#got those

Something— breaks, inside him. The Song, which has always before felt like a living thing unto itself, separate from the man who hosts it, just waiting to be unleashed, expands to fill his lungs. For a moment, Jaskier chokes on the sudden absence of air, before his world narrows down to a single thought: No.

He feels the moment when the magic inside him changes, when the Song becomes a part of him instead of simply a parasite. For the first time since his failed training as a child, he lets it loose.

The first to fall is the bowman in the treeline, the one Jaskier saw but Geralt didn’t. Jaskier is too far away to see his face when his hands turn the crossbow on himself, but he can taste the moment when his body falls from his perch, leaving his fellows without cover.

Geralt has felled four of the remaining bandits, but three still encircle him, and Jaskier can see him slowing.

“A single thread

hangs limply down,

and I breathe,

‘Not now,

not now,’”

All three men pull back from their attack on Geralt in an instant. The witcher doesn’t stay his strike and cuts down the one immediately in front of him before whirling to stare at Jaskier in shock, but Jaskier can’t stop now. The Song isn’t finished. Geralt isn’t safe.

“And I find you all

unwoven,

trying desperately

to sew,”

The two bandits left take jerky steps towards each other, swords raised, eyes wild and terrified. The leader makes a low, despairing sound as his friend’s innards spill beneath his blade.

“And I know the kindest thing

is to leave you

alone.”

As the last man drags his own dagger across his throat, his eyes never leave Jaskier’s.

The magic cuts off abruptly, the Song finished with the death fulfilled. Not Geralt’s death, somehow, not anymore. He’s done what he swore he never would, he’s outed himself as a monster, but Geralt is still warm and breathing behind him, so it was worth it. Whatever fate he meets at his witcher’s hands, it was worth it.

Jaskier can taste nothing but decay and blood, and he doubles over, his stomach heaving painfully as he expels his breakfast.

He’s still hunched over the ground, coughing on the lingering taste of death while spots dance in his vision, when he hears Geralt come up behind him. His footsteps are more tentative than Jaskier is used to. Understandably cautious around an unknown threat, Jaskier thinks bitterly. He’d known it was coming, it’s what he expected, but it still chafes. Most of all, he just wishes he had more time. More time with Geralt, but just more time in general.

Still, he won’t die crouched in a puddle of his own vomit like some beast. Whatever his parentage, he has more dignity than that. He’ll meet Geralt’s silver sword standing tall, and it will still be a better death than he could have met if he’d stayed at home, like his sire had expected. Love doesn’t need to be spoken to be worth dying for, after all.

Except, the spots in his vision don’t fade when he stands, like he’d expected; in fact, they grow. He sways on his feet as the world tilts alarmingly. The last thing he sees before the world goes totally black is Geralt, hands empty of silver or steel, lunging to catch him, his eyes wide with concern.