Can't you hear the scratching?

“The path is no place for a bard,” The witcher grumbled. “You’ll hate it.”

“My dear witcher, I will cherish every precious moment by your side,” Jaskier argued back. They’d been going back and forth for so long the sun was nearly out of the sky. 

“That was almost your last precious moment back there.” Geralt retorts, glancing back at the bard with an upturn of his mouth one could call a smile and Jaskier’s breath caught in his throat. 

The sunset lit the witcher from behind in a golden hue that made his yellow eyes practically glow. It framed him in such a way that Jaskier wanted to capture this moment in perfect detail just so he could show it to every single ignorant bastard on the continent and ask how they could call this transcendent man a monster. 

That was the exact moment he fell in love with Geralt. Genuinely, truly, in love. And while Geralt he knew he loved from the beginning, Yennefer took him by surprise. 

They had been living in Kaer Mohren for just a few months and had settled into a civil acquaintanceship with each other. Jaskier was there to continue teaching the girl about nobility, Geralt was coaxing the lion cub into becoming a Lioness, and Yennefer was both mentor and mother to her. The adults had a very long conversation about putting aside their difference and past arguments for the sake of the girl and if Jaskier were to be honest, things were pretty good.

On a morning that was completely similar to the last one and the one before that, Jaskier was heading out of his room and past Ciri’s when he heard the girl let out a sob, followed by a soft voice shushing her. 

The door was cracked open so the bard felt no qualms about peaking in to make sure she was okay. The scene that greeted him made his heart stop in his chest. 

Ciri was sitting in front of her vanity, tears running down her face and clumps of hair scattered beneath her from a rather butchered hair cut. Yennefer was leaning over her shoulder, face makeup-free and hair in a loose bun, long nails combing her now-short hair away from her face and whispering sweet words of comfort. “Don’t waste your tears on your looks, my sweet,” The sorceress said. “I’ve been there. I wasted so many hours of so many days crying over the idea that no one would find me attractive. I thought that beauty was power. And it is, in a way.” As she spoke, she lifted Ciri up just enough to slide into the seat herself and place her into her lap. “I thought being beautiful meant being powerful, which meant being happy.” “Aren’t you happy, Lady Yennefer?” Ciri asked, breath hiccuping as she calmed down. “Of course I am, my girl. But it has nothing to do with how beautiful I am and everything to do with the powerful girl in my lap.” Yennefer finished and smiled at them both in the mirror. Then, without a change in expression, she shifted her gaze to stare directly into Jaskier’s eyes.

It took Jaskier a while to react. He wasn’t shocked at being caught, no, he’s smarter than to think he can spy on Yennefer without her knowledge. And yet breath stuck in his throat, caught on the overwhelming wave of affection that went through him at being looked at so tenderly by the most powerful mage on the continent. She let herself be vulnerable in front of him, let herself indirectly bare a part of her past to him. She trusted him.

He knew at that moment, that tender moment on a morning like any other, that he loved her. 

He nodded to her, offering a smile of his own before quietly leaving the room to resume his path to breakfast.