The Quiet Between Verses

The road to Oakhaven narrowed into a ribbon of mud, slick and dark as old blood. Geralt’s mare picked her way through ruts and puddles with the sort of patience that made him grateful for her and mildly resentful of everything else. The sky hung low over the hills, a flat lid of cloud pressing damp into his hair and the seams of his armor. He could smell the village before he saw it—smoke, stale ale, wet wool, the tang of fear that clung to places where something larger than a wolf had begun to hunt.

A wooden sign swung on one hinge where the road broke into town, the paint long washed away. Oakhaven looked like any other place that suffered long winters and tight belts: tired houses with sagging roofs, a small square churned into sludge, a well with a crank that screeched in protest. A pair of boys chased each other with sticks that were meant to be swords until one caught sight of him and tugged the other to a halt. Their eyes followed him with that familiar mix of curiosity and unease. The witcher, then. He dipped his chin to them and kept going.

He found the notice board under a leaning eave, its surface crowded with yellowing sheets: lost sheep, a wife seeking a husband gone to the logging camp, someone offering to mend pots. The griffin contract was pinned with a carved peg. He pried it free and skimmed the hand, the letters jagged and hurried.

Beast with wings, attacks at dawn. Flock taken, shepherd bitten. Nest near North Ridge. Payment: thirty crowns. See Alderman Brovik.

He folded the slip and tucked it into his jerkin. Thirty crowns was light for a griffin. Maybe they expected him to haggle. Maybe they couldn’t afford better and hoped a witcher would take pity. He didn’t do pity, not in the way they meant, but he’d killed worse for less. He would see the alderman, get the details, do the work, and be gone by dawn if the tracks were clean and the weather held. The knot inside him eased at the thought of clear purpose, of metal and motion, of the quiet that followed a job well done.

The tavern crouched on the square’s far edge, old oak beams dark with age. He pushed the door open and was met with heat, sour breath, and a lull in conversation that slipped over him like a wet blanket. He ignored it. A witcher was an event in towns like these, something to be watched with a pint half-raised. He had learned long ago to be a moving fact rather than a sensation.

He took a place near the hearth and unbuckled his sword belts with the practiced care of a man who sleeps with steel. He laid the blades within reach and ordered ale and stew. The barkeep was a woman with arms like tree limbs and an expression that said she had seen enough travelers to know better than to ask questions. She set the bowl down and jerked her chin toward the corner where a man with a ring of keys around his belt held court over a cup. Alderman Brovik, then.

Geralt ate in measured bites, listening. Farmers talking about weather as if talking could keep it from ruining them; a low, anxious rumor about a shepherd’s boy with scars now where his cheek used to be smooth. The word griffin kept coming up, like a pebble worrying a shoe.

When his bowl was clean, he rose. Brovik’s gaze fluttered over him and landed on the swords.

“You’re the witcher,” the alderman said, voice thick with sleep or beer. “Contract still stands.”

“Details,” Geralt said. He held the folded notice out, tapped the line about North Ridge. “You sure about the nest?”

“As sure as any man who’s seen feathers big as his hand stuck in a thornbush.” Brovik’s bravado faltered. He lowered his voice. “It comes with the dawn. Sweeps low. Takes lambs, sometimes more. Old Metta went up to look—didn’t come back. Her boy found her crook half-buried in the leaves.”

Geralt’s jaw worked once. “Body?”

“Gone.” Brovik swallowed. “Tracks led toward the ridge. The shepherds won’t go near. We can’t afford to lose the spring lambs. Or the men, for that matter.”

“Thirty crowns is light,” Geralt said.

Brovik’s face pinched. “It’s what we have. With the harvest poor and the taxman fat—”

He cut the excuses short with a small lift of his hand. He didn’t need their grievances stacked on his back. “I’ll look. If it’s an adult, you’ll pay fifty. If it’s a juvenile or wounded, thirty holds.” He watched the man’s reaction, the way the mouth tightened and released. “I’ll need a place to set my gear.”

“You can have the old smokehouse out back,” Brovik said slowly, like a man measuring out grain. “And the stew pot, if you want it. And—” He faltered, then set his jaw. “If you do this, we’ll pass the hat. People will give what they can.”

Geralt nodded once. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t say anything at all. He made a sign with his hand, fingers curling briefly—the witcher’s assurance, the small, practical magic of warding that calmed folk more than it warranted. Brovik’s shoulders dipped.

“Dawn, you said,” Geralt murmured. “Any pattern?”

“North slope. Always north. Wind from the pines.” Brovik’s gaze slid to the swords again. “You think you can kill it?”

“I can make it stop,” Geralt said.

He stepped back into the damp, the tavern door swinging shut behind him with a tired thud. Evening had started to sink into the square, turning the puddles black. He fetched Roach from the hitching rail and led her around to the smokehouse. The building was unused—webs in the corners, old hooks overhead. He knocked the worst of the soot away with the flat of his hand, set his saddlebags down, and worked by habit: gear on one side, whetstone out, oil, a look through his bombs to see what hadn’t gone bad. Grapeshot, Dancing Star, a lone Moon Dust vial. Good enough, if he kept his head.

He tested the edge of his steel, then his silver, letting the familiarity of it slide over him. The ache between his shoulders softened under the rhythm. Outside, someone laughed, high and relieved, then stopped when it died alone.

He stepped into the square once more and looked north. The ridge rose like a dark promise above the treeline. He drew a slow breath and tasted the wind: resin, wet stone, and a faint, feral musk that raised the hair on his arms.

Soon, then.

He pulled his cloak tighter and went to make a circuit of the fences on the edge of town, checking for possible approaches and noting which fields were still occupied. He crouched to touch gouges in the mud near a leaning gate—talons, deep and splayed. Not old. He could see the arc of panic in the scuffs, the dash of small hooves, the uneven drag where something had been lifted and fought and lost.

“Dawn,” he said to the empty field. “You favor the light.”

He stood as the last of the day leached from the sky. The cold came down quick and clean, a hand at the back of his neck. He turned toward the smokehouse and the few hours of rest he would allow himself, his mind already moving through patterns—Yrden by the fence line, Axii for the flock if they bolted, maybe bait. He cataloged what he knew and the many things he didn’t. The weight of it sat easily. Work was simple when it carried teeth.

Tomorrow he would go up the ridge. Tonight he would sharpen his blades and close his eyes and listen to the rain start to fall on the old oak beams, steady as a heartbeat.

The tavern had filled in the hours since he’d left it. Smoke huddled against the rafters, and the heat from packed bodies turned the stale ale smell into something heavier. Geralt pushed through without meeting anyone’s eyes and aimed for the corner near the hearth—quiet, shadowed, a wall at his back.

He didn’t make it.

A stool scraped. A voice rose, bright as a bell and twice as brazen. “Ladies and scoundrels of Oakhaven, lend me your ears and your least filthy cups—by popular demand, a ballad of blades and better cheekbones than any of you deserve to witness.”

Geralt stopped mid-step. His shoulders went tight. He didn’t have to turn. He knew the cadence, the self-satisfied breath at the end of a line, the way the room tipped toward the sound before the music even started.

“Jaskier,” he said under his breath, which of course did nothing to make him go away.

A chord rang out, sprightly and scandalously cheerful for a room that had been whispering about a griffin an hour ago. “You!” Jaskier cried, spotting him and lighting up like a lantern. His grin was a thing that did not learn from past disasters. He vaulted onto a table with a practiced hop, knees bent to keep his lute from catching on a mug. “There he is. The man, the myth, the wet cloak. Geralt of Rivia arrives like a storm that forgot to be dramatic.”

A few people snorted. Geralt shut his eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them and took the remaining half-step to the wall. He folded his arms. He could wait this out. He had before.

A flourish, then Jaskier launched into a tune that skittered between mockery and admiration, his fingers flying. “He cut down a wyvern south of Posada—no, wait, it was a wyvern-with-a-limp, but look, we can’t all be perfect. His silver sang, his eyes were—don’t glare at me like that—incredibly unsettling and also inspiring, and the beast did its best impression of a carpet before the final verse.”

“Half a verse,” Geralt muttered.

“Details,” Jaskier sang, and the room softened around the edges. Someone clapped along. Someone else laughed into their stew. “You should have seen him, friends. He swaggered—he does not swagger, but it’s my song so hush—right up to fate and said, Not today. Because he is the sort of man who looks at death and rolls his eyes.”

Geralt caught the barkeep watching him with a small, resigned amusement as she wiped down the counter. He felt heat creep under the collar of his shirt. Jaw tight, he flicked his gaze to Jaskier and found him already looking back, not with his performance smile, but with a quick, searching check. You’re standing. You’re breathing. Good.

Annoyance flickered and was replaced by something softer, then gone so fast it might not have been there. Jaskier turned back to his audience and took the song toward a conclusion that was both lofty and unnecessary.

“—and so, if you see him in your shadows, don’t run. Don’t throw stones. Offer him a drink and your gratitude, and perhaps a better rate, because truly—thirty crowns? Shameful.” A ripple of laughter, a few guilty looks. Jaskier bowed, the movement graceful and absurd, and eased off the table with a careful plant of his boot.

He threaded through the crowd to Geralt with the confidence of a man who had never known a bad idea he didn’t love first. Up close, he smelled like wood smoke and clean soap, the cheap kind that clung to fabric in a way that said he’d washed in a basin recently and wanted someone to notice. His doublet was blue, faded at the seams, with a loose stitch at the shoulder that would catch on everything until someone fixed it.

“Hello, you,” he said, softer. His eyes were bright, a little wild the way they got when he was riding a high. “I had a feeling I’d find you in a place with bad beer and worse benches.”

“Jaskier.”

“I know, I know, you’re mad.” Jaskier put a hand to his chest as if affronted and then ruined the effect by sliding closer into Geralt’s space to avoid a passing tray. His hip brushed Geralt’s thigh, and electricity crackled under Geralt’s skin. Jaskier lingered there, shamelessly pleased to be allowed. “But in my defense, the room was begging for a little color. You bring a mood. It’s…wet.”

Geralt stared at him until Jaskier huffed a laugh.

“I missed you, too,” Jaskier said, and the teasing dropped a fraction. “What are we killing?”

Geralt let the question hang. “Griffin,” he said at last.

Jaskier’s brows shot up. His hand flexed on the neck of his lute. “Well. That’s big. And tragic, probably, if it turns out to be a widowed mother or an old patriarch with a fondness for lamb’s eyes. Both make for a moving bridge.”

“You’re not coming,” Geralt said. He kept his voice flat and quiet, so it wouldn’t carry. “And you’re not turning it into a bridge.”

Jaskier ignored that as he did most things he didn’t like. “I am, in fact, absolutely coming. For first-hand inspiration.” He lifted his chin. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. I won’t get in the way. I’ll stay back, where you put me. I will be quiet—ish. I will be useful.”

“No.”

“I have boots that can handle mud now. I’ve learned from my mistakes.” He raised a finger. “Some of them. Most. Besides, you could use someone to, oh, inform a village that perhaps this creature is not malicious so much as territorial, and that maybe they shouldn’t be throwing rocks at the nest. If there is a nest.”

Geralt pressed his tongue against his teeth. The room moved around them, loud again, but it tunneled into something distant. Jaskier stood too close, warm and insistent, his gaze too intent to be only bravado. He seemed to understand he was pushing, and he pushed anyway.

“You’re not a shepherd,” Geralt said. “You’re a song with legs. You’ll trip.”

“And you’ll pick me up,” Jaskier said simply, with a confidence that made something unpleasant and sweet twist in Geralt’s chest. “You always do.”

He shouldn’t have to. He wanted to say that. He wanted to list every reason, every time he had turned to find a lute where a spine should be. He wanted to articulate the way his pulse had spiked when Jaskier had yelled his name across a crowded, hostile room, how the sound of it had landed and stayed. He wanted to cut the tether with a dull knife and watch it fray.

“Dawn,” he said instead, after a beat too long. “It hunts at dawn. North ridge.”

Jaskier’s smile was quick and small, there and gone, like he knew a concession when he heard one. He reached out, bold as brass, and smoothed a crease in the front of Geralt’s cloak with his fingertips. His knuckles skimmed the leather of Geralt’s jerkin. The touch was light, thoughtless, and completely focused. Geralt’s breath hiccuped in his throat.

“I’ll bring the noise you hate,” Jaskier said, and something almost wicked warmed his eyes. “And I’ll keep it ready until you ask for it.”

A table of men nearby cheered for reasons that had nothing to do with them. Jaskier didn’t look away. “We leave before first light?”

Geralt’s mouth twitched in something that might have been defeat. “Before,” he said. “And you carry your own pack.”

“I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to carry my things. Except I would, but I won’t. See? Growth.” He rocked back on his heels, relief rushing through him so bright it was almost a laugh. “I’ll sleep…somewhere. Or not at all. Inspiration doesn’t keep regular hours.”

“You’ll sleep,” Geralt said, because he hated the idea of Jaskier dragging and careless when there were talons involved.

Jaskier’s grin went fond. “Bossy.”

Geralt’s eyes cut to his hand. Jaskier stilled as if realizing too late how close he’d drifted, but he didn’t move. For a moment, neither did Geralt. The air between them held the heat of the hearth and the smell of damp wool and marigold. Then Geralt stepped to the side. The contact broke.

“Smokehouse out back,” he said, voice even. “I’ll be there.”

Jaskier tipped an invisible hat. “I’ll find you.” He began to turn, hesitated, and leaned in, lowering his voice to a thread. “And Geralt?”

He waited.

“The song wasn’t finished,” Jaskier said. “I think I was waiting for the ending.”

Geralt held his gaze until Jaskier’s smile straightened into something sincere. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Jaskier read the silence the way he always did, and it seemed to please him. He winked, spun on his heel, and vanished into the warmth and clatter, collecting stray compliments and a free cup as if he’d never been thrown in a cellar or pulled from a swamp.

Geralt exhaled. The knot in his stomach drew tight again, but it was a different shape now. He turned toward the door and the wet night waiting beyond, aware down to his bones of the soft footfalls that would follow him at dawn.

Rain hissed in the alley, pooling along the tavern’s eaves. Geralt stood under the slant of the smokehouse roof, breath a quiet cloud, listening to the soft shuffle of Jaskier’s approach before he saw him. The bard’s steps slowed as he neared, the buoyant rhythm from the common room trading places with a cautious, eager quiet.

“You found it,” Geralt said.

“I find you,” Jaskier said, like it was simple fact. He ducked under the low beam and joined him in the thin shelter, close enough that Geralt felt the heat of him even through damp wool. Jaskier’s hair had caught a few raindrops, the curls shining in the dim light. He smelled like tavern smoke and something sweet tucked somewhere in his pack.

“You’re not coming,” Geralt said, before Jaskier could make it into a question again.

“Geralt.” Jaskier’s voice softened, careful. “You already said yes.”

“I said dawn. That was before I reminded myself what this is.” He kept his tone flat. “It’s not a show. It’s not a village tale. A griffin will kill you if you step wrong or speak too loud or breathe where it doesn’t like you to. You’ll slow me down. And I don’t have time to watch both it and you.”

Jaskier’s answering smile was patient in a way that made Geralt’s shoulders tense. “I appreciate the pep talk.”

“You think I’m joking.” Geralt turned, letting the rain cold his face. “They dive blind if the wind shifts. They don’t care about your songs. They care about the nest. Their talons will go through your ribs. They crush bone with their beaks without trying. If it pins me, I’ll have seconds to get out before it takes my throat. Seconds. I can’t buy those seconds and watch you flailing on a rock because your boots are ruined again.”

“My boots are better now,” Jaskier said, unhelpfully serious. “And I’m not going to flail. This time I will listen. I will stay where you put me. Behind the stone, behind the tree, behind your long list of complaints—wherever you like.”

Geralt cut him a hot look. “Your whispers carry. Your breathing does. Your heartbeat does.”

Jaskier blinked. Something complicated passed over his face and settled into a small, bright curve of his mouth. “That’s very poetic, darling.”

“Jaskier.”

“All right.” He lifted both hands, palms up, surrender without retreat. “Let me try in your language. I understand the risk. I understand I am a distraction. But I also know you. You run straight lines. You take the shortest path and trust your blade to make up the difference. And usually, you’re right. But sometimes a noise at the right moment, a stone thrown at the right time, changes the shape of what’s coming. You don’t have to watch me if I’m behind you and two ridges away making a nest of my own uselessness.”

Geralt stared at him. Jaskier swallowed, but didn’t fill the pause with words; he simply held steady, letting the rain stitch a gentle rhythm around them.

“You’ll stay put?” Geralt asked, voice rough with disbelief. “When I tell you to? You won’t move unless I say? Not to fetch me, not to peek at the nest, not to—”

“—not to do anything brave and stupid?” Jaskier angled a shoulder toward him. His sleeve brushed Geralt’s knuckles; warmth leapt across the point of contact, startling and instant, and Jaskier stilled as if feeling it too. He kept his voice low. “I will stay where you put me. I will be quiet. I will wait. I will watch your back without getting in your way. And if I make a sound, it will be because you ask for it. You set the rules, and I follow them.”

“You don’t,” Geralt said, because it was true, because it had always been true.

Jaskier huffed, not quite a laugh. “I’m learning.” He looked up at him. His eyes were clear in the dimness, steady. “Let me keep learning.”

Geralt almost said no again. It sat on his tongue, heavy and familiar. “It has chicks,” he said instead. “Or an egg. If it’s sitting deep, it will be vicious. It won’t chase a distraction for long. It’ll come back around. It will remember where it heard you.”

“Then I’ll be somewhere it can’t reach me,” Jaskier said promptly. “High and inconvenient. You know all those cliffs you love so much? Pick one. I’ll climb it. I’ll tie myself to a tree if that makes you feel better.” He tipped his head. “You can even do the knot. You do like tying things.”

Heat sparked under Geralt’s skin at the careless suggestion, anger and something else, thin and bright. Jaskier saw the flicker, went very still, and then softened the line of his mouth.

“Too far?” he murmured, amused and apologetic in one.

“Focus.” Geralt’s voice came out lower than he meant. He looked at Jaskier’s shoulder instead of his mouth. The loose stitch tugged when he breathed. Geralt wanted to fix it with his teeth and his hands and his knife in equal measure, which was absurd. “You’ll bring the wrong instrument. You’ll try to be clever.”

“Geralt.” Jaskier stepped closer, almost in his space now, the rain hemming them in. “I know when you’re serious. I know the difference. Believe me, I do.” He let the admission hang there, simple and startling. “I’ll bring the small lute. The one that makes more noise than sense. I’ll wrap it if you want. I’ll test the ground before I put weight on it. I’ll keep my eyes on you and my mouth shut. I will not improvise. That is my promise.”

Promises meant little on a cliff face. They blew away like fog. But Jaskier’s fingers brushed his wrist in a careful, asking touch, and Geralt felt a pulse jump that had nothing to do with danger. He didn’t pull away. Jaskier’s hand settled for a heartbeat, warm and steady, then retreated like he knew that was all he’d be allowed.

“You won’t make me choose,” Geralt said. It was not a question. “Between you and the job.”

Jaskier’s throat moved. “I won’t,” he said. “I swear it.”

Geralt drew in a slow breath. The scent of wet earth, hay, Jaskier’s soap. He could say no. He should. He looked at the alley, the dark street beyond, the slight glow from the tavern door. He looked back at Jaskier and saw a certainty that had outlived a cellar, a fever, a winter. It hadn’t broken yet. It hadn’t been misplaced.

“You carry your own pack,” Geralt said finally. “You wear the cloak. You do not argue when I tell you to move or not to move. You don’t sing unless I tell you to. You don’t talk to villagers about bridges.”

Jaskier’s smile flashed and tamed itself into something small and sincere. “Understood.”

“You eat before we leave.” It came out too practical, too revealing. “You won’t keep up on nothing.”

“I can eat,” Jaskier said gently. “If you sit there and glower at me while I do.”

Geralt made a low sound that wasn’t agreement so much as surrender. Jaskier’s grin widened, bright even in the rain, then he kept himself from saying something that would ruin it. He rocked on his heels, closer again, until their shoulders nearly touched.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. The words were simple and soft, like a hand on a sore place.

Geralt grunted. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Jaskier’s gaze dropped to Geralt’s mouth and then snapped up, startled at himself, guilty and unrepentant at once. He shifted back a fraction, giving Geralt the space he hadn’t asked for. “I’ll see you before first light,” he said, steady again. “Fed, packed, quiet.”

“Good.” Geralt stepped past him into the rain before he did something he couldn’t take back.

Behind him, Jaskier’s voice followed, low and warm. “I’ll be there.” He let the pause stretch, and Geralt felt it catch across his shoulders like a pull on a line. “And I’ll be where you put me.”

Dawn bled slow and gray over Oakhaven. The road north curled out of town like a damp ribbon, bordered by brambles clogged with last year’s leaves. Geralt set the pace he always did, sure and silent, the kind of rhythm that ignored complaint. Jaskier kept up, which was new, though not without commentary.

“These boots,” he announced into the morning, lifting a foot and inspecting the sole as he walked, “were expressly designed by a man who hated feet. I can tell. It’s vindictive craftsmanship. Oh, and there’s a stone in there. Of course there is.”

“Keep walking,” Geralt said.

“I am walking. I am walking and enduring unspeakable suffering with grace, which I plan to write about later. You can be the dour chorus. You’ll enjoy it.”

Geralt grunted. They left the last crooked fence behind and took the deer path that cut up through thorn and scrub. A chill wind snuck under cloaks and gnawed at fingers. The sky brightened grudgingly, the clouds like someone had scraped them thin with a knife. Jaskier’s cloak flapped, then settled, and the small lute at his back thumped a soft, dull rhythm against his pack.

“You ate,” Geralt said after a while, more observation than question.

“I did. Two hard rolls and that questionable pear from my pocket. I’ve never felt more robust. You should try it. Breakfast. They call it the most important meal for a reason. A very wealthy baker invented that phrase, probably, but sometimes fate and commerce shake hands.”

“Mhm.”

“Right. I’m working on the quiet. You may have noticed.”

Geralt slanted him a look. Jaskier’s hair had damp from the mist, the curls pulled loose from their tie and sticking to his cheek. He wiped them away with a huff and nearly tripped on a root.

“Watch your feet,” Geralt said.

“I am, unfortunately, too aware of my feet.” Jaskier stumbled again, caught himself, and glanced up with an exaggerated glower. “Is this path entirely roots and indignity, or does it eventually become civilized?”

“It’s a goat track to a cliff. It doesn’t get better.”

“Fantastic. Are the goats paying you?”

“Quiet.”

Jaskier pressed his lips together and held it for a whole ten count before a soft sound escaped him—half laugh, half groan. “You know, if I’m too quiet you start to worry. Don’t deny it. You get this look like you’ve misplaced me, which is both charming and deeply insulting.”

“I don’t misplace things,” Geralt said. “Things keep moving.”

“Metaphysical. How very you.”

They climbed. The land opened into scrub hills, scattered with low pines clinging stubbornly to rock. Farther ahead, the ridge raised its back against the sky, a rough, broken line. Somewhere beyond it lay the ruin, the nest. The air grew thinner, cleaner, edged with a wild scent—old stone, dry weeds, cold feathers.

“Remind me again why I agreed to this?” Jaskier asked, pulling his cloak tighter. “No, I know why. Fame and artistic purpose and the thrill of living to see middle age. But also, I think I promised to be quiet? Geralt, darling, I’m going to fail at that in small doses. I feel you should be prepared. I can tamp it down, but not fully. Not without choking.”

“I noticed,” Geralt said, dry as sticks. “You’ve never done anything fully quiet.”

“I slept, once, for an entire afternoon. You were there. I’m certain you checked my pulse twice.”

Geralt didn’t answer. He had. He could hear Jaskier’s heartbeat now, quick from exertion, steady under it. He lengthened his stride around a patch of loose shale and reached back, catching Jaskier’s elbow when the other man slid.

“Careful.”

“See? This is what I was saying. You do worry.” Jaskier let his hand linger a second longer than necessary on Geralt’s wrist, a brief press, then released it and set his jaw. “All right. Point taken. Less charm, more feet.”

They moved under a stand of pines. The needles whispered. Jaskier found a rhythm that matched Geralt’s better, lighter steps placed where Geralt’s bootprints flattened the frost. He hummed once, a fragment, then cut himself off with a guilty glance.

“Don’t,” Geralt said.

“Right. No humming. I can hum inside my head. That’s a completely sustainable plan.” He was quiet for a few breaths. “Geralt, if—if you tell me to stay back, I will. Back-back. Not lurk-back. I can do that. I will do that. I know I joked, but I meant what I said.”

Geralt nodded. The admission sat between them, a solid thing. The path curved, and the town behind them disappeared entirely. Only the mountain, the wind, their breath.

“My toes are damp,” Jaskier said mournfully after another stretch. “Is that allowed? Is damp a violation of the rules?”

“Your toes can be damp.”

“Excellent. I’m thriving.”

“Complain less.”

“If I complain less, what will you do with your day?”

“Enjoy it,” Geralt said, which made Jaskier make an offended little noise that wasn’t entirely real.

They reached a low scramble of rock. Geralt climbed without thinking, then turned and offered a hand. Jaskier looked at it like it was a test, then set his palm against Geralt’s and let himself be pulled up. Their hands fit, rough to soft, callus to skin, the contact brief and neutral and something else under it that both of them pretended not to feel.

“Thank you,” Jaskier said, a little breathless.

“Watch your left. Loose stones.”

“Loose stones and loose tongues. Yours is the former, mine is the latter. Balance.”

“Jaskier.”

“Quiet, right. I remember.” He bit off a smile, then failed and let the corner lift. “It’s familiar, this. You scowling at the horizon like it owes you money, me narrating my own demise by footwear. It’s oddly comforting.”

Geralt made a noise that could have been agreement. The sun broke a little through the cloud, turned the frost on the thorns to glass. A hawk cut a clean line across the pale sky.

They walked. Jaskier kept up his steady stream of soft complaints—about the angle of the hill, the betrayal of his socks, the way the wind found the one gap in his collar no matter how he arranged it. Geralt answered with the occasional grunt or curt direction, pointing out a safer foothold, the start of an old trail, a place where the moss hid a slick patch of stone. The bickering threaded between them like breath, unremarkable, necessary.

At the crest of the next rise, Geralt halted and lifted a hand. Jaskier stopped so fast his lute thumped his back. He swallowed the question on his tongue and tipped his head, listening because Geralt was.

Wind. Pine. The distant, faint rattle of stone on stone, like something large shifting its weight.

Geralt’s shoulders cut a sharper line. He glanced at Jaskier, eyes catching the light, and Jaskier nodded, all the chatter leaving him in a neat, invisible fold. He adjusted the strap of his lute, checked the knot at his cloak, and stepped where Geralt pointed, the shape of the familiar argument dissolving into silence as they moved toward the ridge.

They pressed on until the light thinned to a dull wash and the ridge became a blunt shadow against the sky. The scent of old feathers faded to the colder smell of rock and pine sap. Geralt led them off the path toward a shallow cut in the hillside where boulders leaned together, making a windbreak. It was enough. He checked the ground for burrows and scat, then signed for quiet and for Jaskier to stay put.

Jaskier set his pack down with a soft groan and stretched his back, hands pressed to the small of it. “This spot has all the charm of a coffin,” he whispered, then caught himself and gave a small, apologetic tilt of his mouth. “But I suppose one can’t be choosy about scenic vistas when one is courting death and glory.”

Geralt didn’t answer. He knelt in the dim and gathered what dry kindling he could coax from under the shelter of the rocks—a handful of brittle pine twigs, a bundle of old grass he twisted and rubbed warm between his palms until it softened. He built a modest nest, struck flint, and cupped the growing flame until it licked and took. The fire sputtered, then steadied, throwing thin orange light on their boots and the rough wall behind them.

Jaskier fumbled with his cloak pin, fingers stiff. The wind found its way around the stones and made the edges of the fire’s heat feel like a promise it might not keep. He huddled closer, soaking it, then shrugged out of his lute to set it carefully in the driest place he could find. He rummaged in his pack. “I have provisions,” he offered, voice bright with the sort of hope he knew was thinner than paper. He pulled out a little cloth bundle and opened it. “Dried apricots, or possibly peaches gone to a higher calling. And bread that could be used as a weapon if necessary. Very versatile.”

Geralt glanced over, took the inventory in with a single look, and returned it with a low sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “No.”

“Right,” Jaskier said, cheer faltering but not crumbling. “I only mention it because I like my teeth and would enjoy keeping them all through the winter.”

“Mm.”

Geralt stood without a word and slipped into the trees. He moved like the dark and the wood was made for him, shoulders folding into shadows, the flash of his medallion winking once before it was gone. Jaskier stared at the place where he vanished, fighting the urge to call after him, then hugged his cloak tighter and held his tongue. The wind combed the pines into a low, constant sigh. Somewhere far off, a lone night bird called and went quiet again.

He busied himself with manageable things. He shook out the bedrolls, laid them side by side close enough to share heat but not so close as to assume. He found a flat stone and propped it near the fire to warm. He unwrapped his miserable bread and broke off a corner, testing it. It fought him. He made a face, broke it smaller, and set the pieces near the stone so the heat could coax them back toward edible.

When Geralt reappeared, it was so silently that Jaskier startled anyway. The witcher stepped into the firelight with a rabbit held by the hind legs, its fur dark against his glove. His expression was the same worn, blank line it always was when he was working, but something eased in his mouth at the sight of Jaskier’s ridiculous bread sweating by the fire.

“Don’t say it,” Jaskier murmured. “I know. It’s tragic.”

Geralt didn’t. He crouched, pulled a small knife from his boot, and set to the rabbit with efficient hands. Jaskier watched his fingers work—steady, sure, peeling the skin back in clean strokes, separating muscle from bone with a practiced sensitivity that made something low in Jaskier’s chest give way. There was a sort of care in the brutality of it, a precision that said: this is necessary, and I will do it well.

He looked away before he got caught staring. He tried the bread again and found it less likely to chip a tooth. He broke the pieces and set them aside. “I do have salt,” he said, careful and neutral. “And… two crushed bay leaves I pilfered from a very forgiving kitchen maid three towns back.”

Geralt held out his hand without looking up. Jaskier placed the little twist of paper in his palm, their fingers brushing quick and electric. Geralt’s thumb almost, almost pressed down, then it didn’t. He unfolded the paper, sniffed, and nodded once. He spitted the rabbit on a stripped green branch and set it over the fire, tilting it to catch the best heat. The fat began to drip and hiss. The scent turned the cold air richer. Jaskier’s stomach curled with hunger and something close to relief.

They sat with the quiet of people who knew how to wait. The sky deepened from slate to near-black. The firelight stroked gold across Geralt’s jaw, softened the severity of his cheekbones. Jaskier pulled his cloak tighter and leaned his elbows on his knees, hands extended to the warmth. He glanced up, caught Geralt watching the meat, all focus. He licked his lips without thinking and pretended the heat on his face was only from the fire.

“I, ah,” he said after a time, voice soft to keep from tearing the fragile calm. “I know you said no to the apricots. But should you change your mind—”

“Eat the bread,” Geralt said, just as quiet, eyes never leaving the spit. It wasn’t an order so much as an invitation.

Jaskier huffed a little. “You’re very generous.”

Geralt ignored the tease. He turned the rabbit, dusted it with salt and the powdered bay. The smell bloomed. Jaskier leaned in despite himself, eyes going half-closed. It was the most tempting thing he’d met all day.

When the meat was done, Geralt took it off the fire and rested it to let the juices settle. He sliced through with the same steady care, separating the better portion without ceremony. Then he pushed the larger piece toward Jaskier, along with a strip of the crisped skin, a quiet slide across leather that landed against Jaskier’s knee.

Jaskier blinked at it. He glanced up. Geralt didn’t look at him, pretended to be intent on carving himself a thinner slice. The set of his shoulders was nonchalant, which was to say deliberately so. The warmth that had been building under Jaskier’s ribs loosened into something steady and deep.

“Thank you,” he said, careful not to crowd the moment with too many words. He took the meat in his fingers and bit. The flavor swamped his tongue—smoke and salt, the clean bite of the bay. It was simple and good. He made a small sound he didn’t mean to make. Geralt’s mouth tilted, barely there.

They ate like that—focused, quiet, with the fire popping between them like punctuation. Jaskier slipped Geralt a piece of the less-terrible bread without looking, and Geralt took it, tore it in half, used it to catch the rabbit’s juices from his palm. Their fingers brushed once, warm-grease slick, and both of them went still for a breath neither of them acknowledged.

“You didn’t have to hunt,” Jaskier said finally, wiping his hands on a clean cloth. “I would have survived on my tragic stash. I’ve done worse.”

“You complain,” Geralt said, deadpan, and Jaskier laughed, soft and honest, the sound going up into the cold with the smoke.

“True,” he admitted. “But I’m distractible enough to forget when I’m fed.”

Geralt’s gaze flicked to him, met his eyes for a heartbeat, then dropped to the fire. “Eat,” he said again, but the word landed gentler, like a hand at the middle of his back.

They finished, and Geralt cleaned the knife with a handful of snow and a scrap of linen. He wrapped the bones, set the refuse aside to be buried. Jaskier refastened the lute at his side and then, after a second’s thought, left it be, deciding not to risk resin and strings near the damp. He drew the bedrolls closer to the lee of the rock. When he glanced up, Geralt had already positioned his own to face out, his back to the wind’s path, as if by instinct he would always place himself where the cold would hit first.

Jaskier hesitated, then shifted his bedroll a fraction nearer. Close enough that if he stretched an arm he might brush the back of Geralt’s wrist. He didn’t. He lay down instead, rolling to his side to watch the fire’s collapse into ember.

“Tomorrow,” he murmured, eyelids heavy. “You point, I will sit. I will hum in my head and compose masterpieces you’ll never have to hear.”

Geralt made a low sound that could have been approval. After a pause, he reached without looking and tugged the edge of Jaskier’s bedroll toward him, stealing an inch of blanket for warmth and, in the same motion, tucking it more securely around Jaskier’s shoulder. His knuckles brushed Jaskier’s collarbone, a fleeting heat. Jaskier held still, breath shallow, and then let it out slow.

“Sleep,” Geralt said.

Jaskier smiled at the rock wall. “Yes, witcher.”

The wind leaned over them and then seemed to think better of it. The fire burned down. In the space between the crackles, their breaths settled into the same rhythm, the kind of quiet that didn’t need guarding. Geralt kept his eyes half-open for a long time, watching the shadows shift and listening to Jaskier’s breathing even out. When it did, he let his head tip back and finally closed his own. The scent of smoke and bay leaf and clean hair threaded the cold, and the night held.