whether she felt the most comfortable with Triss because Triss was the only woman or the only human aboard, but she did genuinely seemed like she wanted to help and Ciri trusted her to keep her safe. There wasn’t much the young princess could do in thanks, but had made an effort to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible as to not be a burden. She didn’t want to risk annoying anybody on board, nor admitting that she didn’t know how to do most of tasks everyone else did. Cleaning and laundry were not things she had been taught in the Cintran palace.

Jasper hadn’t woken up yet, but Triss had reassured her that he was doing much better now that his fever had broken and his coughing wasn’t as wet. She still slept by his side, sometimes curled up against him, needing to his his heart beating but not wanting to hurt his broken chest, despite the convulsive coughing that rocked her awake.

When they’d pulled him out of the water he had been so pale, his lips had been blue and he hadn’t been breathing. Jasper looked different to Julek, but he was still the person who’d told her stories to distract her from being sad, who’d made her laugh with stupid drawings and sung her back to sleep when she had nightmares.

She wasn’t angry at him for lying about who he was. If anything she was embarrassed that she didn’t realise sooner. He had been far too nice and smart to be a real Nilf.

Eskel, the one who had grabbed her, had taken Jasper’s body from a wet Lambert and placed his hand on Jasper’s chest and then Jasper had convulsed under Eskel’s hand.

Triss had later explained that he had used magic to push against Jasper’s lungs and heart, and that they were lucky Eskel was there as he was the only one with enough precision to use enough force to bring him back to life without crushing him to death.

It was terrifying to think that she was on a ship full of magic-wielding beasts who were strong enough to crush a person under their hand, but so far the only one who had been mean to her had been Lambert.

She had been scared of Lambert when she’d first been lead onto the ship by Eskel, which was horrible as he hung around the sickroom a lot since Aiden was there. One night, when they thought she was asleep, she heard a whispered conversation between them and realised that they were boyfriends. Then she started to find his protective behaviour kind of cute.

There was no way she would admit that to anyone though. Mainly because she was supposed to be a boy now, and boys didn’t think things were cute.

Lambert had even helped Triss mix her tonics for Jasper. There was a small garden on board, although Ciri hadn’t seen it, and they had made something from special flowers, because Jasper needed to ‘connect to the earth’ in order to heal effectively.

Ciri had cried the night after she’d found out that Jasper wasn’t human, although she didn’t really know why. She hadn’t been sad, no more so than she had been since she lost her home, just confused and overwhelmed.

After Ciri had been aboard for a few days, Triss took her to the captain’s cabin. She didn’t know much about him except that he was The Butcher, a monster who had slaughtered an entire coastal town for fun and then gathered the remaining witchers to form an army on the sea.

She didn’t want to get into trouble by saying no, but she knew she would have to see the captain eventually, she had just hoped she’d have Jasper by her side when she did.

At least she was safely hidden behind her disguise. When running from Cintra she had occasionally come across groups of travellers who had offered her food in exchange for doing things that she very much didn’t want to do. She had gotten very good at kicking them between the legs, grabbing what she could and then running.

But now that she was a boy, she was at least safe from that kind of thing.

The captain’s cabin was warm, at least, and it seemed that Triss would be staying with her. There was a small front room with a round table, which had been laid out with fragrant bread, some fish and roasted root vegetables, oatmeal with toppings and a jar of some kind of jam. She could also smell a spicy black tea.

There was a section of the room that had been blocked by a tapestry of a mountain keep, which was pulled aside by a man almost as big as Eskel, except he only had one thin scar across his eye and his hair was lighter than hers.

She knew she had to address him formally, he was essentially a lord, so she dipped into a formal bow that she’d seen men of the court do.

The captain huffed, amused or annoyed.

Eskel followed the captain out from behind the tapestry, a warm smile on the visible side of his face. ‘Good morning, Julek, how did you sleep?’

‘I slept well, thank you.’

He didn’t seem convinced, if the concern in his golden eyes was any indication, but he let it go in favour of introducing her to the captain.

Geralt.

This was the man her grandmother had told her to find, except he wasn’t a man, he was a witcher, which didn’t make sense as her grandmother hated anything and anyone not human. She must have known what Geralt was, his eyes were the brightest gold she’d seen, and his hair was hard to confuse with someone else.

Triss lead her to the table and she sat in a daze, staring at the food placed in front of her. The healer started talking to the captain, and the deep voices of the two witchers rumbled around her. They might have addressed her at some point, and she might have mumbled a monosyllabic answer, but she wasn’t sure.

Why would her grandmother want her to go to a witcher? Witcher’s took and tortured children until all the humanity had gone from them and all that remained were monsters who were trained to kill other monsters.

Maybe… maybe she’d been sent to the witchers because her grandmother knew she was a monster and witchers were supposed to kill monsters. She had been very careful to hide her powers from her grandmother’s hatred. But maybe…

Then she had started crying again, which wasn’t good because she was supposed to be a boy and boys never cried.

‘Julek?’ Triss put a hand on her shoulder and Ciri shrugged it off, shrinking into her self. The conversation had stopped and she felt herself flush at the attention. She’d thought she was being quiet.

‘I’m s-sorry. I d-didn’t...’ She sobbed harder and brought the warm wool of Jasper’s coat up to bury her face into it. Triss rubbed circles onto her back, speaking something in a soothing tone, but Ciri only wanted Jasper’s voice to tell her it was going to be okay, and that he would protect her like he had in the cells and wouldn’t let them have her.

Her hands were pulled away from her face. Eskel was kneeling in front of her, looking concerned and a little lost.

‘Can you tell us what’s wrong, Julek?’

She hung her head and let curtains of hair fall into her vision. ‘I’m sorry I hurt people. I didn’t mean to hurt Aiden or those people on the ship.’

‘We know that.’ Triss spoke, ‘and Aiden does too.’

‘Lambert knows too, he’s just a prick.’

‘Eskel!’

‘I mean… he’s a grumpy person.’ Eskel shifted awkwardly, ‘You were scared, and sometimes people make mistakes when they’re scared because they’re just trying to protect themselves. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.’

‘S-so you’re not going to kill me?’

‘Julek,’ Captain Geralt hadn’t moved to comfort her like the others, but his shoulders tight and tense, and his eyes were bright and sad. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Because witchers kill monsters.’

Triss sighed and Eskel looked over at the Captain.

‘Wolf.’

‘Hmm’ Geralt stood from the table and Eskel stood and moved back to his place at the table. Ciri tensed as the witcher captain moved into her space, but he just leant over her to take a handful of the oatmeal toppings, berries and some crushed nuts. He reached out to grab her hand, slow enough that she could pull back if she wanted and turned her palm up to place the food in her palm.

Then he let out a soft looping whistle and there was a fluttering noise before a bird burst out from behind the tapestry and settled on Geralt’s shoulder. It was brown, with a light colours beak and a trio of white feathers on the underside of it’s tail, and it tilted its head to stare at Ciri with one assessing eye.

‘This is Roach,’ Geralt held two fingers up to the bird and it hopped onto the perch, ‘She’s a Zerrikanian brown parrot. They’re very intelligent. Good judges of character.’ He moved the finger perch close to her outstretched palm so that Roach could lower her head to take some of the berries.

Ciri looked up from the bird, who was now pecking at her offering in earnest, to see a small but warm upturn on Geralt’s lips as he watched the parrot. Then he tilted his hand and Roach hoped from his fingers onto her wrist, the claws sharp on the vulnerable flesh but not breaking skin.

She held her breath, too scared to move while the bird was on her.

‘She’s my best friend.’ Geralt said softly, ‘I wouldn’t trust her with someone I thought was a monster.’

He stood and moved back to his place, leaving the bird on Ciri’s arm. She was terrified to do something wrong, but it was a heavy bird and she wasn’t strong enough to hold the weight for long. With slow careful movements she lowered her arm down to the table, the bird still balanced.

Triss gained Ciri’s attention when she loaded more food onto Ciri’s plate, so she took a fork and started to eat one-handedly, while she kept an eye on Roach to make sure she wasn’t going to attack. When the bird finished it’s meal it decided to walk up Ciri’s arm and start picking at the dark tangles of hair.

‘What is she doing?’

‘Grooming,’ Geralt rumbled, ‘She thinks you need to comb your hair.’

Ciri wrinkled her nose and tilted her head away from the sharp beak. ‘I think she’s making it worse.’

‘I can get a bath set up for you and we can try to de-tangle it if you like.’ Triss offered, ‘I have an oil that could help smooth it out.’

‘That… Yes, thank you.’

The rest of the meal went much calmer. Roach continued to use Ciri like a tree, and Geralt, Eskel and Triss renewed their conversation while occasionally asking Ciri for an opinion or input. She continued to eat until she was full, relaxing to the sound around her and starting to feel like maybe she was going to be okay.

Surely they wouldn’t put this much effort into making her feel like she belonged if they were just going to kill her.

When she got up with Triss, she thanked Captain Geralt for the meal and held her fingers to Roach like she’d seen him do so she could transfer the bird to the captain’s outstretched hand.

‘and thank you for letting me meet Roach.’

‘You can come and feed her any time you like. She’s a good friend, and a good listener.’

Ciri gave another bow on her way out. So far she liked Triss, Eskel and Roach, and if they liked Geralt then maybe he wasn’t so bad too, just a lot more serious than everyone else.

She knew, though, that they were only being nice because they didn’t know who she actually was, but as she was being lead to the bathing room she decided she could use their kindness to trick them. Maybe then should could figure out exactly how her grandmother knew the witcher captain and why finding her was so important to them.

But that could wait, because she was going to have her first bath in months and in that moment nothing else mattered.

Chapter Text

Witchers had been the last race humans had turned on during the cleansing. The more honest historians noted that because witchers were exceptionally strong, the humans had put off upsetting them for as long as they could, while some defended that the mutants had been useful until the more violent monsters had gone extinct. Afterwards, with invention of firearms, the remaining creatures, the ones who reproduced effectively, drowners and rotfiends, were little more than a nuisance which humans could take care of themselves.

With no use left for witcher some humans made attempts to kill the mutants, which ended poorly . So instead of a direct assault the world simply became colder towards witchers: l arger cities simply refused t hem entry and smaller towns stopped posting contracts. So the witchers vanished from the civilised world , presumably to liv e in the woods like the beasts they were.

Then there had been a princess who had been captured by a powerful, and kept in prisoner in an invisible tower just outside of a small coastal town. She hired mercenaries to rescue her, brave and noble men, who were able to free her and hide her in the nearby town.

The mage hired a witcher, who greedily took the contract with no regard for the evil he was aiding. He marched into town and demanded they hand her over and when they refused, the witcher cut them down and sprawled their limbs and viscera across the town square.

He then travelled to the docks and d emanded their fastest boat, t he men there were too scared by the violent display in town to deny the monster. But the witcher t he n slaughtered everyone on the docks, even though they had given him what he wanted, and took their fastest boat and disappeared .

As storytelling went, the tale of the butcher had a lot of holes and thin veils, but it was simple in it’s message to not cross a witcher and not trust a witcher. They’re monsters when they don’t get what they want, and monsters when they do.

However, i t was hard for Jaskier to associate that story with Captain Geralt, who could have easily slaughtered the Nilfgaardian soldiers, or kept Ciri in the brig and used her to black mail Jasper .

When he’d ta l ked to Geralt he hadn’t necessarily been frightened. Unsettl ed , yes, but that mostly came from being unable to deciphering Geralt’s body language or micro expressi o ns. Even before he had been plucked from Oxenfurt to be trained as a spy Jaskier had always been good at reading people, but something about the snow-haired witcher seemed impenetrable.

He hadn’t known what to do without that social feedback. So much so that he’d started to ramble to fill the silence, a habit he had through he’d broken years ago.

While he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being on the witcher ship for an indeterminate amount of time at least there was no immediate threat, or at least none that he could detect from the crew he’d met. Still, it would be a good idea to form a backup plan, or several.

He doubted another ship would come close enough to the witchers to be able to jump ship, as the captain suggested, but perhaps if their business brought them close to a port then he and Ciri could debark. However, it would take gold to bribe a different captain ot taken them to Oxenfurt, which he could earn performing in taverns, or by stealing it from somewhere. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to.

There was a knock, gentle and hesitant.

Jaskier uncurled himself from his position and realised he’d been picking at the skin around his cuticles. Another old habit he thought he’d broken. He took a few deep breaths and turned over to put his back to the door and lay still, so that anyone who entered would think that he was asleep.

But as he lay there, controlling his breathing into a steady rhythm, no one came in.

After a few minutes he was sure the person had left so he shuffled onto his back, ribs and shoulder protesting, and pressed the heals of his hands into his eyes.

For the past few years he’d been on navy ships, where privacy was hard found and moments by himself were spent dedicated to information gathering and reinforcing his chaos. If anybody knocked before entering, it was to warn that they were entering, rather than to ask permission to enter.

Whomever had been at the door had been exceptionally polite to leave without permission to enter.

Now he was alone, and he felt it. He had been treading water since he’d woken up and was scared to take a moment to stop in case he drowned. Figuratively, this time. And he was now responsible for the life of a child, one that every kingdom would literally kill to get their hands on.

Pressure started to build behind his eyes and his battered lungs pushed a sob through his abused throat. He turned to his side again and pulled the bedding towards himself so that he could bury his face into it and muffle the sounds. He didn’t want to risk anyone hearing his weakness.

He kept himself buried until his soul wrung itself dry and the tears stopped. His joints popped and cracked when he uncurled himself and every muscle in his abdomen and chest ached like they’d been clenched for hours. He tried to wipe the tears from his face, but they had already dried and left the skin around his eyes feeling puffy and tight.

Also his nose was blocked, as if the room wasn’t stuffy feeling enough. And instead of blocking the smell of the room it seemed to trap the sensation behind his sinuses: the sweat, sickness, bedpans, and the every present cloying scent of rosemary cherry chaos. He nearly gagged on the sensation.

He needed to get out of the room. He needed to be able to breathe.

However, he knew for certain that if he left the he would run into someone, which he didn’t think he could handle right now. His pulse hammered as he searched his soft, borrowed clothes for his stiletto knife, but couldn’t find anything that could be used as a weapon.

That was okay, that was fine. He would do his best to stay hidden, but he needed to go. He needed to leave.

He pushed the door open to a short hallway that opened up into a large, dark room at the end. If The Merwolf followed the logic off others ships he’d been on, then the infirmary was in the deepest part of the ship where it was quiet and quarantined, which was confirmed when he walked through the hallway and into the cargo hold.

The hatches had been battened down, so no light was coming through the grating above, and no torches were lit. Cargo holds were dangerous in the dark, and Jaskier found himself stumbling over small boxes and coils of rope as he clambered through the disorganised room, almost running into the base of the main mast before he found the ascending steps.

He hesitated on the precipice, but the air was still choking him. Witchers were moving around this area, some stomping like cattle and others moving as silent as wisps, but there were too many of the inhuman crew to sneak past, and could easily stop him from getting above deck.

Jaskier tried to calm himself down but anxiety was still thudding through his veins and begging him to press forward, so he propelling himself up the stairs and into the large room. A few golden eyes flickered to him, their peculiar nature reflecting discs of light, running up and down his person, but they only seemed curious and no one made an attempt to approach him.

The room itself should have been the gun deck, but there weren’t any cannons or artillery. Instead it was a mostly open space, with spiked balls hanging from the ceiling and short stumps on the ground sharpened to points. There was also a post with a series of blades sticking out from it at different angles.

‘Are you alright? You look like you’re about to pass out.’

Jaskier flinched at the sudden rumbling voice to his left. He was unsure what an acceptable explanation would be. Why would Jasper be out of the infirmary?

‘Julek. I assume he’s on deck?’

Jaskier didn’t look in the witcher’s direction and instead swung himself around to the second set of stairs. He didn’t want to make eye contact with whoever was speaking, lest they see his weakness, and a primal part of his brain recognised that he was putting an unknown beast at his back.

But if he could get up to the deck, where he had space to breathe, then he would be alright. As he ascended the last let of stairs he could see the late afternoon sky, having been curled in his hammock for longer than he’d thought. Once outside he moved to the side and away from the steps to lean against a barrel that had been placed nearby. The fresh cold air ran over his skin, conjuring instant goosebumps and making him feel dizzy from relief.

He gulped down air, trying to take steady deep breaths, and the horrible stuffy sensation gave way to finally being able to breathe. Jasper, however, needed to find Julek, but at some point his legs had given up on him and the barrel he was slumped against was the only thing holding him up.

‘Hey, Julek’s safe. He’s with Aiden on the aftcastle.’

Jaskier look up at the witcher who had followed him, he was a broader than the Captain but with softer lines around his square face. Although he looked quite different than before, with a larger portion of his hair flipped over to block his scared face, Jaskier could still recall that this was Eskel.

‘I’m not sure if you remember me, but I’m Eskel: first mate of The Merwolf.’

He extended a large hand out, in such a politely human gesture that for a moment Jaskier was unsure how to respond. He shifted his weight onto his sore shoulder and took the hand, which was scarred both on the palm and back, while trying not to feel self conscious by how small his hand looked in the other man’s grip.

‘Jasper Vellarkin.’

‘Nice to officially meet you’ he released Jaskier’s hand and rubbed at the scarred side of his face self-consciously. ‘You probably shouldn’t be on deck without an escort. At least until you get used to what it’s like up here so you don’t get hurt.’

Jaskier nodded. Ciri hadn’t been allowed on deck without company, it stood to reason that he wouldn’t be either.

Jasper may not have any experience on deck, but Jaskier knew that having someone awkward and ignorant traipsing around wasn’t just potentially dangerous for everyone on deck, but also incredibly annoying. He could have protested, Jasper wouldn’t have understood why being on deck was a bad idea, but Jaskier didn’t have the energy.

His head was beginning to throb and even though there was only a thin layer of clouds, the deck was damp from recent rain and it was staring to soak into his thick socks. Coming above deck unprepared had been stupid.

He pushed off the barrel, prepared to apologise and return to the infirmary, but the world tilted and he barely had time to recognise that his legs had given out before the wood grain of the deck came up to meet him. However, instead of an impact with the deck, something else solid hit his ribs and sent pain through his healing ribs. He squinted up through a few tears of pain to see a very muscular forearm holding him up.

‘Sorry, sorry, I got light-headed, but I’m fine.’

He looked up to see the witcher’s face close enough that Jaskier could see striations of gold in otherwise deep, amber orange.

‘Did I… You’re the one I threw up on, aren’t you?’

Eskel turned his head away and tucked his chin to his chest as he chuckled. ‘It was mostly just seawater. I’ve had far worse.’

‘Well I am terribly sorry, and incredibly grateful. I don’t know what would have happened to Julek had I been killed… I mean… had I been killed permanently.’ A small, slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up and he pressed his lips together to keep it contained.

Eskel seemed to think he was now able to keep himself upright under his own power and removed his arm. His hand, the hand that had brought him back to life, brushed across his chest and Jaskier felt himself shiver from something beyond the cold air.

‘I can take you to Julek, or somewhere warm where you can rest?’

Jaskier took a breath of chilling, fresh air and looked to Eskel. His concern was written across the witcher’s face as obvious as the scars that adorned it, so unlike the captain, and Jaskier couldn’t detect any ulterior motive or ill intention.

‘I don’t want to go back to the infirmary.’ He answered honestly. ‘but I’m not sure I can make it to the aft.’

Eskel tilted his head like he’d heard something in the distance and looked up to the quarterdeck. Jaskier followed his gaze to where Geralt was standing at the railing above, watching. He was too far up for Jaskier to make out his expression, but there was a bird sitting on his broad shoulders and his white hair glowed in the dim light. His head tilted and his breath was visible as he said something Jaskier couldn’t make out.

Eskel chuckled, ‘Aye aye, Wolf.’

He turned wide eyes onto Eskel. He hadn’t heard anything beyond the waves and general bustle of the ship and it was disconcerting to see how good witcher hearing actually was in action. The scarred witcher tilted his head and gave him a reassuring smile with the unmarred side of his face.

‘Geralt’s going to go and fetch Julek for you. I know you’re not up for a full tour, but there’s something he wants me to show you.’

Jaskier didn’t necessarily like the idea of the captain fetching Julek, even though he was sure that the two had interacted without him before, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. On the other hand, Eskel seemed genuine and had saved Jaskier’s life, so he was willing to go along with it for now.

‘Please, lead the way.’

Chapter Text

It was sometimes quite easy to tell a ship’s origin from their design. The Deith’Adan, for example, was clearly Nilfgaardian because of it’s bulky shapes and fine detailing on the rails, while The Merwolf had all the tells signs of a Temerian ship, with a sleek, angular design and unique rigging configuration. The internal layout of ships were always slightly different, but once inside they all looked the same with their plain walls and practical builds. Sailors and navy men were not much for interior design.

However, when Eskel lead Jaskier into the officer’s cabin from the upper deck it had more personality than he’d seen inside a ship with a painted mural along one of the walls which depict ed a sprawling snowcapped mountain range.

Jaskier blinked into the dim light, light shivers wracking his body even though he was no longer in the chill of the deck. He could see two doors at the end of the hall with a circular carving on each, but it was too dark to make out the designs on them.

‘ Straight through here are the two doors to Geralt’s and my quarters ,’ Eskel explained, ‘ and to the left of that is the head. Then there’s Aiden and Lambert’s quarters there and opposite them, next to the store room, are quarters we’ve set up for you and Julek.’

‘That’s very generous of you. I can’t imagine you just had a spare room lying around, I was expecting to stay in the infirmary or the brig.’

He felt more than saw the very broad shoulder shrug beside him , ‘It was Geralt’s private bathing room , but he’ll survive without it.’

‘Bathing room? How decadent.’ Jaskier commented before he could consider that critiquing the captain may not be the best of ideas, but a private bathroom was a luxury most houses didn’t have let alone on a ship.

Quite selfish to create a space where he alone could bathe while the rest of the crew made do with the traditional basin and rag, but perhaps even amongst witchers the captain took what he wanted.

‘Very much so, but Geralt has always been a sucker for a hot bath and the crew were complaining he spent too long in the communal tubs.’

Wait. What?

‘Wait, what?’

Eskel chuckled. ‘ Yeah, s ometimes he forgets that he’s supposed to be a wolf, not a dugong.’

‘ No,’ Jaskier closed his eyes against the ache in his head, ‘I meant, there are baths here? That the crew can access? With hot water?’

He was aware he was starting to sound hysterical, but that concept was so unheard of for so many reasons. Why on earth would a ship allow for such a thing, and how could it be maintained? In the years he had been jumping ships he had never heard of anyone heating a bowl of water for washing, let alone enough for an entire tub.

‘That’s what he wanted me to show you. Geralt’s always been of the opinion that a good soak can cure all ills.’ Eskel placed a hand on Jasper’s lower back. It was light in pressure, hesitant, but guided him and reassured him that the witcher was there should Jaskier need help.

Eskel’s hand felt large enough to wrap around his waist, and radiated heat through the thin layers of the night shirt Jaskier had been wearing.

He guided Jaskier to the closest door to the left, which opened up to a room containing two wooden tubs. They were each large enough to fit a person as long as they didn’t mind having their knees tucked to their chest. On the wall hung a plain square mirror and a satchel that had been nailed next to it.

‘This is… I...’ Jaskier moved towards the tubs, and found himself irrationally disappointed to find it empty.

Then a second door opened and cold wind whipped in from the deck, bringing with it an unknown witcher. He had a thick black beard, kept neat with a dwarven bead under his chin. His eyes were such a pale yellow that the irises were barely visible next to the whites and the colour made it all the more obvious that his pupils were rounded, rather than the slitted pupils that seemed indicative of witchers.

‘This is Coën. He’s a griffin witcher, not a wolf, but we trust him anyway.’

‘Ha ha.’ Coën said, his voice dry but not unfriendly.

‘This is Jasper.’

‘Yes,’ Jaskier shook his head slightly as his manners came back to him, ‘Sorry, you startled me. Jasper Vellarkin, at your service.’

‘Coën of Povis, at yours.’

Coën was carrying a half-barrel on his shoulder, which he swung down as if it weighed nothing and emptied its contents into the tub farthest from the doors. Another witcher, with orange hair cropped close to his scalp, immediately showed up once the half barrel was empty and swapped it for another full one.

‘That was Gweld,’ Coën explained as he tipped more water into the tub before yet another witcher appeared in the doorway, looking identical to Gweld except for his hair, which was longer and tied in a loose bun, ‘and this is Gwen.’

‘Evening.’ Gwen greeted with a sharp nod of his head before disappearing and being replaced by Gweld again.

The three worked quickly to fill the tub to half it’s capacity before stopping. Jaskier supposed they couldn’t fill it more than half, lest the ship tilt too far, and once Coën bade farewell he dipped a finger in to the water to have his suspicions confirmed: It was pulled straight from the ocean and painfully frigid.

He was tired and cold and his body seemed to be severely out of practice supporting his own weight, so emboldened by the lingering threat of potential heartbreak he placed his hands on his hips and rounded on Eskel.

‘I believe I was promised a hot bath, sir.’

For a moment Eskel stood there, not blinking, and just long enough for fear to shiver up Jaskier’s spine, before his face broke out into a smile wide enough to pull at the scarred side of his lip and expose the hint of a sharp canine . ‘ Of course.’

The witcher shuffled past to reach into the tub of water and swirl ed his hand around before tendrils of steam started to rise from the water. Jaskier watched with wide eyes until he was suddenly struck with the sensation of inhaling ash.

He turned away from Eskel as the other’s chaos caused a volley of sneezes to rip through him , leaving him gasping for breath as his body bent in half . When it had passed h e sniffled into his sleeve and looked up at Eskel who was watching him with a surprised, worried look .

‘ Excuse me ,’ he croaked. The fit had sent his throat and ribs screaming, but he shot Eskel a small smile to try and abate his concerns.

‘Gods bless. Are you alright?’

‘I’m fine, I promise.’

Eskel nodded, and let the matter drop even though he didn’t look entirely convinced. He gestured to the satchel on the wall, ‘feel free to use what you need. I believe Geralt will be delivering your effects on his the way through, but feel free to call out if you need anything specific. We’ll hear you.’

Once the witcher left Jaskier allowed himself to slump against one of the empty tubs as the energy keeping him upright dissolved in the warmth of the room. Thankfully the smell of hot seawater had returned to normal, Eskel’s chaos having disappeared as quickly as it had come. It did make sense to him that a mutated species would have corrupted chaos, but he hadn’t expected such a visceral reaction to it.

He hummed a single note, cough ing on the attempt, but it was enough for his own jasmine and orange chaos to blossom and reassure him of its presence. He had felt it restore with his own physical strength, but it was nice to have confirmation that it was available if needs be.

Jaskier opened the hanging satchel to find a vial of ol i ve oil, a comb, a bar of plain soap and a small pair of scissors.

He took the soap and turned his back to the mirror before he stripped off his nightshirt and soaked soaks . He hadn’t looked at his true face in years , and if he must then he was going to do so after he’d had a good clean .

His long legs were just able to hook over the edge of the tub and he made a small whimper as his feet descended into water that was slightly too hot to be comfortable. He took a breath, leant his hands on the rim of the bath and slowly lowered himself .

Fully seated, the water level sat at his mid chest with his knees poking up above the warmth. It took his body a moment to adapt to the temperature change, but no time at all before his muscles absorbed the heat and started to relax.

An obscene noise slipped from his lips. ‘ Dear s weet manna from heavens.’

Jaskier used his nightshirt to scrub soap into all the nooks and crannies of his body, and lathered several layers in his hair before he felt he had stripped himself of the sweat and grease that had settled over him like a veil.

However, when it came to rinse his hair Jaskier found that he couldn’t. He just stared into the murky water , unable to bring himself to dunk his head beneath the surface.

Witchers could sense fear, he reminded himself, and tried to force calm into his heartbeat. He w rung his soaked nightshirt over his head before squeezing the soap down to the ends of his hair . If he focused on the warmth surrounding him, then the memory of icy water filling his lungs seemed distant enough to not overwhelm him.

Cleanliness achieved, Jaskier leant back in the water, intent on just enjoying the warmth while it remained. He yawned and pawed at the resulting tears with wet hands before he sunk a little deeper into the water and let the surface lap at his chin while he closed his eyes.

H e hummed again, his throat allowing it this time, and enjoyed the sensation of chaos flowing through him.

There w as the faint sound of people milling about the ship, and of someone walking on the deck above him, but it was peaceful in a way that Jaskier hadn’t experienced for an extremely long time. He was alone, but the thought didn’t provoke the same anxiety it had an hour or so before.

There were people here who would be there for him: Ciri, who seemed happy by his side; Eskel, to whom he owed his life; Triss, who created new tonics just to help his recovery; Aiden, who had forgiven them so quickly despite his pain; and finally, the C aptain, who cared enough about his comfort he ordered a bath to be drawn and private quarters to be readied .

Someone knock ed at the door and Jaskier jumped enough to slosh some water up to the rim of his tub, his languid musings interrupted.

‘Yes?’

‘ I have your clothes,’ The captain’s voice rumbled through the wood . ‘ and Julek is waiting for you in your quarters . H e says to take your time, but to not fall asleep in the tub .’

The door opened just enough for Geralt’s muscular arm to squeeze through and place some folded clothes on the floor, followed by a steaming mug. Jaskier smiled at the kind gesture, and the effort Geralt was going to in order to allow him privacy, especially on his own ship.

‘ Thank you, Captain .’

The door creaked closed, leaving Jaskier alone with his thoughts in his tub.

He let himself sink back down into the warmth. Maybe being trapped on The Merwolf wouldn’t be as terrible after all.

Chapter Text

Jaskier stayed in the tub until his fingers wrinkled and the water stopped steaming into the cold room, but eventually he had to drag himself from the warmth. He stepped out and the steam poured off of him as the air started to soak the heat from his body.

He put on the familiar pants and shirt he had worn during his time on the Nilfgaardian ship. They were slightly too tight now that his body was not transformed behind the disguise charm. His shoulder’s were broader than they’d been as Julek, and his shoulders and arms were more muscular.

However, much to his disappointment, his rump had become soft and much less defined, as had his thighs. Not having his daily walks around the countess’s grounds had taken its toll.

In addition to his old clothes there was also a coat, padded for warmth, and a hooded cloak, treated to resist water. There was a small leather satchel, designed to hang from his waist, that contained most of what had previously been kept in his boots. He was missing the small handful of dried dandelion seeds he usually kept on him, but his coin and stiletto dagger had been returned.

The dagger had been taken care of properly after being waterlogged and had even been sharpened. A sign of good faith perhaps, or a message to tell him that even with his stiletto he was no threat to a ship full of trained warrior mutants.

Either way, he did appreciated being armed.

Clean, and feeling more himself than he had in a long time, Jaskier knew that all he needed to stay safe on this ship was a plan, but he would need to have a talk with Ciri before he could make any solid decisions in that regard.

He slipped the dagger back into his boot and started to comb some of the oil through his hair to counter not only the effects of the soap, but also the hot salty water which would leave it feeling like straw if left uncared for.

Jaskier took a breath and released it slowly, knowing he had put off truly looking at himself for as long as he possible. ‘Okay Jasper, darling, let’s see what we’re working with.’

He turned to the mirror and stood for a moment. He blinked rapidly and touched the smooth surface until his brain caught up with what he was seeing.

There were a few light crow’s feet around his eyes, and a couple of stray greys in his long hair. It was possible that the sun, or the stress of his occupation, or even being away from the chaos of nature had aged him prematurely, which would have been perfect if Jasper was supposed to be human. As such, it was unusual for someone of his ancestry to show signs of aging this early in his life.

From the level of stubble he assumed that it had been close to a week since he had taken off his disguise charm on The Deith’Adan and allowed his body to start growing facial hair again. He had deep shadows under his eyes, but the eyes themselves had been brought back to their natural bright blue, the same shade as his grandmother’s, which made his heart ache for how much he had missed seeing them.

He took the scissors and started to comb and snip his hair to a more manageable length. He set it just above his shoulders, long enough to tie up if needed.

He assessed the job he’d done and noticed that, despite his best, careful efforts, the hair the framed his face looked uneven. With some continued snipping he eventually reached equilibrium, but those front pieces were noticeably shorter than the rest

‘Bollocks.’

With a sigh he tussled his hair to give it back some natural wave and camouflage the awkward levels, the overall effect of which, combined with the facial hair, gave him a charmingly roguish look.

Or that or a tired, but well kept, single father.

He brushed the discarded hair into a little bundle with the damp towel before putting on the warm coat and picking up the mug. It was tea, slightly sweetened with honey, and stone cold from being left on the floor for so long. However, having spent so much time in Nilfgaard, where they preferred coffee, he had leant to appreciate a well made cup of tea regardless of temperature.

Mug in hand, Jasper ventured from the bathing room and out into the cabin hallway. There were a few witchers there whom he hadn’t yet met, one who gave him a respectful nod, and another who gave him an appreciative up-and-down with amber eyes as he passed.

It made him feel infinitely better about the haircut.

He passed a door with ‘Fuck off’ scratched into it, which Jaskier remembered was Lambert and Aiden’s quarters, and knocked gently on the door opposite.

‘Yes?’

‘Julek, it me. May I come in?’

‘Of course.’

The room beyond was small, with a hammock on either side of the space and a narrow path between them which lead to a window. It was a remarkable sight, as windows were something that usually only existed in the captain’s quarters, and beneath it was small shelf table with a stool and a small potted plant.

‘Well you look dashing,’ Ciri smirked, with only a hint of teenage sarcasm.

Jaskier did a spin, ‘Those bath tubs are a gift from the gods!’ He threw himself onto the hammock and made it swing so enthusiastically that he thumped against the wall nearby, ‘I have been reborn a new, beautiful, much less stinky man. Observe!’ He towed off his boots and wiggled his clean toes in Ciri’s direction, who rewarded him with a laugh.

‘Yes, very not smelly.’

‘And who is this?’ He reached out from his lounging position to stroke the tiny orange flowers on the potted plant. It looked odd, but at Jaskier’s touch it straightened it stem and spread its petals, preening under his attention and reassuring him that it was healthy and happy.

Ciri put down the book she had been reading and swung her legs over the edge of her hammock so she could sit. ‘There’s a small garden near the sickroom that Triss uses. The crystals in the bottom of the pot provide sunlight, that’s why the leaves are upside down, because the sun comes from the bottom not the top.’

Oh, that was why it looked odd. Jaskier took a little bit of the crystals to sniff, but the only chaos he could smell was that of nature: Like a cold drink in the middle of summer, or a sunbeam to chase away a winter chill.

‘I asked Triss if I could bring it up here for you, to help you get better faster, because she said that your people need flowers to be healthy.’

She was looking down at the deck beneath her feet, embarrassed or ashamed, and Jaskier felt a few tears prick his eyes. This was her way off accepting him, and of telling him that she was okay with what he was. Given that she was raised in Cintra, where bigotry festered like an untreatable plague, it was quite the significant gesture.

‘Thank you, it’s perfect and I love the colour. It’s brightens the room almost as much as you do.’

She rolled her eyes, but her annoyance was betrayed by her grin. ‘There’s not much room, but they asked me what we wanted in here and I helped hang the hammocks. I also got them to put the rune on the door like they have.’

‘Rune?’

‘It’s a privacy rune, it muffles the sound inside, so we can talk without anyone outside hearing, but we can still hear out..’

Jaskier straightened up. ‘Really?’

‘They can only hear if they press their ear to the door or if we shout. Without it they can hear us from across the ship. Lambert kicked up a fuss when I asked for it, and I don’t think Eskel was happy either, but he was less loud about it. Geralt had Triss do it anyway.’

‘That’s incredible, well done, darling!’

‘It’s nothing. Most of the private quarters have them because witcher hearing is so good it’s the only way they can have privacy together. I’s only fair we have them too.’

He nodded, although suspected the ‘privacy together’ that the witchers had was of a very different type than theirs. It was possible that they had agreed to place the rune only to make them think they had privacy, while actually being able to hear everything they said clear as day.

However, even though he didn’t know these witchers well, they didn’t seem as if they would do something so blatantly underhanded. In the same manner with which they had given him his dagger back this could be a message that it didn’t matter if he and Ciri could conspire, as they were still no threat to the ship or the crew.

‘So, I want to know something,’ Ciri started, leaving forward with her hands gripping the edge of her hammock. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’

‘Løve, I-’

‘I trust you, I do.’ She reassured, ‘but I just need to know.’

‘Okay, that’s fair,’ He sat up and swung his legs out of the hammock to mirror her position, except he grasped for the mug of cold tea so that he could have something to do with his hands while he thought of the best way to put his plan into words.

‘You already know that I was spying on Nilfgaard for the north.’ She nodded, ‘So in exchange for doing that, my employer makes sure my sisters are safe from the war and anyone else who might seek to hurt them.’

‘So was the story about your sister dressing like a boy true?’

He couldn’t stop the fond smile, ‘Mostly. One day she did have to dress in my clothes because hers were destroyed, but she hated looking like a boy. Said she looked too uncouth without her skirts.’

Ciri made a face. ‘She sounds like a twit.’

Jaskier took a drink of tea to hide his smirk. ‘Perhaps, but my hope is that if we can get to Oxenfurt then we can arrange with my employer for you to live with them under his protection. It may not be ideal, but it’s the best plan I can think of.’

‘You must trust him them then.’

He looked into the dregs of his mug, tapping a nail against the side. ‘No, not really, but I have worked for him for so long that I think I understand his mind, and I’m confident I can make sure you’re safe.’

She was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, but when she noticed him looking back at her she released it and gave him a sharp, confident nod.

‘Alright. Alright, yes. I trust you.’

Jaskier smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring. ‘Thank you, darling.’

He clapped his hands together and rubbed them together excitedly. This was one of his favourite parts of his job and he was ready to bounce out of his hammock with excitement. ‘Now, we get to weave together a tale for the ages, the story of Julek and his father Jasper. Firstly, what do the witchers already know? Have you told them anything about yourself?’

Her warm brown eyes widened. ‘I haven’t told them anything, I swear it.’

‘Well,’ he gestured to the book she’d had when he came in, ‘They know you can read, so you must have had some education.’

‘Oh. Oh! Alright. Umm… I was helping Triss mix her tonics, so she knows I can do arithmetic. And we talked about the herb origins, so some botany and geography too.’

‘Perfect! So Julek had tutoring, which means he comes from money.’

‘And Aiden tried to speak to me in Nilfgaardian, so he knows I don’t understand it.’

‘I see, I see.’ Jaskier started to tap a rhythm on his knees as the picture of Julek started to form in his mind. ‘So, raised in the north by a well-to-do family, and from a Nilfgaardian mother to explain the appearance.’

‘And you’re my dad.’

‘Yes, but estranged. We only recently joined together, that will help to explain my lack of parenting knowledge. Anything you’d like to add?’

‘It sounds good so far,’ she smiled.

‘Alright. So when is Julek’s birthday?’

Ciri frowned. ‘February six… teenth.’

‘Favourite colour?’

‘Green.’

‘Mother’s name?’

‘… Fiona?’

Jaskier and Ciri spent a while trying to figure out who Julek was, and subsequently revealed who Jasper was too. After some back and forth they settled on Jasper having a torrid love affair with Fiona August: a Nilfgaardian woman married to a northern viscount from Sodden. Julek’s mother and Jasper had exchanged some love letters after her tryst, but Fiona ultimately decided to keep her pregnancy a secret from Jasper, so that Julek could be raised as the viscount’s son.

Unfortunately, Julek’s non-human side was discovered by Viscount August, which clued him into an affair. In a fit of rage he sold Fiona out to the northern forces, claiming she was spying on behalf of Nilfgaard. She was hanged and Julek had to flee the city after the viscount hired human-extremest to go after him.

Julek, however, knew of his mothers letters and had long questioned his true parentage, so ran to Cintra where Jasper was employed as the royal musician of the palace: an occupation that explained how he knew of Princess Cirilla.

After Julek found Jasper, the musician had no time to be shocked by the news he had a son, as Cintra was immediately attacked by Nilfgaardian forces. They fled as the city burned, but because of Julek’s Nilfgaardian appearance, and both of their inhuman abilities, they were constantly in danger.

Eventually, Jasper returned them to Cintra and made a deal with the leader of the Nilfgaardian settlement. He knew Nilfgaard was more tolerant to other species and chaos-users, so bartered to trade all he knew about The Last Royal of Cintra for asylum behind their boarders.

Ciri and Jaskier planned and plotted, spinning their stories and testing each other on it until it was deeply planted in both their minds, until Jaskier yawned so widely his jaw clicked and it took several moments of rapid blinking to clear the resulting tears.

‘That’s enough for now. I’m too tired to think.’

‘Can I keep the lamp on to read by?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thanks. Sleep well, Jasper: bard of Cintra.’

‘Sleep well, my brave Julek.’

Chapter Text

Now that they were finally sailing south-west, the weather had been mild enough that Aiden didn’t mind being on deck. While his body was still trying to heal, or torture him, or whatever the fuck was taking it so long for to do, his tolerance for the cold had gone way down.

Years ago he had deduced from his dark curly hair and olive skin that he was most likely Nilfgaardian born, which would explain why his body seemed to adapt better to heat than the chill. Even so, it was always been his fiery Lambert who was the one who bitched and shivered and hid from the colder weather, and Aiden used to enjoy dragging him out into the snow to make snowdwarves, with beards made of pine branches, just to annoy him.

He had made the mistake of joking with Lambs about how their roles are reversed, with him not being able to stand the cold and the wolf insisting they should walk laps of the deck to get some air and get his strength back. Lambs had responded by getting his ‘mother hen’ look, and Aiden had instantly started back-pedalling.

Lambs had piled all of his jackets and coats onto Aiden before allowing him on deck that day. They were too broad in the shoulder, the sleeves a touch too short, but they were warm and smelt like Lambert, so Aiden was willing to tolerate them.

They were standing on the aftcastle, looking back at the wake of the ship. He picked up a musket ball from the bucket and rolled it between his fingers for a moment. They’d taught him at Dyn Marv to always aim with both eyes open, but he instinctively tried to open his right eye it sent sharp pain through his facial muscles and turned the constant throb of pain into a stab behind his eye socket. He hissed, flashing his needle-sharp fangs, and heard Julek inhale a gasp beside him. He turned away so the young boy couldn’t see his features twist.

‘We’ve been out here for long enough,’ Lambert groused behind him, ‘It’s like an Jotunn’s taint. Just let it be and we’ll go inside where it’s warm.’

Aiden had to turn his full upper body in order to shoot his lover a sharp look. Lamb was sans all his jackets and coats, wearing only a few layers of shirts, but wasn’t shivering or showing any signs of being cold.

‘I have to do this, Lambs. You go in by yourself if you’re so cold.’

He threw the musket ball off the back of the ship, aiming for an empty barrel they were dragging through the water. He put a bit more aggression into it than necessary so that it had a clean direct line and not a slow ark, and it looked like it was going to hit.

It splashed into the water several meters from the intended mark.

The cat witcher sighed and pushed the heel of his hand into his remaining eye to fight back against a headache that felt like it was only a breath away from making him tumble to his knees. He heard Julek pick a ball from the pile and shuffle his feet against the decking as he moved into the stance Aiden had taught him.

‘ Aiden .’ Lamb persisted.

‘A slow witcher, an inaccurate witcher, is a dead witcher.’

‘We’re not on the fucking path, there’s no need to kill yourself over this. Don’t undo the witch’s work by being a fucking idiot.’

He opened his eye to glare at the barrel that mocked him by bobbing untouched in the water. The more he stared at it, the more his vision seemed to swirl. It reminded him of the first time he had stepped onto the ship, when the seasickness had been so bad that the only way he could keep down water was for Lambs to coax him into lick it from the wolf’s fingers.

Cats weren’t supposed to be on the water.

He swallowed down the excess saliva that had filled his mouth and willed his lopsided vision to calm. Usually he was fairly easy going and generally cheerful because the world had enough shit in it without him making things harder, which was a nice foil for Lambert’s generally calloused exterior, but the pain and tiredness was making him hiss and spit at anything that rubbed him up the wrong way.

However, Lambert was also used to how sharp Aiden got when he was angry or in pain, and while the other never made excuses for him or told him to calm down, he usually made a conscious effort to curb his own sharp corners.

‘Lambert’s right,’ Julek piped up, his prepubescent voice lilting and soft. ‘you don’t have to get better right away-’

‘Stay out of this.’ Lambert snarled and appeared in Aiden’s left peripheral vision, blocking Julek. ‘You don’t know anything, kid.’

Aiden would have rolled his eyes, but knew it would destabilise his vision even more than it already was. Since Julek had come aboard, nothing the boy said mattered to Lambert and the wolf snapped at the tiniest provocation, so he ‘wouldn’t forget his fucking place’, as the wolf had explained.

But the fact that Lambs didn’t protest them spending time together, and always brought three cup of water up from the quarterdeck’s water barrel, betrayed his soft heart.

Aiden had grown and trained in the cat school caravan, where they had experimented with training youngsters long after it had become impossible to make new witchers. It was nostalgic, having someone young around who fumbled naively through things while being taught the ways of the world. He suspected that Lambert enjoyed not being the youngest of his pack, and so had a secret caring spot for Julek which softened his anger at the boy’s mistakes. Of course, that just made the wolf all the more prickly, as was Lambs’ way.

‘How about this...’ Julek continued, unperturbed by the snarling wolf beside him, ‘We’ll all throw at the same time, and if we all hit the barrel then we can go in. If one of us misses, then we’ll stay and keep practising.’

‘What a fucking stupid-’

‘Sure,’ Aiden cut off Lambert. Julek had a seventy percent success rate with hitting the barrel, while Aiden’s was so low that it was pure luck when he did hit. He wasn’t sure how Lambert would go, as the loss of his dominant hand hindered him enough that his ability to throw was unpredictable.

He reached over and grabbed a ball while he offered Lambert a sharp smile, but almost caved at the sadness and concern that was bubbling under the surface of Lambert’s anger. Aiden was tired and sick and cold, and knew Lambs was still just scared of how close he had come to loosing Aiden again, but he hated how his body was behaving at the moment and couldn’t let him best him.

Lambs grabbed a ball and moved back to Aiden’s blinded side while Julek placed his hand on the surface of the bucket.

‘Ready!’ Julek started, ‘Set! Throw !’

Aiden and Lambert pitched their musket balls, but Julek had taken a handful and thrown half a dozen or so over the edge to mingle and bump with the other spheres. The cat’s head swum as he tried to track his ball’s trajectory, but had to squeeze his eye shut as his head strained against the task.

There were four hollow thunks of balls hitting the top of the barrel, a tink as one bounced off the metal hoops of the side, and six splashes that missed.

‘Looks like we’re done for the day.’

Aiden cracked his eye open to look at Julek’s smug smile and immediately narrowed it. ‘There’s no way that one of those balls was mine.’

‘Prove it.’

He turned to Lambs for support or confirmation. Even though he hadn’t been able to tell which ball had been his in the cacophony he knew that the wolf, with his fully functional witcher vision and impeccable tracking skills, would have been able to. But when Aiden caught his lover’s eye the man just smirked with his stupid perfect pouted lips and shrugged.

‘Prove it.’ Lambert mimicked, like the child he was.

Aiden sighed and turned to Julek, whose bright smile had been tinted by an apology. ‘Smooth plan, Jules. I concede.’ He held out his hand, which Julek took and shook firmly.

He heard Geralt’s footsteps started to approach them from behind. Aiden took a hand from the railing and turned with his stance relaxed and as casually pain free as possible.

Generally, he wasn’t uncomfortable around Geralt, but no matter how much he trusted and respected the captain, there was always something about the other that screamed to Aiden that he was in the presence of a superior predator. Lambs had once mentioned that the captain had gone through additional trials, which might explain why he raised the hair on the back of Aiden’s neck.

‘How’re you feeling.’ Geralt asked.

‘Better, but not great. At this point I don’t care if it grows back or not, I just want this to be over.’

‘Mmmm,’ The natural gravel of the captain’s voice was rounded and soft, and the tone of that single syllable reminded Aiden of a mother placing their hand on a child’s forehead and assessing the heat there.

The wind brought a waft of guilt over from Julek, and Aiden wished he could take the words back.

He didn’t have the same bitter self-deprecation that the wolves did, because he was a cat and he knew exactly what that meant. Julek’s reaction had been more than reasonable because children were supposed to be afraid of monsters.

‘Are there any more blankets in the hold?’ Lambert asked.

‘There might be some, but they’re being brought up for Jasper and Julek. You have plenty, and we’ll be in warmer waters soon.’

‘Not fucking soon enough. We need them, not those fucking Fairies.’

‘Fae,’ Geralt corrected Lambs terminology, ‘and you’ll survive.’ He gave Aiden a slightly exasperated look, as they both knew what Lambert was like, before he turned to Julek ‘Your father was looking for you. Coën’s drawing a bath for him.’

‘Alright, I’ll wait in out quarters until he’s finished washing.’ Julek turned to Aiden. ‘Thanks for the game.’

He shook his head and huffed a laugh, ‘My pleasure. I’ll go and grab that book for you to borrow so you have something to read while you wait for your father.’

Julek shot him a smile before taking off to follow Geralt down from the aftcastle and Lambert bumped Aiden’s right shoulder with his to let him know that he’d moved into Aiden’s blind spot. It was a position he had adopted automatically, even though it left Lambs bad side, the one that didn’t have the hand to grasp a sword, exposed to the world.

When he could hear Julek’s footsteps out of human hearing range, Aiden leant into Lambs. ‘Fuck, I feel sick.’

‘I could tell’ Lambert’s sole hand tangled its fingers with Aiden’s. ‘Why didn’t you just fucking listen to me when I said to stop?’

‘You had similar training to what I did, had the same lectures, you know why.’

‘Maybe we can get Merigold to make another painkiller, one that won’t leave you so loopy.’

‘I don’t think it’d be strong enough to do anything then, Lambs.’ He turned so he could see his love’s face. The earlier rain had weakened his hair product’s hold and a few tight ringlets softened the line of his widow’s peak, and Aiden reached for one of them. It wouldn’t be long before Lambs got annoyed and cut his hair back again.

Despite the pain thrumming through his skill, and the dizziness threatening to tip him over, he couldn’t help the happy chirp that passed his lips as he curled the lock around his finger.

Lambert rolled his eyes. ‘C’mon kitten, you lost fair and square so it’s time for bed.’

‘It was a dirty trick.’

Lambert started moving towards the steps, taking Aiden with him by their linked hands ‘Yeah it was… doesn’t mean I like the kid though.’

‘Of course not.’

Chapter Text

Jaskier woke slowly, with limbs so relaxed that they felt like they were made of liquid and it took a moment of blinking at the ceiling for them to solidify and start responding. He stretched out, feeling his joints softly pop, but he felt very refreshed in both his body and mind, as if the heat of the bath had eased tensions he hadn’t realised were there.

He felt reinforced, with a new identity as Jasper and a solid enough backstory with which to arm himself. Ciri had been quite helpful in weaving their story, and although a lot had been completely fabricated, there were enough emotional beats they both could relate to that it would make it easy to perform. He was confident that even if the details were lies, the truth of grief would be enough to foll the keen senses of those on board.

As he sat up, his stomach made a pointed noise and reminded Jaskier that hadn’t eaten the day before. Even though he had gone days without food before, he also hadn’t had much of an appetite since he’d first woken up in the infirmary, and now that he had recovered his body was demanding the fuel it had been denied.

He looked over at the Moleyarrow plant. While he had slept it had tilted its leaves towards him, and the tiny orange flowers seemed to have unfolded their petals a little more as if he were the sun it needed to thrive.

‘Good morning, Molly.’ He reached out to touch one of the soft petals.

Jaskier swung himself out of the hammock, it was dark outside and Ciri was still asleep. She had a tiny wrinkle between her dark brows, something that meant she was sleeping too lightly for nightmares to reach her. He was lucky to not have woken her already, and used the papers and graphite on the small table to write a quick note in case she woke before he got back.

No matter the late hour there was always bustle on a ship, and the mess was always open, so he ventured out of their quarters and into the cold air of the upper deck. With his new coat and cloak it was still cold outside, but not intolerably so, and he flicked up his hood to protect himself from the light rain that was pattering on the deck.

There were no lamps or lights for the witcher crew to work by, just a sliver of moonlight coming through the clouds. Jaskier could see the silvered outlines of their broad shapes and tiny flickers, like candle flames, in the darkness from the predatory nature of their eyes. He held his breath and waited just outside the cabin’s door for the several pairs of glowing eyes that had looked his way to flicked back away.

It reminded him of his last night o n T he Deith’Adan , when the Nilfgaardian crew worked in silent darkness in fear of the very ship Jaskier was now standing on. His inhuman sight could see silhouettes around him, but he held his hand out in front of him on instinct as he moved slowly across the slippery deck towards the hatch that would lead him down .

He stepped below deck into the unusual obstacle room, which took up the space where cannons would normally be housed. There were some lamps lit here and the air was heavy with sweat. Among the few witchers in the space, Jaskier recognised Gwen, who was standing on a disc that balanced on one of the short spikes, while doing sword manoeuvres, and Lambert who was punching a hanging sack of hay in the corner.

N either acknowledged Jaskier as he padded through the room to followed the sound of conversation and laughter ringing from the opposite side of the space . As he got closer he could smell something warm and delicious coming from a lit room that beckoned him to enter.

The room, like many mess halls he’d been in, had a series of fixed bench seating and glass lanterns fixed to the walls. On the seat farthest from the door was Geralt, his hair easily the brightest thing in the room, who was sitting with two witchers including him in an easy conversation.

There were a handful of others around, including two playing chess in the centre of the room and a loud pair playing cards to the side . There was another door on the far side of the room, through which Jaskier could smell the allure of food, but Jaskier felt himself drawn to the captain’ s table and the captain himself.

J askier hesitated as he approached. Captain Geralt h ad a steaming bowl and a large mug in front of him and he seemed at ease. H is expression was still very closed , especially when comp aired to the others on the table, one smiling broadly and the other talking animatedly, but there was a lack of tension in his shoulders. His face was still blank, eyes sharp, but there was a softening in his jaw and around his eyes that implied that his expression was just resting, not deliberately inscrutable.

‘Sit down, Jasper.’

Jaskier jumped. Geralt hadn’t made any indication that he’d noticed him there, and even after addressing him neither he nor the other two witchers looked in his direction. He supposed they had heard him approach, most likely from the second he had left the safety of his quarters.

He eased himself into one of the bench seats, angling himself so he could see the profile of the witcher next to him as well as the others. The man sitting next to Geralt saluted him with his drink. He had his hair slicked back similar to Lambert’s, but his eyes were hazel and human.

‘Leo,’ Geralt rumbled, nodding to the human, ‘Tjold,’ the dirty blonde witcher, ‘Jasper.’

‘ Gentlemen, how are we tonight? ’

T jold’ s eyes were a warm almost red, like brick, and his beaming smile revealed straight teeth with overly sharp canines. ‘ Doin’ alright. How about you? Saw you faint on deck earlier.’

Jasper raised an eyebrow. Tjold’s tone had been jesting rather than judgemental, but he felt a little bit of defensiveness curl in him. Exactly h ow many witcher had been witness to his vulnerability? ‘ Excuse you, I did not faint. I was merely testing Eskel’s reflexes .’

Tjold snorted and Leo gave a light melodic laugh and a salute with his mug before taking a drink. Geralt also took a pull from his stein, but didn’t give any response to Jasper’s comment, which was fine. He didn’t mind being ignored by the captain while the other two at the table seemed to be nice enough.

He was also exceptionally curious about Leo, who appeared to be human, and what his role as a human crew member was. It would be rude to interrogate him, but perhaps he could get some idea just from some casual conversation.

Leo half stood from his seat and hailed someone across the room before making a gesture towards Jaskier. ‘I assume you ventured down here because you’re hungry,’ he waited for the confirming nod before making another gesture and settling back down. ‘Julek seems to be settling in. Saw him chucking musket balls from the aft with Aiden earlier and he’s got a decent arm. Quiet kid, though.’

Jaskier found himself smiling with pride at how will Ciri was settling into her new role. She definitely seemed to be coping better than he was about the whole thing. ‘I don’t know if he’s learned to stay quiet in order to stay safe, or if he’s just naturally reserved,’ Jasper confessed, ‘Julek was raised by his mother, and he and I are still getting to know each other, but I think he feels comfortable here. Hopefully he’ll open up a little bit, he could use someone to talk to.’

A steaming bowl was placed in front of him, along with a large mug of drink. He looked up and thanked Gweld, who didn’t acknowledge the gratitude as he moved to replace the empty mugs on the table with full ones. Geralt waved off another drink. His bright eyes were fixed on Jaskier but they seemed soft.

‘It’s a good thing he’s got shit aim.’ Tjold added, his tone deceptively casual. ‘We’ve lost enough brothers to bullets. And now we have pups pulling triggers. Some people should be more careful about whose hands those gods forsaken things end up in.’

Jasper stopped stirring his stew. It was true that gun were terrible in the hands of people who knew how to use them and worse in the hands of those who didn’t, but he still found himself bristling. ‘I didn’t know Julek had a gun, he must have got it from one of the crew there.’

‘But you don’t know for sure?’

‘Tjold,’ Leo hissed.

‘What?’ The blonde made an open innocent gesture, his voice light and face still smiling in a way that showed Jaskier his fangs. ‘We’re just supposed to sit here and pretend that everything’s alright, that Aiden’s alright?’

‘For the record,’ Jaskier cut in, his pulse humming, ‘I am very sorry for the pain we have caused, it should not have happened. Julek has been on the run for a very long time, running from people trying to kill him for what he is, and while I do not condone his actions I also do not blame him for wanting to protect himself, even if such means is as repugnant as a firearm.

‘I think, witcher, that instead of criticising my parenting, you should just thank the gods that I hadn’t known about and confiscated that gun beforehand, because my aim is impeccable.’

Jaskier hadn’t raised his voice, certainly not as much as his classically trained lungs allowed him to do, but his chest was heaving. He was vaguely aware that he should probably be afraid of angering the people keeping him safe, but he had been having such a good night. He’d had a hot bath and slept so well, and had come down to find something to eat and not to be harassed.

Tjold was still smiling, but his eyes were blank and cruel. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by an animalistic growl.

‘Leave the table.’

Jaskier felt himself go cold. He shouldn’t have come down here, and he shouldn’t have sat at a table. It wasn’t like he was part of the crew or anything. Maybe he could ask to take the bowl of stew with him.

He turned to Geralt, an apology on his tongue, but t+

he captain’s gaze, bright gold with anger, was aimed at Tjord and not him.

The two witchers stared at each other, and Jaskier sank down until his arse met the bench seat. Leo was glancing up between him and Geralt, but not making any sudden movements.

‘Aye, Captain.’ Tjord stood and picked up his tankard to drain it before slamming it back onto the table and moving along.

Leo released a loud breath and a curse before he looked to Jaskier with an apologetic look ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve come close to losing one of our crew. Some of us are just rattled.’

Jaskier nodded, although he wasn’t sure whether Leo was offering the apologetic excuse to him or Geralt, and stared back down into his meal. Nausea rolled in his gut and he poked at the meat-free stew he’d been given until the silence became too much.

‘I am sorry. Truly. I know we’re only here because I gave you an ultimatum, but you’ve been more than accommodating and both Julek and I are very appreciative.’

He risked a glance up at Geralt, who was watching him with his head tilted slightly to the side. The witcher captain raised a white eyebrow and tilted his sharp chin towards Jaskier’s bowl.

‘Eat.’

Jaskier’s stomach made a noise of agreement and, even though Jaskier himself didn’t really feel up to eating any more, he took a mouthful of the stew. It was the same filling but exceptionally bland affair he’d been fed in the infirmary, which was apparently the norm and not just something he’d been fed because he was ill.

As he swallowed a second mouthful and chased it with a large gulp of rum he glanced over at Tjord’s abandoned bowl. He had smelled a meaty stew when he’d first entered the room, and sure enough the witcher’s bowl contained sinews of meat.

‘I wouldn’t if I were you.’

Jaskier jumped and abashedly looked from the abandoned food to an amused looking Leo.

‘Witcher’s digestive systems are made of iron, and they forget not everyone is the same.’ He tipped his own bowl to show that his own meal was also meat-free, ‘Unless it’s fresh from the sea or farm, don’t eat it. Quite often they forget it needs to be cooked, and they never store nor preserve it safely. Even the meat itself, they can literally eat anything. Seriously,’ he poked his spoon at Geralt’s bowl, What is that?’

Geralt sighed, deep and put upon. ‘It’s not rat, Leo.’

‘Then where do all the rats go?’

‘It’s not rat. It’s goat. Admittedly, it’s probably a bit old.’ Geralt looked to Jaskier, whose curiosity and mild horror must have been written on his face. ‘We don’t eat the rats.’ he clarified, ‘and this is just as bland as what you have, so you’re not missing out on anything.’

‘Witchers also don’t cook with spices.’ Leo explained.

Jaskier nodded, tension easing from his spine, and he uncurled from over his bowl to take a swig of drink. He was very curious to know more about witchers, but it felt rude to ask. He was starting to like Leo though, and his casual conversation made him feel safe to speak up.

‘Hard to believe witchers can digest raw rat and not a little paprika.’

‘It’s not our stomachs,’ Geralt rumbled, ‘it’s our noses. We used to have a cooking roster, but some of the crew deliberately over-spiced the food to try and get out of kitchen duty. When I took them off the roster others got upset about it being unfair, but if they were kept on then the food was unpalatable. After it came to blows I ordered all the food to be as bland as possible until they all stopped acting like children.’

‘By ‘children’ he means Lambert.’

‘Mmmm.’

Jaskier snorted and took another spoonful. While the food was bland it was at least filling, and the deep, warm rum had started to make his face feel flushed even though he was only half a mug deep. He stretched his arms above his head, but had to bring his hands down fast to cover a yawn.

‘I should head back, but thank you both so much for the company. it has been quite lovely.’

‘Yeah, nice to finally meet you, Jasper.’

‘I’ll have a talk with Tjord in the morning.’

‘He means he’ll get Eskel to have a talk with him in the morning.’

‘Mmmm’

Jaskier chuckled, ‘Sleep well, gentlemen.’

He felt pleasantly fuzzy but still steady on his feet as he moved through the mess hall and weaved through the training area. Towards the stairs, he was stopped by a throat clear behind him.

He turned to see that Geralt had followed him out. It was the first time they had been standing eye to eye, and Jaskier was surprised to find that the captain was a hair shorter than Eskel, which meant he and Jaskier they stood at a similar height. Still, the captain’s presence and bulk gave the impression of looming, and Jaskier found himself feeling even more flushed from the rum.

‘Captain?’

‘Tomorrow night, you and Julek should join me for dinner, in my quarters, if you’d like. There’s something we should discuss.’

Jaskier chewed on his bottom lip as he thought about it. He had been meaning to have another talk with the captain, as the previous one had been woefully inadequate. Geralt seemed to be taciturn and reserved by nature, but Jaskier felt a little bit more confident now that he’d managed to successfully hold a casual conversation with the other. Maybe he could start to get a handle on the other man’s mannerisms.

‘Thank you, captain, I’d love that.’

Chapter Text

The captain’s quarters was warm. Jaskier padded around the space in bare feet, taking care to not step on the Moleyarrow growing out from the dirt floor. There was music coming from somewhere, a fife being played by Talis if his ears were correct. His hips swayed and feet started tracking back and forth and around the room in the simple movements he’d learned as a small boy in empty ballrooms.

As he spun past the small table he grabbed a glass of rich rum. The melody was a simplified version of an old instrumental Cintran piece, and Jasker conjured some nonsense lyrics from the space where his chaos was born.

Without you, love, my love is lost

With time I’ll find the time to fall

for you, for you I’ll pay the cost

of love, my love, my all, my all

He continued to dance, the countess’s fine silk and lace robe fanning out behind him, but took care to not step on the Jasmine plants that were growing in his wake. He spun past the small table and grabbed a Toussaint orange from the bowl on the table, immediately digging his manicured nails into the tough skin and ripping it apart to find the purple flesh.

‘Beautiful,’ a voice rumbled behind him, deep and husky. They placed a large hand on the small of Jaskier’s back, warm and confident, while another snaked around to wrap itself around Jaskier’s wrist. Their hand was broad, deeply scarred on the back and with rough scars on the palm to match.

They brought Jaskier’s hand with the orange up near their face, and Jaskier could see a curtain of dark hair fall over his own shoulder as the man behind him moved to lick the drips of orange juice off of his delicate wrist.

Jaskier shuddered as heat pooled in his belly.

He used his position to flip them, as if the man behind had spun him during a dance, and came to meet bright golden eyes, sparking with mirth and pupils dilated round with lust.

‘Beautiful.’ Jaskier breathed

Captain Van Eldand smiled, which pulled at his scars and exposed the hint of a fang. Jaskier reached up with his free hand and tucked a strand of long dark hair behind the captain’s ear, and he responded by using his grip on Jaskier’s waist to pull their bodies flush.

Between the open folds of his robe, Jaskier could feel himself already swollen rubbing against the soft material of Van Eldand’s clothes.

They stood and just breathed in the warmth of each other before Jaskier pushed himself up on his toes and their lips met, tasting like sweet rum and orange. Their tongues danced to the melodic fife, around each other and back with Jaskier’s occasionally catching against the sharp tip of fang.

He moaned into Van Eldand’s mouth. ‘Fuck, I’ve wanted this for so long: all those times I touched you, just to tease. It drove me insane.’ He moved to nibble on the captain’s ear ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t act on it before.’

‘Mmmm,’ Van Eldand responded as his hand moved down and grasped Jaskier’s supple arse before he eased his knee between Jaskier’s legs, which immediately parted, and used his strong witcher bulk to push him backwards and against the bulkhead. He pinned him there, using one large hand to hold both of Jasker’s wrists in place while the other ghosted down Jaskier’s side.

Jaskier was weeping against the soft material of Van Eldand’s trousers and he thrust his hips against it, grinding himself against the other man, already so close.

‘Fuck, yes. Please.’ he whimpered, eyes squeezed shut at the intensity of the building sensation. ‘Fuck.’

Van Eldand chuckled, low and deep, the vibrations through his chest mimicking the shudder that ran through Jaskier’s soul as as he spilt over the other man’s clothes with an intensity he hadn’t felt in so, so long.

He continued to rub himself, more gently this time, as his body spluttered with its final relief.

Van Eldand’s grip was the only thing keeping him from sinking to the floor, and Jaskier opened his eyes to see golden orbs with slitted pupils. He blinked away the tears that had settled on his eyelashes, remnants of the intensity, to find that the striking eyes he had been looking into had vanished and he was left staring into the emptiness of his quarters on The Merwolf.

Jaskier’s hair was plastered to his forehead and neck, and an uncomfortable mess that stuck his blankets to his thigh and caused his face to flush. He’d woken up hard and weeping many times on The Deith’Adan, but never like this. Perhaps his subconscious wouldn’t allow him to wake in such a vulnerable state while on the Nilfgaardian ship.

It also been just far too long since he’d had sex: Almost a year, since a barmaid in a Nilfgaardian port. Once he had stepped on deck he had been Julek, a young teenage boy, and it had felt wrong to indulge in more than just the occasional self-pleasure when everyone around him thought he was a young boy.

… Julek!

Jaskier bolted upright and looked to Ciri’s hammock on the opposite side of the room. It was empty, but the blankets were half spilling from the bunk and Ciri’s shoes were still tucked underneath.

‘Oh, bollocks. Oh, fucking fuck fuck.’ He pressed the heals of his hands into his eyes and sent a wish into the universe that he could just curl up and die of embarrassment before he rallied his courage and swung himself off the bed. He used the already soiled blanket to clean himself up before getting dressed and grabbing Ciri’s boots.

The door to their quarters had been left ajar, and he tried not to think about how many witchers would have been able to hear his dream without the protection of the privacy rune.

He dashed out of the room and up to the quarterdeck, not thinking of much else except needing to find Ciri so that he could explain or apologise or... something. Or maybe he shouldn’t, maybe he should just find a nice dark corner of the ship where he would never ever have to look anyone in the eye ever again.

The weather above deck was cold, with a misting rain making the deck damp, but the wind wasn’t as biting as it should be for this time of year. In the very least he would have to find Ciri to give her the boots, as it was still far too cold for her to be running about without.

Jaskier shivered as the remaining chill stung the damp ends of his hair and looked about, trying to find Ciri’s dark curls. Jaskier headed to the railing so he could look down onto the upper deck to try and find her. Some of the witchers in the rigging, including Coën, looked over in his direction and someone let out a wolf whistle, while some others waggled their eyebrows. Jaskier frowned until he realised that they were downwind from him, and could probably smell the remnants of last night clinging to his skin.

‘Looking for Julek?’

Jaskier jumped and spun to see Eskel behind the ship’s wheel. He’d tied his coffee hair back, leaving his scarred, chapped skin exposed, and the soft upturn of his lips in full beauty. Without the warm brown curtain to soften it, Eskel’s jaw looked extremely square and strong.

‘I am, yes. He left in a rush this morning and forgot his boots.’ Jaskier lifted the shoes up and shook them a little as proof. ‘He shouldn’t be on deck without them.’

Eskel nodded and tilted his head to the side before closing his eyes and taking a deep inhale. Jaskier stood, frozen, hoping that the witcher being upwind meant that he couldn’t smell his embarrassment, but when Eskel opened his eyes he immediately dripped his gaze to the decking floor to avoid Julek’s gaze.

‘He’s not on deck, uhh.’ he cleared his throat, ‘He was, though, but he’s gone below.’

‘Right, yes, thank you.’

‘Maybe… Maybe give him some time?’ Eskel rubbed at his scars awkwardly, ‘I remember what it’s like, being young and sharing a room with a dozen other boys and it’s always horrifying when something like that happens. Perfectly normal for a boy his age, of course, but it never feels like that at the time.’

What? Oh! Oh, no, as embarrassing as it was he couldn’t let Ciri take the blame for something like that. The girl was most likely traumatised enough by the experience.

‘Well yes, while that is true it, err, it wasn’t him.’

Jaskier felt his face burn as Eskel looked at him with wide eyes before a light pink dusted his unmarred cheek. ‘Sorry, I just assumed. It’s difficult to tell since you both share a space and I’m not intimate enough with your scent to tell it apart.’ He looked out towards the bow as his hands flexed on the wheel. ‘Well that’s also probably normal.’

Jaskier closed his eyes and felt himself slump. ‘It is when it’s been as long as it’s been.’

‘Oh, how lo- you know what, never mind, it’s not my business.’ Eskel huffed a laugh and rubbed a thumb across his cheek. ‘Children can be the worst cockblocks, though.’ He took a breath, his massive chest rising and falling and his hand drifted to his scars one again, but instead of rubbing or scratching it as was his habit, he touched them lightly with the back of his fingers.

‘You know, Jasper, if you ever need someone to talk to, you can talk to me. I know... I mean, I was a father once, briefly, and I know what it’s like to deny yourself everything for their sake and the toll it can take. You don’t have to do it alone.’

Jaskier’s insides twisted and eyes prickled. He appreciated the offer, so much, and may take the other up on it, but he didn’t miss the sadness in the other’s eyes. He’d been a father ‘briefly’, and while Jaskier had also only been Ciri’s guardian for a brief period of time, he couldn’t imagine the grief he would feel if someone happened to her.

‘May I ask what happened?’

He gave a small smile. ‘She passed, but a long time ago. It’s been almost a century now.’

Jaskier chewed his lip and let Ciri’s boots drop to the ground. Emboldened by his dream, or by how vulnerable the large gentle witcher looked, he moved forward and swung one arm around Eskel’s shoulder and one around his waist. Knowing the witcher was strong, he added a good squeeze to his hug.

‘It doesn’t matter when it was,’ he spoke into the soft hair that tickled his cheek, ‘It’s still awful.’

Eskel’s arm slid around Jaskier’s waist and held him for a moment, not squeezing but applying steady pressure, while his other stayed on the helm.

‘Thank you.’

‘ And thank you for the offer, darling, I-Ackk!’ Jaskier jumped away from Eskel’s embrace as a whirlwind of feathers attempted to land on his face. ‘The fuck!’ He stumbled backwards as a large Zerrikanian brown parrot replaced his position on Eskel’s shoulder.

He could hear some witchers snickering around him, those who had clearly been eavesdropping with their stupid witcher hearing. Eskel, too, looked like he was desperately trying not to laugh, althrough their conversation still lingered in his eyes, while the bird eyed him with weird judgemental bird eyes.

Jaskier sniffled a little and shook off before he pointed a finger at the bird. ‘Rude!’

It snapped it’s beak at his digit.

‘This is Roach. She’s Geralt’s.’

‘Sqwark! Wind’s a’howlin’!’

Jaskier put his hands on his hips, ‘And just what is that supposed to mean, Missy?’

Roach flailed her wings as Eskel’s shoulders heaved under his mirth and he ducked his head out of the way. ‘Wolves don’t howl when there’s danger around, so she’s saying there’s a clear run ahead and nothing to delay us reaching the settlement.’

The spy stepped back from the parrot and reclaimed Ciri’s boots. After having his night revealed and then appearing less than composed in the face of a parrot attack, he didn’t think his heart could take embarrassing himself in front of Eskel a third time.

‘Is there somewhere I can do some laundering?’

Eskel nodded. ‘I can’t leave the helm until Lambert gets his lazy arse out of bed, but Coën can show you.’ he looked past Jaskier and over to the rigging. ‘Hey, Coën!’

Roach startled at the yell and took off from her solid perch on Eskel’s shoulder to circle around the main mast. Jaskier hadn’t flinched at the call, but he did when Coën landed almost soundlessly beside him. The griffin had been somewhere high in the rigging, and he had no idea how the witcher had gotten down so fast and so swiftly.

‘C’mon,’ Coën grinned beneath his beard, ‘I’ll show you to the washers.’

‘Thank you. Take care, Eskel.’

‘And you.’

Coën lead Jaskier down from the quarterdeck and waited outside his room for Jaskier to gather his bedding and prepare for his walk of shame to the laundry room.

‘So,’ Coën started, a wide shit-eatting grin on his face, ‘Which is the bigger cockblock, kids or parrots?’

‘Oh, shut up.’

Chapter Text

Jaskier followed Coën somewhat sheepishly through the ship, very aware that ever witcher he passed could smell exactly why he was carrying his bundle of blankets around. Coën chatted walked, and teased him about Eskel, but it was only a short walk as the laundry room was only one level down in the same area as the mess, galley and pantry. The laundry itself was small, and occupied by Gwen and Gweld, who were bent over soaping buckets and sorting out clothes from cloth.

‘Hey,’ Coën put a hand on Jaskier’s arm before he entered the space. ‘I know it was just a hug, but if you want to go there with Eskel then there’ll be no problem. Geralt doesn’t sleep around, but he has no issues with sharing.’ He winked a pale eye and walked away, leaving Jaskier to blink owlishly at his back.

Eskel and Geralt? That was an image. A very, very nice image.

‘Are you going to stand there and drool all day.’

Gwen was watching him with narrowed eyes and Gweld had taken a hand out of the tub of water and was reaching to take the blankets off of Jaskier.

‘Oh, no. I’m sorry enough that you have to smell this. I’m sure we can make room and I can clean these myself.’

Gweld tilted his head, nostrils flaring for a moment, before a look of understanding came across his face and he shuffled around the tub to make room for Jaskier to kneel next to the water with them.

Thus, Jaskier spent the rest of the day getting to know the red-headed duo, doing not only his own laundry but also helping with the rest of the cleaning and dishes that had needed to be done. He was most definitely not avoiding Ciri. Not at all. He was just making new friends and earning his keep.

He leaned that Gweld didn’t or couldn’t speak, but didn’t seem put off by Jaskier talking to him as if they were having a two-sided conversation. Nervous rambling has been a habit he’d trained himself out of long ago, but he could remember how the beat went and he’d started talking about his time at Oxenfurt, the people he’d met and odd things he’d learnt from the students and professors.

Gweld held up his end of the conversation easily enough through body language. While not particularly warm or friendly, he nodded in all the right places and tilted his head curiously to encourage elaboration on a subject, and generally became more animated as time passed.

On the other hand, Gwen seemed genuinely uninterested in Jaskier and his conversation, to the point where Jaskier was fairly sure he didn’t actually like Jaskier and was just tolerating him for Gweld’s sake. Sometimes, when Gweld snorted an almost laugh or moved too suddenly, Gwen’s attention would swing over to him for a heartbeat, but for the majority of their time in the laundry, the frizzy-haired witcher ignored them with a degree of coldness.

The continued this way for a while, with Jaskier’s voice lilting through the space. He was discussing the best dessert pairings to Hubert Hohum’s Compendium of Half-Symphonies when he looked over and noticed that Gweld was staring into the middle ground with a far look in his eyes.

‘Is he alright? Gwen?’

Gwen looked up from what he was doing, and noticed his brother’s disturbingly blank expression. ‘Oh, this happens sometimes. Just give him a moment. He’ll come back from where ever he’s gone, just don’t bring attention to it afterwards or he’ll get self conscious.’

‘It wasn’t anything I said was it?’

‘Nuh.’

‘Alright, good. Thank gods.’

Gweld held his gaze for a moment, before returning to his work. Jaskier felt as if he had passed some kind of test in the other’s eyes, and shifted awkwardly before looking back over at Gweld and continuing to explain how how plum puddings work best with Symphony No. 3.5 when slightly burnt and played on a harp, respectively. It took a few minutes, but Gweld’s posture slumped as if sapped of his energy and he looked over at Jaskier with an embarrassed look.

Jaskier just continued as if nothing happened.

After dealing with the various beddings and clothes, Jaskier followed the twins to their next task, which was to collect all the dirty dishes from around the mess and bring them to the galley to be washed. Once there, Gweld gestured for him to crouch under one of the galley’s tables, where a jug of vinegar and spare rags were kept for washing. He found them both easily, but misjudged his assent and smacked the back of his head into the bench surface above him. ‘Godsdamnit.’

‘Finding them alright?’ Gwen called, smug amusement in his voice.

‘Yes, yes.’

Jaskier straightened up and his head throbbed at the movement. He held the cleaning solution out to Gweld, but the witcher’s eyes went wide with fear and he took a quick step away from Jaskier. His hip bumped against a bench, and the rattling of the stacked dished brought Gwen’s attention to them.

‘Oh, fuck.’ Gwen crossed the room in a single stride and placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder to gently push him down onto the ground to where the silent witcher folded to sit with his knees to his chest. ‘Here,’ he scooped up a rag and threw it at Jaskier who caught it on instinct. ‘He doesn’t like blood. Fix it.’

The spy touched the back of his head and his fingers came away with the faintest touch of blood. It wasn’t enough to need a rag or pressure, but Jacker dutifully placed the cloth on the sore lump.

‘I’m so sorry.’ He addressed the witcher on the ground, as it was rude to apologise to his brother before him, ‘It was an accident, and if it helps it barely stings.’ He looked to Gwen, ‘Is there anything I can do? Should I leave?’

Gwen scowled, showing his sharp canines before crouching next to his brother. He ran a hand from his crown down the length of his back, like he was patting an animal. It was an oddly intimate gesture, and Jaskier shifted his stance before he made a decision and headed towards the exit.

Gwen’s voice stopped him on the precipice.

‘Stay. He likes hearing you talk, so it might help.’

‘Oh.’ Jaskier looked at them both on the floor and chewed his bottom lip, ‘Well, I think I can do a little more to help than that, with your permission.’

Jaskier knew he was asking a lot of trust from a man who didn’t know or like him. However, it was his fault that Gweld was still on the floor, staring at something the other’s could see, shaking and struggling to take a proper breath. There wasn’t anything he could do except offer to offer something he knew his brother couldn’t.

‘My gift is to smooth and nudge emotions through music. I can sing to him, just enough to soothe whatever is ravaging his mi-’

‘No.’ Gwen looked tired and so exceptionally guarded, but there was a hint of apology there. ‘The trials… When we get turned into witchers, the mages use chaos and chemicals to pull us inside out and take us apart. When he stopped talking they tried… Look, he’s had enough people in his head, alright?’

Jaskier nodded and did his best to give the twins a reassuring smile, even though the implications made him feel ill. He was starting to get a better picture about why Gweld detached himself from the world, and why Gwen seemed even more impenetrable than his silent brother.

‘How about some tea then? My father used to say that everything seems better with a hot cup in your hands. Best advice he ever gave, really, and really the only thing he’s ever said that’s worth remembering. Even if you’re not up to drinking, Gweld, just the smell is wonderfully soothing, just let me...’ he walked to the pot sitting on the top of the oven’s area. He hoped that the smell of steeping tea would cover the smell of his blood, but deflated when couldn’t see anything nearby to light the hearth.

‘Here,’ Gwen raised a hand and made an odd motion, folding his first finger in and flicking it up against the thumb. Once he did, the large iron oven roared to life and Jaskier’s senses filled with the sensation of burning ash. It was no where near as intense as it had been with Eskel, but enough to make his nose tingle and sneeze.

He sniffled and recovered quickly, but saw that Gweld was now looking directly at him instead of the spot on the floor. His eyes were still wide, but no longer panicked, the suddenness of Jaskier’s reaction having caught his attention and brought him back from where he was.

‘Pardon me.’

Gweld blinked and frowned, tilting his head in the same way as he had before when they had been chatting, but the corner of his mouth was hitching up in his amusement. Gwen voiced the question, ‘You alright, Vellarkin?’

He sighed, and decided there was nothing to be lost by being honest. He knew that handing someone a weakness on a platter was never a good idea, but this seemed so minor that if someone tried to use it against him he could potentially turn it around. ‘Yes, thank you. I’m just sensitive to chaos, and I believe that there’s something about your,’ he waved his hand in a vague gesture, ‘witchery spells that don’t agree with me, but it passes quick enough.’

The mute witcher tilted his head and stared hard, asking for more explanation. Gwen didn’t speak up, but mimicked the other’s motion and Jaskier couldn’t help but grin at the two of them.

‘Chaos,’ Jaskier continued, addressing Gweld’s amused curiosity, ‘is a unique living thing and when it exists in someone it grows and merges with them. You have a sharp nose, so you can identify people by smell, correct?’ He waited for the nod, ‘Alright! So my chaos smells and feels different to, say, Triss’s. But I, err, I think I might be allergic to your’s and Eskel’s and probably all witchers’ spells, really, although I’m not a hundred percent sure why.’

‘Signs.’ Gwen held out a hand to help his contemplative brother up off of the floor. ‘They’re called signs, not spells, and the chaos to cast them is forced into us during the trials. You’re a being of nature and they are… We are unnatural.’

Gweld agreed.

‘I’m sorry if I startled you.’ Jaskier hoped the other understood that he was speaking of both the sneezing and the blood. ‘I’ll make us that tea, and while it’s steeping I might just step outside if you want to use a sign to warm the water bucket? Then we can finish washing up in here before sweeping the mess hall.’

Gwen didn’t quite smile, but the lines of his face relaxed. Gweld closed his eyes for a moment before moving to fetch the tea leaves while Jaskier set about finding a set of cups, which didn’t take all that long, before he turned and headed to the door.

‘I’m just going to...’ Jaskier gestured before he turned to head outside, Gwen’s caught his eye and gave him a look that make the spy feel like he had passed a test and perhaps made one, if not two, friends.

It was traditional on navy ships, both northern and southern, for new passengers to have a dinner with the captain. Usually it occurred once the seasickness passed and the practice was done to try and assess whether the guests were spys, had any ulterior motives, or if their personality would generally disturb the running of the crew.

Jaskier didn’t think this dinner with Geralt was to assess him, as the brisk conversation they’d had in the infirmary would have been enough for the captain to get a read. At least, he suspected so, now that he knew witchers could sense fear and hear heartbeats. He wasn’t certain what this dinner with the captain was supposed to be, although perhaps was as simple as Geralt offering a space to have dinner where he and Julek wouldn’t be harassed by anyone holding a grudge.

He straightened his coat and made sure his shirt, which almost looked like it was supposed to be beige, was tucked into his trousers and trousers, into his boots. The shirt itself was horribly drab, but Jaskier had found a faded navy vest in the laundry that cinched his middle quite nicely. Not that one could tell beneath the coat.

The crow’s feat still bothered him, but without any kind of skin care products there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Why was he nervous?

‘It’s just a dinner, don’t be stupid. Remember the information you want to get, and it’ll come.’

Jaskier scrunched his nose at his reflection. Talking to himself was another very old habit he beat out of himself when he took up the mantle of spy, as speaking any words that weren’t carefully measured were obviously ill-advised.

He signed and abandoned himself in the mirror.

In their quarters Ciri was sitting on a chair at the table, a small hand held mirror propped on the wall in front of her, and was attacking her hair with a wide brush. Jaskier saw her eyes widen in the reflection and she spun around.

He knew he should say something about the night before, when his embarrassing dream had woke her up, and took a breath to do so but she cut him off.

‘We don’t have to talk about it. Ever. Okay?’

‘At least let me apologise.’

‘No, no. You had a dream, and we can’t control out dreams, so we’re going to move on and never ever mention it ever again.’ Ciri spoke with the command and confidence of a royal, and she looked away to dismiss him before she continued to hack at her hair with the paddle brush.

Jaskier nodded and snuck out of the room to fetch the hair oil from the bathing room. ‘Here, try this.’ He rubbed some oil into her hair before he took the brush and started to carefully remove the tangles that had gathered during their time in the brig. Taking care of her appearance had obviously not been a priority for her while he’d been ill, but at least she had cut it shorter so it was easier to manage now.

‘When you cut your hair, did you make sure the rest of your hair was disposed of?’

‘I just threw it overboard. If that okay?’

‘Perfect, darling. I should have warned you, but we didn’t have much time. After a day that hair would have returned to blonde after being separated from you and the magic of the charm would have worn off.’

Her wide eyes looked at him through the mirror. ‘The hair went over the side, I’m sure of it. And I’ll be careful, I promise.’

‘I know you will.’ He handed a section of smoothed hair for her to hold out of the way as he started on another. Detangled the dark curls fell smoothly to her jaw while the rest remained bunched up to her cheekbones. ‘We’ve been invited for dinner with captain Geralt tonight, but I don’t think I can get your hair finished by the time we have to leave.’

‘Would it be okay if I didn’t go anyway?’

‘Of course. Is everything alright?’

‘Yeah. I’m just tired. I spent today with Triss doing maths, and then with Leo organising some of the cargo hold. They have some really cool stuff down there. And… and I didn’t get much sleep last night so I wanted to turn in early.’

‘Ah, I see.’ He cleared his throat and resisted the urge to hide, ‘I’ll send your apologies to the captain, and I’ll save you some dinner so you can eat in here whenever you like.’

She smiled at him in the mirror. ‘Thank you.’

Ciri sat patiently while Jaskier made his way around her head, and he had done a third before the soft tone of the bells told him he would be expected for dinner. When he handed her back the brush she thanked him and stood from her chair to address him with a weak, uncertain voice that reminded him of a small girl huddled in a Nilfgaardian brig.

‘Jasper? Could you try to find out why he’s trying to find me? I’ve tried, but all I’ve heard is Lambert saying something about the law of surprise? And I don’t...’ She took a shaky breath ‘My father claimed my mother from the law of surprise, so they got married and had me. I don’t want… You don’t think that’s why Geralt wants me, do you?’

It took a single step to reach Ciri to pull her into a hug. She gave a small sob against his chest and he stroked her hair where the smooth spirals met dense knots. ‘We haven’t spoken much, but I honestly don’t think that’s what he wants you for. In the very least, all the literature agrees that witcher’s can’t have children, so he won’t want you to aid in that endeavour. I’m also sure that your grandmother wouldn’t have sent you to him if that was the case, would she?’

She shook her head against his chest and he gave another squeeze. ‘I’ll ask, but it has to come up naturally or he might get suspicious. But I promise you, that no outdated, stupid suspicions about destiny can ever dictate what you should and shouldn’t do. Alright?’

‘Alright.’ She swiped at her nose again, ‘Alright, I’m alright. You go enjoy dinner with the captain.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ She gave him a weak, but honest smile, ‘make sure he has you home by midnight.’

He scrunched his nose and stuck out his tongue, which earned him a giggle.

‘Okay, darling, but don’t wait up for me.’

Chapter Text

Before he was due in the captain’s quarters Jaskier bid goodnight to Ciri and ducked into the bathing room, which was blessedly unoccupied, to give himself a quick glance over. Gwen had torn apart some clothes that were beyond mending and given him a long strip of material with which he could tie up his hair. It seemed to have once been the same blue as his eyes, but had now faded, and the ends of it trailed over his shoulder. The stupid short bits around his face wouldn’t bundle with the rest, so he tucked them behind his ears and decided it was as good as it was going to get.

Although he knew Geralt’s quarters were at the end of the hallway, he hadn’t been told which of the two carved doors were Geralt’s. Both had carvings in the dark wood, one of a curled sleeping wolf, and the other of a curled sleeping dragon, and Jaskier assumed that the one on his left was the captain’s quarters, as he had heard Eskel refer to Geralt as ‘wolf’. As he raised his hand to knock the door swung away from him and he almost punched Gweld in the chest.

‘Oh, shitballs! I’m so sorry.’

Gweld, who had ducked to the side with the reflexes of a witcher, bowed while gesturing to the insides of the cabin. Jaskier returned the bow and thanked him. In the wake of the ginger-haired witcher was the smell of delicious food that immediately made him salivate.

‘What is that? It smells amazing.’

The reedy witcher grinned, but continued down the hallway to leave Jaskier standing at the entrance to the captain’s quarters without backup. He inhaled deeply, and the smell of fish and herbs beckoned him inside the small room without permission from the occupant.

The room was reasonably sized, with a circular dinning table in the centre, a chaise lounge in one corner, and a bird perch in the other. The row of windows showed the darkening sky, and there was a desk pressed against them, arranged so that the person sitting in it could look out towards the ship’s wake. It was odd, as every other ship’s captain put their back to the windows to face the door.

Instinct had him drifting towards the deck, wanting to read as much paperwork as he could before the captain made an appearance. The desk, however, was neatest desk Jaskier had ever seen on or off water. It was devoid of the piles of papers swept to the side that every desk had, as everything was presumably secured in the paperbox nailed to the surface. Maybe being a pirate necessitated less paperwork.

He left the desk be, lest he disturb it’s precise layout, and turned to the food on the table. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the food looked as delicious as it smelt: fillets of fresh fish along with a steaming bowl of herbed rice, and the regular vegetable stew and ships biscuits. There was also brown bottle sitting in the middle of the table, and some small jars.

Jaskier started as the large tapestry of a mountain keep, which he had dismissed as décor, pulled aside and Geralt entered through the makeshift doorway it had been hiding. The room beyond would have been accessible through the dragon door, and Jaskier’s breath hitched as he realised that it was the shared quarters of the captain and his first mate.

‘Evening. No Julek?’

Jaskier straightened from trying to peer into the bedchamber and locked eyes with Geralt’s amused gaze. ‘Good evening, captain. Unfortunately, he’s turning in early so it’s just me.’

Geralt gave him a nod and moved to his desk. He thought the captain might be checking to see if anything was disturbed, but instead he placed something down on the surface and fiddled with it until there was a small burst of flame. Jaskier braced himself for the sensory onslaught that usually accompanied the witcher’s signs, but when none came he realised that Geralt had simply lit a rush light.

The captain send him an apologetic look as he paced the room and lit the cabin’s lamps. ‘Sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, it couldn’t find the flint box.’

Jaskier waved a hand, ‘That’s perfectly fine, although why don’t you just...’ he made a finger wiggle motion at one of the candles.

‘Gweld said our signs make you ill.’

Well that was rather sweet, both that Gweld had mentioned it to Geralt, and that Geralt had gone out of his way to not do something that he imagined was second nature to him.

‘It’s just a minor reaction, and it comes as quickly as it goes, but I do appreciate the concern.’

One of the windows was cracked open to let in a breeze, but it wasn’t deathly cold outside and the warmth of the steaming food in a such a small space was making the air a tad uncomfortable. Geralt wasn’t wearing any kind of coat and was instead only clothed in a deep black shirt, unfaded by wash or wear, with a low cut v-collar, loosely thatched together with a silver cord. The sleeves would have been quite billowy if not for the thick muscle beneath, which made the fit look comfortable and soft around the captain’s biceps.

Jaskier not only appreciated the look, but also took it as a sign that the dinner wasn’t so formal that he was expected to keep his coat on, so he thankfully shed the layer. Although, without it he felt under dressed with his discoloured, patched shirt and faded navy vest next to Geralt’s deeply dyed shirt.

Geralt turned from the last candle and blinked at Jaskier, his eyes flicking over the other man’s form so fast the spy almost didn’t catch it, before he stuttered back to movement and extinguished his rush light. He extended a hand and Jaskier passed over his coat to be hung on a small coat rack.

‘Will Roach be joining us?’

A gravelly, surprised chuckle barked from his lips, ‘No, she’s out and about. If the wind picks up she might come in through the window.’ He gestured for Jaskier to take a seat and took one himself on the opposite side of the table. ‘But we have the room to ourselves for now.’

The etiquette that had been beaten into him made Jaskier wait until Geralt had started to prepare his own plate before he turned to his own. He scooped the herbed rice onto his plate and lay a piece of perfectly cooked fish on top. There was a small pot of gravy and jars that respectively contained a caramelised onion preserve, which screamed Skellige cuisine, and a brightly coloured preserve that Jaskier couldn’t place.

He sniffed it, identifying cloves beneath sweet fruit, and scooped a little onto the side of his plate before taking a large portion of the onion jam. The fish itself was rather plain, although perfectly salted and lemony, but combined with the two accompaniments it made for an absolutely spectacular flavour combination.

‘This...’ He pointed at his plate with his fork as words failed to come to him. ‘This… Have you tried this? This is…’ he took another bite, ‘Fuck me, so good.’

He looked up to see the captain watching, something deep and unfathomable in his bright eyes as he spoke ‘We don’t use preserves often, mostly they’re for trade or to bring back to berth.’

Jaskier made an appreciative noise and filed the information away for later as he shoved a forkful, which was piled slightly larger than was polite, into his mouth. He mostly wanted more of that amazing flavour, but he also wanted to prevent himself from immediately asking where The Merwolf’s home port was. The Oxenfurt libraries said that witchers hibernated in mountain caves during the winter, but had no designated place of origin. The implication being that they weren’t human enough to have something as basic as a home.

To distract himself, he glanced down at the fair Geralt had plated for himself. The captain had claimed some of the lightly flavoured fish, and the stew which had some biscuits soaking it in, but none of the delightfully flavoured sides or additions. The witcher had even passed on the rice, which, although containing oregano, thyme and dill, Jaskier would have considered extremely mild.

‘Are these still too potent for a witcher’s palate?’

‘Not for all witchers.’

He waited for a moment for the captain to elaborate, but Geralt kept his attention on the meal before him. When he had mentioned the dinner to the twins, Gwen had warned him that Geralt was a difficult man to talk to, often prone to stretches of silence and dropping easily grasped threads of conversation.

Jaskier took another forkful into his mouth to prevent the nervous babble that wanted to surface. The burst of flavour from the unknown preserve reminded him of cantaloupe and peaches, but it was warm and spiced nicely with cloves. It occurred to him that as the captain wasn’t partaking then the preserves had been brought up solely for him, and he smiled at the thought that Geralt may have chosen the preserves himself with Jasper in mind.

The captain picked up the bottle from the centre of the table and poured two cups before he presented one to Jaskier.

‘I like the flavour of this.’

Jaskier took the cup and sipped. It was a delicate and crisp citrus white wine, which had been cooled, he assumed, by having sat in chilly ocean water for a time. It was strong and refreshing, and very clearly a drink meant to be enjoyed for flavour rather than it’s intoxicating effects. Far from the rum and spirits that many a crew lived for.

‘It’s a delight! Although, I would have pictured you as more of an ale man.’

Geralt shrugged ‘I used to be. The flavour starts to sour after being spat on by mucus that reeks of ale and rotting teeth.’ he drained his cup in a single pull and went to refill, ‘Wine drinkers just spit in buckets.’

‘Oh,’ He looked into his cup and swirled the contents around. In his early days of Oxenfurt he’d had his fair share of too-ripe food thrown at him, and that had been humiliating enough but at least they had been thrown at his performance and not him as a person. And then, even when people had took issue with who, or what, he was they had only spat words.

If Jaskier was reading his dinner companion correctly then Geralt’s eyes held only resignation, as if that had just been par for the course of his life. It made him want to apologise, or offer some form of condolences, but he wasn’t sure it would be appreciated. The witcher captain seemed so closed and stoic that bringing attention to his vulnerability would probably make him uncomfortable.

So he took another sip of the expensive tasting wine and raised his cup to the captain in camaraderie. ‘Well, at least they will never put their lips to anything as sweet as this. Although, if I may ask, where does it hale from?’

‘Toussaint.’

‘Ah ha, that explains it. Although in the past decade there hasn’t been many whites coming out of Toussaint.’

Jaskier took another sip and swished it around in his mouth to let the flavour develop, like the countess had shown him, and so that his next bite of fish could melt with the lingering flavour. He fully expected another stretch of silence, but Geralt ploughed on in a low, warm growl.

‘They don’t export all their vintages to the Continent, they keep the best ones for themselves. Once we sail from Zerrikania we’ll follow its coast to Toussaint, and I can show you what I mean.’

Jaskier swallowed his mouthful and set his cup down a touch too hard on the table. ‘Toussaint is a vassal state under Nilfgaard. Julek and I won’t be safe there: we’ll be considered deserters.’

Geralt looked up from his plate, his expression neutral and deliberate, and tilted his head as if listening for something. His brilliantly yellow eyes stayed locked on Jaskier’s and the spy forced himself to hold the eye contact, but his fingers shifted slightly into chord patters on the edge of the table to prevent himself from squirming, forever unable to stay completely still.

The captain had already stated wouldn’t deviate his course on Jaskier’s behalf, and the spy knew he was in no way obligated to consider his or Julek’s safety. In fact, Geralt had made it clear that it was up to Jaskier to find his own way to Oxenfurt at the earliest possible opportunity.

‘Of course, if you plan on docking at Zerrikania perhaps Julek and I can find passage to Redania from there, as you suggested before. That way we can be out of your snowy locks as soon as possible.’

Geralt blinked and set his cutlery down on the table. He leant back in his chair, but didn’t say anything.

‘I know there aren’t many ports in Zerrikania, or even places to safely take a ship close to the land, which is, of course, why it’s still a relatively new trading partner with the continent. Well, that and the fact that they’re generally mistrusting of foreigners. I’m sure, however, I can find someone to employ my dashing charms upon. Although, some coin would help, of course. I have a few, thank you very much for returning those by the way, but I suspect in order to pay my way across to the continent for both myself and Julek then I will need a fair few more. Do they take Florins in Zerrikania? Regardless, I’m sure I can earn some coins by performing, although we may need to stay somewhere while I earn-’

‘Jasper.’

Jaskier startled, but tried to hide the movement by reaching for his fork. He truly hadn’t done this much nervous rambling since he was a teenager. Why did talking to Geralt make him do that?

‘Are you truly so desperate to debark?’

‘Wha- No.’ Jaskier abandoned the cup. ‘No no no, please don’t misunderstand. You’ve all been exceptionally welcoming, a few individuals excluded but I hardly blame them, and I do truly appreciate absolutely everything you’ve done, but I… we can’t risk it. Even with Col’Muire Strait between them, Toussaint is still far to close to Nilfgaard for comfort. I don’t wish to tempt the fates by stepping foot there, as I fear the fates don’t have Julek’s best interests at heart.’

Geralt blinked slowly. ‘Do you trust us to have his interests?’

Jaskier pulled the fork from the table into his lap. He flicked its prongs with his fingernails, the tips scratching and digging at the pads of his fingertips, and decided this was his chance to push for answers.

‘The only things you know for sure about us is that Julek shot one of your crew, and that I’m willing to sell out Princess Cirilla to a witcher without even asking why he wants her. Why in the names of the gods would you think well enough of us to put our interests, our safety, above you and yours? Although that does beg questions that are long overdue.’

‘Mmmm.’

Jaskier held Geralt’s eyes, willing his disobedient heart to slow. ‘What do you want with Her Royal Highness? Why is she important to you?’

The witcher made a contemplative noise and turned from the spy and out towards the wake of the ship. The sun had set now and Jaskier was sure the view of the stars was beautiful but he didn’t want to take his eyes off the man opposite him. There were no nervous fidgets or tiny shifts in facial muscles, which would have given away what was going through his mind, but there were tiny flickers of something in those golden eyes as they returned to Jaskier’s.

‘I saved her father’s life. She’s my child surprise.’

Child surprise, not bride surprise. Yet, if Geralt was searching for her out of a sense of possessiveness or simply obligation he may not understand how special she was, nor how much she needed to be protected and kept safe. Jaskier certainly doubted that Geralt had any experience raising a teenager. Not that he himself had much, but he’d at least had sisters.

‘And you’re wrong.’ Geralt rumbled.

He blinked, ‘Pardon?’

‘I know more than that about you.’

He set his elbows on the table and stared Jaskier down with a sharp look. The spy leant back in his chair while taking a deep drink, hoping that the alcohol will calm the speeding thud of his heart. He and Ciri had just made a cover story, perhaps he should have grilled her harder about how to interact with the witchers without his supervision.

‘I know that you care a great deal about Julek.’ Geralt’s voice rumbled across the table. ‘I know you protected him from Lambert’s anger. You’re Fae, and you know our true names, but have never used them to hurt us. You’ve never called any of us an it. You don’t flinch at Eskel’s scars. And you haven’t called me Butcher.’

Jaskier stared at the longest string of words he’d heard the captain say until his eyes started to sting and he blinked to clear the gathering moisture. He took a shaky breath before he poured himself another cup, as the room was quite warm and a swig helped against the flush creeping up his face.

After hearing that Geralt had been spat on, and quite regularly if he wasn’t mistaken, guilt bubbled in his chest and spilt from his lips.

‘I’m afraid I must correct you on two counts, Captain... I did refer to you as Butcher, but that was before I met you. Stories such as that are told by the victor, yet there were no victors, least of all you, so I have no doubt that it’s riddled in falsehoods.’ He placed his cup and elbows on the table, and rested his chin on interlaced hands, ‘In fact, I’m willing to wager that you lost something in Blaviken, something the stories don’t tell and that’s why you don’t fight the moniker: The lie hurts less than remembering the truth.’

Bright sunlight eyes burned, and Jaskier could feel the sweat on his back, but he’d been trained to ignore his survival instincts in order to disarm and gain he upper hand.

‘You’re too observant for your own safety.’

‘I’ve been told that, yes.’ His hands shook, and he gripped them tighter together and smiled in a way that had caused many a secret plan to be spilled, and many a tryst to be secured. ‘I won’t push, but just know that I shall never use that name again, and if anyone asks of you I will endeavour to correct any misconceptions about your nature.’

Jaskier reached out and rested the tips of his fingers against the witcher’s wrist. Geralt looked down into his stew and used his free hand to brake one of the dense ship’s biscuit apart, something most people struggled to do with two hands. He didn’t withdraw the hand Jaskier was touching, and his face was inhumanly blank, but when he spoke he sounded as if he was struggling to speak around something in his throat.

‘And what of the second correction?’

Jaskier pulled his hand back from Geralt’s warm skin and sat back in his seat. ‘You uhh… You called me Fae. I’m- I don’t know how accurate that is, but I’m not able to harm you with your names. My great-grandmother warned me about the power of names, and knowing someone’s name just makes my gifts a bit more effective, but it’s more an empathetic ability than anything malicious.’

Geralt frowned, the intensity clearing from his face to make way for something soft, and he tilted his head in a way that conveyed the very picture of confusion. ‘You don’t know if you’re Fae or not?’

Jaskier shrugged and continued. ‘I know I inherited my abilities from my great-grandmother, and I have an affinity towards nature, but our family history was destroyed generations before her. She called us ‘gifted’, sometimes ‘children of spring’, but nothing more than that, but I’ve never been able to find any literature that describes our abilities and gives it a designation.’

The captain nodded, seeming distracted as his gaze once again fell to the windows. ‘Fae folk were rare even before the human’s crusade. Makes sense she’d want to protect you. Plausible deniability can be powerful.’

‘I know.’ Jaskier refilled his cup with the last dregs of the bottle. ‘But she, at least, let us be ourselves when we were at her coastal home. We were never allowed to talk about it in our own house. My mother would punish us if we spoke of anything abnormal too loudly.’

‘Mmmm.’

The fae looked down at his plate. Jaskier knew he had spoken too much, but had in turn learned a lot as well. Such as the fact that he was fae, whatever that meant exactly. He had eaten most of what he had served himself and started preparing to leave by piling some extra rice, biscuits and jams onto the plate to take back to Ciri. He tried to think of a polite way to excuse himself from the table that didn’t seem too much like he was running away from the vulnerable turn of the conversation.

‘I don’t know why you’re so desperate to return to The Continent.’ Geralt was still looking out the window, a crease between his white brows the only thing giving away his thoughts. ‘Seems like you’d have more luck going back to Nilfgaard and begging for forgiveness. They’ll assume we forced you onto our ship anyhow.’

‘No, no I won’t besmirch your name like that. Besides, I can admit my mistakes, and trusting Nilfgaard was not the best course of action. They weren’t nearly as patient as you are in waiting for the information they wanted.’

Jaskier felt distant from the words he was speaking, and he taped his fingernails on the table. He felt small and slightly overwhelmed by the knowledge that he was fae, a word that barely rung any bells from his studies, and he rose before he fell apart at the table. ‘Thank you, Captain, for the food, drink and the company, but I should take my leave.’

Geralt stood and retrieved the other’s coat from the rack to hold it open. Jaskier put his arms in the sleeves and thanked the captain as he took Ciri’s plate and stepped towards the door.

‘There may be another option.’ Geralt was so very close behind Jaskier, hand on the door’s handle, that he felt the rumble in the other’s chest. ‘When the humans started to become more violent, a few people fled to the mountains and created a settlement. Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, even some Dopplers, Succubi and Incubi, and a host of mages. You and Julek would be safe there, could build a life there without fear, and without having to hide what you are.’

He spun on Geralt, eyes wide.

‘Obviously not many people know about it, and...’ he paused and Jaskier resisted the urge to bounce on his toes and get the witcher to hurry up. When he did speak it was soft, all the gravel and husk rounded out. ‘... I wanted to get to know you better before I offered it to you. I know you’re hiding something, but whatever it is I don’t think you have ill intent, and I think I trust you.

‘So consider it, for Julek’s sake if nothing else.’

The door swung closed and left Jaskier staring at the carved wolf in the door. He felt numb as his brain scrambled for purchase instead of spinning around the revelation that Geralt knew he was hiding something. It made him feel dizzy, and built the pressure behind his temples.

He wasn’t sure how long he stared at the wolf’s calm face, but he had moved his quarters to find Ciri sleeping. Jaskier placed the plate on the table and double checked the door was closed firmly before he sank to the floor with his back to it. His lips moved, breathing broken syllables of an ancient song he couldn’t remember, trying to calm himself down. Not for the first time he wished his chaos, his fae chaos, could affect him as it could others.

Hopefully his mind and head should calm down, but in case it didn’t he would watch over Ciri to ensure at least one of them had a decent night’s sleep.

Chapter Text

Over the next few days Jaskier tried to sort out everything that was swirling through his mind, and he found himself avoiding Geralt while he did. He had at least managed to sort out his thoughts enough to put his selfish curiosity aside, because as much as Jaskier wanted to interrogate every witcher about the fae he knew his priority was to decide whether he and Ciri were going to debark in Zerrikania. It would have been a simple decision if not for the offer Geralt had presented.

The idea of a safe haven for non-humans was almost too good to be true, but he trusted Geralt to not lie about such a thing. The captain had nothing to gain by fabricating such a place, except to lure him into staying on board, which would only benefit the witcher if he wanted Jaskier to stay on board until Toussaint. Yet, if that was the case then that would imply Geralt was in league with Nilfgaard, which he doubted was the case.

Right?

Taking them up on his offer would probably be the safest way for Ciri to hide until such a time when she could rule Cintra on her own terms, but Jaskier didn’t think he could go. If Dijkstra ever found out he had deserted the Redanian Secret Service then he would undoubtedly take it out on Lianna and Bella. Besides, he owed it to his sisters to think of their well being first. He couldn’t abandon them to the bigotry of the continent. No, he needed to return to Redania and continue his work until his contract with Dijkstra was up, and then, maybe, he could bring his sisters with him and retire in peace.

However, until then that left an option to leave Ciri with the witchers while he returned to Redania alone. If there was a non-human settlement, safe from the anger of the rest of the world, she would definitely flourish amongst a host of being to help her figure out her abilities. It would, in theory, also be hidden from Nilfgaard and any other political power and she could be kept safe there.

As Julek, or Ciri, she would do well.

Something about that option left his gut sour. If the settlement was in Nilfgaard or Toussaint then that was out of the question, and he had a hard time imagining that the prejudiced north would have overlooked such a township.

No, he didn’t know enough about it to let Ciri go alone.

He also had no doubt that Dijkstra would have heard of his and Princess Cirilla’s escape. Jaskier couldn’t return to him without her. If he was to go to Oxenfurt then he had to have Ciri with him when he did.

Which meant he would have to take her away from the witchers she had become fast friends with. She had been on deck more and more now that they were sailing further south and the weather was warming up. He had seen her with Aiden, who was giving her some light training as the cat witcher got himself back into shape, and sometimes with Triss who had gotten Jasper’s permission to was teach her chaos theory. Watching her with the witchers, knowing he would soon have to drag her away, had been a tad overwhelming and so he had retreated into the bowels of the ship.

Triss had also shown him the garden room, which had fast become his favourite place to be by himself. Now that he had a name to what he was, he had introduced himself as a fae to the plants of The Merwolf, and they had all responded positively to him and their presence had done a lot to help calm the nausea that his spinning mind was causing.

After bonding with the more social plants, Jaskier had turned to the pungent sewant mushrooms and spent a day or so trying to figure out the style of music they would like the most. He was in the middle of singing a rather violently graphic sea shanty when the door to the small room opened and Triss hesitantly stepped in. Her hair was down so that her long braided deadlocks fell between her shoulder blades, and she was wearing a loose robe of heavy material tied with a sash at her waist. Leo stood behind her with his chin rested on the top of her head.

‘Jasper, did you want to join us for lunch?’

‘I can’t promise we smell nicer than the mushrooms, but the conversation should be better.’

Jaskier managed a chuckle, but it was thin. He straightened from the floor to stretch up and leant backwards to counter the hunched position he’d been in for the past few hours. ‘I’m not too hungry, sorry, but thank you, I do appreciate the offer.’

Triss frowned, ‘Have you been eating? Gwen said he hasn’t seen you in the mess for a few days, and Julek said you haven’t been eating in your quarters.’

‘Did something happen? Was it Tjold again?’

‘No, no nothing like that.’ Jaskier ran his hands through his hair. ‘I should talk to Julek, though, if he’s worried. I shouldn’t let him be worried, he should know what’s going on.’ He ran his hands down his face, ‘Fuck. How far off from Zerrikania are we?’

‘We should be there by tomorrow evening, maybe the morning after.’ Leo explained as Triss stepped into the room to examine some of the thyme. ‘The wind isn’t on our side, but he captain has some of the crew casting aard at the sails to get us there on schedule. You should join Coën and me on the cargo run when we’re there, you’ve never been shopping until you’ve been to the ‘Kanian market district.’

‘Yes, actually I could use some supplies.’ Jaskier winced as the thought landed in his mind. ‘Although I don’t have nearly enough money for what I need.’

Leo shrugged. ‘Maybe we can find something small in the hold for you to sell or trade. We’re sorting out the stores tomorrow, you should join us and dig around.’

Jaskier gave him a smile and nod of thanks. He doubted he be allowed to take anything from the hold worth enough to secure a voyage for him and Ciri to Redania, but at least it was something to get him started and one less thing he had to worry about. Of course, there was still a whole host of things that still required his concern, and Triss was right, he should really go and talk to Ciri about what was ahead.

‘I might,’ he sighed and fussed with his hair again, ‘I might track down Julek and have lunch with him.’

‘I think he’d like that.’ Triss had tucked some of the herbs behind her ear and was taking small handfuls of the sun stones from one pot and placing them at the base of another plant. ‘These are doing really well, Jasper.’

Jaskier felt a swell of pride that took him back decades ago, when his granna had given him his first instrument, a set of coloured orchestra bells, when he’d learned that channelling his chaos through an instrument was far more powerful and beautiful than his voice alone.

‘Thank you. I’m going to go find Julek. I might see you both later,’ he pointed to Leo, ‘but definitely tomorrow.’

‘See you then.’

Jaskier tried to not make it too obvious that he was checking the hallway before he left. He knew that if he saw Geralt he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from rambling something semi-coherent, and so he preferred to just avoid the ship’s captain until he absolutely had no other choice.

The Merwolf’s routine was divided into only three watches, as witches would work for much longer without becoming fatigued: Eskel took the helm in the morning, as he was apparently a morning person, Geralt took it at night, as was his preference, and Lambert took the helm during the midday because he complained regardless of what watch he was on. As such, Jaskier knew that Geralt would be somewhere around the ship, and as he slowly made his way above deck his attention snapped to every witcher he passed just in case it was the white-haired captain.

By the time the fae emerged above deck he felt like a leather belt had been loosened from around his chest. Even though he had isolated himself in order to get his mind in order he had never done well in isolation, and just that brief interaction with Triss and Leo had helped him feel a little bit more in control and present.

It was raining sparsely above deck, but in big heavy drops, with an odd warmth in the air that made the his head feel like it was made from damp, heavy wool. They must have been travelling south fast in order for the weather to have changed so much in the few days he had been hiding amongst the garden.

There was a witcher by the water barrel, and Jaskier gave him a smile and wave. ‘Good afternoon, I don’t believe we’ve yet met. I’m Jasper.’

The witcher raised an eyebrow and as he turned away from Jaskier’s greeting to finish his drink, the fae caught a glimpse of an old tattoo on the side of his neck, but couldn’t make out what it was. ‘You want something?’

‘Oh, um.’ Jaskier let his hand fall, ‘I was was looking for my son, Julek. Have you seen him.’

He tilted his head and listened for a moment. ‘Not on deck. He must be behind a rune. Try the baths.’

‘My thanks.’ Jaskier stepped away from the witcher, pushing the odd interaction aside. If it was ship-wide knowledge that he was fae, then he understood why some people were hesitant to give him his name, but it still saddened him.

He tried the door on deck that lead directly to the baths, but found it locked, and so moved inside the officer’s cabin to try that door.

‘Just give me a minute,’ Ciri’s voice yelled from inside, ‘If you want to come in I can get out, you just have to give me a minute.’

‘Julek, it’s me.’

‘Oh!’

‘I’m going to get some food so we can have lunch in our quarters. I have something I need to talk to you about.’

‘Alright. I’ll see you there.’

Jaskier moved away from the door, glad to have some more time to compose the conversation in his mind. At the end of it all, staying with him was going to be the best thing for Ciri. The magical land protected from humanity was too much of a fairytale and, while Geralt and the witchers my have been able to protect her from Nilfgaard, Jaskier knew they wouldn’t be the best options to raise a child. If she was to grow up to he the matriarch of Cintra than she needed a more cultured hand to guide her.

He fetched some of the lunch from the galley, carefully walking past the door to the mess in case Geralt was inside, and returned to his and Ciri’s quarters with some of the perpetual stew thickened with plain rice. Ciri was already inside, sitting at the bench with her wet hair pushed back from her face and dripping down the back of her shirt since she hadn’t dried it properly. Jaskier placed a bowl down on the table before he grabbed the damp towel that she had flung on her hammock and handed it to her.

‘Dry your hair properly first. It’s warmer but still cold out there.’

She rolled her eyes, but draped the towel over her heard and started drying it roughly. Jaskier sat in his hammock with his bowl, which he set down onto his lap as he picked around the cuticles of one of his fingers. ‘How was your day, did you train with Aiden?

‘It was good. Aiden and Lambert duelled on that pole on the front of the ship, but Aiden was blindfolded. He said he was less dizzy when both his eyes were covered, but then Lambert said something about being tied up, and they they kissed and went off to be gross together.’ she finished speaking around a mouthful of stew.

He chuckled. ‘I’m glad you had fun.’

‘Are you alright? You’ve been weird since you had dinner with Geralt. Is he… Does he suspect something?’

Yes.

‘No, the Captain just gave me a lot to think about, but I’m alright. I apologise if I worried you.’

She shrugged and took another spoonful, ‘That’s fine. I knew if it was important you would tell me.’

‘Actually, I do have something I need to talk to you about.’ He took the untouched bowl from his lap and handed it to Ciri so that she could put it on the bench. ‘Geralt told me a little bit about where the ship is headed next, and he’s taking us to an island ruled by Nilfgaard.’

‘What?’ She spun around. ‘No, he wouldn’t. They wouldn’t put us in danger by taking us to Nilfgaard.’

‘But they are, Ciri. They have their own plans and we can’t expect them to change their course for us before they’re ready. And besides, they don’t know who we are, they don’t know why it’s so dangerous for us.’

‘Then we tell them.’

Jaskier sighed. ‘No, no we can’t do that.’ he looked down to his fingers, were he’d pealed back the skin around the cuticles and dots of blood were now coming to the surface. ‘Geralt expected us to find a way off the ship to get to Redania, rather than waiting for him to take us there, and so that’s what we need to do when we reach Zerrikania tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow! That’s too soon!’

‘We can’t risk going to Tous-’

‘I don’t want to leave!’

Jaskier closed his eyes for a second before looking up at her wide, watering eyes. ‘You knew we would have to debark at some point.’

‘But I’m not ready to leave yet!’

‘It’s not safe to go farther south.’

‘But the witchers can protect us!’ Ciri shouted, her voice echoing through the small space as she sprung from the seat. ‘They took a Nilf ship before, they can do it again!’

‘We can’t rely on them, Ciri, and we can’t trust anyone but ourselves.’

She clenched her fists, fury burning in the disguised darkness in her eyes. ‘I trust them,’ she spat, ‘and now we know why Geralt wants to find me, I’m going to tell him who I am.’

‘No!’ Jaskier gripped the blankets underneath him with shaking hands. ‘The more people who know who you are the more it puts you at risk, no matter how much you trust them. And it will put them in danger too. Do you want that?’

‘It’s not fair!’

The ship creaked and rattled around them.

‘Cirilla, we have to do this.’

‘No! It’s not fair, I don’t want to leave and you can’t make me!’

‘Ci-’

Ciri ran to the door, ripping the door open and bolting out of their quarters. Jaskier stared at the door as it bounced off the wall, the frame, and settled being ajar. He put elbows on his knees and rested his head in shaking hands to block the afternoon light that was coming through their small window. For a brief moment he thought he might cry, but he didn’t. Instead his heart hammered and skin prickled as he rocked on the edge of his own anger.

He sprung from the hammock and flung the already open door to try and dispel some of the buzzing adrenaline as he headed in long strides out of the officers cabin and across the deck, needing to pace or cry or fucking hit something.

‘Fuck.’

Chapter Text

Jaskier paced laps around the deck. The frustration bubbled under his skin and his breath came in sharp bursts as he tried to dissipate it, but he didn’t want to go back inside where the anger felt claustrophobic. Unfortunately, the rain was coming down heavily and he was becoming soaking wet very fast, and his skin prickled with goosebumps even though he knew that if he put on his coat it would be too warm.

‘Fuck it,’ He spun around on his heal and headed towards the hatch and away from the weather that was distracting him from his furious brooding.

Ciri was a smart young woman, she should be able to understand why they had to leave. It hadn’t been an issue before, when they had talked about her going back to Redania and living with his sisters. She knew it was coming, she knew they would have to leave at some point, so why was it an issue now?

And it wasn’t as if it was an easy decision for him either. He liked being Jasper, and he liked the witchers. He was sacrificing things too, sacrificing his own safety and security for what was best for her and his family.

Thanks gods he had never been that difficult as a teenager.

Once he was beneath deck he froze at the bottom of the stairs. He wanted to run and hide in the garden room again, but he wasn’t sure he could sit still with the frustration that was failing to wane. He scanned the training room until his gaze fell on the large sack hanging in the corner of the room. He had seen it being used by witchers as a punching bag, and now saw Eskel stood before it, shirtless and with drops of sweat looking like diamonds rolling down the muscles of his bulky frame.

Jaskier had already been warm but it felt as if the heat was physically radiating off of his body. He swallowed, but the tiny sound must have drew Eskel’s attention as deep amber eyes snapped to him. The unmarred side of his face twisted like he wanted to smile at Jaskier’s presence, but also frown with concern. He nodded for Jaskier to come over.

‘Are you alright? Julek tore through here like a Bruxa on fisstech.’

‘Yes. No. Just… Fuck.’ Jaskier ran a hand through his hair, his fingers catching on the tie before he tore them out, dropped his arms by his sides and shrugged. ‘He’s a teenager. I told him something he didn’t like, and now I’m the bad guy.’

Eskel winced, ‘Is there anything I can do to help.’

Jaskier looked over at the swinging bag, the need to move pulsing through him. ‘Can I punch that?’

‘Sure,’ Eskel seemed surprised, but moved to stabilise the bag and disappeared behind it. ‘There aren’t many ways to keep up good fighting forms in such an enclosed space, but-Wait!’

The fae had struck out at the bag with his right fist, and hadn’t even seen Eskel move but the witcher was now holding his fist in his large palm. He had struck out like he’d be trained at Oxenfurt, throwing a decent punch, but the large warrior had caught it as if he’d moved with the strength of a kitten.

‘The bag’s packed heavy’ Eskel held out some strips of cloth with his other hand, ‘You need to wrap your knuckles or you’ll hurt them.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’

The large witcher moved back behind the bag while Jaskier wrapped his knuckles. When he made contact with the bag it didn’t even move and the vibration radiated up his arm to twinge in his shoulder. He struck out with his other arm, and then again, building and moving faster as the frustration rebuilt itself.

It bubbled and spilt over and his vision tunnelled. He punched the bag over and over, alternating arms. He focused on the stance and form, and the impact under his fists until all other thoughts were eclipsed.

He hit the bag again and again, but his movements were hindered by the loose shirt now sticking to his skin with sweat. He stripped it off and let it fall by his feet. His muscles burnt, but he started to feel cleared and less on the verge of tipping over the edge. Eskel may have said something, Jaskier heard his deep baritone, but didn’t spare the time to actually hear the words.

All his frustration about Ciri, the regret about having to debark, faded from his blood. He punched until he could see the smug face of Dijkstra, the cold face of his father, the sour face of Valdo,a nd every decision that had lead him into the Redanian secret service. He struck out and a sharp pain shot up his bicep and stabbed into the joint of his shoulder.

‘Fuck!’ He recoiled from the bag and grabbed his shoulder. After Lambert dislocated his shoulder on The Deith’Adan, Triss had done an amazing job at speeding along his recovery, but even so the muscles must have still been weak. He tried to breath through the pain, but found his nose blocked. The skin on his face felt tight, and a small sniffle confirmed that he had been crying while punching the bag. ‘Fuck,’ he breathed.

‘Jasper?’

Jaskier jumped as Eskel was suddenly at his side, his hand reaching out and hovering towards his sore arm. The fae let his arms drop and he rolled the offending shoulder under the concerned supervision of the first mate. It pulled and he couldn’t stop himself from wincing, but he had full range of movement.

‘It’s alright, I’m alright.’ He turned from Eskel to wipe his nose and remaining tears with his wrist under the guise of mopping his brow. The few witchers who had been there when he’d come down had disappeared, and he was concerned that maybe he’d made a spectacle of himself and made everyone leave.

‘You shouldn’t push yourself so hard.’

Don’t blame yourself, don’t punish yourself because of the fight with Ciri.

Jaskier closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath with lungs that were still burning from the exertion, and when they opened he was greeted with the sight of Eskel’s chest. This close he could see the skin was littered with scars and he lifted his eyes to Eskel’s who looked flushed. The witcher angled the scarred side of his face away from the other.

He reached up to rub at his shoulder, where the pain had settled to a pinch and deep ache now that he was no longer moving it, and tried to focus on the tightness in his muscles rather than the growing tightness in his trousers.

‘Here,’ Eskel touched the back of his hand, ‘I have something that might help.’ The larger man took the fae’s hand from his shoulder and took a few steps back towards the hatch, keeping a hold with his hand and eyes until he had to turn away to climb the ladder to reach above deck.

After scooping up his damp shirt and tripping over the lowest tread, Jaskier followed Eskel. The rain soaked him as soon as he emerged and he gave a whole body shudder before moving as fast as he could to the doorway of the officer’s cabin, almost slipping on the slick deck beneath. Eskel was waiting for him just inside the doorway, and while Jaskier had become drenched in the few seconds he was in the rain, Eskel had clearly moved with inhuman speed to avoid most of the downpour.

They proceeded from there through the door marked with the curled up dragon, which lead into the second half of the captain’s quarters. The curtains were open, flooding up the room with dimming afternoon light. By the windows was a very large box hammock, the edged sewn up to give it high sides, and a thin padded lining that gave it a shape more akin to an actual bed than a hammock. It was attached to the ceiling above by sturdy looking chains rather than the usual rope, which made sense given it had to support not one but two very well built witchers.

‘I’ll be back in less than a second.’ said burly witchers breathed into Jaskier’s ear, and he shivered for reasons beyond the fact that he was shirtless and dripping wet. ‘take a seat.’

Eskel moved around to grasp something from the small desk before disappearing into the room beyond the tapestry. Jaskier stared at where he had exited, and wondered if it was too presumptuous to take a seat on the comfortable looking bed. He gave himself a quick adjust before perching on the small stool by the desk.

True to his word, Eskel reappeared almost as soon as he had left, a small metal bowl in his hands.

‘Let me know if it’s too much, alright?’

The witcher moved behind him, and there was a small wet sound before something quite hot made contact with Jaskier’s skin. He gasped out of reflex and arched as Eskel’s very large hand smoothed the tiny swatch of heated oil across Jaskier’s shoulder blade and up onto his shoulder.

‘Ahhh,’ He managed to breathe, barely, as another hand covered in the oil joined on the other side. Eskel applied just enough pressure that Jaskier could feel it deep into his muscles but not enough to cause actual pain. The thumbs dug into the muscles where the neck met shoulder, the fae let out a moan that even he considered obscene and tiled his neck forward to give Eskel better access.

His eyes drifted closed as Eskel moved to run both hands down the length of Jaskier’s sore arm before retuning to dig beneath his shoulder blades. Jaskier rolled his shoulders back, which brought his hands, which had been resting on his thighs, up to brush against the bulge in his pants.

Jaskier gasped. Melitele, he wanted to touch himself. He wanted Eskel to touch him. He wanted to touch Eskel while Eskel touched him with his magical hands. Eskel ran his hands around Jaskier’s sides and pressed into the dip between his hips and soft curve of his belly.

‘Umm, Eskel, darling, too much. It’s amazing, but too much. I might need you to stop for a moment.’

The witcher’s hand stilled, his fingers brushing the edge of his trousers. ‘Are you sure?’

Jaskier have a shaky inhale, ‘No. But unless you want to use those hands for something else you need to stop, and I need to go.’

Eskel’s fingers tightened on his hips. ‘What if I want to do something else with my hands. And I know a not-so-little part of you wants the same, but I need you to talk to me.’ The witched shifted behind him, and when he spoke Eskel’s warm breath hit the back of his neck. ‘Tell me what you need to feel good.’

Hands circled around to the sides of Jaskier’s arse and soft lips pressed to the nape of Jaskier’s neck. ‘Or you can tell me to stop, and I will.’

‘No,’ Jaskier breathed, and he felt the witcher freeze behind him. ‘No, No, don’t stop.’

Jaskier fumbled to loosen the ties of his trousers and reached behind to grasp at one of Eskel’s hands. He moved it around and inside his clothes so that the witcher could wrap his oil slicked fingers around his cock. On instinct he thrust into it, his own hand on the back of the scarred hand, guiding it into stroking him, occasionally brushing his own thumb over the weeping tip. The broad chest behind him was the only thing keeping Jaskier from sliding from the stool into a puddle of want, and when Eskel’s free hand gave his arse another squeeze he made to turn his upper body.

Eskel’s hand came off his arse and his arm wrapped his arm around Jaskier’s torso, pulling him close to his cheat and stopping him from turning. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘Don’t what?’ Jaskier panted, mind fuzzy, ‘Do what?’

The chest inflated and deflated with a stutter, ‘You don’t have to look at me.’

Jaskier froze. He gripped Eskel’s hand and with as much physical and mental strength he could muster pulled it off of himself and out of his pants. Very aware that the witcher could keep him in place if he wanted, he pushed himself out of the others grip and spun around.

Eskel’s eyes were wide with surprise, with pupils so wide that they looked round, with only the faintest bits of amber remaining. They looked like the sun’s light escaping the edge of an eclipse. Jaskier stared into them, using the moment to catch his breath so he could force the words from his lungs.

‘I want to, Eskel. I want you. I want to look at you.’

He brought his hand up to hover next to the scarred side of Eskel’s face.

‘May I? It’s okay if not.’

Eskel let out a small sound that was almost mewling and he pressed his cheek into Jaskier’s hand, almost nuzzling into it as his beautiful eyes fluttered closed. Jaskier ran his thumb across the raised skin and Eskel shivered under the touch. He traced the lines until he came to where the scar lifted the edge of Eskel’s lip, and he stood from his seat so the could reach the witcher’s mouth with his own.

The lips were rough and soft and moved slowly as their tongues explored each others’ mouths, and Jaskier’s bottom lip scraped against the fang left exposed by the scarred hitch. Eskel moved to slip his hand back into Jaskier’s pants, but a small tap on his wrist had him retreating. As much as he wanted Eskel’s touch he needed a moment to regroup both mentally and physically.

He buried his face in the crook of Eskel’s shoulder and reached down b etween Eskel’s legs. What he found there was large, very much so, but soft and unresponsive. He must have seen Jaskier trying to mask his confusion , because Eskel chuckled. His smile was wide and he bent to both lick up Jaskier’s neck and grab his thighs. In a smooth motion he lifted the fae up like he weighed next to nothing, and Jaskier let out a started, not at all dignified yelp as clung to the mountain of a man before being deposited on the bed.

‘Witcher blood is thicker and moves slower around the body.’ He removed Jaskier’s boots. ‘It might take a moment for our hearts’ to catch up, but we get there eventually.’

‘This is alright though.’ Jaskier pulled back to look Eskel in the eye, ‘I know… I know it might be a little late to ask, but what about Geralt?’

Eskel hummed and because they were chest to chest the vibrations resonated through the smaller man’s ribs. ‘Geralt is very okay with this.’ He swooped in to give Jaskier another deep kiss, his hands circling around the cup the curve of Jaskier’s arse. ‘Ever since I smelt your spend on deck, I’ve wanted to know how you taste. He’s sick of me talking about it.’

‘Very good to know.’

They swept each other up into another kiss while Eskel hooked his fingers into Jaskier’s pants, who lifted his hips so the garments could be shimmied down his legs. ‘ Y ou might need to slow down, so I can wait for you. I don’t think I can last if you touch me again.’

Jaskier startled as Eskel was suddenly on top of him, inhumanly fast, meeting him eye to eye with a bright glint in his eye and a very wolfish smile on his face, made all the more predatory by the presence of fangs.

‘Why would I slow down? This is my favourite part.’

Eskel moved with that same unnatural speed, disappearing from view, and swallowed him whole. Jaskier’s hips bucked up and he let go with a litany of curses in a variety of languages as he reached to bury a hand into soft brown hair.

Eskel was moving, swirling and sucking and gripping his balls with practice ease. Then Jaskier couldn’t even tell what the other was doing, it was just pleasure.

Every muscle tensed, his toes flexed and gripped. It was too soon, but it had been so long, and it was so good. He tried to hold on to save face, for the sake of his dignity, but there was no dignity to be had. This was going to be quick and dirty.

‘I’m going t-’

Eskel hummed and Jaskier was done, releasing down Eskel’s throat until the last few drops had been sucked from his body and he fell lax against the bedding.

His eyes fluttered open, but immediately closed as hazy spots swung in his vision. He threw an arm over his face to block out the light and let the not-quite dizziness fade, while he forced himself to take long breaths to try and stop his heart from feeling as if it was about to breath out of his chest. For a moment he just lay there, floating, until the bed shifted and he remembered the other man.

‘That… Give me a tic… I can… In a second.’

Eskel brushed some hair off of Jaskier’s sweaty forehead and the bed shifted as the witcher lay beside him, not touching, but moving and breathing heavily. Jaskier shifted his arm so he could peer out from under it and saw the other with his eyes closed, backlit by a duck sky of deep purples and stroking himself hard.

‘Eskel, allow me.’

‘It’s al-alright.’ His adam’s apple bobbed, ‘I can take care of myself.’ He twisted his wrist and bucked, ‘I’ll… I’ll be quick.’

‘Honestly, it would be my pleasure, Eskel.’

He cracked his eyes open and looked over to assess Jaskier up and down, his gaze warm and appreciative until he met blue eyes and a shadow passed over his expression. His hand slowed and he turned his head away to look out of the window. Knowing that something was wrong with gorgeous man, Jaskier pulled himself out of the floaty brain space enough to heave his body over so he was half draped across the other.

Jaskier nudged Eskel’s hand out of the way and took control of the other man’s cock, which Eskel had coated with the now cooling oil. It was much more rigid than he would have expected, almost literally as hard as a rock from being full of ‘thicker’ blood, but twitched in response and Jaskier circled the tip to coax out the first drips.

‘That, fuck, that feels so good.’

‘See.’ Jaskier gripped harder, perhaps a little bit too hard for what a human would like, but Eskel’s eyes rolled back and it encouraged him to stroke faster as he pressed his lips against a scarred shoulder.

He continued to pleasure the writhing man beneath him, somewhat disappointed that his own body was too relaxed and spent to offer more. Jaskier would have used his mouth, but Eskel seemed determined to remain rolled away from him.

Until Eskel looked over his shoulder, dripping sweat and panting, ‘Jasper, I can’t. I’m sorry. I… Could you roll over?’

Jaskier blinked, trying to keep the concern from his face. ‘Darling, you’re a little large for me. I’m sure with proper prep work I could-’

‘No. I… Fuck.’ Eskel’s cock twitched in Jaskier’s hand, weeping, and a small mew passed the warriors lips. ‘I need to cum. I can’t w-with you looking at me.’ His body convulsed and bucked, but Jaskier didn’t miss the wince of shame that flashed before it was lost.

He exhaled slowly.

‘Okay.’ he rolled over, but kept a hand on Eskel so that the other would turn with him. He then shuffled himself and guided Eskel’s cock as he pressed backwards to slipped the thick twitching appendage into the gap between thighs. He felt the wet tip kiss the back of his limp cock, which elicited a deep moan from behind him.

‘That’s perfect.’ Jaskier whispered. ‘Just like that, darling.’

Eskel’s arm reached over and gripped the sheets in front of Jaskier while he thrust between the fae’s thighs, bumping against him again and again. Jaskier kept his thighs tense, and tried to ignore how much more difficult it was to keep a thigh gap than it’d been when he’d been a student. Not that Eskel seemed to mind, because it only took a few thrusts before Eskel was spilling across his balls with a roar.

Jaskier sighed contentedly and rolled over for a kiss, which Eskel returned with uncoordinated enthusiasm. He slid from the hammock, taking a second for his legs to support him, to retrieve the damp shirt he had dropped to the floor when he entered and, once he had cleaned himself up, reached for his pants and trousers.

The witcher was watching him with a pair of golden eyes that were struggling to stay open. He mumbled and rolled forward to nuzzle the spot where Jaskier had just been laying.

‘Stay.’

Jaskier smiled and gravitated towards the bed. There was a lot of things he needed to worry about, but he’d worry tomorrow. For now, he would sleep.

Chapter Text

Something beneath Jaskier moved. He tried to tell the bed to stay still but only managed an incoherent mumble. The bed rumbled beneath him in response, and Jaskier to crack an eye open to see a large expanse of suntanned flesh. He was on top of Eskel, with one leg hooked over the witcher as he lay on his stomach sprawled over the other man’s chest, bare skin to bare skin. He could hear the very slow but loud thump of the witchers heart, and feel the scars beneath him, as well as the puddle of drool he’d made in the soft fur of Eskel’s chest.

He tried to wipe it away, but startled when Eskel chuckled.

‘Good morning,’ The mountain rumbled beneath him.

‘Is it morning?’ Jaskier squinted outside the window, the barest hint of sun winking at the horizon and hinting at the oncoming dawn. ‘Are you sure?’

‘It’s morning enough that my watch is about to start.’

Jaskier groaned and tried to bury himself ‘But I don’t want to move.’

Eskel chuckled again and his arms snaked around Jaskier before he rolled them both over in the large bed hammock so that their positions were reversed and the fae spy was pinned beneath the witcher. ‘There. Now you don’t have to.’

The weight of Eskel’s form was lifted from Jaskier and was replaced by a soft blanket before Eskel moved from the bed, which swayed from the loss. He grasped at the blanket and rolled back into the warmed area of the bed with a deep sigh. His body ached from the day before, but it was the deep ache of too much physical exertion rather than than of muscles being unduly abused, and he stretched his limbs while watching Eskel start to dress.

‘I’ll be up in a second.’

Eskel straightened from pulling on his first boot and looked over at Jaskier. ‘You don’t have to get up, do you? Were you planning anything before the sun was up?’

Jaskier propped himself up on his elbow. ‘If you’re on watch, that means the captain is coming off of his, right?’

‘There’s no need to rush.’ Eskel finished putting on his boots and stood from the small stool. ‘I’ll let him know you’re here, he won’t come in.’

‘He won’t want to rest?’

‘He doesn’t need the bed for that.’ The witcher was now dressed in a red shirt, faded to rust brown, with a dark brown and grey jacket over it. ‘Don’t worry about Geralt, he’ll be fine.’

Jaskier hummed an acknowledgement and let his eyes drift shut now that the reverse strip show was over. It really was far too early, and he most definitely wasn’t awake enough to argue why it was incredibly rude of him to deny the ship’s captain his bed.

‘It won’t be awkward if I stay?’ He mumbled.

‘Geralt will feel guilty if he knew you left for his sake. Sleep, Jasper.’

Jaskier sighed and listened to the final shuffling of Eskel leaving the room. It felt as if he had been so long since he’d slept with padding beneath him, although he knew he had been in a makeshift bed while he’d been ill. The blankets him had the smell of an oak forest in summer, Eskel’s musk, and sharp, acidic brine scent of pickled red onion, which Jaskier assumed must have been Geralt’s.

The two made an odd combination, but it reminded Jaskier of The Dead Forest that boarded Kerak, Verden and Brugge, which backed onto the far side of the Lettenhove estate. Jaskier had only ever known the forest to grow weeds, like the little bells as white as Geralt’s hair, that as a boy he’d loved despite them making his hands smell like onions.

He’d loved that forest until he’d learned of the bloodshed that had occurred there, and how close it had come to his home. Jaskier supposed that was most likely when his family had destroyed every trace of their family history and his Granna had moved to the coast and left the house to her son, Jasper’s grandfather.

He wondered if, when it had thrived before the cleansing, forest had been important to his family. To the fae.

Were there others like him in the mountains? Did they have a forest? Or gardens?

He kicked off the blankets, the air uncomfortably warm, and turned to the windows to see if any were open and could let some air onto his face, but was instead met with a face full of early afternoon sun.

Jaskier slammed his eyes shut. Bollocks. He must have drifted for too long, and would have to get out of the bed soon if he was going to meet Coën and Leo in the hold, and gods knew he was starving after the night before, so he rolled away from the painful light and pulled himself from the bed.

He searched for the dirtied shirt, but it seemed as though Eskel had taken it. There was a chest tucked in the corner of the room but, while Jaskier had stolen many shirts from his sexual partners before, it didn’t seem right to do so. What they had done the night before was both too intimate for something so petty, and not intimate enough to want a memento.

It had been the first time in years that he’d has sex with someone while looking like himself. Eskel hadn’t seemed to mind though, and really didn’t give Jaskier much time to think or feel awkward about it until after he’d become boneless and Eskel had been grappling with his own issues. He did feed a bit mollified that Eskel had used him to reach his own climax, rather than just leaving it in his own hands. He only hoped he could have done more.

Jaskier didn’t want to go outside and start thinking about life again, but he needed to talk to Ciri and help out in the hold and go back to worrying about what was about to happen. He wished he could stay in these quarters that smelt of sex and witchers, maybe until Eskel returned so he could offer himself properly to the other man, not just to thank him for the night before, but also because he wanted to explore the other’s body more than their relatively brief encounter had allowed.

While he didn’t have that luxury now, he hoped he would have another chance before he left to show Eskel what he could do when he didn’t just explode in less than five seconds.

There was a bowl of water on the small desk, and Jaskier used it to splash his face and give his underarms a quick swipe, but he remained shirtless. Once at the door, with his hand on the handle, he felt the presence of the tapestry behind him. He suspected that Geralt was resting behind it, but the chase lounge he had seen before wasn’t really big enough for a witcher to nap on. And if the captain had bunked with the crew of something similar, then maybe he could have a deeper look around the sitting room.

As he approached the tapestry he realised that the mountainous scene was a view from the keep depicted on the other side. It was beautiful, and Jaskier wondered if the mountains were the same ones that housed the non-human colony. He brushed his hand against the wool before he pushed it aside and moved through into the sitting room.

He was greeted by the sight of breakfast, a few biscuits on the table, some jam, plus a teapot and some dried fruit. When Jaskier looked to the desk in hopes to take a second pass at finding something out, he found it occupied.

Geralt was sitting on the desk, his legs folded beneath him and his back to the room. The sun made his hair glow like fine silver silk, and he was wearing a soft piece of cotton, wrapped loosely around his torso, which left his solid arms exposed. Even relaxed, Jaskier could see the tight winds of muscles and veins running through them, and the captain’s back was as straight as the ship’s mast. In fact, he was sitting so still and quietly that Jaskier couldn’t see rise and fall of his frame breathing.

He must be breathing though, right?

‘Captain?’ he whispered, tiptoeing forward. ‘Geralt?’

‘Have a good night?’

Jaskier yelped and jumped back, tripping over his feet and going arse first into the table. Geralt hadn’t turned his head, nor did he seem to move in any discernible way, but he somehow seemed less still. The spy had heard that witchers meditated to heal or as a temporary substitute for sleep, and he probably should have known that was what the witcher was doing, but it had been so eerie to see.

‘I, er, I did. Thank you. I’m sorry to disturb you, and for taking up the bed.’

‘That’s alright.’ Geralt placed his hands on either side of the desk to lift himself up and turn to look into the room and at Jaskier. ‘I’m glad you had a good night. Eskel would have moped for weeks if he missed his chance before you left.’

Jaskier tried to focus on Geralt’s face but it was just a silhouette against the afternoon light and he was unable to make out any of the witcher’s expression. The fae knew he should have checked with Geralt before having sex with the captain’s partner but it had happened so fast, and he assumed that with the sharp witcher senses there would be no way to hide a tryst from a partner.

‘And I’m glad you’re glad. I did ask Eskel if it was okay that we went to bed together, given your relationship, and he assured me that there wouldn’t be an issue.’ Jaskier took his eyes off the witcher to reach for a cup on the table, needing to wet his mouth and school himself into sound less hopeful. ‘Is that something the two of you just do?’

‘Are you asking if I sleep around?’

‘No? No no no, I didn’t meant it like that...’

‘Mmmm.’

‘I just meant that, you know, because of last night, with Eskel and I, and the two of you have some kind of agreeme- You’re making fun of me aren’t you?’

‘Mmhmm.’

At least there was a smile in Geralt’s voice, Jaskier supposed, even if he couldn’t see the details of the captain’s face. He found a chair with the back of his calves and collapsed back into it with a huff. ‘Well that’s rude.’ He gave the backlit form of Geralt a small smile to let him know how serious he was.

‘And no. It’s not something the two of us just do. We know what our relationship is, and it’s not everything.’

Well, that was interesting. Jaskier would have sworn that Eskel and Geralt did love each other, even if Geralt was hard to read and he hadn’t seen the two of them together all that often. He had heard that they’d been together for almost a century, and he assumed that would create an intense form of familiarity that could maybe be mistaken for love to an outsider. And he was an outsider.

‘That makes sense, I suppose.’

Geralt unfolded his legs and pushed himself off of the table. ‘Eskel likes connecting with people, and likes to make people feel good, and he does that through sex. If I wanted to stop him then our partnership wouldn’t work as well as it does.’

‘And you don’t desire other partners like he does?’

The captain made a contemplative sound and sat down at the table on the chair closest to Jaskier while the spy wrestled down the odd sense of hope that was blooming in his chest. Now was not the time or the place for such a thing. Another dalliance with Eskel would come easy, but he didn’t want to entertain the small curl of connection he was staring to feel for the captain. He knew himself well enough to know that he couldn’t handle anything like that at the moment.

Now that he was sitting, Jaskier could see the angles of Geralt’s face. He looked a little more pale than usual, and some shadows under his eyes made the bright yellow look even more otherworldly.

‘I’ve had other partners in the past, but I find it hard to trust anyone enough to lay with them.’

‘But you trust me.’

Geralt’s eyebrow hiked up.

‘You trust me even though you know I’m hiding something.’ He clarified, ‘So it can’t be too hard for you to trust, right?’

Geralt rapped his fingers on the table. Once. Briefly. The first sign of a true nervous twitch Jaskier had seen in the stoic man.

‘You’re different. Don’t know why.’

‘Oh, that’s… Nice.’ He reached out and snatched a piece of dried fruit from the table. His stomach was hollow, needing something after the activity of the day before, but it tasted like leather in his mouth. He didn’t owe the captain anything for his hospitality, for welcoming him… but he wanted to offer something. ‘I think I know why.’

He grabbed something else on the table and shoved it into his mouth. It was a ship’s biscuit, which tasted like wet sand on a good day, and he chewed it slowly to give himself time to realise that this was a terrible idea. He remembered the last time he had opened up to someone and how awfully that had went, but Geralt wasn’t Valdo, and he hadn’t made the mistake of falling in love first.

He was going to do this.

Geralt had been kind and welcoming, and he hadn’t asked for any information about Ciri, he had just waited until Jaskier was ready to offer it. And the fae spy didn’t feel like he owed Geralt anything for that, but wanted to offer this anyway.

‘Jasper, you’re bleeding.’

Jaskier looked down at where he was picking his cuticles, and the tiny fleck of blood that were appearing there. ‘Oh, right.’ He tool a breath. His body was preparing to run, but his mind was tired of running. He was going to do this. ‘I work for the Redanian Secret Service and I’ve been living in Nilfgaard for a long time, feeding information back to an office in Oxenfurt. Which is why, even though I appreciate the offer so much, I can’t go with you to the mountains. I’m sorry.’

Geralt leant back in his chair, hands around a cup as he stared Jaskier down. A small crease had appeared in the middle of the witcher captain’s forehead and the spy held his breath.

‘...No.’

‘What do you mean ‘no?’

‘You talk too much to be a spy.’

Jaskier gaped for a moment. Rude, although not completely inaccurate, and certainly not the first time someone has said something like that. He stared at Geralt. He didn’t have any proof, but he could offer an explanation, he supposed, if the captain needed something to make him believe Jaskier.

And Geralt was laughing? It vibrated through Jaskier like he was a surface of a cymbal that had just been hit.

‘Are you laughing at me?’

‘Yes.’ Geralt smiled, he had a set of fangs, like the other witchers, but his other teeth also seemed sharper than they should have been and crooked like they had been jostling for space. But his eyes lit up like molten gold and there may have been a shadow of a dimple on his cheek. ‘It’s just not what I was expecting. I thought it was worse.’

‘Worse?’

‘Like something that would make me feel stupid for trusting you.’

Jaskier flopped his arms, in a flail or a shrug he wasn’t sure. ‘Like what?’

‘Like maybe you kidnapped Julek. And that’s why you were imprisoned on that ship.’ Geralt reached for something on the table to eat. ‘So who are you really?’

‘Oh, Err, right. Follow up questions. And that’s a logical question to ask.’ Jaskier’s mind spun as he stared at the captain. Despite the lightness in his posture, there was something harder in his eyes. This was a test, one to see how honest Jaskier could be, or how honest Jasper could be. Except neither Jaskier nor Jasper knew the answer to that question. ‘Err, let me think.’

‘Your heart’s racing.’ Geralt interrupted, ‘Just tell me which parts of your story were true.’

‘Right yes. Truth Yes. So, t-this is how I look.’ He gestured to his face, then remembered that Geralt had always known him to look like that, and so let his hand drop. ‘I like flowers, and I’m northern-’

‘Did you really not know you were fae?’

‘I’m still not sure what a fae is exactly.’

Geralt huffed and then tilted his head contemplatively. The spy stayed quiet in the hopes that Geralt would keep asking questions. He was much more comfortable with being interrogated than giving open air to talk, as it would be much easier to compose and control what came out of his mouth and draw the line as to how much truth he revealed.

‘Did you have ulterior motives for sleeping with Eskel? Were you trying to gain something from him?’

‘What?’ Jaskier flinched back, startled at the question, ‘No, no of course not. I… I think I got more out of it than he did, but it was nothing like that, no.’

He crossed his arms over his chest, something like shame or embarrassment passing briefly across his face. ‘I thought not, but good to be sure… Is Julek actually your son?’

‘Yes he is.’ No hesitation, confident and vulnerable, and true in the ways that mattered most.

The captain tilted his head, and saw something in Jaskier that caused him to give a short sharp nod. Jaskier didn’t react, because he hadn’t changed body language between questions, and didn’t think anything of it because he couldn’t afford to be relieved.

‘And the story about Julek’s mother, in Sodden, was anything about that real?’

‘Well, his mother wasn’t married to a viscount, or lived in the north. She was a casualty of war. The story Julek’s been telling... When I see him tell it, I think it’s easier for him to hide his real grief and process it behind a romanticised story.’

‘But she wasn’t persecuted, like you said.’

Jaskier watched Geralt’s eyes. His face was still carefully controlled, but there was a growing anger behind it. He wasn’t sure whether it was because the witcher new he was lying about parts or just upset about the previous lies. He had to protect Ciri’s identity, but in doing so he had to give up part of Jasper. Geralt needed to see Jaskier.

‘No, that story was about someone else. It… Well, I suppose telling a romanised version helps me process what happened.’

Geralt was about to say or ask something else, but Jaskier stood, a lump in his throat squeezing his esophagus and making him want to gag on the grief. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about this. I have to check on Julek. I have to see if he’s alright.’

He stumbled on the chair as he tried to separate himself from it, and noticed in his periphery that Geralt had risen from his seat with him. Geralt made no move to stop him or speak, and just remained a silent form in the middle of the room as Jaskier tried to flee, but stopped just shy of opening the door.

He spun around.

‘I would hope it goes without saying, but everything I’ve said has to stay in this room. You can’t tell anyone, not even Eskel, please.’

Geralt sat back down at the table and rested his chin on the back of his knuckles. He hummed and stared down at the table before looking back up at Jaskier, something hard in his eyes. Despite towering over the sitting man, Jaskier felt distinctly intimidated by the energy coming off the witcher.

‘I won’t. I won’t tell Eskel or another living soul, on one condition. Without this ship, we wouldn’t be able to survive, and that community in the mountains wouldn’t be able to exist. So if that’s threatened, if my crew is in danger, I’ll shout it from the crow’s nest and deliver you to Emhyr myself.’

That was… Well that was fair from Geralt’s point of view, Jaskier supposed, although not exactly fair for him. But that’s what he got for being vulnerable, and he had never expected the captain’s protection anyway. Jaskier clenched his fists to stop them shaking.

‘Understood, Captain.’

Chapter Text

Ciri hadn’t meant to sleep most of the day away, but she had been drained by her anger, and then the fear that had followed when she thought that she might accidentally destroy something. She could have sworn that she had felt the ship shaking around her, ready to fall apart, but after talking to Triss she realised that the shaking had probably just been her own body tremors.

She hadn’t told Triss why she was so upset, as she had been angry and crying and couldn’t really articulate why she was so angry. The mage had rubbed Ciri’s back as she’d cried about how she didn’t want to leave and she still wanted to learn more about magics from her, and get better at fighting from Aiden. She felt safe on the ship, like she could never be ambushed by Nilfgaard or have to worry about getting lost or not having enough food.

After calming down, she had curled up in Triss’s hammock, and not quite napped but just drifted from exhaustion. Leo had dropped by and asked his girlfriend if everything was okay, because Jasper had come into the training room and ‘had a meltdown all over Eskel and the punching bag’. Triss must have assumed that Ciri was asleep because they’d then had a whispered conversation about their suspicions as to why Jasper and Ciri needed to leave so soon and not sail with them to Toussaint.

She had also heard Triss and Leo talk something else. About Geralt having offered to take Jasper and Ciri to their home, a safe haven, which was an offer that Jasper had turned down.

It made her angry all over again. Jasper hadn’t told her that! She could maybe sort of understand not wanting to go so close to Nilfgaard, but if there was a safe place then why couldn’t they go there? If Jasper didn’t want to go, if he still had stupid work stuff in Redania, then why couldn’t she go with the witchers alone to this safe space. She was tired of running and hiding.

Ciri had lain in bed and seethed for a while. She wanted to scream and yell, but was scared that she would rip the ship in half. Instead, she tried to breathe slowly, in the way Lambert had shown her. When helping Aiden train he had often paused to meditate to sooth the pain and dizziness of his injury, and Lambert had shown her the basics when he’d gotten sick of the guilt rolling off of her.

After a few minutes of slow breathing she hadn’t felt any less angry, but the crackling sensation that Triss had taught her was the source of her chaos, eventually settled down and she drifted off.

Sometime in the afternoon, Ciri was startled awake by a knock on the door.

‘ Julek, are you there? ’

She looked to Triss and made brief eye contact with the other woman, who gave a nod of understanding before she stood from her desk and headed towards the door. She opened it just enough to put her body in the gap of the door so that Jasper couldn’t see into the room.

‘Oh! Good afternoon, Triss. Leo said that Julek was here?’

‘He is, but he’s sleeping. He said he had a headache, but didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘He said the two of you would be leaving soon but that he didn’t want to go. He didn’t really want to talk, sorry.’ Triss’s stance shifted so that she was leaning further outside of the room and partially closing the door behind her. She dropped her voice, but Ciri could still hear her. ‘I heard that Eskel kicked everyone out of the training area yesterday because you were having some kind of meltdown? Leo’s words, not mine. I know you’ve made your decision, but if you need someone to talk it through with I’m here for you.’

Jasper sighed. ‘We need to get to Redania as soon as possible so it doesn’t really matter what he or I want.’

Triss sighed, ‘Well, when he wakes up do you want me to see if he’ll talk to you?’

‘If you could.’

‘It’d be my pleasure, and if there’s anything else I can do for you please let me know.’

‘Thank you. If we’re already at Zerrikania I’m just going to be around the port, talking to the captains of the other ships, so I won’t be long.’

‘Sure.’

Triss closed the door with a quiet click and turned to lean against the door and look to Ciri. She crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Alright, so what’s this really about? Because you’re smart enough to know that if you need to get to Redania then your father is doing his best to get you there safely.’

Ciri shrugged and looked down to fiddle at the blankets. ‘I don’t want to go back to the continent. There’s nothing there but shit and death.’

She heard a heavy sigh and Triss moving. ‘Sweetie, do you not want to go back because it will remind you of you mother and everything that happened?’

She scoffed, ‘No.’

‘You know Redania’s very different from Sodden, right?’

‘Yeah, the people there are worse.’ She looked up at Triss, swallowing around a painful lump in her throat. ‘I don’t think I’ll be safe there, and I don’t think he thinks we’ll be safe there either, but I think he wants to think it’ll be safe, and is trying to convince himself that it’ll be safe but I don’t think it will be safe and I think he cares more about his sisters than he does about me.’

The onslaught of words almost left her panting, and Triss reared back, a small wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows as she sifted through it. Ciri didn’t want to repeat herself, she didn’t even know exactly what she had said except that it was her fears about Jasper and going back to Redania to ‘live with his sisters’. She knew that he had a job, but she also knew that someone who was the boss of spies probably wasn’t a nice guy and she didn’t think it would end up well for her if Jasper took her there.

‘He’s your father, Julek, he wouldn’t take you there if he thought it was more dangerous than where we’re going.’

‘Maybe, but what about what Captain Geralt offered Jasper? That there was a safe place for me and him, but he turned it down to go to Redania instead.’

‘Oh, I didn’t think you knew about that.’ Triss sighed, ‘Well, maybe he just has some loose ends to tie up first.’

‘I don’t think so, otherwise he would have told me about the offer.’

‘Julek...’

Ciri rolled over on the hammock, putting her back to Triss as she sighed. ‘I promise I’ll talk to him later, I just don’t want to see him right now.’ He grabbed at a pillow and hugged it to her chest. ‘How long until we get to Zerrikania?’

‘It will be a few hours, maybe. Did you want to help me make some witcher potions until then? Most of it will be too dangerous for us to do, but we can prepare some ingredients and get some base formulas ready.’

Ciri scrunched up her nose. She just wanted to just go back to sleep, because if she was asleep then she wouldn’t get angry again. She was also was feeling sick from having not eaten dinner or breakfast and sleeping through that seemed like much less effort than trying to seek out food. On the other hand, helping Triss with her alchemy was something she very much enjoyed doing, and it would be better for her mental state not to wallow.

‘Fine.’

She swung out of the hammock as Triss scooped up the few things she had been preparing on her desk and opened the door to the hallway. She ducked her head out and then gave Ciri a wink before heading out across the hall to the nearby laboratory. ‘Coast is clear.’ she whispered behind her.

Ciri managed a small smile. She really liked Triss, and her boyfriend Leo, and Aiden and even sometimes maybe Lambert. Eskel was a tad intimidating, but also very kind, and even Geralt had made a real effort to soften himself around her so that she wouldn’t be intimidated by his sharp angles and sharper reputation.

It felt like her heart was being compressed with how much she would miss them.

In a few hours they would be in Zerrikania, where Jasper would try to find another ship to take them to Redania. Most ships, she imagined, wouldn’t be there long. Leo had explained that the port was just a very small trading port, with quick turnaround on the docks, which is why they wanted to unload and load their goods as soon as possible before sailing out.

The same would go for any other ship in the port, including whichever ship was going to take her and Jasper away. He said he was going to try and find a ship as soon as they arrived, so they would most likely be off the ship and sailing away very soon.

Unless she could delay their departure until the other ship had left, because then Jasper would have no choice but to stay with the witchers unless he wanted to be stranded in Zerrikania. She could maybe hide until the stupid Redania ship sailed away, but she couldn’t hide on The Merwolf because the witchers would have no trouble finding her with their keen senses of smell. Plus it was their ship, and they probably knew all the good hiding spots already.

As she entered the laboratory and started to cut up the plants Triss handed her, Ciri started to form a plan. She could sneak off the ship and hide on the streets of Zerrikania for a few days, until the other ships had left. She knew that neither Jasper nor the witchers would leave without her, and she’d lived on the streets of small towns before.

She didn’t want to risk Jasper taking her to the other ship before she had a chance to delay him, so she decided that as soon as they were docked she would leave the ship and hide for as long as she was able.

And she would never have to go back to the continent ever again.

Jaskier had spent a few hours in the hold with Coën and Leo. He couldn’t do much in to help, as most of what they were doing involved deciding which preserves and materials to sell at the Zerrikanian markets and which to keep until Toussaint. He helped the griffin move barrels and crates around under Leo’s guidance, who told him which ones needed to be placed closest to the hatch so that they could be lifted out as soon as they arrived in port. Jaskier noted that the more luxury items were to be sold, and a lot of basic survival supplies were to be kept aboard, although it didn’t seem to be a hand and fast rule.

The small talk was light, with thankfully no teasing about how he must smell of sex and Eskel, and probably lightly of Geralt. Although, he was sure that some coin passed between the two men shortly after he had come down.

Once they were done, they celebrated by having a large drink of rum and something to eat while perching on some of remaining boxes. They chatted about nothing in particular until Coën asked Jaskier if he missed playing in the Cintran court.

‘So much,’ Jaskier answered. ‘Performing is my life.’

‘I might have something for you,’ Leo slipped from his seat and grabbed a crowbar to pry open one of the crates that they had put in the corner to be unloaded at a different port. ‘Even if you don’t want it, it should fetch a decent price to help you get to Redania.’

Coën made a small positive noise before straightening from his lounging position. ‘Oh yeah! You’re going to love this.’

Leo walked over to Jaskier and presented something with a flourish. He stared at the instrument for a moment before his brain caught up with what was happening and he reached out a hand towards the presented wood. It was a lute, so beautiful an instrument that the fae spy felt afraid to touch it but Leo pressed it forward and let go, so that Jaskier had no choice but to grasp it lest it fall to the deck.

‘It’s beautiful .’

‘It’s yours. You’ll have to play for us before we part ways.’

‘Yeah, I’m sick of hearing Coën and Lamber sing about Mermaid tits.’

‘Liar, I know you love our songs.’

Jaskier had barely heard the two as he’d ran his hands across the gut strings and patterns coming out from around the soundhole like filigree petals. She was absolutely stunning. He plucked at a string and winced before he set about tuning it, but even out of practice it didn’t take long as the pegs were responsive and seemed to slide into perfect pitch on their own.

‘And you’re sure I can just have this?’

‘Yeah, it belonged to a friend of ours, but he doesn’t play anymore. I know he’d like for it to go to someone who’d appreciate it. Even if you’re just going to sell it, you’d know its worth and wouldn’t let it go for anything less than the best price.’

Jaskier stood from the crate and ducked his head under the lute’s strap so that the instrument rested against his back like it belonged there.

‘Thank you, so much.’

‘You’re very welcome.’ Coën stood and stopped mid stretch to look up at the deck above. ‘Sounds like we’re coming up on the port. You’re going to want to see this, Jas.’

Coën headed towards the ladder, followed closely by Leo. Jaskier took up the rear and swung up the stairs to the training deck and then up another until he breached the surface of the ship.

The salted air whipped around, the air feeling heavy and warm. To port, the ship was following a distant coastline, high and mountainous. It was the roughest coastline Jaskier had ever seen, with dunes of sand and rock swooping up from where the water met the earth, with only the faintest patches of desert flora.

Jaskier’s feet drifted towards the railing to get as close a look as he could. He noted that Coën had disappeared up into the rigging, most likely into the crow’s nest that was obscured by a thick rolling fog. although with the heavy clouds Jaskier couldn’t see to the crow’s nest, which he knew the griffin witcher had climbed into.

Geralt and Eskel were also on the main deck, looking out over the same railing as Jaskier but far enough towards the bow that they hadn’t noticed him. Neither were wearing coats or jackets, and their shirts, Eskel’s rust and Geralt’s a dark grey, clung to every angle and curve of their torso from the humidity in the air and sweat from the heat. The contrast of their body’s were obvious, as Eskel was notably bigger in the shoulders and arms, with a thicker trunk, where Geralt was still broad but sharp with a narrow waist and hips.

It was clear why Eskel had been very comfortable to lay on top of, and he wondered if Geralt took advantage of that when the two witchers were together. Or maybe that kind of casual affection wasn’t a part of their relationship. It was, after all, hard to imagine Geralt as a snuggler.

Jaskier cocked his head as he watched the two interact. Eskel was leaning heavily on the taffrail, his bulky form small and hunched. For a moment, Jaskier’s heart gripped with fear. Surely Geralt wouldn’t be going back on his word so quickly? And that was why Eskel looked ill? He had told Geralt that his sleeping with Eskel hadn’t been a manipulation or anything of the sort, but maybe softer witcher didn’t believe him.

Eskel was gripping the taffrail with white knuckles, and his cheat was rising and falling inconstantly. It looked to Jaskier like he might be panicking.

Geralt’s voice was barely audible over the weather, but it’s baritone matched the thundering waves beneath the ship and he had a hand resting on the other’s forearm. It was a casual touch, familiar and comfortable, and Jaskier couldn’t look away. It wasn’t a particularly romantic moment, but as they continued speaking the two of them looked like they had been standing next to each other forever.

Jaskier realised his own breathing was speeding up to watch Eskel’s, and he forced himself to calm down and ignore the nervous sick, guilty feeling that churned in his gut. He tore his eyes away from them, in case they looked over and noticed his staring, and turned his gaze towards the mountain range that was now close enough to start blocking out the sun, and the narrow crevice they were heading towards.

It did not look big enough for the ship to pass through.

Jaskier stared at the point they were approaching far too fast, and the jagged cliff fase they were drifting towards far to fast under the sign-powered sails. They wouldn’t risk the ship. They couldn’t afford to risk the ship. They knew what they were doing.

They were going to crash into the mountain cliffs.

His eyes flickered back over to the captain and first mate, although neither seemed overly concerned about their trajectory. Eskel pushed himself off of the railing and made for the hatch to head below, while Geralt strolled towards the stairs that would take him to where Lambert’s commands were coming from.

Then the ship turned, sharper than a ship should and almost throwing him to the deck, and the view of the crevice opened up to reveal a large body of water at the bottom of a valley, a river that spread wide enough that it looked like a sea in its own right. On it’s right was the rocky, patchy-grassed decline of the mountain, steep at the mouth, and the left looked like a lush jungle cast in the desert slope’s shadow and most likely fed from another mountain range that was distant on the horizon.

A rainforest oasis on a barren landmass.

As the ship manoeuvred through the narrow mouth with expert precision, Jaskier could see sails in the faint distance down the river, the indication of a distant port. The air was even heavier here than it had been along the coast, the valley having it’s own kind of weather, and rain felt like a breath away.

They’d arrived at Zerrikania.

Chapter Text

As soon as The Merwolf docked, the crew threw themselves into action. Aiden had appeared on deck, his curls to the side and partially covering his eye-patched eye, and started shouting down at the dock workers in Zerrikanian. They responded quickly, calling over carts and more people as the witchers started bringing boxes up from the hold before getting confirmation from the natives below.

Jaskier’s Zerrikanian was reasonably good, and could easily understand what was being said around him. Speaking it was another thing, as he had learnt the language from someone who was a non-native speaker, and the intense accent from the dock workers caught him off guard.

Once he had started attending Oxenfurt, and started to formally learn rhetoric and musical composition, he found that he could pick up languages, dialects and accents with ease. It was something he had taken great pride in and had enjoyed showing off. Then, once he had become a spy, he realised that feigning ignorance was more useful than prideful boasting and so kept that ability in his back pocket.

Although maybe picking up such things was just a fae trait, and he wasn’t actually special. Regardless, he would have to listen to the Zerrikanians for a while to be able to mimic their pronunciation enough to pass for someone who grew up with the language, which could be useful in the future.

Aiden was calling down to get the workers ready to receive their cargo, his Zerrikanian clearly trying to achieve the native accent via a more Nilfgaardian pronunciation, which made some sense as both languages were evolutions of Elder. The Zerikkanian’s, none looking older than twenty years old, were calling back up to confirm how much cargo there was to come down.

It seemed like the entire rest of the crew were running around to get the gangplank ready and help Leo guide the cargo coming out of the hold. No one had wasted any time getting things moving and, even through Jaskier did know his way around a ship and had been involved with dockings before, he kept himself pressed against the taffrail and out of the way.

He still hadn’t seen Ciri since they’d fought, but she was probably still tucked away in Triss’s room. He had hoped to talk to her before arranging their passage on another vessel, but with how fast the witchers were moving he doubted that would be possible.

After a few moments of chaos, Eskel and Geralt emerged from the officers cabin. There was no evidence of the previous anxiety in Eskel’s stance, but his face had been schooled into something colder and more businesslike, reminiscent of the black-eyed monsters that had invaded the The Deith’Adan .

It didn’t suit him.

The first mate crossed the deck in a few strides and placed a hand on Aiden’s shoulder to halt the cat from calling instructions down to the dock. They both looked over to where Lambert was approaching and waited until he was nearby before having a hushed conversation. Eskel had his arms crossed over his chest while Lamber was gesturing.

Without witcher hearing, Jaskier couldn’t tell what they were saying, and they were angled so that the only one he could see clearly enough to lip read was Aiden, who wasn’t actually saying anything and was simply watching the exchange with a mildly amused quirk to his lips. The spy considered how close he could sidle without looking too suspicious.

A throat cleared beside him, and Jaskier didn’t startle so much as he straightened himself up.

‘Captain.’

Geralt nodded in the opposite direction to which Jaskier had been looking, over the rail and across the bay. ‘There’s a Cidarian ship docked. Last I heard they were neutral to the war, or close enough to.’

The Redanian spy looked across to the opposing dock, where he could barely see the thin ship across the water. The dock looked much bigger from here than the they were approaching, and his eyesight wasn’t quite good enough to have made out the origin of the ship, but he trusted geralt’s honey eyes. ‘Last I heard as well.’

Jaskier glanced to the side and saw Geralt’s adam’s apple bob without making any sound, although could hear the sound as clear as if the witcher had hummed in his ear.

‘We’re going to leave after dusk on the third night. If you still want to secure passage so you should get moving.’

Jaskier’s shoulders tightened, his window suddenly much smaller than he’d been hoping. He would have to move fast if he needed to secure enough funds to pay the Cidarian captain, and that’s assuming the other won’t be leaving before then. It also hurt a little that the witcher captain could talk about him leaving so bluntly, and without any hint that he was sad about Jaskier leaving.

‘Will be be staying on the ship in the meantime or do you have business in port?’

He looked over, but Geralt had gone.

Jaskier sighed. ‘Well... goodbye then.’

Ciri listened to the parade of witchers stomp around on deck. She had slunk from the labs, taken a knife and some rope from a nearby storage room, and cautiously poked her head out of the deck, to scan the chaos of above deck and see whether she could sneak up without being noticed. She saw Jasper move from the railing and weave his way through the deck while running his hands through his hair in a way the mussed it more than it tidied.

Aiden was with Lambert and Eskel in a small huddle, and looked completely involved in their own conversation, while Coen and Leo were keeping an eye on the crates dangling overhead. The only person she wasn’t sure where they were was Geralt.

She stayed put for a moment as Geralt and Jasper were the main ones who needed to be out of her way.

Jasper was half way down the gangplank when Geralt appeared from where he had been apparently hiding behind the door to the bedroom area. The captain watched Jasper leave the ship, standing so still that it had Ciri holding her breath as she waited to see what he would do.

He hung his head for a moment, his hands coming to his face before he took a very deep, shaky breath in and out. He dropped his arms, and looked to the sky for a heartbeat before moving away from the door.

Ciri launched herself from the stairs, ducked and twisted to avoid a witcher who crossed her path and headed towards the cabin. She ran through the hall, bumping into a witcher who swore at her as she passed, but she didn’t pause until she slammed into the wolf door and tucked herself inside the room.

From that short sprint she was already panting, her body trembling from nerves. She could do this. It would help if she knew when the witchers were planning on leaving, and how long she had to hold out on the streets before it was safe to return, but she had to make it work because fuck going back to Redania.

Roach was on perched on an open window, and she cocked her head when Ciri entered.

‘What?’ Ciri hissed.

Roach tilted her head the other way. ‘ Looks like rain .’

Ciri looked out the window and the heavy clouds. ‘Yeah, I can see that you stupid bird.’

‘ Squawk! ’

‘Alright, I’m sorry, sheesh, but shut up.’

The parrot hopped from the edge of the window and onto the desk, but startled as Ciri started to climb onto the same surface. She headed towards the open window and stuck her head out to see the murky water and waves breaking against the ship. It was deep enough for the ship to stay floating without scraping the bottom, so it should be deep enough that she could jump down, even though it was several stories up.

She withdrew from the window and unhooked the length of rope from her shoulder and tied it to the desk leg before hoisting the rest out of the window. The end didn’t quite meet the water, but it was close enough. She turned to crawl backwards out of the window, and held onto the rope as she braced her boots onto the back of the ship.

Ciri started to slowly lower herself down, however the back of the ship curved inwards from where the rope was handing, and she had to go up onto her toes and then struggled to reach with her feet until her tip toes slipped on the slick wood of the ship and Ciri fell.

She tried to tighten her grip onto the rope to stop her descent, but the rope continued to slip through her hands and it ran out just before she made contact with the water.

It was much colder than she was expecting, considering that the air was relatively warm. Her hair barely went under before she resurfaced, gasping from the shock and flicking the dark curls from her eyes so that she could see.

She stayed bobbing for a moment, but couldn’t hear any yelling or indication that anyone had heard her splash. Or maybe someone had but didn’t think anything of it. Just another noise in a crowd of noises.

With a few strokes of her arms, she reached part of the dock and ducked under it. She was far enough away from where things were being unloaded from the ship that she wasn’t worried about being seen. She ducked her head under the water and started to swim around and under the dock, occasionally bobbing her head up to make sure she was still under the cover of the wooden boards.

After a few minutes of swimming, the hurried yelling that was surrounding the witcher ship quieted down, and Ciri grasped the edge of the dock and hoisted herself up onto it. A few passing people glanced in her direction as she stood, not dripping any more than anyone else around her but definitely not dressed to blend in.

The people, which she assumed were Zerrikanians, were dressed in what looked more like robes than normal clothing, with swaths of material looped over their head and then wrapped around their necks. So she would need to find some kind of material, any kind of material, to emulate the look.

She took off at a fast walk, following a road that seemed to be the main path into the town until there were a few trees and bushes between her and the witchers. She broke into a run straight down the road to where the thick trees started to thin and the buildings started to look more like houses and proper establishments rather than the small storage shacks and open walled offices that surrounded the dock area. She made sure not to make any turns so she would risk getting lost but she had to stop as she had to stop at a large pillar that looked like it was made of sand with bits of ceramic and glass set as decorations and odd symbols carved into it. Some of it looked like writing, but it wasn’t one of the languages she had studied in the palace.

She knew a little about Zerrikania, as her tutors had tried to teach her everything they thought she would need to trade with them as the leader of Cintra. They were a society based mostly on trade and raw gems and gold, but now recognised coin as a form of currency with the north. They’re trade was mostly textiles, but also gold and glass and some clay and wood crockery.

Ciri could see that in the buildings and people. Everyone was dressed in bright swaths of cloth, the women and some men were wearing multiple trails of gold and colourful wooden beads around their neck and wrists, and there were ceramics and glass beads embedded around the door frames of every building.

She panted, the adrenaline of running fizzing out to leave her shaking and leaning against one of the sand stone walls. Everything was so colourful around her, so different from the dull life on a ship, and someone was talking to her in a language she couldn’t understand.

There was lady with coral coloured material draped over and around her bending down and saying something to Ciri.

‘Uhhh, I don’t...’

The woman’s voice sped up, and she gestured down the road back to where the port was, the small sliver of bay visible between dense trees. She caught the word Witcher in common but nothing else and the woman seemed to be more intent on yelling than trying to explain things more clearly.

Ciri pulled away from the woman, taking small steps and backing up. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, I’m sorry.’

This woman must have seen Ciri coming up from the docks, known she wasn’t from here and be demanding she go back onto the ship.

‘I-I can’t go back there. I can’t go back to the Continent.’

The woman didn’t seem to understand, as she spat on the ground and pointed back towards the docks. This time when Ciri looked over towards the bay there were several people looking over in their direction. Including dock workers wheeling thing up from the ships, which meant that the witchers were not far behind.

So Ciri kept running.

Chapter Text

Ciri had run through the streets until her lungs burnt and pushed people aside as she bolted through Zerrikania. The streets seemed to be in a weird circular pattern, and although she could have sworn she’d never turned a corner she found herself in a completely different part of the town, with less people who didn’t seem as rushed as those around the dock. She collapsed into a bush, tripping down onto all fours and dry heaving as her body shook. Even thought she had done some training with Aiden, she hadn’t run or done any real exercise in a very long time.

She gasped for breath and sat awkwardly on the patch of scratchy grass. It had started getting dark and the humidity seemed heavy enough that it just may as well just rain already.

There were a few people around, but non who seemed to have noticed her. There was a slight slope to the town, and while she had been heading away from the dock she had come across the occasional set of stairs, no more then five steps each, which had taken her higher up. She could see the white of ship’s sails behind the dense foliage that lined the river, and a large collection of lights farther away from where the river met the sea. It looked like a gathering point, or a market maybe. She’d passed close to it, running past a few stalls, but hadn’t stopped to see what it was.

Ciri regretted that now as her stomach cramped with hunger from the exertion of running.

She looked over he shoulder and peered under the foliage to see the buildings behind her. They were narrow, but double storied, and still with bits of ceramic embedded in the sandy walls, although said ceramic looked plainer and less deliberate.

The people were coming in and out of the buildings rather than walking the length of the roads. There was also a group of children, a mix of ages, playing a game on the street that looked to Ciri as if it was just a lot of running around in circles and throwing small stones at each other.

Ciri lay on the ground under the plant and watched them. Now that the sun was dipping behind the mountains and casting a shadow over the town it was getting cold. She wrapped her dusty coat around her and curled up tighter and watched the Zerrikanians play, but with such an intensity that her eyes started to sting and she had to close them.

This was a good spot, the low bush with thick branches hid her well enough that the children and passes by couldn’t see her, but she could keep tracks on the ships in the bay and wait until enough of them had left and she felt confident that she wouldn’t be forced onto another ship with a captain she didn’t trust.

It should only take one maybe two nights, which she could do. She’d spent far longer on the run from the Nilfs by herself. She could do this.

It was colder than she had expected, especially since the day had been so warm and the sun hadn’t even gone down yet. She should find a place inside to spend the night, somewhere more protected from the night than foliage, but first she would have to go down to the market to steal something to eat.

She wiped her face on her sleeve and crawled out from under the bushes. Food then shelter. She could do that.

Ciri stood and dusted off the sand from her trousers before she wrapped her arms around herself so she wouldn’t shiver too noticeably. At least with her dark curls and tanned skin she blended in enough without their specific swaths of material clothing. At least the kids she’d seen had been dressed similarly to her, although their clothing were dyed bright enough that she could see the colours through the layer of sand and road dust.

She walked down the road, following the slight slope down back towards the market. Hopefully there would still be enough people shopping there that she could take something from one of them. There were a few open stalls against some houses, loaded with random objects and fruits. Less popular, she supposed, than the market down along the river so if she took something from them it would be more noticeable.

She spotted two witchers, Gwen and Gweld, bypassing the markets and looking as if they were headed somewhere with purpose. Ciri hoped she smelled enough like the ground she had be laying on that they wouldn’t notice her, but slipped around the side of a building and out of their sight, just in case.

Then jumped as someone beside her spoke.

There was a boy, maybe a bit older than she was, to the same side of the building. He was taking down some clothes that were strung between the building and the next. He repeated the words that had startled Ciri before and looked to her expectantly.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t speak Zerrikanian.’

The boy looked her up and down and made a gesture for her to follow him, but Ciri shook her head. She wasn’t scared of him, he had an honest and friendly looking face, but didn’t think it would be a good idea. The boy frowned with heavy eyebrows and said something else to her that she didn’t understand, but his tone was growing softer.

He took a long scarf from the clothes line and handed it to her, saying something else and shaking it slightly like he wanted her to take it. She wanted to reach out, as any extra material would help keep the chill away, but she wasn’t sure whether he would want anything in return. It was a society based on trade, after all.

She backed away, shaking her head. ‘Thank you, but no.’

His arm dropped and his frown spread. His tone change to something deeper, into more of a warning and he took a step forward raising the material again.

Ciri’s heart filled her ears as she reached out and took it from him, only gripping it lightly until he let go of his end so he couldn’t pull her forward. The scarf was blue, a shade more towards teal than Cintran blue, with golden tassels on either end. It was a simple material, not designed to be warm or finely woven, but the dye was bright and beautiful.

‘Thank you.’ She threw it around herself like a shawl and the boy nodded, satisfied with her actions. ‘Alright, well, umm, good afternoon.’ She gave a small bow before she left, unsure how to properly show her gratitude.

As she walked further away from the building and the odd encounter she didn’t hear anyone behind her, but she felt like something had changed. Ciri gave a quick spin as she walked but couldn’t see the boy or anyone else who looked like they might be following her. Just in case, she reworked the folds of the scarf and put it up over her head. It did calm down the shivering slightly, but did nothing to calm the hairs on the back of her neck.

She was being followed.

Jaskier trudged back to The Merwolf in the dying light. He’d spent most of the afternoon talking to the captain of the Cidarian ship, Captain Viole. Her ship was a merchant’s, fast but small, and was loaded mostly with metal ingots, blocks of salt and some sulphur, which was why she had scoffed at Jaskier’s proposition. They didn’t have the space or the resources for two passengers who didn’t know how to pull their weight.

It took a long talk, but Jaskier had proven that he had enough sailing experience that he wouldn’t be a burden, and had promised a payment that he wasn’t completely sure he could pull together before the ship sailed back for Cidaris the following morning. She hadn’t been willing to negotiate the payment at all, and the most he could talk her down was to allow them to share the ship’s rations with them so he didn’t also have to buy his own provisions on top of the exorbitant amount she had demanded.

Despite feeling used and cheated, Jaskier had thanked her for her generosity. ‘I’m aware of how inconvenient this is for you and your crew, particularly on such short notice. You have my thanks and gratitude for your generosity.’

After he’d left her office on the Cidarian ship, crossed the deck and reached the gangplank, Captain Viole called out from the doorway across the ship, so that all her crew could hear.

‘Make sure you visit the baths before you board tomorrow. You reek of mutant.’

Jaskier tensed and hesitated on the threshold of the ship. He needed to get to Redania, and he needed this ship to do it, and thus telling them to shove their ignorance up their arse until they could taste their own bullshit was not going to end well for his plans. He took a deep breath and compromised with himself that once he was securely on the ship and on the way to Redania he wouldn’t let that kind of thing slide again.

He continued walking from the ship, chin up, and made a point of spinning on his heal and heading straight back towards the witchers.

Before anything else he needed to talk to Ciri. If they were going to get to Redania in time then they needed to work together as a team again. Even if she didn’t want to go, he knew that she was reasonable and had to understand that it was the best option. He just hoped that the shock of how fast plans changed and moved would have worn off by now and she’d be open to talking.

Maybe he could get Ciri excited about going to stay with his sisters. He knew they would like her and they would spoil her so much. They might teach her to use her abilities in the same selfish ways that they used theirs, but he should be able to put a stop to that.

In the meantime he also needed her help to get funds, because even with the lute to busk with and then selling it first thing in the morning, he wasn’t sure he could get enough. She might have an idea about something they could do, or in a worst cast scenario just beg on the streets for a while, although he hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

The docks were still full but the chaos that had surrounded the witcher ship had calmed down slightly. It looked as if the boxes had been unloaded and were now being taken up and directed in different directions, some going further up into the city and others being carried down the road that ran parallel to the river. Aiden was off the ship talking to various people and directing where boxes were to go, while Leo and a few other members of the crew were heading up the closest road towards the town.

He headed towards Triss, who was standing at the top of the gangplank, as her quarters had been the last place he’d known Ciri to be. He gave her a tired smile, but she beat him to his own question.

‘Jasper, do you happen to know where Julek has gone?’

‘No, I was just coming to find him.’

Triss frowned and gave a small contemplative hum. ‘He was going to get some food from the mess and wait for you to return, but he wasn’t there, and he’s not in yours or my quarters. I thought perhaps you’d come back and the two of you had talked.’

‘No. No, I haven’t been aboard.’ Jaskier frowned, ‘There are still a few witchers on deck, maybe they saw if he came up from below.’

Triss nodded and gave Jaskier a small smile. ‘Good idea. There aren’t many places to hide on a ship this small.’

Jaskier tried to not feel too annoyed that he now had to spend time tracking Ciri down, when their schedule was already so tight, and instead told himself that it was a good sign that she had left Triss’s room rather than continuing to sleep and pout. Perhaps she was feeling more herself now that she’d had some time to rest and collect her thoughts.

The first witcher on deck Jaskier saw was Tjold, but he didn’t particularly want to talk to the blonde man, who had been exceptionally rude to him before. Even if Tjold had seen Ciri, it was unlikely he would tell them, or even cared to notice if Ciri had walked past him on her way somewhere.

Triss must have heard about Tjold’s animosity, but she still walked up to him and asked in hushed, soothing tone if he had seen Julek.

‘Well, I’m not his keeper.’ His eyes flicked pointedly towards Jaskier, but finished with a smile. ‘Haven’t seen him leave the ship though.’

While Jaskier released a long string of air and turned his back on Tjold to continue searching, he heard Triss tut and continue speaking. ‘Tjold, what are you not telling me?’

The witcher snorted, but didn’t say anything. Instead, a witcher across the ship, the one with the blurry tattoo over his neck, seemed to make eye contact with Tjold over his shoulder and looked oddly gleeful.

‘Check the captain’s cabin.’ The tattooed witcher said. ‘Fucking good riddance.’

Jaskier stepped towards him, his fists clenched but nowhere near prepared to take on a witcher, until Triss put a hand on his arm and tugged him towards the officers cabin.

‘Leave him, he’s an arse.’

Both the wolf and dragon doors to the quarters were closed, and Jaskier made to knock against the wood but Triss opened it before he got the chance. There was no one inside, although the tapestry curtain was up and the windows were wide open. It took a moment for him to notice the material tied to the leg of the deck, that passed over its surface and continued out of the window.

The desk, having previously supported the captain’s muscular frame, didn’t even creak and Jaskier flung himself onto the furniture and looked out the window to the drop below. The water was clear, but deep and dark enough to keep the ship afloat, with choppy water bashing against the hull and spraying up the wood back and forth. Back and forth.

Jaskier felt like he was being tossed with it. Ciri had jumped from this height, from too high, into dangerous waters. She could have hit the water too hard, or bashed against the side of the ship. This close to shallow waters she could have gotten tangled trying to get to shore, or struck a hidden rock.

‘Jasper?’

The cold could have seized her muscles and made it too hard to swim.

‘Jasper!’

Did she even know how to swim?

Jaskier was dizzy. His lungs refused to give him enough air. He pushed himself backwards across the desk but his legs got caught in the desk chair and he fell to the floor. Someone grabbed his arm and was a saying a name. His name?

He tried to inhale, to say something. Anything. But his lungs were burning. There wasn’t enough space for air. He was drowning. He couldn’t breath and he was drowning.

Chapter Text

After looping around the market Ciri she still hadn’t seen anyone following her, but she was certain someone was there. She could feel them watching her, and it put her on edge and made her want to run, but she knew she needed food before she could allow herself to flee and find a place to spend the night. She wasn’t particularly good at pick pocketing so she was planning to grab something from a merchant’s store just before they started packing up, when they were at their most tired and too focused on getting that last sale before.

She circled around the market stalls and found someone selling breads and some other pastries. There were only a few items left, which meant that he most likely would notice something missing. It also meant, however, that he may not be too aggressive if he did catch her as the wares couldn’t be in their best state.

Ciri looked around to take note of the few people around her. She still didn’t recognise anyone, but she knew whoever was following her was still there somewhere.

The wind picked up and kicked dust and sand into the air, but the scarf around her head kept most of it from getting in her eyes. The last few people in the market also had their faces hidden deeper in their own scarves to shield themselves, and while she was glad she was blending in it also worried Ciri that she couldn’t see anyone’s faces clearly.

The bread merchant was calling out to a tired looking woman with a young son, gesturing to try and summon them towards him and his wares. Ciri couldn’t understand the conversation, but it was clear that the woman was not interested in what the man was selling, while the child was trying to tug his mother closer to the breads.

Ciri made a circle around and tried his best to look casual as she walked past. The merchant had stepped in front of his stall to talk to the woman, so she squeezed quickly between him and the table, took something from the edge of the stand and then moved away from the scene in a brisk walk.

When she didn’t hear any raised voices behind her she broke out into a jog up a series of short stairs and along the roads. She wanted to go back to her previous hiding spot, wanted to curl up for warmth and tear apart the loaf of sweet smelling, fruit peppered bread, but she also didn’t want to lead the person following her to where she was planning to spend most of the daylight hours.

Two thick drops of rain were the only warning before a wall of water came down. She pulled her shirt out of her trousers and shoved the stolen food up in to keep it dry. She took the oddly circular roads around and move uphill from the riverbank. She could no longer see the water or distant sails now that the thick rain clouds had obscured what little sun remained of the day.

She wandered into an area in the town where there were a few bigger buildings with more space between them. The plan was to sleep tucked behind an office with an awning, or somewhere with a small wood shed, rather than around someone’s home where the residents might be suspicious. She didn’t know the town or layout, but these larger buildings seemed to be less likely to be peoples’ homes than the narrower ones she had seen before.

Her new scarf hood seemed to be holding up against the rain better than the rest of her clothes, which were soaked completely through, and with her head tucked into it it was keeping her hair fairly dry and the water out of her eyes but the cold felt like it was seeping into her bones, so different from the oddly oppressive warmth of the day.

She couldn’t hear any footsteps behind her, but the rain was drowning out most of the noise so she couldn’t be sure.

The few people on the streets around her were moving with purpose towards the buildings, not quite running but definitely trying to escape the weather, but they thinned out the closer she got to the large building in front of her.

There was an alley between the big buildings which had several large triangles of material strung between the walls, which created a path sheltered from the rain where several carts were being kept. Ciri took off in a run towards it, nearly slipping on the wet sand and mud as she did.

She tucked herself behind one of the carts and took the load of bread out from under her shirt. It was damp, but she didn’t. She was so used to the difficult ship’s biscuits that she’d forgotten how soft bread could be and almost bit her tongue by biting into it too hard. The little bursts of fruit in the dough were sweet, but the bread itself was slightly spiced. It was a desert or breakfast food, maybe, at the sensation was almost too much for her.

She took another large bite before she tore the remains in half and started to tuck one part of it back under her shirt for later when she froze. Someone was in the opening of the alley, perhaps just seeking a bit of shelter from the rain, but Ciri tried to make herself as small as possible behind the cart just in case.

They mumbled something in Zerrikanian, barely audible over the rain, before raising his voice and speaking in common. ‘I know you are there. You have something that belongs to my people.’

Ciri shrunk back more as her fingers came up to grip the gold tassels of the scarf.

‘I do know you are there.’

She winced and started to unwind the material. At least it had gotten her through the market and kept the sand and rain off of her face until she had found shelter. She didn’t want to give it up, it was the closest to Cintran blue she had seen in a long time and was the nicest thing she currently possessed.

She puled the small knife from the band of her pants and slowly slid her back up the wall to stand. She could see the man over the cart, he was standing in the entrance of the alley with his back to her, tall and dressed in different shades of greens, greys and brown.

Ciri gripping the knife in one hand, and held out the material with the other, ‘Here. Take it then.’

The man looked over his sounder for a moment, and his dark eyes ran over the offered material before they flickered to her knife and then finally up to her face. He shook his head with his eyes locked on hers.

‘Not that.’

She took a step back, the arm holding that material drooped but didn’t fall, and the knife raised to point at the other’s chest.

‘I-I already ate the bread, I don’t have it any more.’

‘I do not care about the bread, or I would have stopped you from stealing it.’ He turned into the alley with a face that twisted in an ugly smile which didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I had thought that perhaps you might be one of us, but after following you I know you are not. This means that you must have something that was taken from my people. Something that you do not deserve.’

He stepped into the alley by several paces and Ciri backed up father into the space. She should have checked what was in the back. Was it a dead end or did it wrap around the building? She tightened her grip on the knife to try and steady her shaking hands.

‘Then who are you and what exactly do you want want?’

‘I do not know, but I can sense it on you somewhere.’

He struck forward and Ciri turned to run but he grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her to the side and slammed her against the wall. She went to bring up the knife, but she had already lost her grip and it had fallen to the ground. She tried to push him off of her, but he was a lot bigger and stronger and in trying to shoulder him away and get past she lost her footing on the muddied sand ground.

She fell, but he was still holding onto her and also tumbled down to land on top of her. ‘I know you have it, stay still.’ He snarled

Ciri kicked up at the man and rolled over so that she could start crawling away. She wanted to get under the frame of the nearby cart and she grabbed onto the wheel so that she could pull herself closer to it, but the man grabbed the back of her shirt again and dragged her towards him and flipped her onto her back.

‘I don’t know,’ she kicked, ‘what’ kick, ‘you’re talking about.’ she kicked again, this time at the man’s face and she heard a crunch under her shoe, followed by a word spat in Zerrikanian. She got to her hands and knees and scrambled past him while he was distracted to find where her knife had dropped in the muddy sand.

She hard the man move to get her again, and so she went to kick his again, but he grabbed her foot and twisted it to throw her down off if her elbows and back into the mud. Pain shot up her ankle and a high pitched yelp left her mouth, ‘Fuck off.’

Ciri twisted and swiped at the man’s face with the knife. It made contact with his cheek, but instead of leaving a bloody slash like she would have suspected, the skin bubbled and peeled away where the knife made contact.

He turned to snarl at her. His teeth were different now, they were thin and there were far too many in his mouth, and his nose was off centre, more into his cheekbone, as if it had moved under his skin when she’d kicked it.

She choked, fear gripping her body as the uncanny creature, and she squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to look at the thing that was attacking her. Her throat felt like it was closing up, and when to took a breath to try and scream, to try and throw him off her or do anything with her powers, she could only make choked sobbing noises.

Ciri tried to strike out, but didn’t want to open her eyes in case his face had become even more horrific, and tried to scream again but her voice died before it could do anything. The thing grabbed a wrist and she tried to wiggle and buck him off as he straddled her and started to rip at the material of her shirt.

There was sharp ringing sound, and something warm sprayed across her face as the movement stopped. The weight shifted off of her and she took a few shuddering breaths, she smelt burning, but not smoke, and couldn’t hearing anything except the rain.

The thing’s body was lying on the ground next to her. It no longer had a head, just a stump of a neck where the skin was bubbling and peeling back from the flesh underneath in the same way it had reacted to her knife.

Ciri pushed it completely off of her and crawled backwards away from the corpse. On a macabre instinct that she didn’t want to have, she scanned the ground to find the head but came face to face with her own reflection in the blade of a sword.

Lambert stood above her, his face hard and cold like Aiden’s had been the first time she’d met him, except that Lambert’s eyes were amber and full of rage.

He was pointing his blade at her throat.

She tried to say his name, but just gaped at him. Part of her wanted to sag with relief now that the thing that attacked her was dead, she she daren’t move with the blade so close and while the witcher looked like he wanted to kill her.

Ciri was aware that her shirt was ruined, the freezing night air hitting a lot of plain skin and she was shivering even though she was still panting and warm from the adrenaline. She didn’t want to speak, her stomach now clenched in warning, but she managed to force a small, injured sounding syllable.

‘Lambert?’

Lambert tilted his head and moved the tip of his sword. Ciri froze as it grazed the skin of her collarbone, and held her breath so she wouldn’t accidentally push herself into the blade. It was hard to follow its movement without moving her neck, which was way to close to his blade for comfort, but she was able to see that the creature had ripped her shirt and left part of her chest exposed, and the small bumps of her female body were no longer hidden under layers of ill-fitting clothes.

He wouldn’t. He was with Aiden, so he wouldn’t.

Ciri looked back up into Lambert’s eyes, angry not lustful, which were locked onto hers as he moved his blade with precision without having to track it. The tip caught on something, and Ciri felt the cord around her neck shift and the weight of the disguise charm was brought from where it had been thrown over her shoulder to fall against her sternum.

‘The truth,’ He growled as the sword returned to her neck, the flat side brushing her jaw, ‘Who the fuck are you?’

Chapter Text

Lambert kept his sword at Ciri’s chest, just about the charm that hung from her neck. At least his eyes were on her face and not her exposed chest, but she knew he had seen her. She had figured out early that the disguise charm had been design to turn Jasper, a man, into a Nilfgaardian boy and so it didn’t hide the feminine parts of her body. Not that she minded, as being Julek was a lot easier if she was also kind of herself. She didn’t know if she could have handled bathing if she’s been completely turned into a boy.

Even though she was on the ground with her shirt open she wasn’t afraid of Lambert doing anything to her, because he was with Aiden and so wouldn’t be interested in taking advantage of her in that kind of way. However, his eyes were burning with anger, and he did have his sword at her throat, so any intentions about her body were the least of her concerns.

Her ankle burnt and throbbed like the thing was still grabbing her and she pulled her legs in a close as she dared, not wanting to move too much while the sword was on her.

‘C-can I close my shirt?’

Lambert gestured to the cloth on the ground next to her.

‘Move slowly.’ He advised, and she reach for a muddy piece of cloth to pulled over his chest, hiding the small breasts and disguise charm underneath it. It was cold and wet across her body and she was shaking too much to tie it, but it did make her feel protected.

He had taken half a step back as she moved but kept his sword raised to her throat and chest. He didn’t look as angry as he had when she’s shot Aiden, but there wasn’t any hesitation in his grip, his hand steady and eyes reflecting his anger at her in the dim light of the bright moon.

The blade raised a little higher, and Ciri felt the chilly metal on the underside of her chin.

‘Now talk.’

Saliva filled her mouth as her stomach churned, but she was too scared to swallow with the sword so close to her throat, and he clenched her jaw shut to prevent her teeth from chattering and moving too much.

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Who. The fuck. Are you.’

‘I’m Julek.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Why? Because I’m actually a girl?’

Something twitched in Lambert’s face that Ciri couldn’t interpret before the corner of his lip hitched up into a snarl. ‘No, not because you’re a girl.’ His voice was dark and he rolled his shoulders back. He suddenly reminded Ciri of her Grandmother and how she would look down on visiting nobles who postured as though they were on the same level as she was.

She felt small and confused about what she had done wrong and what kind of answer he wanted from her. Anxiety churned in her gut and made her want to be sick, she wanted to say the right thing, but she couldn’t just tell him who she was. Geralt may have been obligated to protect her as his child surprise, but Lambert certainly didn’t. Especially after what she had done to Aiden.

‘I don’t know what you want from me.’ She tried to breathe but her body pulled in a short gasp as she started to loose the battle against confused tears. ‘I’m sorry I hid that I was a girl. It’s just easier to be a boy. It doesn’t mean anything, I promise. I’m sorry.’

The sword shifted slightly and Lambert tilted his head while he sniffed the air and narrowed his eyes.

‘You really are just a kid, aren’t you?’

‘I’m not just a kid.’ The tears made it come out a little more forcefully than she’s intended, but Lambert just smirked as if he’d just been given a very satisfactory answer to that question.

He pointed to the decapitated thing with his missing hand. Ciri didn’t want to follow the movement, if she looked at the corpse again then she would definitely be sick, so kept her eyes on the end of witcher’s shirt covering his arm and the glittering ruby pins he had used to fold the end of his sleeve over his stump.

‘He was a doppler… I assume you don’t know what that is?’

She did. A doppler was a thing that could twist its body to look human, and they would kill a person and take over their life, lying to the human’s loved ones and stealing their riches. She was told stories that dopplers were confused creatures, who often thought themselves as human or equal to, but unable to form real friendships or connections to real humans.

Most of what she had learned about them had come from her grandmother, and tutors hired and paid for by her grandmother, and she’d learned since then that those teachings were not appreciated by witchers.

‘They’re imposter humans?’

Lambert sighed, ‘Dopplers are shifters. Humans tried to hunt them, but ended up killing more humans than dopplers, like the paranoid dumb fucking sheep they are.’ He stopped abruptly and took a deep breath through his nose. ‘You are wearing something like belongs to his people. That pretty little necklace is made form a doppler bone. His people were gutted and carved up to make little trinket jewellery so that nobles could change their eye colour, or smooth their hair or cover up their freckles or other such superficial fucking bullshit.’

Ciri shrunk back against the cart. Lambert had almost gone down on his knee to crowd her space, the sword had dipped to point at her sternum where the disguise charm sat against her.

‘Oh...’

‘Yeah, fucking, oh. And that thing has a fae transmutation rune, which means you’re hiding more than a bad hair day or some acne scars.’

‘...Oh.’

Lambert’s eyes scanning her face and finding something there that prompted him to back away out of her space. ‘‘But you didn’t know that, so where did you get it?’

Finally, his grip on the sword relaxed. Ciri remembered Aiden telling her something about Lambert not having the same strength to hold a sword up and steady than he used to when he had a right hand, and she wondered whether he was easing off of his anger or whether his arm was just getting tired.

She knew she could only play ignorant for so long before he got angry again, at least not without offering up some kind of explanation.

‘It’s not mine. Jasper gave it to me so I could look like a boy, I think he spelled it to do what it does. I didn’t know what it was made of I swear.’

‘Jasper.’ Lambert confirmed, something flat in his voice that scared Ciri more than the anger.

‘I’I don’t know if he knew what it was, he didn’t tell me where he got it but he wouldn’t have killed anyone for it. He’d not like that.’

The witcher brought his arm up and scrubbed at his face. ‘So, Jasper gave you the bone, didn’t tell you what it was, and tuned it to make you appear to be a boy. Is that right?’

‘Yes?... Yes.’

‘Why? Did you want him to do that?’

‘I couldn’t be me anymore, it was too dangerous.’ She answered honestly, ‘I didn’t know what the pendant was going to do when he gave it to me, but I like being Julek.’

That, at least, was true. Julek was free of all the obligations and expectations of Princess Cirilla, and the fear and stress of The Lost Royal, or whatever the people hunting her called her. She did miss being a girl, braiding her hair and looking pretty, and to some degree she missed being herself, even if being herself hadn’t been all that great.

Lambert’s nostrils flared as he sighed through his nose. He still looked angry but Ciri didn’t feel like it was aimed at her any more, and his sword, at least, had drifted to point more towards the mud beside her which made her dizzy with relief. She slumped against the cart at her back and tried to breathe evenly, but her stomach churned and protested when it felt like her lungs were pushing against it.

She was still shivering, but it felt more than just being chilled, like it was being pulled from somewhere deeper inside. With some hesitancy, because she didn’t want Lambert to think she was moving too fast, Ciri pulled her knees up to her chest and hunched over to try and sit in her own body heat.

‘Take it off.’

Ciri looked up too quickly and her vision swam.

‘What?’

‘Take off the necklace. I’m willing to listen, but not while you’re still wearing that fucking thing.’

Ciri convulsed with shivers. ‘J-Jasper said to never take it off.’

He stared at her, then rolled his eyes. ‘Right. Fine.’

Lambert flicked and twisted the sword in his grip, then stepped forward too fast for Ciri to react and pressed the tip of the blade into her sternum.

She whimpered between clenched teeth as it burnt, wanting to scream but not being able to, and tried to push back and away. The movement shifted the tip of the sword and it cut a path across her skin as it shifted to the side. Lambert cursed and took a step back, but even standing away from her she could still feel the blade in her chest.

She pushed off the muddy ground and stood so that she could try and run, but her ankle gave out underneath her and when she stepped with the other foot to compensate it made contact with something. She slipped and both hands braced against the wall on the opposite side of the alley as she crashed into it.

She looked across, to Lambert who was looking at her with that blank, hard face again. Her hand went instinctively to her chest where she had been stabbed, but where it felt like she’d been cut she only found the pendent, which was burning hot. She yanked it up over her head and threw it to the ground and as soon as it left contact with her skin the pain stopped.

She looked from the witcher to the ground and saw that the charm looked like it had been melted through the middle of the symbol, bubbling in a similar way to the flesh of the doppler had. It was also lying right next to the doppler’s head, which was looking up at her with wide eyes and jaw slack and full of needle teeth.

For a moment she felt the same pain on her chest from the charm, like the silver on Lambert’s blade was burning through her throat, until she realised it was the fire of bile and she jerked to the side and braced a hand against the alley wall as she was sick on the ground beside her.

She kept her eyes closed as her body convulsed again, bringing up her meagre meal of bread until there was nothing left in her. Ciri felt as if she was about to collapse into the pile of mess she had just made, her body spent from the anxiety and fear that had been pulsing through her body, except that Lambert had a firm grip on her arm.

‘First dead body?’ His tone was almost a scoff, but was the most gentle he’d sounded all night.

Memories of Cintra rung in her ears. ‘No.’

Ciri was fairly certain that the alley wall and Lambert were the only things keeping her upright and she didn’t want to move from her position in case he let go of her and she toppled. She could feel his stump pressed against her back, its presence not quite enough to be supportive but enough to be comforting.

Lambert didn’t like touching people or being touched by the end of his arm, with Aiden being the only and obvious exception. She felt tears come to her again. She was exhausted and the relief that the grumpy witcher cared about her, even after finding out she had been lying, was too much. She couldn’t keep the heaving breaths at bay and she sobbed.

‘Ah, fuck, don’t start that again.’ Lambert growled softly behind her, ‘You’re fine. I don’t know what the happened, but you still look the same, alright. You’re safe or whatever, just calm down.’

‘W-Wha-I d-don’t.’ She sobbed and gasped to try and get enough air to talk. She didn’t understand what Lambert was trying to tell her or why he thought it would be comforting. If taking the disguise thing off did change her back then did that mean she was stuck looking like Julek for the rest of her life?

She sunk slowly onto her knees and looked at her still olive skin and pulling at he still dark hair, still crying and uncomprehending.

‘Look, Julek, it’s-’

‘That’s not my name!’ She snapped out, fast and harsh between hitched breaths.

‘Alright.’ Lambert had partially followed her down, holding onto both of her shoulders has she has sunk. ‘Alright… Look, I don’t want to spend my first night ashore in an alley in the rain with a stinking corpse and a crying kid, so I’m going to take care of this mess while you do whatever you need to do, and we can go and talk somewhere like adults. Does that sound alright? Can you stop crying so we can do that?’

Ciri tried to wipe the tears from her face, even though they were still coming, and nodded. ‘I-I think my ankle’s broken.’

‘It’s not broken.’ His presence moved from behind her before something heavy and warm replaced it. ‘Do your jacket up while I fix this.’

Ciri fumbled with the red glass buttons of Lambert’s nobleman’s jacket, her fingers numb and shaking. She could hear dragging and then what assumed was the thumping of Lambert hauling the body into the cart and hiding it, but she didn’t want to look to confirm.

‘What if someone looks in the cart?’

‘I’ll come back for him later. You good yet?’

She reached around to fix the buckles on the back of the jacket to cinch it into her waist. Her breaths were still coming in small gasps as he tried to pull herself together, and she probably had snot all over her face, but she felt a bit better. She didn’t think Lambert was going to pull his sword again, but doubted he had much patience left for her.

Ciri tried to control her breathing and looked up to the witcher who was placed the sword back into it’s place by his hip and was waiting for a response. She tried to think back on what Jasper had told her about the disguise charm, and remembered his warning about her cut hair and how there was a day’s grace before it returned to normal. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t reverted back to her real self.

She was tired, and now that the charm was off of her and she knew what it was she definitely didn’t want to be Julek any more. Julek may have been protected from Nilfgaard, but Lambert had shown some kindness to her even after finding out that she might not actually be Julek. Maybe he could also be kind to her as Ciri. Maybe he would care about her, for more reasons than just being the captain’s child surprise.

If she told them who she was, maybe then she could stay with them. Maybe Geralt wouldn’t let Jasper make all the decisions regarding where she was supposed to go. Maybe she could get to go where the non-humans had made their home, instead of back to Redania.

Maybe the truth was a good thing.

‘Alright.’ she said, ‘Let’s go somewhere to talk.’

Chapter Text

Jaskier felt the sensation if water on his face, which sent enough fear through his spine to pronpt his eyes to open and lungs to gasp and scramble for air. It took a heartbeat for him to realise that he was laying on his side, with his face wet because someone had flicked water on him.

He was in Geralt and Eskel’s bed, and someone had placed a blanket and something else over him to provide a comforting weight that made his feel safe and coddled. He took a deliberate breath, to reassure himself that he could do so, before he slowly turned his trembling body over.

‘Triss, he’s awake.’ Aiden’s voice wasn’t hushed, but was difficult to hear over the sound of the weather and waves of the bay.

‘Jasper.’ Her voice was much closer and cleared, ‘Jasper, sweetie, are you okay? Do you remember what happened?’

Jaskier squeezed his eyes shut and remembered the captain of the Cidarian ship, the anxiety about the impossible amount of money she wanted, and then the possibility that Ciri had jumped from the ship and died. He gasped as fear re-gripped him and he pushed to sit up on the hammock bed.

‘Ci-’ came as a breath until he closed his eyes and dug the knuckles of his thumbs into his eyes. Everything in his skull felt tight as pain stabbed into his temples and the pressure of tears built through his skull. ‘He jumped. Julek. He-’

‘Julek’s safe.’ Triss soothed and placed her hand between his shoulder blades. ‘Apparently Lambert heard him leave and decided to follow him into town.’

‘Lambs would have dragged Julek back if something bad had happened.’

Jaskier looked to Aiden and saw the witcher had a smile on his face, despite the small worry wrinkle between his eyebrows.

‘Are you sure?’

The cat witcher’s smile became softer, ‘Next to Geralt, Lambert’s the best tracker of the wolves. He won’t let Julek out of his sight. And as much as he doesn’t want to, he does actually care about Julek. You do know that, right?’

Jaskier nodded. He and Lambert hadn’t seem much of each other on the ship, by both chance and design, as the memory of hands around Jaskiers through was still a not yet distant enough memory for him to feel comfortable in the other’s presence. He had, however, seen Lambert together with Ciri enough to know that the youngest would wouldn’t wish harm on her.

‘I know he does. And I know you do too.’ He took a deep breath and ploughed on despite the pain in his skull. ‘He didn’t say anything before he left did he? About why? We haven’t talked in a few days.’

‘Maybe he just wanted to see the city.’ Aiden winced at his own offering.

‘Let’s leave that, for now,’ Triss put a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder, ‘Are you doing alright, Jasper.’

‘Yes, yes.’ He flapped a hand, ‘I just had a moment, but I’m fine now. I don’t-’ He ran his hands down his face and groaned, swinging his legs off of the bed, ‘I don’t have time for this. I need to start getting money together for Captain Viole, either that or find a place to stay in port until another ship comes along, which, at this point, seems the more likely option… and, I needed to talk to Julek.’

Aiden and Triss didn’t need to know about the anxiety swirling through his body, so he did his best to straighten up and not look too defeated. Ciri had clearly left the ship to try and get away from him, and would rather run away into a strange country where she didn’t know the language than come with him to Redania. Maybe he shouldn’t have been as honest with her in regards to Dijkstra, about how he didn’t trust his boss despite thinking it was the best option for them. Maybe he should have lied and told her that the head of the secret service was completely trustworthy and never had any ulterior motives ever.

Maybe then she would have trusted him, and maybe then she wouldn’t have jumped off of a ship into the water rather than he had her best interests at heart.

‘I can track Lambert.’ Aiden offered, ‘and we can bring Julek back to the ship while you organise what you need.’

Jaskier unburied his face from his hands and looked up at the cat witcher. He had a series of bronze hoops going up the shell of his ears and a matching wrist cuff. He had the general air of someone who had dressed up for something special and, if Jaskier hadn’t known the witcher had a terrifying partner, gave the impression of someone ready to prowl for company.

Jaskier suspected that Aiden and Lambert had planned a date to celebrate their first night back on land in what he knew had been a while for the crew of The Merwolf.

‘Perhaps. Although, Julek is my responsibility so I should be the one to find him.’ Jaskier stood from the bed and stretched, feeling old. ‘Would you be so kind as to lead me to them? There’s not much more I can do tonight and you and Lambert should go enjoy yourselves, not be running around after us.’

Aiden twitched a smile but held some hesitancy in his eyes, which Jaskier felt echoed in himself. While he and Aiden got along well enough they hadn’t spent much time together out of the ship’s sickroom, a consequence of Jasper avoiding Lambert and Lambert following Aiden around like a concerned mother hen.

‘Rain’s coming down hard, so might not be a straight path.’

‘That’s alright. And thank you Triss, for everything.’

She gave a hesitant smile, ‘You’re more than welcome, although I think you should rest for a moment longer.’

Jaskier put a hand on her shoulder and gave a reassuring smile as he kept the pain of his headache off of his face. ‘I’m alright, I promise, thank you.’

He picked up the thick navy blue jacket that had been draped over while he was unconscious, and handed it to Aiden, its owner, before making a gesture for him to lead the way outsied, where it was absolutely freezing. Jaskier tucked his hands under his armpits as he trotted after Aiden. The witcher had taken the lead, and as the spy came up to his side Aiden slowed and stopped. Jaskier could see his shoulders hunch before he ducked behind and circled around Jaskier before continuing.

Jaskier followed, confused until he realised that Aiden had swapped so that the fae wasn’t on his blind side. Although, as they continued, Aiden would periodically look over his right shoulder to check his lost periphery.

‘Julek would have headed up hill and stream to get away from the dock,’ Aiden had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the rain, ‘The rain’s blurring the scent, but I can get a general direction.’

Jaskier nodded, and squinted up the road. There weren’t many people around in the streets, just a few manoeuvring covered carts up and away from the river, lit by few lanterns. Jaskier found himself squinting through his headache into the dim light and he stumbled on the slick ground a few times, although Aiden didn’t seem to have as much trouble with the terrain and reached out to grasp Jaskier’s bicep to steady him.

He wanted to speak, but his mind was whirling around the many things he needed to do. He still felt as if he should be down in a pub trying to earn some money for the journey, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to gather enough payment for Captain Viole in time. Even without distractions it would have been a task and a half. He would mostly likely have to find lodgings in the port for an indeterminate amount of time, until another relatively neutral or safe ship arrived.

‘If you really want to leave, I might be able to help. I have something I can sell.’ Aiden spoke above the rain, seemingly ready Jaskier’s mind. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thank you, Aiden.’

Jaskier knew that he was just trying to help, the spy had made a plan and definitely made it clear that he wanted to pay his way to Redania as soon as possible, but the witcher’s generosity was starting to feel sour. Everyone had been so helpful, Geralt scouting ships for him, Leo and Coën giving him a beautiful lute to sell, and now Aiden actively selling his own possessions to raise money. It was beginning to seem like they just wanting him off of their ship.

He bit his lip and kept quiet.

Once they had travelled up several streets, up several sets of steps, Aiden stopped and took a moment to look around, his head tilted down and squinting through the rain. They were at a crossroads with a fountain that was threatening to overflow from the downpour, and Aiden pulled the edges of his hood further over his face to hide from the rain before he inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. Jaskier didn’t want to disturb him, but he took the moment to look around.

There were some houses behind them with lights on and some movement within, and a garden of dense bushes with small yellow flowers that surrounded a small stump of a tree with fanned leaves that was a squat version of the towering trees that lined the river. The small flowers look hopeful and sturdy against the barrage of rain and the more that Jaskier looked at them the more he felt like one of the flowers that has fallen from the shrub and was slowly sinking into the sandy slush of the garden bed.

It wasn’t dissimilar to the sensation of staring into the swirl of the ocean, but he didn’t feel the suffocating, overwhelming anxiety in his chest. Instead, he felt the gravity of the earth pulling him down as he realised that getting back to Redania was hopeless.

Zerrikania was a new and exclusive trading partner with The Continent, and this was a relatively small trading port that wasn’t likely to have another appropriate ship for a while. Whatever Aiden was willing to sell for him wouldn’t be enough to make the amount to pay for passage on the Cidarian ship, and they would have to stay here for months.

Ciri most definitely would not be okay with that. If this was how she reacted to the timetable of their plans moving up then a complete change wouldn’t go down well. She clearly didn’t even trust his plans and ability to keep her safe in Redania, and that was a place she knew and could speak the language of.

‘Jasper?’

His attention snapped to Aiden, ready to blame the cold for his suddenly runny nose and not the dam of tears that were ready to burst.

‘They went this way, c’mon.’

Chapter Text

Geralt walked along the coast until lights of the town looked like the pricks of light in the sky. The farther north he got the choppier the water looked, with great spikes of rock jutting out from the deeper blues of the ocean. This part of the coast, far from the river’s mouth, was so exceptionally dangerous for any ship to come near, even the small local fishing boats preferred to keep south of the township.

When The Merwolf docked in Zerrikania they always collected some contracts. They were, after all, still witchers and Zerrikania, with its sharply contracting rainforests and desert plains, was rife with monsters and ancient curses. The main difference between the contracts here and the ones that were familiar was that the former rarely called for a creature to be killed. Zerrikanian natives were far too tolerant of the abundance of creatures that lived with them, and trusted a man-eating Yateveo tree more than a strange human in a pub.

Witchers fell somewhere in between.

The slope before him was becoming barren, and the paths carved up the hill were slowly disappearing into sand. Not sand like the beach, but something finer and more dangerous, and he had a long black scarf wrapped around his neck and head to keep it from his lungs and eyes. He already had put kohl around his eyes in preparation for the light, but had a thick fur over shoulders to block the night chill.

It would take a night and day of walking to get to the small oasis farm further into the desert. There was a Death Worm venturing too close to them for comfort, but rather than being asked to kill the creature, they simply needed him to keep it at bay while they charmed some deep-rooted trees to grow that would define boundaries that the worm couldn’t cross.

Had Jasper not been so desperate to leave, Geralt would have been tempted to ask for his help, as his fae abilities would have encouraged the roots to be deeper and stronger than the combined forces of all the local mages. He also would have liked the time alone with the blue-eyed man before they parted ways, and to see those eyes light up with chaos and perhaps excitement at being able to tap into that side of himself freely.

The idea of not knowing who or what one was tugged at something within Geralt. ‘Witcher’ had been beaten into him by his instructors and the mages and then, once he had been old enough to walk the path, by the world. Witchers killed monsters for coin, they didn’t need anything else from life. They didn’t deserve anything else from life.

It had never sat completely right with him, but every time he had tried to hope for something more it had blown up in his face. Like Renfri, and then Yennifer. Not to mention the members of royalty and similar who had deemed him ‘meddlesome’, because someone of the wrong political values had shown him kindness and he’d returned it.

He felt for Jasper, who seemed so sure of himself and still so vulnerable. Yet, when the man had been bathing, and Geralt was outside the door with tea and clothes, he’d heard the fae humming and his chest had filled with a sense of contentment beneath his vibrating medallion. Jasper was comfortable with his own chaos and abilities, and not knowing their history didn’t scare him away from using them.

When Jasper had told him that he was a spy for Redania it had been a relief. Geralt had known that he’d been hiding something, if only because he’d been attracted to the other man and that usually meant he was going to be betrayed or manipulated. Even Eskel had joked that Jasper was Geralt’s type: Danger, hidden behind stunning eyes.

And fuck were they stunning.

So Jasper was a spy from Redania, because of course he was. He was intelligent and witty and observant, and if Geralt allowed himself to go there then it would put him and his crew in danger when Jasper inevitably dragged them into a war they had no business being in.

They had already skirted too close to the war in their search for his child surprise, so it had been decided that when they found Princess Cirilla they would go straight to Dol a'Muirehen. There, not only would she be kept safe, but they would be able to avoid any of the major politics of the continent. It was also preferable for Geralt, because it meant that raising her wouldn’t fall on his inept shoulders, even though his time with Julek had reminded him that he wasn’t terrible with children.

Even though he was a witcher, and witchers shouldn’t be around children.

Witchers also shouldn’t be cowards, yet Geralt had taken a contract that would take him the longest time possible to complete so he wouldn’t have to say goodbye. Not that anyone but Eskel would suspect his motivations, as the crew knew he got irritable when he was trapped on the ship for long periods of time. He usually jumped at the chance to take contracts by himself.

Then, when the contract was done, he would crawl back to his partner and grieve a relationship that never was. Eskel was good at making him forget about wanting anything else from life. Not only was he an exceptionally considerate lover, sometimes to his own detriment, but also a witcher who had enjoyed the path and never wished for more. When they were tucked up in the ship, away from the piercing gaze of humans that made Geralt’s skin prickle and Eskel’s heart and breathing race, everything seemed simple.

It was selfish of Geralt to want for more. He loved Eskel, even though he knew the other wasn’t one to love in return, and his family was safe from the hatred of the continent, even though they lived in such close quarters that they often came close to tearing each other apart.

His feelings for Jasper could threaten both of those things as well as his own heart, which had suffered enough.

As long as Jasper avoided the Nilfgaardians and got safely to Redania, to take care of his sisters or whatever he needed to do, then there was a chance he could survive the war. And maybe then they could see each other again.

But until then, Geralt would try to keep his life simple. He was a witcher and there was a contract that needed completing.

Chapter Text

Lambert had dragged Ciri to the house he and Aiden frequented. There was a room in the back where couples could go and have fun without judgement, and people in the corners inhaling substances that were only frowned upon here but definitely illegal back home. It probably wasn’t the best place to bring a kid, but part of him hoped that if he went to a familiar place then Aiden would come by, and she would be fine as long as she stayed in the main area and didn’t inhale too deeply. The house owners also didn’t mind that he was a witcher as long as he kept his head down and didn’t freak out the people getting high in the corners by reflecting his eyes at them.

Even though his Zerrikanian was mostly limited to swearing he managed to order something warm for Ciri to eat. In addition to the food, the owner had also given Lambert his usual drink order, which Lambert had passed to Ciri to wash the vomit taste out of her mouth. She had almost choked on it, which he’d tried not to smirk too much at.

Water probably would have been a better idea, but it would have had to have been boiled before she could drink it, and he couldn’t be bothered casting ingi and waiting for it to cool, so he’d gotten her some weird purple juice instead. She had looked like she was going to pass out, her body most likely about to crash from adrenaline drain, but with the drink and food she was starting to get some colour back into her cheeks.

They hadn’t spoken much, as Lambert had wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to pass out or puke or cry again before he started asking questions. He had clarified what to call her, meaning what pronouns she wanted to use, but she had missed the point of the question and had given him her real name.

Princess Cirilla Fucking Riannon.

Geralt’s princess, and wasn’t that just fucking great. They’d delayed going to Kaer Morhen for almost two months because they’d gotten word from Commodore Roche that she had boarded a Temerian merchant ship. The Commodore had even arranged with the merchant captain to have her delivered to the witchers, but all they’d got for their troubles was a new fuck buddy for Eskel and some kid who put a bullet in Aiden’s face.

Lambert downed his drink and focused on the burn down into his stomach. If he was bring honest with himself, and he usually was, even though he was beyond frustrated he couldn’t be angry at her. She hadn’t made the decision to lie to them about who she was, and hadn’t been the one to use and charm a fucking dopper bone.

Jasper, however… There was no way that prick didn’t know what that charm was and what he was doing.

Ciri picked some of the lingering goat bones out of her stew with her fingers and she looked very small while wearing his fanciest jacket. She most definitely didn’t look like a princess, let alone the granddaughter of one of the most fearsome rulers the north had ever seen, and not just because she still looked Nilfgaardian and more pre-pubescent boy than young woman.

Actually, there wasn’t anything that proved she was Cirilla Riannon. She could just be saying that because she knew of Geralt’s connection to the princess and was trying to buy herself time until the spell wore off.

Fuck it, there was still too much he wasn’t sure of. He flagged down a server for another drink before he turned to her.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘And still not feeling like you’re about to change back?’

She pulled one of the dark curls in front of her face, going slightly cross-eyed to see it. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Right.’ A steaming cup appeared in front of him, and he intercepted it to take two mouthfuls of the strong liquor before it even touched the table. ‘And Jasper didn’t tell you anything about how it works?’

‘A little bit, but I didn’t really understand it. He said that when I cut my hair it wouldn’t go back to normal until a day after. So I think we just have to wait?’

‘Convenient.’

‘Perhaps it’s a backup in case the necklace gets lost or stolen?’

Lambert took the rest of the drink and put it down onto the table a little bit harder than necessary. The owner knew how to mix a drink for a witcher, and it was definitely chasing away the night’s chill, but knew he should probably hold off on ordering another. He usually got quite combative when he was drunk, and he wasn’t sure she deserved that yet.

He may be an arsehole most of the time, but he was a self aware arsehole at least.

‘Do you know why he had it?’

Ciri’s eyes flicked to the table for let than a second before she looked him in the eye and shrugged, her heart just a touch faster than it had been before the question. ‘I didn’t ask, sorry.’

Lambert sighed heavily through his nose.

‘Alright, so why did you jump off the ship? Pretty sure you’ve got an answer for that, Princess, unless our hospitality just that shit?’

Ciri’s cheeks went blotchy and she tucked her hands under the table. ‘No,’ she said with a small voice, ‘I really like being on The Merwolf with you guys… I thought… I thought that if I could delay Jasper then he wouldn’t be able to find another ship in time and we’d be able to stay instead of going back to the continent.’

‘Well that was a stupid fucking plan. What if he just left without you?’

‘He wouldn’t.’

‘ I would have, with how much of a shit you’ve been. Besides, the man’s so terrified of going to Toussaint he had a breakdown in the training deck. You think he’d risk going there just because you don’t want to go to home?’

She picked up her spoon and stabbed it into the bowl. ‘I’m too important to leave behind.’

Lambert snorted and rolled his eyes, ‘And what makes you think we would have waited for you? We’ve got shit to do, and that doesn’t include waiting for you to finish your little tantrum. And what if we had gone, hmm? What if I hadn’t been there to save you tonight, and you’d died in that alley and no one would have known what had happened to you? Do you know how much that would have hurt Aiden, thinking you hated being around us so much that you jumped ship and ran away the first fucking chance you got?’

Ciri kept her eyes on the bowl, she seemed abashed and if he couldn’t hear the change in her breathing and taste the tang of salt in the air he would have said she was collected. He gave her a moment and rolled the tension out of his wrist, as even with a lighter, shorter sword than he used to use it wasn’t easy to wield one handed.

‘I don’t hate you.’ She whispered, ‘I was just scared.’

‘Yeah,’ He looked to the door. The salt had intensified and he didn’t want to see if she was crying in earnest now. Thank the gods Aiden still didn’t know weak he was to crying, because the cat would most definitely use that to his advantage. ‘Yeah, I know. And it’s okay to be scared, but you shouldn’t let fear make stupid decisions for you. That’s how you end up with one of these.’ He looked to her briefly as he waved his stump in front of her face and she tracked the moment with wet eyes.

‘Aiden said you lost it because of him.’

‘Nuh,’ He avoided her gaze again. ‘I thought he was dead, and I was scared about spending my life without him, so I did something stupid.’ The door to the house and two hooded figures walked in. Lambert’s lip hitched into a smile, ‘Lost my favourite wanking hand while trying to get revenge, and the bastard wasn’t even dead.’

Aiden tossed the hood off his hood and shook out his curls before flipping Lambert off from across the room.

A wet laugh startled Ciri out of her tears ‘Ew.’

The figure next to Aiden also lowered his hood, revealing Jasper who was looked confusedly at Lambert’s cat until he followed the rude gesture to their table. His blue eyes went wide and he rushed from Aiden’s side to approach Ciri, looking perfectly like the tired and harassed father concerned about his run away child.

Lambert did his best not to sneer. If Ciri was actually who she said she was then there was no way Jasper was related to her, which raised the questions of who the fuck Jasper was, why was he with the princess, and what was he planning on doing to her once they got to Redania. Lambert had assumed that Jasper had become desperate to leave the ship because they were heading to Toussaint, but he would have also find out about Ciri being Geralt’s child surprise at the same time, so maybe that was why the fairy was being so impatient about leaving.

He needed to talk to Aiden. There were too many possibilities and Aiden was much better at getting people to trust him than Lambert was. Although that did mean that he would have to tell his partner that ‘Julek’ had been lying the entire time, and that she’d had a doppler charm in her possession, which he really didn’t want to do. Even though Aiden was usually very passive and forgiving, something his brothers teased was a good foil for Lambert’s own rough edges, there were moments where his temperament could just flip.

Aiden had explained that it was something to do the experimentation that the cat school did with their mutagens, something he was a bit insecure about around members of the other schools. Lambert had spent years convincing him that it was fucking hot when he turned feral, which it was, but he didn’t want him to get hurt by the betrayal, or do something that he might regret later.

When Aiden arrived at the table Ciri had already launched into a long, tear-filled apology to her ‘father’, but Lambert put that aside to look to his lover.

‘You stalking me now?’ He stood, but on principal refused to go up onto his toes to meet Aiden’s lips, forcing the slimmer of them to bend down. Aiden seemed to have avoided the rain but he seemed cold so Lambert wrapped his arms around the slightly taller but much slimmer man’s waist.

‘Not just now. Always.’ Aiden dipped down and pressed the cold tip of his nose against the shell of Lambert’s ear to whisper ‘We need to talk.’

‘No shit.’ Lambert rumbled, low enough only witcher hearing could pick it up before he returned to a regular volume. ‘Now you’re here I can order something proper,’ He pointed to Jasper who had now sitting next to Ciri with tears beading up in his eyes. ‘You good? Good.’

Lambert dragged Aiden away from the table and over to the bar without waiting for Jasper’s answer. He needed to tell Aiden what was going on, just to get it out of his own head, and just be there for the cat if needs be. If Aiden had to find out that Julek and Jasper had been lying to them the whole time, it should at least come from Lambert and not someone else.

‘What the fuck happened?’ Aiden snapped. ‘I tracked you to an alley filled with blood and vomit and the body of a doppler. What did you do?’

The wolf witcher winced. Of course Aiden would have smelt the doppler body, and since it’s skin had reacted to the contact with a silver sword it would have been fairly obvious what had happened. He knew he didn’t have to be defensive about his actions because even through he didn’t blame the doppler for trying to get the charm off of Ciri the guy had been a dick about it, but he still instinctively crossed his arms over his chest and bristled.

‘It’s been a long fucking night, alright. He scared the kid and got what was coming for him.’

Aiden raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on Lambert’s arm, gently pushing them out of their crossed position. ‘What happened, Lambs.’

The tone was gentler than Lambert deserved and he relaxed into it as he hung his head and griped Aiden’s hand for a moment before he let his arm drop to his side. ‘Julek’s been wearing a doppler bone.’

Aiden became unnaturally still, his eye boring into Lambert who could almost see the bristling fur, ‘What?’ he hissed.

‘His- her name isn’t Julek, it’s Cirilla. Jasper gave the thing to her so she could hide who she was, from Nilfgaard I assume. She said she didn’t know what it would do when she put it on, nor what it was made of and I believe her.’

‘So where did Jasper get it?’

‘How the fuck am I supposed to know that?’

Aiden turned, and it was only the decades of being together that warned Lambert of what he was going to do, enough that he was able to reach out to try and keep the cat witcher from storming over. ‘ Don’t .’ Aiden’s gaze snapped back to him so fast that Lambert flinched and the cat gave a small warning hiss. ‘Look, something’s up with Jasper. Ciri’s been really cagey every time I ask her anything about him. I don’t think he’s been completely honest with her about who he is either.’

‘So not her father, then?’

‘She calls him ‘Jasper’, not ‘dad’, and he’s very determined to get her back to Redania, even though she seems terrified of the idea. I’m not entirely sure that what his intentions are.’

‘You think he’s manipulating h- wait, fucking wait .’ His eye went wide, ‘ Princess Cirilla? Of Cintra? That Cirilla?’

The sharp pivot startled a snort out of him. ‘I know, right. She says Jasper’s magic will wear off in a day, then we’ll know for sure she is who she says she is. Until then we can’t let her out of our sight.’

‘Right. Right.’ Aiden nodded, but his eyes looked far away and concerned, he absent-mindedly reached down to take Lambert’s arm and brought it to his chest. He rubbed down Lambert’s forearm and kneeded into muscles that Lambert hadn’t even realised were wound tight. ‘I don’t think he has ill intentions. You should have seen him tonight, Lambs, he was scared that something had happened to her. He may not be her actual father but I don’t think he’s far off.

‘Jasper’s arranged for them to leave in the morning, but if that falls through, which it probably will, they can’t just jump on any old ship if they’re avoiding Nilfgaard. They might have to stay here for months.’

‘Plenty of time to figure out what the fuck’s going on. Although, we should tell Geralt what’s going on. If she is actually his princess then he needs to know, otherwise we’ll just be sailing around looking for her for nothing.’

‘Eskel brought back the contracts from the clan leader and Geralt’s already left for his. Took the farthest one out, somewhere in the desert, and won’t be back until we have to leave.’ Aiden sighed and looked back over to the two imposters. Lambert followed the line of sight. Fuck, he didn’t want to go over there if there were tears, and of course bloody Geralt had disappeared into the desert. Pretty boy couldn’t run away from his own feelings fast enough, not that he’d admit that’s why he’d bolted.

He had tuned out their conversation while talking to Aiden, but had caught enough to know that Ciri had told Jasper that Lambert knew the truth about who she was. Now they were talking about why they couldn’t stay on The Merwolf , and why the witchers were now in grave danger from Nilfgaard because they knew what they knew.

Lambert snorted. As if they couldn’t take on a ship full of humans, even with Geralt’s ‘no killing’ rule. Although, he would be interested to know if the ship they had found them on knew who it was they had captured. Maybe it would be worth scaring some information out of the next Nilfgaardian ship they spotted.

He looked back over at his lover’s face, to see that his pupil was dilated in a predatory way to try and see as many details as possible.

‘I think Jasper has the charm. We found your doppler and I saw Jasper pick something up from out of the mud. I think he underestimated how much peripheral I have on that side. Didn’t think anything of it, but he might use it to disappear if he suspects we’re onto him in any way.’

‘I fucked it up pretty good.’

Aiden’s eye looked onto his, but his face stayed in profile. ‘Do you think he’d try to fix it? Or make another?’

… Fuck.

Lambert closed his eyes and brought up a hand to touch were Aiden was still holding his stump. ‘Order me a bottle of the purest spirit from the bar and I’ll go take care of it. You stay with the kid and Jasper. Play this close to the chest, and just be careful, alright, Kitten?’

Aiden let his arms drop to his sides and stuck out his tongue before he lent over the bar and got the server’s attention. He hadn’t meant to be careful of Jasper, but rather careful of what he said and careful to not dig his claws too sharply into the man who may or may not be selling out an innocent royal to Redania in exchange for sanctuary or money or whatever-the-fuck reason.

He wasn’t sure if Aiden had understood what he meant, but he had a job to do. He server had placed a bottle in front of them with some very large, thick lettering on it that Lambert couldn’t read but he snatched it and headed towards the door.

It was still raining outside, maybe not as heavily as it had been before but it was hard to tell. Even so, with a bottle of spirits and igni it would be easy enough to burn a body.

Chapter Text

Ciri was safe. She was warm and fed and safe and Jasper definitely owed Lambert a debt of gratitude. It hadn’t taken too long for Aiden to track them down, but Jaskier felt so drained from the night that when Ciri had turned to him with wide eyes and asked him to not be angry, he really didn’t have it in him to be anything other than relieved. He’d just been happy that she was alright, and warm and fed and safe.

While tracking Ciri and Lambert, he and Aiden had come across and alley where some kind of scuffle had happened. Although the space had been covered by colourful canvasses, the rain was washing the ground and had wiped a lot of the scene clean. Aiden had pre-emptively warned Jaskier that there was a dead body in one of the carts, but that he could tell without looking that it was definitely not Julek or Lambert.

In Jaskier’s line of work it was always important to verify information, but he couldn’t bring himself to investigate the cart just in case Aiden had been wrong. Instead, he had detected the faint smell of his own jasmine and followed the pale scent to find the disguise charm, swept deep into the alley and half-buried in the mud.

He only had the chance to glance at it briefly before he put it in the inner pocket of his coat, just in case Aiden saw, but it looked as if the middle had been melted with silver and the rune he’d carved was barely visible. Despite this disfigurement, Jaskier knew that the disguise would still hold for at least another day, unless either of them died or Ciri deactivated it by humming in the same manner it had been activated.

It was still worrying and when he had come into the pub and had seen Julek, not Ciri, sitting opposite Lambert, he had felt the tension drain from his body. He had only vaguely acknowledged Lambert as he rushed to the table, where Ciri immediately started apologising him.

‘I’m not angry.’ Jaskier said to silence her. ‘I’m not upset. Are you alright, are you hurt?’

‘I twisted my ankle, but that’s all.’ She shifted a little in her seat, her dark eyes big and full of tears. ‘I’m sorry I left. I just wanted to stay with the witchers instead of one of those stupid ships. Please don’t take me back to The Continent. I know you have a life there, but I don’t and I just don’t want one.’

‘We can’t stay with them, they’re going to Nilfgaard.’

‘But not Nilfgaard Nilfgaard.’

Jaskier glanced at Aiden and Lambert, who had disappeared from the table to stand by the bar. It unnerved him that he hadn’t noticed them leaving, and then closed his eyes to block the growing pressure behind them. He didn’t want this argument again, he didn’t think he could deal with it at this time. ‘I know that you think that, and I know everything is moving incredibly fast, but for now I’m just glad that you’re safe, alright? Chances are we won’t be able to find an affordable way back for a while now anyway.’

She brightened. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. So can we table that conversation for now?’

‘Right,’ She looked down into the bowl in front of her and stared at it for a moment before looking back up with wet eyes. ‘The… The necklace you gave me came off. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know you said to never take it off but there was this man and he attacked me and tried to rip it off and then he ripped my shirt and then Lambert killed him and put his sword to my throat and asked me who I was and I didn’t know what to say, but he knew what it did so he-’

‘Woah, woah, stop, just stop,’ Jaskier’s head throbbed, ‘Lambert held a sword to your throat ?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t mean it!’ She sat up straight, ‘And I forgave him.’

Jaskier ran his hands down his face and swallowed against a phantom pressure around his throat. ‘He held a sword to you, that’s not just something you just forgive.’

‘Well, we’ve been lying to him, to everyone, and he’s forgiven me now that he knows who I really am. The least I can do is forgive him for not trusting me.’

Ciri looked at him with a determined set to her jaw, which was a contrast to her eyes that looked as if she were about to flee, and he took a moment to sigh and really look at the fashionable red jacket she had been tucked into and the bowl of spicy-looking food in front of her. Only one leg was hanging beneath her seat, while the other seemed propped up on the chair on the opposite side of the table. She wouldn’t have been the one to think to do that to an injured ankle, but a witcher who was familiar with being hurt might.