[ CLOSED ] let these bones be the giver

[gynvael]

Who: Geralt + Various
When: Mid-January
Where: Cadens, Horizon
What: Dealing with a sudden onslaught of new memories
Warnings: Spoilers for The Witcher S2, trauma, discussion of torture, etc. NSFW marked.



placing starters in the comments below. find me at discontinued or at Noa#1979 to plot stuff!

since geralt has been officially canon updated to the end of s2, just let me know directly if you want to have a zero spoiler interaction and i can set the threads pre-canon update for these cases.

Comments

[gynvael]

[ They've reached new heights of pitiful. Didn't think it possible, but Moglad has done it. Geralt watches the moogle sweep up the shattered sweet with a sigh. He hasn't got the heart to tell Moglad that it missed cleaning most of the mess. He walks over to quietly push the remainder under the counter with his boot.

Facedown. Yeah. He's seen that before. Usually when a countess or other broke the poet's heart. Except this is not a broken heart.

He's always known Jaskier. Knows him better than anyone. Even with the year between them, but this. It sits with jagged edges inside him. He can't tell exactly what's wrong. Jaskier won't talk to him about it. Not that he believes Jaskier owes the truth to him. It isn't that. It's more, Jaskier's stubborn refusal to address it means whatever happened has wounded him deeply. Lodged deep.

He could ask what it is Jaskier says when he's drinking and facedown on the floor. He doesn't. Not yet. Instead, he considers what drives these things that exist in their domains. Thinks of the wolf bringing Yennefer straight to him when she'd arrived without her memories. There are pieces of themselves, of who they are, embedded in every crack of their domains. Moglad included.

He carefully picks up the empty bottle and crouches down beside Moglad. This time, he places the candy into the moogle's paws. If it drops it again, then it's a fucking lost cause. ] What's important?

[cointosser]

[Whatever flare of annoyance might have gone through the moogle, it's gone as quick as a flash with the offering of a full, crystalline candy, with a pretty pink tint that sits large on his palm. He spins it and then bites off half of it, his pom lifting higher as he crunches straight through it.

It's no kupo nut, but it'll do. Jaskier only said he couldn't eat all of them; he never said anything about Geralt giving them all to him.

The question gives the moogle pause, tilting his head one way, then the other, as he thinks about it. He looks down at the half candy still in his paw, the taste sweet and light. It's only hardened honey, but it was something Jaskier showed him with a quiet story of his being a kid. Of stealing bags of them and getting whipped for it.

Worth it in the end, Moglad, as all good things are.]

The little things, [The moogle finally answers, and perhaps he sounds perfectly like Jaskier in that moment in what he chooses to say. He looks up at Geralt; stares at him, really. The answer is obvious.] And the big things.

[gynvael]

[ Stranger things, he supposes, than crouched on the floor with a drunken moogle. It crunches the candy, and answers with the sort of expansive ambiguity that Jaskier can be prone to. Geralt's expression grows thoughtful.

Perhaps it says something that Moglad continues to exist in this facsimile of Oxenfurt. Moglad and the birds. Remnants of a time before, in the same way the miniature fern horse remains in the keep. His wolf. ]

Can't protect much if you only know how to grip a bottle. [ A small wooden sword appears in his hands. He holds it out for Moglad to take. This is not, in the end, about Moglad. It's about Jaskier—his apparent desire to keep what's close to him safe. What may have happened to Jaskier, whether Geralt ever ultimately learns the story behind it or not, the act of moving on remains the same. You find what's important and you hold onto it.

Sometimes that manifests in the shape of a winged ball of fur that drinks too much and has the grace of a cave troll.

Besides. What the fuck else is there to do while he's here? ]

[cointosser]

[If it is strange for Geralt to linger around Moglad (and certainly it is), the moogle makes no indication of it. Geralt is more welcome in Jaskier's heart than most, after all. He has a place carved out here, permanently. It's in the smoky smell of the tavern, in the way Jaskier's music lingers in the corners. There are bits of monsters parts as trophies on the shelf between Theories on the Conjunction and The Baudy Six-Fingere Thief. A kikimore tooth there, a striga's lock of hair. They aren't trophies, really. Only bits of memories left behind. Stories solidified.

The moogle's head tilts.] What's that supposed to mean?

[The answer isn't immediately obvious to Moglad. He stares at the sword, paws now licked clean of any remnant of the honey candy. A sword? It can't be for him. He's a bard, after all. Jaskier has only barely been able to sing a few notes, though, and Moglad's afraid he may not even learn any new songs now. Except he'd heard Jaskier humming one under his breath, two bottles deep. The one he liked the most.

The wind doesn't cower to powerful men.

Moglad reaches for the sword with both paws and holds it. Awkward. Unsure. But somehow, in the way his pom straightens up, it looks like resolution.] If you get hurt, it's not my fault, kupo.

[gynvael]

[ If Moglad were to say it, Geralt would simply tell him you can be both things. He's still a bard, if that's he desires. It isn't necessary to bury who you were to become what you need to. (That's a lesson he learned too late, and it is the only time he looks back, wondering. But he was never granted a choice in the same way.)

He knows he's welcome here. The doors wouldn't open if he weren't. Moglad wouldn't speak to him. The distance that's grown between him and Jaskier isn't even deliberate, he imagines. Part of him isn't sure Jaskier is even fully aware of it. Not like that. He gets it, he's been there. Sometimes even those closest to you become too much, suffocating. Sometimes you fear you burden them. Sometimes you fear for yourself. And he could tell Jaskier these things, chase him down until he relents and tells him why the fuck he can't stop hiding his hands, why he won't say more about Oxenfurt, but that's not Geralt's way. He leaves that to Sam, who is far more capable of being delicate upfront.

Geralt's delicacy comes in a different form. He waits and he watches elsewhere. Often, people don't even realize what he knows, what he's learned, and that's how he prefers it. ]

I'd worry about hurting yourself first. [ He reaches out to adjust the sword correctly in Moglad's paws. ] Sober up.

[ It's the Horizon; Moglad is only drunk because he wants to be. Because Jaskier wants to be. ]

[cointosser]

[A sound that is undeniably a complaint comes from the moogle.] Kupo... you're a slavedriver...

[It's as if he's considering it despite his noise, though. Two wolves battle inside Moglad's head. He likes drinking. Drinking is easy! And fun. And not being sober is easy, too. Everything hurts a lot less. He doesn't need to think. He can drink and drink and enjoy himself, feeling warm and okay. Perhaps he can start working on his own songs. In time. Master Jaskier will write again too, won't he?

Or will he not? Will he drown in (delicious, sweet) wine from here on out? Will they never go outside this tavern? Ride the horses together? (Okay, maybe not those horses. Moglad is a little worried about those new horses, with the big teeth.) Already he misses the sun and the smell of the grapes. The little purple flowers that would bloom on the vines.

Moglad looks down. The wooden sword is heavy in his paws. Heavier than a bottle. It symbolizes a lot of things: work, and time, and effort. Time with Geralt.

The moogle did not live through what Jaskier has, but he feels this same longing. This loss of time, heavier than sword and bottle combined. This loss of stability, and safety, and friendship.

Moglad sets the sword down and slaps his cheeks with both paws, fluttering his wings, hard enough that the sound echoes. All at once, his body is not so sluggish, not so weighed down. He picks the sword back up and twirls through the air, a bright red glow to his pom. He thrusts the sword above his head as he poses in the air, renewed. Resolute.] I won't fail you, Ser Geralt!

[gynvael]

[ A familiar complaint. He made it as a boy, dozens of times, because even at his most driven, he was still a child. Still wanting to do only the training that felt fun and not the parts that involved thick dusty tomes and learning how to ink his letters.

He isn't sure what he might do if Moglad chooses to lay back down and drink. The truth is, he doesn't believe Moglad will. He knows his friend well. And he's right.

Ridiculous, to see this creature with a small sword. It makes his lips twitch, nonetheless, if only for half a second. He does not correct the title. Quietly, he wonders how much of it is spoken in irony and how much is spoken in sincerity. Jaskier knows exactly who the he is, what he is. But Jaskier also knows, perhaps better than the Witcher himself, what Geralt should like to be. ]

I know. [ He does, too.

Moglad's small stature means it isn't difficult to craft a little straw figure atop one of the tables. After that, Geralt sets the moogle on its course. The first time he'd met Moglad, he'd plucked it straight out of the air and carried it to Jaskier to ask where the hell it came from. Now he's watching it huff and puff and flap its tiny wings. Strange fucking times indeed. ]

[cointosser]

[The moogle, for whatever reason, takes this new wooden sword very seriously. (It's a gift from someone who never gives them.) He doesn't want to disappoint Geralt. He can work hard! He can be... more than a bard, if it means protecting this place. It may just be a shitty tavern in the middle of nothing, but it was theirs.

It had meant... a lot of things, to a lot of people. It had been an important place.

So he would train. Even if hitting a straw dummy with a wooden sword was not exactly fulfilling, like music. Even if Moglad's body hurt after hours of it, and he would collapse with his little wings fluttering gently against his back. Even if he had bruises under his fur and sometimes he couldn't get his pom to stand up straight.

On those nights, Jaskier would sleep through. Without waking to nightmares, like most nights.

Jaskier, on his part, did not enter the Horizon often. Honestly, he was very much at odds with the Singularity, blaming it for all of this -- or, at least, forcing him to remember it -- and the only reason he had to go to his domain was so he could be alone and drink. Or be drunk immediately. Especially on those nights the nightmares were bad. When his fingers throbbed and he could recall oh so perfectly the flare of heat in them as they burned.

So when he finally does go in weeks after Moglad's first lesson began -- because he's tired of running into people he knows, honestly -- he does not expect to walk into Moglad fluttering through the air, grunting as he hits a -- is that a dummy? In his tavern?

Jaskier practically jumps when he spots Geralt just beyond him, sitting in a chair. Observing.

He blinks. Glances between them. Opens his mouth, closes it, frowns as he tries to put together what, exactly, is happening here.] Er. Am I interrupting something?

[Jaskier sort of vaguely knows Moglad has begun some sort of project, but to be honest, he has not been paying attention to him. Nor much else. His life has been swimming from one bottle to the next, attempting to avoid the very stark realization that he cannot keep doing this much longer, or he will probably die from his liver imploding.]

[gynvael]

[ In reality, Geralt had not meant for this to become a regular occurrence. He'd done it because in that moment, Moglad had sounded hopelessly lost, Jaskier was not here for him to speak to, and Geralt knows of only one way to push forward in life. You pick up a sword and you forge ahead and while you will not make it through unscathed, at least you're standing. When he'd returned the next time, it was only out of a vague curiosity. But he'd found Moglad not clutching another bottle but dutifully spinning in the air with his sword.

So in between scrubbing out the blood inside Kaer Morhen, he comes here. It's as much for himself as it is for Moglad—though he has not missed that on the nights he visits, Jaskier sleeps more soundly in the real world. He knows this because he's taken to sleeping beside Jaskier, who need not say that he prefers not to be alone at night. The days when he's home, he stays. When he's working, he asks Rinwell or Sam to keep an eye on Jaskier.

Only time can truly help. He understands that better than anyone. Time, patience. He enters the tavern not expecting Jaskier to show and yet not surprised either when he finally does.

Time, as he said. ]

No. [ He gestures at the fluttering moogle. There are a few whirling targets in the air, as well, like insects. Moglad can fly. He's had to adapt a thing or two. Geralt's eyes fix on Jaskier. He has his feet propped on a chair, a dagger he's been idly sharpening in his hand. ] He's been waiting to show off to you.

[cointosser]

No?

[His tone is both curious and careful. He clearly is. But when Moglad turns to him, he sees something bright in the moogle's expression that relaxes him, even though some part of him is tense, uneasy, at Geralt being here. Here without him, even. In this tavern in Oxenfurt, far too close to the very thing he is trying to avoid.

He does not think about his blood soaked into the floorboards underneath his boots. The chair where he thrashed.

He's thinking of it --

Moglad invades his space, spinning around his head as he shows off the wooden sword with the notches chipped into it where he must have hit something harder than a dummy. We're practicing! I'll show you my moves, Jaskier!

And so he does. As if the moogle knows exactly where Jaskier's thoughts were going, he begins thrusting, parrying, and slashing at the dummy. Occasionally the sword goes off balance and bounces against the table, or Moglad drops too low and loses his momentum, but it's. It's not what he thought the creature capable of, really, when he said he wanted to be an apprentice to a bard.

Now? Has the Witcher come by to steal his apprentice?] I'm far from a swordsmaster, Moglad, but they're very impressive.

[He gives him a pat on his pom, and a smile that is genuine than most these days. The moogle isn't drunk, either, which he's sort of -- he noticed it weeks ago, apparently when it was relevant.

Jaskier turns to Geralt, still a bit thrown off by this.] So you invade my domain to steal my drink and my moogle? I never thought you capable of such dastardly dealings, Geralt. It's almost nosy of you.

[Says the man who tumbled into Geralt's locked basement door. That was different. He was desperate.]

[gynvael]

[ Jaskier's curiosity is met only with silence. Geralt studies him: how his shoulders tense, the way his heartbeat spikes and stutters over seemingly nothing. This is not the first it's happened. He's caught Jaskier hesitating too long before lighting a candle, if he does so at all. The last time he came home to darkness, Jaskier squinting by some glowing flowers to write in his notebook, Geralt had remarked on it only to receive an irritable response.

At the start, he'd presumed Jaskier's nightmares were from what occurred at Kaer Morhen. Or perhaps what he might've seen while fleeing Nilfgaard's marching armies: the death and destruction they would've left behind. But in the days that followed, he realized there was more to it. By now, two, three weeks later, he's certain of what he suspected. Yennefer had mentioned someone was after Jaskier in Oxenfurt. He'd thought at the time she meant she'd simply found Jaskier running or hiding and helped. Saving my life, as Jaskier phrased it. Then that mage, he'd said...what was it. Saved him a spy mission to Kaer Morhen? How that bastard knew in the first place that Ciri was with him, Geralt hasn't a fucking clue. But he does know the first place anyone searching for Kaer Morhen, for the home of the Witchers, would go: to the one man who has claimed a Witcher as his muse.

The knowledge is a heavy weight. He can't help feeling responsible. It's harder still to understand that he is not. That there was nothing he could've really done. That he can't protect everyone, even if he should want to.

Moglad twirls in the air, then promptly flops over onto the table, spent after his short twenty-second demonstration. (Improvements can be made.) Geralt gives a small shrug. Once, he might've stated that he's no intention of stealing such a nuisance of a creature. He doesn't now. Not that Moglad isn't still a damn nuisance. He's just...also a bit more than that. A bit. ]

He was worried about you. [ I was worried about you. ] I thought he could use something to do besides guzzle every bottle in existence.

[cointosser]

[Jaskier regards his friend in turn, only giving Moglad a cursory pat as he all but falls over. (He understands the feeling.) He cannot help but understand he is being scrutinized; and that, is perhaps, why Geralt is here in the first place.

He thinks he should have closed this place off to him, knowing he never would.]

I see. [He looks to Moglad to see, truly, how worried he was, but the moogle is nodding, so it seems to be the truth.] I cannot imagine what you two have to be worried about. I'm quite obviously thriving.

[He really is not sure what to make of this. It's not a bad thing, of course; he doesn't think Geralt capable of doing so to him. Not intentionally, not using the Horizon. And Moglad does look happier. Or more fulfilled, at least, as he sits up and clutches his sword tightly.

I didn't drink that much! Moglad says, as Jaskier adds:] Oh, please. Look how small he is! He doesn't drink that much.

[He narrows his eyes a moment, contemplating.] You're teaching him... swordfighting? [Well, clearly, but the moves, he thinks, did not come from a few days of teaching. Nor did the bruises, or the pain he sees Moglad move with. An echo of the bruises he once felt lining his sides, down his back.

Swordfighting. Like with Ciri? he thinks. My. Geralt has grown quite the paternal side in this time apart. One that Jaskier... already knew was there, really. He simply doesn't understand what that side is doing here, showing its face, in his domain.] You know, he isn't real. None of this is.

[And as he says it, Moglad holds the sword against his chest, hugging it like a child may hug a beloved stuffed bear.] I don't see the point of it.

[gynvael]

[ Jaskier's response is not particularly surprising. The Horizon is a convenient thing. It can be real when you wish it to be, and it can be not for the times when one prefers to not acknowledge what lurks inside it. He remembers thinking the same, remembers Yennefer telling him the same, when she had arrived here without her memories. Not as herself and yet entirely as herself. The wish, too. The entire idea of Destiny. Being drawn together. It's not real. It wasn't real. And then you try to forget it. Why allow what isn't real to haunt you? ​

He's learned it isn't so simple.

There's a lot he could say. He could tell Jaskier to take the sword from the moogle, then, if it isn't real. He could point out that Jaskier could easily make Moglad as cheerful as he once was, that he controls his moods and desires. That Moglad only appears upset right now because Jaskier himself is upset by his own words. That he knows Jaskier will not, cannot, do any of these things, because the truth is, Moglad exists as more than a superficial, amusing creation.

He doesn't. Jaskier is already aware. He doesn't need Geralt to tell him, as though he were a child, because though Jaskier may occasionally have the disposition of one, Geralt knows he is not. He's lived through much more than some men. And Geralt is not teaching Moglad swordfighting to make a point or to secretly try to steer Jaskier towards a certain path. He's teaching him because it makes him feel like at least he's doing something, because regardless of what is real or not real, what does or doesn't have a fucking point, there is one tangible effect he has found: ]

On the nights I come here to spend time with your small friend, you sleep easier.

[cointosser]

[It isn't real. Though it was only weeks ago -- even less, really -- he wonders why he bothered with all that time spent working on the vineyard now. What had it gotten him in the end? Not that he needed to have a point, but... all it had done was take time away from his body. It almost feels like a waste. All of that time he could've spent doing things. With the heart and energy to do so.

When he could sleep through the night. When he didn't call his attention to a fire in the room when it snapped and crackled.

He moves behind the bar with practiced grace, grabbing a bottle off a high shelf to pour himself a drink. Whatever this is, or what it's supposed to mean, if it means anything... he does not want to approach it sober.

It probably means nothing. Maybe Geralt's domain is a shithole too, and he'd rather be here. Or it's the same old Kaer Morhen, and he now knows it no longer looks that way.

Jaskier pauses with his back to Geralt, squeezing the neck of the bottle.] Is that it, then? You were worried about me?

[gynvael]

[ His gaze remains fixed on Jaskier for a little longer before he shifts away. It is worry. He has never been blind to how despair can consume one so thoroughly, but the way it clawed at everyone he knew—Vesemir, Triss, Yennefer—it leaves his heart heavy. Because he understands. He more than understands. But it doesn't mean he wants to watch it happen again and again.

It doesn't mean he wants to see it swallow his friend, too. ]

Yeah. [ The answer arrives quiet, soft. ] That's it.

[ Jaskier can tell him he's fine, that there isn't anything to worry about. Geralt will accept it. They both know those are words spoken for a reason other than making the other believe them. It isn't important. It only matters that Jaskier knows he's here.

At some point, he will have to tell Jaskier he knows. He simply does. He just isn't certain when, how. He's aware it's a secret Jaskier intended to keep. Jaskier just keeps secrets poorly from him. Geralt knows him too well. Knows how his hands feel on his skin, knows that the smooth scars on the tips of his fingers when Jaskier grabs hold of him at night are not the same ones as the calluses once there. Geralt bears several burns of his own; he's more than familiar with the scarring it leaves behind. ]

[cointosser]

[The glass neck of the bottle whines under his grip. It is really that simple. He was worried.

Jaskier has had so little cause to ever worry the Witcher, he thinks. He stays out of the way. Out of danger. He has always stood several paces back behind him, where it is safe. And now, because he drinks wine and goes to taverns and lays in bed far after he's awoken, Geralt worries.

A second passes. Two. Moglad is quiet, but Jaskier feels the moogle's eyes on him.

He sets the bottle back on its shelf without pouring anything, the candles on the walls lighting up a little brighter.]

You know, I imagine it's a rare, rare chance for an outsider to ever witness Witcher training. [He turns back from the bar shelves as if he'd never approached them, taking out a chair across the table from Geralt and taking a seat. He kicks up his boots onto the table.] So you must show me how you've been training Moglad, to have him pick up the sword so quickly.

[Moglad stands, a light glowing in his pom. I'd be happy to show you, Master Jaskier!]

[gynvael]

[ If Geralt hears the whine, he doesn't react. But a tension in his shoulders does ease when Jaskier places the bottle down and joins him at the table. He leans back in his chair. ]

He's a persistent little bastard. When he has a mind to be. [ Like you. Jaskier has always been too stubborn for his own good. Perhaps Geralt has, too. It's only that their stubbornness drives them in opposing directions. Geralt, determined not to let anyone in; Jaskier determined not to be kept out.

He knows who won that one in the end. It is not a battle he minds losing.

The fuzzy creature demonstrates what he has learned without hesitation. Geralt's taught him not much. The simplest forms that his stubby body could handle. But his wings do give him something of an advantage, and the moogle ducks and weaves in the air. What he lacks in grace and technique, he makes up in enthusiasm.

In reality, Geralt's eyes are on Jaskier rather than Moglad: curious, maybe an edge of fondness—wondering what Jaskier really thinks about all this. He must find it as fucking ridiculous as Geralt does, but. Maybe there's something to it, too, watching this manifestation of a moogle swing his miniature sword about. ]

[cointosser]

As I well know. He had to be persistent to survive my lessons.

[As am I. Yeah. He gets it. It's all double-speak, which is terrible enough when he's sober. Or. Is he sober? He supposes he could ensure that he was no longer, if he wanted to be. The Horizon makes it so fucking simple.

For Geralt's sake, he doesn't.

And for Moglad's sake, if he's being honest.

What the moogle has learned still impresses Jaskier. At first he watches it sitting back, but he ends up sitting on the edge of his seat, hands rubbing together between his legs. Going from a few parries and neatly slashing across a dummy, coming from being a little creature who'd only learned to be a bard, is still quite a lot. Like himself, Moglad is a good student. He takes it seriously. Listens. Stubborn, persistent.

This is getting far too personal.

When Moglad spins, fluttering, to give a bow with his sword, his little chest heaving, Jaskier claps for him.] Wonderful, my lad! You're doing wonderful. Truly. It's a very rare treat, you know. Geralt can hardly stand most long enough to talk with them, let alone train them. [He gets up, letting Moglad put down the sword before he pulls him into a hug, a careful squeeze.] You must keep going, all right? I want to see what you'll be capable of.

[If possible, the moogle flushes. I had no intentions of stopping, kupo!]

I'm sure you have no objections, Geralt?

[No. He already knows.]

[gynvael]

[ He makes a soft noise. ] He talks less when he's swinging a sword.

[ The comment is less biting than the words would indicate. No. No objections, if Jaskier hasn't any. He watches them for a little while longer. He knows Moglad is only a creation, but much like his wolf, much like Roach who appears in the Horizon -- long a black mare, as she is out in the real world -- they are still worthwhile companions. He had ruminated on this before, once. How real it is. If it matters.

But Julie is right. If it feels real, then nothing will change that. Nothing will make it feel any less so.

Sometimes he still thinks about the girl who appeared to him in this place. She was not at all the girl he had found in the woods. A blank doll at best. But she had been real, in a different way. Someone he had protected and failed.

When he stands, he gives Moglad a pat on the head as he passes by, but it is on Jaskier's shoulder where his hand lingers. ] I'll see you at home, Jaskier.