#tldr: witchers clean the lands so jaskier breeds more creatures to give them jobs

[jaskiersvalley]

Your fic Nontraditional was amazing! I love it when strong, brooding characters are protected and allowed to be vulnerable and cared for. Especially when they are used to everyone expecting them to protect, provide and care for everyone. Great job! 💛💫

I am so pleased you liked Nontraditional! We’re both in the same boat of loving strong, brooding characters being allowed to be vulnerable and cared for. Which got me thinking about another small ficlet idea...

Work was drying up. Over the centuries and decades, people were slowly learning how to create fewer and fewer monsters, how to bury their dead and be respectful. Which was great in terms of death by creatures but not so great for witchers who were struggling to make ends meet. They were a dying breed, Geralt hadn’t seen any of his fellow wolves in a long while. He didn’t know if they were still alive. The last witcher he’d seen had tried to kill him for a contract on a few sad drowners of all things. As much as Geralt hadn’t wanted to fight and was willing to bow out of the contract, the other witcher was still threatened by him. Much to Geralt’s chagrin, he ended up with a dead witcher and a small pouch of coin for taking care of the drowners.

The whole continent was mostly clean. Except for one little pocket near the coast. It was a veritable hotbed of creatures and nobody could figure out why. Cockatrices roamed the region along with drowners, werewolves and basilisks. Slowly, Geralt made his way over and found that there was an almost steady source of income. He’d heard whispers of a couple of other witchers nearby and he stayed clear of them as much as possible until he was tackled to the ground with a yell by not one but two familiar idiots.

Lambert and Eskel looked surprisingly well compared to rumours about the fate of witchers. Given the scarcity of contracts, they had decided to team up but Geralt suspected their partnership went deeper than just fighting side by side. And the fact that they didn’t offer Geralt the chance to join them made it all the more obvious. Though, if Geralt were to be crude, he could have just admitted that their scents had blended over time into one curious mix but he didn’t want to think much about it. And definitely not because he was jealous that they had each other. It had been so long since Geralt had any kind of companion, not since he and Jaskier had parted ways.

Rumours of a manticore reached them before Geralt left the two to their own intertwined path. It was a big job for one witcher to deal with, two stood a better chance but the money was good enough that the three could work together. So they did, their prey was rampaging through some old woods near an abandoned mansion. It was oddly easy work, the manticore raged against them but it didn’t seem to have the wild streak of previous hunts. If anything, it seemed almost as docile as a manticore could get.

“This was too easy,” Geralt grumbled as he watched Lambert take the head off as proof of their success.

“This region has been, the monsters are there but they’re tame. Even the cockatrices feel hand reared by a gentle soul than a master,” Eskel agreed.

They knew what they had to do, find the source of the monsters. There was nothing natural about the cluster of creatures in the area, all the type that involved no death of humans. It seemed that the witchers had a benevolent is eccentric benefactor who wanted to keep them busy and with ample coin. Such thoughts made all three of them bristle, they were not some kept beings reliant on someone’s generosity to stay alive.

Their searches led them to smaller and smaller segments on the map, narrowing down the source of the creatures. It had to have both forests and waterways nearby to serve as breeding grounds for the variety of creatures spawned. And it needed to be a relatively isolated but large, private area too. They boiled it down to the abandoned mansion where they had found the manticore.

“It’s the old Lettenhove mansion. The old Viscount still lives there but nobody’s seen him. Has a young lad come do all his business in his stead.” The local alderman was more than happy to tell three angry looking witchers whatever they wanted. “Buys a lot of unusual things, leftovers the market doesn’t take. We have no idea why but really, money is money so we don’t question it.”

Suspicious. And the name sounded familiar to Geralt, even if he couldn’t place it. In the end, he chose to not worry about it, they needed answers and a fool to educate in creatures. Though, given the wide range the idiot could create, it seemed that they were familiar with monsters already.

They didn’t bother knocking, instead choosing to barge through the door. Everything looked old, worn but clean, comfortably lived in. A three headed puppy scampered up to them, barking in excitement and an all too familiar voice was calling from a room off to the side of the hall, chastising but fond at the same time.

“Don’t worry about Roach, only the middle head nips now!” And Jaskier walked out into the entrance hall. “Oh. It’s you.”

He looked no different to the day they parted ways, youthful and vibrant, only the look in his eyes betrayed he’d lived a lifetime or more. They were old, had a stare to them that spoke of hurt and love and joy and so many other things.

“Jask.” Geralt couldn’t believe it. But it was definitely his bard, there was no doubt about it. “What is the meaning of this?”

Lambert and Eskel turned to look at Geralt like he was the one with more than just one head. It was a rich look coming from Eskel who had picked up the pup and was trying to stroke three chins at once with one hand.

“Come on, Geralt,” Jaskier looked a little offended, “look around you. You witchers have done too good a job and were dying because you weren’t adapting. So I made sure you had something to keep you going. Nothing too dangerous mind you.”

“A manticore not too dangerous?” Lambert cut in with a sneer.

“Oh hush now, Buttercup was the epitome of manticore etiquette. She didn’t even throw you around too hard.” He actually had the gall to look a little upset and grief stricken. “Anyway, you’re here now. So tell me, do you want to keep this charade up? Or are you ready to get with the times?”

The idea of being kept like pampered hounds, let out for a hunt that was entirely engineered was something that rubbed them all up the wrong way.

“We’re not your pets.” Despite his reputation as the softest of the three, it was Eskel who gritted that out, establishing the boundaries and rules he felt were needed. Instantly, Jaskier was agreeing and spouting about how he was merely helping out friends and future friends because he was certain they would get along nicely once introductions were made. He was simply anticipating things.

There were rooms already prepared for them, Geralt didn’t want to think about how long Jaskier had been prepared for their arrival. Nobody said anything when there was some noise in the middle of the night and in the morning, Lambert’s room was missing its bed while Eskel’s had gained an extra one pushed against his. Three days later, the two single beds were replaced with one large one without anyone seeming to know how it happened.

The grounds were split up into areas and Jaskier showed them around, pointing out where he encouraged toads to breed and his chickens so he could hatch the odd basilisk. And the cockatrice cavern, plus the manitcore habitat which was empty for now.

“I’ll keep releasing a couple of them every one and then,” Jaskier informed them. “There might be more witchers out there in need of a helping hand. But I’ve also put out whispers of invitations. If they’re out there, they might heed the call.”

The question of how he managed to release them off the estate safely was met with a laugh and an “I sing and they follow, silly” which they all decided was Jaskier’s way of telling them off for being too nosey.

The more time that elapsed, the less hope any of them held for other witchers. Yet Jaskier never gave up hope. He was proven right in his optimism when a knock on the doors revealed a tired and scarred man he’d never seen before. Introductions were made, Coen was shown to a room and he was settled in too.

It was the middle of a storm when frantic knocking had Jaskier opening the door. A boy from the nearby village was out of breath, panting about a witcher collapsed on the edge of the woods, the villagers didn’t dare approach but he wasn’t looking to be in good shape. Jaskier ended up riding out with Geralt to investigate. Rushing Vesemir back to the mansion, Jaskier was surprised when Geralt was calling for all the others who crowded into the room.

Pushed to the back, Jaskier watched as Eskel and Coen took over, bossing the other two around to light a fire, get water, throws and the like. It was quite mesmerising. But it was efficient and worked. All too soon, Vesemir was propped up and drinking a warm tea while his pups were gathered around him.

“So, run this by me again,” Vesemir was saying. “This place is run by the human who used to be Geralt’s bard?”

Murmurs of agreement and Vesemir was twisting to look beyond the others until he laid eyes on Jaskier who waved merrily.

“Okay if he’s Geralt’s human, why the fuck does he look so young?”

Oh shit. Jaskier paled and his smile turned a little cheeky as the witchers looked at him.

“How long do humans live then?” Lambert asked, he wasn’t known for being the most knowledgeable outside of monster facts.

A small, nervous laugh erupted from Jaskier. “Funny you should ask, I’m not actually sure.”

“So what are you?” Eskel asked.

“I’m Geralt’s bard.”