So much shows in the scent, the complex biological processes that betray what's in the mind of a man to a witcher with a nose like a bloodhound. Regret is notable in its presentation, sweet and bitter at the same time, reminding him a little of the sickly-sweet smell of decay. It slips into the floral oil-lute wax-parchment smell of him like water into cracks, lending credence to the sorry that he says. Men lie, but Geralt can smell it when they do.
Both of the bard's hands clutch at his, nimble fingers threading between his own, and he squeezes them as though he expects a response, for Geralt to hold his back. Jaskier touches him all the time, has so little regard for anything like personal space, but he has always been fearless around Geralt. It's like he latched onto the witcher when he was too young to have known to be afraid of him-- only eighteen, barely old enough to be out on his own-- and now he's fucking forty and he never will. Like those island birds that had never seen humans before and wouldn't fly away from them, trusting and unsuspecting.
"Hm."
He remembers having to teach Jaskier basic things-- how to light a fire, how to pitch a tent so that it wouldn't collapse on him in the middle of the night and make him shriek so loud that he wakes everything in a five mile radius. How to skin a rabbit and gut a fish. Practical things that a nobleman's son who studied art and music in the comforts of Oxenfurt would never need to know. He'd been exasperated and frustrated with the bard, most of those times that he'd had to teach him something that a witcher would've learned by ten. But now, after all this, on the run from Nilfgaard and seeking refuge at Kaer Morhen, he thinks-- I should've taught him how to use a fucking sword. I should've taught him how to get away when someone grabs him.
The stony tension of Geralt's body thaws a little; he ghosts his thumb across Jaskier's palm where the skin is still smooth and soft. The bard is upset about what he said, even though he shouldn't be-- none of it was wrong. Geralt should have learned to weather these kinds of little cuts by now.
"Witchers don't have wives or daughters. There would've been no reason to teach us, and there were no women witchers at Kaer Morhen."
Maybe at another school-- Kaer Seren or Gorthur Gvaed-- there would have been women witchers to teach them these things. Perhaps Kaer Morhen is strange for only taking boys into its training. Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter. What matters, and what will always matter more than Geralt's offense or embarrassment, is what Ciri will require.
"What else will I need to know? What will she need of me?"
no subject
Both of the bard's hands clutch at his, nimble fingers threading between his own, and he squeezes them as though he expects a response, for Geralt to hold his back. Jaskier touches him all the time, has so little regard for anything like personal space, but he has always been fearless around Geralt. It's like he latched onto the witcher when he was too young to have known to be afraid of him-- only eighteen, barely old enough to be out on his own-- and now he's fucking forty and he never will. Like those island birds that had never seen humans before and wouldn't fly away from them, trusting and unsuspecting.
"Hm."
He remembers having to teach Jaskier basic things-- how to light a fire, how to pitch a tent so that it wouldn't collapse on him in the middle of the night and make him shriek so loud that he wakes everything in a five mile radius. How to skin a rabbit and gut a fish. Practical things that a nobleman's son who studied art and music in the comforts of Oxenfurt would never need to know. He'd been exasperated and frustrated with the bard, most of those times that he'd had to teach him something that a witcher would've learned by ten. But now, after all this, on the run from Nilfgaard and seeking refuge at Kaer Morhen, he thinks-- I should've taught him how to use a fucking sword. I should've taught him how to get away when someone grabs him.
The stony tension of Geralt's body thaws a little; he ghosts his thumb across Jaskier's palm where the skin is still smooth and soft. The bard is upset about what he said, even though he shouldn't be-- none of it was wrong. Geralt should have learned to weather these kinds of little cuts by now.
"Witchers don't have wives or daughters. There would've been no reason to teach us, and there were no women witchers at Kaer Morhen."
Maybe at another school-- Kaer Seren or Gorthur Gvaed-- there would have been women witchers to teach them these things. Perhaps Kaer Morhen is strange for only taking boys into its training. Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter. What matters, and what will always matter more than Geralt's offense or embarrassment, is what Ciri will require.
"What else will I need to know? What will she need of me?"