[Jaskier's little creature flees from their argument into the safety of its enclosure. The bird on Geralt's shoulder takes wing as well, to the safety of the tree branches a short way off. It hops along the length of it, forward and back, like it's too nervous too keep still.]
[Good. These creatures don't need to get caught in the middle of their spat. They weren't involved.]
I know what I fucking said, Jaskier! [Shit-shoveler and burden and the harbinger of all of his troubles. And the bard is many things, not all of them good, but he was not responsible for all of Geralt's problems.] I know that it was fucking cruel.
[Cruel and unfair and left Jaskier thinking that he resented him for the past twenty years. Geralt, it seems, has an issue with careless words-- the reward at the betrothal, the djinn, the mountain. If he still didn't think that destiny's horseshit, he would think that he's destined to be undone by his own words.]
You weren't a maid or whatever the fuck it is you're thinking. I walked the Path for six fucking decades before you and never brought anyone along. Just you. [Not his brothers, not Yen, though she would never have deigned to travel with him, anyway. Just Jaskier, just this one noisy bard.] You always knew when I didn't mean the shit I said. You always knew me. And you always came back.
[Better than anyone else, Jaskier knew him. Better than he knew himself, probably, considering how witchers dealt with the very concept of having emotions. And now his hands are clenched so tightly at his sides that his nails are biting into his palms, probably leaving little half-moon marks in the skin. A bard and a sorceress are the two people who can make the echoes of emotion that he has left flare up, usually for the worse.]
[Jaskier didn't come back after the mountain. Geralt hadn't even been halfway down the damned thing before he regret what he'd said, but there was no bard waiting for him at the bottom of it. He regret it when there was no bard standing next to Roach. He regret it when he started walking the Path again, alone.]
I didn't fucking mean it, Jaskier. I was miserable and angry and I wanted to be left alone, but not for good.
[He was wrong to do it that way, to get Jaskier to leave him to his misery by saying cruel things to him, but he hadn't wanted to deal with what the bard might say, either. Not the gentle things-- undeserved-- nor the I-told-you-so's-- deserved.]
no subject
[Good. These creatures don't need to get caught in the middle of their spat. They weren't involved.]
I know what I fucking said, Jaskier! [Shit-shoveler and burden and the harbinger of all of his troubles. And the bard is many things, not all of them good, but he was not responsible for all of Geralt's problems.] I know that it was fucking cruel.
[Cruel and unfair and left Jaskier thinking that he resented him for the past twenty years. Geralt, it seems, has an issue with careless words-- the reward at the betrothal, the djinn, the mountain. If he still didn't think that destiny's horseshit, he would think that he's destined to be undone by his own words.]
You weren't a maid or whatever the fuck it is you're thinking. I walked the Path for six fucking decades before you and never brought anyone along. Just you. [Not his brothers, not Yen, though she would never have deigned to travel with him, anyway. Just Jaskier, just this one noisy bard.] You always knew when I didn't mean the shit I said. You always knew me. And you always came back.
[Better than anyone else, Jaskier knew him. Better than he knew himself, probably, considering how witchers dealt with the very concept of having emotions. And now his hands are clenched so tightly at his sides that his nails are biting into his palms, probably leaving little half-moon marks in the skin. A bard and a sorceress are the two people who can make the echoes of emotion that he has left flare up, usually for the worse.]
[Jaskier didn't come back after the mountain. Geralt hadn't even been halfway down the damned thing before he regret what he'd said, but there was no bard waiting for him at the bottom of it. He regret it when there was no bard standing next to Roach. He regret it when he started walking the Path again, alone.]
I didn't fucking mean it, Jaskier. I was miserable and angry and I wanted to be left alone, but not for good.
[He was wrong to do it that way, to get Jaskier to leave him to his misery by saying cruel things to him, but he hadn't wanted to deal with what the bard might say, either. Not the gentle things-- undeserved-- nor the I-told-you-so's-- deserved.]