#yes I'm unable to let Jaskier die

[belettewrites]

Warnings: Destiny is a bitch and is prejudiced against witchers. And very temporary character death.

There are a lot of reasons why Destiny likes to play games with Geralt of Rivia. The first one is purely spite: the witcher denies her existence a lot, and, well, that would be enough to piss anyone off, wouldn’t it?

The second reason is that he’s a witcher. The fact that witchers exist is an abomination in itself. They're monsters created by men, they shouldn't be here; Melitele didn’t put them here, and though some tried to argue with Destiny that since Melitele had given humans the strength and cleverness to make Witchers and therefore they *had* a place there, she didn’t agree.

The other witchers, she can close her eyes (the ones from the cat school actually manage to entertain her), but this one? The one with the extra mutations who always manages to deny her existence, while he is the one that shouldn't be here? Oh boy.

So when a young bard makes his way toward the brooding witcher, she smiles. That one will be perfect. She’ll plague the witcher with him, make sure that they meet again and again and again. For such a silent man, a bard talking constantly will be unbearable. 

Except the Witcher ends up liking the bard, and the bard has the nerve to repair the Witcher's reputation that she had oh so carefully tainted over the years (her proudest accomplishment being Blaviken).

So Destiny figures out that if she wants the Witcher to suffer, she has to use the bard in a different way: the djinn happens. Jaskier suffers, and Geralt too, and then the Witcher has the fucking audacity to tie his fate with someone else, thus taking Destiny's choice away. She's furious at first, and then she realizes that this wish actually makes the Witcher feel guilty. Bonus point: the bard suffers too, the poor jealous thing.

She's there as Geralt calls on the Law of Surprise. She's delighted to see this happen − and then the fucking Witcher denies her existence one again. Clearly, Destiny has had enough.

Soon Nilfgaard is marching toward Cintra, and she waits for Geralt to find his Child Surprise – no chance he'll deny her existence now. But she's busy; the dumb Witcher gets dumped by the beautiful sorceress, and in exchange he dumps his bard. Truly, a very entertaining afternoon.

She watches as the bard walks down the mountain. He'll have to stay alive, she thinks, so she'll still be able to torture the Witcher more. Sure, his death could be the cause of an extreme guilt and grief to the Witcher, but she has other plans for them.

And then the bard manages to get killed while she wasn't paying attention. Damn humans.

Destiny won't have it this way though; she's fucking Destiny herself, this bard will live. Except she can't bring humans back to life, because of a stupid rule someone edited thousands of years ago. So she can't bring humans back to life, but she can create gods. She's their mother, in a way. A cruel one, but their mother nonetheless. And because Destiny likes to play games, she considers making the bard the god of Witchers. But a god of Witchers would mean that Witchers fit in nature, and they do not (whatever her sisters, brothers, and siblings, say).

She smiles to herself. Witchers hunt monsters, don't they? The bard will be the god of monsters. She cannot wait for the Witcher to realize what his friend has become.

She watches with attention as the bard wakes up in the clearing he died in a month ago. It's a bit cliché, maybe, but Destiny likes the tableau it makes either way. Oh, the confusion on the bard's face is so sweet. She'll give him time to discover what he has become before she puts him in the Witcher's way. She wants him to be eaten by guilt as he reunites with his old friend, unable to tell him what he has become.

Why did she wait a whole month to bring the bard back to life? So that his Witcher would be able to find his body, of course, and think that his friend was dead. Destiny had discovered, that day, that the rumor saying that Witchers don't cry was false. Oh, he didn't burst into tears, but she saw the few ones that fell on the ground as he held the body of the bard in his arms. She had made sure to preserve it, so the witcher would have no other choice but to realize that he had indirectly killed his friend.

The witcher actually finds his Child Surprise after that – Destiny has conveniently placed her on his path. The child is a sweet girl, she thinks, already plagued by nightmares of Cintra falling. She'll spare her, Destiny decides. For now.

The bard learns of his new powers when he actually summons a griffin to his side. The man yelps, scared, and Destiny laughs as he calls for his witcher before remembering their fight. She made the right decision, to turn him into that. Then the bard pets the griffin and she frowns. He's unpredictable, it might cause some problems in the future.

The bard reunites with his witcher when she isn't paying attention. She was busy watching a cat witcher take a contract for a human, then steal the human's gold. Entertaining. She quite likes these cat witchers.

When she realizes that the Witcher and the bard are together again, she pays closer attention, smiles as the Witcher glares at his friend, his silver sword on the bard's throat, the Child Surprise hidden behind him.

Then she screams in frustration, because the bard says something to the witcher that makes him put his sword away, and hug him.

And then they're traveling again, and they both seem happy to be in each other's presence.

So Destiny sends them the ugliest, most dangerous monster she could find, knowing that the bard will have to reveal himself if he wants his friend to survive. And the bard does it, quite dramatically; it's like he knows he has an audience. She always appreciated that from the bard, how he would put up a show even if he was alone – because after all, Destiny was always watching, and he made an amazing actor.

To say that she's disappointed when the reveal doesn't go as planned would be an understatement. The witcher doesn't hurt the bard, doesn't send him away, doesn't snarl at him. No. None of that.

The witcher... smiles softly and says that he expected something like this, since Destiny always likes to fuck him over. And hey, he’s right, but Destiny wanted him to send his friend away, in a repeat of their fight on the mountain. Instead what the Witcher does is-

It's-

It's so unexpected that Destiny forgets to be mad as the Witcher cradles his bard’s face and kisses him softly.

Destiny realizes then what she has done, what has happened, why her plan didn't work. She made the bard immortal. Now he and the Witcher will be together forever, because, apparently, they love each other. And it makes sense now, it all makes sense because of course they'd choose to defy her again by falling in love.

Of course her plan wouldn't work then, because the witcher would choose his bard even if he was the god of the things he hunted. 

What has she done, now they'll be able to live forever, to defy her forever-

No, actually, you know what? Good. Because that means that Destiny will be able to play with them a little longer.

[flowercrown-bard]

A Happy Man

(@thingr2 you might like this? It kind of has 'birds still sing' vibes. Please tell me if I should stop tagging you in stuff)

"Are you happy?" Geralt asks. He's pretty sure he already knows the answer, but he needs to hear Jaskier say it.

Jaskier's spoon stops half-way to his mouth. Soup is drizzling back into the bowl but Jaskier doesn't seem to notice. He's too busy staring at Geralt like he had just asked him to sell his lute. The steam rising up from the soup fogs up Jaskier's glasses and obsures his eyes, but the bewildered expression is no less effective for it.

"What's brought this on?" The spoon clatters, as Jaskier let's it fall back into the bowl. Some of the soup splashes onto the woolen jumper he's wearing. He hadn't worn the extravagant doublets in a long time, said there's no need for that anymore and that he prefers comfort over luxury.

Geralt shrugs. He wants to avoid Jaskier's eyes, but he had unlearned how to tear his eyes away from him ages ago. It had been even longer since he had wanted to.

"I don't know," he says. His fingers drumm on the table - a nervous habit he had adopted from Jaskier. "It's just. You always wanted to have adventures."

A laugh tumbles from Jaskier's lips at that. He reaches out and takes Geralt's hand; a way to share the laughter with him, even if sometimes Geralt still struggles with laughing as loudly and freely as Jaskier does.

"Oh dear heart, I'd say I had my fair share of adventures," Jaskier says, when his laughter dies away. "All these years you try to tell me not to run after you on hunts and now you want me to go on adventures again?"

"I want to know if you're happy," Geralt corrects him softly.

"And why would you think I'm not?" Speaking makes the wrinkles around Jaskier's mouth even more apparent. They come from years of laughing and singing and loudly proclaiming his love for Geralt and yet Geralt can't help but wondering.

"You always wanted to travel. There is still so much of the continent left that you didn't see."

"There is," Jaskier agrees. With his free hand, he gestures towards the painting of the coast hanging on the wall, the collection of knick-knacks on the window sills, that Jaskier had bought on their travels and the stack letters on a shelf, that Geralt had sent to him over the years whenever he had left their home for a little while. "And how lucky I am that I have someone by my side who has seen every part of it and can tell me all about it."

He lifts Geralt's hand and presses a lingering kiss against his knuckles. He doesn't lower their hands back onto the table again.

"You wanted an exciting life," Geralt says.

Jaskier sighs softly and presses his cheek against their joined hands. "And what makes you think I don't have the most exciting life I could imagine?"

There are so many answers to that. So many ways in which Jaskier could be leading a better life, but the way he is looking at Geralt makes all words die away on his tongue.

"Are you happy?" Jaskier asks, when it becomes clear that Geralt won't reply.

Geralt takes in the small room that is filled with mementos of their life together. And he looks at Jaskier, well-fed, healthy and still smiling despite the way his bones would sometimes creak in the morning.

Yes, he is happy. Of course he is. How could there be any other answer, when he gets to be there by Jaskier's side, as he is growing old?

Unable to put any of that into words or even say a simple 'yes' out loud, Geralt simply nods.

Jaskier's face lights up, just the same as it had that time Geralt had told him he liked his songs.

"See?" Jaskier's thumb caresses a small circle into the back of Geralt's hand. "There you have your answer."