Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of the witcher. Those are property of Mr Sapkowski and I using Netflix series canon mixed with the books.
Warning : Violence (some graphic). Traumatic events and post traumatic state, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts. Emotional and physical whump.
Well, with the warnings, you can already deduce that this is a though fic.
This is chapter is mostly depressive state. The worst part will come later.
Please note that I tried something different, a little bit like in Baptism of Fire where stories are narrated by the characters, mostly by Ciri and Jaskier. And for him that was as if we are reading Jaskier's book sometimes.
So italic parts would be that, with him speaking in a more detached way, analysing his own behaviour and feelings. He is writing before S2, so he doesn't know yet he will see Geralt again. And he is in his Sandpiper phase.
And the normal parts are in the past and more descriptive.
You can read those part almost separately. You will have present Jaskier narrating the story on one side. And past Jaskier living the thing on the other.
With that trick I tried to put some distance with the story because it was too hard to write otherwise. Anyway, I hope you will enjoy the hell trip :).
And thank you to VikingHeart13 for all the support and all those conversations about The Witcher and fantasy :)
"I am alive. I have survived and I don't know what to do with it. I guess I picked my ink and my feather by pure instinct. I don't have much heart left for poetry or music. I just need to write this nightmare out of my head. I can't keep this inside because this is killing me."
Those were the first words I wrote, coming back from hell. Today I am less distraught but the nightmare never ends. I still need to write it down so, this is it...
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Chapter 1 : Trying to heal
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Accepting that I lived in an illusion for twenty plus years was part of the healing process, I thought. But reality hit me harder. The White Wolf wasn't the only fantasy I was living in or... for should I say. The Continent wasn't safe anymore and plunging rapidly into darkness. I thought I had seen monsters of all kinds while traveling with my Wolf but I hadn't seen the worst. Us.
How is it possible to hate that much ? How is it possible to want someone to suffer simply because they exist ?
Everyday redanian laws became harder and harder for non humans, until it became just hell. This is an extermination I am the witness of. Pure and simple.
I think at the beginning I didn't want to see it for what it was. Like many. And I was trying to rebuild myself at that time. I was turned to my inner struggles.
But the second I thought I found light again I went through the most brutal experience of my life. One that broke me more than I already were.
I don't think I will survive long anyway. I just want to last long enough to help. I am no hero, I am no warrior. I am shaking from fear every night I smuggle elves out of Oxenfurt. I barely sleep if I can't drink myself to oblivion. But I won't stop. If I have to die, then I would die knowing that I finally did something right in my life.
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Jaskier jerked awake, screaming, then sat on the simulacrum of a bed he slept in since he found this place. He tried to calm his erratic breathing down but heavy sobs just made him choke. Of course he'd cried. He hated himself for not being so weak. It had been four months since the mountain and he still couldn't sleep a full night. He had nightmares over nightmares. The way it happened could change but the end was always the same. He would scream his way out of the illusion and seconds later he would regret that he didn't die for real.
It took him a long time and an unhealthy amount of alcohol to stop believing this could be the only solution but it hurt nonetheless. He was tired to feel that way. Yet the pain was not exactly the same as it was at the beginning and that was the reason why he was in this lost hole.
As he was becoming more and more alert, his sobs slowed down and he breathed better but then the emptiness grew back painfully in his chest. The heartbreak was a thing, the side effect another. He put a shaking hand on his heart.
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After two months overwhelmed by my despair, I realized that I lost my hunger for playing music, singing, even writing. It was the first time losing a muse had such an impact on me. I knew sadness and pain. I knew lack of energy and appetite for everything. But it never reached my art as much before. Muses had drowned in rivers of bad wine and strong vodka. I almost couldn't hear them anymore. Alcohol had always been my heart medicine but this was the first time I realized that it was making the muses even more silent. That moment was like an electroshock. I felt an incredible anger. I wouldn't tolerate that. I wouldn't allow Geralt to take that from me as well.
So I tried to stay sober and got on a quest to find a new inspiration. I had to isolate myself, stay away from temptations and try one last time to stand on my own. In my youth, I had proven several time that I couldn't be contained or forced to be a certain way. Now I had prove myself that was still true, even with a shattered heart. I needed to find something that would light my soul again and that was not "him".
Unexpectedly, in this pitiful hole I was hiding, I had some results, very early on.
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The moon was bright so he could see almost clearly. His eyes landed on his beloved lute on the ground and the pile of paper near it. His unsent letters to Geralt, lying there. Silent evidence of his struggling.
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First I tried to put words to my pain and wrote some letters to Geralt. I tried to recreate a conversation I could have had with my Wolf. I was trying to understand why I was in this state. But soon I found that with every letter I would simply despise myself and feel miserable. For not being enough for him. For being an idiot that believed he had a friend. For being weak and useless. And then I would end up having the furious need to fulfil his last wish… So I stopped. I wasn't there to end my life. Not yet at least…
But then another realization hit me. My whole world revolved around Geralt. Even trying to heal myself, I was clinging into him.
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Jaskier got up and stopped near the table in the middle of the house. There were a few blank pages and his pen. He touched the paper absently. He hadn't written a thing for a week. New tears formed and he let them fall, in silence, before getting out. He needed some air.
It was still very dark outside. Morning was far. The gibbous moon lighted his path. The soft summer breeze felt good on his bare skin. The sheet of sweat and his tears freshened by the air sent shivers down his spine. But it was grounding him.
He took a deep breath, smelling the beloved salty air of the ocean and looked up at the dark sky full of stars.
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I walked out of Oxenfurt, founded a little village and an abandoned house near a beautiful little beach a few miles away.
Apparently it belonged to a small elven family. There was not much in this house and it seemed to have been deserted in a rush, as things were left as if time had frozen and they just vanished while they were doing common things.
There were some drawings and a book of eleven child stories on the table. The little food left in the plates had rotten and dried over it. Fruits and vegetables near the tiny window also. Outside there was some laundry in a basket near the rope where some clothes were hung. The fabric was smelling bad as it stayed wet too long.
I didn't mean to stay long here, in case someone claimed the place. I didn't want to invade either. But I felt like I had to make things right. I didn't touch many things but I cleaned up the place a bit. I thought I would need a week, maybe two, to help alcohol get off my mind and kind of reset. Being alone in my state of mind wasn't a good idea overall but I stayed strong. Being sober was a challenge in itself but each day was a little victory. And the first few days I was simultaneously feeling the best and the worst.
I was returning to the village every 2 or 3 days to buy some food, have some social interactions and returned to my hiding soon after. People didn't recognise me. I had switched my colourful outfits to much more common clothing and took care to never appear with my lute. Also I wasn't as careful with my appearance as before. I had let my beard and hair grow freely. So I was looking much more like any other traveling no-one.
But something appeared clearly after some time. I would need way more than one or two weeks to achieve anything good and I would eventually run out of money before that. The very idea that I would need to go out there, reveal my identity and sing to get some income or worse to return to Oxenfurt to teach at the academia was pure dread.
I was more damaged than I anticipated… Well… I knew it but I had hoped to be wrong. But what could I do, really ? The hole in my heart was devouring, consuming. And everyday with a renewed strength. It was impressive how fierce it was.
Thankfully, I always was an obstinate man. And one night I had my first glimpse of redemption.
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Jaskier walked down to the beach. The tide was high. The sound of the waves crashing was calming. There was an odd rhythm in it. Without thinking, he began to hum. It was an old elven song talking about celestial twins born under the same star. Soon he began to sing it and it felt good.
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What did change that night, I don't know but for the first time in months I sang.
I didn't push my voice because I hadn't used it for so long but I liked what I heard. I still got it. Maybe… maybe I could do it again. I had twenty two years of songs I couldn't even bear to think of but I knew plenty of other compositions. Elven, dwarven. Stories of Kings and Queens of the old ages. I could make and use this to propel myself out of this longing I had for the White Wolf.
So I returned to the house and prepared ink and paper. I had to think about creating something. I had to keep on thinking about this and mute the pain inside.
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The poet sat by the window and even if he could barely see, he wrote down every historical song he knew, searched for cohesion, and proudly arrived at the conclusion that he could do a en whole show with all he knew. Better than that. Compose something about it.
He put a shaky hand over his mouth and let the tears run. It was almost joyful tears. He wasn't sure he could feel joy yet, but this was the most positive feeling he had for a long time. The muses were still talking to him after all. The howling in his mind and soul had just muffled their voices. He had to listen harder.
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Muses were my thread of life, and maybe my gateway out of depression.
The next few days were a battle over myself. I had to train my voice and play the lute again. I did many of those boring exercises I did when I was at the academy to avoid any songs about Geralt I used to use as warmer. But I didn't break. I was proud of my determination.
I decided I would stay here until I would run out of money and hopefully would have new songs in my repertoire.
I spent days and nights writing, sometimes on the beach, with only the moon to light my pages. But the songs were never good enough. I needed something that links the old songs together. That would honour the work of the past but show I was still a brilliant bard, not just using old stuff to make it new.
The despair grew back in this shell of a body I had and I was beginning to think that the muses were slowly returning behind that screaming wall of pain I was in.
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- "Stupid heart !" He screamed.
The poet ran out of the house after tearing another bunch of useless writing. He dashed to the beach and fell without grace as he stepped on his loose trousers. He'd lost a lot of weight over the last few months and he was floating in his clothes. The shock with the hot sand brought him back to his senses, but with a pain full realization.
- "My muses are singing for love… " He rolled on his side, to hide his face from the burning sun. "Is my heart even capable of that again ?" Tears were menacing to fall again but he tried ragefully to block them and failed miserably. "That's not fair…" He whispered, sobbing.
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Inspiration came unexpectedly from my own pain. I probably stayed too long under the sun but that moment of plain despair on the beach triggered something in me. I don't know if it was my poor state of mind or the burning sun heating my skull, but I hallucinated. And with all the stories I pushed off of me in the last few days, I saw characters dancing in front of me in the blurry hot air and heard music in my head. I understood that this was it. The spark I needed. I stumbled back into the house and used that to write. This was the first time I used those dark emotions and my poor condition to feed my muses. And it worked.
I invented a tragedy. I wrote myself, scattering my personality in several characters, and disguised my own story in theirs. I mixed it up with some of the songs I remembered. The process was mental. I had the strange feeling that I was cutting myself in tiny pieces. That my ink was my blood. But then, came the good part of it. Writing in elder was a challenge I enjoyed. It stimulated every fibbers of my brain.
I wrote it all in just a few days. Composing wasn't the hardest part as I had some harmonies from the old works to lean onto. Learning it wasn't hard either. Those were simple pieces after all. Singing them, that was the real threat. It was an emotional journey more than a masterpiece of a writing.
Two more weeks were needed to feel prepared and gather the courage to decide to get out, face the world with it, and see if the audience thought that the great Jaskier was still the best bard of the Continent.
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After washing himself, Jaskier looked at his reflection in the broken mirror. His hair had grown shaggy. As so had his beard. He took the scissors and trimmed the best he could. He would have to find a barber to make it good, but the result was satisfying already. He looked older but somehow wiser.
He had watched his clothes. Those were more common that what he was used too, but that would do. The shirt was too large for him now but with a waistcoat it add something theatrical to his silhouette. Brown pants and boots, and a good cape was all he needed.
He packed his belongings, abandoning the letters and aborted songs he wrote in the garden, under a big rotten log. The sun will burn the ink, and earth and rain will eat the paper. Nobody will know what he'd been through in this place.
He leaved the small deserted house behind and walked south, his lute on his back as he did for decades.
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It was strange to see myself almost catching my real age. I used to be proud of my youthful appearance. Suddenly, I had aged of ten years at least. I was used to take great care of the way I looked. But several months of negligence had done me wrong.
I could hide some of the weight loss with some adjusted clothes and a good trim but keeping the beard. But I had to find a place where people wouldn't pay too much attention to my appearance.
Bleobheris came to mind naturally. The Seat of Friendship was the perfect place to connect with the world again. I buried my memories in the garden of the small house near the beach which had been my refuge for so long. My heart was beating strong. I was nervous but also full of hope. It was the chance for me to turn the page on my painful heartbreak and maybe build something new. So I began my journey to Temeria.
I hope you liked it.
This chapter is maybe the lightest :D
Things are going dark pretty quickly after that.
See you soon folks