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, but this is an alternate take of it.


Warning : Blood, anxiety, depression, sickness. Emotional and physical whump.

Trigger : The whump is still strong, with flashbacks. Description of wounds at some point.


Notes : There are a lot of revelations in this chapter. Hidden truths are still at play but you will probably understand more what is happening. Although this is where the tricky part begins, as Geralt, Jaskier and Regis scenes are not chronological to what he is living.


Chapter 4 : A matter of time
(5 day before)

###

Radovid had used the potion for a week now, and it seemed to work pretty well as he didn't remember dreaming at all, but each time he had a bad feeling waking up and he felt off long after he was up. He had the feeling he was loosing something or failing. During those days he spent a lot of time in the garden, near the roses parterre and his brother tomb. The wind on his skin had a positive effect on his lethargic state. Also he needed to find some comfort he knew he would never have. His brother wasn't the most affectionate or the most delicate man, but Radovid knew how much he loved him. The fact that he gave him his freedom before this while mess was a proof.

He lied on the bench and closed his eyes. He took some deep breathes, trying to shake off the tension in his body. By Melitele he was a ball of nerves... But maybe it was because of the conjunction of the place, the wind playing in the leaves around, the delicate perfume of the roses, the birds' songs, he soon fell into a light sleeping state.

###

Philippa was in the tree just above the king when he decided to rest. She was hidden in the leaves and Radovid didn't spotted her at all, when she approached. She took care to always be in his back and her silent flight did the trick.

Now, his sleeping state was a perfect opportunity to learn more about her toy but she was nervous. Probing a not drug induced sleeping mind was problematic because one false move and she could be spotted but after the last nights of surveillance she grew more and more suspicious. Radovid's dreams were either way sexually driven or perfect enigmas.

She understood that the first category was due to the drugs used to help him reach a dreamless sleep and that she magically altered, some of them were activating the pleasure center of the brain, which translated that way for him. But the second category was playing with Radovid's inner world, but it didn't seem to be fully the case. Like some of them were someone else's. The king had realistic dreams - very detailed on the surrounding - but sometimes it was over minimalistic and metaphorical. Darkness. Flowers. A lot of flowers. Wolf sometimes. She was intrigued by those more than the rest.

She probed his mind softly. He was in the garden, at the exact same place he really was. Realistic one then... This was the kind of dream you don't realise falling asleep until you actually wake up, because everything around is the same.

She stayed one the surface, just waiting for something strange. And it happened but not the way she anticipated. She felt a surge of chaos and then someone appeared near the king. But not in the real world. Her eyes couldn't see. Just her mind. It was a cloaked feminine figure. She seemed unphased with the reality. But the next blink of an eye and everything stopped. The chaos energy and the vision.

Radovid just opened his eyes, like he was waking up from the light sleep he just barely fell in and he stirred. He looked at the tree she was hidden in and their eyes met for a brief second. Did he really saw her, she was not sure, because he didn't seem to react. He just sat up, brushed his hair back in place, and returned to the castle, after looking at his brother's tomb one last time.

When she was sure not to be seen by anyone, she flew back to her room and morphed back into her human form.

That spike of chaos and the vision couldn't be accidental. Radovid was not a chaos user, she was sure of that. Whatever or whoever was playing here was extremely powerful or very different.

###

Radovid felt something odd. He couldn't tell what. He opened his eyes. The cloaked figure was by his side. He sat up in alert, his heart beating fast in fear.

- "Who are you ?" He asked afraid. She was still kind of unphased with his reality. Glitching in and out.
- "I have many names, I can take many faces. Do you prefer this form ? Does it make you more comfortable ?"

The cloaked woman reappeared suddenly leaning against the tree he was sleeping under, but it was Jaskier. The Jaskier he knew, the first time he saw him from afar, with his long leather coat and his hat. He was as unphased as the woman before.

- "Are you ..."
- "I am not Jaskier. He has no power. He is just a normal human being, like you. I just can take his appearance here, if it suits you better."
- "I don't know... This is weird. Uncanny." The bard seemed to glitch out of reality for a moment. "Are you really there ?" Tried Radovid observing the strange phenomenon.
- "No, and neither are you."
- "What do you mean ?" Fear again.
- "You are dreaming. The place is just identical to where you are sleeping right now. You are simply fast asleep and in the first moment of the dream phase. This is a very precarious time to reach you because anything could wake you up. But dreams exists in a perpetual state of flux. They don't rely one specific set of physics rules and don't follow the arrow of time. I am forcing sequential moments to happen in the chaos for us to communicate. This is the reason why I appear to you this way." Jaskier changed back into the cloaked woman and was by his side again. "I don't usually travel in this sphere because this is dangerous, especially the way I am currently doing it. But I need your help and I cannot wait any longer that you chose to step away from the dreamless potion you are taking. I need you to dream."
- "What are you talking about ?" Radovid stood up and moved backwards a few feet. He was purely terrified. "Are you manipulating my dreams ? How do I wake up ?" His voice raised. "Help !" He screamed.

The cloaked woman didn't move and spoke with a calm voice, contrasting with his rising state of panic. But he listened carefully though.

- "Things should have been easier for both of us. Those drugs you are taking are messing up with the link between you and your lover. I am sorry that your first travel to him was that hard to handle but reality is what it is..."
- "You sent me on this battlefield ? I was there ?" He tried to understand.
- "Yes. Well partially."
- "What for ?"
- "For what you did. You slowed down his bleeding for a few minutes. Just enough for him to be alive when he was back at the camp with his companions. He received rudimental first aids that saves his life for the few next days. But... This is not enough. He needs every drop of strength he can have from the past to survive his present."

Radovid felt cold inside.

- "Is he..."

Overall he had a hard time to believe what that strange woman was saying, but if it was real, the idea of Jaskier dying because he was afraid to do something was purely unbearable.

- "As we are speaking he is in a deep coma in a healer's house, hidden in a forest. He won't wake up by himself - his body has taken too much - and she cannot save him. He is not responding to her magic and potions. So he doesn't have much left."

Radovid's heart just broke into a million pieces.

- "Why are you telling me this ?" He sobbed.
- "Because you can change that. As long as you both can dream at the same time... If you let me..."
- "It doesn't make sense. Dreams are not real. Dreams cannot change the past."
- "You are correct and wrong at the same time. As I said..."
- "Dreams exists in a perpetual state of flux. I heard perfectly but that doesn't explain how." Radovid was loosing patience and simultaneously growing nervous again.
- "Does the use of chaos makes any more sense to you ?" He shook his head. "But it is there, and you acknowledge the magic as something real. Dream travel and communication isn't much harder to get. My powers let me play with time and space. I can travel from a sphere to another. Dreams aren't different, simply very harder to reach. I rarely intervene though. I was told to watch and collect only."
- "Collect what ?"
- "Stories. Legends. But also pure history."
- "What does it have to do with me ?"
- "It's not about you directly. This is about the bard. He needs to write something very important and that won't happen if he dies now."
- "You are changing history. This is wrong !"
- "I am trying to make it right. Someone changed something that created a ripple in the causality chain. Jaskier was never to be hurt that much. In his original timeline, he was wounded but nothing life threatening as it is. He would live and write this important story. Now I am trying to preserve what can be saved of it with what I have."
- "Me ? Is that what I am ? Am I just a tool ?"

He snorted. Philippa were already puppeteering him. Now a strange creature was taking control of his dreams. What liberty had he left ? Although, a strange idea emerged in his mind. Why not using a bad to kill another one. That thing, whatever it was, could get over his dreams but a dreamless potion was all it took to keep it at bay. Philippa, on the other hand, was a direct threat. He looked up at the cloaked woman when she answered.

- "You're an unexpected effect of another twink of the causality chain, in his life. You and Jaskier met and you fell on love with each others which should never have happened. But you now share an impossible link, consolidated by a concerned friend. Destiny always tries by any means to correct things that have been changed too much from what it should. I am the tool, as much as you are part of it. The more resistance it gets the harder things will be back in place."

Radovid observed the woman a moment. He was hesitating, of course, because of the circumstances. But help Jaskier was all he was about, before Philippa trapped him. Maybe he had another chance to take a leap of faith onto the unknown to make his wish come true.

- "This story he has to write. What is it ?" He asked tiredly.
- "Hope and love. And so much more. Things that would be cruelly needed in a distant time."

Radovid smiled. Those words were describing him so well.

- "What can I do ?" He said finally. His voice low, almost resigned. But inside he was already trying to figure out how to take advantage of this uncanny situation.
- "Don't take the potion and I will find you tonight, when the owls is not watching."
- "Philippa ?"
- "Yes. She is playing with the potion you had taken and she probing your dreams. And she is now ?"
- "Is she seeing us right now ?"
- "No or not much of it. Remember time has no logic in a dream and you are fast asleep. All of this is just a mere second in the real world. I am going to let you go now. Remember no potion tonight. Jaskier's life depends on you."

Radovid open his eyes. He was in the garden, on his bench. His heart was beaten fast. Just to be sure the dream traveller was not lying about Philippa, he looked in the tree. The owl was there, just as she said. He kept his mask on, Philippa should not see that he knew what she had done. He sat up and acted the most casual he could, stirring as he would from a nap.

He looked at his brother tomb. I don't trust anyone here but those I love, dear brother. He thought. This dream traveller lady hadn't gain his trust but she was maybe the key to escape the claws of the owl at least. And if what she said was real, he could save Jaskier and nothing was more import than that.

He walked back to the castle.

###

Radovid was nervous but he did I he was told. When the dreamless potion was presented to him at the night diner, he refused. He was playing with the fact that there were always nobles at the court during the meals to push Philippa to the side.

- "My lord, why don't you take it tonight ?" Said the sorceress, as expected, from her place at his left. She seemed not at ease.
- "I think I have used it enough." He simply replied.
- "But it protects you..."
- "Against what ? Bad dreams ? What kind of king do you want me to be if I can't handle nightmares." He laughed. The nobles present laughed with him by curtsy.
- "I don't think those were ordinary nightmares, my lord. Remember the blood." Everyone was looking at them now. This was the perfect moment.
- "If you are incompetent enough to not have solved this mystery after a whole week, and that you think a dreamless potion is a good protection against anything that can hurt your king, I think I should find another witch as a counsellor or maybe no witch at all. Redania had enough of the sorceress council anyway."
- "My lord, I didn't mean to..."
- "I did so choose carefully what you are gonna say next."

His warning was now public. The witnesses weren't influent enough to help banishing her totally but the rumours could spread a little bit now. He needed some allies in the northern kingdom and not only for the war.

Philippa knew she had to bow for now but she was obviously angry.

- "As you wish my lord. I'll reinforce magic defences around the castle, just in case."

He nodded.

###

- "You don't believe magic defences are enough to protect Radovid." Said Dijsktra serving the sorceress a glass of wine.
- "No. This is a kind of magic I have never seen." She took the glass but didn't drink.
- "Dangerous ?"
- "Probably..."
- "And what are you going to do about it then."
- "Observe more."

###

Radovid was agitated. Without the dreamless potion his nervousness was preventing him from falling asleep. Both the strange woman ramping in his dreams and the idea of seeing Jaskier in a bad condition were terrifying to him.

He finally succumbed to the fatigue in a very early hour the next day. This was still the night but the clock was ticking. The less he would sleep, the less time he could have to actually do something for his lover.

###

Philippa was outside, perched on the roof, waiting patiently. If she could prevent it, she would not enter the room this time but she was not out of reach for a soft reading of the king's mind.

She had precise plans for Radovid in a near future. His behaviour during the evening meal was concerning. Contrary to Dijsktra, she knew he was a clever boy. Too soft and emotionally driven but far from being the idiot he liked to pretend to be. Vizimir was somehow easier to manipulate. But Radovid offered new possibilities they hadn't with his big brother.

Now if she could regain some control over this phenomenon surrounding her toy, it would be perfect.

She was taken by surprise when the surge of chaos happened, she had waited outside for several hours and she was tired. She tried to focus on Radovid's mind but... she found nothing. She tried again, stretching her mind, even probing the sleeping servants in the next aisle. Still nothing... Could he be gone ? She had to see by herself.

She took off and flew a little bit around before passing by the window and her heart missed a beat when she saw the room was empty. Impossible ! She operated a quick turn and took some altitude. She let herself dive into the chimney, only to stop at a few centimetres of the ground. She morphed back into her human form almost as fast as she flew out the hearthstone. She found Radovid in his nightwear, standing near the left curtain, hands on his back.

He seemed a bit strange but unharmed.

- "Get out of my room." He ordered immediately. But she was unimpressed.
- "My lord, I am only concerned about your safety." She looked around. "I felt some magic surge coming from your room."
- "Get out of my room. Now."

She obeyed this time but she didn't like the way things were going. She went out by the door, to the surprise of the guards, but they didn't react much. What a pathetic protection they offered. She grinned and returned to her own room. Dijkstra could wait till the morning to know about this mess.

###

When the door closed on Philippa, Radovid let himself go a little bit. He was proud of himself but still in shock of his last dream. He brought his hands in front of him. There was blood on it again. A new proof he was by Jaskier's side.

A surge of chaos. This had probably happened when he could actually touch Jaskier. Change the past slightly. He took a shaking breath. It was just a few seconds in the whole thing. What came before and after didn't last as much in reality, like any dream.

The shadows moved strangely under the moon light and he heard a voice next to him. It sent shivered down his spine.

- "You did well, Red Rose. The owl won't interrupt us again tonight. Are you ready to go back ?"
- "I don't know if I can sleep now." He muttered. "He... he..." Radovid let a strangled cry go.
- "He needs help, Red Rose. You saw it. You felt it. You cannot deny."
- "Why can't you just help him yourself, with your unearthly powers ?"
- "I tried. I can't." The voice had a strange inflection on those words.

His instinct told him she was not lying but she was clearly hiding something. He had so many questions to ask this creature. He didn't trust her but he had to comply for now. With tears in his eyes, he dried his bloodied hands on his nightwear, drawing large red bands on it, deciding he would burn it in the morning.

Resolute, he lied on his bed once more and closed his eyes, letting the tears he retained fall. The struggle to fall asleep was shorter this time. He didn't sleep much before Philippa intervene, maybe an hour or two, and the fatigue was still there, in his body. So after the rush of adrenaline had passed, his tiredness won over again.

###

The first part was just the same nightmare he just lived playing back in his head but without the feeling of being there, without him actually putting his hands on his lover's wounds again when no-one was watching, to try to keep more blood inside his body. But his actions were effective somehow.

This felt more like a dream. A bit disjointed and familiar. He knew now that this was Jaskier's past and for this part at least he knew what was coming. It didn't make it easier though. And by the gods, why he was seeing this again ?

He was in a small glade, lightened by a small fire. The White Wolf was holding Jaskier in his arms, moving fast in his direction, exactly like in the very first visions he had. The rain was absent though and there were three more people - the mysterious old man who told him about Jakier's fate a few days ago and started this madness for him, a young soldier and a lady with a bow wearing dryads clothes.

The witcher's deep voice resonated in his chest. He was asking for help. He saw them working together to ease the bard on the ground, near the fire. He remembered rushing by his side and plunging under the arms manipulating him to put some pressure on his bleeding wounds. He couldn't see himself doing that now but the cloaked lady was there, where he stood before.

- "Why are we seeing this again he asked ?"
- "He is lost in his own memories. We are rewriting things for him and he is very sick. He is hallucinating his past. Like in a fever dream, if you will. Hopefully, if you succeed, the better he would get, the smoother the incursions would be... But for now we have to go through what he shows us, what his sick self can produce."

Radovid didn't move and let things happen... It was as hard as the first time hearing Jakier's moans and wet pleads for mercy, as his companions were treating his wounds the only way they could.

Regis, as he remembered the witcher call him from the first time he witnessed this scene, was some sort of healer. He knew the herbs and to treat wounds but without magic. He was probably very skilled but this was barbaric.

He already knew the twist but he didn't care what this Regis was in the end. What mattered, what hurt him was the agonising screams of his lover when had to endure cauterization.

###

Geralt was holding Jaskier's hand. His friend was shaking badly. Regis was trying to stop the worst of the bleeding. His old hands were expertly probing the wounds to assess the potential internal damages, to suture them the best he could later. Jaskier was courageously clenching his jaws shut not to scream, but when the old man's fingers explored the worst stab wound, he tried to jerk away from the pain. He was already too weak for his movement to be really problematic though.

- "I know this hurts, poet, but I have to know how bad it is. To find where the tears are the worst. The way you bleed is strange." He sniffed strangely. "But it smells good... your blood…" He added, still focused on his task.

Geralt raised his head, breaking eye contact with his friend to look at the old man. For a brief moment he saw his eyes glowing red. This was then he realized that Regis had no shadow. In a swift motion, he released Jaskier's hand and drew his sword out, aiming for the neck.

- "I didn't have enough blood to ease my rage, vampire ! Be very careful at what you are doing or your head will fly off your neck." Growled the witcher.

Jaskier was in a world of pain, barely registering what was said. Milva et Cahir drew their weapons out too, but they were confused.

- "I am trying to save your friend's life, witcher." The old man said, continuing to explore the bleeding gap. "Found it." He pressed harder. Jaskier screamed. Geralt accentuated the pressure of his blade against the old man's neck. "The artery is intact but several big veins have been severed here." Said Regis like nobody was threatening him.

Keeping some fingers inside the hole, he reached for the material he had prepared on the rock near the fire pit. The knife first. The blade was red hot.

- "I have to cauterize this one, Geralt, or he'll bleed out."

He didn't wait for any permission or consent and put the blade in the wound a mere second after removing his fingers from the hole. He muttered many sorries as the bard screamed again and tried to weakly twist himself out of the burning metal. This time there was something similar to pure terror combined with the pain.

Geralt knew what it was and would have given anything to prevent the inevitable reviving trauma. The pain and the fire combined had sent Jaskier in a very dark place in his mind. One that he never had catharsis for. Because he never knew that Rience was dead...

- "He is not here." He cried, hoping that his voice would reach him. "I killed him. He is not here..."

###

Radovid couldn't watch the hot blade burnt the flesh again. He closed his eyes, but then everything shifted. He had a strange sensation. When he opened his eyes, things were disjointed again as time just seemed to jump back and forth in quick succession, sometimes superposing with the past events.

- "Those are memories. Our preceding incursion woke up this out in him. I could isolate you from this the first time." Said the cloaked woman glitching in and out of reality badly, in the sick play he witnessed out of order.

A man, he identified pretty quickly as Rience - because of the dancing flame on his finger he had sometimes -, was landing blows after blows on the bard tied up to a chair. He was asking about the White Wolf and Princess Cirilla over and over.

Radovid was sick. This couldn't be a real thing. This couldn't be the life of the most famous bard of the Continent. He began to understand the metaphor about the Sword of Destiny the old man warned him about. Jaskier was caught in the bad side of it, suffering because he gravitated too closely to destined people.

Jaskier's screams tore his heart apart when the fire mage burnt his hand.

- "Why ?" Cried Radovid as deep feelings of despair and loneliness engulfed him. Not his.

He was suddenly pushed back in the void space. The cloaked woman was with him. She seemed more stable. Radovid was breathing hard.

- "What is happening ?"
- "He had a flashback I couldn't block and he pushed us out in his panic." She joined hands. "I am trying to get back in."

He didn't have the time to protest. Reality shaped herself around them. But they had jumped elsewhere. Radovid then witnessed the fractured memories of the days preceding the attack. Like wise to Rience torture, he had difficulties to believe that this could have happen to someone like Jaskier.

Geralt and him had some rough time with a few zealous soldiers while being held captive. Nothing as dramatic as what he saw before, but seeing them brutalised was enough to hurt him. But as he was seeing those moments, others emerged with more clarity. The moments the witcher and the bard slept back to back or curled up next to each other, finding strength in each other during the hard time. He saw Jaskier laugh and smile to his White Wolf, bringing some small pieces of light to the man. Each tiny positive reactions were feeding him back, making him shine more bright. He saw Geralt worrying and fighting back when someone was hurting his lover.

Radovid felt two diametrically opposite things. He was grateful that Geralt was so concerned and tried his best but in the same time he was experiencing a pang of jealousy to that proximity he could have for himself. He already knew Jaskier loved Geralt and had accepted it. But what he knew from the songs was just words after all. Seeing the way the bard looked at his muse sometimes was painful. Because, he remembered the same eyes full of pain that understood he was almost ready to abduct Ciri to keep him in Redania, near him. He remembered the bard's broken mask building back on when he told him that Ciri was probably dead. He hurt him badly, and this was how they separated.

He was sincere in his feelings though. He was in love like he'd never been before. He would have run into the wild Continent to help him wherever he was if Philippa hadn't trapped him first. But he had no other way to prove his feelings to him now, except this strange thing he wasn't sure the bard was fully aware of. Maybe with time. If he regained enough strength.

###

Geralt's heart broke when he heard what his friend screamed : "I don't know anything !". The witcher words were sadly never heard, Jaskier's eyes were already glassy. He was out of reach now. Yet he squeezed his hand harder to let him know that he was there while Regis was working on flushing and suturing the rest of his wounds. The bard lost consciousness before the end. Fortunately before Regis treated the arrow wounds.

Geralt watched carefully the old man work and decided to lower his weapon mid way. This was probably the less life threatening wound after the graze at his temple, but this was atrocious in its own way. The arrow that hit his friend was a war monstrosity and it had done its terrible job. Regis had to open it further to repair the inside. He knew already that it would break the bard if he survived the rest. Tendons, and muscles were badly torn and cut on the path of the small piece of metal. It had been designed this way... The shoulder had moved out of its socket because there was almost nothing to keep it in place properly.

- "Would you please find me something to make bandages from ?" Asked politely Regis to Milva and Cahir who were somewhere between shock and confusion, as he was suturing deeper tissues to help fixing the shoulder.

Geralt made a quick gesture to let them know it was OK to comply. He wasn't sure the old man was perfectly safe but he could be trusted for the healing part at least. The witcher had never met any vampire resisting the thirst that well in the presence of so much blood. He had control over it.

- "What are you exactly ?" Asked Geralt very tiredly when the two youngest members of the group left.
- "An ancient creature that you would call a higher vampire."
- "You don't drink blood ?" Regis smiled at that.
- "It is not vital for higher vampires and I chose to stop drinking blood a long time ago, for… personal reasons…" The old man began to prepare some herbs in a thick creamy salve. "We are not many left on the Continent. As many species thrown here by the Conjunction of the Sphere, I tried to adapt and hide in the dominant civilization. Not an easy task, I am sure you understand."

Geralt smiled sadly. For sure he understood. He looked back at Jaskier lying still in front of them. Regis had done miracles, patching his human the best he could, but it would surely scar, and scar badly. Those sutures on the shoulder were atrocious for a small initial gap. This felt so wrong. He was the one who fought and had scars all over his body. Jaskier shouldn't. And it was because of him.

- "Stupid arse…" He muttered, squeezing his friend's hand again. "You shouldn't be there. You shouldn't be hurt…"
- "What happened happened, Geralt. Don't blame yourself over something you have no control over." Said quietly Regis still preparing his salve.
- "Yet this is wrong…"

Geralt let go of his friend's hand carefully and stayed silent. Every mark on his skin, bruises, rope burns of the past days and now those terrible sutured wounds made him sick... The witcher could hear from there his friend's heart beating way too fast. The blood loss was massive. Regis might have bought him some time but he was not out of the woods yet. And he couldn't see a good ending to that.

He sighed and watched the high vampire approach with his herbal salve in a bowl and apply it to the wounds after some more cleaning. His eyes had lost their strange red glow. The witcher realized then that his own vengeful blood thirst had vanished. Now there was just pain, guilt and sorrow.

###

The camp was silent. Everyone was asleep, except the archer lady who was taking her guard turn. The cloaked lady had disappeared but Radovid was still there. He was not sure if it was memories or the past. He walked between the sleeping forms on the ground, and stopped in front of the witcher a few seconds, observing him sleep. He grimaced as contradictory feelings were still flaring up in his heart. Then he walked to his lover who was lying on his right side, half naked, near the fire. His breathing was short and the heavy bandages around his mid section were already tainted with blood.

He layed in front of him. Everything disappeared around progressively, until there was just them in the void. He landed a soft kiss on the bard's lips. They felt real. Maybe Jaskier could feel him. Maybe he could hear him.

- "I love you."

His words echoed in the void as the bard vanished too.

###

In the first lights of the day, Jaskier lips slowly formed the words I love you too while his dream was fading. No one could ever say if the tears he silently shed at the time was because of the pain waking up in his body or because he was feeling someone's else emotions drifting inside of him.

His eyes fluttered open as the dream became distant memories. He was cold. He shivered. The morning breeze was a little bit fresh and the dying fire was bringing him no warmth. He was lying on his side, immobile, but he was out of breath as if he had running a marathon. He tried to move a little to ease the tension on the shoulder he was resting on but it immediately sent stabbing pain all over his body. He let out a cry that alerted the others.

Geralt was the first to kneel by his side.

- "Take it easy. I am gonna help you."

The witcher manipulated him carefully to help him in an almost sitting position against him. Everything was spinning. It took some time for the pain to fade a little bit and the bard to take back some hold in reality. The fire had been revived and Regis was there, at his side, with a bowl of soup.

- "You need to drink. You lost a lot of fluids yesterday."

Geralt help him to take the hot meal. The heat was somehow soothing and tranquillizing. They gave him some other beverages to drink. It was bitter. He grimaced. For the pain they said.

- "Why medicine has always to be bad tasting ?" He joked in a whisper that brought back some smile on his companions' faces.
- "We are lucky the battle didn't drift this way during the night." Said Cahir who was observing the scene a bit on the side. "We cannot stay here."
- "He is in no condition to travel on a horse." Opposed the witcher. "Yesterday was an absolute emergency."
- "Yet he's gonna have to." Said Milva. "At least a few more miles. We need to find a more secure place."

Geralt sighed and looked down at the bard in his arms, shivering.

- "Axii me, if you need too." Whispered Jaskier.
- "You would still feel the pain, you idiot."
- "But you can make me believe I don't..."

The bard had difficulties to speak. He was already totally out of breath after two short sentences. There was a long pause, during which everyone was waiting for Geralt to answer. Jaskier heard the word and saw the sign in his side vision, then everything swirled into a blurry maelstrom of nonsense.

He drifted in and out while he was lifted on a horse and positioned against his Wolf chest. For a brief moment, he believed he saw Radovid near the firecamp with a cloaked person at his side. But then, there were just red petals on the ground where they stood. He was hallucinating he was sure of that. The deep voice of Geralt was vibrating in his battered body and nothing else mattered as the company slowly moved forward.


Ok I hope I lost nobody with those "flashback" scenes outside the dreams and the memories :D