#the witcher.

“Don’t touch anything.” Geralt’s tone was as stern as ever, even more so considering that is words were aimed directly at Jaskier. That bard could never listen, but right now, the frolicking musician had to, it had the possibility of being life or death for the annoying man.

“Why is he asking me that?” You could only roll your eyes at the question, because it was well known of the poet’s curiosity, and it tended to get out of hand, in a well literal sense.

Jaskier was truly a handful, you’d compare it to having a child companion on each quest, he’d complain about his feet hurting, and do impressions of the notorious witcher. Not once in your 584 years alive, had you ever met someone so irritating, he really ticked you off.

That didn’t mean that you had no care towards the bard, of course you did. Underneath the annoyance he granted you, and made you radiate, there was a small soft spot. But there was one problem, you had experienced it before with other potential partners and friends.

They didn’t live forever, they were mortal. It was inevitable that in the future they would pass on, and become nothing more than a lingering branch of guilt and mourning in your ancient mind.

And you knew, even if Jaskier made an hour of his ballads feel like an eternity, that they were indeed not. They would remain as faint whispers for the next century, bringing you baskets of grief and chalices of tears.

That is why you preferred and took it upon yourself to be the witcher’s partner in work, because, he was younger than you, but with proved Witcher lore, he was to be alive for a very long time.

“I wonder.” You retorted towards Jaskier, which only earned a hum of agreement. He needed to have a better understanding of sarcasm, you thought. But his inability to get a grip on your attitude was not a major concern, it wouldn’t bother him long enough anyways. 

Not at all considering that he was free from the ambient curse of immortality; in some ways you envied him for having such a simple, and short future ahead of himself. The bard had things laid out for himself quite straight forward, though, it was often a miracle how he got out of some scenarios alive.

It was a similar way that he bantered with you and Geralt, but he had used his methods in dire situations, that you had always, and to this day, feared would get him killed. His rugged stupidity sparked a dread that you had not experienced for a hundred years before him; a need to protect him at all costs.

But you would never admit it to the man, for he would grow cocky, and surely far more foolish with his actions. There’d be hearing no end of the shield you wanted to be for him, from both him or Geralt. The witcher, as you knew, would shake his snowy head at your affections, berating you with a reminder for your age and nobility, and how such a simple man would not bring you the satisfaction nor comfort for as long as you lived, for his time would run out, and eventually flail to exist.

You knew however that the witcher was fond of the bard, despite having difficulty of admitting it to himself, let alone anyone else. He had accepted long ago that his road was to be a lonesome one; he was not supposed to feel emotions anyway, accept you knew that was nothing more than a wall of instinct burning behind his amber eyes.

It was something that you had never informed the white wolf of, but he was not the first of his kind that you had travelled with. You were over five times his age, and that amount of years, that flashed with privilege and pain before you, there were many adventures that were accompanied by secrets in your y/e/c lenses.

You had even witnessed the hierarchy of the elves vanquish, and viewed from the outlines, how they squallared, and became pillars to strange lands, hiding in discreet caves. Their royal line crumbled, the survivors, or lack of, cowering away from the likes of mankind, and kept their suffering existence quiet.

The slaughter, and constant disguises of the elves was a vast reason you kept sharing your immortality to a minimum. Many men, if they were plagued with your position would surely brag about it, boasting of the beneficial impacts of a long existence within the confines of a bar after one too many ales.

But not you. Geralt only knew of the circumstances that dragged you from land to land essentially because the pair of you were in the same boat, managing to remain on it despite the spectre wading the oars in the river of repetition being death himself.

Death, oh death. He stole innocent lives at the wake in dawn, trudging away with his ebony cloak sweeping any evidence of his presence, with a fractured soul sound asleep in his arms. Babies were even taken by the thief of life, but he kept ignoring the impossible age you had reached each year, closing a suspecting eye whenever he was pointed in your direction.

His negligence regarding you had sent you on a course of suffering, and abandoning people you loved so that you would not have to bare witness to their eventual withering. A part of you feared you would do the same in regards to Jaskier, even if he knew of your logistics.

“I’m thirsty.” Jaskier pronounced, causing you and Geralt to efficiently roll your eyes simultaneously. His desire to quench his throat with clean water was not on the top of your list of surrounding problems. Sometimes, it was like you were traveling with a child; the man was seemingly oblivious to the fact that you were scouring through the cabin of a witch, after hearing the townsfolk complain to your quarrelsome company that she was starving them out, killing off their essential crops, and polluting their freshly collected pales of water.

“Wait.” It was a simple command, one that you concluded that he would understand and abide by. However, you shouldn’t have doubted his apparent inclination to do things himself. And so, you turned your back, going through the torn pages that had been hastily removed from multiple books concerning methods of dark magic. 

Geralt left through the back door, his sword steady as he searched the outside. That left Jaskier, the bard of the band to his own, and unintuitive devices. That was a fatal mistake on your part and Geralt’s, for he searched through the cabin alongside you, his enquiring eyes landing on an array of bottles. Now he wasn’t stupid, he knew that they were potions, he was within the environment of a witch after all.

But there was a small bucket of water upon the floor, reaching halfway up his shins, which he supposed that she had swept it away from the villagers during her ruining of their vital supply. And so, without much thought other than the necessities that his body acquired, he knelt, and clasped water in the cupping of his hands.

As he groaned, feeling the liquid swirling around his stomach, you instantly dropped the torn paper, collapsing on your knees behind him. “You’re an idiot.” You pried at him, covering your worry with the snap of your remark. “I told you to wait.” You scolded him like a parent, but nothing you felt towards the clumsy man was maternal. 

But he couldn’t be made aware of that, even if he tried his optimistic luck to get through to you with flirtatious remarks. For your paths were of different lengths; there was no end in regards to your own. This life, overall was to be the death of you. By the end of the road, you would only find yourself on another, but by then, you’d have lost yourself, turning into someone that you found insufferable, and loveless.

“Sorry.” He would add more to his response if he could, but he was under a literal and physical, gut wrenching pain. “Am I going to die?” You gulped, taking one more glance at the pitch of water, you smiled at the bard with endearment, stroking through the hair that was laid restlessly upon his forehead.

“It does look like water.” You shrugged, caught up in your attempts of trying to make Jaskier feel betters “Geralt, find the witch!” Your voice bellowed, making the bard that was splayed helpelessly on the wooden floor wince at the volume.

“If I am to die, I am pleased that you will be the last thing that I see with my haunted eyes.” Of course, poetry, it had to slip from his mouth and ruin the tranquil and worrisome moment, but you refrained from pulling a bored expression, and instead hung onto his every which word. “One thing is all I ask.”

“Anything.” Was your instant reply, your fear of losing him rising by the second. It was as you had thought; he would perish, whilst you still remained. The ordeal leading to the end happened a lot sooner than expected though.

“Kiss me with your cherub lips, for I want a sweet ending, one with happiness being my last emotion that renders my mind before...” he trailed off, but the pair of you both knew what he meant.

“Okay.” You were hesitant, to begin with, but this would be your last chance in all of forever to experience such an action with the contagious bard.

And so, sweeping any loose hairs out of your face, you leant down, pressing your ‘cherub lips’, as he had described them to be, down upon his. You had been aiming for a short and innocent connection, but Jaskier intimately deepened it, consuming his last breaths to be through your own.

For a moment, you had gotten lost in the contact, your mind riddled and plagued with the impact of your own curse. But the door that Geralt had left through swung open, and he was astounded by the sight.

“What are you doing?” He tried to hide his surprise, but it was presented through the rise in his pitch. Out of everyone, he had expected Jaskier to be the last for him to see have any sensual contact with a badass woman like yourself.

“Um-“ you began, dreading informing the witcher of Jaskier’s predicted doom. But instead you furrowed your brows at the scroll in the butcher’s hand, attuning your attention onto it, whilst the benevolent bard remained beside you, wishing to taste the inside of your mouth once more.

“The witch is dead.” It was certainly not what you expected, a part of you had wanted to kill her yourself, out of personal vengeance. “She was killing off the people to create a potion of immortality; it should be in a bucket that matched those the villagers used to collect water.”

You stared behind the coughing bard, and at the bard. The idiot had drank an immortality potion. “This spell says a life for a life, I suppose she had not expected it to lay claim to her own.”

“You have got to be the smartest idiot I know.” Sure, Jaskier could have actually gotten himself killed with prioritising his natural needs over the job, but this time, he hadn’t.

“I’m immortal now?” It was a relief for all that he was not going to be whisked away by death, however, the witcher frowned deeply, all his brooding expressions quite similar if you were to be the judge of them.