#who wants to draw geralt putting the cord over his neck lol

[rebrandedbard]

Number 16 - “It could be worse.”

My writing method is just chucking prompt phrases into a mixing bowl with Cool Historical Artistry Facts, a pinch of aesthetic, and a dash of lore, baking it in a pressure cooker and seeing what we get and I love that you encourage this.

16. “It could be worse.”

wc: 1738

Thunderstruck

Geralt and Jaskier come face to face with a violent lightning storm and hide out in a cave. Jaskier is afraid of thunder and lightning. Geralt helps him through it.

-

 Zeniths were a spectacle. To be present in the height of a storm, to be in the midst of its power and bear witness to its thrall is a mighty thing, even in its horror. It served as a reminder of one’s insignificance, and what a magnificent blessing it was to be thus. Jaskier stared out at the storm in awe. He jumped back from the mouth of the cave with a shriek as a bolt of lightning crashed down, splitting the bark from a tree not fifty paces away. Strong arms reached out to catch him as he went stumbling backward.

“It could be worse,” Geralt joked.

The thunder’s echo still rumbled through the cave’s walls, dying under the crash of another, and another, the cave never silent. Jaskier covered his ears and scowled at Geralt. “Oh really?��� he asked, raising his voice against the deafening noise. “I feel I’m inside a war drum! I’m jumping out of my skin!” There was a crackling in the atmosphere that stood his hair on end. He’d never experienced anything more frightening in his life, and he’d had to drag Geralt from the edge of death with a mad nightwraith on the prowl.

He shouted and buried himself under Geralt’s arm as another bolt of lightning touched the earth, the sound following not a fraction of an instance after the light flashed. “Why is it touching the ground?” he panted, heart racing in his chest like a frantic horse. His skin was pale in the darkness, almost white, illuminated by the flash of lightning. He shook, his eyes wide with fear. “It’s so close. I swear, a god is trying to smite us, Geralt.”

Another crash outside and Jaskier tucked his head, hands flat against his ears. He whimpered, and Geralt had never known him to show such fear. The fear he knew was comical at times, more urgency or discomfort than any true terror. But this—this was a fear Geralt knew in others. Jaskier reeked of it, and it burned to breathe it in.

Geralt wrapped an arm around Jaskier, leading him back into the depths of the cave where Roach waited. He set to work making camp, removing the saddle and setting out their bedrolls. With a tug, he pulled Jaskier down onto one, then positioned Jaskier so he lay with his head against his arm. He placed his own hand over Jaskier’s other ear so the sound was twice as muffled.

“Close your eyes,” Geralt said. He then made a sign with his hand and a bright purple glow spread over them. The storm seemed to disappear, only the low bass rumbling through. It sounded distant as if their heads were under water.

Jaskier opened his eyes, blinking in the odd glow. He slowly pulled his hands away from his ears, squinting at the pulsating barrier in a dome around them. “Is this …?”

“Quen,” Geralt answered. “It … dampens the noise.”

Jaskier turned his head to look at him. “You used a sign for me? But you said using signs outside of battle was frivolous.”

Geralt did not meet his eye. He shrugged, putting his hands over Jaskier’s ears once more. “It’s a precaution. In case the storm collapses the cave,” he grunted.

“And covering my ears as we lay together?”

“Would you rather I cover your mouth?”

Jaskier managed a nervous laugh. His heartbeat began to slow—cautiously—and his trembling to cease. He closed his eyes once more. To Geralt’s surprise, Jaskier rolled over, tucking his head beneath his chin. Geralt’s hand fell over his shoulders, cradling him.

For a moment, Geralt felt uncertain. But as Jaskier nestled, breathing gently against him, he wrapped his arms more securely around his form. Though there was little need with the barrier in place, he flattened one hand over Jaskier’s exposed ear and used the motion to tuck his head closer. They lay together until the storm passed, the hours fading into sleep.

 Geralt followed the faint hum of his medallion in the early dawn. His boots crunched over the splinter of charred wood. The fragments littered the area, and the tree had collapsed in the night. He found the place they’d been camping before the rain broke over their heads. The wood of their campfire now lay in a soaking pile, barely blackened. Beyond their camp lay the sandy shore of the lake, and it was there that his medallion led.

Upon the yellow sands he crouched. He brushed the sands carefully as he searched. It was something he’d read about before, something left in the wake of powerful storms when the sky reached down to touch the earth. In the old tales, it was meant as a gift from the gods; a promise that no storm should ever again harm the one blessed with it. The stories were so old, he thought they had no true merit, but the medallion made him rethink his position. He felt a solid bump on the surface of the sand and dug around it. As he dug, a strange tendril emerged. Then another, like the root of a tree in its shape.

Geralt dug the lightning from the earth, made solid and harmless. The glass was explosive, its many branches reaching outward, smooth in places where the lightning melted the sand best, grainy in others. He turned it in his hands, struck with wonder. Touching the thin ends of one branch, the glass snapped free. Upon examination he found that it was hollow within; the lightning had escaped its vessel.

Fishing out his dagger, Geralt selected a wide tendril and scored one end. He tapped it with the handle of his dagger and it fell free in his hand with a clean line. He scored it again, tapped, and a ring fell from the glass. After a bit of searching in his bag, he found a sanding block, pasted with dogfish. He sprinkled a pinch of sand over the block and rubbed the sharp ends of the glass ring over the abrasive surface, smoothing them away.

He washed the ring in the lake and tested its edge carefully. When he was sure the edge was dull, he fished a length of leather cord from his bag and looped it around, tying off the ends. He wrapped the rest of the glass in his spare clothes and carried the lot back to the cave.

By this time, Jaskier was beginning to stir.

Geralt tapped his shoulder. “Hey,” he coaxed. “Wake up, I’ve brought you something.”

Jaskier turned over groggily. “Is it breakfast?” he asked. “If it is, you can leave it by the fire. I’ll get to it. Just … twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes indeed. Geralt chuckled and pried one of Jaskier’s eyes opened. “It’s not breakfast. It’s something rare. Something I think you’ll find fascinating.”

“Can’t I be fascinated in the late morning for a change?” Jaskier complained. But in spite of the early hour, he sat upright and rubbed his eyes. “Alright, I’m up. What’s so rare and fascinating? Are we off to see some nigh-extinct bird that only comes out at dawn in this isolated range of the mountain? Some magical fish that walks on land two days of the year during mating season?”

“Give me your hand,” Geralt said.

Jaskier squinted at him in suspicion. “Geralt of Rivia, I swear: if you’ve woken me up to put a bug in my hands, I will spit in your eye.”

Geralt sighed as he reached into his bag. “It’s not a bug. Will you just do it?”

Cautiously, Jaskier held out his hand, still keeping it rigidly close to snatch away should he spy any hint of a creepy crawly thing, whether by leg or antenna. Geralt rolled his eyes and pulled his hand forward. He dropped the ring into his palm, letting the cord drape over the side.

Jaskier’s eye widened and he picked up the ring, inspecting it in the early morning light. The glass was a marbled yellow and white, speckled with flecks here and there of brown and tiny black particles. “Oh,” he whispered in admiration. “Oh, what is it?”

“Fulgurite. Lightning glass.”

“Lightning glass?”

Geralt nodded. “When lightning strikes sand, it melts it into its shape. There are stories of it, though I’d never seen it before. In some stories, the lightning becomes trapped in the glass, released only when it is broken; a punishment from the gods for those who wished to claim their power of nature for themselves.”

He opened his bag and removed the hollow glass for Jaskier to inspect. “There are friendlier stories,” he explained, “wherein the glass is a blessing. After difficult storms pass, a mass of fulgurite is left behind. He who finds it and carries it with him is blessed with fair weather all his days. The hollow in the glass is the eye of the storm, the one place of calm amid the chaos.”

Jaskier poked a finger through the eye of the ring. “Fascinating doesn’t begin to cover it. Song worthy better hits the mark.” He passed Geralt the ring as he packed away the glass once more, but Geralt stopped him, closing his hand around the ring.

“I want you to keep it,” he said. “To protect you. Lightning will never strike near you so long as you wear it.”

Jaskier stared down at his fist, opening it slowly to reveal the cold glass ring within. “I thought you didn’t believe in stories like that,” he replied.

Geralt picked up the ring by its cord and lowered it round Jaskier’s neck. “Some stories—some superstitions—are facts forgotten by time. Whether or not it truly will guard you from storms, we’ll learn in time, but I can feel that there is magic in this.  There are charms in this world, if you know where to find them.”

Jaskier pressed the tips of his fingers to the ring, a small smile tugging his lips. It rested against his collar with a comforting weight. When he looked at Geralt, his eyes were bright and crinkled at the corners.

“Thank you, Geralt.”

He stood up, one hand on Geralt’s shoulder for balance. As he did, he leaned in and pressed a grateful kiss to his cheek in passing, then went to see about getting breakfast started.

Geralt knelt frozen on the spot.

Thunderstruck.