Jaskier had grown used to Geralt's constant pining for silence, his rumbles of discontent and years of “shut up” and "fuck off" while he plucked away on his lute and let melodies fall from his lips. Though he knew that under all the furrowed brows and bitter growls, the witcher appreciated him.

Truth be told, coin had often been halved, quartered or suddenly 'stolen' away from lords, knights and nobles alike rendering them incapable of paying the witcher even after monsters had been slain...that is until the ballad had started to follow him like flies after shit. Since then, some noblemen would actively seek him out for any twig crack in the woods to then invite the trio to a throwaway dinner party so they could show off the white-haired champion if they caught word of him within three towns.

Naturally, he resented the very idea of lingering about these people any more than he already had to, being talked about, sung about, danced about, treated like some sort of trophy workhand for these tittering idiots. And of course, Jaskier leapt at the opportunity to perform for the more rosy-cheeked, satin clad crowd, and you often just went along with whoever won the squabble, enjoying either a night of Jaskier singing atop a table in a tavern or atop a table in a banquet hall. (Though the latter often left you with a heftier rattle in your pouches and warm beds, baths and linens for a few more nights.)

How you would have wanted that a few months ago.

About six months earlier

It was bound to happen sooner or later, travelling with two men and often having to settle for a bed on the ground. Not that you often minded, but that night, after a longer than necessary altercation with a couple of alghouls, you had crashed into your bedroll, not bothering to clean the blood off your face let alone off your arrows and out of your clothes.

You woke that morning to aching bones and a musty stench you wanted to be rid of as soon as possible.

The grass was dewy and sweet-smelling as you turned to the other side, letting the sun stroke your cheek good morning. You saw roach tied to a nearby tree and had concluded that your companions had wandered to the next town for supplies. You had been running low on a good few essentials for a while now and were grateful that your companions had let you slumber away, knowing you didn't fuss too much over anything they would get from the market.

You opened your pack and grabbed two lumps of soap before heading to the river that had lulled you to sleep that night. The first, a dry lye soap made simply and quickly, good for getting "blood, shit and grit out" as Geralt so elegantly put it. And the second, still wrapped in wax paper, the last few crumbles of a soft, fragrant lavender soap you had made yourself. You had saved so many dried flowers from where you could, hung and dried them on the side of your satchel, scraped the bottom of vials clean for drops of various oils into your little bottle, olive, sunflower, even a little of Jaskier's special coconut oil. Cooking a soap over the campfire was a waste of wood in Geralt’s eyes, but you could tell the soft scent calmed him as it wafted through the air that night.

You smiled to yourself as you finally stepped into the river, the edges warmed by the kiss of the sun.

You peeled off your trousers and walked further in, letting the water lap at your thighs growing used to the cold quickly. Rubbing the soap into your trousers, you watched as the blood slowly swirled out in front of you and saw as your fingers started to go from angry splotches of red and black back to that natural, warm brown. Your shirt stuck to your skin and hair, caked crimson. After all this time, you still could not believe how much things bled. Your mind flashed back to the alghouls from last night as your fingers worked through cleaning your formerly beige overshirt.

It should have been easy. Just two. You were only there to watch how Geralt wielded his sword for a few, usually weak opponents. His silver sword heaved thick strokes through the air, his feet danced around his opponents and you let your arrows loose from afar, aiding your friend as another got too close for your liking. The specially made silver tips slicing through skin and bone, causing a shriek. It turned and caught another arrow in its shoulder, bounding toward you. Frantic, you simply held out your next arrow in your hand, ready to impale it as it drew near enough. But you froze. Was this one of the ones you had to get in a specific place? Drive it through the heart? The head? Why was it still running? Surely two silver arrows should have been enou-

shhhlllck

Geralt unseamed the creature through it's abdomen from behind and drew his sword up and through it’s head as its blood gushed over you and the last few gurgles escaped what was left of its throat as it crumpled before you in a horrid mess.

"You're too slow up close. It would have had you."

He was right.

As talented as you were with a bow and arrow, able to get a man in the eye from half a field away, your experience with close combat was laughable. Usually, you had time to think, plan out your shots, you didn't even have to deal with blood until you retrieved your arrows. You probably would have had your face ripped off. Or your throat torn out. Or something.

You place the sopping shirt next to your trousers on the bank and scurry back with the lavender soap in your hand. Once you've thrust yourself back into the gentle river almost chest level, you start to hum a soft tune, trying to ignore the murky red all over, instead focus on the light scent of lavender and the gliding of the soap through your hair. You close your eyes and let your mouth fall open, a melody plucked from a memory now dull and faded, the sound clear and bright.

Losing yourself in the rises and falls in the melody, voice opening and notes falling out as your muscles remember what it is to have sound flow and gush from your belly out into the world. No body, no mind, no cold, no blood-

All of a sudden, a loud brightly coloured heap burst through the foliage and breathlessly plunged into the river, flailing erratically. You attempt to preserve your unmentionables with your hands, your lilting voice turning to shrill yelps. You submerge yourself lower, shoulders barely peeking out over the disturbed waves. In contrast, the intruder, exploding out of the water as frantically as he fell in, spluttering and coughing “Y/N! You can - cough - sing! You can sing!! - cough -”

Oh, thank the Gods.

“JASKIER! GO AWAY!”

“But Y/N! -cough - You sounded lovely! I-”

“I’M NAKED JASKIER FUCK OFF!”

Jaskier slapped his hand to his eyes immediately and scrambled back up the bank, stumbling as he managed to regain his footing and ran off, his back to you whilst still covering his eyes.

You had not expected them to be back so soon. Truth be told you had not known how long they had been gone when you woke but then why hadn’t you heard them coming back?

Not focusing again. Fuck! You know you can’t afford to get lost in your own head again, stupid girl. What would have happened if it had been someone else hearing a-

He heard. Geralt too probably with his enhanced senses.

Fucks sake.

It had just been so long since you had let your voice be free. You hadn’t let your companions hear you so much as hum on your travels as you were sure that it would make you come across as a silly little girl. With Jaskier it was different. He is a poet, a bard. He had been studying it for many years whereas you had pipe dreams growing up like every other lass in the village. You sang in school with a wide smile and a voice that rang like a bell, you sang on holy Fridays with fingers interlaced and the plume of your mothers rouge on your cheeks. Nothing compared to the grand halls and festivals that Jaskier would perform at. Gods you hoped he wouldn’t speak of it again. You were sure that they would take you even less seriously now.

You’ll show them

Just go back to camp and pretend it didn’t happen. Say there was a girl wandering nearby and Jaskier should go and chase her before she is lost to the woods forever.

If this carries on, get yourself killed or someone else hurt. You know that Geralt can’t let that happen. He’ll probably drop you off in the town and wish you luck because you’ve become more stress than your skills are worth. You get it, you do.

It will just be so hard getting used to being alone again.

Your head is spiralling again. You need this to stop. You think of the meditation that Geralt showed you. You can't meditate, you're still naked in a river! Tears escape your eyes as you just can’t organise your thoughts into any kind of action. You can't run naked through the woods, you can't turn up in your sopping wet clothes, you’re no help on hunts, you’ve let your biggest comfort turn into your biggest embarrassment because you just can’t think straight.

“Y/N! I - I’m not looking! I have your clothes you left them back at camp”

You look up to see Jaskier was inching closer, eyes covered by one hand, your dry pair of clothes draped over his other forearm. He was inching closer, his toes probing to see if he had gone too far. Once his foot had felt the sploshy bank he stopped and held his arm out. You were sure that he had not heard you cry but you didn’t want the lump in your throat to give it away. You rose out, plucked the clothes from him and he promptly scampered off, one hand still across his eyes for some reason. You let out your breath, finding it had slowed due to holding it in for so long. You wrung out your hair as much as you could before flinging your trousers and shirt on with shaking hands. You were sure you could sleep right on into the next day.

At camp

Jaskier had fumbled back to camp, drenched and squelching till he could hear the soft wooshing of roach’s breath. Geralt was sat, sorting the things they had brought from market.

----------

Jakier was stumbling giddy from when he had first encountered the river, his mind rushing as he made his way through the trees.

That voice! Hesitant, yet rich and full and resonant. Thick with the weight of being tied inside her chest, it would take some practice to let her voice flourish and fly like he knew it could, but that was no matter! With his brief but busy year being a professor at Oxenfurt under his belt, he scoured through the plethora of exercises and scales that he had stored away. Her warm tone, he thought, would contrast beautifully with his chipper and airy voice.

In his head flashed scenes of the two writing together, performing together, studying together. Jaskier, Poet of the continent accompanied by-

“What did you do Jaskier”

The voice came firm and gruff, as opposed to the often exasperated or gentle (rarely was there anything in between) tone his witcher friend usually employed when he was addressing the bard.

Jaskier’s ear wide grin faltered as Geralt towered over him.

Knowing the flirty way of Jaskier and seeing him dripping before him, hearing the shout of “IM NAKED” and honing in his ear, he was presently hearing the soft gasps of Y/N, he could not help but draw himself to conclusions, knowing that human men, even those whom one trusted could turn to be worse than the monsters in his quests. When the fathers and trusted lovers of innocent women could turn as quickly as the page of a book, what was a loose and often unashamed bard that he happened to know for a few years?

He grabbed the young man by his soaking collars

“What the fuck did you do”

Somewhere between a growl and a roar, the words seethed from Geralt as he heard Y/N’s sharp breaths mix with sobs she was trying to silence.

After that night, he knew his small friend would need some time. They had both been exhausted, his head pounding from the potions he had used, he didn’t speak much to her apart from some abrupt criticism after the last alghoul was taken care of. He didn’t know much about teaching or guiding, or comforting for that matter, but he figured letting her sleep in would do no harm and he had bought some apples for her to feed roach. That helped him. The thought that she should be thrust from one horrid altercation to another at the hands of his first companion filled him with rage. These thoughts raced through his head while he attempted to decipher Jaskier’s words through this sudden wave of protectiveness.

Jaskier was chuckling, almost about to pat his massive friend on the head like an overreactive hound,

“I fail to see why you’re so wound up, dear witcher. I simply sought to find the source of the singing, and it turned out to be Y/N! Marvellous isn’t she?”

“Why are you wet.” Geralt demanded.

truth be told, he was so used to hearing Jaskier’s voice or lute, he simply dumped the noise into that category. Thinking back, it was different. Still musical, but different. Jaskier’s sound seemed to sit on the wind and flit and glide like a bird while this new sound was earthy, full, round, blending with the flow of the river and almost raw, coarse and slightly unsteady like a horse that had run for the first time out of market.

“I was simply mesmerised, Geralt. " he sighed, sagging slightly in the bigger man's grip " I was convinced it might be a water nymph, that I might catch it, steal some ideas for melody and- and then let the poor thing go of course, but”

“Why is she crying Jaskier”

The girl’s sobs had subsided slightly, but her breath was shuddering and shallow. He knew when she got like this, it was hard to get back down. He had expected it sometime today but usually, he could smell the fear rising, notice the scrunching up of her small frame, and make sure the trio were alone, quiet, ready.

“Crying? Whatever do you mea-”

The focused and worried look on Geralt’s face clicked in Jaskiers’ head and he felt a wave of guilt wash over him

“Oh gods, shit. Shes alone. What do I do Geralt? Can you hear her?”

The stream came pouring out his mouth as he paced around the camp, his eyes landing on a pile of neatly folded clothes.

“ Jaskier go back and give them to her. Slowly. She’ll come back in her own time”

Geralt listened intently while Jaskier went to return the garments. It surprised him that the sound of his younger companion trying to catch her breath like it was a feather in the wind was the same person who had made such a pleasing sound not very many minutes ago.

It stopped.

He couldn’t hear her breathe, but Jaskier was calm. He heard the rustling of clothes and the damp footfall of the bard returning. He turned his attention back to her again. He was afraid that after the episode, holding her breath would cause her to topple back into the river. Stupid. He should’ve thought of that beforehand. She didn’t. Strong lass. He heard her breaths less shallow as her hair dripped and her clothes were back on.

He was reassured now and started to take out the apples from the small fruit sack.

“Well if she was crying, she isn’t any more” stated Jaskier, almost reassuring himself that his clumsiness couldn’t have hurt his friend.

He proceeded to look for his woollen blanket, laying it out carefully, waiting for his friend to return.

A/N

Thank you so much for reading! Its the first time I've started writing after a long time, if you have any constructive criticism please leave it in the comments :)

I've started a new AO3, Tumblr page and page on Fanfiction.net which will hold my fics too. same username :)

I am very pernickety when writing which is why it's been hard for me to upload anything in the last few years and why it might take a little time for me to upload new chapters but please stick around :D

PART 2