The best part of being a bard was living off his singing, from one tavern to another, enjoying every second.
At least, he still had that lute. His favourite one, out of every lute he had ever played.
"Bard! Sing that one about the Witcher!"
Jaskier felt a slight lump in his throat. He swallowed it down with a chuckle, unbelievingly looking around at his public.
"Come on! Again? I've already sung it a million times!"
"Then sing a new one. You used to come up with new songs about that Witcher every week!"
"I stopped composing them when they became boring," he assured them, using the same lie that had served him as an excuse at the previous tavern.
He hadn't even been able to accomplish what he had promised Geralt before obeying him and thus vanishing from his life: going on to tell his story.
Not that no other bard had appropriated the character of Geralt of Rivia to compose his own chansons. He had many anecdotes left to delight his audience.
Simply, he didn't have the strength he needed to get his name back into his lips, to remember all the adventures he could live beside him before he had run out of patience.
The only thing that came to his mind whenever someone mentioned the White Wolf or the Butcher of Blaviken was the rage in his gaze, the fierce snarl of his lips, exposing fangs he claimed to have 'filed down'.
And he wasn't going to slander the Geralt he had always depicted in all his songs since 'Toss a Coin to Your Witcher". Brave, compassionate, undefeated.
He no longer wanted to sing a verse about Geralt and his deeds; he didn't want to be reminded of such a difficult friendship and unrequited love, nor of the terrible end he had put to it.
The only relief that was left for Jaskier anymore was imagining that, maybe, for a brief moment, the Witcher could have regretted hurting him so badly.
"I have something way better to sing…" he announced, clearing his throat of sadness." It's a love ballad. Well, a heartbreak ballad, actually."
The audience received Jaskier's resolution with a disappointed boo.
"Why would we even be interested in a love song?"
"Oh, pay attention… It has a lot to do with your dear Witcher."
Ripping the first chord off his lute, the bard started playing one of his most intimate, most painful pieces.
The fruit of his fleeting stay with Geralt of Rivia.
"The fairer sex, they often call it… But her love's as unfair as a crook…"