From out in the hall, Geralt hears Jaskier speak, calling him back into the room. He obeys, like a child being called into the schoolmaster's office for discipline, and closes the door behind him. Jaskier is standing up at the front, near his desk, and his things should've been packed up minutes ago. He's dawdling, and there's something in his scent, something that Geralt isn't sure if he likes. Nerves, maybe, and something bitter.
A review, in three words or less. It has been decades since Posada. So many things have changed since then, since he was the Butcher of Blaviken, sitting with his last coin in a run-down tavern, staring at a boy who didn't have the good sense to feel fear.
Three words. There are so many combinations of three words that he could use to respond to this song.
Are you wanting?
Geralt stands on the steps of the hall and it still feels like he still hasn't found stable ground, like he's still waiting to see if his foot will land on earth or if he'll fall.
"You deserve more."
He'd always deserved more than three words, even when his songs were... well, the song in Posada had definitely not been his best work. He deserves more for this, this thing that he'd made out of the pain that Geralt knows he was the source of.
(Fillingless pie, Geralt says across decades.)
"It's about us. You, and me, and Yen." Yen is a subject that sits heavily between them. Jaskier has tried to avoid it, but the issue is forced now. He sang of her, he should count himself lucky that it doesn't summon her like saying bloody Mary three times in a mirror. "I know you don't like her, but I didn't realize--"
He didn't realize the reason was competition, not simple incompatibility. Geralt assumed his animosity was because she had threatened his cock that one time, because she was always catty and is one of the only people that Geralt knows who can go toe-to-toe with him with words as their weapons and come out on top.
no subject
A review, in three words or less. It has been decades since Posada. So many things have changed since then, since he was the Butcher of Blaviken, sitting with his last coin in a run-down tavern, staring at a boy who didn't have the good sense to feel fear.
Three words. There are so many combinations of three words that he could use to respond to this song.
Are you wanting?
Geralt stands on the steps of the hall and it still feels like he still hasn't found stable ground, like he's still waiting to see if his foot will land on earth or if he'll fall.
"You deserve more."
He'd always deserved more than three words, even when his songs were... well, the song in Posada had definitely not been his best work. He deserves more for this, this thing that he'd made out of the pain that Geralt knows he was the source of.
(Fillingless pie, Geralt says across decades.)
"It's about us. You, and me, and Yen." Yen is a subject that sits heavily between them. Jaskier has tried to avoid it, but the issue is forced now. He sang of her, he should count himself lucky that it doesn't summon her like saying bloody Mary three times in a mirror. "I know you don't like her, but I didn't realize--"
He didn't realize the reason was competition, not simple incompatibility. Geralt assumed his animosity was because she had threatened his cock that one time, because she was always catty and is one of the only people that Geralt knows who can go toe-to-toe with him with words as their weapons and come out on top.