Jaskier grimaces as he swipes a clump of wet hair from his forehead, already bemoaning the sudden turn of weather as he risks a glance at the dark clouds above. There isn't a break in sight, so he sighs and continues forward, wiping at his soaked face with an open palm and sullenly shaking the drops from his hand. He knows he needs to hurry if he wants to catch Geralt, but there's no way he's going to risk rushing and breaking something slipping about in the mud. In any case, he'd prefer to show up late than not at all.
Mind made up, Jaskier straightens a bit and rolls his shoulders to adjust his travel pack. He misses the slight bounce of his lute case, but that's another woe for another hopefully drier day. For now though, he really should find some shelter.
He keeps his eyes on the ground ahead, carefully avoiding larger puddles and glancing up only occasionally to get his bearings and check for any signs of civilization in the distance. He continues this pattern for what feels like hours, during which he has a few near misses where he steps a little too far to the side to avoid something only to slip about on the wet grass on the edge of the road. He's beginning to see the ditches as sirens, and the mud their songs to lure innocents to their doom. Not today sirens.
"Ooooh look at me! Deciding to go with the flashy jacket! Couldn't just pick up that lovely cloak you saw because 'Nooo Jaskier, you need to save your coin!' I don't even remember which tavern I left my hat in and now here I am, traipsing through this- thismonsoonand-!"
It's then that he spots the flicker of a torch ahead.
Without thinking, he picks up his pace and immediately regrets it as his right foot slides out from underneath him and he hits the ground. Hard.
"F-uuuuck..."
His knee and elbow throb, he's now thoroughly miserable, soaked to the bone, and when he makes to stand he drops to the ground again with a pained yelp. His ankle feels as though someone has stuck a hot poker through it. He curls in, cupping his hands around it with a hiss. He stays there for a while, until the pain abates slightly, before glancing around for something to lean on, then drags himself toward a sturdy looking branch. He plants it firmly in the ground before levering himself up, careful to shift his weight to his uninjured foot.
"This will have to do..."
It strikes him now, just how out of the way the area is. There's a cottage in the distance, sure, but besides the little field directly opposite it, there's nothing but forest as far as he can see. It makes him nervous, in a way that only years of traveling with a Witcher can, but he puts it to the back of his mind and limps on.
He hesitates when he finally gets to the door, unable to shake the feeling that something is off, but a large drop of rain from the edge of the roof lands perfectly down the back of his collar and pushes him to knock.
It takes a moment, but he hears heavy footsteps from the other side before the door opens to reveal a tall man with a beard. The type of person that looks out of place without a woodcutters axe in his hand.
Jaskier gapes a bit, intimidated,
"Ah! Uhm, good day sir! I hate to impose on your- uh, solitude, but it seems that I've found myself in a bit of a predicament and was wondering if perhaps... I could convince you to let me shelter here until the weather passes?"
The man stares at him, and Jaskier feels himself shirking under the gaze.
"Just you?"
Burly man of few words, Jaskier can deal with this.
"Just the one!" he flourishes with one hand, still leaning on the stick with the other, "Julian Alfred Panktraz at your service!"
Perhaps if he leaves out the fact that he's a bard, the man will be more likely to take him in; he really doesn't seem like the musical type.
"Well as much as I can be," he gestures towards his ankle with a nervous laugh.
The man remains expressionless, but opens the door wider so he can step in. Jaskier gratefully does so, tossing the stick behind him as he enters and limping towards a chair in the main room, dropping his bag to the floor and sinking into the it with a sigh.
"Thank you kind sir! I promise you won't even know I'm here!"
The man just continues to stare at him, and just before Jaskier opens his mouth to speak again, he grunts and turns to walk into what looks like a sparse kitchen. He realizes now that he can smell something cooking and his stomach twists in hunger. The smell is alluring but it doesn't quite cover an underlying stench of something rotten, but he doesn't comment on it lest he antagonize his savior. There are a few provisions left in his bag, so he leans down to pull them out, jumping when the man returns and drops a bowl of stew on the table nearby.
"Go ahead and eat, should be enough," the last part is said more to himself than to Jaskier, and before he can thank the man, he walks away again, this time disappearing down a hallway towards the back of the house with another bowl in hand.
Jaskier stares after him with a growing sense of unease, but his hunger wins out and he shuffles his chair closer to the table, leaning over the bowl of stew and taking a big whiff as he grabs the spoon next to it. It smells gamey, and while he can see pieces of meat and carrots, there's a familiar herbal note he can't quite seem to place. Nothing seems untoward though, so he shakes off his lingering doubts and takes a bite.
It's...odd. Not bad- just off, like something just doesn't fit, but Jaskier supposes the man isn't a cook and most definitely didn't have to give him anything in the first place, so takes another bite, then another, and as he's filling his spoon for a fourth, a memory pops to the front of his mind. It's sudden, triggered by that odd herbal scent, and as soon as he remembers he drops the spoon back into the bowl.
Geralt is preparing a batch of potions, ingredients spread around him carefully in different containers. Jaskier plucks a bowl up at random as he watches, absentmindedly picking a petal out to snack on. He's startled when Geralt whirls around to grab his wrist with a growl.
"Drop it."
When Jaskier doesn't immediately comply, Geralt squeezes his wrist.
"Drop. It."
As soon as the petal hits the bowl, it's snatched out of his hand and placed back in it's spot. Geralt turns back to his work, explaining as he does,
"Those are a paralytic, at least to humans, and poisonous in high doses. I'm not dragging your sorry ass around until it wears off or you die."
It's the same, the smell of the petals in that bowl.
He has no way of telling just how much he'd been dosed with, or how long they'll take to take effect. The only thing that is certain is that Jaskier needs to get out.
He leans forward to grab a dagger concealed in his boot, listening carefully for the man as he stands and tentatively puts weight on his injured ankle. He grabs his pack from the ground and steps toward the door, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The floor creaks down the hallway. Jaskier stops, unconsciously holding his breath, but doesn't hear anything else so he refocuses on the door.
The room starts to shift around him just as his ankle gives out, sending him crashing to his knees. His vision fuzzes out for a moment, and when it clears the man is standing right in from of him, face to face with an unnaturally wide grin. Jaskier scrambles backward, swinging the dagger wildly in front of him.
"Stay back!"
The man continues to grin, grabbing the wrist holding the dagger and twisting hard until he drops it, catching it with his other hand and bringing the hilt straight down on his head. A flash of white bursts across his vision and Jaskier drops to the ground like a rag doll. He's barely conscious as he hears the man mumble to himself,
"I guess it wasn't enough."
And the world falls out from beneath him.
Author's note:
Decided to finally start writing this after about a half year of imagining it because Whumptober? I guess? Idk but I already have the idea for the whole plot, I just need to make the words work. Heads up, the next chapter will contain descriptions of a corpse. Possibly graphic but probably just a little gross. I will include future warnings in the notes!
edit: I am now going through and proofreading my earliest chapters, trying to catch repetition and whatnot, so if you're reading this again and it seems different, it probably is.