Jaskier’s dad is much like his son: chatty and overly excited to welcome Geralt into their home.
His mother though, is a different story: she’s tall and brooding and gives Geralt silent, suspicious looks whenever she thinks he’s not looking (and sometimes also when she knows he is looking).
Geralt doesn’t think much of it, he’s used to disapproving looks. They give each other a silent, but cordial treatment for weeks until one day, looking for Jaskier Geralt sees her cuddling Jaskier’s two little sisters sleeping on the sofa in the living room. Geralt must stare at her just a moment too long because she carefully extracts herself from her children’s arms and walks up to him.
“You have a problem, witcher?” she asks, closing the door firmly behind herself as if to protect her children from him.
Geralt considers saying something biting or evasive in response, but Jaskier’s family has treated him kindly and very, very generously so far, so the least he owes the lady of the house is an honest answer.
“I don’t see mothers tending to their children often,” he confesses quietly. Jaskier’s mother looks him up and down, then a small smirk spreads on her lips.
“Are Witchers hatched from eggs?” she asks amused, with a touch of genuine curiousity. “Did you not have a mother of your own?”
Geralt swallows and looks her in the eye (he has to look upwards, because Jaskier’s mother is tall, taller than her husband or her son, even taller than him and has strong muscles to match that, but Geralt’s not the one to back off from a bigger opponent be the fight with swords or with words).
“She left me when I was five,” he says plain and simple and something crosses Lady Pankratz’s face, but it’s too quick even for Geralt to catch.
“Did she not have the means to raise you?” she asks not unkindly. Geralt doesn’t speak about this very often, but he just shrugs and thinks he might as well tell the truth.
“She didn’t want me.”
He expects a biting answer, probably a neutral one, but for a moment air seems to freeze in the corridor and now, when she looks up at Jaskier’s mother there’s a distinct expression Geralt knows intimately well: it’s fury.
“She didn’t want you?” she hisses as if just the idea of Visenna abandoning Geralt was a blasphemy and a personal offense against her family in one. Geralt nods weakly and instead of placating her that only seems to be oil on her proverbial fire, redness rising on her cheeks. “My boy, Julian thinks of you as a close friend, doesn’t he?”
“He— tends to say so?” Geralt says hesitantly, not sure where this conversation’s going.
“Then I’m sure he won’t mind if from now on I’ll treat you as a son of my own,” she says simply and Geralt can’t even wrap his mind around it when she puts an arm around his shoulders and ushers him down the corridor. “You haven’t seen the training grounds have you?” she asks as Geralt numbly follows her lead. “Julian said you were good with the long sword. I, myself favor some lighter weaponry these days, but I think I can give it a go, should you want to practice tomorrow. That sounds good to you, Geralt?” Geralt feels too stunned to answer, but she doesn’t seem to mind, she just squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. “It’s alright if you need a bit more time to think about it. It’s getting close to dinner time anyway, maybe we should check on the kitchens too. You did like the venison with the plums, didn’t you? We could ask Paula to make some for you. Would you like that, little dove?”
Geralt is painfully aware that he’s neither little nor has anything in common with a dove, but it doesn’t change the fact that it makes his teeth grind together to choke down something awfully reminding of a sob welling up in his throat.
“Sounds good,” he manages quietly, eventually, and for the first time since Geralt has arrived Jaskier’s mother smiles.
